March 2023 Sly Flourish Patreon Q&A

For one, ORC doesn't exist yet so we have no idea what it'll contain or how it will work. Creative Commons, however, is used all over the world for all sorts of topics. It's very well understood. The only advantage ORC holds is that you can protect some content in a document and release other content all in the same document – like the OGL. We don't need that if we're making a separate SRD. We can just release everything in the SRD with a single statement. I've been using the CC for about twenty years now for all sorts of writing so I'm comfortable with it. So yeah, that's why we're using the CC.

We have a whole chapter on the idea of monster roles and how to identify them given current monsters. I think you'll dig it.

I think my favorite character is Sothren the Decapitator, my 20th level fighter I ran in James Introcaso's Invasion of the Planet of Tarrasques run by James himself. He was a 20th level champion fighter with a vorpal greatsword. In the middle of fighting two tarrasques, he realized that his armor wasn't doing him any good at all so he stripped down to his tighty whities but kept his awesome Deathbringer-style helm. At one point he stood on the beheaded head of a tarrasque pointing at some hooligans who were robbing a dress shop and said "YOU THERE! WATCH IT!" He ended up in the planet of Tarrasques and, after beheading Hallistar Blackcloak, rode off on the back of a winged tarrasque while everyone else returned to Faerun. He was definitely the most Heavy Metal character I ever played.

Sorry, I'm lost!

Hi Jason! When I'm running a shorter campaign like this, I bring the goal of the campaign much closer to the beginning. I have a much clearer idea what the theme is, who or what the big bad guy is, and a better general idea how the characters are going to get there. I bring everything forward. When one is at the tail end of a longer campaign, I expect one does much the same thing. When you're close to the conclusion of a campaign, you have a better idea where they're going, what they're doing, and what the final act looks like. If you're running a shorter campaign, the whole thing is the final act. For example, pretend you're running Tomb of Annihilation. Instead of starting at Port Nyanzaru, you start at Omu itself. Or maybe even on their way into the tomb itself! Take the campaign you're thinking of and jump to the end. That's one way. It may not be the only way but generally, when I'm running a shorter campaign, that's how I think of it. You're already on the way down even when you're just getting started.

Hi Joe! Whenever there feels like a decision point, I try to offer up two or three choices and then open things up if they have other ideas. This article talks about the idea in more details: https://slyflourish.com/three_choices.html

Hi Andrew! Forge of Foes isn't the first collaborative product I've done like this. Scott, James Introcaso, and I all worked on Fantastic Lairs together a couple of years ago. Scott, Teos, and I all worked together on a WOTC product called Vault of the Dracolich. I love working with partners like this. Every week we can get together and dive deep into a topic that very few people can dive into, or care to dive into, as much as we do. It's really awesome. I also like working on solo creative works because it lets me do more of the creative part of the project. Big projects like Forge of Foes are about 80 to 90% production work these days and I miss the actual act of writing stuff down. That's why the City of Arches has been so great. It's almost all just creative output. So yeah, I love working with awesome partners and I also love working on my own stuff.

Like a really high passive Perception, a good passive Insight tells the character that *something* is going on but not *what* is going on. A really good passive Insight shows that someone is nervous or lying or hiding something or being truthful but it doesn't decode what they're lying about. Having someone with a really high passive like that changes the flow of the game but it doesn't necessarily have to be bad. They just see more stuff that you describe. One way to make sure such a stat isn't completely disruptive is to ensure your game doesn't hinge on hidden information. It doesn't do well with mysteries. Remember, Sherlock Holmes almost always knows what the answer is right away even if the audience doesn't. He has a really high passive Insight. We don't. That's why I'm not a huge fan of mysteries as an adventure model. Mysteries in fiction don't work the same ways as mysteries in game. Instead, focus on evolving situations. What's happening? Who's doing what? Who's where? What do the characters need to accomplish?

Matt Coleville talked about this and I liked his advice a lot. You can come up with new quests to level right at the moment. Even in my published adventures I've done this. "The trollkin warlord gives you a quest to recover the whispering crown. When you succeed with this you'll reach 7th level!" You don't have to map out level progression all the way to the end. Just like you only have to worry about the next session you're going to run, you only have to worry about the next level they're going to reach and what quest they're on to reach it. You can even have multiple quests available and accomplishing any of those quests reaches a new level. Improvise them as the story evolves.

