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New Sly Flourish Project Preview – Batch 1 (Patreon)

Published:
2026-01-29 18:00:10
Imported:
2026-01
Tags:

Content

Hello Hero of Sly Flourish!

Over the past few months I wrote a new thing and I want you to be the first to have a look at it. This is a new yet-unnamed lazy GM project and I'm looking to get your feedback. I'll be releasing it as I go through my second draft in four batches released every few weeks. The first batch drops today! Inside this PDF you'll find the beginning chapters of this new work.

Download the Lazy GM Project Batch 1 PDF

You don't need to send me grammar or structure edits – this hasn't been through any level of editing yet. Instead, I have particular questions for you to answer based on what you read of the scope of the project in the first chapter.

What isn't in here that really needs to be in here?

What is in here that really doesn't need to be in here?

Any other feedback on the content of the material you want to provide is definitely valuable.

You can provide feedback to me in two ways:

You can leave comments on this Patreon post.

You can email me at mike@slyflourish.com.

Thank you so much and I hope you enjoy what you see!

Comments

Adam Gordon

I haven't done a lot of early input like this in the past but I think that the section on factions may need to move more adjacent to the NPC section. I think then you can integrate ideas about how any antagonists/villains could be linked to these factions (leader of faction, passed over jealous second in command, etc). I think you could also potentially expand to have a list of potential motivations for said factions. Factions could be there to: seek to maintain order, enrich themselves, awake a terrible being, overthrow the present ruler, keep the settlement/village/city/kingdom prosperous, care for the needy, spread knowledge/new technology, spread religion, oversee the faithful of a god, protect a shrine/landmark. (Those are 10 off the top of my head but something similar would allow a new GM to think about those things. I think then an interesting section could be how could each or any of those be twisted into an antagonistic plot for the player characters (The knights of the protective hearth seek to keep people safe, but over the centuries they have become a draconian network of spies and agents that seek to know and manage all movement of people in the kingdom, The hand of the Eternal machine that seeks to spread technological improvements that has taken to salting fields at night so people will have to try new cultivation techniques, The people of Boris that seek to bring about the true ruler of the world by summoning Boris the great and powerful and all they need to do is sacrifice noble blood on this stone table.)

Adam Gordon

Sorry if this is overload, here is my next bit of feedback. I wonder if the fantastic locations area would be a place to include extra info as potentially a side bar. Locations with a memorable theme/monument can already be fun. There may be ways to increase the tension in a scene. Monuments could potentially have spell like effects attached to them that change the dynamics of the scene, consider an obelisk to the thunder god, perhaps it is continuously shrouded in a cloud, consider making an area 20 ft radius from the pillar that due to the cloud is now considered difficult to see in, and you gain advantage to gain stealth when you are there (like fog cloud spell but cannot be dispersed). Then potentially you can add some kind of clock onto the monument, in the example above perhaps every 3 rounds of combat a lightning bolt shoots out of the tower to hit any player/npc within the cloud. Can we give the players more agency? of course! In the above example could a player make an ?Arcana/religion check? against this monument? If so can they direct all the bolts that would be sent out on the next clock tick against a single target! This adds three potential layers of activity 1. Static environmental changes, 2. periodic or clock based changes that the players can watch for and 3. Player interactable environments that can use non combat skills in interesting ways! As the GM not all of these are needed with every encounter and some might be too much to consider depending on how comfortable you are, as you grow these may be ideas to consider to vary/enhance a scene. Now I am seeing you have something like this about tying mechanics to a location but a sidebar break out with examples might be helpful. Also I think I might move it closer the section on fantastic locations/monuments the faction list ideas seem too different, I would like the sections closer.

Julianna Stockton

Three small notes for the “Review the Characters” section: - I particularly like the callout box with your commentary on the part you currently default to focusing on (character-tie-in-secrets). It helps me “triage” the big chunks of advice. Felt a lot like the audio commentary you offer in Readings & Reflections, after the main article content. - the “Great Lazy GM Tools” callout re: Campfire tales feels like it warrants an icon of its own - I hope this feature is called out at other points in the book, too! It was another great “triage” lens, to label tools that accomplish several things at once. - “Player Preferences” felt redundant, like a combination of “Character Mechanics” and “Stars & Wishes” - one thing that felt missing (potentially) - do you consider the characters as a whole, and relative balance amongst them? So not just each individual’s arc / wishes / possessions / etc, but also something about how they fit with the party/game as a whole? I’m thinking specifically of keeping track of “who hasn’t gotten a custom magic item as recently as others?” Or “who had a big emotional spotlight last week and could use a breather while we focus more on two other party members this week?”

Julianna Stockton

In Locations section, I *really* liked the Themes part, as a way to really “prepare to improvise”. The Unholy Temples example list brought the idea to life so clearly - I found myself wanting more examples for more genres/location types. Maybe there are more coming later on in the book/appendix?

Julianna Stockton

In general, the “what’s new” callouts within each step section felt unnecessary - many of them read as “same idea just more detail here” rather than a big fundamental shift in the concepts. I think these are already summarized in the opening “What’s Changed?” blurb on page 2.

Julianna Stockton

The section on “Choose your steps” (p.39-41) felt unnecessarily long. Seems like it could be summed up in “when using a prepared adventure, you can probably skip X Y Z. You’ll still want to plan a strong start, though, especially mid-campaign.”

Rob C

Hey Mike. I just resubscribed, so I’m a little behind. But for what it’s worth, I enjoyed the call out boxes. There’s something similar in the 5.5 books, and I thought it was handy.