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October – December 2026 Patreon Q&A (Patreon)

Published:
2026-10-08 16:00:13
Imported:
2026-10
Tags:
Q&A

Content

Welcome to the Sly Flourish Patreon Questions and Answers thread for October, November, and December 2026!

Ask your monthly RPG-related question in the comments below!

Every Friday morning I answer every question on this post and some questions make it to the Lazy RPG Talk Show. 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.

Comments

Lane Mullin

I would love to get good at layout. What are some good resources for this? I won’t have the money to pay for layout, but I’ve read raw and unfinished ttrpg texts from major publishers and it makes a huge difference. I am willing to do it myself and put my money towards art.

Robert Townsend

Hi Mike, thanks again for all the work you do for the community! I'm a longtime DM who is playing in games being run by less experienced DMs. I own the adventures we're running through, and because I like having a clear understanding of what's going on, but that understanding isn't always materializing at the table, I've started reading through these adventures, intentionally avoiding getting ahead of where we are at. Could reading the adventure books like this be problematic? My DMs know I'm doing this but I worry about the impact on other players if I'm operating on information they don't necessarily have. (This is purely for narrative purposes, not to gain mechanical advantage)

William Paine

Question: when planning shorter sessions, do you lean toward planning fewer scenes or having fewer elements in those scenes (fewer monsters, fewer rooms/areas, or simpler encounters)? Due to a medical condition of one of our players, my Tales of the Valiant group decided to limit our sessions to 2 hours. We meet twice per month. I’m not as adept as I’d like to be at managing tight sessions that are entertaining. I want to keep interesting plot threads and character goals that extend into other sessions. At the same time, it makes sense to have the sessions be largely “bottle episodes” to some extent. I’ve been reading Return of the Lazy and outlining my next few sessions more intentionally. In Return, the author suggests that sessions could get roughly 1-2 scenes per hour. So my outlines are fairly simple. I originally wanted to lean on Empire of the Ghouls as a framework for this campaign. Although I still want to hit some of the highlights of that, I’m really trying to simplify many of the interactions of factions and plots. Any insights will be helpful. Thank you! -Bill

Michael Cremin

Hello, Mike! I have a serious conundrum: to AI, or to not AI? I have been poking around on Questportal, which is an amazing VTT platform that will do all of the things that I find tedious for me. Because my crew and I play on a VTT (normally Roll20 or Foundry), a lot of what I have to do as a DM feels like I am setting up a video game: virtual maps, online character sheets, rollable token, special effects...it takes a long time, but because we are all staring at a screen (vs. sitting around a table), it feels unavoidable. I have been playing with these same bozos for decades, but since the pandemic, we've played MORE than ever because of the conveniences of a VTT...but the VTT has changed HOW we play. There is less description on my part; each session has become dependent on maps and grids and tokens vs. theater of the mind. I have been tempted to say, "Let's just use Google Meets for A/V, print out paper characters sheets, and use OwlBear Rodeo for simple die rolling and very limited maps." At the same time...am I just an old man yelling at the clouds? AI isn't going anywhere, it would make my life much easier, and I think my crew would really dig it. I am torn. I want to point out that various companies have licenced their materials to Questportal, so they have given their permission for the AI to use their stuff. Your expertise is most welcome, sir. Be well, and thank you from a big fan. MC

Benjamin Conard

I've heard you mention several times on the show how your players liked your Blades in the Dark campaign but you did not enjoy running it. Could you elaborate on what was difficult for you? I've played in one Blades campaign. have run a Slugblaster campaign and now am prepping for a Blades '68 game. I certainly have had stuggles improv'ing player challenge and keeping the game a game, often times looking forward to the procedural nature of the downtime so I can get a break. Just wondering if your feelings were similar.

Cesar Barbosa

I have a question about prepping dungeons quickly. I noticed you have a pretty loose method for building your dungeons. If I understood it correctly, it’s something like having a menu ready that you pick from as the session unfolds. By “menu” I mean: monsters, traps, challenges, and the location of the MacGuffin. I thought that was brilliant. Coincidentally, I’d been trying something similar, but I never landed on a method that felt solid enough to actually use. One complicating factor is that I mostly play on VTTs, which in a way demands more prep work. If it’s not too much to ask, I’m curious to see an example of a real game situation where you used your method. Cheers!

ahobo

Good Morning. I am a Pathfinder 2e GM. I know you mainly run 5e and its derivatives but I was wondering if ya had any tips or tricks from your 4e days for modifying the 8 steps to play better with this more tactical system. Specifically, the game is a little stricter on what can be put in front of a group to fight so having a menu of monsters can be a little tricky to put together to form a good encounter on the fly. The system also has very cheap / free out of combat healing. I believe I heard somewhere that the designers expect characters to go into each fight with close to max hit points, however, I dont know if in a dungeon I should be putting more time pressure on the PCs since medicine checks do take 10 mins each time they use it. Or if I should be super generous and allow for the PCs to heal back up to full so long as a character in the party has the skill. Finally there is out of combat challenges. The system really shines in combat but outside of combat I tend to struggle with coming up with ways to challenge the characters in a way that isnt resolved with a single skill roll.

dergianni

Hello, Mike! How do you prep Elden Ring-Style exploration/dungeons? I'm trying to recreate the feeling of those huge, looping and multilayered areas/legacy dungeons, ie the Raya Lucaria Academy, traversing rooftops, huge staircases, jumping over chandeliers, etc. but can never accomodate the scale. Thank you!

