June 2024 Sly Flourish Patreon Q&A
Added 2024-06-06 16:00:04 +0000 UTCWelcome to the Sly Flourish Patreon Questions and Answers thread for June 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
Thank you!
Laura
2024-07-05 13:58:06 +0000 UTCHi Steve! Sorry I missed you! It's definitely hard to try to outsmart your players, especially when there's so many of them. One option is to keep your overall plots more simple and direct instead of trying to be super crafty and elusive. Sometimes a big bad guy is just trying to take over the world. I love taking my villains and their motivations from great villains in fiction. Write down ten of your favorite villains and pick one or two of them out. Another way is to have multiple villains working at the same time so the characters and your players have a harder time keeping track of all three and what paths they are all working on. The book Dungeon World calls these "fronts" and its a good way to keep things complicated while still propelling the story forward. As far as NPCs go, try to put yourself into the shoes of the NPCs and think about what they would do and what they want. Put yourself into their personality and react as they would react. Hope that helps!
Michael Shea
2024-07-05 11:34:49 +0000 UTCHi Kush! I've written about distributing treasure here: https://slyflourish.com/awarding_magic_items.html I like to give out roughly one permanent magic item out per session so over a few sessions every character has something. You can focus the rarity on their level: 1st to 4th level – uncommon 5th to 10th level – rare 11th to 16th level – very rare 17th to 20th level – legendary Give magic items interesting flavor and lore based on your game world. Give magic weapons and armor a fun thematic daily-use spell effect so the weapon feels unique. More on that here: https://slyflourish.com/lazy_magic_items.html Thanks so much for your support and welcome to the hobby!
Michael Shea
2024-07-05 11:27:44 +0000 UTCHere are some thoughts: 1. Try running more battles with either abstract maps or theater of the mind. Not everything needs to be on a grid all the time. If your players aren't used to this, talk about how you plan to run it ahead of time. 2. Run easier battles. Not every battle needs to be this perfectly balanced scene or situation. Save the big hairy battles for boss fights. 3. It may be too late but stay at lower levels if you want a faster game. Things slow down the higher level the characters get. 4. Run even if all six can't make it. You'll find more things get done if you have four or five players. These aren't ideal situations but beyond tweaking the dials and these, I don't have great advice for making battles go quicker.
Michael Shea
2024-07-05 11:24:55 +0000 UTCTwo things worry me about a situation like this. First, dream sequences can feel like a waste since they're not actually doing anything to propel the plot forward in the dream. Instead, why not just have a real life situation take place that the characters can get involved in? Second, forcing a big bad to obliterate them with an AOE can feel anticlimactic. The players feel like they never had a choice. Quick dream descriptions or other sorts of portents about a BBEG are fine but forcing them into a fight they can't win in a situation that doesn't actually move things forward may not be the best way. Instead, focus on what makes the game fun. Choose a small situation the characters can get involved in. A deep booming voice echoes from above "I have returned!" and a sinkhole opens up spilling out ancient-armored skeletons!
Michael Shea
2024-07-05 11:22:25 +0000 UTCMy plan is to cut off the sidequests as much as possible and narrow the scope of the adventure down to the main point they've been working towards. It means smaller locations, fewer or no side locations, abstracting travel if needed, and aiming always for the conclusion. It can be tough and some of it might require hard conversations with the players about getting to that end and cutting off side quests. Honestly, we'll see how it goes. Generally when I start to reach the end of a campaign, I can feel when it's reaching its natural end and I start to do that narrowing of the focus.
Michael Shea
2024-07-05 11:19:56 +0000 UTCThat's a big question! I don't have fantastic advice for it other than to try to step into the shoes of the NPC. Who are they? What do they want? How would they respond to the character? What secrets might they impart? How do they react to flattery, threats, or deception? For a sense of pace, stick as much as you can to the things needed to move the story forward, to move the scene forward, and get to the next one. Hope that helps!
Michael Shea
2024-07-05 11:18:17 +0000 UTCHeya Mike, I'm a very new DM, and a fairly recent sub to sky flourish. The tools I get from this membership have been insanely useful for my DMing ventures so far. I have a question though. The campaign I am currently running has all my PC's at level 2. they just busted into a prison and are about to get to the loot after beating the warden. How do I properly set up the loot to make them feel rewarded without making them OP? I am so completely lost on loot it's not even funny. Thanks a bunch! Kush
Kush poddar
2024-07-04 06:02:10 +0000 UTCHi Mike, Do you have any advice on keeping a good pace when running a regular game with a large adventuring group? My campaign has six players and I frequently find that combats run quite long even with "dials" adjusted for speed and that the game can bog down in debates over next steps. I often find I have to crowbar in cliffhangers earlier than intended because I didn't have time to run all the scenes I planned. As an aside, I'm a big fan of your work and your notion template has been a game changer for me in terms of game prep and ease of reference. Really appreciate all the great content you've made and am very much enjoying the podcast! Regards from Scotland, Dougal
Dougal Cochrane
2024-07-03 22:07:09 +0000 UTCI have a group of about four mostly new players and am considering the opening to their adventure, not sure where I’d heard about opening with a “danger room” type scenario, but someone smart suggested it as a way of getting the players aquatinted with the system and their abilities without the possibility of a TPK I’m considering opening with the players in a shared nightmare where they fight the evil headmistress of the orphanage they’re all in (leaning hard into that classic orphan trope) both to acclimate them to combat and to foreshadow the story and give them some guidelines I’m considering having the big bad obliterate them by activating an AOE with a McMuffin and then they awake soaked in sweat to begin their adventure I like that it gets them immediately into the action, and I like that it foreshadows for a group that might need a little more direction but Question is; is this too much for new players? Is preordaining the ending of the fight a bad precedent?
Harkness Granger
2024-07-03 05:23:00 +0000 UTCHi Mike, you mentioned recently that you're trying to keep the pace of your Shadowdark game moving for a player who has an end date. Could you please share more about how you do that? Context: a game where we don't get to play that often. I love detours and side quests (and so do my players, who will grab most plot hooks), and feel I need to focus more on making sure the group can make quick progress through the main themes/"plot" of the published adventure. What can a GM do to both keep it fun and keep it moving?
Laura
2024-06-30 14:53:56 +0000 UTCHi Mike, keep up the great work on patreon and youtube videos! I struggle with conversations between PCs and NPCs. There seems to be the small talk (Hey, how are you) and then repeating of information everyone already knows (Hi Mr. Oracle, the quest giver said you were the one to ask about my background story everyone knows already, but here it is again). In short, I think the NPC interactions are feeling flat. Any suggestions to help liven up NPC conversations and how to navigate quicker through the mundane and repetitive? Thanks!
James
2024-06-29 13:35:45 +0000 UTCThanks, I'll look into it!
Cosmonaut
2024-06-28 16:45:07 +0000 UTCIn my experience players aren't any more or less likely to flake out because they know there's an on call player in the wings. If players want to play, they'll find a way to play. Some players are just busy and can't commit to 100% attendance. Others have worked it into their lives. But really, it depends on your specific players. Some are just flaky. Some aren't quite as interested in the game as they seem. If you find that one of your players misses more often and you have a really excited on-call player, you can ask them if they'd like to step back to being an on-call player. You're doing the right thing by talking to them about it! Thank you so much for the complements!
Michael Shea
2024-06-28 13:19:19 +0000 UTCI think sometimes we have to be explicit about how things work. Before the game or during a session zero you can clarify this exactly. Don't beat around the bush. "NPCs in this game are living beings, not dialog trees. Behave with them as though you're behaving with a real person." I just did this one in my own game: "This game is going to be very flexible for you to seek our your own goals. There are big threats going on but there won't be a dial of urgency. If there is, I'll be sure to tell you". Being direct with our players can help a lot I think. https://slyflourish.com/getting_player_feedback.html
Michael Shea
2024-06-28 13:16:53 +0000 UTCIf someone drops out because the game isn't for them, I think we best let them drop out. I've definitely had players drop in and out because a game wasn't for them. Sometimes its ugly. Sometimes it's fine. Not everyone's GM style is suitable for every player and vice versa. I think coming up with a system to cycle through and try players out to find the ones you think work best for your style and the rest of the game can be a big help. As far as getting players to compromise, I think you have to do it the same way you get anyone to compromise. Find the common things they want and try to find ways to give them more of what they need without stepping on the desires of yourself and other players. It's definitely tough!
