June 2023 Sly Flourish Patreon Q&A
Welcome to the Sly Flourish Patreon Questions and Answers thread for June 2023!
Have an RPG related question you wanted to ask? Ask it in a comment below!
Every Friday morning I'll answer every question here on this post. Some questions I'll answer on the Lazy RPG Talk Show or turn the question into a RPG Tip video or Sly Flourish article. If you don't see your question on the show, please know I still love you.
As you consider your question for the month, please consider the following:
Search the Lazy RPG Talk Show Topic Database using keywords from your question to see if I've answered your question previously. You can also search Sly Flourish and the Sly Flourish YouTube Channel to see if I've done an article or video on the topic.
Focus your question on tabletop RPGs.
Please ask only one question each month.
Please try to keep your question brief. I love your stories but I get overwhelmed.
Thank you so much for helping me do what I do.
Now bring on the questions!!
Comments (105)
In the latest article you talked about focusing on campaign and not keeping the campaign premise secret. I do understand the point you are making, but the advice is useful to only “epic” campaigns. How would you do this when you do multiple adventures that does not have overarching story behind it? In example: village of hommlet to red hand of doom. Would you change them in a way that they had a overarching narrative or would you something different? My problem with these epic campaigns is that there is no downtime in the middle of the campaign and you level up too fast.
Hey Mike, You've mentioned in the past that you'll sometimes let your players weigh in on what campaign/system to play next. Do you have a set method to 'sell' the different options to them? Or is it mostly just an open conversation. I'm in this position at the moment and suspect I'm overthinking the balance between overloading my group with information and not giving them a good enough idea of what the potential options will be like.
I've been using Notion and I love it. I've just started trying out its Notion AI writing feature where it uses information in your own Databases. Are you using Notion AI for your prep and if so, are you finding it more useful than other LLMs?
As a GM, do you tell your players about changes you made to an existing adventure you played or are currently playing? I love talking about game design (be it video games or tabletop rpgs) and after starting D&D and dm'ing pre-written adventures for a few months now I slowly but steadily started making changes to the adventures. After our sessions I often want to talk with the players about what I initially changed, what has changed due to the (often unforseen) decisions of the players and how the scene was originally designed. I'm always careful not to spoil anything and my players engage in the conversation which can also provide valuable feeback but I'm myself asking if it is really such a good idea to “force” my players to take a look behind the curtain since it might shatter their perception of the story. Do you have any experiences regarding this topic you'd like to share? (Apologies for any weird sounding sentences, but English obviously isn't my mother tongue. Feel free to edit the post in any way if you're considering this topic for The Lazy RPG Talk Show).
Your English is perfect! I tend to avoid telling the players what changed. Sometimes it comes up but I'm careful not to break the illusion of the world we've created ourselves. It can make it see – fake – if they think the adventure did one thing but we went another direction. It's important to remember that published adventures are just toolboxes for us to use to tell the REAL story that happens at the table. It can be fun to talk to other GMs about what happened, though, particularly if those other GMs ran the same adventure you did. But I'd be careful telling players about alternate paths or what you changed from what was in the text because it can start to make the world feel a little less real and a little less true. Thanks for the great question!
I tried to get Chat GPT to write a song about ghouls eating the flesh of living humans for my D&D game to the tune of "It's a small world after all" The machine wouldn't do it but instead after some prompting came up withy a great spooky song to that tune. Its for a dream sequence.
Yeah, that seems to be the sort of thing Chat GPT is really good at!
Hi Mike, I'm not great at improvising evocative descriptions (although I'm better at coming up with descriptions of people than places or landscapes). I have a very wide passive vocabulary, but accessing it actively in the moment is difficult. I try to expand on a brief intro description and end up repeating myself. ("You see a tall, old tower, covered in ivy. It's... ancient. And high. And overgrown. With... vines."). Short of writing read-aloud text for every potential scene in a session, how can I get better at description?
Great question, Rangdo! A couple of thoughts: 1. Don't be hard on yourself. We don't have to come up with the perfect prose all the time. We're just spending time with your friends enjoying the story and the game in front of us. It's ok to talk about the ancient ivy covered tower of vines. We might elicit a giggle but so what. 2. My trick is actually in Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master which is to jot down three features of the location so you have them in front of you because, as you say, it's hard to come up with them on the spot. Like NPC names, it's the sort of thing we can prepare to help us improvise during the game. This gives you the chance to find the right adjectives and vocabulary ahead of time and refer to those notes when you're running the game. You don't have to write them as full paragraphs of read-aloud text – just a few words can do it. Hope that helps!
Hey Mike, I hope this is a non-redundant question since I couldn't really find anything in the database with several terms. A few months ago, my Theros campaign ended and we had a great time, among other stuff also because of the (imho) much strong omnipresence of the gods in this world. My question would be (although it was fortunately not a problem for me or my players) what we can do to prevent the problem that may occur with such strongly present mighty entities (in general): why aren't the entities themselves doing anything about the bad stuff that is happening in the world but need the party to solve problems? Why wouldn't they interfere? I came up with a few ideas just in case (gods are busy lol, they can't interfere because of universe rules, they don't have power in other domains etc.), but how do you prevent players to be unmotivated or un-immersed because of such "inner logic errors"? I know players also have to bring motivation to the table, but what is your lazy GM take on this? Thank you and take care!