Michael Shea

A lot of people like Affinity Publisher. https://www.affinity.studio/page-layout-software I use Word for my layout and you can actually get pretty far with it but it's not fantastic. Others like Pages which comes for free on Macs. I'd probably take a look at Affinity and some tutorial videos.

Michael Shea

I would probably avoid reading the adventures you're currently playing in. Do your best to just enjoy the game you're in. Find positive and constructive ways to dive deeper into the game and take some of the burden off of the DMs your playing with. Offer to be the note take for the game, or the cartographer, or the quartermaster, or all three! Build characters that tie into the hooks the DM is bringing to the table and those that complement the other characters in both mechanics and story. When you're done with a campaign, you can look back to see how yours differed but looking at them while you're running could break your connection to the world actually taking place at the table and move you towards "that's not how I would have done it" territory which isn't great for you or the DM.

Michael Shea

This is really tough. I would probably break away from longer form stories and build more episodic games, which can still be a lot of fun and still tie into a larger story but something more like the Mandalorian than the Star Wars movies. You can probably fit two to three scenes in two hours — two big ones or three smaller ones. Sometimes you can run shorter scenes with fewer elements, as you describe, and other times you can shrink the overall story. Fewer rooms in a dungeon, fewer encounters along a journey. For something like Empire of the Ghouls, you'll almost certainly want to cut down the travel. The travel in Ghouls is really long. One encounter along the way is probably good. Think about running shorter dungeons and ensure the scenes you run all have a meaningful motivation in the campaign. Also, fewer players and lower levels in less complex systems can help =)

Michael Shea

I'll start off with a few things. First, I'm not your priest. Nor am I your role model. We each have to decide what we're going to do with this new technology taking the whole world by storm. I think it's always worth keeping in mind the environmental, economic, and social impacts AI is having. AI isn't going to kill us all — we can do that all on our own with massive economic funneling to the top, filling the atmosphere with carbon, and using AI to push totalitarian regimes. But generative AI is just technology, as Cory Doctorow points out. We have to decide where it helps us do what we want to do and where it's taking away the things we enjoy doing ourselves or where we should be putting that effort. I don't condemn anyone for their use of AI as long as they're not hurting other people (stealing their work, lying to them, filling the internet with slop, etc). Nor do I condemn those who want absolutely nothing at all to do with it. There are good reasons to feel this way. I think it's probably a better conversation to have with your group to see how comfortable they are with it. For me, the question is whether generative AI is doing the things I really want it to be doing or if I should be doing these things myself. Handling tedious work that no one wants to do? Probably ok. Doing creative work? I'm not a fan. I don't think it destroys humanity to generate an image of an NPC or a token or a map but also, we have lots of pictures of NPCs, tokens, and maps available made by actual human beings. Maybe take a look through those first. So yeah, we each have to decide where our lines are on this one. I'm not going to draw them for anyone else.

Michael Shea

I think I had problems with a few parts of Blades. I think it's a great game and I totally get why people love it. But I had some hard issues. First, it's actually pretty complex in a few ways: - The world is rich and there's a lot going on that I felt like I needed to processes to run a game. - There's not only character sheets but crew sheets, region sheets, and headquarters sheets. So there's a lot of mechanics across the whole game. - There's so much character-driven narrative that it's hard to make anything solid for the game itself. It's been like five years since I ran it so I don't know if I would have the same problems with it now that I had back then but that's what I hit. I still think it's great, but I don't know that its for me.

Michael Shea

There are a few ways to prep and run dungeons and I don't focus on only one. I think it's fine to prepare and run dungeons in several ways depending on the time you have, the effort you want to put in, and what you're comfortable with. I'll offer up a couple of ways. First, you can print out a map and take a pen and write down one or two words to describe what each of the rooms are. You can write down traps if you want or note things you know will be in any room. You can list out NPCs and monsters separately or if you know certain ones are in certain chambers, you can do that too. A looser way is to list out *potential* chambers in their own list and then improvise the rooms as you run the dungeon, dropping in particular chambers when they make sense depending on where the characters went. This is looser, and requires more improvisation at the table, but it's faster to prep I think. Here are two examples from my Nimble game this week: - **Vaults of Nevernight**. collapsed walls, ancient sarcophagi, Ruined demonic cage Lord Scale the Knight of Chains; Ornate primeval spire of tentacles of Gothin the Thing in the Pit; Secret relic vaults and guardians; decayed walls and slimes; collapsed vault; relic portal chamber. Secret door of teeth. - **Nevernight**. Outdoor patio, inner foyer and greeting room, sitting room, kitchen and dumbwaiters, fighting room, library, relic chamber, private relic chamber, dining room, upper serving room, servants quarters, upper patio, private patio, guest quarters, master bedrooms, outdoor roof patio. Outdoor fighting pit. This worked out well because I ended up not using the vaults of nevernight. They just went in for a party. I did find myself with extra time to prep this game so I also hand-wrote notes on a map too. Probably more prep than I needed, but it helped me when I ran the location. So it's really about doing what you have the time to do and are comfortable doing. Try a few different methods and see what works.

