August 2024 Sly Flourish Patreon Q&A
Added 2024-08-08 16:00:05 +0000 UTCWelcome to the Sly Flourish Patreon Questions and Answers thread for August 2024!
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 or fuel 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 SF Patreon Q&A database, the Lazy RPG Talk Show Topic Database, the Sly Flourish website, and the Sly Flourish YouTube Channel to see if I've done an article or video on your topic previously.
focus your question on tabletop RPGs.
stick to 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
Friends! Thus ends the August Patreon Q&A! Please put any new questions in the September 2024 thread! Thanks!
Michael Shea
2024-09-06 08:33:34 +0000 UTCIn some cases, the players already know some of what's going on but yeah, you don't want to give away too much. Vague things like "a terrible darkness surrounds the small village of Barovia" usually gives them the point. Part of the fun is finding that balance between information useful enough to build a group and not so much that you blow the surprise. You can always update it too once they know more about what's going on so their group can better connect to the story of the campaign.
Michael Shea
2024-09-06 08:33:10 +0000 UTCWe find a fair bit of roleplaying in Ravenloft. I really don't have another one-shot adventure but really you can run anything with the right horror-style halloween theme. There are a bunch of halloween-themed one-shots on the DMs Guild and Drive Thru RPG. None leap out to me though.
Michael Shea
2024-09-06 08:31:36 +0000 UTCI stick to the flavor text and let them figure it out. That's a big part of the fun. Granted, as players play from year to year, they figure things out faster and faster.
Michael Shea
2024-09-06 08:30:43 +0000 UTCI have been giving my players a one pager handout at the start of every campaign, and sometimes even when they arrive in a new location. However I am unsure how much info to give them about curse of Strahd. Part of horror is the unknown, but I want to make sure my players build characters that fit well with the world. How do I strike a good balance?
Andrew Duncan
2024-09-03 20:08:40 +0000 UTCDo you have any recommendations for a Halloween one shot, geared for new players? I saw your video on running ravenloft with shadowdark, which looks awesome, but I was thinking something with more roleplaying. I thought about spending more time in the village, but that would likely stretch it out further than one session (especially since there's going to be a big learning curve for new players)
paul brandson
2024-09-03 19:16:03 +0000 UTCWhen running I6 Ravenloft as a oneshot with shadowdark, how much do you give the players during the tarot card reading? The flavor text is very vague. Do you elaborate more or simply say the “study” is where this item is.
brofroamothamo
2024-09-01 00:39:28 +0000 UTCThank you! That helps.
Krystal Stoll
2024-08-30 17:39:53 +0000 UTCCongratulations on running so many awesome campaigns! You are almost certainly an extreme anomaly in this. I know that, during the 4e days, very few made it to paragon and epic tier campaigns. I think its a general truth that most groups don't make it much past 5th level in any of the versions of D&D. I don't think it's really system dependent – it's just the way of things.
Michael Shea
2024-08-30 12:35:51 +0000 UTCI think you can have a lot of fun with the funnel in Cursed Scroll 3 – Midnight Sun. The funnel is Hoard of the Sea Wolf King. It can give them a quick understanding of the mechanics but tell them to be prepared to die a lot. If you lean into that, they may love it themselves. Work with them to revel in good, sometimes goofy, deaths and enjoy what it has. Then take them to 1st level and run some short adventures in that. I think Shadowdark can work well for short adventures, definitely.
Michael Shea
2024-08-30 12:34:29 +0000 UTCGood idea! I'll add it to the list!
Michael Shea
2024-08-30 12:32:18 +0000 UTCI don't have a real questionnaire or survey that I run. I just talk to them about the game and what they dig. My groups tend to go with whatever ideas I have and don't seem disappointed. If you do offer up some choices to your players, make sure you're really happy with whatever they want to play. Even if you have a slight preference for one over another, you might want to just focus on the one you have the preference for. But otherwise, you can just ask them or better yet, take note of their own behaviors. What do they dig? What are they into during the game itself? Lean in on that.
Michael Shea
2024-08-30 12:32:05 +0000 UTCThat's really tough. I'm going to say Eberron Rising from the Last War is my favorite campaign book and setting. It has a lot of flavor to it and a very modern take on a lot of traditionalist fantasy ideas. It's less problematic than Midgard, as much as I love Midgard. There are so many regions in which to build campaigns and so many opportunities for adventure. I think it's fantastic. So I'll go with Eberron. Surprisingly, I haven't run a campaign there in a while.
Michael Shea
2024-08-30 12:30:14 +0000 UTCI think there are a couple of easy lightning rod types we can include: Small hordes of baddies able to be controlled or blown away. Big brutes able to be controlled. I wrote more about it here: https://slyflourish.com/lightning_rods.html A couple of things that can help you: 1. Ask your players what sort of monsters or combat situations their characters best deal with. 2. Watch how they operate in other battles. What spells or abilities do they lean into? 3. What battles do they have trouble with or find frustrating? Keep some notes on this if you can during the game and build off of those experiences. The past can tell you a lot about the future even if it's not perfect.
Michael Shea
2024-08-30 12:28:21 +0000 UTCIt's an idea. I don't see a big need for it myself. I think species can largely be flavor devoid of heavy mechanics but I think we're each able to tweak stuff how we want. You could, after discussing it with your group, decide to remove one of the saving throw proficiencies from class and move it to species. Maybe give a couple of options for each species so they can pick one.
Michael Shea
2024-08-30 12:25:24 +0000 UTCI would probably look for the parts of the adventure I liked the most and build character hooks based on those parts. It's a bit hard to do it in the abstract without an example but if the hooks aren't grabbing you, ask yourself what part of the adventure *does* grab you and how do you build hooks around that. These need not be super fancy. Fetch quests, rescuing people, recovering items, stopping dark rituals – whatever common quest goals work for you can work in a published adventure most of the time. - Find an item - Kill a villain - Rescue an NPC - Uncover a secret - Clear out monsters - Protect a monument - Protect an NPC - Steal an item - Return an item - Close a gate - Open a gate - Activate a monument - Disable an artifact - Recover an item - Convince an NPC - Awaken a monster - Put a monster to sleep - Bury a secret - Discover a monument - Dig up an artifact
Michael Shea
2024-08-30 12:24:16 +0000 UTCI love Eberron and I think you can do a lot with it in many different genres. There's a reason Forgotten Realms is as prominent for D&D as well and it's the kitchen sink style of it. Same with Kobold Press's Midgard. I wouldn't make a firm declaration that you pick a world and it's that world forever but I think there's a lifetime of adventures to be had in Eberron if you wanted it. Same with many other worlds.
Michael Shea
2024-08-30 12:21:29 +0000 UTCI have not! I'm still bearish on using LLMs for game prep stuff. I use it for code help but not much else. I really like brainstorming on my own. It's the fun part. But I'll try that conversational feature and see. I have GM friends who love working with LLMs to flesh out their campaigns and adventures so I know there's value to some folks in it. I just like the pen and paper feeling of RPGs though.
Michael Shea
2024-08-30 12:19:45 +0000 UTCThis is the first time I heard Empire of the Ghouls was out of print. That's real shame. It's a fantastic adventure. I expect this decision has more to do with sales of the book and the cost to do an off-set print run which can be expensive. You generally want to print at least a thousand copies which could run up to maybe eight bucks a copy and then you have to make that back by selling them and adventures like this just don't sell that much. So PDF is probably as good as we're going to have. I don't know what KP's plan is regarding Midgard. Their recent products have all been setting agnostic which I think is a shame. I'd love to see a Midgard refresh with a focus on Tales of the Valiant. I think being too generic loses the value they had in their world.