Yeah, having big powerful entities out there not doing stuff can definitely pull the motivation away from players. Its one reason you don't see a lot of 5e fiction with NPCs who eclipse the characters. For a Greek-themed campaign, the idea of stubbornness of the gods is a big one. They have their domain and the things they do and that's what they do. They're like wind and weather. You can't control them, you can't really predict them, but they affect you. Thinking of them like moving mountains can help. One-dimensionality might be a benefit here – they're paper thin, not fully enriched NPCs like normal NPCs would be. Hope that helps!
Hi Mike, thank you for producing a lot of interesting content on RPGs and helping GMs run great games all around the world. Since I am currently running a campaign with no end in sight for the next couple of months, I was wondering if you have some suggestions for engaging in the creative side of GMing outside of the context of the game I am currently running. I would like to try to explore and create some content for other worlds or systems when I have a little spare time, as I do not feel like I have the time or energy to run several games for several groups. But on the other hand I would like to use a few 30 minutes - 1 hour breaks to engage in some creative thinking related to other systems. Do you have any good suggestions on how to do that, any tools to track progress etc.?
You might try solo RPGs. Two I've tried and loved were thousand-year-old vampire and Ironsworn. Ironsworn's dice rolling mechanics for building out the world and what happens in the rest of the game is excellent cross-training for GMs. I haven't had the time to do much of it myself but I really loved it when I did. Ironsworn Starforged is now available as well for space-based games. Ironsworn is free for download here: https://www.ironswornrpg.com Give it a try!
Hello Mr. Shea! So we have all heard about the Western Marches campaign. I feel like my group has Created something new the downtime rules. Much like western Marches, all players have 3 PCs. Everyday out of game is a day in game, yada yada. However, our Campaign discord has turned into a constant back and forth about what the PCs are doing in the background in between sessions. We don't get to play often, so time in between sessions has become a resource. With our busy lives we can't always meet regularly and our party is almost never together at once, so the focus of the campaign has become about downtime, Dice are being rolled during lunch breaks and in between feeding our kids, lore is being uncovered, PCs are training, Pit Fighting, writing magic scrolls over the course of the weeks and months in preparation for the next session, and fun is being had on Discord via text and AVRAE dice rolls, even if we don't get to play. I've been calling it a Calendar based campaign. I find the downtime rules to be quite wonderful in that it does a good job simulating an economy in the game and gives the players things to do in between sessions. I would love to hear your thoughts on a campaign more focused on Downtime activities where time in between games becomes a resource you can use. Thank you for all you do.
I wish I had something to offer but it sounds like you have much more experience with this than I do. I think the idea that a day passes in game for every day out of game is really cool and it sounds like your group really loves the asynchronous style of play. You might look into play-by-post and see if that style of play has anything more to offer you that you're not already doing. It sounds pretty awesome!
Ive ran modules previously, most notably tyrany but now I'm running my first homebrew setting and campaign to 20th level at the players asking. It is themed around the abyss and demon Lords. My question is what things do you think are key to making an epic 20th level finale and boss encounter.
First off, don't worry about what the 20th level will look like if you're only just getting started. Focus on your next game and maybe a little on the game after that but let things take their course naturally. You don't have to worry about tier 4 when you're in tier 1 (or 0!) That said, if you're already in that high tier, superheroics is what you really want to aim for. World / multiverse-ending sort of stuff. Here are a couple of articles that may help: https://slyflourish.com/sly_flourishs_running_epic_tier_dd_games.html https://slyflourish.com/tier_appropriate_adventure_locations.html https://slyflourish.com/what_does_cr_mean.html Hope that helps!
Hey Mike! Thanks for your answer to my previous question about introducing D&D to new players with a short time frame. It turned out I have had way more interested in learning about D&D than I anticipated, so most of my groups are only getting one session to introduce the game and play a brief scenario. Before the summer workshop is over, I would like to give each student a list of the best resources for new players, if they would like to play more in the future. Obviously, dndbeyond is a great free character creator, and there is a lot of other free content on there even for dungeon masters. But what resources, whether print or online, would you suggest to put on this list? Thanks in advance! Ken B
Hi Ken! This article has the list I'd recommend: https://slyflourish.com/getting_started_with_dnd.html It matters if they're playing online or in person. If in person, a Pathfinder Basic Flip Mat and a Starter Set would be ideal.
Riding mounts is a fraught topic among DMs. Lots of people, both famous and unknown, have house rules, apparently to remedy design errors in the 2014 edition of 5e. Which rules do you use, and do you think the proliferation of rules for mounts mean (a) the 2014 rules are inadequate, or (b) nobody read the 2014 rules? Thanks, and I watch your show every week as soon as it goes live!
We almost never have mounts in the games I run. I actually don't think its ever come up. For me, I'd run them in the narrative and keep them out of combat. Mounts are like tag-along NPCs. They can easily bog down the game so I tend to avoid them. Others may love them, though, and that's fine.
Hi Mike, do you have any advice or tips on playing 5e via text-based Play-by-Post?