Michael Shea (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-10 12:00 The eight steps should serve Pathfinder 2e just as much as any other RPG. But what you put *in* the steps might change. Instead of having a loose list of monsters who might go anywhere, you might instead outline encounters already pre-built that you can drop in when they feel right. Your prep might be designing the encounters. Pathfinder 2 does have some quick encounter building guidelines on page 76 of the GM Core book. - Boss and Lackeys (120 XP): One creature of party level + 2, four creatures of party level – 4 - Boss and Lieutenant (120 XP): One creature of party level + 2, one creature of party level - Elite Enemies (120 XP): Three creatures of party level Lieutenant and Lackeys (80 XP): One creature of party level, four creatures of party level – 4 • Mated Pair (80 XP): Two creatures of party level • Troop (80 XP): One creature of party level, two creatures of party level – 2 • Mook Squad (60 XP): Six creatures of party level – 4
2026-10-09 14:26 The eight steps should serve Pathfinder 2e just as much as any other RPG. But what you put *in* the steps might change. Instead of having a loose list of monsters who might go anywhere, you might instead outline encounters already pre-built that you can drop in when they feel right. Your prep might be designing the encounters. Pathfinder 2 does have some quick encounter building guidelines on page 76 of the GM Core book. - Boss and Lackeys (120 XP): One creature of party level + 2, four creatures of party level – 4 - Boss and Lieutenant (120 XP): One creature of party level + 2, one creature of party level - Elite Enemies (120 XP): Three creatures of party level - Lieutenant and Lackeys (80 XP): One creature of party level, four creatures of party level – 4 - Mated Pair (80 XP): Two creatures of party level - Troop (80 XP): One creature of party level, two creatures of party level – 2 - Mook Squad (60 XP): Six creatures of party level – 4 That gives you a good rough gauge of how many monsters at a given level will challenge the characters — sort of a lazy encounter benchmark for Pathfinder 2. I've not run it so I don't know how well it works but it's a start. It sounds like a creature of a certain level in Pathfinder 2 is roughly equivalent to like 1.2 characters or so. Three creatures for four characters? Not the easiest math but probably not bad. You know that if you have an equal number total creature levels to the total character levels its probably a difficult battle. So you can still follow the eight steps, but you'll probably want to handle encounter building differently than you might if you were running Shadowdark. Hope that helps!

The eight steps should serve Pathfinder 2e just as much as any other RPG. But what you put *in* the steps might change. Instead of having a loose list of monsters who might go anywhere, you might instead outline encounters already pre-built that you can drop in when they feel right. Your prep might be designing the encounters. Pathfinder 2 does have some quick encounter building guidelines on page 76 of the GM Core book. - Boss and Lackeys (120 XP): One creature of party level + 2, four creatures of party level – 4 - Boss and Lieutenant (120 XP): One creature of party level + 2, one creature of party level - Elite Enemies (120 XP): Three creatures of party level - Lieutenant and Lackeys (80 XP): One creature of party level, four creatures of party level – 4 - Mated Pair (80 XP): Two creatures of party level - Troop (80 XP): One creature of party level, two creatures of party level – 2 - Mook Squad (60 XP): Six creatures of party level – 4 That gives you a good rough gauge of how many monsters at a given level will challenge the characters — sort of a lazy encounter benchmark for Pathfinder 2. I've not run it so I don't know how well it works but it's a start. It sounds like a creature of a certain level in Pathfinder 2 is roughly equivalent to like 1.2 characters or so. Three creatures for four characters? Not the easiest math but probably not bad. You know that if you have an equal number total creature levels to the total character levels its probably a difficult battle. So you can still follow the eight steps, but you'll probably want to handle encounter building differently than you might if you were running Shadowdark. Hope that helps!

Benjamin Conard

Yeah what I told one of my friends when he GM'd, because you'll have to improv so much you almost need to be an expert on the setting and factions.

Michael Cremin

Thanks. It is a true dilemma. My inclination is to not use it unless it's really something simple vs. counting on it for convenience. I appreciate your thoughts, Fr. Mike. :)

Michael Shea

Oh gods, I love Elden Ring! I think there are a few tricks to make more Elden-Ring-Like dungeons in our games. First on physical design. Elden Ring uses a trick many designers use and love — they often show you the ending before you can reach it. You'll run into doors you can't normally open until you get much further. You'll see the arena of the big boss well before you can reach it. We can do this in our games too — big locked doors (no, it can't be knocked or picked) requiring several keys (maybe three of five keys!) to open. The standard list of good dungeon designs works well here: Include loop backs, multiple paths, secret paths, changes in depth, multiple connection points to lower maps, and so on. Cutting across several layers of a dungeon with something like a big crack in the ground is fun too. You want more than just a single stair that leads down deep. You can have several connections that connect levels of a dungeon. You don't even have to build the whole dungeon out for this — you can just hint at it, like finding a huge sinkhole that traverses several layers and goes down into the lowest depths. Adventurers would be fools to go down that far. So the list of good dungeon designs help a lot: - Multiple entrances - Loop backs - Secret passages - Changing elevation - Multiple points to cross levels A big fun one to make dungeons more Elden-Ring-Like is to have shortcuts. This is more like Dark Souls where you suddenly find yourself in an elevator that takes you all the way back to your original starting place, but you can do that here. They go super far into a dungeon and then find a shaft that takes them right up top again. It's a fun looping discovery. Elden Ring and the Souls games have two other major aspects worth considering. Environmental storytelling is a big one. It's not well know that the reason I have Secrets and Clues in my eight steps goes back to playing Bloodborne on the PS4. I loved how every object in Bloodborne revealed a little piece of the story and thought that works well in our RPGs too. You can, of course, do the same thing. Don't blurt out the whole story of a location at once. Instead, share it in little bits as the characters explore the dungeon. Second is scope and scale. Make things big and epic. Double the size of the chambers so they can feel the vast scope of what's going on here. I had a lot of Elden Ring influence in City of Arches so you can see how I took some of those ideas and put it in there. Huge statues, vast chambers, deep shafts, grand halls — signs of a mighty empire now long lost and forgotten. I think its a great way to add depth to our dungeons.

