December 2023 Sly Flourish Patreon Q&A
Welcome to the Sly Flourish Patreon Questions and Answers thread for December 2023!
Ask your monthly RPG-related question in the comments below!
Every Friday morning I answer every question on this post. Some questions make it to the Lazy RPG Talk Show, an RPG Tip video, or Sly Flourish article. Don't be upset if your question doesn't make it to the show – only a handful do.
As you consider your question for the month, please
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.
ask only one question each month.
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 (126)
Hello, Mike! Happy new year! I was wondering what your physical set up is for Owlbear Rodeo. I run a mostly pen and paper group. I tried Owlbear Rodeo and like the potential for quickly throwing in evocative maps but I found introducing technology to my group disruptive. How do you do it?
I don't use it for in-person games, only for online games. I find that needing only to pass along a link works really well – even for more technically challenged players. No login needed, no permissions, etc. I don't think I do anything special in my setup. If you haven't seen it, here's a video where I go in-depth into Owlbear for lazy DMs: https://youtu.be/ZyeEmha6ACU
Hey Mike! I formed my RPG group online about a few years ago. Over this past year, I had to take a break from the DM'ing because I became a dad. Another player wanted to run something which sounded fun, so I gave them the thumbs up. Now my players are talking about other things that they want to run, including campaigns I'm not too interested in. I want to get back into the DM chair again and remain there. I can't help but feel my Virtual Table is being co-opted. What do I do?
Wow. This is a hard one. You did in fact step away from the seat so it wasn't that the DM chair got co-opted from you. Do they know you want to get back into the DM seat again? You might talk one-on-one with the other DMs and let them know you want to get back into the seat when the time is right. If that doesn't work, you might try to form another group and ask if people are interested. That might seem like co-opting the group back, though. This is a hard one. I think trying to have open conversations about it can help.
In a little bit over a month, I'm going to be running a marathon campaign over the course of a weekend. Several 4-hour sessions in a 24-hour period where the characters level up in between sessions. I'll be able to do minor tweaks to my prep in between sessions but, essentially, have to do the bulk of the prep upfront. How would you go about creating multiple sessions worth of prep ahead of time while still keeping things reactive to the Characters?
Hi Sam! I think I answered a question very much like this one! Here's that answer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3MABNQT5Og&list=PLb39x-29puaoZke5BVk7fjyyyjWXcxCu1&index=18&t=3242s
Listing to your answer to the recent Q about giving unsolicited feedback to the DM reminded me of an issue i had in a previous campaign (with people I likely will DM again one day). How do you deal with players who seem to be playing a game of 4 dimensional chess with themselves when it comes to making decisions based on what I’m putting in front of them and then thinking there’s something they are supposed to do? Sorry that’s a bit convoluted, but essentially these are players that have internalized from other DMs that there’s a correct “what the DM’s story demands” answer to every problem. No matter how often I assure them I’m not railroading them, all the way to level 14 I heard whispered chatter among the Players along the lines of “I think we’re Supposed to do x” that made it clear they were trying to make me happy.
This certainly happens in my game and I'll "pause for a second" and tell them "I have no preconceived plan for where this is going. Your actions and decisions are going to drive the story. There's no right answer here and you won't be screwed if you pick X over Y." That can help. If they still don't believe it, keep telling them. That's probably the best you can do. Some groups also don't *like* all those hard choices so you can steer them down a fun one and try to add more interesting local choices instead of big game-changing choices. Which path do you want to take to get to the big bad guy? Those sorts of choices.
Hey Mike, what is the best way to test out custom subclasses? I’ve got about three I’m working on and want to test past just the campaign and players that are at my table. I have each one built out for each level enhancement to test for level creep. I have run some test combats but I don’t think that is enough to get a true feel for them. Thanks in advance.
I'd test it in one-shot games or give it out to other GM friends and see. Maybe I'd find a way to make it a limited option in the game I'm running to see how it works. Alternatively, we can have adult conversations with our players about how we might tune it depending on how it works.
I had a player who is a fellow DM ask about my prep, specifically commenting on how cool it was that they discovered information info about the cult from random graffiti in an alley and how I could have predicted they might have looked at that wall. I introduced him to the concept of secrets and clues and he was appalled. He basically said that having the information wherever the players may look is the equivalent of quantum ogres. I’m kicking myself because I never give players a peek behind the curtain and the only reason I did was because I was talking DM to DM and not to a player. Is he right? (I’m thinking it doesn’t really matter but I kinda just wanted to spark the topic)
It's funny how people use quantum ogre as a pejorative. Certainly the style isn't for everyone. Some DMs and players see TTRPGs as more of a GAME than as a shared storytelling experience and I think that's where things break down. For some, it's a puzzle to be solved. If the secrets move, the goal posts to the game are moving. If you fudge hit points to change a story beat, what's the point of hit points? This is why I make it clear that my approach to TTRPGs isn't the right one or the only one. Others definitely have the approach that things don't change once you've set them in motion during prep. For me, I don't find those games nearly as much fun. I think they put the DM in the position as an antagonist to the players – you're on the other side of the game – and that makes for a more boring experience. I do argue, though, that GMs almost always fudge *some* part of the game. When DMs "call the battle right here", they're fudging the game. When they add or reduce the number of monsters in an encounter, they're fudging the game. Why not fudge it to be more fun? That's my take anyway. If your own group has a real problem with it, you can have a session zero where you ask them how they'd prefer it, but, of course, what they /say/ and what they /want/ aren't always the same thing. Clues are great when you're finding them. They're no fun when you miss them and spend hours wandering around having not poked the right book on the right book case.