Michael Shea
2024-08-30 12:17:55 +0000 UTCI'm still bearish on using AI for creative work like this but I know many GMs and players who find value from it. I think there's a lot of value in us coming up with these backstories and plot drivers ourselves. This is the *fun* part of creativity. You might have them look at character background generators like those found in Xanathar's or A Life Well Lived by Cubicle 7. I think random tables do a better job of building interesting promps for backrounds than an LLM can but who knows. As always, probably worth a conversation with them about it. I think LLMs are in a bit of a bubble right now and likely we won't see their prominence nearly as much in the future. I could be wrong though. Good luck!
Michael Shea
2024-08-30 12:15:37 +0000 UTCHi Caleb! I've gotten a lot of people asking for character walkthroughs of lots of systems. I don't really have any plans for further ones at the moment but who knows. For me, I'd like to try a Shadow of the Weird Wizard character build next. PF2 definitely sounds great. I've played it and I built a character using Demiplane mostly to see what demiplane is like. Me not doing a video about it doesn't mean I have anything against it. So we'll see!
Michael Shea
2024-08-30 12:13:13 +0000 UTCOur group has run through 4 lv 1-30 4th edition campaigns and never switched, I don’t feel like I hear much about extended length games in 5e - do you think it has this same staying power?
Agnieszka Shick
2024-08-29 11:44:51 +0000 UTCMike, I'm starting a "D&D" club at the school I work at. I have convinced the other teacher that we should use Shadowdark since many players are new and we have only 25 minutes for clubs twice a week. What tips would you give to run Shadowdark in this short amount of time?
Mr. Smith
2024-08-29 00:58:17 +0000 UTCHi Mike - similar request to Caleb Alexander's, except with 'A Life Well Lived' from Cubic 7!
Jason
2024-08-28 09:41:23 +0000 UTCHi, do you have a tool, like a set of questions that DMs can use tp poll players to better understand what they want out of a campaign? I just finished running a long-term game and I am looking for player guidance on what to do next. I have a few different ideas of campaigns I would like to run, and I can pitch questions about those, but I also wonder more generally. Do they want to see more backstory get incorporated, do they want more combat or social encounters, do they want less lore? Looking for other questions I might want to ask.
Peter W
2024-08-28 09:08:00 +0000 UTCHey Mike. What is your favorite campaign setting and associated setting book?
Joshua Clanton
2024-08-27 19:49:45 +0000 UTCHi Mike! Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom with us. I just watched your latest talk show video. You spoke about tracking the characters and keeping track of their spells, feats, class abilities etc. I've heard you talk about "lightning rods" before, and specifically challenging characters. tl;dr: Do you know of a reference that would help with learning to do this? My problem is that I am great at social encounters and storytelling, but terrible at tactical combat. It's just not something that makes sense to my brain. Fireball is obvious, but I've never considered polymorph to be a combat spell, much less thought that if a player takes that spell I should throw a huge creature with a low save at them. I have a monk in my game and despite knowing he can pull missiles out of the air, I've never thought to intentionally put in archers. I read these abilities or spells and they just don't translate into tactics in my brain. Instead, I'm constantly surprised by the things that happen during combat. I'm running 7 campaigns and hope to add 3 more next month, so my prep time is really at a premium. In the spirit of Lazy DMing, I'd love to have a reference somewhere where I can look up a spell or ability and have it tell me how to challenge or please the player. Short of that, do you know of a source that would help me train my brain to think this way? I've made great use of your Monster CR charts, and "The Monsters Know what They're Doing" series has helped me immensely with how to use the monsters I've chosen. But looking at things from the player side is still a mystery.
Krystal Stoll
2024-08-27 19:30:02 +0000 UTCI haven't seen races/lineages/species/whatever-other-terms that provide proficiency in an additional saving throw. Is anyone doing this that you are aware of? It occurred to me that giving a dwarf a proficiency in Constitution saving throws (if you already have that, then Strength, if you already have both, then Wisdom) in place of an existing benefit might be a good way to get more of an "old school" feeling dwarf, like in B/X (or Old School Essentials, in the modern parlance), where they are kind of fundamentally non-magical/magic-resistant. (Perhaps with elves it could be Dex/Int/Cha.) Does this sound overpowered or otherwise like an awful idea?
Luke Baumstark
2024-08-27 18:31:25 +0000 UTCHi Mike - let's assume you prep a prewritten module and the provided pc hooks are crap. How do you come up with new and better ones? In your experience, does it work better when you provide multiple to pick from for each player or provide one for the party as a whole? Thx and have a great day!
kaasimir
2024-08-27 05:36:15 +0000 UTCThank you sir. Hadn't thought of carousing as a down time (I play different game than DnD, so hadn't seen those items in the rules). Your points were very helpful, and I more comfortable going into this week's game!
Unferth
2024-08-27 03:30:04 +0000 UTCHi Mike, my question is about finding a setting/world for my adventures to call home. Now, That world should give me joy for many years to come and not limit me in my choices -> city of arches? no problemo! Ravenloft DnD setting? sure! Gonzo Indie adventures a la ultraviolent grasslands? yes, sir - OSR style Mörk Borg shenanigans? you bet... You get my point... I got very intrigued learning about Eberron. i don't feel that i have the time to create a world with history by myself, but i'm ok changing things up or home re elements within a pr existing setting. So technically two questions: 1st: What's your take and experience with Eberron being a catch all world and backbone for different campaigns, adventures styles and other DnD and 3rd party settings being integrated in to it? 2nd: What is your general advice in picking or creating a setting/ world to be a "home" to many different adventures? Cheers and keep up the great work. You're inspiring me every week!
Manuel Marquina
2024-08-26 14:19:11 +0000 UTCHey Sly! Have you looked into using Chat GPT's new conversational interface for campaign planning? As a verbal thinker, being able to talk out my ideas and have them summarized back to me has been very helpful for my planning. I was able to plan a dungeon while cleaning the bathroom today — even if you (like me) think that chat GPTs content generation capabilities are pretty meh and overblown, it's organizational capabilities are great. It seemed like a nice lazy prep tool so I was curious to hear your thoughts!
coots
2024-08-25 21:02:35 +0000 UTCHi Mike, Do you know if Kobold Press is planning to maintain their 5E compatible product lines going forward? I recently decided to run the Empire of the Ghouls campaign, but found it was no longer available through the KP store, and was getting pretty expensive on Amazon. I reached out to Kobold Press Customer Support to ask about it, and this was their reply: “Unfortunately, Empire of Ghouls is no longer in print, and we will not be reprinting it” Fortunately, my lovely wife tracked a copy do in Saskatchewan (shout out to Dragon Den Games in Saskatoon!), so I am covered. Anyway, would this be a simple business decision that it is just not economical to keep reprinting these books, or would it indicate that Kobold Press is going to focus on Tales of the Valiant related products?” I have already built up a nice Kobold Press/Midgard collection, and wonder if I need to worry about completing my collections before the books disappear. Appreciate everything you do! Cheers, Graham
Graham Dyer
2024-08-25 02:36:41 +0000 UTCHow do you feel about players using AI software to write their backstories? I've been DMing 5e published adventures for a few years, but now my group wants to try a homebrew adventure because they've never really gotten invested into the plot of these published adventures. I've never written a homebrew adventure before, so my plan was to just do a spiral adventure and base the plot/story/secrets & clues on the character backstories, however everyone in the group just wants to have AI software write their backstories for them. I told them not to use AI, with my thought being that if a player discovers 10 sessions into the campaign the secret that "the evil queen conspiring against them" is actually their long lost sister, will they even remember or care about this long lost sister from their AI generated backstory? So I told them not to use AI, and now no one is submitting anything. Is it even worth fighting my player on this, or are these fears unfounded and AI is just the way of the future?