dergianni

Thanks for this really helpful reply! When running it, do you stitch multiple let's say Dyson maps together for the different elevations and parts or do you run them in TOTM?

Michael Shea

Yeah, I'd definitely stitch multiple Dyson maps together.

StellarX (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-10 22:00 So much of the information in your 'Lazy' books is invaluable. I have been using the LEB to good effect and have avoided many a TPK whilst the players still have challenging fun. However, one of my players has observed that no matter what level the characters are, their encounters always seem to be "at the right level" in terms of their opponent(s). He says that avoiding 'walk-over' and 'potential TPK' extremes denies the party the associated role-playing opportunities (e.g. Do they show mercy to the band of kobolds at their mercy? Do they abandon the princess to demonic sacrifice to save their own hides?). I think he has a point and I may have become too reliant on the LEB. What are your thoughts on when it is an when it is NOT appropriate to apply this useful tool?
2026-10-10 10:44 So much of the information in your 'Lazy' books is invaluable. I have been using the LEB to good effect and have avoided many a TPK whilst the players still have challenging fun. However, one of my players has observed that no matter what level the characters are, their encounters always seem to be "at the right level" in terms of their opponent(s). He says that avoiding 'walk-over' and 'potential TPK' extremes denies the party the associated role-playing opportunities (e.g. Do they take pity on the band of kobolds at their mercy? Do they abandon the princess to demonic sacrifice to save their own hides?). I think he has a point and I may have become too reliant on the LEB. What are your thoughts on when it is, and when it is NOT, appropriate to apply this useful tool?

So much of the information in your 'Lazy' books is invaluable. I have been using the LEB to good effect and have avoided many a TPK whilst the players still have challenging fun. However, one of my players has observed that no matter what level the characters are, their encounters always seem to be "at the right level" in terms of their opponent(s). He says that avoiding 'walk-over' and 'potential TPK' extremes denies the party the associated role-playing opportunities (e.g. Do they take pity on the band of kobolds at their mercy? Do they abandon the princess to demonic sacrifice to save their own hides?). I think he has a point and I may have become too reliant on the LEB. What are your thoughts on when it is, and when it is NOT, appropriate to apply this useful tool?

paul brandson

Hi Mike! I bounced off Daggerheart for many of the same reasons you did, but your article about improvising Daggerheart monsters exploded my brain! I never realized that the hope/fear turn system made the action economy irrelevant. I immediately started thinking about going beyond minions, with hordes of 5 or 10 monsters per HP swarming the party. My question is: can you think of a way to homebrew the daggerheart monster/PC turn order into 5e or another system? Initiative and turn order systems are often easy to lift into another game, but this seems really tied to the roll mechanic and I'm having a hard time stealing it.

Matt Brooks

Hi, Mike! I've really liked your tips for resilient player groups, and what to do to try to make cancellations as infrequent as possible. Still, if the GM can't make it to a game, that one person causes the session to be canceled, and if the GM decides to not play anymore, the whole game ends. Do you have anything you do for your games to keep the game going when you miss a session, or any ideas for what others can do?

DiceQuake

This question may just be a "me" thing, but my group and I are making an effort to try new systems every 3-4 months, taking a break from our regular 5.5E (soon to be Daggerheart) main campaign to do 3-6 session jaunts with something new. I'm somewhat of a kinesthetic learner, and am severely ADHD. It's difficult for me to digest new rules, even when they contain familiar elements, until I've played a couple of sessions and get a good feel for the flow of the game. But when we're only going to play a few sessions, I'd like to be better prepared so that I'm not struggling along with my players as they get up to speed so that we get several good sessions in before returning to the main smash. Anything you do, or can advise us to do, to help a GM wrap one's head around new rule sets more quickly, or at least more effectively without committing to an overwhelming prep schedule? Do you ever spend time simulating combat or other mechanical encounters to test them out? And does that make one no longer lazy? :D

William Paine

Thank you! I’ve been working on making sessions into short episodes (1-2 sessions) (I was thinking Star Trek (OG) - I’m an Old. Your example of Mandalorian works, too). I’ve been challenged by my penchant to allow players to decide what comes next - sort of the adventure site / landmark / sandbox model of adventure. It’s going to be an adjustment for me to present players with fewer opportunity hooks. I’ll reframe that - present players with a few well described options that draw their interest (?). An interesting corner of a sandbox, rather than a large sandbox with lots of fun things in it. I’m slowly stepping back from Empire of the Ghouls. I think I’ll keep some of the broad strokes of the powers threatening the living world as a backdrop to the events in which the characters interact. I’ll also keep a few of the details (NPCs, etc.) that they’ve already encountered. The adventures that they actually get up to in the months to come can be a bit more flexible and diverse in theme and setting. Taking on long quests and slowly defeating great villains of power may come, but in bite sized pieces. Your response has been very helpful. My brain is better focused on what I need to do and prepare. I have a broader view of the world I present to the characters - and how I present it. Thank you!

