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August 2022 Sly Flourish Patreon Q&A Thread (Patreon)

Published:
2022-08-04 10:39:04
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:
Q&A

Content

Behold the Sly Flourish Patreon Questions and Answers thread for August 2022!

As you consider your question for the month, I have the following requests:

Search the Patreon Questions in the Lazy D&D Talk Show Topic Database using keywords from your question to see if I've answered a question like yours previously.

Focus your question on DMing Dungeons & Dragons or other tabletop RPGs.

Please limit yourself to one question per month. 

Please try to keep your question brief. I love your stories but I get overwhelmed.

I answer every question in this thread Friday mornings throughout the month. Some questions I answer on the Lazy D&D Talk Show or turn the question into a D&D Tip video or Sly Flourish article.

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

Now bring on the questions!!

Comments

Tim Junge

What is your favorite adventure to introduce new players to ttrpgs? (Or if you don't have a specific one - what type of adventure is your favourite way to introduce new players - like oneshots or shorter campaigns?) Personally, I started using "Murder at Sable Mansion" from the Potbellied Kobold (I also adapted it to some other systems like Tiny Dungeon etc.). I like it because it taps into the different aspects of ttrpgs a bit without getting excessive with them. A fun way to let players try around and fool around in character.

Cormac Ó Foghlú

I've reached the heady heights of 18th level with the party and they are keen to keep going just a little bit more to get to 20th level, how would you suggest I work in a satisfying conclusion to a campaign that has done Dragon Heist, Tomb of Annihilation, Lost City of Mezro stuff, Uncaged Goddesses and freeing the trapped Raven Queen in her fortress of memories along the way?

Andrew Avery

Coming to the end of a 4 year tyranny of dragons campaign in the next couple months. Any tips for keeping the group's momentum past the end of this campaign into the next one? How do you handle choosing the next campaign with your groups?

Eric Lyons

The preview for this in my messages ended with "The Lazy Dungeon Master's Patreon Quest" and I thought to myself "Finally! We're going on an adventure!" 😂 To my question: I appreciated your "One page 5e" asset, but I'm curious if you have a favorite rules light take on fantasy RPGs? I've toyed with "Deathbringer" and the Cypher system. Where do you go for low barrier to entry swords and sorcery?

JABD

So, I've started running our new Numenera campaign and I am using the workbook and the notion templates, which are so very helpful! I'm loving adventure design in Numenera but ... I've not yet got a sense for when a combat encounter might be too deadly or too easy. Over the course of your 4th Emperor campaign, have you developed or been able to modify your D&D deadly encounter benchmark to help you calibrate your Numenera combats? If not, what is your thought process for designing encounters specifically for Numenera and in general. Thanks as always!

James Whatson

I can’t seem to find it in the database but my gut tells me you answered this once before already. Please forgive me if I was just searching wrong. I would like to ask: “What advice do you have for running a homebrew questboard style campaign? (like in Dragon of Icespire Peak)” Thank you so much! ❤️

Chris Tatara

I'm running my second campaign and find that I love thinking about what I want to run for my players and actually running the game. However, when I sit down to plan, even using something like the Lazy DM method, that its hard to get excited about writing out my ideas and committing these ideas to paper. My game is every other week, and I find I procrastinate planning because I don't enjoy it. Does this mean I'm not cut out for DMing? How can I reframe how I prepare for my game?

Eric L

Hi Mike, what tips do you have for learning a new system? When I learned 5e I was a player but my group has recently taken interest in Lancer and I will be dming but other than reading the rule book I have no experience with it

Ryan McIntyre

Do you have any tips for adding racial distinctions to generic humanoid NPCs in combat? If I throw 3 bandits (Tiefling, Dragonborn, Gnome) at my party, I’d rather not burn prep / table time applying all the racial abilities to each. But it seems a waste not to have them differentiated somehow. Maybe a cheat sheet / table to reference with a damage resistance or Save bonus or ability (single use, not a reaction) that each race gets?

Doug Palmer

I like the idea of presenting my players a prophecy, but then let the meaning of the prophecy emerge through play. What is the Lazy DM (tm) way of generating a prophecy that doesn't result in railroading?