Hey James! First of all, Mike already have some resources on this: https://slyflourish.com/text-based_battle_maps.html https://slyflourish.com/playing_dnd_over_discord.html But I'm happy to share how I am currently running three play-by-post games here, but feel free to ask specific questions you might still have. Text Platform: I recommend an app that has both phone and desktop options. The phone app notifications are great and the desktop version will be a life saviour for you as the DM. In my groups we use WhatsApp. Character Sheet: D&D Beyond for all the obvious reasons: number of features, content I already owned, etc. But the most important is it's "wizard" for creating and leveling up. It is SO HANDY. Battle map/VTT: Owlbear Rodeo is brilliant. It's inexpensive and has so many great features. Also, very important, has a decent mobile support. I had to restrict my players to only be able to draw, otherwise they would move shit around while trying to pan the map, but it's a great. So, tooling aside, here's my "how to run" bit: Pacing: as part of the session zero you need to agree on a pace. In my groups the idea is to be TOTALLY chill. No pressure to send messages every day, after all we switched to PbP because of real life demands. Reading: avoid long blocks of text. Just like in-person sessions, different people have different abilities to interpret text, not counting when they are doing other things while reading the messages. I avoid reaching the "read more" length and try to use bold and italic for emphasis. Single-player Mode: you might find one or other player with more available time than others, and end up giving them way too much attention. Sometimes you'll get caught up in the moment, because you might be frustrated and want the story to progress, but keep an eye on it. It's the same case as in-person, share the spotlight. I'll stop for now, but, again, feel free to post any specific question. Cheers!
Most adventures are for 4 to 5 players and there are some articles about one-on-one play but I was wondering if there is any advice for a 2-player party. Do I just convert existing adventures by removing or swapping enemies or are there any other things changes I should be mindful of?
Reducing monsters can work just like you're running a one-on-one game. Another option is give each player a sidekick to control. This way they have a full group.
Hi Mike, any advice for running a large scale combat narratively? I expect that my PCs will be involved in a battle between between about a dozen Aquatic Elves and Sahuagin, and I don't want to bog down the session by rolling all the attacks for all the enemies. Is there a simple way I can determine the battle narratively with a few dice rolls and still let the PCs participate? Should I treat it as a skill challenge? More context: the battle will take place on a merchant ship in the middle of the ocean while the PCs are en route to the mainland.
There's a whole section on running wars in the Lazy DM's Companion and I also talked about running a big battle in the finale of my Light of Xaryxis game for Spelljammer. You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/lkm0s03UV6w This can help too: https://slyflourish.com/running_wars.html In short, run a series of specific missions for the characters that help them turn the tide of the war instead of trying to run some sort of war simulator.
Hi Mike! First time member here, been loving the content. I'm currently making a hexploration mechanic for my upcoming game, taking parts of Weird Wastelands, Arora, and Uncharted Journeys. I was wondering if you've had a chance to look at WebDM's new book Weird Wastelands or any of the other ones I mentioned above. I've been enjoying their hexploration and survival ideas so far, and would love to hear your thoughts on them if you've had a chance to look through them. If you haven't seen them, are there any exploration mechanics you particularly enjoy from other sources?
I'm afraid I haven't. Sorry! I haven't spent a lot of time digging into hexploration style games.
Hi Mike! Love your idea of having a 4/5 person group with 2/3 back up players and I am about to implement this into my second campaign. My question is do you think I should invite the back up players to the session zero? I worry about having more than 5 players around the table even if it is just for character creation & establishing how I’m going to run the game. Would you recommend splitting it into 2 session zeros or just running a back up player through as & when they’re needed?
If you think the on-call players are going to be there pretty often, it may be worth having them at the session zero. It's a lot of people but it can still work. I've done this with my 6 + 1 group and it was fine. If someone's *not* likely to be there often, maybe they don't need to be there for the session zero. If it's not more than seven people (maybe eight) at the session zero, it could probably work fine as long as people recognize the on-call nature of some of the players.
So, one of my players is playing a Gnome Cleric but they don't worship any God, instead, they worship books. In their own words: "I believe in books themselves. The holy spirit and unity that lives in every book, every written and spoken word." I could obviously just hand wave this and carry on, but it nags me a bit because the Cleric is one of, if not the most, RP-heavy class. My point being that the very definition of the class implies worshiping a God, and that God is the one that gives the Cleric their power. But even if I hand-wave the class' mechanics not coming from any Gods, some other aspects of the game became tricky. For instance, Religion Checks. If they don't worship any God, they could sure know about the different types of Undead from Libraries' books, but what about the secret books the churches haven't shared with the world? If I make the DCs harder because of that am I being unfair? I have intention on revealing that they've been secretly favoured by Deneir, God of knowledge ans scholars, but I fear that might be too big of a push, as they seem not interested in having a relationship with any Gods. I might ask them directly, of course, but that would ruin the surprise (for them, at least). Any suggestions?
I think being a worshipper of books is pretty cool and I wouldn't circumvent it by saying it was actually a god the whole time. You can think of this a little bit like a warlock pact of the blade where it's a physical object driving their power. Just because it's books doesn't mean it isn't magical. They might get visions of those strange tomes or some sort of supernatural access to books from the forbidden section. I think that can work very well. Knowledge is power and reading is magic!
Professor Dungeon Master over at Dungeon Craft has suggested an idea: Independent July where we as a community explore games other than dnd5e for a month. Do you plan to take part? I know this year you have already been trying out some new games and giving spotlights to smaller kick-starters which is really cool.
I'm certainly looking at other RPGs but I'm not going to interrupt the three current campaigns I'm running to switch. I'm definitely interested in trying out Knave and Shadowdark RPG but I want to wait until I have the books.
When revealing secrets and clues, how might you reward a higher investigation roll? Are there good ways to make players feel like they hit on an extra nugget of information beyond the baseline info?