Kevbot Falconhammer
2024-08-24 17:12:42 +0000 UTCI’m loving your character creation episodes. Would you consider doing one for Pathfinder 2e? I know you’ve expressed less interest in the system, but I think seeing you go through that would be valuable onboarding for potential players. And PF2 has interesting customizability, uses open licensing, and has all of its rules online, so it shares the ethos of Valiant and Shadowdark.
Caleb Alexander
2024-08-24 17:08:47 +0000 UTCHi Ben! I'd certainly reskin the gods of the City of Arches with those in Theros along with the portals and the planes to those regions where the gods of Theros lair. I think it can work well to reskin COA to Theros. I haven't run Theros content myself but I think it should work fine. You can also change up the architecture a bit to fit a more greek style. It sounds like it'd be awesome! I almost wish I had done it too!
Michael Shea
2024-08-23 15:38:46 +0000 UTCHi Matt! I tell them. If it's *really* important, I'll just correct it. Sometimes I make a joke about them having remembered it wrong but mostly I just try to subtly fix things. But if it wasn't that important, I just let it go away. One of the big advantages of asking players to recap is seeing what *they* remember and focus on. Sometimes the stuff they miss can just go away. But if it really was important, I'll add it in and I'm fine with it.
Michael Shea
2024-08-23 15:37:33 +0000 UTCGreat question! I had a "round the table" initiative set up where I had the four character names in front of me and rotated through them. With only four players it wasn't hard to ensure they each had time to do stuff but it probably wasn't perfect. They were 4th level and some of the final battles were too hard. Some things I wish I did differently: 1. Clarify that the goal is to stop a terrible ritual from taking place somewhere in the manor. 2. Outline more NPCs the characters can interact with during the first phase of the party. 3. Check my own benchmark on how hard encounters might be and tune to suit. 4. Make sure I have the right treasure rewards for the characters who haven't received anything recently.
Michael Shea
2024-08-23 15:27:23 +0000 UTCThat's a good question! I'd try to find whatever conclusive scene I could and make that the sort of final battle scene. Where do you really want the situation to end up? How do you keep the escalation going to get there? For a heist, I'd probably time it and let the players know it's timed so they have so much time for planning, so much time for execution, and so much time for escape and then have situations in the world that correspond to those times like the guards getting wind that something is going on. My book Aeon Wave has some of these ideas in it. It's a cyberpunk Fate-based adventure intended to run in a single session: http://aeonwave.com/
Michael Shea
2024-08-23 15:25:16 +0000 UTCHowdy! I have a large Notion page where I talk all about the RPG Business and it talks about this a little bit. https://slyflourish.notion.site/How-to-Make-It-in-the-RPG-Industry-3b2b2fd121204578b57bf1dd3deafeb5?pvs=4 The main question I ask when I'm considering putting my stuff on a store is whether that store draws its own customers to it or not. If I'm going to work any of our marketing cannon on anything, it's going to be on my own store. If I have to market for someone else's store, what, exactly, am I paying their extra fee for? This is one of the reasons I don't have much on Itch.io. It doesn't really bring its own customers in. It's probably good for independent creators who don't want to set up their own storefront, but you have to drive your own customers to it. The same is true for a lot of VTT platforms. It's expensive to convert material to a given VTT and if I have to market it to sell it, that's just more of a cost to me too. Instead, I'd rather try to make all the assets we create useful on any VTT and push our marketing to our own bundle. DTRPG brings in its own customers to my work so that's definitely valuable. So far, Roll20 does not. Amazon does too but their fees are high and their infrastructure for supporting stores and shipping sucks. But it's worth it in the end. Hope that helps!
Michael Shea
2024-08-23 15:23:13 +0000 UTCI’ll check out the discord, thanks!
Liam McManus
2024-08-23 14:02:57 +0000 UTCYou're already here on Patreon! That's thanks enough! Want to thank me even more? Tell your friends about the City of Arches and spread the word on your favorite social media haunts!
Michael Shea
2024-08-23 13:41:13 +0000 UTCBack then I ran a poll on YouTube to see how many players and GMs use D&D Beyond regularly. It was about 4 out of 10. I ran the same poll last night and it's still 4 out of 10 so D&D Beyond's dominance in the hobby hasn't grown in the past 10 months or so. That's good, as far as I'm concerned. Two days ago we learned that WOTC is changing features of D&D Beyond that makes it impossible to play a pure D&D 2014 game with the character builder in Beyond. Spells, items, magic items, and the rules themselves are all getting "updated" to D&D 2024 in the character builder regardless of whether you bought it, or want it. As far as the inclusion of other publishers in D&D Beyond, I still think it's a big risk for the industry. Morrus and I talked recently about their dominance in the RPG space and he said they hear all the time that people want EN World Publishing's stuff in D&D Beyond but can't get it. WOTC controls who gets in there, who does not, what percent of a cut they get (which is buried behind an NDA, BTW). I've heard that products published there do *very* well, at least right now. So it's definitely of high financial interest for a company to get their material on Beyond. I just don't think that centralization under the largest company in the industry is good for the resilience of the hobby. It's a great question to ask, though, to look at this periodically and ask ourselves if it's gotten better or worse.
Michael Shea
2024-08-23 13:39:57 +0000 UTCYes! It's sort of convoluted. It's a mix of Apple Automator, shell scripting, Latex, and Pandoc. You can find it described here on Github: https://github.com/mshea/useful_scripts/tree/main/Markdown%20to%20PDF
Michael Shea
2024-08-23 13:34:26 +0000 UTCIt's very possible the abstraction of mechanics from flavor could work for spells. I tried some attempts at them and then set them aside but I may look back at them. I hoped to do a one-page spell-builder for Uncovered Secrets Vol 2 but other things got in the way. I may dig in again.
Michael Shea
2024-08-23 13:33:39 +0000 UTCI may. I don't know. It certainly takes more effort to up-level a character to 3rd or 5th. We'll see! Combat maneuvers are indeed a big extra step. They're reasonable in play, though, once selected.
Michael Shea
2024-08-23 13:32:50 +0000 UTCI think there are few who aren't aware of it. I really haven't looked into it. A game's popularity, particularly when marketed as heavily as this one, doesn't drive me to dive into it in particular. Like you, I was taken back at the high pricetag but backed it for a buck just to see. But there are a lot of games and this is just one so no, I didn't give it any special attention.
Michael Shea
2024-08-23 13:31:57 +0000 UTCWe did 5th level characters and that worked well. I have a bundle here on Patreon with things that can help you run I6 Ravenloft for Halloween. https://slyflourish_content.s3.amazonaws.com/ff98052f30d610b78a3b_patreon_files/Ravenloft_Shadowdark_Lazy_GM_Kit.zip
Michael Shea
2024-08-23 13:29:47 +0000 UTCI've actually not had a ton of luck with sessions like that. We do some downtime sessions in my 5e games but only out of necessity and I don't think it's a central pillar of the gameplay so we tend not to do them very often. I've written more about how to make the most out of downtime sessions here: https://slyflourish.com/running_downtime_sessions.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4YZArzluk0&t=2028s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lZKbHyjQ1A&t=2337s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-uk2LB5zCo&t=3380s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooJQ8SmxYXc&list=PLb39x-29puaoZke5BVk7fjyyyjWXcxCu1&index=37&t=2206s Good luck!