Michael Shea
2024-06-28 13:14:40 +0000 UTCI think my best recommendation is to pick up a copy of Waterdeep City Encounters and use it to generate lots of situations every time the characters wander around the city. It's a fantastic book and a great way to make a city feel alive: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/251816/Waterdeep-City-Encounters The paper copy is worth picking up. It's a fantastic book and a model for me for random encounters in Ruins of the Grendleroot and the City of Arches.
Michael Shea
2024-06-28 13:12:32 +0000 UTCFantastic question! Two reasons: legacy and ease. RPG publishers have to send PDFs to printers to make print books and its pretty trivial to make a digital version of the PDF to sell online. So they do that. But they also do it because everyone else is doing it too. I'm a huge proponent of including ePub versions of RPG books. They're self-contained files that display on just about any platform and scale to the platform's interface. ePubs can look good on phones, tablets, e-readers like a Kindle, or PCs. They're easier for accessible tools to read aloud. They're an open format. But few publishers know how to export and build an ePub. It takes skilled effort and time and not a lot of people use them so its often not worth their effort. Every book I release that I can, I release with ePub. The Lazy DMs Workbook and Companion aren't out on ePub but many of the tables are in HTML and other formats. But all of my other books include an ePub verison that I hand-code myself. ChatGPT and I wrote a script that can convert PDF to an extremely messy ePub to help me read sourcebooks on my phone. You can find the code here: https://github.com/mshea/useful_scripts/tree/main/PDF%20to%20ePub It takes some coding effort to get it working and the output still sucks but it can be better than trying to read a 8.5" by 11" PDF on an 4" screen.
Michael Shea
2024-06-28 13:09:12 +0000 UTCHi Jason! I think Stars and Wishes are a great way to get feedback: https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/blog/stars-and-wishes This article has more about this: https://slyflourish.com/getting_player_feedback.html I am also a huge fan of campfire tales: https://slyflourish.com/campfire_talk.html This focuses more on helping you understand the characters but its a good way to see what the players are enjoying as well. I don't know if I'd be direct in asking how you want to improve. You'll either get blank stares or some uncomfortable conversations. Instead, ask what they've been enjoying and what they want to see more of.
Michael Shea
2024-06-28 13:03:01 +0000 UTCI totally do this so don't feel bad. One trick is to just give yourself a minute to read over the stat block before you run it. Just 60 seconds can help you remember things. Also, read the stuff above actions. A creature with tremorsense can make a big difference and its easily missed. If you're worried about it ahead of time, take a 3x5 note card and jot down the important bits just so you don't forget them. Keep that in front of you. But if you forget them, that's ok. Give yourself permission to add in stuff later on if you forgot it. You can even explain the weird shift to players if you feel you need to. I often forget legendary actions so I have the legendary monster just nuke them on one turn with all of their actions at once. If I get side-eye from my players, I explain why I did that. But yeah, we miss stuff sometimes. Forgive yourself!
Michael Shea
2024-06-28 13:00:44 +0000 UTCI'll definitely consider this but I'll give you some thoughts right now too. It'll largely depend on the adventure but I like to start by reading the overall story of the adventure. How is it supposed to work? What is the structure like? Is it a sandbox? Is it a tightly focused story? How is the arc of the adventure supposed to take place? Sometimes I'll see problems right away, like I did with Vecna Eve of Ruin and Rime of the Frostmaiden. But sometimes I don't recognize the problems until I get deeper into it like the issues with Tomb of Annihilation. That's why I say we can't really know how an adventure is going to run until we run it. Some big questions to ask are: - How brittle is this adventure? Can it fall apart with one decision or discovery? - How much agency does the adventure give to the characters? Are they just riding a ride or actually making choices? - How easily can I change things up in the adventure and still get benefits from it? - What parts of the adventure do I think I'm going to have to change? How many are they and how hard will they be? There's probably more but that's off the top of my head. Great question!
Michael Shea
2024-06-28 12:56:15 +0000 UTCHey Mike, I'm take part in two weekly RPG groups. My Shadowdark group is wrapping up out roughly nine month campaign in the next few weeks and I'm taking over to DM the next one. In addition to the DM, we have five players at the table, but we only get all five to a given session about once a month - we will still play with as little as three players, so it's rare that a week is completely skipped. Because of this though, I'm implementing your on-call list strategy. I'm starting with one player on the list to feel it out a bit, and the person joining is very excited about it. She is very happy to be an on-call player too, which was something I was initially worried she’d feel was off-putting. (I sent her your article as a way to help explain the concept. Thank you!) My other weekly group is starting a Pathfinder 2e campaign (I'm not thrilled about it, but that's beside the point.) They are resistant to the idea of an on-call list because they feel it allows people to flake because there is someone who can take their place. This group more frequently skips weeks because as few as one player can't make it. In your experience, are players in groups with on-call members more likely to flake knowing they have less chance of jeopardizing the game that week? Big fan, love all that you do, the patron-exclusive podcast is well worth two extra dollars a month, and I'm excited for the City of Arches Kickstarter campaign! Thanks for everything, Michael Putlack
Michael Putlack
2024-06-28 04:41:28 +0000 UTCMike! Thanks for sharing your wisdom and all things you have done, and continue to do for the TTRPG community! I know you've had some content about sharing information with your players but my question specifically is, how do you encourage your players to leave behind the "videogame mentality" when they come to the table? For some context, I have a player that seems unable to understand that there is no dialogue tree for every NPC they encounter. This also creates issues with the plot progression since the player thinks every NPC they encounter will give them the exact answer they're looking for and will hand hold them to the next clue. Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
frecapone
2024-06-28 02:16:40 +0000 UTCHey Mike! How do you handle flaky players? Like, ones that might drop a game out of the blue because it doesn't suit their tastes instead of reaching a compromise? This is a DM experience question... Or I guess another way to put it is, how do you get different players with different tastes to compromise?
mAc Chaos
2024-06-27 02:49:09 +0000 UTCHey Mike! Right now I'm running my first campaign, a semi-sandbox take on Dragon Heist inspired by the Alexandrian Remix. My question is this: What tips do you have for using background NPCs, rumors, and other similar tools to make an urban environment feel more alive and reactive? I'm specifically asking about atmosphere and flavor, since I think I'm doing okay at designing adventures based around the consequences of previous actions.
Cosmonaut
2024-06-26 22:17:13 +0000 UTCI have a question which is mostly just me whining, but why are TTRPG book pdfs formatted in the worst possible way for almost any device you might want to read them on?
David Sowa
2024-06-26 21:00:09 +0000 UTCI just wrapped up my current campaign, and I really enjoyed using the "One Year Later" montage. Thanks for your advice on that from last month. My question now is centered around seeking ways to improve from my players. What are your thoughts regarding soliciting that kind of feedback from the players, and then integrating their input going forward?
Jason Kemp
2024-06-25 14:23:52 +0000 UTCBernie here! During combat, I tend to get very confused when reading the monster statblocks (I may have a -1 INT when playing with spellcasting monsters). If I drop a monster that I didn't plan to run in advance, I tend to forget special attacks, traits, etc. What advice do you have for handling statblocks on the fly?
Bernie the Wordsmith
2024-06-24 22:45:03 +0000 UTCGreetings! I was re-watching your rankings of the adventures you've run for 2014 5e and that led me to do some searching on your website and I found your article titled "Reading Published Adventures" from 19 February 2018. I really enjoyed this article because I often hear you talk about what work you have to do to make a campaign work for you and it makes me wonder what your process is and how you evaluate an adventure and find the problematic areas. Would you consider doing a video or maybe series of videos of this evaluation process when selecting your next adventure/campaign? I think new DMs (like myself) might find great value in such an exercise.