Lots of our lazy tricks for combat apply to clues as well: 1. Be a fan of the PCs, count how many times in dimension 20 Brennan says "awesome" about his players. 2. Reskin, describe the PC's attempt in detail, making the investigation sound more difficult (adding additional steps e.g. the scratches on the floor lead to the window which has the clue) 3. HWYLTDI, similar to a critical attack or killing blow you can ask the players to describe their heroic feats. Mix this in with step 2 to have a dynamic back-and-forth between you and your players. 4. Meta rewards: most TTRPGs use a meta reward e.g. in 5e we have inspiration and experience points. You can give these. 5. Give more info, I put this last cause its difficult, so it's not very lazy. If another clue fits the current situation then you can give two clues otherwise you'll have to invent on the fly. Some powered by the apocalypse games have critical successes give the information the player was seeking plus something the GM thinks you will find helpful.
Hey Mike! Does the Lazy Encounter Benchmark take into factor the maximum CR of a single monster? I like the guidelines for single monster CR provided in the A5e Monstrous Menagerie. I'm curious if there's any stipulation to the Lazy Encounter benchmark that would help prevent an encounter where for example the party all fails their dex save and gets TPK'd by an AoE effect from a powerful monster, even though the CR of the monster matches the benchmark. I understand that getting too crunchy on those guidelines defeats the purpose of the benchmark being "Lazy," but curious if that ever crosses your mind when using the benchmark!
It does and we cover it better in Forge of Foes but basically a single creature may be deadly for the characters if its CR is greater than 1.5x the average character level. So if a group of 10th level characters is facing a CR 16 creature, that creature may be particularly tough for them.
Hi Mike, I am a worldbuilder at heart. Now a friend saw my folder with world ideas and liked one in particular. They asked me if I can flesh the setting out because they want to run a game in it for another group. I said yes because I like world building. I have never written for others, what are key things to keep in mind? I want to make it in a bullet point style, so it is not very wordy.
I'd start with something like the one-page campaign summary and move out from there. Also be sure to let your friend build out the world too. If they're running it, it becomes *their* world at some point. https://slyflourish.com/one_page_campaign_guide.html
Hello! (Editing this because it was a bit rambling.) There's a bunch of theory and discussion about how to make really powerful stories. This is used a lot by novelists, screen writers, and other fiction writers. As far as I can tell, it's completely ignored by DMs and GMs. Some of this is probably correct. For example, the monomyth is an extremely powerful storytelling device, but I can't imagine how to reinterpret it for D&D. (I've tried.) One device that's even more useful in storytelling is ensuring that there's always progress being made. For example, in stories the progress can be plot progress or character progress. In RPGs, it could be leveling/XP as well, but that doesn't feel as satisfying to my group. Ensuring that something changes every session has been valuable for me. I believe that your interpretation of this device is "secrets and clues". You tell your players something interesting about the plot and the world every session through these. I also find that useful, so thank you. However, I'd go one step further: character progress is harder to accomplish as a DM, but its effect is even stronger than plot and world progress, so it feels like it's worth investigating. It's harder to accomplish because every character needs some progress. It's rare that all of my players care about someone else's character as much as their own. (It does happen, though.) So, my question... Who talks about this stuff? None of the RPG blogs that I follow discuss it. You come close with secrets and clues, but you don't discuss it directly. Thanks, Fred
In Vampire the Masquerade each character writes an ambition, getting rewarded when they make meaningful progress (maybe inspiration in 5e). The game has more advice on this and making moral choices matter. This isn't exactly what you asked about but it might be the closest anyone is talking about.
Hi Mike What are your feelings about using other TTRPG systems for games within a 5e session? An off hand comment has led to my players wanting to create a sports game within our 5e campaign. To make it more narrative driven I was going to use a Powered by the Apocalypse style 2d6 system for the sports game instead of a d20. Can this work or is it too confusing and gets tricky due to character ability scores and feats? Thanks as always for your time, Andrew
I have done this with card games (blackjack/poker). It worked very well with one group who used to play cards together before TTRPGs and poorly with another group where a couple of people were seasoned vets and the others were new. The experienced people got bored while the newbies felt intimidated. This might have been smoother if I had taken the time to teach the new people outside of table time. I would recommend against allowing the players to use their character abilities because the maths of PbtA does break down at a +3/4 bonus. If you do, I would do a +1 per advantage. For example, Player 1 has a higher strength and dexterity so they get a +2. Player 2 casts fly so they get a +1. Not all advantages are born equal so you would need a certain kind of group that doesn't take this minigame too seriously. For a PvE (the players on a team against other teams) I would do similar to what Mike suggested in his Frostmaiden volleyball, just use ability checks. You could convert the ability scores to PbtA but I'm not sure it's necessary.
I’m planning on starting up a monthly one-shot event at my local brewery with the intent of running a variety of rules-light systems, varying genres & styles, with accessibility & inclusivity in mind. In the same vein as avoiding over-prepping a session, what advice would you have to avoid over-prepping your prospective PCs—many of whom may be strangers? In other words, how do you boil it down to the essential bits that people need to know about what to expect & avoid info dumping on your prospective PCs?
That's a tough one. I'd definitely focus on using pregen characters for different systems and letting the players recognize their characters right there at the table instead of having them come to the game with big backstories and the like. Most indie games focus on pregen characters so that shouldn't be too tough. Hope that helps!
What can you tell us about your colleague Scott Fitzgerald Gray's Core20 system? Are you participating in the playtest?
Scott and I have talked lots about it. I can't wait to see it. Scott is one of the best designers, developers, and editors I've ever worked with. He's brilliant and has devoted so much of himself to this game. I can't wait to see it. I have not yet playtested it, though. I have read it and I love it.