Michael Shea
2024-08-23 13:28:15 +0000 UTCHi Raoul! I don't think its necessarily a problem and I don't think much more has to be done than playing with any new player. Focus on running a fun game. Keep things straight forward and simple. Start at 1st level. Let them learn the game at their own pace. Focus on making sure they're all having a good time. Hope that helps!
Michael Shea
2024-08-23 13:26:35 +0000 UTCI never actually ran a longer campaign arc in Ruins of the Grendleroot so I don't have any notes for it. Sorry! You might ask in the Discord server, I think a few members there have run longer Grendleroot campaigns. I'm so glad you're enjoying it! Thank you!
Michael Shea
2024-08-23 13:24:45 +0000 UTCI think it can help to talk to them about it first and gauge how they feel about it. Are they interested in learning a new system? DCC is straight forward enough that you could offer to run a one-shot or short campaign that maybe lasts two or three sessions. Most groups, if they trust you, are willing to do that. DCC is straight forward enough that you can teach it quickly and get into it. I've played it without any previous knowledge at a convention and had a fine time. First, gauge their interest in it in the first place. Sell them on why they might want to try it. Make the risk low. If it's only for a couple of sessions, they're more likely to jump in than say "we're going to move to this forever!" Keep things simple. Focus on short simple adventures to get them used to playing this new system. Follow the best practices for teaching new RPGs which is to get into the game as fast as possible and teach as you go instead of having a big hour-long seminar going over every rule. Good luck!
Michael Shea
2024-08-23 13:23:17 +0000 UTCHi Mike, I've been following the City of Arches since the first release and am very excited to get the final copy from kickstarter, congrats on its success! I'm planning to use it for an upcoming Theros style game as the central city/hub of the campaign and was wondering if you have any tips on reskinning key elements of the city to the theme of a different setting so that I can drop it in as smoothly as possible?
Ben Clarke
2024-08-23 07:20:35 +0000 UTCHey, Mike! When you have players do recaps, since players only remember and pick up on a fraction of what happens in the game, what do you do when they either forget an important piece of information or misremember it from the last session? It can be awkward to try to coax them into recalling pivotal elements, and if I do the remembering for them (wholesale), it feels like I'm leading them around by the nose.
Matt Brooks
2024-08-23 01:09:22 +0000 UTCI just listened to your infiltration of summervine villa session. How did you handle the exploration of the villa it sounded like the players split up and were all of the place. Did you have a static initiative, or just hop from person to person and how did you feel with giving each player and equal amount of time to do what they wanted to do. Also what level were they thank you have a good day
CustomAlex .
2024-08-22 22:13:49 +0000 UTCHow would you apply your advice for one-shots "Allow enough time for the final battle" to less combat intensive adventures, like heists? Do you have any advice for running a one-shot heist and timing it well, please?
Peter S.
2024-08-22 21:12:43 +0000 UTCHey! Long time listener, first time asker. With all this talk about the variety of platforms available for digital 5E products how do you decide where to host your products/PDFs? What are the pros and cons to selling your books on your website vs also having them available on DriveThru etc?
Olivia Adams
2024-08-22 03:37:36 +0000 UTCNot really a question... But how can we thank you for telling all of us about the Humble Bundle! Wow! Go support City of Arches! Thanks Mike for keeping your pulse on the industry!
Craig Pressley
2024-08-21 12:15:12 +0000 UTCHey Mike! In a recording of The Lazy RPG Talkshow you posted to YouTube on 20 FEB 2023, you said to prepare for a bold statement and you expressed that it would be bad for the industry for D&D Beyond (DDB) to host third party material. A Year and a half later, now that DDB does host third party material I’m interested to hear your thoughts on the points you make in that video. Do you still feel that it is bad for the industry and the hobby? Do you think it has strengthened a Monopoly DDB has? Do you think it weakens those hosted companies by forcing them to operate in an unfair marketplace (in the video you compare it to cuts taken by the likes of Amazon) or do you think it allows those third party publishers to reach a larger audience? I’ll ask again in another 1.5 years to see how this all shakes out!
Eric Heisler
2024-08-21 06:14:01 +0000 UTCThat makes sense! Paragraph 3 seems like a good use of Tell, Not Show. I also like your idea of mashing up the encounters to make things a bit more interesting - I was actually planning on using your Roll Twice rule with the Travel Scenery tables in A5e to spice them up a bit. Appreciate the answer and I’ll make sure to check out those resources!
Sam P.
2024-08-20 02:51:13 +0000 UTCHi Mike! I love all the nifty tools you have and as a software geek myself I’m always looking for ways to automate my prep and I love all your html tools. I do remember you had some sort of script that could generate 2 column spread pdfs from markdown files, but I can’t find that file. Does it exist somewhere? If not I’ll look into making one myself haha.
Carl Buford
2024-08-20 00:19:47 +0000 UTCHi Mike :-). One of the many things I like about FoF is how the general stat blocks really separate mechanics from flavour, giving much more flexibility and improvisation options. Do you think the same idea could work for spells (combat and non-combat), giving general spells that the GM can fill in during prep or at the table as it would fit the story?
Peter Hohenstein
2024-08-19 10:23:32 +0000 UTCHi Mike, thank you for another great month of content and best of luck with the City of Arches Kickstarter. I was watching the great video on how to make a A5E character and plan to watch the 2024 5E version soon. But I was wondering if it would be possible to make another video taking the created characters to level 3/5 as many campaigns start at a higher level. It seemed from your comment about Combat Maneuvers that it might be much more difficult to make a higher level character in A5E than 2024 5E?
Bo Thomsen
2024-08-19 08:48:26 +0000 UTCHey Mike, are you aware of the Cosmere RPG and if so, do you have any thoughts about it? It is a huge kickstarter (over $11 Mil) and still going. I am interested as I love the books that Brandon Sanderson writes, but am a little unsure about committing to the GM level ($295) on something that is a totally new system. Although... it does seem like many other d20 systems, such as 5e, Dnd, etc. Thanks so much! If it is good I do see myself running it, as I have players who also love the novels.
Slim Chance
2024-08-19 03:16:25 +0000 UTCWhat's your preferred level for Shadowdark players playing your annual one shot of Ravenloft?
Scott Miller
2024-08-19 00:50:31 +0000 UTCHi Mike, my question is, how do I run a carousing session? I hear they are supposed to be great, but I've not seen anything on how to actually run them, what they are supposed to achieve, and how to determine experience (if any?) from them. Do you have any links to such instructions? My googles have found nothing useful so far. Thanks for your help, your time and a great resource!
Unferth
2024-08-18 23:12:26 +0000 UTCHi Mike! I‘ll be DMing a new DnD game soon. My friend (veteran player and GM/DM of several systems, published adventure writer) will be bringing on his girlfriend (experience: one DnD one-shot); and they really want to play together. Nonetheless I feel there are some pitfalls to be avoided based on this asymmetry. What do you suggest I address during session Zero & have an eye on during game play, maybe even suggest they discuss among themselves? I did find some advice in the (by the way: extremely useful) Q&A database regarding meta gaming spoiling the fun for new players but that might not be the central issue. Thanks, Raoul
Raoul Wüllhorst
2024-08-17 05:25:44 +0000 UTCHey! Hope you’re doing well and I was glad to back the City of Arches kickstarter! I’m currently running Blackclaw and plan to follow your seeds afterwards for continuing the campaign. Of course I have and plan to throw in a bunch of homebrew beats and arcs based on my PCs but am generally following the module as written for the larger story. I noticed that on your “Notion” templates you had campaign notes for several of your other works. I was wondering if you had Blackclaw ones? Or any additional advice for running the level 5+ seeds/content?