I’m really interested in the user experience of adventures for GMs at the table. It seems a lot of published 5e adventures have the same kinds of issues that make them difficult to run at the table: initial adventure hooks that are misaligned with the overall campaign (Descent into Avernus), inadequate alignment of the goals/motivations of the characters to the campaign and to the individual adventures & quests within the adventure (Dino racing during the death curse), prescriptive encounters that assume things will happen a certain way (Dragon Heist chase), descriptions that are hard to reference at the table (Scarlet Citadel), etc. What approaches or tricks to how adventures/settings are presented have you seen that make them easier to run? And what RPG designers or publishers would you recommend who are doing this exceptionally well or experimenting in this area?
I think adventure design is what I'd call an intractable problem. There isn't an ideal or perfect way to write them and design them and there are *lots* of ways they can go wrong (which you describe). Many people love thinner smaller adventures like those you'd find for various OSR products. Halls of the Blood King for Old School Adventures is one such example. I tend to like shorter location-focused adventures like those found in the various Kobold Press "Book of Lairs" books. Robert Schwalb also does well writing short adventures. I think brevity is a big part of it. Being able to quickly reference something is also very helpful. I found Light of Xaryxis far easier to run than other Hasbro-published D&D adventures. I think one clear sign that there isn't an ideal adventure format is that none of us can really agree on which examples do it the best. If you're asking *my* opinion, I'd look at the various Kobold Press Lairs books, Monte Cook Games's Explorer's Keys, the Shadow of the Demon Lord adventures, and Arcane Library's 5e adventures and Shadowdark adventures.
Mike, I’m running a Shadowdark campaign and I can’t seem to get the treasure amounts right. Is there a suggested treasure level in gold for each level? At first level, I think I gave too much gold because the party just caroused their way to 2nd level after only one significant planned encounter/hoard.
I don't think there's an organized system for how much treasure characters should get at any given level. Shadowdark is, at its core, very very random – even in treasure. When it feels right to you, roll on the treasure table associated to the level of the threat the characters faced. See what you get and figure out how many experience points you think that's worth. I've been throwing more treasure in because, at higher levels, it becomes much harder to level. I don't think characters reaching 2nd level with one big carousing session is bad. 1st level is intended to go quickly.
Mike, Years of sourcebooks, adventures, and bundles in various formats with different naming conventions have become overwhelming. I find myself spending both time trying to locate what I want as well as money when I re-buy something I already own. I know you have a massive library of files, can you share how you organize all your PDFs and electronic files? Naming conventions, tags, products, tools, systems - more details=better.
I spent a Saturday organizing my PDF collection. I have thousands now and certainly stuff falls out of mind but it's there if I want it. Here's my article on the topic: https://slyflourish.com/organizing_digital_rpg_materials.html
Hi Mike! Do you have any suggestions, or advice, on how to find cheap stock art to use when building something like a sourcebook or supplemental guide?
DriveThruRPG has some good resources. A very common one is the work of Dean Spencer: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/8135/Dean-Spencer-Art I'm also a huge fan of Matt Morrow's work which he did for Purple Duck Games: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/3367/Purple-Duck-Games
Most of my combats boil down to Last Man Standing fights to the death. I just have a hard time remembering to implement other goals or behaviors for my NPCs in combat. Do you have any suggestions on how to keep other behaviors in mind, so that my combats feel differently and possibly end differently?
I'm a big fan of writing down and keeping handy lists of ten to twenty things. Here's a good GM exercise: what are twenty ways a battle might end without one side just destroying the other? Here are a handful: * Recover an artifact being used in a ritual. * Save a prisoner or sacrifice victim. * Kill just the boss. * Destroy a big obelisk in the center of the chamber. * Destroy four smaller obelisks from which the boss and minions get their power. * Escape. * Take out the helm so the ship goes crashing into the shore or ground. I'll let you take it from there =)
Mike, what do you think of the game Mothership bt Tuesday Knights Games? This is the rpg that had blown my mind this year and a nice break from the fantasy genre. Love your thoughts on that Sci-fi horror RPG.
I haven't heard of it. I'll check it out!
Mike, I have really enjoyed using random tables but I came across a tool that's been around for a while that has really helped me run games called the Mythic GM Game Emulator, 2nd edition. Have you covered this already on your show? It seems right up your alley.
I haven't heard of it but I'll check it out! I've definitely heard of "Oracle" style systems that this one seems to emulate. I'm familiar with Ironsworn's Oracle generator which is a lot of fun.
Hi Mike, my lvl8 players have ready access to revivify (cleric + druid in party), and can even access resurrection (for a political cost). Therefore, if and when it makes sense for a a boss-level monster to do so, I do not hesitate to down or kill characters. This ups the stakes, and makes the big fights exciting and seemingly scary*. However, unconscious or dead characters mean that the players have nothing to do while they roll death saves or wait for revivify, except being nervous. Any thoughts on how to give them something to do? Thanks! *(I am ready to offer surrender-like options if TPK really becomes a possibility, though) (Edit: slight rephrasing)
This is probably the biggest problem with killing characters. What do the players do in the meantime? I haven't found a system yet that does this well for 5e. For Shadowdark, players just start rolling up a new character. Revivify can be cast during combat so they're not totally out of the picture yet. I also think some other RPGs have had some sort of system where the character reaches out from beyond the grave to assist in the battle but I can't remember which one. So yeah, what players should do when their characters die is definitely an issue.
Hi Mike, I wonder if you have a view on session zero type activities when the campaign gets new players or for a one shot? I’ve recently been added as a new player to some established gaming groups and there hasn’t been much onboarding, which got me thinking, how is it best managed? Thanks!
I think its definitely worth running one for new players – a mid-campaign session zero. As a player you might ask if people can talk a little more about who they are, what they want, and what's happened in the campaign so far. You might ask the GM if they're willing to spend a few minutes before a session to do something like that. I don't think its out of hand to ask.