Kaique de Oliveira

Hi Mike! I remember you mentioning, maybe a couple of times, a house rule for capping AC in 5e based on character level. It had something to do with Proficiency Bonus or Tier. I couldn't find it in the Patreon Q&A or by browsing the titles of your talk show episodes. Could you remind me of the exact rule? And does it also apply to one-off effects like Shield?

David Woodruff

Thanks for allowing me to play Shadowdark with you and your wife. Thanks for your kindness.

Mr Adventurer

Hi Mike! How do you make it make sense for both players and the in-world fiction when a boss is defeated while still having Dreadful Blessings? I know from your talk shows that you've had boss monsters die with unspent Blessings if you're happy with that narrative for the encounter (like decapitating a dragon). But I know you also make Dreadful Blessings things the characters can see and understand in-world. So, how do you rationalise the fiction when the characters see the monster die still with unused Blessings that they could have used; and, similarly, how do you avoid the players feeling their victory was hollow if it could have been prevented - but wasn't, only because you decided the monster wasn't going to spend a resource that could have saved its life? (This is not about why to do it - I get that Dreadful Blessings are about securing the monster's place in the story, so if that place has been secured, there's no more need of them - but how to close that gap within the fiction.)

Michael Shea

The most forgotten part of the Lazy Encounter Benchmark is that the math part is the SECOND step. The FIRST step is to build encounters that make sense given the scene and situation. Such scenes might have the characters face a couple of bandits looking for a quick score or an ancient red dragon seeking a meal. Random encounters across multiple challenge ratings can give you more organic encounters if you’re having a hard time coming up with your own. But yeah, the intent of the lazy encounter benchmark isn’t to come up with an encounter budget but to give you a loose gauge to understand when an encounter might be deadly just so you know that’s a risk and can telegraph it. There are times where you really want to build an encounter to challenge the existing NPCs and sort of reverse-engineer an encounter based on the total levels of the characters but most of the time you start by asking what makes sense given the situation and then determine if that encounter’s going to be deadly or not. Run easy battles, and showcase super powerful monsters ensuring you give the players options to get away and not sit be forced into a tpk.

Michael Shea

I can’t think of a good way to put Daggerheart’s / PBTA’s action economy system into 5e. They’re very different games. You can certainly decide that a bunch of monsters don’t act or drop in hoards of minions at various initiative points you decide ahead of time. Like on 5, 10, 15, and 20. Something like that might work.

Michael Shea

For my own groups I don’t suggest anything else to them on the rare times I can’t make it. Most folks are fine having a day or night off. Given the challenge of coordinating games ourselves, I don’t really see it as my responsibility to coordinate it for them when they’re not there. I think once or twice my Sunday group has gotten together and my twice-monthly group has switched GMs so that’s definitely a way to go. Coming up with a rotating GM seat is one good way to keep a game going. Another is to have one person responsible for coordinating the game day even if they’re not the GM. That way who’s ever coordinating can decide what the game is going to be and ask for people to run it. I miss so few games that, for my groups, it isn’t really a problem.

Michael Shea

One suggestion I have is to lean on your group to help you parse the rules. I do this for the games I’m running. Players dig in and read through the rules to understand what’s going on as well as I so we can get our collective heads around a game. Some games, of course, are more complicated than others. Another trick are cheat sheets. A lot of games have cheat sheets for their mechanics and common situations. Those cheat sheets make great references for the rules of the games we play. See if you can find some for the games you’re running.

Michael Shea

I never actually ran the house rule but I’m thinking about it for my next 5e game, when that system comes back around. The max AC is 18 plus proficiency bonus. Thus 20 at 1st level, 21 at 5th level. Etc. Nothing can bring your AC up higher than that cap. This helps put some boundaries around fishing for Shield which is, for me, a big pain in the ass. Everyone’s maximizing around shield and with “spellcasting” monsters now doing more direct AC attacks, a boundary on AC helps and it’s high enough that most players won’t hit it anyway. But yeah, I haven’t tried it yet.

Michael Shea

Hi David! It was fun to play Shadowdark with you and your style of RPG storytelling and exploration with Kamishibai paper theater is really a great approach. I really dig it. Hopefully your character made it back to Australia! Our next characters got eaten by mind flayers…

Marc Wagner

I was lucky enough that my first time DMing ended up turning in a campaign that lasted about 2 1/2 years. I know that's pretty rare. That same group is ready to start a new campaign with new characters in a new world. We've done our session 0. We made the characters together and came up with some ways that they are connected to the new story. All those boxes are checked off. But I'm still a little nervous. Starting over completely with a more homebrewed story has me second guessing myself a little bit since I don't have the "training wheels' of a long form published adventure to help me out. Besides having a session 0, do you have any suggestions for handling the first few sessions of a new campaign, especially with a group that's already been playing together but have to get used to a new world and new characters, and get the campaign off to a strong start?