Liam McManus
2024-08-16 18:13:45 +0000 UTCHey! New member here. Recently went to my first gencon and picked up materials for DCC. I am currently wrapping up my first campaign as a DM, ghost of saltmarsh (your guide has been a God send by the way) and am thinking of for my next trying to have the party of mostly new players try out this new system. Do you have any advice on changing up systems and how to not overwhelm newer players?
Christian Howe
2024-08-16 16:10:04 +0000 UTCYeah! As I get up in years, my tolerance for a lot of games can wane but it also matters how good the games are. Three four-hour games in a day is a lot. I might do it for one day of a convention but otherwise I'd stick to no more than 9 hours of gaming in a day depending on your own endurance. I'm not bad being up early so 8am games aren't the end of the world for me but I turn into a pumpkin about 10pm so I can't go much later than that. Most importantly, include some breaks in your day. Lunch, dinner, and other breaks if you can. So yeah, try not to overdo it. And drink lots of water!
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:55:19 +0000 UTCYep! Just about all the other ones I've tried have ways to limit what source material you use for character creation. Shard certainly does. Roll20 is going through an update so I don't know what they allow but I'm pretty sure you can limit source material by campaign. The same is true for Foundry. I don't know about Herolab. But yeah, this is a D&D Beyond problem more than other tools from what I've seen.
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:53:38 +0000 UTCI don't think we have to worry about it too much if we don't want to. You don't need a 4e-style spellplague event. You can just build new characters in the new system and go from there. You might also let the players retire their old characters and build new ones. It really depends on how tight to the story the characters were. Of course, if you want, you *can* have some sort of apocalyptic event that shifts the game over from one system to another. I might talk to your players before doing something like this, though, so they know its coming and don't suddenly watch their character atomized and rebuilt differently. So probably my best advice is talk to your players and see what they think.
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:52:28 +0000 UTCThank you! Yeah I think that was mostly it. I tie everything into the characters and work super hard to keep them interested. I even made them each dice towers customized to their characters and ordered their minis on HeroForge. Sigh!
Alex W.
2024-08-16 14:51:52 +0000 UTCI don't know if my ego can handle an exit survey like that. I think it might just be more constructive to do some self-analysis on your game and your style. I don't think its imperative that we do a deep dive into why people leave. You can't really do an anonymous survey with only a handful of people. You're likely to figure out who wanted what. You can always fall back to stars and wishes. What did they enjoy in the game? What would they want to see more of? But maybe the game just isn't for them. I think there's probably better self-analysis we can do on our own than trying to survey people who didn't like our games or left for other reasons.
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:50:25 +0000 UTCThat's up to you! How far can you take the prompt? For me, I could build entire campaigns off of some of those prompts or mash a couple of them together for great fun. There's no upper or lower limit. You could use a domain as a single scene in an existing game or build a 20th level campaign arc from them if you want. I built a 40 session arc from like twelve pages of a Shadowdark booklet with just some simple prompts and I hope to inspire the same sort of play with the City of Arches! Make the most of them to fit what you want for your own game.
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:48:13 +0000 UTCI love travel scenery! I haven't actually used the A5e stuff but I've used my idea of monuments in travel a lot – basically an interesting location between point A and B. I think its ok to have a little side quest at a location like this. Two trolls trying to get their idol back from angry fire mephits at a sinkhole. You can also just tell the players that this isn't a main event but a fun quest if they want to follow through. I like to add some sort of situation at a travel scenery location. Roll a couple of random tables and mix and mash up a couple of encounters. Maybe they see signs of something that passed by already. Maybe they get the idea something is coming but can choose to avoid it. It gives the players some fun decisions to make. Here's an article on the topic: https://slyflourish.com/meaningful_random_encounters.html and a video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6NNchL-P5o
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:46:25 +0000 UTCYou can never really be sure. I try to expect about 45 minutes per scene and then try to gauge the rest but they almost always go longer than expected. But really, playtesting is the only way to be sure and even then different groups will have different timings. Sometimes you can do what I do in my Ravenloft game which is have the ending come to the characters at a set time no matter where they are. You can't do that all the time though.
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:42:49 +0000 UTCWoo! Good question! I have my new faux Trapper Keeper. It's a soft plastic three-ring binder. I have a bunch of three-ring plastic sleeves for the pages I keep in it and replace the pages with what I need. I ripped out some pages from the Lazy DM's Companion and Workbook as reference pages. I print dyson maps and throw them in there too. Other than that I have: - A stack of index cards - A stack of numbered initiative fold-over cards - Dice - Pens and pencils – enough to lend out to others - A Pathfinder dry-erase flip mat - Dry-erase markers - A small piece of cloth to wipe the dry-erase stuff. - A small bag of lazy RPG tokens (https://slyflourish.com/crafting_lazy_monster_tokens.html) - Little adhesive tabs I can use in my physical books If this was my serious go-bag for RPGs, I'd grab the Shadowdark quickstart books and a bunch of pregens I'll shoot a video on this. I think that'd be fun!
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:40:43 +0000 UTCHey! I'm running Shadowdark at Gamehole Con too! I'm running the dungeon from cursed scroll 3. Unfortunately I don't know any great mechanics for foods and cooking. You might check out on the Shadowdark discord server and see what ideas they have. Shadowdark doesn't seem like the system for a lot of sub-mechanic systems. You might just include some ability checks and food buffs based on other elements in the book. Foods that offer the equivalent of spells or other bonuses. Hope to run into you there!
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:37:13 +0000 UTCWe use phones with Discord as our way to communicate between groups. We sometimes set up the camera so that someone can see the board but if you have laptops for everyone, the best thing you can do is ensure everyone has their own headphones and a single microphone for each location. Either that or boom mics on the headphones themselves can work. There may be a touch of feedback from this, though. What we do for our hybrid games is have a single mic and speaker in each room with multiple people and single people can have their own headphones and mic. It works well enough!
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:35:43 +0000 UTCSure! I think it can work great as it did with you. We have a little of that going on in my campaign where one of the characters built out his own little apothecary shop and shop owner who he is friends with. I'm not as good at integrating it into the story but I should! This idea of having players fill out small pieces of the campaign can work really well!
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:34:00 +0000 UTCI have a session zero checklist in the Lazy DM's Companion and also here in the Lazy GM's Reference Document: https://slyflourish.com/lazy_gm_resource_document.html#sessionzerochecklist Arrowed and LichLife on the SF Discord Server also passed this along which is very comprehensive: https://old.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/601awb/session0_topic_checklist_and_guide/
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:32:20 +0000 UTCI just updated my own Appendix N here: https://slyflourish.com/getting_ideas_for_dd.html
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:30:48 +0000 UTCThey are released!! https://slyflourish.com/lazy_5e_monster_building_resource_document.html#generalusestatblocks You're free to use them as described in the beginning of the document. Make sure you stick to what's in the document and don't dive into Forge of Foes itself – the material inside that book is still our copyright.
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:29:17 +0000 UTCSure! This is the idea of "fronts" or villains in our campaign covered in Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. Usually they're not hunting the characters directly because, if they're significantly more powerful, they'd just go kill them. But maybe they want something else. Strahd is bored and wants to see what they do. Other villains consider the characters no threat but are trying to acquire something the characters also acquire. When you're making a threat that looms over the characters, you have to ask yourself why they wouldn't just wipe them out. And if they're just leading them on, that can feel anticlimactic too. Like the characters have no agency over the situation. So usually my villains have some other goal in mind and the characters are in the way.