Hi Mike! How do you deal with NPC's making Deception, Persuasion and Intimidation checks vs players? I just find it odd to play an NPC in an encounter, roll some dice and then tell my players that they are deceived, persuaded or intimidated. Especially given that I am NOT a great actor, and my players are ALL very strong willed persons. I get that the dice serve as equalizers between stronger and lesser adept roleplayers. However, in this particular case I just don't know how.
I'd move the roll over to the player. Let them roll an insight check based on how good a deceiver the NPC is. This way the action is on them. How good is the NPC at deceiving people about his true intentions between 5 and 30? That's your DC. Then let the players roll to see what they learn. The higher they roll, the more likely they are to learn something weird is going on. I don't let the players be mechanically persuaded or intimidated by NPCs. That's up to the players on how they react.
Hey Mike. I'm trying to get better at improvising during sessions and am building my prep around that idea. I try to prepare clues(!), npcs, loot, names, ... that are flexible and can show up in multiple places. I also use your Lazy DM Screen for this. :) What are some other things we as DMs can prep for our games, that help us improvise during sessions? I was thinking of preparing some 'drop-in' dungeons, what do you think about that sort of stuff? Thanks for any advice you can give on this!
Someone just above you asked a very similar question. Here was my answer: All of the eight steps from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master are there to help you improvise various parts of the game. NPCs, locations, monster, secrets, and so on. They're all little bits of material you can use to fill in the gaps when you're improvising things at the table. For me, I mostly need names – either new ones or names I've forgotten. That's the part I so often forget. I think drop-in dungeons can work very well. A good Dyson map and a few one or two-word descriptions of chambers can go far.
Hi Mike, question/request for you, would you please be willing to do an updated ranking/review of published 5E adventures? I loved the one you did previously and would be grateful for you to do an updated one including both WotC and other 5E publishers. I value your opinion and respect the fact that you only review what you’ve played. I truly hope you consider it. Cheers!
I don't know that I'll be updating that one particular article unless I play more Hasbro-published adventures but I'll certainly be doing more reviews of big campaign adventures as I run them. I don't know that I'll be running any big ones after my current ones, though, for a while. Sorry! I only have so much time to run what I've got and the City of Arches is likely next for a while.
Hi Mike! Would you have any advice on how to build more resilient stories and treats for my friends, even when they miss crucial sessions for their characters? I run a mystery spiral campaign with monthly 3–4 hour games for friends, and we're all busy with work and family. Following your advice on building a resilient group, we continue with at least 3 players present. I try to sprinkle character treats with plot lines and relevant secrets and clues. For example, a session set in a character's home town. When the player can't be there, it's disheartening. I know I shouldn't fall in love with my prep but I can't help but feel discouraged. I'm finding it more and more difficult to weave a narrative focused on the characters when they constantly fade in and out. Cheers!
If you have a lot of variance in the people who come to your group you can try to focus on a faction instead of a particular character. Have the characters build themselves around particular factions and make the goals, drives, and changes affect the faction instead of the characters. This way, if a particular character is missing, it doesn't matter too much because its the faction's story moving things forward. For example, the characters could all be part of a former gladiator school who now serves as mercenaries taking jobs to locate strange artifacts. Whatever characters are involved, they can still tie back to the job the gladiator school receives. If there's a new arch villain, its the gladiatorial school as a whole that resists the villain. That way any characters still fit in. I think this might work particularly well for Shadowdark games where characters have a tendency to die off rather suddenly.
Hey Mike, do you have any tips regarding how you manage and publish your digital TTRPG content? I'm beginning to design small, site-based adventures that I'm interested in publishing but worried about how to best manage the content. Do you typically draft your content in one easily editable format (Google Docs, Word, Obsidian, Notion, etc) and then covert to another format for the finished product (Adobe, Affinity Publisher, etc)? Do you have any recommended reading or guidance you would point someone new to this process to? Thanks!
I have lots of ways. Sometimes I write in markdown but lately it's in Word (which I hate) because it's easy to move the styles over tin InDesign when it's time to start making it a real book. I can also format it in Word nicely enough to send out as a Patreon product. So yeah, Word... Lots of independent publishers are using Word to make their products. You can do a lot with it.
Hey Mike, You produce a great many fantastic scripts and tools, but what tools do you wish you had the time to create? Or that you wish already existed out there? A good agnostic (preferably open source) character sheet manager with a focus on the offline experience is an obvious one for me. Alongside perhaps a GM screen builder. Thanks for all the content and advice!
A better more open character builder that my players loved. One that let us switch to variants of 5e and one that didn't require a lot of buy-in for us. That's probably the big one for me. A big printer that lets me print out large-scale battle maps would be awesome too.
There is a player in my campaign who loves to cast divination spells. I am running a more open-ended homebrew campaign that has villains doing their own thing independent of the characters like you recommend, but am never sure how to respond to the divination spells that my PCs cast because I don't know what the characters will do next (and how everything in the world will react until they do what they are going to do). I see the potential of the divination spells that consult a semi-omnipotent being fun for my player, and don't want to ruin it with a bunch of "unclear" or "unsure" answers. What recommendation do you have to keep divination spells fun and useful without leading to railroading or constraining the next part of the adventure?
I have to go with the answer I just posted above and say "widen your secrets and clues". Each game, as you write down ten things the characters may discover, think about the ones they might get from talking to a divine being. I had the same problem with spells like Arcane Eye that let characters explore an entire dungeon I hadn't built out yet in like 5 minutes. It's tough. But I'd probably work on a big pile of secrets they could discover by talking to the gods.