ZadokTheWise
2024-06-22 22:29:34 +0000 UTCthanks, that is as I was thinking of doing things, glad to see it confirmed :-)
Peter Hohenstein
2024-06-21 13:42:07 +0000 UTCHi Spike! I love revealing secrets during combat. The characters can see things while they fight. The villains might say something. Characters might notice something about the environment in which they fight. Intelligent magic items might reveal some information. Visions of the past or future may flow into their minds. Here's an exercise: come up with ten ways secrets and clues might be revealed during combat.
Michael Shea
2024-06-21 13:41:48 +0000 UTCI am coming up with them on the spot. I don't give my Sunday game a lot of thought until I do the prep show. The more we get our minds limber for hammering out secrets, the easier it becomes. Also, don't hunt around for the perfect secret. Drop in those that come to mind. Quantity over quality!
Michael Shea
2024-06-21 13:40:37 +0000 UTCStand-by players still have their own characters and they level up alongside the other characters. They shouldn't have any disadvantage for not being there given that they're an on-call player. If they're not there for a while, consider even giving them a magic item choice if they cross tiers. Stand-bys can still be part of the story, absolutely. Ideally if you know they're coming to a game you can put some focus on their character.
Michael Shea
2024-06-21 13:39:46 +0000 UTCyeah, this is a big problem with things like traps. I don't have a great answer. You'll definitely give things away if you ask your clarifying questions but maybe that's ok – particularly if their characters might notice something weird about the pond. There's not a great way to clarify questions without putting the players focus on something they might not have been focused on.
Michael Shea
2024-06-21 13:37:56 +0000 UTCI'm definitely a fan of having core abilities of a monster that look like spell effects instead of direct spells. Things like "arcane blast" actions. There are a couple of things to consider, though: 1. They typically can't be countered. You could houserule that they can be if you want. 2. They often attack AC instead of saving throws so high AC characters have a big advantage. 3. It's not clear if they count as a spell for other character abilities that do things with spells. Again, like counterspell, you can houserule them. 4. You can always give them spells. Often caster monsters have both spell-like actions *and* spells. Overall, I like spell-attack-style monsters more than ones with big spell lists. If you like the spell-list versions of monsters, the Monstrous Menagerie does it like this and they're great. They have all the details filled out. If you prefer the more spell-attack style monsters, Tales of the Valiant uses these style monsters. So we have lots to choose from!
Michael Shea
2024-06-21 13:36:19 +0000 UTCI think you yuck their yums. Work on a set of specific character options for a given campaign instead of allowing everything. I talked about this more here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2484s&v=E0kB5comOTU&feature=youtu.be
Michael Shea
2024-06-21 13:32:51 +0000 UTCHi there! Thank you so much for the support! I haven't seen Dragonix's Character Options so I can't speak to it unfortunately. I think you might have a conversation with your players about dropping in things like this and being willing to rebalance them if things get out of hand. I think this is a conversation we should have no matter what ruleset we're using. Sometimes things are just broken and need fixing.
Michael Shea
2024-06-21 13:31:48 +0000 UTCI think you give them lots of chances to persuade people but make it clear that some NPCs are just not going to be persuadable. Make that clear to the player outside of the game so they understand that this is the case. Also, make it very clear during the game "looking into this NPC's steely eyes, you're confident you cannot persuade them". Then put in *lots* of NPCs they *can* persuade. Knowing they'll be persuaded helps you streamline where you think the story will go. It's a given at that point.
Michael Shea
2024-06-21 13:30:35 +0000 UTCI think I'd let the game go a few sessions with more local problems and see where it leads. A big bad villain or a core plot may show up a few sessions in. One of the problems with players coming up with goals is often it's six different goals in six different directions. It may take a few sessions for things to solidify into one clear direction. Give it a few sessions and keep your eyes open and a main campaign plot might form up. You can also think about your main villains – pick three of them and plop them into your thoughts. Some might manifest into something the players want to deal with, some might not.
Michael Shea
2024-06-21 13:00:34 +0000 UTCWe don't have to have a shining moment like that every game for every character. The more we keep the characters in our minds, the more we might find a spontaneous opportunity for such an event to take place. In the same way we abstract secrets from the method of their discovery, we can abstract our ways to highlight character abilities from the moment of contact. Keep track of things like that in your character notes and if the opportunity arises, throw those swarms at the characters and see what happens!
Michael Shea
2024-06-21 12:57:58 +0000 UTCThere are a few things to unpack here. First, just because they might not be doing something wrong doesn't mean they're the right players for your group. We don't have to play with anyone we don't want to play with. In my experience, it's usually harder to get min-maxers to stop min-maxing. That's the sort of game they like to play. You can take them aside and have a conversation with them about it but I don't know how far that will get you. My trick to break min-maxers is to run a lot of theater of the mind combat. Typically theorcrafting players hate it when they don't have a fixed chessboard-style battle. I usually use that as a way to filter out people who aren't going to like my style of gaming before the campaign begins, though. Other tricks for getting players into roleplaying may help but it's not going to deal with that 22 AC: - Use campfire tales to ask them what they think about the current situation and where their mind goes. - Ask them to describe their abodes when they go back to their home base. What does their room look like? - Ask them to describe their killing blows. - Ask them to describe interesting physical characteristics of monsters. More here: https://slyflourish.com/empowering_player_storytelling.html https://slyflourish.com/stay_in_the_fiction.html https://slyflourish.com/what_does_your_room_look_like.html https://slyflourish.com/campfire_talk.html https://slyflourish.com/getting_player_feedback.html
Michael Shea
2024-06-21 12:56:00 +0000 UTCHi Ken! I do not. It's common among creators to recognize that influences creep in from everywhere, especially great fiction. Ideas aren't copyrightable and the best ideas are often mixtures of things already done. I wouldn't worry about accidentally copying an idea you've run into before. Just don't take their text or their art and you should be fine.
Michael Shea
2024-06-21 12:49:52 +0000 UTCHey Mike, Any advice on revealing secrets and clues during combat? I run short two hour sessions because that works best for my players. However sometimes combat take up the whole session so it harder to reveal secrets.
Spike Hemphill
2024-06-20 23:44:35 +0000 UTCI enjoy your weekly game prep but am amazed by the speed at which you come up with your secrets. Are you generating them on the spot or do you think about the game during the week and only just then commit them to writing?
BaconDog
2024-06-20 03:15:10 +0000 UTCHi Mike :-). Several times you have spoken about having a few 'stand-by' players for your campaigns who can fill in when regular players can't make it. I'm hoping to get to something like that myself, a few practical questions about this. For instance, do the stand-by's use their own characters or characters from the missing regulars? If their own, do you let the stand-by's level up together with the regulars to keep the group balanced? Do the stand-by's feel part of the campaign, and if not, can that give problems? Any other practical things for playing with stand-by players? edit Friday 21/6: I just managed to catch up with this week's Lazy RPG talk show and realized you talked about this, but I guess these questions still stand for me... For instance, I like the analogy to Knightrider and how this works better with stand-ins, but how will this work with published campaigns?
Peter Hohenstein
2024-06-19 15:54:33 +0000 UTCHey Mike. Thanks for doing this every month! I wanted to ask about how to ask for details from players without giving things away. Sometimes I find myself asking clarifying questions about things the players do and I feel like doing so gives things away.. for example, let’s say there is a small pond, easy to walk around but might be a little annoying to a character to take the extra steps to walk around it. On the other side of the pond is a cabin. The players say “I walk to the cabin”, I feel like when I ask “do you walk around the pond or through it?” The players all of a sudden understand that there is something in that pond, so I shouldn’t go in there. Am I reading too much into this or is there something I can do to get the answer to my question without giving away potential surprises to the players.
Blake
2024-06-19 06:28:55 +0000 UTCHi Mike, can you outline the pros and cons of running the two types of monster stat blocks for 5e (spell slots vs. 1/day)?
Kristy Mac
2024-06-19 00:17:14 +0000 UTCThanks Mike for the very thoughtful response. If you read this Q on the show, be sure to flag that Uncaged has some absurdly cheap bundles on sale right now https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/306697 I haven’t had a chance to dig into them for Hags yet, but bought them all
Ryan McIntyre
2024-06-18 18:58:05 +0000 UTCHey Mike. Thanks for all your great content. What do you do if your players are smarter than you. All my NPCs and plot lines are picked apart easily by the players, who find holes in most of the in game logic. They rightfully question the decision making of the NPCs and I find it hard to keep up and give them logical reasons to back things up. Any advice?