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:28:36 +0000 UTCHmm. The number one rule! I'll go with surprise. I like the disadvantage on initiative to surprised enemies. It's very simple and gets rid of a big pain point in vanilla 5e. But I have a lot of things I like off the top of my head: - Spell updates to conjure spells - Heroes feast! - Stunning strike - Paladin smite change - Exhaustion change - Changes to lucky - Changes to great weapon mastery and sharpshooter - The change to counterspell -
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:23:27 +0000 UTCI did experience this! We redid the carpet in our house which meant packing up all my books so we could get under the shelves. The nice thing was I expanded my shelves (!) to accommodate more books! Use lots of small boxes. Maybe a little hand trolley to move them around. I just lugged them into our storage area which is like 12 feet away and it was a huge hassle.
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:21:57 +0000 UTCMy best advice is to really narrow down what the session include – get them to the fun part as fast as possible – and see if you can break the kids up into smaller groups with separate GMs. More on this topic here: https://youtu.be/QhpiJezR7VE?t=1971s https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=110 https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=816 Some other thoughts: - Keep it low level - Keep battles simple - Try to break up the group into smaller ones with another DM Hope that helps!
Michael Shea
2024-08-16 14:20:24 +0000 UTCGood morning Mr. Shea. I'm going to my first gaming convention next month and I wondered how many ttrpgs I should sign up for? I usually only play 2x a month for about 3 hours a session, so I don't know if I have the stamina for several games. There are 3 games that I am very interested in, but they are all on the same day with an hour break between each. Starting at 10 a.m. and ending at 7 p.m. There's even another game I would really like to play that starts at 8 p.m. and ends at 11, but I know I'll be shot by then. How many games would you personally schedule to play in a day at a convention? There's so many different ttrpgs I want to try! Thank you. I hope you have a really nice Friday.
Tiffani
2024-08-16 07:34:04 +0000 UTCHello Mr. Flourish. You recently discussed different digital character builders on your show. A while back you mentioned one of the problems with DnD Beyond was the inability to indicate what character options are not available for your players. Do any of the other digital character builders that you have previewed recently allow the DM to limit what options are presented to the players?
Eric Feay
2024-08-14 21:19:13 +0000 UTCHi Mike, excited to see city of arches on Kickstarter, My question has to be about conversions. My group has been running a pathfinder campaign for about a year, and we decided that it wasn't for us anymore. We want to convert the game to a 5e campaign because we still really like the characters and story. I was wondering what advice you might have for undergoing such a process?
Step Back
2024-08-13 12:40:25 +0000 UTCHi Mike! Thanks so much for everything you do!! I recently found out a few players are planning on leaving my campaign and I’m pretty bummed about it. I am trying to convince myself it’s just because they’re new players and maybe the hobby just isn’t for them, which is totally fine, but I still think it might be good to ask for feedback. So here’s my question, because I’m considering doing this: if you were to give an exit survey to players, whether they’re seasoned players or new to the hobby, what questions would you ask? (Feel free to answer as if the survey would be anonymous or otherwise!) Thank you so much!
Alex W.
2024-08-13 04:01:32 +0000 UTCVan Richten's Guide to Ravenloft has a chapter of Domains, mini-campaign settings, not quite adventures but also not quite worlds. To run an adventure or short campaign in one of those domains, how long, and what levels, should a game go?
James Geluso
2024-08-13 00:45:32 +0000 UTCHi Mike! I’m planning on incorporating some of the mechanics from A5e into my next 5e campaign and had a question about Travel Scenery. How do you describe Travel Scenery for your players in a way that makes that scenery feel real without accidentally having your players think that scenery is a story hook they’re supposed to pursue. Feel free to answer this question system-agnostically if it would help. Appreciate any suggestions!
Sam P.
2024-08-12 22:29:25 +0000 UTCBesides timing multiple test plays of an adventure, how do you and other designers determine how long an adventure should take?
Kathy
2024-08-12 18:08:04 +0000 UTCHey Mike, I was suggested your two DM kit videos, and I like them since I've been trying to cut down what I carry since I normally run games at other places. I'd love to know or see if there are items or tools that have updated, replaced, or added since the last one.
Brandon Cole
2024-08-12 17:23:06 +0000 UTCHey Mike, I’m designing a Shadowdark module to run at conventions (specifically Gamehole Con) based on Delicious in Dungeon. I want to add some mechanics for cooking and specialized food. Any suggestions on rules or systems that handle food and/or cooking in TTRPGs?
Sam Erickson
2024-08-12 14:29:04 +0000 UTCHi Mike, two players from my in-person DND group will be moving to another country and I'm currently setting up owlbear rodeo to accomodate a hybrid in-person/online game. The idea is that people can show up at my place, or join online (Most likely, it will be six people in three different locations). You mentioned that you have a game with a similar setup. Do you have any tips? Especially, I'm worried about the audio. Everyone (the people who show up at my place) wearing headphones feels cumbersome, but with speakers there might be feedback issues.
sebastian rossböck
2024-08-12 09:28:47 +0000 UTCHail to my pal, Mike! I didn't disappear, I just watched quietly :) In our ongoing City of Arches campaign, I did the following stuff: I asked each player to write a two to three sentence description of three NPCs they met in the City of Arches, but as the DM, I will decide how they will relate to them/team. (This is one of the reasons why there were no Archmages or Archvampires :D ) It turned out even better than I expected, with some amazingly imaginative and interesting NPCs and I've been able to integrate several of them into the adventures brilliantly, but as a side effect, there is a slight expectation from the players that "theirs" when will show up. This is not a real problem (on the contrary, they feel more "ownership" of the City) but it does make me wonder: - Do you think it is a good idea to give even partial control to the players (not their characters) to involve them at a "meta-level" , out of character, in influencing or designing parts of the setting/campaign world? Keep up the good work/fun, I wait for the KS version for this setting book and as always, greetings form Hungary! Your pal: Rex/Gabor
Gábor Hegedűs
2024-08-12 07:47:54 +0000 UTCWhat would you recommend be covered in a Session 0 related to rulings during gameplay? How might you set expectations before the first session and what areas would you cover?
Nicknobreak
2024-08-12 00:25:06 +0000 UTCI love your previous recommendations of books, shows, and things that you are enjoying and finding inspiration within. What is your recent/current Appendix E of sources of inspiration?
redhawk2085
2024-08-11 18:29:42 +0000 UTCThe general use stat blocks in Forge of Foes are alone worth the price of admission - I use them ALL THE TIME and they've saved me a ton of prep work. Are there still plans to release these into the CC? If not, how do you feel about creators using that format to create new general-purpose stat blocks for commercial works?
Dan Layman-Kennedy
2024-08-11 06:08:36 +0000 UTCMike, you ever ran a game where the player characters are being hunted by some powerful dark nemesis? Love your take on how to use that as a tool to create some anxiety among the group, create a powerful narrative with the big bad, especially if this nemesis has the ability to take the form of anyone.
Craig Pressley
2024-08-10 23:53:15 +0000 UTCWhat is one rule that excites you about the new DnD 2024 rules update?
Great Diviner Games
2024-08-10 22:16:38 +0000 UTCI know I don't have as many books as you probably do, but I still have a lot of books... And I'm moving! Have you ever had to move your book collection? Any tips? One "small" box filled with 21 hard cover books is TOO HEAVY!
David Prothero
2024-08-10 20:48:05 +0000 UTCMike do you have any particular tips for running games with lots of players. I run a tween DND club at my local library and we average about ten kids a session. Plus we only have an hour. It can be difficult to get around the table enough that every kid feels like they got a shot. I've already scrapped initiative order in favor of simply going around the table, but I'm always looking for more ways to make it go faster. Thanks!
topher mehlhoff
2024-08-09 18:36:19 +0000 UTCHi Pete! I answered previous questions about short-form games here: https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=695 https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=2010 https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=1581 https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=1129 Hope those links help!