Hi Mike. I need some help with secrets and clues. Try as I might, I find it all but impossible to come up with anything interesting and certainly nothing close to ten per session, even including carrying relevant ones over. I've read the books, watched your prep videos, and those found through the search, and I'm still coming up blank. It doesn't seem to matter how many times I read my notes, or the characters' backstories and interests, etc. I can come up with a dream sequence, improvise entire scenes, NPCs, and so on, but it's super frustrating that I somehow can't get to grips with this. Any ideas what I can do or try differently? Cheers.
First off, if the idea isn't working for you, you are under no obligation to anyone to use it. If your games are going just fine anyway and you find it really hard to use this step – skip it. It'll be fine. I do find that practice helps. If you're using a published campaign world, take the big paragraphs of text normally saved for narration and break it into three or four or five secrets and clues. It might help to widen your view of what a secret and clue is. It's a piece of history. A bit of throw-away lore about the dungeon they're crawling through. A secret history of an NPC. It could be that you're thinking about them too narrowly and it makes it hard to find anything. I think, the more you work on it, the easier they come to you. An adventure clearly has lore and a back story – those are secrets. Summarize that backstory into a single sentence. Talk about character relationships – villainous goals. And so on. Good luck!!
Mike, I just finished reading your article on “Roleplaying Between Sessions”. I was intrigued by the section on flash fiction. I love the idea of using “between-session fiction” to help keep the group engaged with the campaign. That said, I am struggling to wrap my head around writing for the players but not the characters. If I write a story about something happening in the world, is the ask that the players do not let it change their character’s decisions? For example, in your linked article “Writing Great Flash Fiction”, the story example showed that “Orcus has a plan and introduced Glyphimor”. The players now know this, but they need to not let this information change their decisions. Correct? I may be overcomplicating this. Do you have any further guidance on how to make this work? Thanks!
I actually talked about this in this week's episode of Readings and Reflections: https://www.patreon.com/posts/roleplaying-sly-94684101 I wouldn't put information in your flash fiction that makes it hard for the players to make decisions knowing that the characters don't have the same information the players have. Otherwise you can tell them its ok to metagame with what they know. Most of the time I'd try to focus my flash fiction on stuff that the characters might know but it doesn't really affect the decisions they make so it doesn't matter too much. And yeah, don't worry about it too much. Sometimes its fun to mess with our players' heads =)
Hello Mike, Alright so I'm really digging all the messaging on like source books and being able to play 5e as long as possible. I recently learned about west marches style campaigns and read your articles on the topic! Do you know of any resource that has collected alternate styles of how to use my TTRPG materials to play different styles of games?
Hmm. Nothing leaps right out to me. I think there's always questions about whether game is dark and gritty tracking things like food and torches, or skipping all of that to focus on high fantasy. Some books talk about this directly like the Trials and Treasure book of A5e. For others its baked in like Ironsworn and Shadowdark and Shadow of the Demon Lord. I don't know other styles other than West Marches except maybe solo play and one-on-one play. My recent Sly Flourish article talks about running RPGs asynchronously as another example.
Hi! I’m not great at improvising, in your opinion what are some game prep tricks to efficiently prepare for the unexpected? You probably don’t need much hel to improvise but I would love to learn any suggestions. Thanks
All of the eight steps from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master are there to help you improvise various parts of the game. NPCs, locations, monster, secrets, and so on. They're all little bits of material you can use to fill in the gaps when you're improvising things at the table. For me, I mostly need names – either new ones or names I've forgotten. That's the part I so often forget.
I seem to always have a warlock in my games... but I am terrible at utilizing warlock patrons in game. Any tips on how to easily incorporate them and make them more meaningful to the player and the game?
I think treating them like an intelligent magic item might work. First, talk to the player about who their Patron is so you can get a good idea for that. Then treat them like an always-on NPC. What are their goals and motivations? Don't make them too contrary to the goals of the character even if they're not perfectly aligned. Good evil NPCs know how to stay on track with the goals of the characters but push forward their own agenda. You remind me that I have a patron myself I need to tug on!
I recently had to leave a game as a player because of a clash of playstyles, but I think I could have handled the departure better. If a player needs to leave one of your games because they have discovered they are not a good fit, how would you, as a GM, wish them to go about it?
I think a graceful exit is what I'd prefer. Someone saying "hey, it's been fun but this isn't really my style of game." or even just lie to me and say "I've gotten too busy with other commitments and can't keep it up". I've had people leave my game with statements like this and it's fine. "This isn't really the game for me" is a fine reason but one might need to be ready to answer the question "why?" and be willing to accept the criticism at that point. Best is probably just being graceful and walking away, though. It's not up to us to teach everyone else how to run their games.
Hey Mike- love the show and your work as always. Something I'm struggling to find would be more small sandboxes similar to Chapter 16: Ruin from the new Book of Many Things. I personally find this chapter to be phenomenal- open ended enough to implement with ease, descriptive enough to have unique and memorable things occur, and not too detailed (no dungeon or key). My players and I loved it. The only comparable thing I know of would be the Domains of Dread in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. Do you know of similar small sandboxes that are easy to drop into any setting?
Good sourcebooks include this sort of thing and it's the type of material I'm spending a lot of time on in the City of Arches – short adventure prompts that give the GM enough material to build out their own adventures. I wish more groups did this. You might check out Uncharted Journeys which has slightly less detailed prompts for lots of situations in various locations. It's not exactly that but better than a pure random table. Unprepared 1 and 2 by Kobold Press are also similar to this.
Hi Mike, have you run Dungeons of Drakkenheim? If not, will you like you did with the Kobold Press adventures complete with session preps and analysis? I'd love to see a deep dive by you into that third party product.