Any thoughts on how the D&D movie can help the Lazy DMs of the world? For my newest player, it has been a great source of shorthand explanations (eg: about attunement, or powerful NPCs that could help you with a task but aren’t going to join your party)
Certainly you can use the characters in the movie as metaphors and I think it did a great job of humanizing a lot of the characters. I love the halfling who has a thing for big barbarian women and the big barbarian women who have a thing for halflings. That cracked me up. Other than that, hopefully its a gateway to the whole game itself.
What are your top 3 favorite cults from any media that we might borrow for our games? ((Don’t read this part until you’ve answered, but I bet you mention the sardaukar from the Dune movie))
Woo. That's a tough one. I love movies about cults. So the classic is the Wicker Man with Christopher Lee. It's probably a bit disparaging of Wiccan culture but it's an amazing movie. Here's a list of some fantastic cult movies: - The Ritual - Resolution - Hereditary - Midsommar - The Endless - Prince of Darkness - The Witch - Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Original) - Apostle - The Cursed That's enough to keep you up late at night.
I recently stepped back from reddit and dusted off my RSS reader. It's kind of become like my version of reading the morning paper and I've especially been enjoying receiving articles from sites like yours, the Alexandrian, and a smattering of OSR blogs. Are there any blogs or websites in rpg space that you particularly like?
I'll dump my feed roll for you! https://slyflourish.com/sf_blogroll.opml https://slyflourish.com/sf_blogroll.html I need to dig around and see what other blogs I should be following.
What’re your thoughts on best approaches for mixing pre-written adventures from different systems? I know that systems have different play styles and design goals, but think some adventures would be cool in other systems I and my group are more likely to play.
Hi Matthew! I have an article that may help answer this question: https://slyflourish.com/converting_between_systems.html
One thing I REALLY miss from the 4E Monster Manuals was when they would give you a sample encounter with each monster entry where you can see how you could build a good one with this monster. Do you have any resources where you can find something similar? If not, do you have any advice on what combos of monsters work well together? I'm hoping there's plenty of this type of advice in Forge of Foes, so insert plug for that here. :)
First off, YES! Forge of Foes has some monster combinations like this, mostly to give you an idea about what types of monsters work well with other types. But we don't have pages and pages of them. I highly recommend the Level Up Advanced 5e Monstrous Menagerie, which I think outstrips the Monster Manual in a bunch of clear ways – one of which is by offering exactly what you're asking for: sample encounters for every monster. It's a fantastic and undervalued book. Pick it up and replace your MM with it. You won't be disappointed.
Do you worry about game balance? Being a player since the 70's I recall the idea in earlier editions of D&D that if you're character could do something cool it usually meant that he could NOT do something else e.g., Paladins could do lots of cool things but they had to be LG. Today's game feels like the idea of game balance has gone out the window but at the same time I'm torn with cool ideas for the PC's in my group. For example, I love the idea of Stat Perks, https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/440627/Stat-Perks but I don't want to give my 12th level party a "boon" with no "bane". Am I just being grognard?
I'm not familiar with the product you're speaking of so I can't speak to that. As far as balance, I assume you mean the balance of one character's abilities over another. I tend not to worry about it. There's no great way to quantify that balance when different classes and subclasses have so many different ways they can go. I think we tend to focus too much on combat abilities without recognizing that some classes are better at the other two pillars. I don't think every boon needs a bane, though. If characters get stronger, we can always throw more or harder monsters at them.
Now that we've seen the 3D VTT from WotC, what do you make of how their vtt will change or shape the future of the ttrpg industry? Will this push the community online for ease of play? Will theatre of the mind be put to dust? Are you nervous by any implications or changes it may bring?
You cheated and posted two questions! But I'll give you an answer just the same. Again, predictions are bullshit, particularly among "experts", but I'll have a go. No, theater of the mind won't be dust. It's always an option and its the cheapest and easiest to do. Many games are built for theater of the mind. The community is already moving online. By my last polls, about 60 to 70% of polled players and DMs already play online. It makes it so much easier to find groups that this comes as no surprise. There are already big players in the VTT space – Roll 20, Foundry, Fantasy Grounds. D&D is hugely popular as a brand but they have no VTT at all right now. D&D Beyond is popular but these are really two separate efforts. I think it'll have to be really good, easy to use, and easy to prep on, to make a big dent. I am not nervous about the VTT at all. I'm nervous about D&D Beyond's already dominant hold over online character sheets and how locked-in to just WOTC stuff (and ALL WOTC stuff) they are.
Those that are seperating themselves from One DnD, which game do you think would be the most popular choice? Daggerheart, Pathfinder 2.0, Blades in the Dark, Fate, 13th Age, or Tales of the Valiant?
I'm going to use this opportunity to twist the question around. First, predictions (particularly from "experts") is largely bullshit. There are lots of studies on this. But, more importantly, **popularity doesn't matter**. The only thing that matters is what game you want to play with your friends. That's what makes this hobby so great. I'm confident that D&D will remain popular, probably an order of magnitude more popular than others but all of the systems you mention are well produced and well loved. We don't have to follow the popular one. We can run *any* of them. All of the ones you mentioned are popular enough that many groups love them but the only group that *needs* to love them is yours. If you can find four other people (sometimes as few as one) who are interested in playing, it doesn't matter how popular it is. It's so easy to get caught in the zeitgeist of the hobby and lose track of how powerful that is.
Have you looked at EZD6 by DM Scotty? Thoughts?
I have looked at it but not in depth. I know it's well loved.