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 15:27:16 +0000 UTCOne could go through the painstaking process of adding tags to them but I think its really just faster to skim through them and find the one that works. I don't tag mine and it's not too hard to find what I need. Sometimes the act of organizing things takes longer than just finding it in the first place.
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 15:25:07 +0000 UTCHi June! Ben H below just had the same question! Check out the answer to his question.
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 15:23:40 +0000 UTCI won't really know until we start seeing it in play. I think there's definitely a power increase for characters. Whether we need to change the benchmark at all remains a question. I don't think so. I bet you'll want to use the optional bump at 11th and 17th level. Hit points on characters generally didn't increase so they're still just as squishy, and it's not like their saving throws and armor class went up much either. It's mostly about increasing damage and debilitating effects so that might have to be considered. It's possible the definition of the benchmark changes so it's less about a potentially deadly fight and more of a medium-hard fight but the benchmark has always been loose so I don't think we'll have to change it. We'll see!
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 15:23:21 +0000 UTCI don't have a great solution. You can find some NPC portrait creators on DriveThruRPG which let you buy a bunch of portraits at once. My friend Joe over at inkwell ideas has a bunch you can pick up. Other than that, I still generally google for it. It's not ideal.
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 15:21:06 +0000 UTCI am totally good with it! Absolutely!
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 15:12:34 +0000 UTCHere are some links to places where I've talked about chases: https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=155 https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=632 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrEaoocazjQ&t=2904s https://slyflourish.com/troublesome_quest_models.html https://slyflourish.com/wdh_chapter_4.html Hope those help!
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 15:11:47 +0000 UTCI think a good exercise is to come up with a list of ten or even twenty potential up-beats. Are there hidden holy shrines of light? Are there NPC resistance groups the characters can run into? Are there caches of treasure they can find? Come up with your own list of ten possible upward beats and roll on it to see what sort of ideas it brings up. Check out this list of twenty upward beats in a dungeon crawl for an example: https://slyflourish.com/beats_of_a_dungeon_crawl.html
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 15:09:35 +0000 UTCFor Shadowdark, I'd probably let the dice decide. On a D6, how hostile is he towards the characters from a 1 being curious to a 6 being truly hostile. Roleplay off of the result. What does Ixidain want that the characters can give him and he can't get himself? What does he want? Does he want to betray Titanya? Does he want to destroy Mugdulblub? Does he want a mysterious artifact for his collection? I think mixing those two things might help. Good luck!
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 15:08:06 +0000 UTCHi DC! Here are a couple of links that may answer this question: https://youtu.be/uXMWU6ORf30?t=2693s https://youtu.be/lB7-TEEFMCA?t=2883s https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=1581 Hope those help!
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 15:06:20 +0000 UTCOh cool. I had the impression the text was pretty locked. While I have your ear, suggestions include: a random table of odd equipment/notes/Memento style tattoos the PC could arrive with to hook them into the plot. One suggestion - a document that contains vague instructions to a campaign villain with a signature that’s scorched and unreadable like all the references to the nameless king.
Ryan McIntyre
2024-08-09 13:01:35 +0000 UTCI think GMs are just a special kind of person who loves organizing the game and building worlds. Often they're the most invested person in the game who just loves to play. It's a very different kind of game to GM but I love it – I love GMing more than I love playing a character. I think finding those sorts of people and then teaching them the ropes is probably the best approach. Who is most invested and wants to keep going? Get them to GM.
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 12:54:39 +0000 UTCI know WOTC has a program for after school stuff. Beyond that, I don't really know: https://dnd.wizards.com/resources/educators
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 12:53:21 +0000 UTCYes! And with digital versions of books being available, it should be pretty easy to do this. It's harder for small publishers like me so instead I try to put out a lot of my most vital material into an open CC license. That's one advantage of having the rules in the CC. Anyone can download those for free if they don't have access to everything else. Even the D&D Basic rules are free: https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/DnD_BasicRules_2018.pdf I hope they do this again with the 2024 rules.
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 12:52:44 +0000 UTCI haven't seen any problematic spells but a lot of the extra martial abilities mixed together with core class abilities are pretty crazy. We have a 4th level archer rogue who crits on a 19 and 20 and can add 5d6 total damage onto his shot so his crits are like 40 damage at 4th level. Crazy paladin smite type crits. But, so far, that's not too terrible. I can always add more monsters.
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 12:51:19 +0000 UTCThere's definitely text in the book to talk about where characters came from as part of their backgrounds. I think the arches are an easy way to bring people into the middle of a campaign, definitely. We'll look at this as we take another run at the text!
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 12:50:10 +0000 UTCHere are some links that may help! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDMiwd7IOPM&list=PLb39x-29puaoZke5BVk7fjyyyjWXcxCu1&index=6&t=3371s https://youtu.be/RIjCbgcFH6w?t=2955s https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=1039 https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=1546 https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=816 Hope that helps!
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 12:49:08 +0000 UTCI don't think there's really a clash between these two groups. I think Shadowdark is doing its thing while D&D 2024 is doing its thing. Sure, D&D 2024 will be more popular but that might even be a boon for Shadowdark since both games are so different and yet mechanically so similar. For decades D&D has raised the tide for other RPG boats. Hopefully it continues to do so without getting in the way. I think Shadowdark can succeed with continual good marketing, new ways to take the game in new directions that still hits its core ethos. More great products like Cursed Scroll 4, 5, and 6. Hopefully Kelsey isn't trying to push Shadowdark into something it's not and I don't see any indications of it doing so. I think its wildly successful and there's no reason it can't continue to be. I don't see anything that can suppress Shadowdark's sustainability because it doesn't need to sustain anything. The book is out. We own it. We can play it forever.
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 12:45:49 +0000 UTCIt's rare but sometimes I'll do this but not in a way where it matters to the rules or mechanics. Really, there is no same time in 5e. If something matters to that degree, you roll initiative and see who goes higher. You can use initiative anytime time is really a big issue. You can't, for example, ready an action before initiative begins and you can't attack a creature outside of initiative. Anytime one creature adversely affects another creature, it's time to roll initiative. At least that's how I see it.
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 12:42:02 +0000 UTCI honestly haven't given rangers a deep look so I can't say. I know there are plenty of other class-focused creators out there who will give it a good going over as the books become more available. I think EN World already has a huge thread about them too. I'm just not the guy to ask. As far as what rangers look like, I think you'd probably have to look at Aragorn, of course. Probably others. Again, I haven't given it a lot of thought.
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 12:40:34 +0000 UTCI'm surprised they don't have it already. I have a feeling, though, that $10 isn't nearly enough. Maybe they'd offer a set of books that way but all the books together are worth thousands of dollars. They're not going to put that into a $10 package. Maybe a $20 package. As far as what I consider acceptable – I don't think its acceptable to not offer a downloadable version of a digital book, like a PDF, as an alternative to renting it on D&D Beyond. Obviously that's not what WOTC wants but I think its what's best for the hobby. WOTC has a long track record of killing previous projects and access. They killed all the Dragon+ stuff just recently. They killed the 4e character builder. There's no reason to think D&D Beyond will remain the same indefinitely. If you're ok with it being a temporary platform, that's fine. But if you want to truly own the books, basically you need to own them physically.
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 12:39:14 +0000 UTCNot really because losing a spell is so harsh and the spells get harder to cast. I think spellcasters have more to do and martials still only get one swing no matter what but they don't lose their ability to swing when they miss. I don't really see any class imbalances.