I have not but I really dig what I've read. I don't know when I'll be ready for the grim fantasy of Drakkenheim for my groups though. I have only so much time and what my groups and I decide to run matters more than what I'll review on the show.
Hey Mike! How do you handle creative, engaging combat scenes in an inherently violent game without offending players who might not be comfortable with violence? I'd love to keep it PG or PG13 for certain players, but how do you describe actions like stabbing, maiming, etc.? It's hard to describe how an enemy is defeated by a maul, for example, without describing their clearly terminal state...
I think how we word things can match up to how a PG or PG 13 movie handles things. Just don't describe the gory parts. Write down ten possible ways to describe someone being defeated by a sword: "He collapses to the ground defeated!" "He cries out as you strike your death blow!" You can also ask the players themselves how they'd prefer to have things described.
Hi, Mike. I very much enjoyed your deep dive into "Empire of the Ghouls" today! I am new to Midgard myself, and the campaign sounds like a great way to get myself, and my players, more familiar with the setting. I am wondering about your thoughts on running this campaign with a system other than 5e. For various reasons, we are no longer playing 5e, and have moved on to Dungeon Crawl Classics (love it, but very swingy) and Dragonbane (based on Chaosium's BRP system). Do you think "Empire of the Ghouls" would run well using a different engine, or are the 5e mechanics an essential part of the story? Thanks so much, and stay awesome!
I think it can probably run with a different system. There are also ways to play it with 5e and not use WOTC's D&D. Level Up Advanced 5e would be good for it and pretty compatible. You could also use the Tales of the Valiant playtest rules and see how that goes. Any high-fantasy system should probably work well enough. I don't know how well it would work for something like Shadowdark or Dungeon Crawl Classics – those RPGs really have a different theme going on. Fantasy AGE might do fine by it, or even something like Shadow of the Demon Lord. Any system other than 5e will require a bit of reskinning to work, though.
Hey Mike, so I am a sucker for buying the many wonderful and cool new books that I will ~definitely~ use because they are so cool and such. However what ends up happening is I tend to use the book for a session or two and then never use it again until the next book arrives lol I genuinely like all the books I have purchased and dont regret purchasing them but I am still having a hard time incorporating them into my prep flow. Any thoughts on getting the most out of your RPG book collection?
I'm the same way. I buy *everything* but only use bits and pieces at best. Sometimes I'll run a campaign like my Numenera campaign where I use a bunch of books I've been hanging onto for a while. The same thing happened with my two Midgard campaigns – I ended up using a bunch of books I didn't expect to use. I think its ok to buy a book, enjoy it, let it inspire you, and then set it aside. I don't think its a waste if a book doesn't hit your table. We all have limited amounts of time and money. Sometimes more money than time. That's just how it is.
Hi Mike, I am thinking of running a ShadowDark One Shot soon with only the starter set that were provided for free by The Arcane Library on DriveThruRPG. You have been doing the grand work of going through the process yourself, so I thought to ask you for your advice. I was wondering if you could recommend using that limited ruleset and if so, which adventure or adventure type would be best suited for this type of game. I want to get my feet wet before I buy the full set of books and I am hoping I can find a good starter adventure that can get me through the ropes (and my players) with this new style of playing. A parallel question would be if there are any major differences between the starter set and the full books which might disrupt/change the feel of the game (in case I was avidly listening to someone's podcast over how he was running such a campaign and wanted to take ruthlessly parts out of that for my own) ;-)
I haven't played with the starter set myself but it has its own adventure built into it called Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur that I'd probably run. If you want to know more about running it, there's a great Shadowdark community on their Discord server. I always like sticking to the adventures written by the same designer as the system to begin with. Cursed Scroll 3 has a great 0 level funnel adventure I ran for my first Shadowdark game. It helped us all get a good understanding of the game. There's no clear difference to me between the quickstart rules and the full Shadowdark rules as far as I could see.
Hi Mike! I've been playing with the same group for almost 30 years now and we get along really well. Besides me, there is one other friend that runs a game, we both play on each other's table and it is all good. Since I read your books, I really liked your way of planning games with the lazy dm steps, that I truly love, but that wasn't the only thing that I implemented here, I liked your suggestion of asking feedback about the game to the players, with an open heart, and I still encourage them to do it frequently. In that spirit, I was hoping to be able to give some feedback in my friend's game. I enjoy playing at his table, there are just some times that I feel super rail roaded and that we have no agency on what's coming next. That is the only thing I wanted to tell him, but I'm afraid he may not be open to receive criticism and I don't want to make him feel bad or anything. Any idea on how to hint that in a way that won't hurt any feelings?
Don't offer feedback if it's not prompted. That can look like complaining and put them off balance. Even if they ask, be gentle with it. They might just be mirroring your own style and not expecting to get bad feedback. I'd only offer it up if asked or if it was really disruptive to the fun in your game. In that case you might just focus on the specific instance and say "I don't feel like, in this scene, we could really do very much". But still, be careful. You know as we all GMs know, we're putting our hearts out there on the table when we play and it can be hard to hear criticism.
What do you think about how far I should go in planning for a new campaign before I get buy-in from my players? Before I know if people are excited about the campaign, should I only get as far as a one-line or one-paragraph pitch, or should I make the full one-pager so they have more information?
I'd prep enough to sell the players on the concept if it's one your interested in. What's the hook? What separates it from other campaigns? What neat things can they expect to do there? Probably not much more than that until you know they're on board.
How exactly would a demon prince be trapped in the Abyss by a god or similar power? Especially if said demon prince were a PC who ascended to demonhood and the trapping ended the campaign.
Oof. I don't know. Maybe an old curse established millennia ago? Maybe a trapped item or monument built for the purpose? I'm always wary of trapping PCs, demon lord or not. Don't take agency away from the player! Is that really the ending *they* want? Why not let them narrate their ending?
