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January – March 2025 Patreon Q&A (Patreon)

Published:
2025-01-09 17:00:04
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:
Q&A

Content

Welcome to the Sly Flourish Patreon Questions and Answers thread for January, February, and March 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.

Changes in 2025

Starting in January 2025, I've switched the Q&A from monthly to quarterly. This won't change who can ask questions or my process for answering questions. You can continue to ask one question per month. Instead, I'll only be announcing the Q&A threads at the beginning of each quarter.

Why? As new Patrons have come on, it's gotten harder to keep up on the first week of the month because so many patrons ask their questions as soon as I announce the new month's thread. By moving the announcement to quarterly, I'll limit these first week posts to four times a year instead of twelve times a year.

You can still ask a question each month, I'll still answer them on Fridays, and I'll take questions we want to dive deeper into on the Talk Show. This change just helps me better manage things.

Thank you so much for helping me do what I do!

Now bring on the questions!!

Comments

ARC

Mike, I have a question regarding your implementation of Uncharted Journeys for larger groups. Because Uncharted Journeys only provides four Roles, how do you handle using that system with five or more players in a party? Our groups often operate with 5-6 players and we haven't had much success in making everyone have a meaningful impact. We tried having one or two double up (Outrider and Sentry, usually) and then split the role into one making the initial check, and the other using the ability, but it feels robotic and procedural, rather than fun and narrative. (Hopefully splitting my comment into a direct question, followed by minor explanation helps your process).

James Geluso

I'm mindful of your advice to not use monsters or other features to negate the characters' abilities. I want your (and others') opinion on whether I did that. The party was trying to bait a dragon to come down to earth. As it did, the wizard cast Hold Monster and used Portent to make it fail its save. The player didn't know I was using monsters from the Iron Kingdoms book, and the dragon's rider had a fury point it could use to give the dragon advantage on the save. As a result, the dragon defeated the Hold Monster and did not crash. I'm not sure if I was squashing the player's clever play, or using the monster's resources properly (no differently than a Legendary Resistance), or maybe both.

Jonas Gossen

Hey Mike, I have recently started a shadowdark group playing cursed scroll 1. Even though I told them it's quite a deadly system, they surprised me with elongated and beautiful character backgrounds. Some of them are also first time P&P players. Now I am suddenly quite afraid of killing their charakters somehow. I was thinking about importing 5e's death mechanic of three strikes to increase the odds of survival and have a more charakter fokussed campaign. What do you think about this approach?

Jamey Graham

Hiya Mike, I'm running a 5e game with some considerable political intrigue between the game's factions. (CritRole’s TalDorei Reborn / Explorer's guide to Wildemount setting books) My players are caught up doing work for either side of a continent wide conflict. There are multiple geopolitical powers, crime organizations, and benevolent organizations all mixing it up during the course of the war. The upside is that I have more secrets and clues than I'll ever need. The downside is that I'm struggling with keeping all the threads clear. What advice do you have for lazily handling multiple fronts? -Jamey (aka GoldenBuffalo on the discord)

Travis Lawson

I know you improvise a lot while playing the game, but you also like books that have a lot of random tables to roll on. My question is how much do you use random tables in front of the players? It seems like it would slow the game down. For example there are 6 tables to roll on for an NPC in the shadowdark book not including the name of that NPC. I know you don't need to roll on all of them but for someone who has never used a random tables out side of a name generator I would like advice on when the right time is to use them. I assume you only use them for things that are relevant and not to describe an entire room in the moment.

Christopher Avery

Hi Mike. I'm new to the 5e world after a 20 year break. I was considering making my own world for a homemade campaign. Any advice on making kingdoms in the world to adventure in?

Cédrick Lemay

Kind of rpg related, but I've been seeing video from multiple people about Youtube not promoting DnD video anymore, or content creator quitting making videos for this reason. Since you're not making video of a full session (like Critical Role and others), or even 5e specifically, do you know how this will affect you?

Alex W.

Hey Mike! So I just completed a campaign for the first time and there were lots of high points, and even the sessions I thought sucked the players said they loved, but I can’t help but be bummed at how rushed and unfulfilling the end was for me and possibly the players. I prepped for a big battle but the players defused the situation entirely. I usually plan for peaceful contingencies but I was so sure there would be a final battle. Any advice on how I can stop beating myself up, and get focused on the next campaign? (They’re really excited to start a new one and so am I!)

Ryan J.

My group is wrapping up a year-long Shadowdark campaign on 1/30. Afterwards, we'll have a discussion about what to do next. My first question to them will be "Do we want to stick with Shadowdark, or return to D&D 5e?" Once we decide on system, however, what are some good follow up questions to fuel conversation? Once I figure out the vibe they want, I can work toward putting those types of situations together.

Ben Hodges

Hey Mike! So a few of my players in one game are newer and their characters fall into “themselves but in fantasy world” in their roleplay. That’s completely cool with me and my first character was definitely that, but I also want to help them grow into better roleplayers. Do you have any advice on helping new players grow in the hobby? Thanks!

Michael Shea

I usually pair characters together with one person aiding the other to give them advantage on the check. You can still describe in the narrative how they go about the job to help their friend or which one accomplishes what based on what they do. If you want more roles, Level Up Advanced 5e's Trials and Treasure has a whole bunch of alternate roles beyond just four.

Michael Shea

This gets right in there with players driving to remove the tension from a battle that needs tension. For me, the right way to do this is to telegraph what capabilities monsters have to circumvent saving throws up front. Tell them if it has something like that and how many. Make legendary resistances clear. Put them out in front of the players and explain how they work before the battle begins. The worst part of a battle like this is when the player is *surprised* to have their big thing fail. The other way to do something like this is have the ability work for one round until they're able to recover at the beginning of their next turn so the hold still works and drops them out of the sky for a bunch of damage but next turn they shatter the hold and get up. Above all, though, talk to your players about it. Even if this worked out how it worked out for the game you ran, you can talk to them about how you'll do this in the future.

Michael Shea

I think I'd have another out-of-game conversation with them and explain that the world can be really deadly or not. I think the potential for character death is an important part of Shadowdark, moreso than other fantasy RPGs. Then I would let it happen and see how it goes...

Michael Shea

That's a tough one! I would consider focusing down on three factions, eliminating the ones who aren't really doing very much and the ones the players aren't really paying attention to. You can also reduce the factions down to just the NPCs the characters are interacting with that are part of that faction. At that point it matters less what the whole faction is doing and more about what the NPC is doing. You can also just run with it! Keep your eye on the next game and ask how the factions moved around between sessions. Write down what you need to write down and enjoy the intrigue!

Michael Shea

I do sometimes roll on random tables during a game – particularly for Shadowdark. But I try to focus on the tables that bring the biggest impact to the game. Instead of rolling on six tables for an NPC, I might only roll on two. For an overland encounter, I might roll: 1. The location, feature, or monument where the encounter occurs. 2. A faction roll to flavor the scene with a particular faction (wolves of Unduluk instead of just wolves) 3. The encounter itself. Who is there? 4. Roll for hostility 5. Roll for distance And go with that. If I want to have an encounter that already occurred, Ill roll up a location and then two encounters to see what happened previously. I can usually roll a bunch of rolls like this without much difficulty at the table but you can always pre-roll some encounters during your prep and have them ready. Also, don't sweat taking the time. Not everything needs to happen right away. Tell your players you need five minutes. They'll understand.

Michael Shea

Woo, a fun meta-question! I am not seeing a drop in views like others are but I didn't have these big explosions in views that they did. I don't know how focused this is on their channels versus a whole problem with D&D and YouTube overall. I always keep in mind that YouTube is a vulnerability in the Sly Flourish empire. About 40% of new patrons come from YouTube, for exmaple, and if they start to lower the number of people who see my videos, that number will go down. That's ok, though. I wrote Sly Flourish long before I ever posted YouTube videos and I have many other platforms to write. It just means less people may find me who don't already know about me. So no, I don't know how it will affect me or whether this specific thing is a real problem or not. Myself and other RPG video creators are all looking at it together to see how it affects us, but YouTube isn't my only focus. If you want to help the situation: - Go directly to your subscriptions tab in YouTube so you see all the videos your video producers post. - Tell your friends about your favorite channels and videos on other platforms.

Michael Shea

Hi Alex! If you haven't done one, I would consider having a nice epilogue with a "One Year Later" montage: https://slyflourish.com/ending_campaigns.html You can even do it after the campaign is done. However the final battle went, this is still my favorite way to end a campaign and my players find it really satisfying.

Michael Shea

I usually like to bring some options to the table and if I have one I prefer, I push for that option. I don't want to run stuff I don't want to run so I bring what I want to the table. If you really have a few options and you're just as eager to go with any of them as any other, you can bring them forward and give your pitch. But I'd come with a focused set of options instead of an open conversation. You're running the game. You get to decide what you want to run.

Michael Shea

You can have an out-of-game conversation with them about this, of course, explaining that their character isn't them and to really fall into the shoes of their characters. This usually happens as players play a few different characters. You can also ask a series of leading questions to help them see that their character is different than they are: - What does your character want? - Where does your character come from? - When your mind wanders back to your history, what do you see? Addressing the characters instead of the players can also help them fall into their character a bit. As an extreme option, you might run this as a shorter campaign and then switch to a new one so they can see what it's like to play a different character. You can, during your session zero, ask them the questions above to help them build a character different than they are.

Cédrick Lemay

Yep im one that comes from Youtube. For the patreon part anyway. I think i saw a suggestion for the Return of the Lazy DM somewhere on Reddit, which made me buy it, which made me go to YouTube, and now here i am. I even upgraded my subscription yesterdayto get even more stuff, because you always have good takes on stuff. Thanks for what you're doing Mike. You're a game changer.

James Geluso

In the "Difficult Conversations" category: I have one player who often has his character run ahead of the rest of the party. Last night, while the party was introducing themselves to a new PC (using the "heroic spark" method, thank you), he took off while they were still socializing. One of the players is my girlfriend, and she told me later how much that annoyed her. As a DM, my instinct is that the players can and should speak up when this happens -- they are adults, they can say "hey, stay here, so we can go together." Do you think I, as DM, should encourage the player to stay with the group next time this happens? Does it matter that of the other players, three of the four are pretty new to D&D and the runaway is a veteran player? (As an aside, I'm a player in a game with a runaway PC and I often express my displeasure, and it has no effect.)

Matt Coyle

Hi Mike, I have a more frontier western themed 5e game, I wanted to introduce a villainous group that the players are morally justified to just beat to all hell. Something like the Nazis in Indian Jones. How do I run this kind of faction, by showing they're evil without really having to dwell in the evilness for too long?

James

My PCs forget what is on their character sheet. They forget they have abilities to handle situations, such as a short-term species flying trait or fire resistance magic item. I don't want to constantly remind them. Should I continue to remind them time after time or just let it go to the waste bins of the game or other ideas?

Jacques of Hearts

Hi Mike, I am planning on travelling across the country by plane on a few weeks, to visit a friend who wants me to introduce D&D to his friends while there. He's played a hand full of times only. I have access to the core 5e books on my phone through DnDBeyond. Do you have a recommendation on super minimum supplies for a carry-on?

thePooka

I see you have some articles on specific puzzles - cypher, mastermind, etc. but my question is how often do you use puzzles in your sessions? The five room dungeon model, for instance, seems to suggest one puzzle or puzzle like thing per session (per 5rd?) which seems like a lot to me but maybe I'm missing the boat. So far, I've had very few puzzles and those have been tailored for very specific players that I knew would eat them up (my math nerd LOVED my Fibonacci door lock) but even that one had another way through. What do you say?

topher mehlhoff

One of my players recently compared me to the DM at another table she plays at. She said I will pass secrets and clues out liberally while her other dm uses secrets as bait/rewards for accomplishing quests. For the record she said she prefers my method, which of course comes from the 8 lazy steps! But it got me thinking: Is there anything to using secrets and clues as rewards to inspire players? And how would that comport with the 8 steps? Thanks for making me the preferred dm, Mike! 🙂

Rafael Padilha

Hey Mike! I really liked the 3-2-1 quest model you discussed in one of your videos. I'm currently gming Tyranny of Dragons for my group and I've found myself doing something similar, with the exception that I have the dropped quest impact the plot in some way against the characters (for example, the Cult of Tiamat ends up getting a weapon that the group would have gotten, or a third party in the conflict has now become allied to the Cult instead of the characters). I know that you talked about not punishing the players for not picking the third quest, but I feel that this might be a good way of showing players have agency and their choices have consequences. This is not meant to punish them, but as a way to advance the plot in different ways, make their choices matter in the overall plot, and create new dramatic moments based on their choices. What are your thoughts about this?