Damon F

I’m looking at running LMoP for 1 player. Do you think this could work or should I focus on a home brew designed for 1 player? I’ve been DMing for about a year and my player is going to be using a sidekick.

StellarX

There is a very definite XP/Level 'curve' that, once crested, precludes adventuring 'practically' at lower levels - and a single published Wizkids adventure advances characters to levels in the 'third tier'. How might one flatten/extend this curve so that players spend longer at each level, allowing them to do more adventuring as the same beloved character, without play becoming stale or frustration setting-in at being denied powering-up for longer periods?

David Pōkiha

I've been slowly building a pitch book for players when we talk about new campaigns. I incorporate a lot of the things you use in your one-page campaign guides, only more brief. One thing I started including is other media that would inspire me as I DM and prep (eg. for Curse of Strahd I linked to Bach Toccata & Fugue, 2005s The Brothers Grimm, Arthur Machen's 'The Great God Pan' etc.). I'm adding to the pitch for City of Arches, but I'm a little stuck on the 'inspiration' category. My question is what media (anything from poetry to video games) inspired you when you were developing the setting, characters and plot hooks for City of Arches?

David Pōkiha

I can't answer your question, but I found this tool really useful for my group that was larger than the assumed, and went to a higher level than assumed: https://haluz.org/lmop/

David

What's the best way to learn to actively do/remember new things, methods, actions, or styles you want to add-in to how you run the game as a DM? I have several things I'd like to consistently do each session to improve my games; for example, remembering to describe 3 different senses in scenes, award inspiration, use fresh/interesting descriptors in combat, and have enemies talk during combat, etc. However, I have yet to ingrain these things into my mind so that they are natural for me during DMing --if I remember to do them at all (despite having them written on my DM screen).

KB

Hi Mike, I'm wondering if you have any tips on how to handle NPC dialogue. I'm fine with the idea of conveying secrets & clues and I'm fine with doing accents. But finding the words that should come out of an NPC's mouth, especially in response to impromptu questions, makes me panic.

Selah

Do you have any advice or tips for doing different NPC voices? I try to change my voice around so characters are more individual/memorable but it's been hard not defaulting back to my normal voice. I recently went from DM'ing text-only games to using voice chat and it's hard to not get self concious when playing different roles.

Grinning Rat

Hey Mike, quick question: how do you feel about WOTC adventures typically using milestone advancement instead of XP advancement? I find XP to be a pain to track and manage, but I also don’t like the DM fiat aspect of milestones (where the players don’t know when they’re leveling up).

Cassie Thompson

Do you have any advice for running zero prep 1hr games. I think I have the prep under control - Book of NPCs, monster cards, a blank pad of map paper, but not sure about the RUNNING of it. It will obviously be 90% hack and slash, but what extra stuff should I, the DM, being doing to make the game good.

Rich Gubitosi

How do you typically disclose secrets and clues to your players? It would be great if you took notes during a session and shared in a game prep video how you revealed secrets in the fiction of the game. I know the value is to drop them in when it makes sense, but improvising a journal entry or informative artwork is difficult, and I often forget to divulge the best secrets if I don't plan their discovery beforehand.

Damon F

This tool is actually super helpful! I wish they had more modules on it. This will help for this campaign though! Thank you!

Michael Shea

I'd go with Dragon of Icespire Peak. The quest-board structure is really easy to understand and it's a nice pure D&D adventure. It has lots of exploration, NPC interaction, and all the rest. There's a nice overarching plot and some interesting factions with the Talos cultists. I think it's the most well put together adventure I've seen. If I had it, I'd also introduce people with the new Starter Set adventure, Dragons of Stormwreck Isle. I like it a lot.

Michael Shea

Hi Cormac! I'd probably do something with Dendar the Night Serpent. A huge gate that leads to the Night Serpent's twisted realm out there in the multiverse. I had hints about Dendar the Night Serpent in my own Tomb of Annihilation game and loved the idea. Good luck!