Hi Mike! In a recent episode, you mentioned the difficulty of combining different non-WotC classes and subclasses, specifically those from A5E. My question is, what specific compatibility issues do you know of, and is there a guide/tutorial on how to convert things? I'm planning on running Drakkenheim using A5E later this year, and a friend really wants to use a specific Rogue subclass from Kobold Press. It looks like it should work out of the box since it gives new features at the same levels
It's too early to tell. The only ones we know of right now are 2014 D&D and Level Up Advanced 5e. The others are only out as playtests or not out at all. I think taking a look at the specific subclasses and seeing how they work is a fine way to do it. I'd make sure that, during your session zero, that you have the rights to work with a player to retune things if something breaks too much in their favor. If it sucks, they'll be sure to tell you but if its overpowered, they may love it and you'll have to retune. So cover that topic up front. There's no guide or tutorial on how to convert things among various 5e systems right now and given that three of them aren't even out yet (and won't be for probably 18 months), I don't think we're going to see one soon.
One thing I like about the Candelabra Obscura preview is how the adventure has a theme that resonates with ethical dilemmas of the modern world (in this case, exploitive capitalism). This would really grab my group’s interest. Do you have any tips or tables for coming up with such hooks and goals for adventures?
Stephen King wrote about this in his excellent book *On Writing* which I highly recommend. For King, when writing a book, theme is *secondary* to what actually happens. I think it's better to let the theme come out as you plan and run your games instead of trying to build your game around that theme. That said, maybe it works well as part of your campaign's elevator pitch. Unlike King, we don't have the opportunity to go back and revise the theme back into our game once we've already run it. But I'd say focus on making each session great and let the theme come out during play.
Hey Mike, I keep hearing you praise Light of Xaryxis for being easy to run. I am very much a homebrew DM, so I come at this biased, but it seems to me it's easy to run not just because of the formatting (which is straightforward and speaks to the DM in a clear way), but because it's completely on rails! I see multiple chapters where rolls are called for, and if everyone fails...the plot advances to the same point anyway. ***Spoiler Alert**** And then the campaign actually ends on a literal Deus Ex Machina. And no sacrifice is required by the characters because they can get an NPC to do their dirty work. How do you bring yourself to run something where every twist and turn is pretty much a foregone conclusion and you're just going through the motions?
Hi Greg! My criteria for a good adventure over a "bad" adventure is: How much work does it take me to modify the adventure to suit my desires and that of my players. Light of Xaryxis, by its sheer limit on word count and focus on the big Spelljammery parts of the adventure, made it easy for me to fix the parts you describe. I don't think it was easy just because it was railroady (and it is). I think its because it was extremely efficient in the writing – few words focused on important flavorful parts. It's by no means a "perfect" adventure. There are lots of things I changed (as I describe in the video) but how *easy* those changes were to implement is why I think it's a pretty great adventure. Again, I'm still disappointed by Spelljammer as a product but the adventure worked well for me.
What are new game masters not thinking about enough? Bonus: what are more experienced game masters not thinking about enough?
Fantastic question! I think *both* groups aren't thinking about the basics of this game – what it really means to prep and run a session for our friends the next time we get together. I think both new and experienced GMs get so wrapped into their big ideas, big worlds, big plots, and so on that they forget about just focusing down on what they can do to make the next session awesome. Too many new GMs skip the starter set adventures, for example. And I can understand why. For the first time they can take this massive pent-up creativity they've had and *use it for something*. So they go big. But then their inexperience with the game gets ahead of them and they box themselves into a corner. So I'd say both groups forget that, down deep, this game doesn't have to be much different than any other game and is best played one session at a time.
Hi Mike, spoopydruid from the internet! I got really excited when I heard you discuss the value of running homebrew campaigns in a published setting; right now I'm taking the basics of some old modules to flesh out my own episodic noir adventure set in Sharn and wider Eberron. I have a big, general “What advice do you have?” question on how to balance group patrons, adventure hubs, long-term plot arcs, and more aspects of a published world without becoming stale (oh look, another murder mystery/relic hunt/etc.) or overwhelming players with constant novelty.
Wow! That's a big one. First, I'd say that I wouldn't worry about the *type* of adventure you're going to run. Don't worry about whether it's a mystery or relic hunt or whatever. Let the type of adventure come out from what happens in the game. Instead, I'd harvest published adventures for situational seeds, locations, NPCs, and the like. Set up situations and see what happens is one of my big pieces of general advice and I think it fits here. As far as keeping things fresh, that's where we lean back on the lore. Make up a big list of factions for your particular chunk of Eberron and use it to flavor locations, NPCs, magic items, monuments, and other aspects of the game. The Lazy GM's Generator, for example, has an "Eberron" selection for factions to tie to magic items, NPCs, quests and the like. You can make your own list like the one that fuels that one. https://slyflourish.com/random_generators/sf-random-generator.html And, of course, the various scenario-focused random generators in the Lazy DM's Companion can help you generate ideas. Good luck!
Dear Mike, I was wondering how to best play out a cinematic battle against a colossal foe such as the Tarrasque. In my opinion, such a battle should feel like a battle against Godzilla, but Godzilla is gargantuan and slow while the Tarrasque has 5 (!) attacks per round plus legendary actions! My idea is to stretch out rounds to a minute per round, or even longer, with a lot more movement on the PCs side. How would you take on such a colossal battle? Cheers, Axel
There's a lot of "it depends" in this one. What level are the characters? What do they protect? I think if you want the godzilla style battle, setting it in a city where the tarrasque is spending a lot of its time smashing buildings as well as fighting characters can help. You might look at some of the phased mechanics of Mythic monsters in books like Fizban's Treasury of Dragons. You might break down the tarrasque's capabilities so every time it loses a third of its hit points, it switches its capabilities. Maybe it starts by just bashing stuff but soon gains a radiant blast when it's down 1/3 and then maybe can fly when its down to 2/3. Something like that. Shameless plug, we have a tarrasque battle in our book Fantastic Lairs: https://shop.slyflourish.com/products/fantastic-lairs-pdf-map-pack
Hi Mike, I know you recently completed running Light of Xaryxis, and I'm getting ready to do the same. For an adventure as linear and remote as this, would you still try to incorporate elements of the PCs backstories? Did you give them any downtime or side quests outside of the main storyline? Did the party ever go "off the rails" in a significant way? Thanks for any insights!