Anders

Hi Mike! I'm a new DM using the eight steps for a campaign and I'm loving your method. I'd like to explore how to make the world feel more independently alive around the characters in my games with details and events that simply add to the atmosphere and understanding of the setting, but I don't want to detract from the adventure(s) at hand. You've mentioned building hints about the world into your secrets and clues, and I'm intrigued to know how you approach this kind of stuff in-game. Do you have any best practices for injecting world building that isn't quest-related into a session in a brief but memorable way?

Nathan Fleming (FlavorJudge)

Hi Mike, first time patron here! Do you have any house rules or suggestions when dealing with heavily obscured areas in combat? I've seen some strict interpretations of the D&D rules indicate that creatures who both can't see and are unseen attackers would get a straight attack role (they have both advantage and disadvantage), but this seems a little strange since it makes stuff like the fog cloud spell pretty worthless. In general, do you tend to just wing it when it comes to advantage or disadvantage, or do you rely more on explicit abilities or rules to provide them?

Michael Smedley

Hi Mike, hope you're well. When running a written adventure and using the lazy steps, how do you plan out a larger dungeon. In my case specificaly it's Xanthars lair. It has multiple routes and secret doors that could take the party in most directions. In terms of writing out potential scenes there's probably 7 or 8 scense that could be in any order. I was thinking I would take big scenes and big secrets for my notes and refer to the book for the rest. I'm finding myself over preparing because of its size and chance of it going in any direction. Help please 😆

Amir Shakurov

Hey, Mike! I have a question about DMs keeping quest notes for (and instead of) their players. My players aren't very organized when it comes to note-taking. To make things worse, we play infrequently. Yet I'm disinclined to force them to keep better notes since they seem to enjoy the game as it is, and I'm always happy to give them a refresher. So the game works fine, generally speaking. However, I regularly find myself exposition-dumping (and re-dumping) not only minor details but major plot points. And I've been thinking: why not go all the way and maintain that information as a quest log available to my players? Importantly, by "quest log" I mean not just a list of quests but a reasonably detailed description of what each quest is about, what the characters are expected to do, relevant NPCs etc. So, "quest notes", really. Do you think a DM maintaining quest notes for their players is ok, or is it an overreach on the DM's part? I feel like doing it would not only keep everyone on the same page but eliminate many misunderstandings and misinterpretations. And probably would even allow to steer the campaign to a degree. And yet I'm apprehensive since the idea smells of railroading and there's something to be said for those misinterpretations. (The difference between a misinterpretation and a different and potentially more interesting interpretation is subtle, after all.) I guess there's a balance to be struck here as managing all the campaign notes for players is, to my mind, definitely too much hand-holding. Anyway, I'm interested in your thoughts on this in general, as I haven't seen much discussion on the topic of making DM notes available to players.

Michael Shea

I think there are a few potential things you might consider. First, its probably worth having a conversation offline with the player in question about them running off on their own and saying that it's something you and others don't appreciate. Conversations like that are hard no matter what but they're harder in the moment and harder in front of other people. One-on-one either physically or video / voice is the best way in my experience. Don't be judgmental – address the problem, not the character of your friend. Second, and probably after this has happened, you can implement a "pause for a minute" rule that lets players break character to address the game outside of the game. You, as the GM, can invoke it yourself. For example: "Pause for a minute, are the rest of you as players ok if Jack's character runs off on his own? No? Jack, can you have your character stay with the group?" That's a bit on the nose for this situation, of course, which is why it's probably better to handle this before you put something like this in place, but it can help. Hope that helps!

Michael Shea

"You are what you do" is how I approach this. Instead of a group being kill-on-sight because of *who they are*, they're kill on sight for the faction they support, the idiology they support, or the actions they've done. It's on my mind for other reasons but the Pinkertons in Deadwood are one such faction. They weren't born Pinkertons – they decided to join them and do what they do. In the old west, nasty mercenary companies could work well. Evil cults of course. Brigands who destroy villages. Focus on their actions as a group instead of some larger ethnic or societal connection. Even still, it's fun to have turncoats from this group. Members who realize they're doing horrible shit can be great allies.

Michael Shea

There's probably a way to do a mix of both. You can both remind them of things they have and let other things go. You might remind them of the importance of checking their sheet and help them perhaps better organize things so they're at hand. Some GMs hand out index cards with new powers, spells, or magic items as they hand them out.

Michael Shea

You may notice those articles are quite old. I don't really use puzzles in my games anymore. I think navigating the situation in the game and in the world is its own sort of puzzle. I might introduce some sort of key-type puzzle for unlocking doors but not much else. I find puzzles take too much time to set up for too little entertainment value in the game.

Michael Shea

I don't think there's any reason you can't do both. Some secrets you might give out liberally – particularly those that move the story forward. Others you might hold closer, like interesting bits of history not vital to the story but interesting should they figure them out. Locations of legendary artifacts. That sort of thing. You can certainly use secrets as rewards and I don't think that changes how you'd put them together in your notes. I don't think it changes the 8 steps. Some other reading: https://slyflourish.com/secrets_serve_you.html https://slyflourish.com/revealing_secrets.html

Michael Shea

I think that can work but you don't want the players to feel like there's no good choice and they'll always be punished. If you can make it clear before they choose a quest that likely the other group will accomplish the other part, I think that can work. It's a delicate balance but if you're keeping the players' feelings in mind as you do it, that's a good first step. I do the same thing in my City of Arches Key of Worlds scenario – the players get one of the two blackfire weapons but the cult gets the other. The players ignight one of the braziers, but the cult ignights the other. That's ok. They're not losing ground but they have rivals moving as they move.

Michael Shea

I do it a couple of ways. First, I try to focus on the main villains and what they're up to. For me, that's part of the world building and the world moving as the characters interact with it. As I think about the villains, what they want, and what they're doing; those results can fall into secrets and clues the characters discover. For more historical aspects of the world, I too put those in secrets and clues the characters might learn. I don't have to tell them about *every* god in the Southlands, but maybe the two or three they might learn about while searching the Pit of Unending Thirst in the ruined city of Kukkutarma. I find that this narrowing down of the world into the tiny bite-sized pieces the characters might learn about in the next session saves me time and helps me stay focused on the game at the table. There's more about villains and secrets in both Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master and the Lazy DM's Companion. Hope that helps!

Michael Shea

Yes! This is one of my favorite obscure questions about 5e! My understanding, and the way we play it at our table, is that if two creatures cannot see eachother, all advantage and disadvantage is wiped clean. Likewise, any ability that requires seeing a creature is unavailable. It doesn't matter who is inside or who is outside of a heavily obscured area. The results are the same. Some players and GMs feel that the caster or person *outside* the heavily obscured area should have some sort of advantage, but I don't think so. It doesn't make things useless, however. A fog cloud still ensures the following: - All advantage and disadvantage is wiped clean. This can be helpful if enemies would have had advantage. - All characters can move freely without worrying about provoking opportunity attacks. - Any need to *see* a target cannot work. This includes things like fireball – something I didn't know until I played Baldur's Gate 3. I'll tell you the most powerful way to use a spell like Fog Cloud – on a Beholder!

Michael Shea

In the case of dungeons with lots of rooms, I only focus on the one to three interesting features of any given room – often just one. I dont build scenes for every chamber – only the ones that I know are a big part of the story. Otherwise, they go to a room and I piece together a scene at the moment from NPCs, monsters, secrets, and so forth. I don't make a big list of rooms in my "scenes" section. I find this helps me improvise scenes as the characters explore the dungeon however and whatever path they take. Here are some articles that might help: https://slyflourish.com/simplest_way_to_annotate_a_map.html https://slyflourish.com/use_dysonlogos.html

Michael Shea

The question of whether I think it is ok is itself an interesting one because whatever I think of it shouldn't ever matter to you and whether it works well for your game. And, regardless, in this circumstance, I think it's absolutely ok. Whatever works for you works great. I don't see any reason this would cause problems beyond it being extra work for you. If you're happy to do it, I think thats great. I think Matt Coleville recommended handing out quest cards for this sort of thing and I think that works perfectly. So yeah, I think it's just great and you always get to decide what works for you. Sure, it's always good to get other opinions – but what matters most is what works for you and your group. Have fun!

Martyn French

I currently run library sessions with a lot of kids aged 12 and under. We started off by running Peril in Pinebrook, which is a lot of fun for complete beginners, but at the end the party is basically given a baby dragon to look after. This has caused me a few issues, one player continually calls the dragon his “pet” despite me reminding him that dragons are sentient, he keeps asking when the baby dragon will be able to fight in combats (I’d rather not allow that) and I’m now in a position that I’d like to have the adult dragon request the return of her baby. I’m considering some kind of magical gift as a thank you from the mother Dragon for looking after the baby, but my concern is that taking the baby away will upset at least one of my young players, and I don’t want this to affect the fun they are having. Any suggestions for softening the blow?

Kaique de Oliveira

Hi Mike, My group usually plays at a friend's house, and she has a small table. We are six players and one DM, plus sheets, dice, grids, and cups. I want to remove my DM screen to save physical space, but since everyone sits so close to each other, I don't know how to do that while keeping my notes and maps hidden. How do you hide your notes and maps at your table? Do you have any tips? "Fun" fact: In Brazil, it's called "Master's Shield" instead of "DM Screen."

Micheal Rackintyre

Less of a question and more of an anecdote: just wrapped up a campaign where I didn’t know how to end the story. I’d been at a standstill for months (due to scheduling delays I was able procrastinate). But this week the game was 100% going to happen. Normally I keep the 8 steps in mind but don’t actually go through them methodically. Trapped in a creative block, I decided to pull out Return and follow the steps. Once I sat with Review the Characters for 10 mins I had a great idea for an ending situation that played to all the characters’ motivations and story. Everything (locations, monsters, secrets) fell into place from there so easily. My players have been raving about this amazing finale, that all came out of letting them shine and get what they wanted, while facing a legitimate threat. Thanks for the save, Mike. I guess the laziness was in me all along.

JohnGalt

Howdy Mike! You may not like this question (given your love for cultists) so I apologize ahead of time! First paragraph is to give context, second has the question. I know you love cultists as antagonists, and per Q&A search it seems it is due to the potentially rich lore and intrigue of forbidden rituals etc, but a couple of my players (and myself) feel a little uneasy about cultists. It would feel lame to put "behind the veil" so many details and story arcs from setting books to avoid the creepiness of cults specifically. It isn't the violence of cultists, we just stay away from demon-involved stuff. It seems cults are involved with like half of all published settings. The question: Given your love for cultists I was wondering if you have ever found an easy drop-in replacement for cultists that ticks off the same boxes in terms of story richness / intrigue (or whatever you might, yourself, describe as the reason you love cultists). Thanks for your time, sorry for asking for you recommendation on diet-cultist, I'm sure there's no true replacement! PS: missing your Shadowdark content! Thanks for the great journey.

BravoTango

Hello Mike, I’m a pretty new GM and the content you produce has been tremendously helpful on my journey, so keep up the great work! I will soon have the opportunity to run a one-shot for a few colleagues, two of which are new to TTRPGs altogether. Work schedules dictate that this group would not be able to meet again for a while after the session, so I am hoping to keep it a true one session one-shot as opposed to a small, multi session adventure. I wanted to see if you had any suggestions for things that are especially captivating for new players that I could work into the session. I am also having a bit of trouble deciding how to frame the ending. How do you reward the characters for completing the quest when the story won’t continue? Gold and magic items seem lackluster at the end of the game. I want a high final beat for everyone, but especially for the new players. I look forward to your thoughts!