Michael Shea

Hi Andrew! Congratulations on such an epic campaign! I find that players enjoy the opportunity to build characters again in a new campaign. I usually have a couple of suggestions but one that I tend to recommend. So far, my players have all gone with the one I recommend. If /I'm/ excited about it, they're excited about it. I wouldn't open the floor to anything. It's important that whatever you run speaks to /you/. You're going to be doing the bulk of the work so grab one that you want to run. Good luck!

Michael Shea

Hi Eric! The only rules-lite RPG I've really played is Fate Accelerated with I love. It's the only RPG I've played where you can build characters in just a couple of minutes. I love the look of Mork Borg but haven't had a chance to play it. There are a lot of cool rules-lite systems out there. For me and my groups, though, we like something crunchier.

Michael Shea

This is a fantastic question and, this Sunday, I'm going to do a Numenera deep dive I think. The book has very little to say about "balancing" encounters other than use what makes sense which is hard to do when you don't know these monsters at all. Page 343 of Numenera Discovery has some loose guidance about what sorts of opponents are difficult for what sort of beginning characters but that doesn't really extend up. I don't have a deadly encounter benchmark for Numenera. I should really have one by this point but its hard to figure out. As the characters go up in tier, they can handle more and more dangerous creatures. I ran three level 6 monsters and they were really hard at tier 4. Though Numenera has really clear math, it doesn't have a clear system of encounter balance. That's a drawback. Again, I don't need much, but knowing where the line is for "deadly" would help.

Michael Shea

I don't think I have answered this question before but thanks for checking! I think there's a nice clean way to do something like a quest board. Essentially, for every two levels you have three quests. I'd probably have one of two quests for 1st level characters (because 1st level is really its own game). Whichever one they pick, the other one gets resolved. Then three quests at 2nd and 3rd level. They pick two of those three – the third quest is resolved without them. Then three quests for 4th and 5th level. They pick two and the third is done. This "best two of three" idea means the players have some agency over which quests they want to do and you're not prepping so much that you're throwing away. I'd try to work it out that the players choose a quest at the end of a session so you know what to prep. At 5th level, they're really ready for bigger adventures and I don't think a quest board best serves them. You can always keep side-quests on the quest board for fun. Small dungeons and small goals (see the tables in the Lazy DM's Companion for ideas) but they should be on to bigger things by that point. Great question!!

Michael Shea

Hi Chris! That's a really good and really hard question. I think its really important to ask yourself what you need to have to run your game. If you're one of the few rare people who can improvise most of it at the time and it's working for you and your players, that can be just fine. If you do need some sort of prep to feel comfortable running your game, you don't have to subscribe to any given system. Instead, ask yourself what parts you *do* enjoy pondering. If you find you enjoy *thinking* about your game more than writing down your prep, that might work too. Remember that you only need to write down what you don't think you can remember when you're actually running your game. You also don't need to have just one moment in time where you do your prep. You can prep little bits here and there wherever you are. In a boring meet? What's your strong start for the next session? Stuck in traffic? Think through a list of the characters to see what pops into your head to draw them into the game. In line buying groceries? Think up some secrets and clues. One reason I love Notion is that I can jot stuff down in it just about anywhere. What is a system you have on you already where you can capture these sorts of thoughts? Finding a system you love and enjoy is really important. If you're not liking the prep you're doing, finding a new angle can work. Most importantly, none of this means you're not cut out to be a DM. If you love running games, you're cut out to be a DM. Hope that helps!

Michael Shea

Hi Eric! I don't have great advice for this – it's not really in my wheelhouse. When I pick up a new system I read it and I try it out. If you have friends willing to experiment, you might find one or two of them take enough interest to dig in too. I had trouble learning Blades in the Dark, for example, but a couple of my players were more than happy to jump in. So I'd say, falling back to your friends can help. Good luck!