Karl Arrenon

Hey Mike, How would you apply the Eight Steps when running a completely player-driven, encounter table based, sandbox campaign? I am going to be running Eem and I am actually looking forward to not always knowing where things will go. But I also want to feel prepared. Do you roll on all the tables ahead of time ( quantum ogre style?) or something else? What should I focus my prep on?

Sean Davis

I’m a fairly inexperienced game master but I’m lucky enough to soon be paid a modest amount to GM for a group of 6 young boys! Do you have any experience GMing for kids? What key differences have you noticed? What pieces of advice do you have for keeping the youth of today engaged and focused on a TTRPG?

Paul C

Degrees of success or failing forward are great tools to have in my GM toolbox! But I worry if it could lead to questions about impartiality or railroading. It feels like players could start to question every failure when there are clearly times I'm tipping the scales for them to succeed. How can I frame a player succeeding with complications when this time when in another situation they fell flat on their face with nearly the same roll?

Michael Shea

In my own games, I haven't worried about explaining why a monster dies with dreadful blessings. I like to think of them as expendable ioun stones. They shatter when used but a dragon may still die with them spinning around their heads. They just didn't use the right ones or ran out of things they could do with them. It has surprised players when a monster dies with dreadful blessings and there's a bit of "why didn't Mike use those?" but it never really seems to bother anyone. They get that the story beats prevail over mechanics. You could simply have the remaining blessings shatter or explode when the boss receives its final hit.

Michael Shea

I do! Don't worry too much about the bigger story elements in your campaign. Focus on what they can do next. Think up three potential quests they might go on and put the quests in front of the characters. Let them choose one and run that. Then expand out from there. You can also think about your initial villains. Who's out there and what are they up to? Where are the friction points between villains and the characters? You can hang onto this with a loose grip — it doesn't need to manifest right away — but it's a good way of seeding ideas for the future while you focus on initial quests.

Michael Shea

One nice thing about the eight steps is how flexible they are for different campaign styles and different systems. I've recently run into very different RPGs and still see how the eight steps can support the game. The main question to ask yourself is which steps apply to the game you're running and what do you put in them. Characters are still important even for a sandbox game. It's still worth thinking about them. You still likely want a strong start to get your game going. Something happens in the world. Scenes might not be perfectly sequential sets of scenes but more of an outline of what your session might look like. Secrets are still useful — you'll want to seed interesting parts of the world, the villains, the history, and other useful info as secrets the characters uncover. NPCs are still relevant — the characters are still likely to run into some. Monsters might be a list of potential random monsters you like or monsters that fit the location the characters are headed. Locations might be places they visit during their journey or larger adventure locations and details. Treasure can be a parcel you roll up ahead of time. So I think even for sandbox games, the eight steps can be useful. Characters still have drives and motivations and end up going to adventure locations so even sandbox games become more linear for a handful of sessions and then it spreads back out again as the characters decide where they want to go next.

Michael Shea

I don't have a lot of experience running games for kids. I'd focus on shorter games at first to help them grab the mechanics and see how the game goes. I don't know if their attention span (or any of ours really) can hang on for four hours. Stay with the action. Be ready for more of a railroady campaign at first where you guide them from one step to the next. Be firm in your session zero about behavior with the campaign and towards each other. Some kids like to run wild with the freedom of an RPG and not always in constructive ways. Keep your plots and adventures simple — they'll bring plenty of complications themselves. Good luck!!

Michael Shea

Failing forward doesn't mean always succeeding even on a failed check. It means the story keeps going on even if the dice or circumstances steer the wrong way. Setbacks are still setbacks. In my experience, you can do a lot with narrative flavor of what a failure looks like — even putting it on the characters to describe what happens on a failure. It doesn't always have to be mechanical. If a character blows a quartermaster check while traveling, does one of the characters get food poisoning or a toe fungus? It doesn't have to change their movement speed — it can just be part of the story as it evolves. But yeah, failing forward isn't just another line towards success. It's a different path of the story. I remember a game called Wing Commander long ago that had an evolving storyline if you succeeded or failed at your missions. If you did well enough, you took the fight to the enemy homeworld. If you failed, you ended up defending earth from their own armada. You still "won" if you defeated their armada in Earth's orbit but it wasn't the same as defeating them at their own homeworld. I thought that was a neat way of making sure the story moved forward even if you failed your missions.

Nicholas Mayon

Hey Mike, I have a relatively new group of players and while I’m running a game in DND 5.5 I cant help but wonder if it would be easier on them to play Nimble. I still don’t think it’s necessary yet but when do you know that you should change systems entirely vs modifying the system your in?

Mr Adventurer

Thank you. I think this may be more about me and my players specifically (though I imagine we wouldn't be the only ones).