JspaceRyan

How to help a player when they feel stuck? I played in a game last night and found myself in a situation where I felt like "I couldn't do anything" - I was physically distant from the action and I couldn't think of how to apply any of my spells. I understand that there are always options, but I really couldn't see the forest for the trees. I talked with my GM about it today and he noticed my frustration. He said he had several ideas - which turned out to be cool (mostly non-standard use of magic/rule of cool), but he was conflicted between telling me how to play vs. watching me flounder. I also GM so I'm interested in any advice on how to help a player when they feel stuck like I did. It felt terrible.

Kaique de Oliveira

Hello Michael, I remember having the same problem with Castle Ravenloft. I'm not sure, but I might have even asked about it here. Here's how I solved it: - Scenes: Only major scenes in the dungeon that are important for the story. If I planned for an NPC to approach the characters, I’d also note it here. - Secrets: A long list. Bolding key words helps a lot. - Maps: A map of the dungeon with one to three descriptive words per room in black. Monsters in red. Traps/tricks/level connections in blue. - Locations: Details on important rooms with complex elements that would take me a while to read on the fly or couldn’t easily be improvised from the few words on the map. - Character review, Strong Start, NPCs, Treasures, and Monsters: Like I’d normally prep using the Lazy Steps. I didn’t even consult the module while running the Castle. Having the secrets, clues, and the map by your side goes a long way.

Victor Navone

I was really inspired about your articles on "Dreadful Blessings" and "Doom Points". Rather than just giving a boss monster a static amount of these, would you considered treating these as meta-currency that accrues in response to things that happen in the game? For example, if the PCs roll a critical success (or failure), or if a monster misses an attack or saving throw, the DM might gain a Doom Point for use later in the game, sort of like the Hope and Fear mechanic in Daggerheart. I've been using Tales of the Valiant's Luck Point system, which my players really enjoy, and I thought it might be fun if I as the DM had an equivalent system I could use against them. Thoughts?

Michael Shea

Hi Kaique! I don't use a GM screen and I tend to just not worry about it. Sometimes they peek over and see something they shouldn't but it's rare enough that I don't worry about it. I also roll dice in the open so that's never a problem. Sometimes I'll cup my hand over a die roll I don't want them to see (like whether they succeeded on trap detection). Othertimes I'll literaly keep my notes close to my chest so they can't see what I'm looking at. Try it out and see how it goes. Adjust as needed.

Michael Shea

Thats awesome! I admit, I often skip the "review the characters" step but every time I weave it back in, I usually get great stuff from it. "hey, that exiled mage of Kartan? She was your special lady friend!"

Michael Shea

Yes! Bandits and mercenaries come to mind. Secret societies can also be pretty cult-like in behavior but not in belief. Secret societies might have no theological or demonic connection at all – they're based on secret power structures in society. They depose kings, shift economies, and engage in other nasty underhanded political, social, and economic unrest. Mercenaries fit in well because they're all about the almightly platinum coin and work for any evil villain. Bandits, of course, are simply unlawful brigands. In all three cases, however, it helps if some of them are redeemable. Sometimes they break away from the order to which they belong and become useful allies to the characters.

Michael Shea

Welcome to the hobby, BT! I wouldn't overthink the session. It's easy to try to make it something really fantastic but then overdo it and make it too complex for new players. Characters delving into a small dungeon to accomplish some goal is sort of the purity of D&D (assuming you're playing D&D or another fantasy RPG). Regarding single sessions, these links might help: https://youtu.be/JM1MdKNm2eA?t=2858s https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=1807 https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=137 When running a single-session adventure, have some flexibility to remove stuff from the middle and keep track of time so you're ready to pull stuff out if needed. Too often I see one-shot games where GMs hang on to the boring middle and then have to cut things short at the end. It's a common problem. Regarding treasure, give them actual treasure. The fact that they may not use it in a future session doesn't remove the joy of getting it in the first place. Treasure is cool. You can also drop some treasure into the *middle* of the adventure so they can use it during that session. Good luck!

Michael Shea

I think GMs often hold their cards too close and I think it's fine for a GM to offer suggestions. This gets back to "players only understand half of what a GM is describing". Because players aren't picking up everything going on, it helps when the GM offers things up. As a player, you can ask for suggestions from the GM too, recognizing that you might not be seeing anything. "Do you have any suggestions? I'm not sure I understand the whole situation. What sorts of things can I do?" That seems like a reasonable question for a player to ask.

Michael Shea

Oh there so many cool things I wrote up for Kobold Press's Monster Vault 2 on this including how to bring in doom points based on high-beats or low-beats in a situation or scene. You can totally do that. Trying to think of doom points as a beat mechanic is pretty interesting. If the characters are failing at something, you gain doom points (which doesn't affect them right then). But then you can use doom points to complicate the situation if they're having too easy a time – either in or out of combat. I really need to try this out in my game. You can hear me talk more about it with Kendo on the KP channel: https://youtu.be/7mjPvKRgNII?si=DrFZj7q39FgsrKhi&t=1837

Nate Gerlach

Did you find many differences in how you run epic heroic style 5E games versus Shadowdark? I’m making good on my 2025 goal of getting a Shadowdark group together and I run a lot of 5E. Any tips for leaning into emergent storytelling?

Brad Thomson

I am learning your Lazy method for game preparation for my upcoming session. I have some notes that I believe are valid Secrets & Clues, but I noticed that in your own Session Notes, you never mention any player characters in this section. This got me thinking that such details might belong elsewhere. While I can't ask you to review my session notes and check my work, I'm hoping you can look at four of my notes and advise where you would place them within the Lazy method. Setup: The players are delving into a Temple, attempting to uncover the secrets the Villain was desperately seeking within. Character: Sebastian, NPC Villain: Ledros 1) When Ledros was freed from the Vampire Church, his essence intertwined with Sebastian's, creating a profound connection that made it seem as though Sebastian was an integral part of Ledros. 2) A luminous green essence is etched into the stonework, casting an eerie glow. Whenever Sebastian approaches or examines it, the green essence seems to reach out towards him, as if drawn by his presence. 3) The green essence is the lingering remnant of Ledros' sword, an integral part of his being. **I believe this is a valid Secret & Clues. However, since it is related the above notes, I want to include it just in case it doesn't belong there.** 4) Sebastian is connected to Thalys Emberweave, who was also influenced by the Raven Queen. Finally, If players remain in the same location, such as the Temple, for multiple sessions, should any unresolved Secrets and Clues be carried over to the new Session Notes to address potential reoccurrences or ones not resolved?

Aaron Warner

"So You Want To Be A Gamemaster" uses well-defined structures for building scenes/adventure types/campaigns. At a glance these run opposite being a lazy GM. However, if I zoom way out I can see parallel designs. Example: a mystery has multiple nodes, and no single node is mandatory; a dungeon has multiple entrances and paths, and no single is mandatory; overland point crawls can reveal alternate paths between map points, so no single path is mandatory. It feels like there is one structure, re-skinned. Do the structures complement the lazy method, once using those structures becomes habit?

zottel monster

Hi Mike! I am thinking about starting RPG sessions during lunch at work, max 1 hour, better less. After searching through your whole archive (gotta love a great archive!) I have come away with quite a few tips already. I think I want to keep an open table, and keep the player count to four people or fewer. Unsure if it would be a loose campaign or pure episodic play. I also think I might hand wave a few things away, like travel time, shopping and the like. My open question regarding the matter: What systems might work better than D&D 5E, not necessarily fantasy? Little prep is of course preferred, but not the focus. Character creation should be quick, and the rules simple, so inexperienced folk get a chance to play as well. And you need to get a decent amount done in under an hour. Thanks for your input! Your pal, zottel

Graham Dyer

Hi Mike, do you have any insight into Kobold Press’s strategy for future Tov products? I was wondering why they had chosen to release Monster Vault 2, instead of a Player’s Guide 2, or maybe a revised Midgard Heroes Handbook for ToV. After all, they already have five monster books out (that I know of), but the ToV Player’s Guide is kind of limited for options. (Only two subclasses, and I think they could really use more Talents.) Then I just saw Mr. Tarrasque’s video – Kobold Press is taking pre-orders for a revised Margreave book (“The Old Margreave”), which includes several adventures, as well as a bunch of ToV-based character options. I am not excited about needing to hand over a book to my players, which has a portion that they need to avoid reading. I am hoping that the plan is not to disperse a bunch of ToV character options amongst revised Midgard source books that I already own … I would be curious to hear your thoughts or insight here! Cheers, Graham D Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada

Hussain Bukannan

Hi Mike! My group recently started a new level 5 adventure. During Session 0 all the players wanted to keep using their level 3 characters from the last campaign so the group started at level 3 instead of 5. We are two sessions in and so far the encounters have not been a problem. I've been keeping my hands on the monster dials and the players are enjoying the extra challenge. My question is, how do you recommend I re-calibrate them to the campaign's power level. The two options I see are: 1) Be more generous with magic items 2) Level up more frequently I feel like both can be fun for the party since players love leveling up and players love having extra magic items. Which route do you feel will be more fun for the players? Thank you as always!

Michael Shea

Hi Nate! I summarized my views on Shadowdark after my 13 month campaign here: https://slyflourish.com/delving_into_shadowdark.html I don't have any special tips for running longer campaigns other than to keep your quests and patrons separate enough from the characters that if a new character comes in, you can tie them to an existing patron and their quests. This ensures you don't have the problem of characters dying and new characters popping in in the middle of a dungeon with no motivation to be there. I found that the micro-settings in the Cursed Scroll books were great to let my imagination run wild and fill in the blanks as the campaign continued. But don't try to make it epic all at once. Focus on your next game, follow the steps if you use them, and just run a fun game for your friends one session to the next. Let the story flow from the sessions you run.

Michael Shea

I have an article I'm working on about character-focused secrets which can work really well because you *know* the character will be there. Recently, in my own eight-step planning for a session, I'll write one secret out for each character as I review the characters in step 1. Usually these secrets are *separate* from the ten secrets I put together for the rest of the session. Character-driven and character-focused secrets are totally valid and a good way to ensure you have the characters in mind during your prep. The one thing I'd mention is that these character-driven secrets should be something the players don't know yet. If they already know it, it isn't something you can reveal during the game as a new piece of info. More here: https://slyflourish.com/types_of_secrets.html Hope that helps!

Michael Shea

I haven't given "So You Want To Be A Gamemaster" a deep read yet but I do think the two approaches can be complementary. As you say, things like the three-clue rule (which is a nice solid idea in JA's approach) and secrets and clues can work well together. JA's approach does take a more overarching view of things than mine does where I want to start at the bottom up – a focus on the next game you have to run – and his top down looking at the campaign, the arcs, and the sessions. Both are totally valid but I don't have great advice on merging the two together.

Michael Shea

I'm going to sound like a broken record but I think Shadowdark can work really well for short adventures. You can run short dungeons in an hour with characters already built using pregens. You could run longer dungeons in a series of sessions too if you end up with the same players. I'd focus on three to five rooms of a dungeon for an hour with Shadowdark and see how it goes. Keep the story pretty lean. Cut to the meat of the adventure. Dragonbane might be another system to look at. I haven't run it myself but I've heard it can work well for shorter sessions. Your plan to stick to four players is a good one but expect to get more interested players so perhaps recruit other GMs willing to run games too. Good luck!