Michael Shea

Hi Ryan! I'm a huge fan of reskinning for this sort of thing. I think we overweight the value of mechanical changes when descriptive changes can change everything. This is something Numenera taught me well where a level 6 planar assassin and a level 6 datasphere house-sized spider are the same mechanics. We change things in how we describe things. That said, you can have a list of some plug-in mechanical effects if you want. Things like pack tactics or a bonus action charge or hide. Steal a handful of mechanical effects and drop them in when you want. Uncovered Secrets Volume 2 has a monster builder page in it with a handful of effects like this you can use.

Michael Shea

Good question! Be vague and mysterious! Use the trick fortune tellers use and make predictions that can clearly happen a lot of the time. "I sense great danger ahead!" or "a fortune awaits you" or "your destiny lies at a little tavern known as the Rampant Roach". The vaguer you are, the more likely you can work it into the story.

Michael Shea

HI Stellar! I don't know that I have a fantastic answer here other than just slowing down progression. If you use story-based leveling where certain events in the story result in the characters leveling, you can move these out so they only get one every two or three major events. Many of the Wizards of the Coast adventures take characters to the third tier (11th level and beyond) but usually not much further than that. Only one I know of goes up to 17th level or beyond though. I think, if you use story-based leveling (see chapter 8 of the Dungeon Master's Guide). Hope that helps!

Michael Shea

That's a fantastic question. I'd say two things leap out right away: the video game Elden Ring and the cover to the Iron Maiden album Powerslave. Oh, and of course, the poem Ozymandias by Percy Shelly: I met a Traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Michael Shea

Honestly, not really. Almost every published mystery I've tried to run and the problems I noted with mysteries. One notable adventure is the first adventure in Kobold Press's Midgard Sagas in which the clues the characters find *dictate* who the murderer is, which I found to be an interesting idea but highly impractical in play. Mysteries are hard!

Michael Shea

I'm no expert in that field so I can't say for sure what works but I think adding one small thing each session can help. Writing them down on an sticky note or index card you keep in front of you during the game can help too. Hope that helps!

Michael Shea

I don't know the best way to help you with the anxiety other than to say "don't worry about it" which doesn't help. In reality, I doubt your players even notice. It's just some friends around a table having fun so don't put too much pressure on yourself. One thing that may help is to jot down a short list of prompts the NPC might speak to. What are the important things they want to say? Just as you are nervous presenting your NPCs, people who are nervous when they're about to present likewise handle this nervousness by trying to clarify the things they want to say. Hope that helps!

Michael Shea

I actually had a show with Matt Mercer many years ago where I asked him this question. Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVKvjSLt2d4 He recommended this site for finding accents across the world: https://www.dialectsarchive.com/dialects-accents Be careful not to be too stereotypical. Another trick is to try to mimic actors in movies you watch. Grabbing an interesting character and speaking as they speak can help. Practice it by yourself if you want.

Michael Shea

Hi Nate! I prefer what they refer to in the Dungeon Master's Guide as "story-based leveling" which is what most everyone else calls milestone leveling. In the DMG, milestone leveling means earning experience points for milestones in the story like you would defeating monsters. I like story-based advancement because its the laziest method. Matt Coleville had a great video about how to give players agency in the options they choose and still offer story-based advancement. I did this in my Wild Beyond the Witchlight game. "Enter Motherhorn – Achieve 7th level!" or "Enter Yon – Achieve 5th Level". If you have a more open game, you can tie leveling to certain quests or say "any of these three quests gets you to 4th level on achievement" and they choose which ones. I don't think it takes agency away from the players any moreso than only awarding exp for the monsters they fight – you're still choosing the monsters. Hope that helps!

Michael Shea

Hi Cassie! I did a video with Shawn Merwin who wrote a whole bunch of one-hour adventures. It's really hard to do one hour. You'll get maybe a quick intro and one big scene and then it's done. I'd try to find one way to put all three pillars together. You can have a combat encounter where the characters are interacting with NPCs and discovering things about the environment while fighting monsters to get roleplaying, exploration, and combat all into one scene. Here's my video with Shawn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rWFXTpmZj8 Two other tips: Keep it low level, no higher than 3rd. Run with as few players as possible. One (with a side kick) and no more than four. Any more players will make it hard to finish. Split up into separate groups if you have more players than that.