Brandon Sampson

Howdy Mike! I'm getting ready to start a Shadowdark Western Reaches campaign for TTRPG newbies. Very excited. We are meeting about once a month in person. I'm not sure if you have spent any time with the digital GM guide, but its such an incredible wealth of opportunity. How would you think about approaching prep for a Western Reaches campaign? I'm finding that most of the regions have enough going on that you could run an entire campaign just focused on one or two regions! So, if you had to approach starting up a new Shadowdark campaign what lessons from your Gloaming campaign would you keep in mind? And any recs for running for a group that meeting infrequently?

Tim Smyth

QUESTION: Could you please talk a little more about how to use simple mechanics behind the screen while players use complex mechanics (the characters)? Playing 5.5e allows my players to play with all the complexity of their characters that they love, but I feel like it also means I need to use complex monsters to challenge them, which I find difficult at the table. With Lightning 5e and "Just Use Bears" in mind, and your 3x5E campaign under your belt, would it be possible for your players to get their complexity in their characters, while I as the GM could use more simplistic monsters (like Nimble's simplified stat blocks, or Forge of Foes monsters by level chart) and still have the game work? Thanks!

Tim Smyth

TLDR: What is the SIMPLEST form of running monsters in 5e that it will still work with standard characters?

Michael Shea

If your house rules are like more than half a page or a page and they're leaning towards another system, you might want to try that system. I like Nimble a lot but I can see just sticking to D&D 2024 so your players aren't confused. With all the grief I give it, it's a really solid system. You can also ask your players and see if they're frustrated by any of it.

Michael Shea

I have indeed ran an entire campaign in just the Gloaming before the whole Western Reaches was published. As vast as it is, I'd probably stick to a region that grabbed me and focus your campaign there. I don't think it's intended that a group of Shadowdark characters run around from one region to another that often. You can always use the other regions as hints of secrets and clues and lore and travelers from parts unknown. But I'm still a fan of focusing on where the characters are right now and building out from there. There are two exceptions. Morzomotha, the deep abyssal region, can be placed anywhere so it can always be right underneath wherever the characters are. I don't think the City of Masks has a specific location either; though it's probably along the western shore. So it makes sense that the characters might know of that or be nearby.

Michael Shea

Yeah. I don't think you need much more than the FOF monster by CR table. I use it all the time in my last two 1st to 20th level 5e games — my 3x5e game and Tales of the Valiant. Rarely did I use a more detailed monster stat block and often I'd grab pieces of stat blocks to fill out my own monsters. You don't need complex monsters to challenge characters, you need *powerful* characters and the FOF stats by CR can get you there. A big part of it is just trying them out and using them. Start by replacing normal non-boss monsters with FOF stat blocks. Use a full stat block for big important monsters but wing the rest with some forge of foes stats. Then try to improvise your own monsters with just FOF. Here's my Tiamat stat block as the final boss for my TOV game: - Tiamat — CR 30 AC/DC 27 HP 666 Atk/Prof +19 DPR 312 - Chromatic breath (recharge 5-6) is 1d6+150 penetrates resistance - 1. Fire; 2. Cold, 3. Lightning, 4. Poison, 5. Acid, 6. Force. - Eight attacks — 1d6 + 40 per attack. - Death Stinger (takes away a death save) - Restraining bite - Prone claws - Hurl into the abyss (DC 27 Cha) - 5 Dreadful Blessings - Elemental shield — 21 damage on a hit. Not particularly big for a single big final boss!

kratus of devon

How can I effectively communicate to my players the kind of gameplay that a new system rewards? I recently ran some players from my 5e game through a session of the Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars RPG, in which combat is much less likely to be the optimal solution to a problem. Unfortunately, this difference contributed to them getting in way over their heads and the night ended in a total party KO.

Brydon Marks

Hi Mike, I have a player who retired his old character and started playing a monk with the goal of stunning everything into oblivion. What do I do? I don't want every fight to be a cakewalk, and I want to play too. But I don't want to suddenly stock every foe with a pocketful of dreadful blessings or add immunities. ("What? Giants are always immune to stuns. What are you talking about?") How do I let the player be the stun machine he wants to be while still making fights fun for everybody?

Thomas Connolly

November 2026 question - Regarding the around-the-table initiative system: how does the DM roll initiative for the foes in that system?

Luke Baumstark

I am considering running Courts of the Shadow Fey, but setting it in Eberron, rather than Midgard (both to continue an ongoing story and because I am currently also running Empire of the Ghouls, and don't want to burn out my players on the setting). Have you ever run Courts of the Shadow Fey? Do you have any advice as to how one might adapt it for Eberron? Please advise. Many thanks.

Adam

Hey Mike - I just wanted to thank you for your advice last month about running I6 Ravenlofft with Shadowdark. I took your advice to heart and poured over the map and weird traps. A couple days before the session, I felt a little frantic, but the 8 Steps really grounded me. We had a blast - the best session I've been in. Thanks again.

AkikoPotato

Hi Mike! I was recently diagnosed autistic. It explains and recontextualizes a lot of the social aspects of my TTRPG experiences. How helpful do you think it would be to disclose my autism and relevant autistic traits in a "GM style" disclaimer? Curious about your thoughts and opinions!

ahobo

Hi Mike! i was rereading return and I got to the campaign building chapter. one thing that stood out to me was your recommendation of making fronts as a way to prep a campaign. I wanted to ask if you still recommend fronts as written in return or have changed your approach to them. thanks.