Through bundles, I have managed to acquire a large number of premade adventures from various systems. But I’m having trouble parsing through them to find good ones to slot into my campaigns. Do you have any advice on how to efficiently assess adventures before you’ve run them?
I'd try to look at the ones whose overall theme and story are something I'd like to run. I'd also try to get a feeling for how the adventure is organized and written to see if it's done in the way I like to run adventures. More here: https://slyflourish.com/using_published_adventures.html
What monuments or npcs or other features do you like to fill towns with? Shops are an easy one but I’m trying to disincentivize players from buying more stuff, and I’m not sure what else should be in towns players visit.
I wrote about the idea of building towns from the locations the *characters* would want to visit. Here's more on that: https://slyflourish.com/introducing_towns.html
Long time listener, first time question. I really like the simplified character sheet in Peril in Pinebrook and would love to see it used more in starter sets and introductory materials for D&D. As someone who started with the Basic D&D set in 1983, it's the first time since that I've felt like D&D has a character sheet that is friendly to introducing new players to the hobby. What do you think of the format and what they included/didn't?
I love it and I'd love to see more of a D&D Basic edition but we'll have to see. I think Shadowdark captures a lot of this but it's a bit on the deadly side. You can get the quickstart rules here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/413713/Shadowdark-RPG-Quickstart-Set It feels very much like D&D but is greatly simplified.
A lot of TTRPGs come with introductory or quick-start adventures to help both the players and GM get familiar with how the system works. Some games don't have introductory adventures, and some don't have published adventures at all. For games that fall into this latter category, how do you go about designing and running an adventure for a system with which you're not totally comfortable?
That's hard. I didn't use intro adventures for Blades in the Dark or Dungeon World and maybe it would have helped if they had some intro scenarios. I got lost with Blades in the Dark, as beloved as it is, because I didn't know how to scope it down to just a plain-old adventure. So I don't have fantastic advice, unfortunately!
A while ago I heard that WotC focused on Forgotten Realms as their base 5E setting to avoid having to pay rights to the original creators from old settings, as Forgotten Realms is a setting where they hold all the rights. During the PAX Unplugged, Jeremy Crawford mentioned that the Tyranny of Dragons was a reimagination of Dragonlance in Forgotten Reals as part of the "multiverse". But this just corroborates that WotC was trying to curb creators pay rights with 5E edition. Now that we are approaching the "2024 Books", WotC is releasing shallow books with just a flavor from the old settings. Do you think they are going to continue this trend, or they are going to bring more setting to DnD? Settings like Dark Sun, Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Mystara, Birthright, Council of Wyrms, Kara-Tur and Al-Qadim deserves a new treatment, as extended sourcebooks for Dragonlance, Spelljammer and Planescape would be well received. Would be this a candle to keep an eye too? Especially when they call themselves as stewards of the game. They should publish material to all owned world settings.
Honestly, this sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. I never heard inside or outside that they focused on FR to avoid having to pay royalties. They don't have to pay royalties on Dragonlance, Eberron, Greyhawk, or any of their other worlds. They own those just as much as FR. None of the worlds of D&D pay royalties to their authors. WOTC owns them all except for Exandria and the CR books. I also argue that they only focused on FR in the adventures, the core books themselves are pretty setting agnostic.
hey Mike, Im trying to get into adventure module design, how do you take a narrative story idea and break it into pieces that allow for the freedoms of ttrpgs while telling a coherent story?
I probably wouldn't start with a narrative idea except the intro scenario. I like to build adventures as a "what if" sort of situation. What is the initial situation? What's the goal? What's the location like? Who are the inhabitants? This article has a whole lot of stuff I researched while working on Ruins of the Grendleroot: https://slyflourish.com/on_writing_adventures.html I'm not good at and don't enjoy more linear story-based adventures with big scenes. I feel like the characters are on little cars going through "It's A Small World" – one scene to the next. So I tend to focus on the set up, the goal, the location, and the inhabitants and let it grow from there. There's a lot of good books and podcasts to absorb on the topic. Teos and Shawn talked all about adventures on Mastering Dungeons. Here's some other sources: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/182608/How-to-Write-Adventure-Modules-That-Dont-Suck https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product-category/all-products/guides/
Hey Mike! I've been combining Lazy DM techniques with Justin Alexander's Node-Based Scenario design from his new book (and prior articles). Any thoughts or tips wrt Node-Based Scenario design?
I've had a hard time getting my head around it. I haven't yet reached that section in his book. I definitely need to get a better grasp of it. It being a nine-part blog series doesn't help me =)
How would you run a session 0 for a one-shot that may turn hypothecally into a campaign if players are in for it ? I feel like one-shots do not require the same dedication to character building as long term campaigns, same goes for the DM who may not plan for an entire arc, and yet we never know how things could evolve after this one-shot, but the stakes of sessions 0 are not the same then, are they ? Would you consider running a light session 0 for the one shot and a full-fledged one later if it turns into a campaign ? Thanks for all your amazing work and everything you do for the hobby.
Yeah, I think you have the right idea. Run a short session zero and get into the adventure. If people dig it, extend it. You can always have another session zero to get things squared away if things continue.
Hey Mike! I recently started running Odyssey of the Dragonlords for my online group. This campaign is slated to run for 1-2 years and around 70 sessions which is much longer than my previous which ran for about 35. Do you have any tips for running really long campaigns while also keeping up pacing and not having my players get bored with their characters? Also in terms of prep how far in advance should be planned out?