Michael Shea

Oh, one other thing. I don't think one can do truly zero prep and manage to get the game under an hour. Keeping the game to an hour takes a careful understanding of what you're going to run. I don't know if zero prep one hour gaming is possible without ending in the middle of something.

Michael Shea

Hi Rich! As for ways to disclose secrets, this may help: https://slyflourish.com/revealing_secrets.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qxYK2DgmW4 I have to say that I typically don't struggle with how to reveal it. Often NPCs just say it. Other times the characters learn it. There's nothing fancy about it. It might be something like: "On the wall you can see silvery figures fighting some huge four-armed beast. Your training in history shows you that the four-armed beast is known as the Armageddon Beast and that silvery army is the 'Silver Glades' a group of powerful extra-planar mercenaries hired to fight the beast. They weren't able to defeat it but instead trapped it in a tomb. This might be that very tomb!"

Kevin NCR

In your Witchlight wrap up video, you ranked it tied for second with Saltmarsh and after Curse of Strahd. If you had not included your brilliant dreadful incursions, would that have changed your ranking? How much of your enjoyment was from contrasting the whimsy and the threats you introduced? Thanks for all you do for us!

Michael Shea

Hi Kevin! I'd still rank it the same. That ranking is *without* dreadful incursions mostly because I felt like adding such things is completely optional and up to individual DMs. It isn't a "fix". Hope that helps!

Steven Coffman

That is actually quite helpful! Thanks!

Ken Sexe

Hi Sly! Well, you went and got me into trouble...I have been running a West Marches campaign using the City of Arches as the center and as a result the group is hungry for a city-based campaign. Are there any plans to expand the city itself to add things like additional temples or gardens or such? how would you recommend going about this for people such as me who need to add some flavor? Would you work outside the current walls or expand what was inside?

Barbercat

Hi Mike, Is Spelljammer to much for new players to D&D? I really want to run it but I am not sure if I should.

Zack D

Hi Mike, Ive got a weird one! Ive started running for a new table and one of the players is uncomfortable with combat with ambiguous enemies. For example “well these bandits/orcs/goblins aren’t necessarily bad guys”. They have no problem with skeletons/zombies but beasts, humanoids, goblinoids, orcs etc make them feel guilty in glorifying the death. How do you communicate an enemy’s evil-ness? Or, do you have any undead focused adventure recommendations?

Michael Giannetto

I give my players the option to use non-lethal force such as knocking the enemy out with the pommel of the sword or strategically placing spells. So they can engage in combat with adversaries that aren’t necessarily enemies without feeling like they are murderers. Adds a chance for roleplay with the remaining monsters, a chance for you to add reinforcements when they wake up, or a potential future ally when they need a bit of support.

Paul Bigbee

Hey Mike. Curious if you'll be giving your thoughts on MCG's Path of the Planebreaker. I'll come right out and admit it's my favorite release of the year thus far. Brilliant stuff, and risky in that it doesn't always try to cater to mainstream tastes.

Carl

Hey Mike! Now that you have been running Numenara/Cypher for a bit I am curious how it feels in comparison to 5e? One concern I have seen online is with skill checks requiring a bit of back and forth + multiplying up to the target value. Do you find that it's a smooth way to resolve actions in comparison to 5e? Another concern I have seen is that correlating player health with ability scores can sometimes lead to weird situations: like a player effectively taking more damage to improve their dice roll than they would if they just let the hit go through. Would love to read or hear a deep dive on the topic at some point. Thanks!

RyanF

Hi Mike, I am planning to run a short 10 session 2-7 lvl adventure for two characters in the same style as dragon of ice spire peak but with using fantastic adventures and the fantastic lair of Ithrix Blackbile for the ending. My question is how much or at what level should I try to tie in Ithrix throughout their earlier adventures so that they can see the end goal but without them trying to take on a dragon at 3rd level? I understand that mostly it will be playing by ear however any guidance you can offer would be appreciated. Thanks!