Knights of Roleplay Podcast

You've recently said on your podcast that you keep throwing dragons at your players. Every time I have my players fight a dragon I think, "I can just have the dragon stay up the the air and use its breath weapon, reach attacks, and spells if it has them, to defeat the players from range." But what I actually do is have the dragon land so the melee characters can fight it. I feel forced into that situation every time. Do you have any recommendations on running dragons so I don't have to feel forced into doing the same thing every time?

Michael Shea

I think we really have to be explicit with our players about the difference between one system and another. I think we can do it multiple times — in writing, say in an email, and verbally during a session zero or mini-session-zero. Also its important to remember that players only grab about half of what you describe so you might have to remind them during the game. You can also ensure the bad guys aren't behaving optimally. Chaos begets chaos. There's a lot of un-optimal stuff going on in star wars (Han closing the blast doors twice in Return of the Jedi) so "failing forward" is a fine option too.

Michael Shea

Yeah, this is worth an out-of-game conversation with the player. Specifically, a monk's stunning strike shouldn't occur more than once a turn. In D&D 2014 and other variants, it doesn't have a limit but D&D 2024 does. Tales of the Valiant also limits it to once per turn. I'd start with that. I'd also make it very clear that it won't work on bosses. Maybe they can take out a legendary action of a legendary monster but not a boss monster's full round of attacks. Be clear what sort of monsters the stunning strike works well against so it's still a useful ability. In general, though, I think GMs have to make it clear during a session zero that "hey, some things might end up disrupting the game enough that we need to call them out and fix them. I'll work with you to find a good solution." We ultimately control our games at our tables and need to make sure our players are on board with this. I wish I had done this more in my Tales of the Valiant game but man, the whole mechanist was just broken on top of broken. The whole class is a complete mess. So yeah, I feel your pain.

Michael Shea

Two possible ways. First, the GM can let the players roll and then the monsters go when the turn comes around to the GM. Or the monsters can roll and if they roll highest, they go first. I sort of like the first way because monsters always go in the middle. If groups get a jump on monsters, you can just start at the player on your left and go around until it comes to you. Or if the monsters get the drop on the players, you can start with you and then go around the table.

Michael Shea

I've never run Courts of the Shadow Fey but its court intrigue might slide in well with the Dreaming Dark or the elven lands of the Aerenal. You can likely reskin the elves into one of the noble houses well. There might be ways to tie it into the Kalashtar and the Dreaming Dark as well.

Michael Shea

First, I'm no expert in how to manage and communicate about neurodivergency but I'll offer some amateur thoughts. I don't think there's any problem talking to your players about how you operate — what social cues you might miss and need help identifying, what behavior might act as a switch for you, and how best to communicate. You can describe tools like "pause for a minute" so players can explicitly tell you if something's happening that you might be missing. I had an autistic friend in our longtime group who had several personality tricks I had to mention to other members of the group so they knew how best to play with him. He was pretty severe on the autism spectrum but such things, I think, can work well. As a computer nerd I like to think that we have a sort of API (application programming interface). We have a way we can be interfaced with during our games that are effective and ways that won't work very well. I don't think we have to give our full diagnosis to our group if we're not comfortable doing so but we can say "here are some tricks to best work with me during the game". I think that works fine.

Michael Shea

Yes! I still like thinking of "fronts", although I've renamed them "villains" just to keep the terminology more clear. I describe the process in Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster as well in the chapter titled "Fill Out Your Lazy Campaign". Identify three villains, what goal they're trying to accomplish, and what three quests they or their minions are going on for this goal. It helps keep the world moving and alive. So other than renaming them "villains", I still have them in my process just like before.

Michael Shea

Dragon flight was definitely a tactic in my game and the characters knew they had to go do some work to get them on the ground. I let them target the wings so when the dragon got bloodied (or took like 100 damage per wing), it would have to land. In one of the dragon fights, the characters had allies with huge wing-ripping ballista bolts. That worked well. I think it's worth reminding players that they'll have to deal with dragons in flight if they're fighting in the open air and what they plan to do to deal with that. In my games there's a lot of teleporting onto the back of dragons which works fine too. Very cinematic!

AkikoPotato

Makes sense! A more safety tool focused approach I think will be very suitable to help me and help the group communicate ^^ I will process these ideas and see what feels comfortable. Thank you for your thoughts!

topher mehlhoff

Mike, I got a big problem! It's a good problem, but a big one. I recently opened up my little group of 3 players, hoping to get 2-3 more players and be able to play more often. By some strange scheduling miracle I wound up with NINE players at my session zero (most of whom asked THAT DAY if they could join). I'm stoked to have so much interest, but I don't really want to wait for nine players to do their action. My current plan is to wait and see who falls away naturally. But I'm anxious because I sensed a lot of excitement at the session zero. And when I asked them directly, EIGHT of the nine said they'd like to come every week. Like I said, a good problem! But if push comes to shove, how do you tell a player they've been demoted to back up player?

JspaceRyan

Question RE Nimble: I haven't played yet, but I was looking forward to starting a short Nimble campaign after the holidays. If you were in my position, would you delay given what we know about "Nimble 2nd ed" - or does 1st edition remain a good experience? I believe the new PDFs will be out in December, but my physical books won't match of course.