The monsters built with the Forge of Foes Monster Stats by CR table hit a little on the high side, particularly at high levels. They're not outside the bounds of standard 5e monsters but they're on the harder side. The encounter building guidelines also stretch a little harder, particularly at higher CRs. Again, not way outside the bounds but on the harder side at higher CRs. We definitely saw this book as our opportunity to "fix" the imbalance of encounters using the standard 2014 rules but we didn't want it to be totally out of whack.

I'm keeping up with it! I use a to-do app called Omnifocus that lets me schedule and set up repeated to-dos so my Dungeon 23 room pops up every day. My rules have worked well! 1. I can stop whenever I want (I haven't but I can). 2. I have full permission to suck (I don't overthink what I'm writing). 3. I can stop and start whenever I want (I missed a couple of days but the next day I just did two rooms). I've been sharing my progress on the Discord Dungeon23 thread with some others. I've not had any real difficulty. I move to a new level when I run out of page space. I'm on level 6 right now so I might have 24 levels at the end of the year. I don't worry about thinking too far ahead. Only when I get to the end of a page do I start thinking about what I'll do next. I have to fight myself not to think of it as a publishable work. Taking it from my chicken scratches and one-word descriptions into something someone else might want would be a big effort. Right now it's all just for fun. One room at a time.

Good question! I play in a twice-weekly game with two couples playing remote (my wife and I on a mic and our friends Chris and Sharon on a mic). For my wife and I, we both wear our own headsets but we mute each other so we can hear everyone else but the voice of those in the room won't come across the headphone of those in the same room. We then share a single big omni-directional mic (a Yeti blue). It's pretty sensitive so I have to jack with the settings to make sure it doesn't pick up a lot of background noise. My friends Chris and Sharon share a mic as well and I think they use a speaker to listen to the rest of us but I never hear an eco. For cross-talk, we have to be trained to mute the mic and ask our friends to mute their mics for cross-talk that isn't intended for the rest of the group. We're all pretty good about it and I don't think it gets in the way of the game. I've talked about it before but having a *lot* of players in person with only one or two online can be a problem because its easy for them to feel disconnected. The synergy and communication of in-person players is just so much better than remote players. It's easy to forget they're there. Hope that helps!

My sessions are three-hours long and I feel like we get through a good adventure's worth of material in that time. I think the strong start helps propel things forward so it doesn't start off with a lot of meandering dialog. My battles are also often quick affairs against a single type of monster without a lot of tactical nuances. The more complicated a battle, the longer it's going to take. They can still take 45 minutes to an hour depending on the battle. I also try to weave in roleplaying and exploration into combat so the characters learn things while they're fighting. What are the villains saying? What do the characters notice? What secrets might be revealed during the fight itself? Also, avoiding a complicated map and software to handle it (I'm looking at you Roll20 with dynamic lighting....) can help speed things up. Hope that helps!

I know it's a lame answer but "it's up to you" is really the best answer. How many can you handle? How many is too many for you and the group? For me, three usually does it. It's just enough to not quite have a handle on all three at once. I'm not sure all four of yours are actual *fronts*. Some of them sound like lore or something going on in the bakground (the augmentation tech). Does it have a motivation? Does it have quests it goes on? For me, the idea of tying "fronts" to villains – actors of some sort – who have a defined goal and steps they take to reach that goal. If they're too fuzzy, it's hard to know how they're going to act in any given situation.

I've definitely broken the fourth wall in games and I think it can be fun. You might even tie it to an item in the game that speaks to them as though it's telling their story but it knows more than they know. That way it's not quite so disassociated from the characters. Players want to play, not listen to a lot of lore, so it's worth having some way to tie it to them. It could even warn them of things they might not otherwise know. I could see a lot of fun coming from something like this – just be wary of taking too much narrative control and time away from the characters and what they're doing.

Hi Ryan! We have some exciting news to share next week about this topic. Stay tuned!