Steve Mutlow
2024-06-18 17:52:11 +0000 UTCHey Mike! I'm starting a Tier 3 campaign set in a Ravenloft domain of dread. My group is chomping at the bit to use homebrew classes, such as the Alternate classes by LaserLlama, which seem to be widely popular across the community. They also want to pull in elements from other source books like Wildemount and Dragonlance to build their characters. I want to give my players creative freedom, but I'm not confident at keeping the game balanced when it comes to homebrew. How do I not yuck their yum?
ChickyBisky
2024-06-18 17:28:12 +0000 UTCHey Mike, longtime lurker on your Youtube vids, Figured it was about time I showed some support for all the awesome content you produce. You make the lives of all GMs just that little bit better! I was curious if you had ever checked out Dragonix's Character Options: Talents. They are like mini feats, but you get one at 1st level followed another every 3 levels. I just wanted your take on the Homebrew as a whole, as it fits that - "Lets make the Character feel unique and different" but I worry that they may make things unbalanced at later levels. Do you have a way of going about balancing homebrew at the varying levels of play?
Frostedwyrm
2024-06-18 03:58:42 +0000 UTCThanks Mike, this was a really great article.
DnDBT Joe
2024-06-17 12:23:08 +0000 UTCI have a player who is enjoying being an eloquence bard, especially using persuasion, which, with the eloquence features, expertise, and a high charisma modifier can reliably produce some really high roles. How do you recommend DMing with a character that is so persuasive without nerfing a signature feature that the player enjoys so much?
redhawk2085
2024-06-17 01:38:18 +0000 UTCHi Mike, Recently joined as Patron, very grateful for all your work and how it helps me improve my game. I'm now starting a new campaign, one in which I want to adapt Proactive Roleplaying, i.e. I create a world and setting, my players create characters within that world with their own goals, and I create the campaign around them achieving their goals while encountering the world and its factions etc. There's a great book from Jonah & Tristen Fishel about this setup: it's very simple, yet it seems much more interesting to me than to have me create a plot that my players might not care much for and then trying to mix my character's goals into is as subplots. Now with a more open-ended campaign like this, where the big bad isn't known from session 1 and the campaign can go basically wherever the players want it to go, do you have advice on how to handle ending a campaign? Should we agree on a clear endgoal by the time all player goals are known (i.e. before we start play), or should we keep playing and figure out an endgoal during play, or should we just keep playing until we all agree to end it? I'm a bit worried about the game simply petering out at some point if it goes on for too long and would like to prevent that, but not sure how. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Bram Bos
2024-06-15 20:02:43 +0000 UTCI was listening to your recent "High Value Prep" Patreon Podcast. I'm having a bit of a conflict with creating opportunities for each of my six characters to have their moments of connection without feeling like I'm railroading. A quick example: Referring to "Their Mechanics" from your article. I have a Swarmkeeper in my party and there is a room the party might go into with a ton of swarms of spiders. Wouldn't it be awesome if she could roll a check and if it's high enough she can actually make them become friendlys? Or at least let her "fail-forward" and have them ignore her if she doesn't roll well? Great! But what if the party never goes into that room? I appreciate that some character prep is flexible, but many of my character prep ideas connecting to backgrounds and mechanics always end up being scene-specific. Thanks Mike
Delaney Nevins
2024-06-15 14:05:09 +0000 UTCIf it had ToV, LUA5e and others, it would be even more amazing. I like the "printer-friendly" version that looks the most like the vanilla 5e sheet, but wish it had the skills displayed like LUA5e. Alas, I believe it is just a 1-person passion project.
Jacques of Hearts
2024-06-14 23:19:04 +0000 UTCHi Mike, Keep up the great work! I'm running a roleplay-focused campaign in the classic sword coast setting with my players, but now we have two new guys in our group who are really focusing on min-maxing their characters. I don't blame them - they are playing according to the rules and are really nice guys, but sometimes I feel bad for the other players, because when they started they came up with intriguing backstories, weaknesses and imperfections for their characters, and now our new AC 22 paladin is just throwing every monster around the room like nothing. Any tips on how I can motivate the "Min-Maxers" in our group to get more invested in roleplaying and character interactions, instead of just picking the most effective options during level up? I can hardly remove them from the group because technically they are doing nothing wrong...
Martin Sekura
2024-06-14 21:30:33 +0000 UTCThanks. We are keeping it loose so we can pivot. I would be up for going full A5E though we are using D&D Beyond so I feel like going full-A5E would have some building required in D&D Beyond. I honestly would need to look into it more closely to be sure.
George PR
2024-06-14 18:40:58 +0000 UTCHi Mike. When writing commercial products, do you worry about original content from other sources creeping in by accident? I've been wondering about creating a small "encounters" product, but after 40 years of consuming content from a multitude of games, media and websites, I can't be certain that some of my ideas didn't originally come from a source I've entirely forgotten about. Do you have any methods for mitigating that?
Ken Ball
2024-06-14 14:37:47 +0000 UTCThat's an outstanding question and I'm probably not the guy to answer it. I think this could be a fine question for the Workshop. I don't know if hags are handled in the various Uncaged books, but I'd be surprised if they weren't and they might have a better take on hags than the standard. I think there are a few things we might do to make hags less problematic: - Make them richer and deeper instead of just bad guys. Are all hags evil? Why? What motivates them? Why are they *right*? - What treatment of the world pushed them into this form? How can we be sympathetic to the hag's plight? - Not all hags are cursed women. Some hags, like the night hag, are actually fiendish. Why not throw some male hags into the mix? Again, I'm no expert and being a 50+ year old cis het white dude probably means I'm not the guy to answer the question. But I think it's a good question to ask. Maybe bring it up on the Discord server and see what other folks think!
Michael Shea
2024-06-14 14:02:23 +0000 UTCI spent some time with it after you posted it. I think it has a lot of advantages but I really wish it had legal files for other 5e systems like Tales of the Valiant or Level Up Advanced 5e. I'll probably talk about it on the show!
Michael Shea
2024-06-14 13:58:44 +0000 UTCI haven't had a lot of experience teaching kids how to play but we have others on the Sly Flourish discord server who have. It might be a good conversation to bring up there or search for as I think we've had the conversation before. I have experience running D&D for people with autism – really one person in particular. I think its important to remember that each person, neuro-divergent or not, are individual with their own needs and desires. These might be more stark with people with higher degrees of autism and it's best to understand how they work, what they need, and what works for them. In the case of the player I had, he would continually ask if he had done something wrong and it often threw players off who weren't even thinking about him at all. They became self conscious because they thought they had given that impression. For each player who joined, I would explain that we had a player who was autistic and would continually ask of they did something wrong for no particular reason and the answer was to just say "no, you're doing fine" and all was well. He needed that reinforcement. That's just that one case, though. Others have other needs. Breaks, the need to fiddle with something, other boundaries for themselves and the players around them. Figuring those out can be tough and might require some hard conversations but hopefully you all figure them out and it works out. Hope that helps!
Michael Shea
2024-06-14 13:57:24 +0000 UTCSounds awesome! I think trying to understand the motivation of the AI would be good. What does it want to achieve? An entity like this isn't going to think like a human being. Luckily, there are lots of examples we can consider – HAL 9000, the kid from AI, ex Machina, Her, and so on. It can also be fun to not exactly be an AI but a creature pulled and bound into this world from another plane that serves much the same purpose but isn't exactly just an AI. Thinking outside of our normal human perceptions is a lot of fun when it comes to different types of intelligences like this. Good luck!
Michael Shea
2024-06-14 13:45:07 +0000 UTCSorry! I haven't had a chance to take a look.