Michael Shea

Hi Graham! I really have no insight into their strategy but I recommend sending them feedback through email, Discord, and any other venue where you can reach out to them to tell them the sort of product you want. I'd be surprised if they didn't have a new player's guide with a bunch of new subclasses in it – their own version of Xanathar's Guide or whatever. I know they have some origins in PDFs you can pick up for cheap. KP makes a lot of books, with several of them in production at once, so I wouldn't say that because they're working on a new Magreve book that they're not also working on a new player's guide. But I have no insight. I tend to learn about their projects the same time as you and sometimes they reach out to me to help out on one of them. But I am mostly on the outside looking in.

Michael Shea

Hi Hussain! I think you can increase the pace of leveling and get things on track pretty well. Level them up at significant milestones that are a little shorter than whatever the adventure typically offers. The problem with too many magic items is that those magic items are there for the rest of the campaign. If they're not *too* powerful, you're probably ok, but if you use them to boost up 3rd level characters to the equivalant of 5th level characters, you'll be dealing with those powerful magic items for the rest of the campaign. Instead, I'd find ways to level them up a little faster. It's also possible to, as you seem to already be doing, tweak the dials to keep things on track. Adventures aren't typically written so tightly that two levels matters but you never know. Hope that helps!!

Brad Thomson

Thank you, Mike, for the insight. I appreciate it.

Bram Bakker

Hey! I would be interested in a review of your "What I'd Love from the Next Iteration of D&D" article. What do you think they did or didn't? Maybe this question is more interesting a couple weeks after the MM25 if they release the new SRD.

John Willson

Hi Mike, I regret to tell you that I am cancelling my Patreon subscription with you, for now. I am Canadian, and America's new tariffs on Canada are going to hurt. My fellow Canadians and I will refrain from buying any U.S. products or services until this unfortunate attack ends. I hope that you will tell your elected representatives that Trump's bullying tactics are hurting YOUR bottom line, too. (For anyone who hasn't seen the news: Trump is imposing 25% import tariffs on all goods from Canada, Mexico and Denmark, for no particular reason except to bully us into less favourable trade terms.) I look forward to re-subscribing in better times. Best regards!

Martyn French

UPDATE - ran the session yesterday and the player was incredibly good about the dragon taking her baby back. Very proud of him as he’s only 11/12. I decided to give the whole party a magical dragonmark which gives them resistance to cold damage, and silver dragons will see them as friends and allies.

Michael Shea

I understand. I hope it turns around. Our whole business is impacted by this and we certainly didn't want it.

Micheal Rackintyre

Question for during or after your mid-Feb 2025 Monster Manual Review: if I’m at the table running a published adventure that references an SRD monster I accidentally didn’t prep for , which book should I grab to get the most table usable monster? Assume I have all the core monster books from the various major 5e flavours, digital and physical. And by table usable, I’m thinking that means, in order of priority, 1) it has the same name so I can find it, 2) the stat block is straightforward to run, 3) it hits at its CR

12 Sided Studios

Hi Mike! Thanks for everything you do. I’m curious about your publishing pipeline and the tools you use to write your books, and then output them into various formats. What is the main format/program you’re writing in? Also, if you make a change, how do you keep them up to date?

Jason Kemp

What are your thoughts, both good and bad, about using Matt Colville's "My Campaign" worksheet for initial campaign setting development? It really seems to encompass the core of the Lazy GM philosophy, and I thought I'd check with you for your impressions.

Peter S.

Hi Mike: do you have any suggestions on how to make PCs backstories relevant in a plane hopping campaign, where potentially every PC is from a different world ? Is it something that came up in your city of arches campaign ?

Michael Shea

Good question and I don't think there's a fantastic answer yet. None of the recent books will probably be perfect – even with names – since the TOV Monster Vault and A5e Menagerie can't have certain monsters like mind flayers, beholders, or githyanki. Likewise the 2025 Monster Manual moved some monsters to new names. There's a list in the back of which ones changed and only a handful changed to a different spot in the book. it's too early to say which book is the best one. I really like the design in the TOV Monster Vault but I'd probably try out the 2025 Monster Manual for a while and see how that does. The good news is that all three of them are really good so I don't kow if you're going to be underserved by any of them.

Michael Shea

Hi Chad! It depends on the book. Lately I've been writing them in Word using my Patreon product template so that I can easily export them to PDFs and get them to you guys to take a look at first. I've done this since the Lazy DM's Companion. Once the book is ready for editing, we convert it to a normal Word doc with styles so that it can be easily imported into InDesign, which Scott uses for layout. Since Scott does both layout *and* editing, it makes it easy to make changes in layout for smaller things but we usually stay in Word until we know what the book is really going to be like. Any big changes should be done before it goes into InDesign. Then we export InDesign into a couple of PDFs – one for PDF distribution and one for the print proof. Once the print proof is off to the printer, I'll get an InDesign export into HTML to convert to ePub and Markdown. This takes some time because a lot of formatting gets screwed up in any sort of automatic conversion so I do it by hand. In the end we have four versions: - PDF for digital distribution. - Markdown - ePub - Hardcover

Michael Shea

I've only just now looked at it but it looks good! Lots of detail focused right around the characters. I tend not to build out worlds with my players like this – I just do that myself and give them enough info to build characters for the area – but I dig it. Of course, I'd put in some fronts and conflicts to spurn towards adventure. Local Evil Boss does that, it looks like. So yeah, it's good! It's a good spiral campaign notebook.

Michael Shea

That's a tough one! For the City of Arches, I've had some of their backgrounds connect to events that occurred in the past in the City of Arches. Another way to do it is bring in NPCs from the same world that they came from. It could also be previous times where the same connections existed between worlds that brought the characters in. You could also run sidequests where they have to go back to their original world so they get a chance to face who they were, meet previous characters, and the like. It's also a good question to ask players outside of the game to see how interested they are in bringing in those backgrounds. Some may really like the idea. Others might not care.

Mandy Davis

Hello Mike! Thank you for everything you do :) I have been playing D&D for about 40 years off and on, and have been a DM for about 25 of those. Unfortunately where I live now I have not been able to find a D&D or other 5E group, and efforts to start one didn't produce any results. The local game store seems to focus primarily on Warhammer. I do occasionally play duet with my daughter (who lives about two hours away) but it just isn't enough for me. Anyway, I decided I will start playing solo and have purchased sojourn vtt (drive thru rpg ) which is a vtt made for solo play and is not cloud based, because Foundry is a bit too technical for me. I also acquired the usual books for solo players and have a huge collection of tables and lists to generate things. I love your lazy DM methods and have employed them, however, do you have any advice for solo players on how to adapt them to their play?

Christopher Sparke

Mike, At some point I'd love for you to tell us your experiences with your a5e game. Comparisons and contrasts, the good and the bad, etc. I've been running a 2 different a5e games (one where I have slowly switched to a5e) and one that started and is A5e pure (No house-rules, etc) I'm finding that skills with expertise dice often yield quite higher results than the DC's I set for them (5 easy, 10 moderate, 15 hard, 20 very hard 25+ near impossible, 30 why bother but ok). I'm curious on your and your players takes on it. Also i can't wait until the LU gateway is ready for all so my players can use it. Making a character in a5e is a bit more complicated, and as a Gm remembering all the little triggers (Destiny, inspiration features, Backgrounds that can all be lightning rods) . thanks Chris S.

Sam M

February question: I know you use the A5e books for monsters and prep, but have you run or played much "actual" A5e? I'm curious how the Martial Maneuvers play out, if they slow play down, how they feel compared to spells, and if they're "too much" for someone just wanting to play a simple character.

James

Hi Mike, I play online a bit as a player on one shots. The DMs are typically fine, but many times the players drag the game, such as meta-gaming or telling other players what to do. What can I do in-game as a player, or as a DM if and when I DM a one-shot with strangers?

Delaney Nevins

Hi Mike. I've been a student of the school of Shea for many years now and I feel like what I enjoy is very similar to what you enjoy about 5e so your opinion on this matters to me: Now that you've spent time with all three, if you had to pick one, (knowing that all three have their pros and cons), which would you choose: 2014/24 D&D, Trials and Treasures, or Tales of the Valiant Game Master's guide? I only have D&D so before I invest I thought I'd ask.

Michael Ebling

Hi Mike, I have a question about how you prep and hand out treasure, especially magic items, in your 5e games. I was wondering about the best way to communicate to the players what magic items actually do, especially when an item's rules are somewhat complex (multiple abilities with different action costs, charges, etc.). None of the options really seem ideal. Giving page numbers is not great since magic items are usually in GM-facing books; digital tools could help solve this, but I really prefer paper character sheets, especially since digital tools make it tedious for me to control the player options allowed in the game. And neither book references nor digital tools really solve the main crux for me, which is that I almost always customize the magic items I reward my players. (For example, instead of charges, I almost always change items to have 1/day abilities.) Sometimes I print and cut out magic item "cards" containing a description of how the item works, but that is a lot of extra prep, and makes it harder to improvise. And half the time the players lose the cards anyway. A final problem comes from identifying magic items. It can be fun to find something like a "rune-carved dagger" but not immediately know what it is; however, the rules-as-written for identifying magic items are somewhat tedious and easy to forget. (I don't even remember how they work as I am writing this....) It is often just a meaningless extra step. But if I only forced the players to go through the process of identifying an item when it is cursed or has a secret property, that would give it away. Anyway, I would really appreciate your thoughts. Sorry for the long question.... - Michael E

Brydon Marks

Hi Mike, I'm loving the Tales of the Valiant Monster Vault. The only thing I don't like is that monsters only have one value for hit points (example: Young Black Dragon = 136) where the WotC Monster Manual has a formula (Young Black Dragon = 15d10+45). I learned from you that I always want to keep my hand on that hit-point dial during combat. Is there an easy way to recreate that formula on the fly? (I know I could just add or subtract ANY number, but the formula helps me feel like I'm being fair and reasonable. And if my heroes are punching above their weight class or struggling to survive, it helps to default to a different HP value above or below average.)

Michael Lam

Hi Mike, in combat how do you motivate or give options to PCs built around ranged weapon attacking to do something other than stay put and shoot? A fellow DM friend and I have each talked to players of ours about their issue of rarely feeling like there’s a better action for them to take than ‘I shoot’. Some possible solutions we have come up with all have potential drawbacks: have ranged enemies to put them under pressure (but this might have the effect of negating the ranged player’s effectiveness in the battle), enemies with lots of speed who rush in and close with the player (but this negates the ranged attacker Legolas fantasy of taking people out at a distance), and terrain that forces or offers benefits for movement like cover (but this might feel contrived, won’t make sense in every scenario, and can be hard to think up on the fly if it’s e.g. a random encounter and not a major combat the DM had planned in detail). Would love your thoughts! Mike Lam - p.s. thanks so much for everything you produce, it’s such a warm treat to drive home from work on Mondays and Fridays listening to your ttrpg thoughts!

Michael Shea

Hi there! I hope you won’t give up on looking for a group, either in person or online. Sometimes it just takes finding the right discord server or the right in-world circumstances to find the right people for a group. I haven’t done a lot of solo play. I loved thousand year old vampire and the few games of Ironsworn I played. I recommend them if you want to take a look. They also have good instructions for solo play. Shadowdark also has the Solodark guides which are a fun way to play a more old-school style game solo. I haven’t played those yet but they look fun. I don’t think you quite need the 8 steps of Return for a solo game since you don’t really do the same style of prep. So much of the game is improvised, which I think is the fun part of playing it. Anyway, I hope those leads help and I hope you can find a group to play in! It’s worth the effort.

Michael Shea

Yes! I intended to do a segment on the Talk Show going over it and probably will. I think A5E’s player-focused material is too crunchy and too much for me and my group. We have a group that started as A5e but then opened up to other 5e versions as well. About half of them switched to D&D 2024 and enjoy that better I think. An example are weapon masteries versus the A5e martial maneuvers. One of them is a half a page in the PHB. The other is like 80 pages in the Adventurer’s Guide? My players felt like many of the maneuvers were traps — moves that really didn’t offer something useful compared to the others. Skill specialization was interesting but also sort of fiddly and did add a lot to the bonus without changing DCs. I think the idea of a proficiency die does the same thing but it’s much simpler since it *replaces* proficiency instead of adding to it. There are lots of aspects we didn’t even get into like armor durability, masterwork weapons and armor, and other aspects. I just can’t keep up with it all. So yeah, if someone out there thinks vanilla 5e isn’t crunchy enough, I’d recommend it, but I don’t think it’s really for me. There are many other aspects I love about A5e and plan to use in the future but I’m not as crazy about the Adventurer’s Guide.