Hi Nick! The pinned post on the Sly Flourish Patreon has links to all of the rewards for patrons. You can find it right here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/exclusive-for-34953933

I really wish 5e had a 0 level character idea for something like a character funnel. I think it can work but really only at 1st level. Once the characters reach 2nd level and above, they're pretty powerful and the players are likely invested enough that they want to stick to a character. I think there are several 0 level character ideas from third party publishers. You might dig for some of those.

Here are ten ways you might foreshadow future events: - One of the characters receives a vision. - A powerful NPC shares a portent. - They see it in an ancient mural or fresco. - They read about it in a future history book. - An illusion of the villain appears and mocks the characters. - Perhaps the villain received a vision that the characters are trouble and starts to try to kill them from afar. - The current BBEG is afraid of the bigger BBEG. To whom does Acererak kneel? - Show the players a scene of the future even if their characters don't see it. Show it in a cut scene. - Use limited time travel to show them what's to come. Do they find their own dead bodies with hints of what's to come? - A magic mirror or scrying sphere shows them a glimpse of the future. There are lots of ways to foreshadow future events. Enjoy it!

Building big and detailed monsters from scratch isn't a good use of a DM's time. Whipping one up with the "Monster Statistics by Challenge Rating" table and adding some cool monster powers is *awesome* lazy DM work. I can build a monster this way faster than I can look one up in a book. One important consideration is that the monsters one builds using Forge of Foes aren't intended for publication. They're intended for you to mash around with for your game but they're not "official". You'll improvise a lot. You'll make up a lot. Half the monster may be in your head. After using some of our Forge of Foes monsters in my game, I can tell you that they're often easier to run and easier to put together than even published monsters. I'm finding myself skipping the published monster stat block because it's so easy for me to grab the stats from FoF. Thanks!

In a deathtrap dungeon, I like to have a few friendly NPCs on hand. These might be escaped adventurers, ghosts of dead adventurers, turncoat villains, intelligent magic items, or the like. You can *prepare* a few of these and then, during the game, decide if they should pop out. One important thing is to have the NPC *leave the stage* so they don't stick around scene after scene. They come in, have a good time with the characters, and then leave. You don't need to drop more than one friendly NPC in any given scene. As for when to drop them in, do it when you think the time is right for a different sort of scene than dealing with the death traps.

Focusing even 15 minutes on one character is a lot of time. I'd try to find a way to bring the whole group into the challenge. Maybe it is a one-on-one fight but there are also a lot of other minions the other characters have to deal with to keep them off of the werewolf. I'm not a huge fan of sub-systems so I'd probably stick to roleplaying, ability checks, and combat. It's what players know and it gives them the freedom to use the tools they have as D&D characters. Good luck!

Hi Nacho! I don't think its a good idea to bring people's real-life themes into the game. You're (likely) not a trained social worker and such things can be very delicate and challenging to work through. Instead, just focus on running a fun game for them. Give them a good time and a safe place to break away from the challenges in their lives and enjoy the escape. Make the game fun. Add a few laughs. Work with their characters and share tales of high adventure.

Being perfectly honest, I don't use them all that often but sometimes if I have a dungeon or a location and want to fill it out, I'll pop open the PDFs and roll a few dice to see what I get. I don't use them at the table. I use them during prep. I agree that rolling on such things right at the table breaks the connection to the world. I need time to process what comes up and turn it into something solid. I'll use random tables to fuel all the other steps for my prep including NPCs, locations, items, and the like. But yeah, I don't think there that valuable at the table. I've done it in a crunch but I think it works better to prep using such tables ahead of the game.

Hi Rich! Often the answer is that you don't have to change very much. I have an article on the topic that might help: https://slyflourish.com/converting_adventures.html Often you can just replace the monsters in the source with monsters from the Monster Manual or other sources and it works just fine. Same with DCs and other challenges – moving the mechanics over to 5e. Hopefully that works!

Change it! Swamp out the monsters, add in environmental effects, move stuff around. If they call you out on it, it exposes them. If they don't call you out on it, it negates the point of them reading ahead. Just my two cents.