Michael Shea
2024-06-14 13:42:52 +0000 UTCSecret doors are most interesting when the characters discover them. I think it's fine to tell them that their characters discover something. In my experience, if you're describing it in the second person, players feel empowered even if they were the ones to discover it. You can also give them some details without saying exactly what they find. Perception doesn't tell them everything. More on that here: https://slyflourish.com/passive_perception.html I think the dust in the air, deep cracks in the walls, strange tiles that are a different color is a fine way to approach it. If it's being told through the eyes of the characters, its not just storytelling. They still have to make choices about what they do with the information they receive.
Michael Shea
2024-06-14 13:42:36 +0000 UTCDyson maps can be sort of cramped so I almost always increase the size to 10 foot squares instead of 5 foot squares. This makes them nice and roomy but also give them a more fantastic feel. While players sometimes need a clear visual diagram of what's going on, that doesn't mean they need a grid so abstract maps often work well for me. See more here: https://slyflourish.com/the_abstract_battlemap.html For myself, I print a dyson map for my own use and often draw it out on a dry-erase mat in a smaller scale so I can fit more of the map on things. It works very well for in-person games. For online games I might use Owlbear Rodeo and use 10 foot squares and fog of war to show them what they can see. Hope that helps!
Michael Shea
2024-06-14 13:40:09 +0000 UTCI'd say think of it like you're starting over with a new one-shot. It's just a one-shot that has some historical context. Think of it like a new season opener to a new season of a story. Start with a bang. Have a strong hook. Build an independent story that doesn't rely too much on stuff that came before.
Michael Shea
2024-06-14 12:15:34 +0000 UTCThey do add a lot of stuff but so far they're not totally overbalanced. I think its useful to have a general house rule that "if a power or ability is removing fun from the game for players or the GM, we're going to discuss how to better balance it" so that things remain fun. I did this with our Midgard game and it worked fine. I don't think I had to balance it too much. I'd say talk with your player about agreeing to tune things so one class doesn't totally overshadow the others. Also, you might consider pivoting to A5e completely for that character so things line up a bit better than trying to just add in maneuvers alone which might not gel with the rest of the class. Heralds, for example (A5e's paladins) have a very different relationship with their spells, smites, and maneuvers. I don't know if the same is true for rogues but its something to consider. I'm digging A5e so far but we're only two levels in.
Michael Shea
2024-06-14 12:14:29 +0000 UTCHonestly, whatever works for you is fine. Often I'll have a chain of secrets around a topic and that topic might not come up. Other times I'll have individual secrets with their own topic. Sometimes its cheating to put three secrets that are all really just one secret but again, if it works for your game and makes you comfortable, there *is* no cheating. You get to decide the order secrets come out in so you don't have to worry about a lower-level secret somehow spoiling a higher-level secret. There's no clear order to things. It's just however they come out at the game. Above all, have a loose grip on the concept and use it in a way that works for your prep and your game.
Michael Shea
2024-06-14 12:11:51 +0000 UTCTough question! Sometimes you just can't. Sometimes players are as invested as they want to be and it isn't really possible to get them more invested than they are. There are a few things that might help draw them deeper into the game: - Suggest they take notes so they're more engaged. - Use campfire tales to ask them questions about how their characters feel. Try to draw them into the minds of their characters. - Address the characters, not the players. Use their character names when addressing them. - Ask them to describe what things look like in the game world like the attacks they make or the spells they cast. Also consider talking to them about it. Do they feel invested already? Are they happy? Do they want more? Don't accuse them of not being invested but explore what might draw them further into the game.
Michael Shea
2024-06-14 12:09:23 +0000 UTCI haven't. I use paper at the table and transcribe the notes I take into my digital notes during prep. Or at least I should... I see that the new iOS has more features for handwritten notes so we'll see how that goes but I really like using paper notes at my games.
Michael Shea
2024-06-14 12:04:58 +0000 UTCI haven't asked this question in a while so I don't know the best practices for finding an in-person group these days. I posted a post to YouTube to see what they had to say here: https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxTRhWZLqmBI4krcB4SmnH1Ru1cOfhNXxX My best advice, taken from discussions I've previous had, can be found here: https://slyflourish.com/finding_players.html Hope that helps!
Michael Shea
2024-06-14 12:02:37 +0000 UTCThere are lots of ways to go with them. Perhaps they spent years in the afterlife for every day of their death and it's changed them. Perhaps they no longer want to journey with the characters but need to go on their own quest when they return to life. Perhaps something else has leaked into their body when their soul departed and now there's another personality there. You have a lot of freedom to decide what happens to the NPC after something like this. Aim towards the fun.
Michael Shea
2024-06-14 12:01:20 +0000 UTCI have a campaign outline I wrote on Vecna Eve of Ruin that will soon be a Sly Flourish article. You can find the outline here: https://slyflourish.notion.site/Vecna-and-the-Tears-of-Unmaking-f9a950da21cc42caa02273569e326998?pvs=4 The main thing I'd do is remove the forced betrayal, which I think really circumvents the entire adventure, and have Kas be a parallel villain who's also trying to collect the rod of seven parts. One great thing about RPGs like this is that, unlike our disappointment with fiction, we can actually change things we run at our table to be exactly what we want!
Michael Shea
2024-06-14 11:58:20 +0000 UTCI really don't have fantastic advice for this, being an English speaker running English books. I think you can do what many GMs do in general which is take the adventure more as inspiration and raw material for you to build your own game. As you say, use your own names when that works better for you. Ignore the read-aloud text and summarize what the book says in your own words when characters come across things. Since we often end up making material our own anyway, the same can be true of language. You're not running a lesser experience when you do this – you're running a custom experience for you and your group! Hope that helps!
Michael Shea
2024-06-14 11:57:13 +0000 UTCI haven't had a chance to look at the book so I can't dig in too deep. I think working with your players to flesh out their quests and the surrounding world is a fine approach if it works for you and your group. One problem that can come up with an approach like this is when the group themselves aren't aiming in the same direction and each character built out their own little world with their own quests independently from the others. Now you have four to six storylines all headed in separate directions that the GM has to wrangle together into one story. This is why I'm so heavy handed with a single goal and bond for the characters to focus on one direction. I don't know if the book talks about this or not but it's something that can come up when players are given a lot of agency to build out the world around the goals of their characters.
Michael Shea
2024-06-14 11:55:13 +0000 UTCAny advice on how to use hags…without representing all the cultural baggage? To explain, I feel like hags are one of the lazier sexist / patriarchal tropes in Fantasy Roleplaying games. So whenever a published product includes them, I just cut around them (eg: just not including the mill in Curse of Strahd). Which sometimes is easy but other times is less than lazy as far as my prep. So I’m thinking I need to have either a) a way to reframe / represent them, or b) have a go-to monster I can swap them out for that acts many of the same ways so I don’t have to work too hard to make it fit.
Ryan McIntyre
2024-06-14 00:39:16 +0000 UTCHi Mike, Have you used the MPMB character sheet? It is a complete 5e character builder that is wholey within a scripted PDF. I've used it for 6+ years, and its the reason I've never been compelled to get into any online or service based builder. You've talked a lot about being able to use the things you buy offline and store them away for perpetuity. I also find the PDF character builder has TONS of customization, that it's even superior to pen & paper.
Jacques of Hearts
2024-06-13 00:24:10 +0000 UTCHi Mike, I'm going to be running a small campaign July-Sept for a summer scheme which focuses on children and teenagers with varying levels of autism. I've been running games for adults for 3+ years but have never done anything for young adults or early teens. Can I be cheeky and technically ask two questions 1) any general advice on things to change/avoid for running with younger players and 2) more specifically have you any experience in running games for players who are neuro divergent and is there anything you've found to help with engagement or things to avoid to help with the flow of the game. Honestly I'd appreciate input from anyone on the discord as I want to make this as fun and experience as possible for them. Thanks Nathan :)
Nathan Mount
2024-06-12 11:54:49 +0000 UTCAloha Mike! I'm running a Wildemount campaign (just over 4 years!). My 13th level players are on a quest to retrieve a powerful legendary item for one of the players (essentially a spotlight arc for my barbarian player who is a follower of Kord the Storm Lord). They are search for this item in a ruined city that revered the Storm Lord and they from a bygone era which was more technologically advanced than current day civilization (known as the "Age of Arcanum"). Among many things the city has the capability of flying and had harnessed the power of electricity. I have an idea to have the PCs encounter a powerful AI entity in the city that has remained there since the fall of the city. I'm thinking that this entity will end up being some kind of potential threat to the PCs due to the fact that it can control some of the still-working tech/defenses. I haven't decided if the entity should be sinister and conniving, malfunctioning and delusional, or what. I feel like I have something interesting for the PCs to deal with here but don't have much beyond that. Any ideas, suggestions, etc. would be very welcome in this ambitious endeavour. By the way, I'm using Storm Watch Tower from the Fantastic Locations as one of my locations in the city.