Michael Shea

Hi Sam! I answered some of this in my response to Christopher S. just below. Overall I think myself and my players felt like combat maneuvers were too complex for the benefit they provided. I think both Tales of the Valiant’s weapon properties and D&D 2024’s weapon masteries are generally superior in both their simplicity and effectiveness. A5e’s combat maneuvers weren’t really overpowered that I saw - not any more overpowered than other stuff characters can do, but they were too tweaky for our liking.

Michael Shea

It can be worth having a conversation with your GM and, if there’s a good way to do it, with your fellow players and pick up some online play etiquette ideas. Ginny Di ad a great video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-5M6JXzKzE I also wrote an article about calling on individual players which helps a lot. You or the GM can ask for players to keep table banter in a text chat channel so that those talking are talking about game stuff and not over talking over one another. https://slyflourish.com/calling_on_players.html Hopefully that gives you a few suggestions!

Michael Shea

That’s a really hard question because, as you say, all three have their merits so I don’t think the decision I’m going to make is the right one for everyone but if I had to, I’d get the Tales of the Valiant Trials and Treasure guide, especially if I had the Monstrous Mangerie as well since the two books go so well together. Next I’d probably get the Tales of the Valiant Gamemaster’s Guide. Finally the D&D 2024 DMG. For me, the order has a lot to do with the tools a book gives me that I can continually use at my table. All of them are missing something and some of them are better at one thing than the others. All have good value to them. But yeah, I’d probably go with A5E’s Trials and Treasure.

Michael Shea

Hi Michael! I think writing out item characteristics on an index card and giving the player the index card can work. If you’re lazy, you can have them write it out. I’ve also pasted the text of a magic item into a Discord channel so players can see it and write it down in their own notes however they do so. Both of those work best for me. You can also assign a player the role of Quartermaster — they’re in charge of keeping track of treasure acquired, what it does, and who it goes to. This creates a sort of double-entry bookkeeping so things don’t get lost. As for identifying magic items, I think the core rules work pretty well. A character can identify an items properties by spending a short rest with the item or casting the identify spell. Sometimes I have a character instantly learn about a magic item just on contact, particularly single-use magic items of lower power. Higher-power ones might require further identification. To me, the general rules are a good default and you can always change how things are identified or not based on the specific item, what makes sense for the story, and what’s fun in the game.

Michael Shea

I think a good value is 50% up or down. The monster may have half the stated hit points or 1.5x the stated hit points. That’s probably pretty close to what it would be if it had hit dice given a moderate constitution bonus. I can tell you as a 5e designer who has talked to many other 5e designers — hit dice were always abstract and calculated just to get to whatever hit point value we wanted to reach. There’s not a lot of good science there.

Michael Shea

Here’s an official Sly Flourish Lazy DM challenge for you! Come up with ten beneficial elements to a combat situation for ranged attackers. Then come up with ten detrimental effects for ranged attackers. It’s a great mental exercise! Here are some ideas to help get you primed. Benefits - High-ground areas that give the attacker advantage on attacks but takes an ability check to reach. - Ancient monuments that, when you stand next to them, add some lightning damage to attacks. - Rubble behind which a ranged attacker gets light cover. Detriments - Thin fog that causes disadvantage on attacks if you’re further away than 30 feet from your target. - Shaky ground that can knock you prone and drive you into the sharp slate rocks at your feet. - Lightning donut storm that blasts those further away than 30 feet from the center of the battle area. Now come up with your own ideas! It’s fun!

thePooka

Your latest article was timely and helpful (not a surprise). In your RPG Tips section, you say: "Fill large locations with several factions – each of which might be allies or enemies of the characters." You mention factions a lot and folks on the Discord server seem to be pros at using them but that's a topic where I feel as if I've missed the boat. Are you aware of resources I should be using to do more (or better) with factions? Apparently I represent a (perhaps one person) faction of GMs that are no good with using factions.

Andrew Duncan

My players are about to interact with a powerful Hag, and have just come off a string of combat heavy encounters. What are some ways I can make the Hag an interesting challenge that are focused on role play and the weird magic associated with Hags? My players love both the unexpected and to role play- so the weirder the better. Thanks!

Ben Hodges

Hey Mike, I recently read your 2021 article, A DM’s Reading List, and have been working through the books you recommended. If you were to update that list today, what’s one book from the past four years that you’d add to your top five non-core DM books?

Michael Shea

Hi thePooka! I don't know of a great resource for understanding the ins and outs of factions. Many campaign sourcebooks include factions to some degree. One big example are the Dragonmarked houses of Eberron. I wouldn't overthink them too much, though. A faction is a group of individuals with a clear goal. You can think of a faction like a character or a front – they have motivations, histories, goals, and behaviors. But the people in those factions can change. You can run into different members in different places. There can be political in-fighting. Factions work as both allies and enemies of the characters. The characters might be working for the Golden Knights in the City of Arches to thwart the Children of Ibraxus. You can talk more about them with folks on Discord but again, don't overthink it. You don't need a twenty page document outlining every aspect of a faction. A name, a symbol, and some motivations and goals will do.

Michael Shea

Think about the hags motivations and how they might align with the characters instead of being against them. Maybe the hag wants something the characters are willing to give and the hag has something they can give in return. One fun thing to do is dig through books of spells from other publishers like Kobold Press's Deep Magic volume 1 and 2 and pick out some weird spells the characters have never seen or heard of before. I did this for the three hags in Tomb of Annihilation and my players still talk about those spells. You can find those spells on Open5e if you don't want to pick up the books.

Michael Shea

I'd probably add Justin Alexander's "So You Want to Be a Dungeon Master" to the list, but I admit I haven't combed over the whole thing. Many people find a lot of value in it. I think grabbing some of the ideas of old school roleplaying games can help: - Old School Essentials - Dolmenwood - Shadowdark We now have new gamemaster's guides worth reading: - The 2024 D&D Dungeon Master's Guide - Tales of the Valiant's Gamemaster's Guide Robin Laws wrote Adventure Crucible: Building Stronger Scenarios for Any RPG. That's a good one. I haven't kept up with all the Kobold Guides books that came out. They may have some new ones I've missed. If I had to pick just one to add to the list I'd go with Adventure Crucible. It's a quick read and offers some really interesting perspectives. It was the catalyst for a series of articles I wrote about adventure types: https://slyflourish.com/running_dungeon_crawls.html Those are the ones that jump out to me! I should update that article!

thePooka

Thanks much. Advice followed. :)

BravoTango

Hello Mike, You recently mentioned that you would soon be taking an opportunity to play quite a bit of 2024 D&D. I wanted to see if you had run into any trouble with the new Hide action during play. The wording is not overly clear, and I'm not certain what the intended use of the action is. To me, it seems like a duck-and-cover maneuver. To others it seems like the required first step for any sort of stealthy activity, and to yet others it reads as strictly a combat ability. A few of the gaps I ran into with the language are as follows: • The conditions required to take the Hide ction are not specified as being necessary to retain the Invisible(hidden) condition. • Being "Found" seems to require the Search action. • Invisible, hidden, and unnoticed are sometimes treated as being synonymous terms, and other times are not. So, I find myself wondering; what was the actual design intent behind this action? Does Invisibility end on a creature when they lose the conditions required to take the Hide action? If so, hiding is mostly a stationary activity, and likely cannot be used to gain advantage for a sneak attack. This is the most strictly logical sense, because in this scenario a creature's cover is the thing rendering them not visible. Does the creature retain the Invisible condition until one of the explicit triggers are met, regardless of cover or line of sight? In this case, a creature remains unable to be seen while standing in the open, especially if a Search action is required to locate them. This leads to some ridiculous possibilities, but is not an unreasonable reading of the text given the lack of specificity. Does breaking the invisible condition mean that you are noticed? The rules state that creatures attempting to avoid detection will take the Hide action, and since the only result of successfully hiding is to gain the Invisible condition, it seems implied that invisibility is a requirement of going unnoticed. I am comfortable with the way I adjudicate ability checks, so none of this will likely change how I run my game at my table. I thought it was curious that I couldn't readily parse out what the Hide action was actually intended to do, though, and I would love to hear any insights you have regarding how the design team may have meant for it to be used. As an aside, I don't care much for the codification of certain gameplay elements into named actions. It feels like a strange subsystem to set on top of the existing framework of ability checks. It's a weird extra step to say: "Take the study action and make an Intelligence (investigation) check," instead of just calling for the check.

Ken Wang

Mike, Is there a way to use Forge of Foes for Shadowdark? I improvise all the time and sometimes for combat encounters. I like using FoF for my D&D 5e games but struggle with Shadowdark to do the same. I usually end up re-skinning 5-6 regular Shadowdark monsters I keep on hand. My players’ characters are getting into higher levels and I find harder to improvise monsters. Any thoughts on what I can do?

Hussain Bukannan

Hi Mike! One problem I have struggled with is complexity connected to spellcasting. My playgroup leans more casual which means juggling a spellbook and learning rules like concentration is difficult. This leads to players defaulting to 1 or 2 damage dealing spells and ignoring anything else. I've recently had more success on this front using OSR style systems like Shadowdark. The spell descriptions are much simpler and easier to grok. Do you expect rewriting D&D spells to match the style of OSR spells is a good solution? A perfect example of this is Zone of Truth. The D&D 2024 version is so intimidating compared to Shadowdark which is simply "You compel a creature you can see to speak the truth. It can't utter a deliberate lie while within range."

Michael Shea

I'm seeing a lot of discussion on the hide action. I don't yet know exactly how I'll be running it in my game or whether I'll change from how I typically have been running it. Here are some interesting discussions on it: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/52099/roleplaying-games/dd-2024-hiding-invisibility https://www.enworld.org/threads/thoughts-on-stealth-and-d-d2024.711669/page-2#post-9589424 I have some thoughts about *intent* before I'd worry about coming up with hard rules. - A creature that wants to hide has to behind at least three-quarters cover from whoever they're hiding from and succeed a DC 15 stealth check. - If the creature steps out into the line of sight of an undistracted creature – the creature sees them. - The hidden creature remains hidden from distracted creatures (like a creature in combat with another creature) as long as their stealth result is higher than the creature's passive Perception. I might change some of that but, for the most part, I think that works towards the intention which is that a rogue should be able to hide during combat using cunning action and still run up and backstab someone. But I'm still pondering it and hoping the larger RPG 5e community comes up with an elegant fix.

Michael Shea

The Shadowdark community over on Discord came up with a monster stat by CR table for Shadowdark. Here it is on Itch.io https://mattdietrich.itch.io/guide-to-shadowdark-monster-statistics Also, there's a new Shadowdark monster creation Kickstarter going on now: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/michaelputlack/creating-monsters-for-shadowdark I'd definitely check that out. I'd also say that maybe 50% of the material in Forge of Foes can work with Shadowdark since it isn't 5e specific but more advice on how to run monsters.

Michael Shea

I think you can certainly house rule to use simpler descriptions of the spells. One thing 5e tries to do is help you grow into spells as you level by focusing on what you've learned or prepared. It can be a lot for a cleric but its not as bad for a wizard. Some of that learning what spells do is part of the fun and drive towards system mastery that keeps 5e popular. But there's no reason you can't simplify things. You can also check out how spells are described in Old School Essentials which is a little closer to the core of D&D than Shadowdark is. https://github.com/Obsidian-TTRPG-Community/Old-School-Essentials-Markdown Good luck!