Hi Ryan! I really like the adventures from Raging Swan press which fit that old school style. I recommend Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands. I hear wonderful things about the adventures from the Arcane Library. I've bought a big pile of them but haven't had a chance to read through them yet. I really need to do so.

Hi Kris! My Mastodon account is about 80% bot operated so I thought it best to mark it as a bot. The daily tips, tips from the archive, and links to articles and videos are all automated. I do respond over there and check it every few days but I'm not terribly active. If you want to talk to me directly, the SF Discord server is the best way to do that really.

Hello! I'm so glad you love City of Arches as much as you do! I think the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies are great for this. Dr. Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor, Avengers, and so on. It's pure science fantasy and pretty awesome stuff. You might check out the movie Time Bandits. It's a favorite of mine. I don't know that I have any absolute favorite City of Arches stories or plots. The whole thing is still so new to me. I think it's a great setting to mash up with Path of the Planebreaker though! A really good mix. There's also no reason it can't connect to worlds or even the hub from Radiant Citadel as well. Enjoy!!!

Hi Sargoto! I have an article that talks about this very topic! https://slyflourish.com/path_for_dm_expertise.html My quick recommendations (some of which you've already done). - Run games for different groups. - Run different RPG systems. - Play in more games and more systems. - Study the art of GMing. Watch games, read systems, keep up with experiences on Reddit and YouTube. Read Kobold Press's "Kobold Guides" to gamemastery and worldbuilding and the like. Don't burn yourself out on all of this, though. Enjoy the games you're running.

Ugh, yeah, tag-along NPCs can be a real pain for a lot of reasons – many of which you're describing first hand. Long battles, too hard to challenge, too much screentime spread across too many NPCs. It might be worth having a conversation with the players out of the game to discuss it. Maybe a house rule that, as a group, they can only bring in two such NPCs into any given battle – the others stay away from combat. If there are any good in-story ways to remove the NPCs without robbing the characters of agency, that can be great too. I *love* tag-along NPCs who don't actually do anything in combat. Intelligent swords or the like. Can the unicorn mount flow into a weapon to give it a bonus instead? Can the arcanist companions grant advantage instead of acting themselves? This is a tough problem to solve once you're into it. It's one of the reasons I highly recommend avoiding tag-along NPCs as much as possible.

Hi Miles! Starting them in as early as you can into the campaign is a good step. Make sure to spend some extra time with them during the session zero to understand not just the rules and flow of the game but the theme of the adventure, the importance of working together as a group on a goal, and the boundaries of the campaign you plan to run. A lot of new players get excited about being able to do *anything* and end up making gonzo characters with edgelord storylines that just don't work in the campaign. It's something to keep an eye on. This video covers other potential tips as well: https://youtu.be/yaRpkhrvLAU Good luck!

Hi Blake! I just answered a question like this last week! Here's my answer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1405s&v=dF5Z1yS140o&feature=youtu.be

Hi Jay! I answered a question very similar to this last week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2148s I haven't learned any particular worldbuilding techniques from Midgard that leap out to me. The idea of having parallel gods and pantheons similar to those we have in our real world – like greek or norse gods – is an interesting one. You can shift the parallels a lot to make them unique and interesting so players cay say "ah, this is the trickster god" or "this is the allfather god". That can work I think if it's not too tightly bound.

There are text-based and structured versions of the 5e SRD you can use. There are many variants up on Github for this. Here's the whole 5.1 SRD in Markdown, JSON, and YAML: https://github.com/BTMorton/dnd-5e-srd

I don't have any plans to integrate Forge of Foes with the 5e Artisanal Monster Database but I bet some Forge of Foes stuff gets worked into various tools somewhere at some point. We do have an exciting thing about Forge of Foes we plan to chat about in a week or so once we've nailed down the details!

Hi Nick! I don't know if this is your exact question but its similar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2697s I have run multiple campaigns in the same setting with different campaign goals and haven't gotten them confused. I'm running Scarlet Citadel and Empire of the Ghouls at the same time right now without difficulty. They're different enough that I don't get confused. I've also run the *same* campaign in the same setting for multiple groups. Every so often I get confused but mostly they're still different enough that I keep them apart.

