August 2023 Sly Flourish Patreon Q&A
Added 2023-08-09 15:00:05 +0000 UTCWelcome to the Sly Flourish Patreon Questions and Answersthread for August 2023!
Ask your monthly RPG-related question in the comments below!
Every Friday morning I answer every question on this post. Some questions make it to the Lazy RPG Talk Show, an RPG Tip video, or Sly Flourish article. Don't be upset if your question doesn't make it to the show – few do.
As you consider your question for the month, please
- search the Lazy RPG Talk Show Topic Database using keywords from your question to see if I've answered your question previously. You can also search Sly Flourish and the Sly Flourish YouTube Channel to see if I've done an article or video on the topic.
- focus your question on tabletop RPGs.
- ask only one question each month.
- keep your question brief. I love your stories but I get overwhelmed.
Thank you so much for helping me do what I do.
Now bring on the questions!!
Comments
Is there a downside to having too many secrets and clues? My party just walked up to the cliffs of Omu in ToA and I have: secrets about Omu, secrets of the trickster gods, secrets of the history of the city, secrets of the Fane of the Night Serpents and Ras Nsi, Secrets of the Tomb and also secrets about the character's back stories. Granted, the pressing clues are the ones relevant to the near future, but still... I re-read Chapters 3-5 again and jotted what I thought would be juicy clues and I must have at least 50! I love dishing out secrets and my players eat them up! I've got one player who's an obsessive note-taker (in a good way), and the rest of the group supports her so tracking the secrets and clues won't be an issue.
Delaney Nevins
2023-08-26 16:00:17 +0000 UTCHow do you yourself make different scenarios of commonly encountered creatures, like cultists or goblins, for instance, feel different, so as to avoid the "same old same old" experience for the players?
Jason Kemp
2023-08-26 04:02:05 +0000 UTCI like "sneaky" plot twists (having prepared for a villain's plan in advance, taking the (proverbial) bullets out of a gun, the time-travel battle at the end of Bill & Ted). I also like the Blades in the Dark mechanic where you can go back and describe how you prepared for something now. Do you have any tips on how to combine the two without taking agency away from the players (i.e. pushing "my" solution on them)?
Be Inspired with Dominic
2023-08-11 21:53:43 +0000 UTCDee-oh-bow-vin-ee-us!
Michael Shea
2023-08-11 15:11:50 +0000 UTCA constant topic that regularly rears it's head is the concept of imbalance between martial and caster characters. I'm someone who likes the granularity of using XP vs milestones and I tried to do so in my latest campaign but unless you are "punishing" people (for want of a better term) for not showing up or whatever, everyone is making the same amount of XP, which defeats the purpose. It occurred to me that in previous editions of D&D the imbalance between martials and casters was taken care of by the fact that different classes advanced at different rates because they required different amounts of XP to level. While I'm aware that XP accounting is not "Lazy DM" friendly, do you think that potentially moving back to an XP based advancement system with classes requiring differing amounts of XP to level would solve the problem of the "martial vs caster" "balance" issues? I use quotation marks because I don't really see it as a problem except in a more powergaming group (not throwing shade at groups who prefer that by the way). Interested to hear your thoughts.
Diobovinius
2023-08-11 15:04:52 +0000 UTC