Chris Wilson

Hi Mike, how do you handle "called shots" in combat? E.g: "I stab the dragon in the eye" or "I cut off the ogre's weapon hand". I want to encourage the creativity, so typically allow a very high DC roll in addition to the attack, but this encourages every player to "try something" every turn, because our house rule is that NAT 20s rarely fail ..

Jason Lees

Greetings to my pal, Mike Shea! I have a player who wants to start a cult. This is a low-tier Acq Inc. campaign. He wants to run it as a grift, and I think it's hilariously on brand for Acq Inc. I have a rough idea for how to go through with it, but I was curious if you had any tips around running cults in that context. Cheers, Jason

Laura

Hi Mike, just wanted to say thank you for your thorough Lazy GM Talk Show show notes, and the searchable archive. It's so nice how easy it is to find the different topics you've discussed, and to check out the articles, videos, or products you mention from the links you include. (Not to mention the actual content of the talk show, which obviously, is great!) Thanks for taking the time to make your advice so accessible.

Brandon Meyer

Hi Mike! I am so thankful for your podcast. On the most recent episode you talked a lot and 5e and legendary resistance. There is another cool option called a legendary eminence that was designed by Raymond O'Connor of the running off the rails podcast. Basically, the legendary monsters have bonus abilities or passive abilities that power them up while they have legendary resistances available, and by making the monster burn through the legendary resistances they lose these bonus abilities. I have used these and it can make the players want to purposely try to make the monster use up legendary resistances, which is actually pretty cool. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397328/emery-s-log-of-legendary-eminences

barela . png

Hey Mike, for my question I was wondering if you'd be willing to give a quick tutorial on how you set up your markdown->pdf automator setup. I have a Mac and tried to follow your github instructions, but I'm dumb and have no programming knowledge :P couldn't figure what I needed to download and where to put it. Thanks! PS - Love your session prep videos, they helped me so much when I started GM'ing for the first time last year.

Michael Shea

Hi Chris! Called shots don't really come up often in my game but I think I'd handle them the same way I handle Cinematic Advantage: https://slyflourish.com/cinematic_advantage.html Basically, i'd make a deal with the player. They want to do some sort of special effect. What is the effect? Is it reasonable to do? If so, what's the cost? How *hard* is it to do? An easy one is trading advantage for disadvantage or granting advantage on a successful skill check. If they want to disable an ogre, you can tell them they get disadvantage on their attack but the next attack the ogre makes is at disadvantage as well. Advantage and disadvantage are great lazy GM tools to help you make deals with players for special stuff in game. Hope that helps!

Michael Shea

It sounds awesome! I don't know if I have any special advice for it. I'd probably treat it just like a business only with its own set of special rituals and mantras. There are a lot of real-world pseudo-cults built around commercial enterprises. Strange lingo, ranks, rituals, outfits, that sort of thing. Look at pyramid schemes and self-help stuff for some good examples.

Michael Shea

I'm so glad you like it! I wrote both the talk show database and the Patreon Q&A database to help me find old topics when they come back around again. It makes me very happy to offer them to you folks as well – even in a downloadable form so you don't have to worry about me taking them down!

Michael Shea

Yeah! Those sorts of things are great. I'm always on the lookout for ideas I don't have to write down or look up. There's a careful balance between making a monster too hard when it *has* legendary resistances available or too easy if it loses those abilities when it loses legendary resistance. You sort of want a monster to have an arc and if its too weak either in the beginning or the end, it loses that arc. I haven't found a perfect way of managing that arc so legendary resistance or Dreadful Blessings are my current best approach. I'll check out Legendary Eminences! Thanks for passsing it along!

Michael Shea

It's really complicated to do and it is one area where an LLM helped out significantly since I was mixing together like four different programming languages and formats: shell scripting, LaTeX, and automator. It's sort of a "here you go, good luck" sort of offer. Other than the documentation on the Github page, I can't really offer other advice but folks on the Sly Flourish discord server might be able to better help if you reach out to them. I will say that I've since switched to using Obsidian and a stylesheet which is much easier than using automator to convert notes over. https://github.com/mshea/obsidian_toolbox/blob/main/two_column_print_to_pdf.md Good luck!

Nathan Schmaltz

Hi Mike, I really appreciate your opinions on all things dnd and your recommendations go a long way in my decisions to buy products often. That being said, years ago you did an "essential reading" breakdown where you even went so far as to identify page numbers. Lately however, you refer a lot to the TOV and Levelup5e products for game prep. I'm wondering if it would be possible to get a revised list of essential reading now that the new 2024 rules are in the world, and maybe what tools and lessons you would take from each of the "big 3"?

Mad Marty

March 2025 G'day Mike, 5E (2014) is backwards compatible in that you can easily run 1E or later adventure modules with it. Could it be forward compatible as well? What are some potential hurdles you can think of for someone who wants to run a post 2024 campaign module with the 2014 rules?

Apple BCN

Hi Mike, I was just listening to your readings and reflections on giving multiple choices and it made me think of the most recent session for my Curse of Strahd campaign. When I build scenes, I often try to make sure there a a handful of intractable things for my players, but I seem to struggle with implementing an element of choice with those interactables. As it stands, it feels a bit like a point-and-click adventure, especially in scenes with few/no NPCs. What are some ways you add choice to scenes that don’t involve NPCs?

Micheal Rackintyre

Good morning, March question for you. Now that you've seen and in many cases tried out the popular 5e DMG equivalent books, my question is: If you were to start a new 5e campaign at Level 1 today, what method would you use for treasure generation? I know each version is really a guideline or baseline for DMs to follow, and if you roll up an item that doesn't work you can just roll again. But what's the most DM usable default process to work from? I'm currently starting again at level 1, and I'm going to use Trials and Treasure to start with because I like that there's a treasure by character by level table on one page (176), but it isn't perfect as the consumable and permanent rewards use a several tables while the book doesn't really explain the tables (the text on pg 187 just says things like table 5 is for level 1 characters, and table 10 are for the 'highest level' characters).

Jason O'Leary

Hi Mike, I love your Shadowdark coverage and have watched a number of our Lazy DM prep videos for your Gloaming campaign. I'm getting ready to run my first Shadowdark campaign and, like you, I'm discovering some of the rules are a bit too vague or clunky or there are no rules for certain situations. Since you recently completed your campaign, do you have a summary of the house rules and rules clarifications that you collected during your campaign that you could share? Some areas that are sticking out to me are: how to set DCs for stealth and spotting creatures (and do monsters use the same rules), how to identify magic items, and how to award XP for treasure at higher levels (i.e., a bag of 30 gp is probably worth 1 XP for a 1st level party, but is it still worth 1 XP for a 5th level party?).

JspaceRyan

I6 Ravenloft in Shadowdark - How do you handle exploring the castle and the search for the Fortunes? Say the Tome of Strahd is in the Treasure Room. Do you provide anything to help your players find these rooms?

topher mehlhoff

Hello! I really love coming up with secrets and clues for my game. I've found it's a great way to give my players little incentives to explore and become invested in the story, as well as a great exercise to stretch my imagination. However, I do get bogged down sometimes with stress over whether I'm parceling out the secrets at an optimal rate. The most obvious example of this is big, campaign-ending secrets. When I try thinking of things my players could find out, I think of the fact that one of them is actually the reincarnation of a queen sent to save the world from cycles of destruction. But I don't want to let them know that yet! Or do I? Do you have a rule of thumb or dirty trick concerning which secrets to reveal when?

Predrag Dimitrijević

Hi, Mr. Flourish! Let's say I want to run a typical hex crawl campaign. Would your 8 steps even be applicable here? Or would I have to take a different approach? Like, planning everything on the map in advance, wasted work be damned! The thing I'm asking is can one be a Lazy GM when running hex crawls, or would they have to turn into a Diligent GM (your arch nemesis, I know)?

Michael Shea

I don't see why not! I think, depending on your level of conversion, you can run a lot of a published adventure with just about any system. I'm sure there are edge-cases where an adventure is really built around a particular system but given how sometimes we just take a published adventure as inspiration anyway, I think conversion isn't too terrible. 4e was about as different a system as any. One trick would be to ask yourself if you could play Keep on the Shadowfell with either D&D 2nd edition or D&D 2014, or D&D 2024. https://www.dmsguild.com/product/110212/H1-Keep-on-the-Shadowfell--QuickStart-Rules-4e The format of the adventure is very different from current adventures – a big focus on tactical combat in various chambers – but you can take a lot from it, reskin a lot, and probably run it pretty close to the original. If you can do that, I think you can do it with just about any adventure. The real question is how much do you want to take?

Michael Shea

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by intractable things. But if we're talking about things in an area that the characters might interact with, here are some thoughts: - Statues to investigate. - Books, scrolls, or carvings to read. - Different paths to take. - Powered or infused objects to interact with, like channeling energy from a summoning circle. - Traps to find, or even turn on one's enemies. - Objects to move around for better cover. Those are just a few. I'm not sure if that's answering your question.

Michael Shea

I think I like A5e's treasure generation the best. I still use the Lazy Treasure Generator in our patreon random generator: https://slyflourish.com/random_generators/sf-random-generator.html It's not quite like the systems in any of the books but its easy to use and offers up good ideas for treasure. Trials and Treasure has a great system and their own online tool for rolling treasure: https://a5e.tools/node/2282 I have an article for a lazy treasure system that breaks down to the following: ## Tier 1 (1st to 4th level) Treasure Parcel - 400 gp worth of coin, gems, jewels, and art - Two uncommon consumables - One uncommon permanent item ## Tier 2 (5th to 10th level) Treasure Parcel - 4,000 gp worth of coin, gems, jewels, and art - Two uncommon or rare consumables - One uncommon or rare permanent item ## Tier 3 (11th to 16th level) Treasure Parcel - 30,000 gp worth of coin, gems, jewels, and art - uncommon, rare, or very rare consumables - One uncommon, rare, or very rare permanent item ## Tier 4 (17th to 20th level) Treasure Parcel - 200,000 gp worth of coin, gems, jewels, and art - Two rare, very rare, or legendary consumables - One rare, very rare, or legendary permanent item ## Using These Parcels - Add a parcel to your prep notes for each session. - Choose the parcel's tier based on the challenges faced by the characters. - Award roughly two parcels each character level. If you have five or six characters, add one extra parcel per level. - Customize gems, jewelry, and art objects, subtracting their value from the gold value listed. 5e gamemaster guides often include lists of gems, jewels, and artwork you can roll on or choose from. Or just make them up. - Roll on your favorite 5e random tables for permanent or consumable magic items by rarity. - Instead of random permanent magic items, add character-focused magic items you choose or based on your players' wish lists. - Include one common magic item per parcel if desired. - Customize art objects and magic items with species, factions, conditions, or secrets and clues. - Include consumable magic items with single-use spell effects. - Tie daily-use spells to permanent magical weapons and armor to give them a unique flavor.

Michael Shea

A two-word rule for all of these is "wing it". If you really have trouble, the Shadowdark Discord server has a lot of folks willing to offer suggestions. I'd set stealth and hiding the same way as any other difficulty using the standard difficulty ladder. There's no passive perception and no real stealth checks. I let the players figure out what the magic items are without worrying about identifying them. It's up to you how much they learn about it while investigating it. XP is the same way, you have to gauge how valuable you think it is to the characters and tie it to that. I ended up giving a fair bit of experience away at higher levels but they were discovering some powerful stuff. My other house rules: - There's no stabilizing at 0 hit points. You either have 1 hit point or you're dying. - Spellcasters get to succeed once on a spell before they lose the spell on a failed check. They still have to roll the check but they don't lose the spell until it's been successfully cast at least once. - Characters start with one luck point at the beginning of the session. They cannot use a luck point to change an enemy's roll. Characters can share luck points among themselves. Shadowdark isn't a super-clean and super-tight rule system. It is much more like the old days where edge cases were determined by the GM. That's something we have to get used to when coming from 5e to Shadowdark. Good luck!

Michael Shea

No, that's the fun! They have to go with the vague prophecy from whoever's giving the prophecy (usually Madame Eva) and then try to figure it out from there. Some astute players recognize some of the locations. Others wander about until they hopefully find something before Strahd shows up.