Hi Tatum! Check out "Our Ability Check Toolbox". I think it answers the question you're asking: https://slyflourish.com/ability_check_toolbox.html I think its fine to only use checks when there's a real risk of an interesting failure but you can still use them just to convey info. The characters might still lose *something* for trying something over and over again. Even a scene where they're described as fumbling about until they get it can show them what success and failure look like even when the stakes are low.

Hi Kirk! If it were me, I'd find a system better suited to that style of play and I'd convert material over. I think its easier to take the themes and lore of 5e and rewire them around a system like the Shadowdark RPG (which you can try out for free!) https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/413713/Shadowdark-RPG-Quickstart-Set I think its really easy to reskin all of the flavor of whatever setting you choose with the mechanics of the game that best suits the type of game you want to play. Hope that helps!

Good question! Here are some in return: Why is it only dragonborn? Is it /all/ dragonborn? This isn't really a matter of being racist or not – it's about the laziness (in a bad way) of bioessentialism. The idea that "all orcs are mountain-dwelling bloodthirsty savages" or "all goblins are black hearted thieves". First, it's that sort of language that has been used in the real world to "other" people not like ourselves. But also, it's just boring. Every humanoid species could have a wealth of different cultures as diverse as humans. So why don't they? Because we're lazy about it. So why is it *these particular dragonborn* that are a bunch of dicks? Who do they follow? What creed do they subscribe to? What dark deity do they follow? And what *other* dragonborn *aren't* like that? Which ones are followers of good and righteousness? Even if it's "there used to be paladin dragonborn who used to be awesome but they were wiped out by these assholes. But their tombs and spirits survive". Now that's interesting. So break away from the idea that a whole sentient species is just one way and think about how that species can be as rich and varied as humans.

We have a lot of drop-in lairs around which you can build your own adventures with Fantastic Lairs. It would fit a monster of the week style adventure very easily. I bet I could host all of those in Deepdelver's Enclave!

Here's the text: > Use the following gold parcels to quickly reward adventuring groups based on the characters’ average level. Reward four such parcels each level, or add parcels together to create larger rewards. First, it's per group (assuming 4 to 6 players, you can always add more if you think it's not enough. It's four parcels per level – so four parcels from 4th level to 5th level. Or you can add all four together into one big hoard the characters receive. It's not per session, it's per level. So if you have five 4th level characters, they should receive four parcels of 100 gp, or 400 gp total for the group from 4th to 5th level. It jumps up a lot at 5th level when they're facing much bigger goals.

Hi Christopher! I really just sort of let it happen. I ask the players to either bring *no* characters or *two* characters and not to fall in love with any of them. The process is a little messy but with some guided conversations we can often find connections between the characters' backstories and the plot of the campaign. Leading questions are great for this: "As a citizen of the city of Arches, did you come through one of the archways? Were you born here? Are you a traveler from distant lands?" "What drives you to protect the city? What piece of your past makes you love the city so much?" Everything has a question mark at the end but they can definitely lead the players. "Are you two brothers?" It leads to some great ideas. So yeah, leading questions is how I try to get the characters together and focused on the campaign.

Wow, hard question! I think I'd ask about how people find games – both successes and failures. I think finding and maintaining a great gaming group is still the hardest part of the hobby and worth every ounce of energy we have to help fix. Ginny Di just did a great video where she did a ton of research to find the big answers and puts them in her video. Here's that video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXb7KB69w78

We now have to lock up our cats in the basement because they jump onto the snack table and eat the rubber bands. The best way is to *go somewhere else*. It's a big shift but if you can find a different venue away from the obtrusive pets and kids, that's a sure way to do it but not easy to do, obviously. If you have other family members who you can talk to and negotiate with to take over the parental / pet-owning duties while you play – I've seen success with that. Nothing is particularly easy. It's a great question and I'll ask for other opinions on it.

Hi Ashe! This sounds a little egotistical but there aren't that many I enjoy and I don't enjoy every video from those I do watch. Mastering Dungeons is great and I dig him a lot but sometimes they're a bit clickbaity for my tastes. Bob World Builder is fantastic. I love his stuff. Of course Ginny Di is great and very positive with fantastic advice to help bring people into this hobby. I love her work. My friends Shawn and Teos have youtube versions of Mastering Dungeons which I love. I listen to the podcast but it's also a YouTube video so it counts. Dungeon Masterpiece with Baron is good too. Ghostfire's Eldritch Lorecast is a good talk show. Also a podcast but a YouTube channel as well. Those are the ones that jump out at me. Ask in the Discord server to see what other people like!