Michael Shea
2024-08-09 12:36:39 +0000 UTCHi Mike, thanks for all that you do. Would you have any advice or thoughts on running RPG sessions in a short time frame, specifically one hour eg during a lunch break? (Me and some colleagues have been running games during work lunch breaks for about a year, D&D 5e and other systems, as campaigns and one shots. As ever always interested in your thoughts!)
Pete
2024-08-09 07:00:35 +0000 UTCHey Mike! My question is about Dyson maps: following your recommendation, I started using them for my locations and absolutely love them! I purchased the bundle of holding and have all of them on my local drive. I also use your excellent web catalog. However, I like to search for maps using keywords of what I need (“tower”, or “village”), and find myself having to go back to the Dyson blog, which is not very fast, but it contains all the descriptions he wrote for each map. Do you have a more streamlined workflow to find maps for your adventures? Thanks!
Gabe A.
2024-08-09 05:57:10 +0000 UTCWhat do you think of the current state of monsters challenges in comparison to the 5E24 PHB classes?
June Soler
2024-08-09 00:27:55 +0000 UTCHey Mike! First of all was super excited to see my quote on the Kickstarter page, really excited for the COA to get into the public! But for my question, now that you have read the 2024 PHB, do you anticipate that any of the forge of foes math might need to be tweaked or bumped up? I know characters are generally more powerful so giving some buffs to your cr table was something I was thinking about doing when the new book comes out! Thanks!
Ben Hodges
2024-08-09 00:25:02 +0000 UTCAre there resources you favor for NPC portraits? Particularly to avoid machine generated art. I know the old "search google" advice, but I'd say that more and more it returns generated pictures, particularly for portraits since there's so much to train on. Whether I search google or deviantart or any number of others I'm aware of, the only reliable metric for "is this human-made" is "was this made before 2020".
Joe Mitchell
2024-08-08 22:31:12 +0000 UTCLong time fan, first time question! I am a professional DM and has been running paid games for four years now. What are you feelings about paid DMs running your products like Grendelroot, Fantastic Adventures, or the upcoming City of Arches? Is this something you would be OK with, provided credit is given? Thanks!
Arseni Kritchever
2024-08-08 21:59:59 +0000 UTCThanks for being so inspiring. What are the best chase mechanics for 5e? I’m having trouble making them fun and exciting and determined by good play rather than just the randomness of dice rolls.
Reuben Taylor
2024-08-08 21:01:55 +0000 UTCMy campaign has unintentionally become very Grim and I’m struggling with too many downward beats as the party flee a city in constant darkness and overrun by shadows and demons, any tips to lighten the mood or help hasten their escape without looking like a cop out?
Clym Arnold
2024-08-08 20:51:15 +0000 UTCHowdy Mike, Gloaming campaign. PCs wrecked Ixidian's cult at the mud pit and got caught. I've never run a green dragon before. How would you run Ixidian? Seems like a green dragon would rather manipulate than outright fight, but "manipulating" the players is much stickier than manipulating NPCs off screen. Plus I don't have the INT or CHR of a green dragon IRL, and I'm running for my friends haha.
JohnGalt
2024-08-08 19:56:30 +0000 UTCI run games several times a month in a limited time format - a mix of new and experienced players, all expecting an entertaining one-shot with premade characters provided. What tips or tricks would you suggest for preparing and running such games?
DC
2024-08-08 19:53:19 +0000 UTCWhat can GMs do to make gamesmastery appealing to new players? That seems like the absolute most important thing for the long term health of the hobby, but I don't feel like I've seen enough exploration of how GMs can try to develop those skills in particular.
Isaac (Conflux Creatures)
2024-08-08 19:25:52 +0000 UTCHi Mike. A few years ago, you were kind enough to give out funds for roleplaying clubs, etc. at schools. We used these funds to purchase core books and starter sets and host a couple of gaming parties. Do you know of any other methods or organizations that our school club could use to receive funds, products, or tools?
Christopher Willson
2024-08-08 19:19:14 +0000 UTCHey Mike, should TTRPG book prices change according to each countries economy? Meaning, a book should be cheaper in Brazil than in the US (shipping not included). Thanks.
Drunken Yoda
2024-08-08 18:38:44 +0000 UTCHey Mike! I'm in the process of prepping for my first large-scale A5E campaign, and I was wondering if you've identified any problem spells? From what I've seen, they've fixed the problematic WOTC spells, but I'm curious to know if you've identified anything in you campaign that I should look out for. Thanks!
Unfrozen Caveman Roleplayer
2024-08-08 17:05:02 +0000 UTCFor CoA did you consider (or will the full version include) advice on PCs joining the party as archway arrivals? Not just as background flavour, but as a start or mid campaign event. It seems like something a player may want to do. “Hero with Amnesia” is a bit of an annoying trope, but if the setting rules mean that the player and DM can play things out without anyone needing to know the real origin of a PC, it could work. Perhaps if the player is advised to focus their character development on discovering who they want to be, and not obsessing over their origin. Perhaps would need some rules for rolling random skills and tools for background proficiency. As an aside, playing Shadowdark in CoA will be perfect for player death. “As you mourn the loss of your compatriots, a portal you hadn’t noticed opens and a random person stumbles out. You recognize the heroic spark in their eyes…”.
Ryan McIntyre
2024-08-08 16:56:46 +0000 UTCI’ve started running d&d at my local library, and the group is mostly kids between the ages of 8 and 11. One of the parents has expressed an interest in running games down the road, and I’m hoping to cultivate a few new DMs from the party eventually. In the meantime, do you have any experience or guidance for running d&d for younger players, or any tips that might make a large group of younger players easier to handle?
Martyn French
2024-08-08 16:36:12 +0000 UTCGood day, sir! The Ennie Gold Medal run of Shadowdark celebrating it as an elegantly efficient product has certainly captured the GM zeitgeist. On the flip side, the 5E24 PHB release and the social media tsunami analysis is exciting players to dissect all of the nuances and differences from 5E14. It feels like we are at a crossroads tug of war in the hobby right now with the GM & player roles, which will only become more complicated with the monetization initiatives and the specter of digital dependency. As we are both Shadowdark GMs who want to see the game continue to succeed, what do you see as the challenges that may suppress its sustainability, so that we can look to overcome or prepare for them, and make it something to be more than a system that mainly appeals to a bunch of 5e refugee GMs?
Cloaker
2024-08-08 16:32:48 +0000 UTCWhat (if anything) do you do to acknowledge that player and enemy actions are all happening simultaneously? Is there ever a time where you tell a player "you can't do X because the other side is doing Y at the same time, and that just doesn't make any sense, even though the rules may allow it"? If so, how do you decide if/when to do that?
Luke Baumstark
2024-08-08 16:25:49 +0000 UTCMike, I want to know your thoughts on Rangers. Bob World Builder just put out an interesting video (and thanks for sponsoring him!!), 5e 2024 seems to have not improved their ranger much, and I don't know that MCDM is even trying to build one in Draw Steel. What are some clear Ranger examples in fiction and lore, and how would you build a class to capture that feeling in a TTRPG?
swingsetpark
2024-08-08 16:19:59 +0000 UTCWOTCs Digital D&D: What if it was a subscription service e.g., $10 a month gets you access to all the current books, $20 gets you the back catalog. Like Spotify for D&D. They could still sell the books (like vinyl records). My question is, would you find that any more "acceptable"?
Victor Gonzalez
2024-08-08 16:17:31 +0000 UTCHi Mike, loving your patreon and videos. In your Shadowdark campaign, have you noticed any power gaps at higher level for the caster vs martial characters? Or really any overpowered/underpowered class disparities?
James
2024-08-08 16:15:21 +0000 UTC