Run one adventure at a time! Focus on the next game and keep driving it forward. Don't plan too far out. A session or two is it. This article may help: https://slyflourish.com/using_published_adventures.html
I recently came across a video discussing using scene art to run combat instead of a top-down map and was intrigued by how evocative it was. My only problem is... where do I find good art? It doesn't have to be exclusively scene art either but in general, what are good sources for art?
I try to take it from the adventures or campaign books I'm running. Other than that I'm googling it like everyone else. I haven't found a great source. Good question for the Discord server!
Hey Mike! I’ve been using your 8-steps for 3 years now and they have been such a boon to my games. Despite your title, you are obviously not lazy but highly efficient. I am curious if you have developed other productivity “steps” for your life outside of the context of ttrpgs. If so, would you be willing to share any other productivity systems that you have developed?
I wrote about it here! It's not advice, just a path that's worked out for me: https://www.notion.so/slyflourish/How-to-Make-It-in-the-RPG-Industry-3b2b2fd121204578b57bf1dd3deafeb5#08a329c542ed4439b4aba8b8281a7052 See "Managing my Time" at the end.
Hey Mike! I was wondering if you had read The Count, the Castle & the Curse by R.B. Bo. It is a 1 night Ravenloft type module written for OSR / Shadowdark. Since you're an expert in 1 night Ravenloft scenarios, I thought you would be interested in it.
I haven't! I'll have to check it out!
I’m running a game starting around March and I’m deciding for the perfect system for the City of Arches and it really feels like a Dark Souls map, so I’m leaning towards Shadowdark to give that vibe. How do you feel that the system you choose will influence the vibe of the campaign for City of Arches?
I think the system can change the vibe a lot. I haven't tried the City of Arches with Shadowdark but I think it can work just fine. I'd lower the overall arcane level of the city a little bit if things like torches and rations are hard to find. I don't think it takes a *ton* of work to get it to work with Shadowdark but it'll definitely shift the vibe from heroic adventuring to dark dungeon delving.
How much is too much when describing a scene for your players, using descriptions that rely on other senses besides sight? How much do you, Mike Shea, use non-visual environmental descriptors when setting a scene for the players? What might be a good threshold for the number of things to describe that keep a description balanced and not overly poetic? Maybe 1 or 2 other things other than what the players see? Things like smell/taste or sounds or environmental clues you feel via skin (humidity, temperature, electricity etc.). I was listening to the Eldritch Lorecast from 12/6 and there was a good conversation about this. That made me think that I might actually add a line into my Scenes or Locations list when doing my LazyDM Prep.
Sure, there's a lot of good ways to describe the smells (ghoul sewers – yuck), feeling in the air. I honestly don't think about it that much. I just sort of do it. But you definitely don't want to overdo it. Get to the characters, their decisions, and their actions. There's definitely levels of too much with descriptions.
We share DM duties in our group. I'm in charge of DMing the next campaign which won't begin until Q2 2024. What would you focus on if you had 3-4 months with around 2 hours of free time a week to plan a campaign? The campaign should last six months and be 2 hours a week of playtime, so maybe 48 hours of playtime.
Hmm! I'd probably start with my campaign one pager. Get the clear elevator pitch for the campaign, the six truths, the main factions, the initial locations. I'd probably fill out other locations the characters might visit. The central plot of the villains and what they're doing, what quests they're on. I wouldn't build out adventures except maybe the first one. Let it grow organically from the first session onward.
I'm a new DM and I recently finished running Icespire peak as a 1 on 1 game with my BF which we both enjoyed a lot. I was thinking of starting a new campaign for us to play together, do you have any advice for crafting an adventure for 1 on 1 play?
Hi Kate! That's awesome! Yes! I have a bunch of articles on this. My wife and I enjoyed a one-on-one campaign during Covid using the Sherlock Holmes model I have in one of the articles below: https://slyflourish.com/running_one-on-one_dnd_games.html https://slyflourish.com/framework_for_one_on_one_dnd.html https://slyflourish.com/balancing_combat_for_one_on_one.html
Hi, Mike! I love all your content and use it in my games every week. One thing I'm struggling with a bit is player-focused sidequests. I know a big Sly Flourish tip is "focus on the characters," and I have interpreted that to give each of my 6 players their own mini-quest (1 session max) that rewards them with a bit of backstory lore or a cool customized magic item. But - sometimes it seems like the other players would prefer the main storyline be advanced more quickly, and that these side-quests are distractions. **Do you have any advice for balancing mono-character focus and all-character plot?**
I never have a ton of luck with character-focused side quests. I'll try to draw their backgrounds and motivations into the main quest and maybe have a side quests that sort of runs parallel to the main quest. But I've definitely seen it where character-focused side quests really interest the main player but leave everyone else bored. It's a tricky business. You can, of course, just ask your players what they think. Get an idea for who likes character-driven side quests and who would prefer to just focus on the main quest.
How do you tell difference between normal pregame anxiety from dm burnout? I run two games but recently both went on hiatus for about two weeks. I have strange feelings about going back to the game and have trouble planning. Should I power through it or take a longer break?
Oof. I don't really have fantastic advice about DM burnout. I tend to push through but usually my burnout comes from being too busy with other stuff. I have to remember that being together with my friends enjoying a game is worth the effort. Ginny Di had a good video about this worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJcAKJbFTPA
Hi Mike! I have a player who plays a rogue and really likes getting involved with the fantasy of her character and class (doing roguey things like looting places, interacting with spies, etc.), but is entirely new to RPG’s and really the fantasy genre as a whole. So she struggles often to come up with ways for her character to contribute to the narrative on her own, but really bites on to examples I give her after some thinking on my own. (A recent example being, the group is trying to get dirt on a rival adventuring party that has their own roguish minion network. Most folks in our group have an idea how they want to contribute to the current story but this player is kind of at a loss until I suggest she could try to tap into the networks of thieves and beggars in the city to see if they know anything about these rivals. She already knew this network was there and has met other characters who are involved in the underbelly of the city they’re in.) She hasn’t consumed much fantasy media aside from the big ones like lord of the rings, so doesn’t really have much knowledge or experience with fantasy to come up with things that she would want her character to do, and be good at, in a fantasy world. My question is, how can I help this player come up with ways to get involved in the narrative and the fantasy of her character and class, without having to come up with and suggest all of the ideas myself? I just don’t love feeling like I’m contributing more to her character’s actions than she is, and I want her to feel accomplished and excited when she comes up with ways to have her character interact with the game world.