Sure! I just rolled a d6 the other day to see if the characters could take a short rest without wandering monsters. Pretty typical. But yeah, I'll keep a die handy and think of some probabilities to see how the chaos of the world shifts and flows. It's great fun. Check out Ironsworn's tables for ideas on how to change up the world and the circumstances with a few die rolls. It's great GM cross training.

Hi Dylan! I've never played Alice is Missing but it sounds awesome. I really don't have any great collaborative worldbuilding resources. I actually don't do that very much. I usually know what world we're going to play in. I don't think there's anything wrong with that style it all – it's just one I don't usually engage in. Sorry!

Ah, the edgelord character! I'm oversimplifying, of course, but this is a common problem and hits a few different things. First, they've built a character without considering the campaign. Second, they built a character who *doesn't care* about the sorts of things that go on in the game. And now they're not having fun. This most typically comes up with new players who built a solo antihero all on their own without thinking about how that fits into the game. It's like moving your favorite chess piece into a game of Monopoly. How to fix it: 1. It's worth a one-on-one conversation to discuss it with them. "It seems like you're not really having fun with the campaign. Maybe the character you've chosen really doesn't fit the drive of the campaign and the other characters. How can we fix this?" 2. A strong question to ask is "what motivates your character to travel with your companions and engage with this particular mission and quest?" If the answer is "nothing", time to reforge the character's motivation. "Looking at your character, maybe there's something in their past or their background that helps them catch their interest in this situation". Go back to that first Session Zero character-building question: What drives your character to group with your fellow adventurers to accomplish this goal? And don't take no for an answer =)

I think figuring out which secrets help move the game forward and which secrets are your juicy zingers you can drop in later in the game is a good skill to work on. It doesn't have to be perfect and while /you/ may feel like you're not challenging the players, do *they* feel challenged? Are they having fun? Or do they look bored? I'd still lean towards giving away too much instead of holding back but it's worth thinking about. Another way to think about the challenge of revealing secrets is the *cost* of discovering that secret. Did it take more resources than they'd hoped to spend to get a secret? Did they have to burn spell slots of burn up single-use magic items? Did they have to pay more money than they'd hoped? Did it cost them time? Has the villainous plan moved forward because they spent too much time investigating the mosaics in the old tomb? That's another way to think about the challenge of secrets. Good question!

Hi James! It really depends on /why/ they're not having fun. Is it a matter of pacing? https://slyflourish.com/pacing.html Is it a matter of beats? https://slyflourish.com/upward_and_downward_beats.html Is it a mismatch in the style of game you're running and the one they want to play? https://slyflourish.com/running_session_zeros.html I'd say the best thing you can do if people aren't having fun is move on to a different style. Move from exploration to combat or roleplaying to combat or combat to roleplaying or exploration. As Don Draper says, if you don't like what people are saying, change the conversation.

Looks fine to me! Generally I wouldn't worry about formalizing the creation of a monster to this degree. Jot down the ideas and improvise at the table. This guy reminds me a lot of the Elden Ring mummy dragon bosses down in the lake. I dig it a lot. I'd probably let him use his telekenetic grasp as a bonus action. Good stuff!

I think Patreon and Google are in cahoots. This showed up in my YouTube queue in spite of the fact that it didn’t over the weeks I’ve been searching for the information. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlfCqPVeZ1U6AFFqVKY-S4H1WZ6eOo8Mc

Muck away! The core game actually supports this type of mucking around if you check out the NPC Features on 282 of the DMG. Adding such creature type templates is a great way to spice up monsters. As for challenge rating, don't worry about changing it. Challenge rating is really just to help you get a rough gauge of monster power compared to other monsters. It's not a fixed mathematical formula. Once you're choosing monsters for your own game, change away and don't worry about the CR. You have the dials to help you when you need them.

Thank you!!