Arash Steindamm
2024-06-12 08:14:52 +0000 UTCI just wanted to know your opinion, if any, on Archvillian's "Erevan's Guide to Death and Beyond" Kickstarter. This is not a company I am familiar with. The idea looks fun, but some of the larger tiers seem overpriced? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/archvillaingames/erevans-guide-to-death-and-beyond-a-5e-tome?ref=dboc75
Tiffani
2024-06-12 04:03:22 +0000 UTCHi Mike, I tried searching but as you can imagine anything with the word "secret" brings up a lot of results. Tldr my question is "how do you make finding secret doors interesting? / How do you reward players character choices without removing engagement? Asking the players for perception checks, followed by "you notice a breeze coming through the wall" etc really doesn't feel particularly engaging, and is basically the same as the DM just saying "you see a secret door" but with extra steps, or leaves the players frustrated that there is something they can't find. This gets worse when you have players with >20 passive perception. I do my best to "shoot my monk" so they often walk into a room and get: "you enter the room and notice: in the corner there is the faintest absence of dust in the air in the shape of a short humanoid and the smell of dwarf urine." But I can't help but feel it becomes the DM telling a story, rather then the players playing.
William Jones
2024-06-11 14:12:36 +0000 UTCHi! First, thanks for mentioning aphantasia in your map conversations, it's nice for people to be aware of it. My wife has a form of it, so I need to use maps when I run games, but I was wondering how YOU use Dyson Logos maps in your games if you are primarily doing Theater of the Mind. The maps are beautiful, but the one's I've seen don't really seem suited to run gridded combat in. Do you ignore the scale on the map and just make the room or hallway as big as you need? Are you using minis at all to keep track of where the party is on the map? I guess I'm just wondering about the specifics of how you use that amazing collection, given your hybrid style of play.
Tony MacKenzie
2024-06-10 19:20:14 +0000 UTCHi Mike what’s the best way to reignite momentum with a group after a few weeks of hiatus from play?
Great Diviner Games
2024-06-09 22:04:05 +0000 UTCHi. I’ve just started a mini-campaign and we are using 5e rules plus I wanted to try the maneuver rules and expertise rules from A5E. I had a player who is running a rogue comment that the maneuvers add a LOT to the class and had a balance question. Since you’re using A5E in your COA campaign I wanted to ask your thoughts on the maneuvers?
George PR
2024-06-09 18:56:30 +0000 UTCContext in my own game: I’ve got several factions that, in my head, could have internal conflicts that they’re trying to hide from the world and their rivals. So I have multiple instances where I could prepare secrets in pairs, along the lines of “1) Faction X is concealing the fact that they are experiencing crisis Y, and they don’t know why” and “2) the true cause of crisis Y is Z”) I’m worried about having too many of these, and getting t to the point where either a) I run out of “top level,” secrets that make sense to reveal during a session or b) I reveal a “secondary” secret before revealing the top-level secret and it ends up being underwhelming, because I’m revealing the solution to a problem the players didn’t know they had. I get that some of this mess from just reading the room and the context as I. Improvising. But if you’d encountered this and found any useful guidelines, I’d love to hear them.
Sam
2024-06-09 13:11:49 +0000 UTCI was wondering if you had any suggestions for prepping/revealing secrets/clues that may rely on other secrets/clues for context. I was rereading RotLDM and I noticed that in chapter 6, your first example secret was about the existence of the war machine, and several subsequent clues provided further details and context about the machine. Do you find that this could constrain you into revealing the first secret before all the others, and might it cause problems for the Lazy approach? (I’ll stop here for brevity but I’ll add some personal context as a reply, so you can ignore if my question is already too long)
Sam
2024-06-09 13:04:20 +0000 UTCHow can you get less invested players more invested in your game?
mAc Chaos
2024-06-09 08:43:13 +0000 UTCHey Mike, I know you’ve used Notion and other programs for digital note taking. Have you ever used something that allows for handwritten notes on an iPad with a stylus? I like the idea of having something like that up while I DM as I find having my laptop open too distracting and cumbersome. However I’d really like a program that can record my handwritten notes into a digital save file. Thanks
Sam Erickson
2024-06-09 03:55:06 +0000 UTCHey Tim, I’m a fellow Minnesotan. I’ve had good luck with Facebook pages specific to the city (Rochester Community Page etc). You could also try Next Door.
Sam Erickson
2024-06-09 03:51:44 +0000 UTCHaving moved to a small town in southwestern Minnesota from Minneapolis Minnesota, I am having problems finding players for in person games. Any suggestions on how I can find players in this small town of 14k?
Timothy Erickson
2024-06-08 22:42:08 +0000 UTCLast night the NPC/sidekick that my 2 players travel with (I use him mostly as a way to deliver secrets and clues, or to “unstick” them when their reasoning results in endless circles) died via giant scorpion. With no access to Revivify or Gentle Repose, they carried their fallen friend to a nearby village a few hours away, where I will conveniently have a shaman with a Raise Dead scroll. Death should have consequences, and a -4 penalty to the NPC/sidekick seems marginal. Should I borrow from Matt Mercer and have them each contribute something to the (ritual roll play opportunity), and based on that impose/not impose further penalties? As a potential note of interest, during campfire tales the Sidekick said that he was destined to play a roll at the end of the quest, alive or dead, and that he felt his life was not his own. I had no idea that some bad die rolls 30 minutes later would result in 3 failed death saves.
Peter Fleming
2024-06-08 13:12:48 +0000 UTCIn your opinion, is a static character sheet enough? As in, the value is in guiding the creation of a character thru the rules? Or is the desire more for a dynamic character sheet that can be used in-game (dice rolling, status tracking, etc)
PhD20
2024-06-08 00:22:45 +0000 UTCHi Mike! How would you fix Vecna Eve of Ruin? I know you haven’t read it but I’m betting you know what people are saying about it. If you don’t feel like you can answer this question then please feel free to skip it. Keep up the great work.
DnDBT Joe
2024-06-07 23:01:35 +0000 UTCHey Mike! Do you have any advice on running a TTRPG that's written in a foreign language ? I'm prepping The Wild Beyond the Witchlight and I bought the English version, but all my players and I play in Spanish. We sometimes use terms in English because the translation sounds awkward (most of the time it's a Spain Spanish instead of Latin American Spanish), but as a DM, what I have a hardest time is translating names, a bunch of high fantasy names have a combination of sounds that just don't translate well to our language or way of speaking. What I have done is to try to prep the names beforehand and say them out loud, and if they are too awkward to say, just change them, but this became more of a problem in Wild Beyond the Witchlight where everything is more "thematic" and names tend to have rimes associated with them. Big fan of the show :)!
afk
2024-06-07 17:30:31 +0000 UTCwow! me and paul must have posted those near-identical questions at the same time.
Alex W.
2024-06-07 16:58:57 +0000 UTCHey Mike! Just watched this Ginny Di video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXUnEk4cuYI) about "The Game Master's Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying." In January you answered a question about the book, but I think the video gives better context than that comment does (https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=1725). What Di talks about seems like a good way to grow out the 'Review Characters' part of prep, and overall the goals/factions model seems to align well with things you've been talking about recently (factions, loot, campaign settings vs. adventures). Putting it in a context of a campaign like Saltmarsh it seems like it would work pretty well. Curious to hear your thoughts, how you see it fitting/clashing with the 8 Steps etc. Does "etc" count as one question? In any case thanks heaps!