I did and it worked out. The drives of the characters worked well even though the game switched a lot. I did ensure the players knew we were leaving the Forgotten Realms and not returning until, maybe, the end, so their motivation needed to fit that. It's completely reasonable for players not to bring much to their character initially and let their background grow as they experience the adventure. That's a fine way to go. Check out my Stormwreck one-pager to see how I framed the character's bond with the campaign: https://slyflourish_content.s3.amazonaws.com/stars_of_stormwreck_one_page_campaign_guide.pdf
Hi Mike I'm running an open world 5e campaign based in my homebrew land of S'varga - my players are great, they love roleplay and take the time to learn all about the world and the npcs within. My question is how can i make sure that the campaign ends strong? I want to make sure my players have a satisfying end as they have begun to enter the midpoint of the campaign and this is where things will really ramp up. Are there any tips you have for making a campaign memorable and satisfying? thanks for your insight
Do you have a strong central goal or elevator pitch for the campaign? Do you have a big central villain they're working towards? I think that can help focus the campaign so they know what they need to accomplish. And then let them accomplish it. You might be drawn to the ideas of switcharoos at the very end but don't do it. Give them what they want. Let them enjoy a straight fight against a nasty villain and defeat them. Then give them the one-year-later montage and let them grab the reigns at the end of the campaign. Here are some articles that might help: https://slyflourish.com/breaking_endings.html https://slyflourish.com/ending_campaigns.html https://slyflourish.com/lack_of_satisfying_conclusions.html
Hey Mike - What are your thoughts the idea of hybrid "grand march" campaign? For instance, I'm currently running a campaign where the party started in Suzail and their patron gave them three options based on storylines I created, one job would have taken them to Keep on the Borderlands, one to Ghosts of Saltmarsh and the other to the Cult of the Reptile God. They chose the story that led to Cult. They have no idea that these are the adventures we're running but they're loving it. I've run adventures where I've told them up front we are playing Out of the Abyss, or Hoard of the Dragon Queen and it was fun, but there was an element of expectation built into each player. I love them not knowing exactly what is happening, letting the story unfurl organically. I always make sure during session 0 that they have a clear sense of the area and atmosphere where the story begins - and that they are appropriately outfitted and suited for the conditions. I was wondering if you have ever run a campaign like this, or if you always told them we are running "XYZ."
My friend Jeff Greiner has been running campaigns like this for a long time. As long as you don't end up burning too much time and energy reading up on each campaign, I think it can work just fine. I've definitely slid one campaign into another but I haven't run the idea of three huge adventures as forks the characters can choose. If it works for you and isn't too much to take on, I think it can be a lot of fun and helps you customize the material to fit their drive and directions. Have fun!
Hi Mike, I recently ran a very intense scene between a PC and his estranged daughter. It was some of the best roleplaying I’ve ever done in my life, but afterwards I was very emotionally drained. Have you ever dealt with emotional bleed as a DM? How do you deal with it, or prevent it from happening in the first place?
Yeah, this definitely can happen when games and the situations within them get serious. I recommend checking out the RPG safety toolkit which includes a section on checking in with people, and yourself, out of character to make sure everyone's doing ok. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/114jRmhzBpdqkAlhmveis0nmW73qkAZCj Talking about it out of character with people can help break the tension and hopefully deal with some of the emotional drain of the situation. Hope that helps!
Hi, Mike! For my next 5e campaign I was considering adapting a few rules from the Forged in Darkness games (Blades in the Dark/Band of Blades). Specifically, I was thinking about giving every player Inspiration at the beginning of each session and, besides its normal use, allowing expending said Inspiration to call for a Flashback (a la Blades in the Dark). That would require to also somehow adapt the Stress mechanics for when the desired effect is automatic or more complex than requiring a die roll. For that, I was thinking of using Hit Dice as an expendable resource in lieu of Stress. So, if the desired action is complex or unlikely, it would require spending one or more Hit Dice. Do you think these mechanics would add too much complexity to the game? Are there any potential pitfalls you foresee with them? Thank you!
Hi Mistborn! I answered on the other thread but I'll paste it here to save you a click: All of that sounds like it could work. The flashback idea is definitely one I've used. Mostly, if the impact of the flashback is something reasonable they would have done, there's no check and no penalty. If it's something important, like bribing a guard, I could see it using up inspiration and, if it makes sense, hit dice. Give it a try and see how it works!
How do you make a location feel dangerous without running tons of hard battles and traps?
This falls into my idea that "not everything needs mechanics". I think we can make a place feel dangerous in the way we describe it. The feeling of the weight of the land above. The narrow halls. The dangers lurking around every corner. The rusted blades dripping with super-tetanus. Stress effects can also work well. See page 36 of the Lazy DM's Companion. Things the characters see might put them into fits and require taking damage to break free of the horror's icy grasp.