If they're not upset that you offer suggestions, I'd suggest you keep doing so. She's new, let her see the open flexibility. Always leave it open for her to come up with ideas but don't be afraid for you or the other members of the group to offer suggestions. If she's looking for motivation, try the Lies of Locke Lamora. They're fantastic.
Hey Mike, I know you mentioned it a couple of times that you're a loosy-goosy-DM, so I might have an idea of your answer to my question, but here it goes anyway: how do you handle spell components (specially verbal and somatic) when the PCs are trying to cast spells in front of NPCs out of combat? I suppose this is similar to players discussing strategy out of combat during a conversation with an NPC, where its often recommended to ask them "Are you discussing this openly or are you trying to do it discreetly?" and then ask for an appropriate check if needed.
Spell components?? HA! You're right. I don't think of them at all. The only time they come up is when someone needs a 1000 GP bowl for Heroes Feast and I hate that spell so I make them go on a ten-month quest to find a bowl of that value. No, you can't just tape a bunch of gemstones onto a bowl. If I did focus on it, I'd try to lean in towards the player and not be a jerk about it.
Hello Mike! I’m running Rime of The Frostmaiden. I’m reading it and it needs A TON of doctoring (especially in chapter one and linking it to chapter two). But it seems like an awesome story so I’m willing to do the dirty work. I know that you’ve played it. I was wondering what did you do to get the most out of the campaign that kept the doctoring to a minimum?
Oh boy. Really. I don't recommend it. It took a *lot* of work to wrangle it into something I wanted to run at my table. I regret running it, frankly. I could have run any other campaign and instead I ran that. This video may help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxcxb07RiU0
Hey Mike! I recently started DMing a D&D campaign with 3 players who are all new to the game. We've been playing for two months now and it's very apparent that one of my players hasn't read the rules at all and we spend a lot of game time explaining their character's specific abilities. When I mentioned that this was a player responsibility to know and remember their character abilities, they got defensive and pushed back - telling me as the GM I should be reminding the players of their abilities as we play the game. Is there a good way to explain player expectations and to tell them to read the rules without seeming pushy or mean? I don't want to lose a player or the friendship, but it's getting frustrating at the table. Thanks!
It's probably worth having a one-on-one conversation with them instead of talking about it with a group. You can explain to them that the DM is just too busy to keep up with character options. You might help them grasp parts of their character, using 3x5 cards to write down the big things, focus on the big stuff their character can do and overall simplifying the experience for them. You might also have them work with another player to grasp what's going on. It could be there's another problem going on so don't assume they're just being a jerk. Not everyone learns the same way and people have all sorts of things going on in their lives. Focus on the problem, not the person. Good luck!
One of my players is taking an extended absence for personal reasons, so instead of moving the story forward without them, we’re pivoting to do a prequel mini campaign for the next larger campaign with all of us to get our feet wet with Eberron. Any advice for running prequel campaigns? If you were to do a prequel campaign for your second mourning campaign, what would you focus on?
Hm! I don't know if I'd run a prequel campaign and instead just run another campaign set in the world, maybe at an earlier time, but with its own story. Let it live and breathe on its own instead of trying to tie it tightly to your other campaign. Otherwise you might be pushing the characters to follow the leads already established in the main campaign. Good luck!
I love the secrets and clues section of the 8 steps, and got to use it for the first time in my last game, which was our second session. Unfortunately I ran into the issue of my players latching onto every seed they came across and one player even came straight out and said 'Hey, what are we supposed to be doing?' so I reassured them about what thread was the 'active quest' and told them the rest were all just potential hooks for future adventures. Is there a good way to give out a secret, while also expressing that: 'Hey, this isn't the end of the world. You don't need to drop everything and do this, but it's there if you're interested.'? Thanks!
It sounds like your secrets took their attention *away* from the main quest instead of reinforcing it. If your secrets are leading them elsewhere, it shouldn't be a surprise they followed it. Not every secret is an active lead. It can just be history or information *about* the quest they're on. Not all secrets are adventure hooks is my main answer I think.
I'm starting a Descent Into Avernus campaign next month with my friends who have only met each other once or twice before, and they're all new to D&D. What sort of early-campaign ice breakers would you recommend to band my Hellriders together?
I'd reinforce their connectedness in your session zero. Have them focus on a single NPC they can follow, maybe on they follow into hell. Descent into Avernus is a hard one to start with, frankly. It's so grim overall. I don't think its the one I'd recommend for brand new players coming in that have never met before. I'd start with something like Dragons of Stormwreck Isle and I'd still focus them together during a session zero.
You may have mentioned this before, but what kind of books would be in a Sly Flourish's Appendix N?
I did answer this one before! Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeVvCcCEXKk&list=PLb39x-29puaoZke5BVk7fjyyyjWXcxCu1&index=42&t=1431s Adding a couple I've read in the past year I've enjoyed: Fairy Tale – Stephen King Tress of the Emerald Sea – Brandon Sanderson American Gods – Neil Gaiman Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master also has some inspirational reading lists in it. There's also this: https://slyflourish.com/dms_reading_list.html