Michael Shea

I tend to keep secrets to things the characters can learn about in the next game – not something they might or likely will learn about in the far future. I wouldn't put down secrets you don't want to reveal. The whole point is to give you thinks you *can* reveal. For those bigger campaign secrets, just keep them floating around in your head. If they're really cool, you'll remember them and, if not, they might change as the game changes anyway. So yeah, my big rule for secrets is: A secret is something the characters might learn in the next session. That helps me focus them down.

Michael Shea

Yeah, it can be tough with a wide open hex crawl. I think the best approach would be considering the aperature of your lens. At a high level you can jot down big locations like "Tower of Sett" or "Ruins of Ourivax" or "Sundered Keep of Grayon" without necessarily filling in the details. Then, when the characters decide to go to one of those – that's when you fill in the details with a map, chamber locations, and inhabitants. The key is insuring the players give you their decisions with enough time to prepare their journey. Even in a hex crawl, you can ask them which of three nearby adventure locations they want to visit at the *end* of a session so you know what to prepare for the next one. I don't run West Marches style games but my understanding is that this is how they work: the players tell the GM where they want to go and then the GM prepares that location. The social contract is that the players won't surprise the GM with a location. If you *do* find yourself in a situation where the characters are wandering into areas you haven't prepared, it's time to fall back to random lists and let them inspire your encounters. These lists might include: - Monuments – big state backdrops for an encounter. - Inhabitants – who's there? Maybe roll twice and collide two encounters together. - Factions – what worldly factions does the monument or inhabitants represent? - Conditions – what is the state of the location? - Effect – What strange effect is going on at the location? The Lazy DM's Companion contains a bunch of tables for things like this.

Nathan Schmaltz

This is fantastic news. In all honesty, I bought both of these products largely because of your rave reviews. It's really nice to see that breakdown of what high value tools are available in these. As a busy dm, it's hard to comb through the tomes of rule books for the nuggets of gold and it's truly appreciated when you put in that work for our benefit. Thank you.

Destino ROL

Hi! I love the concept of the Deadly Encounter Benchmark. I have a concern though: that formula was created taking into consideration PCs and monsters from D&D5E 2014. I'm switching to Tales of the Valiant and I wonder if the same formula applies in this environment. So, my question is, is the benchmark formula the same taking into consideration that ToV monsters hit harder and ToV characters are a bit tougher? Thanks!

Cédrick Lemay

Hey Mike! Just watched the "RPGs I Want to Play" video and i made me think about The One Ring game i would like to play eventually. Since i've red the rules of the second edition a bit already, and played the first edition adapted to 5e before, i know i will want to play with The One Ring rules considering it fits the universe more. I like using you're step for preping and it would be the first time using them outside 5e. My question is, considering you must have played multiple setting outside of 5e, and also considering The One Ring is less combat driven (so the monster step would be less important), what step have you noticed to be usually "the same" in different setting, as well as step that could flat out be ignored?

Victor Navone

Hi Mike, what is the origin of the name "Sly Flourish"? Is that the name of your alter ego? A fictional DM? An LLC? Please explain the origins, mechanics, and respective domains of the Sly Flourish/Lazy DM/Mike Shea trinity. Apologies if you've covered this before.

NiteHood

Hi Mike. For my question this month, I want to ask about something that’s been bothering me for a long time. In a nutshell, I want to know your thoughts on what we can do to make the economy of the game more fun for players to engage with. It dawned on me recently that earning, saving up, and spending money is itself a fun and interesting part of many video games that I enjoy, but I’ve never found that to be the case in my tabletop games, both as a player and a GM. My experience comes from both 5e and Shadowdark, but both have the same issue. The amount of money that players are expected to earn quickly makes mundane or routine expenses (like spending the night at an inn) such an insignificant sliver of their overall wealth that it feels pointless and tedious to even keep track of. At the same time, there’s very little in the way of fun things to buy since most games refuse to provide prices for magic items. The two ends of the economy that the players are most likely to interact with it on are so far apart from each other that supplying the needs for one end completely obliterates the usefulness of the other. A grittier, Witcher-esque game where players are motivated to keep accepting quests by the need to earn their next meal basically blocks players from ever having access to plate mail or—god forbid—a magic item, at least one that they had some agency in choosing instead of only getting what the GM or a random table decided to hide in a dungeon. Likewise, a GM trying to provide players with enough gold to afford plate mail or some other cool purchases also necessarily makes it so that their players’ pocket change can cover their cost of living for years to come. I guess that works for most people, but is it really asking too much to be able to have both? A game where deciding between finally buying an item you’ve been saving up for and getting a proper rest in an inn might actually be a meaningful and nuanced choice? An economy that is itself fun and interesting to engage with? I have found success in shifting the prices of most items down by 1 coin tier (1 gp becomes 1 sp, 1 sp becomes 1 cp), and just making some minor adjustments to prices already listed in cp. Compressing the economy like this gives more meaning to those lower-end transactions while still making expensive items accessible. The price of plate mail for instance could now be seen as a few hundred meals instead of a few thousand, which keeps both within a tight enough scope that they can still remain relevant to the player. I still want to do more to keep players motivated and excited by gold though, so I’m wondering if you have any ideas. Thanks!

Jason

Hi Mike, Now that we have all three core books, I think we can say that monster power levels have gone up as well as the PC power levels. The monster HP have also gone up, but not the PC's. Can we expect more PCs going down?

Kaique de Oliveira

Hi Mike. How do you deal with Portent (from the Divination Wizard)? In case of advantage/disadvantage, does it replace both rolls or a single one? The modifiers are added to the portent die or it represents the final result? The text seems ambiguous to me and people on forums have different opinions.

Michael Shea

Hi John! In short, the lazy encounter benchmark still works fine. I did a deeper analysis here: https://slyflourish.com/2024_dmg_encounter_building_versus_the_lazy_benchmark.html In short, the more monsters an encounter has, the more the 2024 DMG guidelines increase the challenge over the benchmark. The fewer monsters an encounter has, the more the 2024 DMG descreases the threat compared to the benchmark. In my experience, though, if you use the lazy encounter benchmark with the higher-challenge option (3/4 of character levels at tier 3 and 1:1 CR to character levels at tier 4) battles will remain very challenging. Keep in mind the benchmark is just a benchmark. It's not a hard rule. You're not intended to use it like a budget. It's there to tell you when you're getting into the red zone on an encounter. That's all. Flee Mortals, Tales of the Valiant, and A5e all use systems similar to the Lazy Encounter Benchmark. TOV in particular is using it pretty much exactly because I wrote those guidelines too =) In short, the Lazy Encounter Benchmark should continue to work just fine.

Michael Shea

I've used the eight steps with a lot of different RPGs and I think it holds up very well. Sometimes some of the steps will be slightly different. You might not need a treasure step. A monster step might be different. Only in very improvisational games like Blades in the Dark did I have trouble. I think the eight steps will work fine for The One Ring. Give it a shot and see what works for you!

Michael Shea

Sly Flourish is the name of a rogue power from D&D 4e! I actually was looking for website domains to write DM advice for 4e D&D DMs and tried a few and that was like the second one. It could very well have been Tide of Iron!

Michael Shea

Dealing with the in-world economy in D&D and 5e games has been challenging for a lot of people. There are a few ways people have handled it: - Reduce the amount of money earned, as you mention. - Give the characters a greater quest to use their money for some big public good like rebuilding a city or building some fantastic machine the world needs. - Give them a home base to spend their money on. Bastions were supposed to do this but they can actually *earn* money which isn't great. - Buy from a random selection of magic items. You can always increase the costs from the recommended costs (and I recommend you do). Those are just a few quick ideas. There are lots of products from 5e publishers that offer things to spend money on. In City of Arches and Uncovered Secrets 2 (available on your patreon reward page) I have a list of fantastic features to add to a home base that cost a lot of money.

Michael Shea

We'll see! I think characters have a lot of damage mitigation features to off-set this. I've been moaning in our discord server that Circle of Power became a spell for wizards, bards, and clerics now when it used to just be for 17th level paladins. It's going to be a year or so before we know for sure.

Michael Shea

Since this happens before you roll, it would replace both rolls. There's no advantage or disadvantage consideration. If you have disadvantage, you can replace the roll with the portent. That's how I'd read it anyway. I'm not a rules expert =)

Cédrick Lemay

I might start the game in a few month depending on stuff and will update you then!

David Pōkiha

Hi Mike, Closing out on a campaign and starting to think about my next one (D&D 5e) I realized I get annoyed at the apparent over-value of Perception, as well as my own laziness around using it. In non-published adventures it feels like I'm just picking which characters notice things and who doesn't get to interact with that object. And players use it as a crutch in exploration-pillar scenarios as a catch-all, favouring Wisdom-based character choices. Would it be drastic to cut the use of passive Perception out almost entire (limited to Stealth & Surprise and maybe a few other specific places) and heavily restrict the use of Perception skill checks? My thinking is that exploration would be mostly described by the players, as it is in Shadowdark (eg) - "thinking outside the sheet". Perception (and Investigation) then only come into play for small scale and specific actions. Not a "I walk into the bedroom - do I notice anything" check. Instead a "I sniff the cigarette I found in the ash tray, can I tell what brand it is" check. While this is basically rules as written, it demotes a skill my table (and a number I've played at) use more than any other Wisdom or Intelligence check. Are there downsides to this I'm not seeing?

Aljovin

Hi Mike, in an encounter, when there are special mechanics, such as extinguishing the 4 fires will prevent the lair actions, or if you succeed 3 persuasion checks, the Ghost will not see you as an enemy anymore. How do you approach the players with that information, Do you tell the players those mechanics just before the combat, or when they try once to tell them that it does work and they might be able to sway the encounter their way? I’ve tried both, not telling them until they try, most of the time, the players don’t think it’s an option, or telling them right away, then they think they need to do it that way. How do you approach this type of challenge?

Ben Hodges

Hey Mike, do you have any tips for onboarding a newish player in a tier 2 campaign? We lost 2 players recently and had a couple fill, but one of them is newer to 5e. We are at level 7 which is fairly high for a newer player. Do you have any tips for making sure they aren’t overwhelmed? Thanks

Tev Kaber

Hiya Mike! Now that all the core 2024 D&D books are out, I've been hoping for some news about the 5.2 SRD, but there hasn't been a peep. I'm looking to make some content and want to use the new SRD. Do you have any inside info on that? Hear any rumors?

Anders

Hi Mike! I love your Campaign-Unique Faction List idea and will attempt to use it in the setting I'm building. In terms of creating factions from scratch, do you have a lazy approach that helps design interesting factions without adding an overwhelming amount of detail?

Corey Rathel

Hey Mike! I am a software developer and forever DM for two different 5E games. I also have interest in writing my own content whether that be a campaign setting for my own games that I can provide to others like your own City of Arches or even my own novel. I have no idea how to even start a project like this. What tips would you give an aspiring author on fitting writing into a busy life?

Karl Arrenon

Hey Mike, We all know you love ShadowDark ( so do I ) and after your recent SD love-fest my brain has been churning… you mentioned that you felt it would be good for beginners which is something I never thought about ( because of SDs grim nature). I had been wanting to introduce my girlfriend ( very new to RPGs) and my daughter (7 yo) - what sort of caveats and changes would you make for running for such a different group of newbies ( other than just lightening the atmosphere) - Thanks!

Kreggar

Hi Mike, I’m interested in running a dangerous 5E campaign where character death is a real possibility, even if not frequent. Do you have tips for having characters replace the one that died? Should the new character always start at the level of the rest of the party, or can it be fun to have a Lvl 1 member with a Lvl 3 (or 5) group? Similar question for having guest players join for a session or two. All my players, myself included, are new to TTRPGs, and I worry they might feel overwhelmed having to roll up a character at higher levels. Thanks!

