Michael Shea

July Newsletter

Added 2019-06-28 18:38:53 +0000 UTC

Hello superfans of the Sly Flourish Empire! First off, thank you once again for your wonderful support of Sly Flourish.

Just a reminder that the Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot Kickstarter is in its last few days! If you're a fan of what I do I think you'll love this book and this Kickstarter is the best way to get in on it. We've crossed a lot of stretch goals and backers at all levels will be getting a lot of extra stuff you won't get if you buy it later. Please give it a look and tell your friends.

Become a Grendleroot Playtester

As soon as the Kickstarter for Ruins of the Grendleroot ends I'll be putting together playtest packets to give to the backers. As supporters of the Sly Flourish Empire, you get first access to this list. If you are interested in playtesting the adventures in Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot, sign up here:

Ruins of the Grendleroot Playtester Signup

Back to the newsletter. Here's a list of the articles, videos, and popular tweets you helped support this past month.

Articles

Videos

Tweets

Here were the top five Sly Flourish #dnd tips posted in the last month:

#dnd tip: Crosstrain with other RPGs. Pick up tips from these other RPGs. What are your favorites?
#dnd tip: Its perfectly fine to play sub-optimally for the fun of the story and the pace of the game.
#dnd tip: Instead of spending a lot of time building a custom monster, reskin an existing one.
#dnd tip: Let the story shift direction based on what the players remember and focus their attention on. What do they care about?
#dnd tip: Gauge your players’ tolerance for gore. Talk to them about it before you let the blood fly.

And here are some other memorable tweets that seemed to get a lot of attention.

If you’re a real jerk, fill your room with thugs who ready actions to attack downed characters. Two hits = four failed death saves = dead character. Don’t do that, it’s a jerk move, but it could be done.
I have a list of 6e #dnd stuff I’d love to see but I’d rather see 5e stick around for 20 more years instead.

What Caught My Attention

Beyond the Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot Kickstarter (you did back it right? If not, to back to paragraph one.), the arrival of the D&D Essentials Kit caught my attention the most this past month. I ordered one up and picked it up at my local Target. Yeah, I know, local game shops got screwed but it's only for three months. It will be ok.

The D&D Essentials Kit is an amazing product. I'll save the words here and steer you to the NewbieDM overview my friend Enrique wrote. He too has a Patreon you should check out. I'll save judgment on the quality of the adventure until I've actually run it but reading it, it looks like a great starter adventure.

My friends over at Dwarven Forge have a new Hellscape Kickstarter. Dwarven Forge stuff isn't for everyone. It's expensive and takes up a lot of space but it's very cool. It won't improve your game proportionally to the cost but it's definitely fun to use. If you can't afford it, it really doesn't hold you back from running a great game. The things that most improve your game have nothing to do with money. That said, look at that crazy pedestal of pain!

If you want to know more about Dwarven Forge (and think carefully before getting into it), you can read my Dwarven Forge Buyer's Guide which I update regularly.

With that it's time to dig back into preparing the Ruins of the Grendleroot Playtest. Here's some brand new art from Jack Kaiser coming out in the book. Thank you again.