David Pōkiha
2024-06-07 14:18:04 +0000 UTCI don't think there's any problem forgetting the larger plot and just focusing on the next session. I think that leads to a more fun and evolving game. You can always keep your campaign elevator pitch in mind (see chapter 16 of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master) and it's always great to ask yourself what the villains of the campaigns are up to. But don't worry too much about losing the larger plot – focus on running a great next session. https://slyflourish.com/your_most_important_game.html
Michael Shea
2024-06-07 14:17:29 +0000 UTCThe stuff I've written about in Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is really my best take on this: https://shop.slyflourish.com/products/return-of-the-lazy-dungeon-master Finding out what we need to be comfortable running a game is important and its different for each of us. I like to push us to think about the *minimum* we need to run a game. We know we have finite amounts of time to fill. We know who our players are and what they want. We have a general idea for the story. What else do we need? Here are some articles that might help: https://slyflourish.com/five_minutes_to_gametime.html https://slyflourish.com/minimum_viable_dnd_game.html https://slyflourish.com/eight_steps_2023.html hope that helps!
Michael Shea
2024-06-07 14:15:20 +0000 UTCI ran Ravenloft for *years* and didn't run the Heart of Sorrow. I *still* don't understand how that elevator is supposed to work. The catacombs aren't quite so bad because we don't need to know all of them for the characters to explore any one of them. But yeah, sometimes digesting a ton of material is hard. Jot down notes. Highlight the important bits. Definitely read them through and then ask how you'd run it and what you need to run it. Put sticky notes in there with abbreviated bullet points. Make any modifications you might need. I have to do that for the iron golem room overlooking the torture chamber. Running published adventures isn't necessarily easier than running a homebrew one and this is one of the reasons why.
Michael Shea
2024-06-07 14:12:32 +0000 UTCMaybe a little bit but if I know the big arcs going on, I can usually foreshadow the important points. One issue with foreshadowing is that it presupposes events in the future and that's not often great for an RPG since things can evolve all the time. This has less to do with the eight steps and more to do with a more improv-focused game in general. I think we can still foreshadow villains or general arcs without worrying too much about having to put the scaffolding in place continually to reach them. A booming voice echoes in everyone's mind "I shall return!". That doesn't need a ton of work to get it to matter later on.
Michael Shea
2024-06-07 14:10:16 +0000 UTCI think it matters a lot. Systems have different feelings to them, different styles of gameplay, and different kinds of stories we tell with them. I'm happy and excited to try different systems but I also like to see those differences – A5e is very different from Shadowdark which is different from Numenera and so on. So I think systems matter a lot.
Michael Shea
2024-06-07 14:08:24 +0000 UTCI think it takes careful consideration in a campaign's planning on how to deal with things like teleport. In my own Empire of the Ghouls campaign, I had an artifact in the central city of the campaign's third arc that prevented teleporting in and out as well as scrying. This was in place to prevent threats both inside and out from destroying the city but it was also there to put these limits in place for the characters. I made it clear, though, that they could go after the artifact and remove it but that might make *their* lives difficult too. In the end, they did so and it was this fun gonzo moment where all sorts of interesting things happened. I'm not a fan of outright banning spells like that but I think there are times where you may want them limited through magical means. If the world has to defend themselves from enemies teleporting in, they may do so. Spells like Forbiddance can help: https://a5e.tools/spell/forbiddance
Michael Shea
2024-06-07 14:07:08 +0000 UTCMore opensource character builders for various 5e variants. I'd love to see a character builder for A5e with opensource, self-hostable code, and an open data model so other people could easily write structured data and share it with others. That's the main thing I want.
Michael Shea
2024-06-07 13:36:47 +0000 UTCHi Alex! Check out my answer to Paul above. I agree with you. I don't think ChatGPT or other generative AI tools provide much value over a good random table. I think LLMs lean towards more mundane and boring answers (hey, lets go into a cave and fight spiders) instead of wild ideas (Tiamat won and rules over Waterdeep from a floating inverted ziggurat). Random generators can lead us to a wider range of ideas and can do so without stealing work from other creators, feeding billion dollar dude-bro companies, or sending shit-tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Understand, I'm not totally blackballing generative AI. I use it for code all the time. I just think there are things it's not particularly good at that we can get from random tables. Your own mind fueled by random tables is a fantastic way to prep and run games. Those *are* your own ideas, just fueled with some prompts.
Michael Shea
2024-06-07 13:35:34 +0000 UTCI enjoyed our conversations about this on Discord. I'll be honest, I don't see a lot of value in it for RPG prep. There's so much existing artwork out there that I don't know that we need to generate new art work. I don't worry too much about the use of generative AI for our own games but I don't think it helps as much as we think it does. It's just kinda nifty at best but when it comes down to it, I think our own brains fueled by random tables can generate far more interesting ideas than what generative AI builds for us. Where I'm personally finding generative AI to be helpful is in helping me build small tools to help me generate ideas. Things like the Forge of Foes quick stat tool, the Artisanal Monster Database (probably 20% of the code for this came from me centauring with ChatGPT), and other small tools like that. One thing to consider is that generative AI tends to lean towards the median in its answers. It's sort of like a dice curve always leaning towards 7 on 2d6. But for our RPGs, sometimes we like zany stuff because it really shakes up our heads. So flat random lists tend to work better for me. We'll see, but right now I'm just not seeing a lot of value in generative AI for game prep compared to reading books, using random tables, and using our brains to come up with our ideas.
Michael Shea
2024-06-07 13:29:59 +0000 UTCI'm usually pretty clear at a session zero of a campaign what we'll allow and what we'll won't. If someone during that session zero has something they want to try out that fits the theme of the campaign, we might consider it. I tried some unearthed arcana playtests but we quit doing that after they kept changing so quickly. But yeah, I'm not a huge fan of letting anything and everything in. I fear it leads to players just wanting to test out mechanics without consideration for the campaign and story we're sharing as a group.
Michael Shea
2024-06-07 13:24:59 +0000 UTCI really don't know. I haven't been paying much attention to Daggerheart at the moment. I like to digest new RPGs once they're complete. I tend to let the drama unfold as it does rather than try to inject drama myself. Dramatic moments can occur in lots of different ways and watching the story unfold for us at the table is a better way to let drama happen than trying to pressure it in. I hope that helps!
Michael Shea
2024-06-07 13:23:37 +0000 UTCHi Sam! Thanks so much for your complements! I answered similar questions to this one in the following Q&A posts: https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=1307 https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=746
Michael Shea
2024-06-07 13:21:40 +0000 UTCYes. In my opinion this is a fine way to go. This isn't a /plan/, it's a /contintency/. Having contingencies is great and better than an unplanned TPK which might suck all the wind out of the sails. If you're not forcing the story to go down one path, you're good. Especially if that path was to remove agency from the players (getting captured, taking their stuff, etc). Contingencies are great.
Michael Shea
2024-06-07 13:19:12 +0000 UTCHi there! I answered this over on the May side just now so I'll repost it here: 19min Would it work if you had one of the players play *two* characters? Maybe twins or something like that? You might even talk to the player ahead of time to explain why but not let the rest of the group in on it. Otherwise it might be an NPC that's part of the group as well. The players will probably know what's going on but that doesn't mean they won't be invested. Just a couple of thoughts off the top of my head!
Michael Shea
2024-06-07 13:17:07 +0000 UTCI think we all dig different kinds of ways to run the game. If you prefer 10 to 15 sessions, there's nothing wrong with that. If you or your group wanted to try longer sessions, you could break them up into arcs of 10 to 15 sessions or so and then build new arcs completely different from the previous so each is like their own campaign. I get inspired by focusing on each adventure from week to week and letting them take me where they take me. I love watching big shifts in the story or taking the characters to new places with new quests, villains, and all the like. I also enjoy watching the characters grow and seeing their own paths grow as they adventure. But that doesn't have to be the way everyone does it. If you like shorter arcs, go with it!
Michael Shea
2024-06-07 13:15:49 +0000 UTCI love lazy DM prep, it has totally changed the way I run games. My question is about long term planning. When should I plan out a larger plotm The big bad, their goals, etc. With trying to create and run an open world with lazy prep, I've found it incredibly easy to forget the overall plot and just prep session by session. Any advice?
