Michael Shea

August Newsletter

Added 2019-08-02 14:24:21 +0000 UTC

Hello Sly Flourish superfans! Thank you again for your wonderful patronage of the Sly Flourish empire. Thanks to your support I've released the following articles, videos, and tweets this past month:

Articles

Videos

Top Tweets

#dnd tip: Email microfiction to keep the players playing the game even when they're not at the table.

#dnd tip: Lower the hit points of monsters to speed up battles when they get boring or tedious.

#dnd tip: Consider dedicating an entire session to a big boss fight. Multiple waves, environmental changes, big set-piece dioramas; go big with your boss fights.

The folks at @dwarvenforge built Castle Ravenloft level by level with a guide and required set list. Amazing!

Grendleroot Playtesting Ongoing

Last month I finished the Kickstarter for Fantastic Adventures, Ruins of the Grenderoot. As Patreon backers you have the option to help me playtest these adventures by signing up here. I'm hoping to get all feedback by 20 August so if you're interested, sign up now and I'll send another batch of playtest packets out later this weekend.

What Has My Attention?

I'm interested to take a look at Pathfinder 2 and its reception. I'm likely a D&D man for life but I always like to branch out and see what's going on in the world of RPGs and this release is a big one. I picked up the PDFs of the core book, the bestiary, and the first adventure. So far they're very pretty but I haven't gotten a chance to dive in.

I've also been digging into Explorer's Keys by Monte Cook Games for the Numenera system. Their previous book of ten quick-play scenarios called Weird Discoveries was the model for the original Fantastic Adventures book and it's great to dig into Explorer's Keys while working on the latest drafts of the adventures in Ruins of the Grendleroot. I'm always fascinated by adventure design regardless of the system. In particular, their use of "keys" to let the GM tune the length of the adventure is inspired.

As seen in the videos above I've started running Ghosts of Saltmarsh for both of my D&D groups. I really love this adventure. Given it's 38 year history and cleanup by the folks at Kobold Press for 5e, it is a very smooth package with a lot of fun stuff in it. I can't say for sure how it will hold up until I've run the whole thing but so far I'm having a blast as are my players.

That's it for this month. Thank you all for your wonderful support.

Let's go enjoy some D&D!