Lazar Slavkovic-Raco

Hey Mike! What is your opinion on using GenAI to give you some context/idea for creating adventure (mini-campaign) and/or giving you suggestions on how the adventure should proceed? I have noticed in a lot of TTRPG discords/forums that they are very against this. I for example have ADHD and it is giving me brain fog all the time when I want to try for the first time making something on my own. Thanks!

Michael Shea

I think that's a fine way to go. I treat perception and passive perception as a sort of Spider Man danger sense. They might know something's off and worth doing a deeper investigation but they don't know what or how. I wrote about this more here: https://slyflourish.com/passive_perception.html It's worth recognizing what passive perception is valuable for – moving on quickly. Without passive perception, players might feel obligated to mention every little thing they do all the time. Every floor tile must be poked with a 31 foot pole. Every idol must be scrutinized from a safe distance. Passive perception is intended to help skip a lot of the tedium of constantly checking by letting players know there's a floor to their characters' checks. I think it's worth a conversation with your group about what perception notices, what it does not, and what they need to do to still work with the world around them without just relying on a check.

Michael Shea

I start with the fiction but then usually explain the mechanics. In combat, given how vital the action economy is, players aren't willing to risk having to figure out how to use all the interactive objects in the battle. It's more efficient to just do the stuff you know you can do. Thus, I think it's worth describing in the fiction what's going on and then how it works mechanically so they know what new "moves" they have given the environment.

Michael Shea

I'd probably work with them to build a relatively simple character build. Avoid fancy feats and subclasses if you can. Starting at a higher level is tough but not impossible. Hopefully they pick it up without too much trouble.

Michael Shea

The rumor is that WOTC is still interested in doing this because it helps them get other publishers to write D&D 2024 compatible material and then they can harvest the top-selling products for D&D Beyond. I reached out to the D&D Creator Laiason team but heard no word back. As far as making new content, there's a lot you can do without needing the 5.2 SRD. Only if you're copying actual text out of the 2024 books would I worry about it. Otherwise, most of the terms and mechanics and general compatibility works with the older 5.1 SRD. But yeah, it really depends on what you're making.

Michael Shea

Put your characters first and build factions that work well for them – both protaginist and antagonist factions. Like the rest of spiral development, it helps to build factions (gods, icons, political groups, cults, organizations, etc) based on the characters and the theme of the campaign you're running. If you need inspiration, look at the factions from other published settings and see what you think will work well. Eberron, for example, has a ton of great factions: https://slyflourish.com/1d100_eberron_factions.html

Michael Shea

I don't think I'd change anything other than ensuring you have a lot of extra characters to give them if (or when) their character dies. Also, let them know up front that the game can be deadly but they'll get a new character as they go. You can also maximize hit points so it's not quite so lethal.

Michael Shea

I like to start characters at the same level as the one who died so they don't lose too much. You can mix levels together but depending on how you level, they might be permanently behind. I think character death is enough of a detrement that you don't have to also penalize them by having them start at a lower level. Same with new players joining in or players missing sessions and coming back – just have them level along with everyone else.

Michael Shea

I think we're better served by reading RPG books and using random tables to fire off our own ideas than using generative AI to do it. I wrote more about it here: https://slyflourish.com/best_llm.html Your own mileage may vary, of course. If you find it useful, who am I to tell you it's not? I'm no expert in dealing with ADHD but I've heard from some folks with ADHD that the eight steps is a great framework to keep them focused on what they need to run a game. Keep thing simple and focus on what you need to run the next game you're going to run. Hope that helps!

Kreggar

Makes sense, and I hadn’t really considered the “character death is enough of a detriment” piece of the overall experience. Thanks for the input and all the amazing resources!

Alex

Hey new patron and brand new DM here, just did my first couple sessions of ShadowDark the past couple weekends (on your recommendation) and had a wonderful time. I was looking at your books and I’m pretty interested in your DM guides and locations etc and I wanted to know how applicable, if at all, they are with ShadowDark? I have never played 5e, I’m pretty new to ttrpg in general as is the rest of the table.

Michael Shea

Hi Alex! I'd say the following books have enough useful material to be worth it for just about any fantasy RPG: - Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master (system agnostic) - The Lazy DM's Companion (about 80% system agnostic and some great random tables) - City of Arches (pretty system agnostic) - Fantastic Locations (completely agnostic) - Fantastic Adventures (easily converted) - Ruings of the Grendleroot (easily converted) I'd say these books either have too much 5e material or Shadowdark itself has what you need already: - The Lazy DM's Workbook - Fantastic Lairs (heavily 5e inspired). Hope that helps!

Adam B

Hey Mike, love your content! I had something strange happen last session. The players were running a heist on Xanathar’s lair and they made a plan of hiding in a portable hole (breaks for air every 5 min) while one player carried it and snuck around invisibly. It turned into about three hours of one player wandering around invisibly while everyone else waited. We all agree it was a rough session because the idea was good on paper but boring at the table for everyone but the sneaker, who didn’t feel great afterwards either. I feel like there was more I could’ve done as a DM to keep it a “team sport”. What can I do in the future to identify and prevent this sort of situation without stripping away their agency? Thanks for all you do!

Alex

Thanks man!

Jason Kemp

When you develop factions for your games, what do you feel are the important elements you need to know at a minimum? I'd assume the faction's name, goals, and path to success as a front are a minimum, but I also imagine the scope of a faction's power and its leadership are also important. I'm interested to hear what else you prefer to detail, even if only in your thoughts.

Harann and Friends

My players (5E D&D) like to have a campaign where their PCs go from Level 1 through at least Level 12 so they get to experience their PCs doing cool higher level stuff. Which I totally understand. They want to start at Level 1 instead of starting at a higher level. However, once the campaign gets to about Level 7, I (the GM) get bored and want to start a new campaign. I start thinking about all the possible future campaigns I want to run. I've ended our 2 previous campaigns at 7th level. We are currently in a campaign at Level 6 with plenty of story arcs to get to at least Level 12 and I'm starting to get bored again. How can I make the campaign fresh and exciting for me (the GM) at these higher levels?

Hussain Bukannan

Hi Mike! I'm wondering how you strike a balance in your campaigns between introducing new monsters and re-using old monsters. My players are a few sessions into a campaign, and I have a list of monsters that fit the theme of the campaign and I know the players enjoy fighting. I try to re-use these monsters whenever I can, but I'm worried they will feel stale and less exciting at some point. On the other hand, new monsters are always fresh and exciting but hold the risk of falling flat and not resonating with the players. How do you strike this balance and which end of the spectrum makes for a more enjoyable game? Thanks as always.

Spike Hemphill

How long does take you playing a system to form a strong opinion about it? I agree with statement that you mentioned in talk show that playing one shot might not be enough time to understand system or know if it fits your play style. Often I come away from one shot with new game with only slight positive or negative feelings. I know the time to understand your feelings for game will vary for game and person but have you noticed any trends in your experience?

Michael Shea

Yeah, this is a tough problem when it happens. I've had a similar situation with one player investigating a whole map using arcane eye. If you know enough about the dungeon and what's going on, you can try to summarize it as much as possible. You can also give out a general summary and then summarize each room as the group gets there. Skipping forward as much as possible feels like the best way to handle it. I don't know what negotiation you can have with the players to avoid such a beneficial approach while also explaining how boring it might be. I think the best approach is to reveal as much as possible as quickly as possible and get them to the decision point where everyone else can be involved.

Michael Shea

I think a general alignment can help with a faction. Who's the lawful good faction? Neutral good? Chaotic neutral? Obviously a central NPC point of contact for the faction is important. Rules for interaction – how will the character meet with this faction? I don't think you need too much to run a faction and leaving blanks gives you an opportunity to fill it out as you go. Also, villainous factions are good to fill out even though you know the characters aren't going to join them. Children of Ibraxus, Knights of the Nameless King, the Scarlet Brotherhood, the Aurum, etc.

Michael Shea

You might think of splitting the campaign up into new storylines that *do* excite you. Think of a 1st to 12th level game as two campaigns, a first to 5th and a 5th to 11th or so. Then a big climax at 12. Consider taking that excitement you have for a new campaign and push it into a new chapter for your *existing* campaign – just one that starts a little later. It's still not quite the same as a whole new campaign but it might get your creative juices flowing enough to keep your interest.

Michael Shea

Flavor! Every ogre is unique. New names, new appearances, new weapons, new factions they're allied to, new gods or demons they worship. An ogre might be the same as any other ogre to your players but not to their characters. How you describe the ogre and what else you wrap them in makes them unique. I try to avoid giving the name of a monster and instead describing the monster as though it's the first time the characters have ever seen them. Mechanics can stay the same but how you describe monsters in the narrative can change every time you put them on the map.

Michael Shea

One session usually isn't enough. I'd say maybe eight to twelve sessions to have a real feeling? Obviously that can change. I have opinions on systems I've played only once. There's no law about how much you have to play a game to get a feeling for it. But for some systems, I know it'll take time for me to truly understand it. I'm excited for Shadow of the Weird Wizard and I know it might take 20 sessions to really get a feeling for the whole game. And, at that point, I'm probably done for a while. So yeah, it depends. Sometimes I have a decent feeling for a game after a session or two. Othertimes I have to run a bunch of sessions to really formulate a whole point of view. Some systems might seem great and then I see the little warts much later. The more complex the system, the longer I have to run it to really see how it plays out. That's why I don't yet have a strong opinion about D&D 2024. It has so many moving parts and one spell can change the whole game so I have to play it for a while to see.

Harann and Friends

Interesting! You've got my gears turning in a new direction! Thanks!

Rafael Padilha

Hi, Mike! I'm approaching the final sessions of Tyranny of Dragons, and my party has made several allies throughout the campaign. For the final incursion to the Temple of Tiamat and the fight against the Dragon Queen, I’m considering letting them call on some of these allies for single-use abilities, similar to the final act of Baldur’s Gate 3. For example, a powerful mage could briefly appear to cast Invisibility on the party, a spy might land a devastating sneak attack on a single foe, or a cleric could use Revivify at a critical moment. I know you've previously suggested that final battles should be more narrative-driven rather than mechanically implemented, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on this approach. Any advice on balancing or making these moments feel impactful without overshadowing the players? Any other suggestion on how to incorporate such allies with a more direct impact than just having them in the background fighting?

Michael Shea

Sure! That sounds cool. The hard part is that, unlike BG3, you can't test it before you run it. Make sure you have some fallbacks if things aren't working quite right. It's really hard to know how this sort of thing is going to work out and you typically only have one chance. Good luck! Have your hands on the dials!

Peter Hohenstein

Hi Mike. In the past you've spoken about comparing the GM guides of 2014, 2024, TotV and ALU5e. An important thing I took from it is there isn't one that ' has it all', where each has things that are (very) good, they also all lack important things. How would you rate the Free5e GM Handbook as it is available as text at the moment in this? Let's ignore for now the heavy Sly Flourish input and influence in it ;-). How do you think it scores for things like table usability, random tables and advice for new GMs..? To p[ut it a different way, is this simply a great GM resource because of the 'Free' aspect, or is it also a good resource regardless of this?

Doug Powis

Hi Mike. I'm moving from a very tactical to a more free form theatre of the mind game. I am prepared to make fudge a few things to make the transition smoother, because I hope it will make the game more enjoyable for the members of the group who struggle with tactical play. My question is, what are the things I should fudge/go easy on/modify to help those who are happy with grid based precision? Thank you so much ☺️ (sorry for formatting, using phone browser)

topher mehlhoff

I want to hit one of my players with a curse. The BBEG of our campaign is a fallen god and this player's character has forged a mystical connection with him through some out of the box roleplay decisions. (She chose to experiment with some ooze that came from the god's rise in power—she cooked it up and breathed in the fumes!) So I think it would be narratively interesting for the god to punish her for her hubris. The curse I have in mind includes some Boones, such as increased damage, but it's definitely mostly bad. Is it a good idea to discuss this with the player? I don't want her to feel picked on or blindsided. But it would also be fun to surprise her and the rest of the players. What would you recommend?