Elliott Langston
2024-06-07 12:54:58 +0000 UTCHey Mike - greetings from switzerland! I'm a somewhat beginning 5E DM, with a bit of experience. I find it hard reassuring myself to be ready for a DM session. I want to use encounter tables, schrödinger stuff and your lazy DM checklists but there is so much that might come up during session, as i like to give player agency, and things i love to build in, that at the end i feel overwhelmed and fear i won't be ready as a DM... Any tipps how i can feel confident of being prepared and having visual flows ready, that guide me with a system for whatever a session might bring? (wilderness, villages, overland travel, encounters, clues, downtime activities that might come up etc. etc.) That would help me a lot - thanks for everything you're doing!
ManMa
2024-06-07 07:52:46 +0000 UTCHello Mike. When you're running a published module, especially those hardback WOTC ones, what is your lazy way to deal with a big room/scene description? Take Castle Ravenloft, for example. There's the Catacombs (K84), the Heart of Sorrow (K20), or the Elevator Trap (K61). All of them have complex developments described in multiple paragraphs. The players can reach any of them in their first foray into the castle. Even after reading the chapter twice, I find myself struggling to run them on the fly without any prep. What do you do in those cases?
Kaique de Oliveira
2024-06-07 02:58:46 +0000 UTCDoes the improv-heavy nature of the 8 steps/ spiral campaign development prevent you from long term foreshadowing?
Rover Bernhard
2024-06-07 01:01:27 +0000 UTCHow much does system matter? You've been branching out into a lot of systems, 5E and otherwise, that work for you and mentioned a couple that don't, or didn't work for your players. How much do you feel having the right system contributes to having a good experience? If you are playing an opinionated game, how important is it to lean into its opinions?
LazyLich
2024-06-06 22:38:24 +0000 UTCHow do you handle the Teleport Spell in your 5e games? I'm preparing my 4th 5e campaign as a DM. In my 1st campaign (Dragon of Icespire Peak including its extra adventures in 2021), I allowed the teleport spell and my characters promptly bypassed an entire session I had prepped for by jumping to another location which led to a lame session that I had to improv. For my 2nd and 3rd campaigns (both homebrewed), I banned any spell that allows long distance travel. One of my players really wants me to allow the Teleport Spell in my new upcoming homebrew campaign but I just can't seem to come to terms with it. How do I prepare for each session (using the 8 steps of lazy dm) with this uncertainty?
Harann and Friends
2024-06-06 21:05:16 +0000 UTCWhat digital tools don’t we have (or have enough of) that might help GMs run great games?
PhD20
2024-06-06 20:44:24 +0000 UTCHi Mike! I know you prefer these to be brief, so I'll get right to my question, though, you can read on for more context if you'd like: I hate to bring up A.I. again, but where would you draw the the line between simply using a tool (ex. dice tables) and, for lack of a better term, "cheating" (ex. ChatbotGPT)? (I'm not saying all of those who use ChatbotGPT are cheaters -- especially in the way you use it occasionally such as ask it to list some ideas for tavern names for you to choose from -- just that it seems to do the thinking for us in some cases. I'm referring more to the inevitable "A.I. game master" technology looming around the corner) Context: One of my biggest issues with A.I. is the way it stifles creativity, even when used in a non-commercial way. Something about it "creating" stuff that isn't made by a human being just bothers me; it doesn't feel real. But lately, I've been getting into random generators like Perchance to help me roll non-essential NPCs like tavern patrons or townsfolk, and it has me thinking... is the use of random generators/tables any better than using A.I. programs to stimulate creativity? For example, I entered some data from rolling tables (clothing, quirks, voice, whatever) into a private Perchance generator to mix and match and visualize possibilities without having to roll a ton of dice. I was able to come up with hundreds of unique NPCs for my players to interact with. I then started using it to help me develop plot hooks and came up with some really great ideas. But now I'm feeling down on myself that I didn't come up with it on my own. Maybe it's just a symptom of too much pressure being put on DMs to be genius storytellers/improv actors/world builders/rules adjudicators each and every week? I like being all those things, don't get me wrong, but I think the expectation adds pressure which adds stress and leads to burnout.
Alex W.
2024-06-06 19:59:43 +0000 UTCHey Mike. We continue to vex about the suspicions around the use of “AI” on the Discord (and elsewhere). In an attempt to be even-minded, what areas of GM preparation and session play could be maximally aided by AI? I’ll give an example to kick things off: D&D Beyond’s Encounter Builder that could generate 3-5 encounters off of a standard ChatGPT-style prompt, with accompanying map, short monster/NPC descriptions, and art.
Paul Bigbee
2024-06-06 19:27:16 +0000 UTCHey Mike, if a players comes to you with a homebrew (or 3PP) character option (class, race, or subclass), how do you decide if the option is ok to allow in your game? Context: I got players that sometimes come to me and say things like "I saw this subclass in r/UnearthedArcana and wanna try it out" only for it to break the game at the middle of the campaign.
Drunken Yoda
2024-06-06 17:31:28 +0000 UTCHey Mike, after listening to “Mastering Dungeons” talk about the Daggerheart rules and how injecting drama is a core part of the gm play, I have been itching to throw some aspect of that into my 5e games, however that part of gming has always been one of my weak spots. Do you have any advice on how to create drama in a game without feeling like it is forced?
Ben Hodges
2024-06-06 17:17:20 +0000 UTCHi Mike! Huge fan of all of your work - single best resource I’ve found on how to be a better GM. Do you have any recommendations on how to integrate a new player into an existing group of friends/players? I’m planning on running Rime this fall (wish me luck!) and 3 members of our party of 4 are close friends who have played multiple campaigns together. Appreciate any advice you have!
Sam P.
2024-06-06 16:14:32 +0000 UTCHey Mike! In one of your shows (May 27), you were answering a question and mentioned valid circumstances in which you could have the characters captured or have their gear taken away. In summary, you said not to plan for it and that it sucks - I totally agree. However, I was wondering what you thought about planning ahead for this sort of thing in place of potential TPKs. For example, there's a very well-known windmill occupied by hags who, as a coven, would almost certainly end in a TPK. Level 3 parties very likely happen upon it - I'm sure you know the one. During prep, I decided, in the event of a TPK at this location, the characters would all wake up X time later in a cage. I ultimately ended up not having to use this but was wondering what your thoughts were on planning alternative circumstances to TPKs in general? Should I let TPKs be TPKs or "plot armor" the party with a suitable cost, such as capture, as the story allows?
Michael Cole
2024-06-06 16:07:03 +0000 UTCHi Mike, first off - long time fan starting back when Lazy DM came out, it's always been a joy reading or listening to your content. Keep up the great work! :) My question: I'm currently prepping Wild Beyond the Witchlight for my group and would love to run the Lost Things Prelude Adventure. So they'd get to the carnival as kids, lose something, then the real adventure starts years later when they get back and want to return what they've lost. I'd like to set them up as close friends as kids (think: the Goonies), let them sneak into the carnival and have a fun session there. And the end of the session they'll get caught, carried into a dent, the Hourglass Coven shows up and kidnaps one of them. My players love a dramatic story and we've been playing for years, so I'm certain they would enjoy the idea and I'm not crossing any boundries here. So far so good. However kidnapping a pc means basically removing him from the story for 90% of the game, so I need to introduce a new character and have no good idea how to do it. - the pc could be a sibling, but that's kinda lame and you somehow have to force a connection with the other kids - the pc could be a student of Madryck Roslof and take his Warlock master's quest ... not sure how to tie that together though. It feels a bit disconnected imo since this pc would have no connection to the kidnapped kid, which the whole plot revolves around. So my question would be: do you have a good idea, how I could intoduce a new pc that doesn't feel shoehorned? Thanks a lot and have a great day! :) (sry for the long post)
kaasimir
2024-06-06 16:05:32 +0000 UTCHey Mike! You run such long campaigns, how do you stay inspired? I find myself getting frequent burn out after 10-15 sessions. I know the advice is read a book or watch a movie but I read 50 books last year and am currently feeling that way only 5 sessions into my new game!
Daniel Collins
2024-06-06 16:04:03 +0000 UTC