This may be highly specific but I would like some additional insight in obscuring hags while also trying to justify why they're allowed to persist. Specifically I'm looking at Morgana and her 2 daughter in CoS. I'm wanting to turn their operation into a business and have figured out the means of production. My issue is why are they allowed to persist. I'm thinking of having them "worship" an obscure deity that would "protect" them from the likes of strahd. This would at least hold up to some kind of scrutiny at least temporarily. The problem is will I be able to pull it off. Do you have any advice in regards to obscuring details while also not lying to the group.
I think one of the fun ideas of hags is how the very people they prey off of also need, want, and love them. What can they provide in return for the toll they take? What reasons can you give the hags and those they live by to maintain their existence? For example, what if they protect the village from a danger worse than them? "Sure, you have to feed us a tasty child every midwinter but we protect you from the wolves who would devour you otherwise." Something like that.
Mike, I hope this isn't too personal, but it's about the business side of being an RPG/D&D content creator. Do you find that your job as a writer, a podcaster, a Youtuber, a Discorder, and everything else, pays the bills? Is this a viable field of employment, or is it more like a REALLY time consuming hobby for you? Thanks so much; I hope I didn't cross a line. I am just amazed by how much great stuff you put out, and I'm wondering if it's a side-gig, or your bread and butter?
I actually have a video where I talk all about this! https://youtu.be/TCqFPkFIdSA The short answer is that one has to get extremely lucky and work really hard to get to the point where one can make a living at it and, at least here in the US, independent business don't have near the benefits that large companies have like 401k matching, health care, 1/2 paid social security and medicare expenses.
What are some good methods to help ease the problems caused by frequent player absenteeism?
Hi MtbDM! I wrote an article about this! https://slyflourish.com/handling_missing_players.html
Not a question this month, but a fun idea; Have your patrons submit a 5e tier 1, single page one shot adventure using the 8 steps of Lazy DM method. (you already review your PCs obviously) Then you choose one you find intriguing or select one randomly, run it (maybe even stream) and speak to what it was like running a session from someone else's Lazy DM techniques. Maybe even review and do a video debrief on what you saw as Lazy DM best practices or commonalities inside some of the submissions that were interesting. Just a thought, I'd love to submit a one pager for you to run ;) cheers
Neat idea! Unfortunately I'm slammed for time right now so managing such an endeavor is beyond my capabilities but I'll keep it in mind!
I have two D&D campaign groups: one follows a pre-written storyline, and the other is a custom campaign. Due to my busy lifestyle, I prefer the pre-written campaign because I can easily modify it instead of creating everything from scratch or searching for additional content for the custom campaign. Initially, I planned to conclude the custom campaign and switch to a pre-written one. However, during a recent discussion with my players (who are all new to D&D), they expressed their preference for shorter campaigns lasting 6-10 sessions. This poses a challenge for me since such campaigns are not common, and even if they were, the frequent preparation required to start new campaigns would be cumbersome and defeat the purpose of using a pre-written campaign. I'm unsure how to proceed. Is there a middle ground that can satisfy both the players' desires and my own, or are our needs simply incompatible?
One potential way to handle this is focus on a single published world for your shorter campaigns. If you run the same published world, you and your players will learn more and more about it and it'll be easier for you to run shorter adventures in that world – perhaps exploring different regions and situations in each campaign. That can last a few years until you switch to a new world. A lot of the heavy lifting of running a campaign is already done for you in a published world like regions, histories, politics, and pantheons. See my recent talk about running with a published world on the Talk Show: https://youtu.be/8lZKbHyjQ1A
Don't know if anyone else has sent this to you yet. If not, I'm curious about your reaction to this: https://battlesim-zeta.vercel.app/ It's like half simulator have encounter builder. On one hand I think it's an interesting approach, and models better the variables than other encounter builders. On the other hand I'm not sure if it really makes my encounter prep faster or better overall - I can always use dials to dial up or down, or my own intuition about how the players are feeling. There's also a video by the creator that explains their methodology and reasoning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8FNVkFuhXI
Yes! We've talked about it in the SF Patreon Discord server. It isn't a stochastic simulator which limits its usefulness in my mind. Without running hundreds of simulations, you really don't know where the math is going to land. I still think that loose and simple guidelines are better than trying to be more detailed.
[Q also asked on other thread jsyk!] Tiring of Witchlight (finishing Hither). The villains have already won and aren't really questing much, so no ticking clock. The world feels like it never acts, only reacts. I want to add your dreadful incursions but I want to make sure they're not just combat "diversions". They should light a fire under player butts. I especially like the idea of a Dark Lord trying to escape their domain and preventing Zybilna from being freed, but causing Prismeer to be subsumed into the domains of dread in the meantime. But then what do I do with the hags? They have every reason to address the encroachment themselves. Would be interesting for Prismeer to be turning into a Domain of Dread, and only one hag can escape and reap {{ reward }} if she can complete her quest? Can I layer that on the adventure as it exists or am I going to be fighting it the whole time?
Hi Omar! I answered over there but I'll copy and paste it here to save you a click: It's all a matter of perspective. If a dread lord is really trying to break in, they might simply not believe it or ignore it or not even *see* it. That's what I did in my games. The hags had their own motivations and were unmoved by the comings of the incursions until they met the final hag who became aware of it by seeing an artifact from one of these other worlds. She couldn't ignore it then. I think we can run the hags like we run any other major NPCs. What are their goals, quests, and motivations and how would they react to the impact of both the characters and the incursions. Treat them like real people and think through their eyes. How would /you/ act if you were them?