Jill Weber

I'm going to be running a campaign for a bunch of newbies. I don't think the idea of a "character backstory" has even occurred to them. Do you have any advice on a handful of questions I should ask them about their characters just to get them thinking about their characters a little bit, but without overloading them? Or should I just forget about character backstories entirely for their first campaign?

Paul McMahon

When adventurers enter the territory of intelligent creatures uninvited, how do you convey that they're affronted by the invasion of their home, while still making it clear to the players that parley is an option?

fSobriety (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-18 15:00 Hi Mike, long time listener, first time caller. I recently started running Call of the Netherdeep. My PCs will soon be entering Betrayers Rise, a legendary mega deathtrap dungeon, but for obvious space/pacing reasons the module has a 12 room dungeon presented. Any hints on how to make a small dungeon seem much grander, without adding 200 extra rooms and dragging the dungeon out over an extra 20 sessions? I've been lore dropping via secrets and clues that this place is an absolute labyrinth and don't want it to be an anti climax for them. Thank you! (Also congrats on the Ennies win again!)
2022-08-10 08:08

Allison M.

Hi Mike, do you have any advice for keeping track of third party content you've purchased to put it to better use?

David Prothero

Have you ever thought of recording a session or two of yours for educational purposes? I know there's no competing with all the high-quality streams out there, but I would love to see all of your tips and advice in action!

Andrew Avery

Thanks for the advice and shout out on the show! I'm going to pitch witchlight or spelljammer to the group I think :)

Axel Cholewa

Hey Mike, Teos Abadia recently wrote on alphastream about actionable lore. Transferring that to Lazy DMing could mean to only create actionable secrets. What do you think about that concept? How can you make sure the secrets you come up with stay actionable?

Michael Shea

Hi Ken! I never know where the City of Arches is going to go. You can always steal ideas from other city books like Waterdeep City Encounters or come up with your own and expand it as you need. I'd probably keep things inside the walls. The map is meant to be abstract so you can expand it in any direction you see fit. Glad you enjoy it!

Michael Shea

Hi Barbercat! I haven't actually seen the full adventure yet so I can't say for sure but reading the free Spelljammer Academy adventures on D&D Beyond; I think those would be great for new players. I think Spelljammer is a fresh enough alternative on the typical fantasy take to excite new players. Give it a shot!

Michael Shea

My go-to are the organizations they support rather than their race. I've definitely broken away from the "all kobolds are trap-setting backstabbers" idea. Beyond the problems of racial determinism, it's also just plain boring. Instead, different groups of kobolds may have different goals they /chose/ and if you /choose/ to be worshippers of a terrible demon prince who wants you to murder the local townsfolk, you're clearly bad. Monsters are what they do. Separate groups of monsters from their race and focus on the organizations they're part of.

Michael Shea

I've given it a weak flip-through and I dig everything I'm seeing so far. I'll do a spotlight once it's available for sale.

Michael Shea

Ask and you shall receive! This past week I did a Numenera Deep Dive specifically looking at how D&D DMs can use ideas from this in their game: https://youtu.be/QUyyVU4IUV8 You're right about the "eating your own arm to avoid being it" problem but, in gameplay, it hasn't been that much of a problem.

Michael Shea

Hi Ryan! I'm glad you like my stuff so much! I'd move Ithrix to the swamp with the lizardfolk and maybe tie it to the evil lizardfolk tribe. You can have it wreck towns within the swamp and expand his territory out further into the mainland, threatening Whitesparrow itself! I think you can do a lot to foreshadow the coming of the dragon without having them face it too early. Good luck and enjoy!

Michael Shea

Hi Jill! You might point them to the "This Is Your Life" tables in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. It's towards the end of chapter 1. It has great random tables for building a backstory. If they dig that sort of thing, it can really help. If not, it's totally cool to let them choose how much backstory they want. Random tables do a great job of shaking peoples' brains in interesting ways.

Michael Shea

The adventure in chapter 3 of Ghosts of Saltmarsh does a good job of this – the adventure Danger in Dunwater. The lizardfolk aren't keen on visitors but they're not bad. Having them approach the characters with a suitable force but making it clear that they're not attacking can help. I find most players roleplaying "good" characters won't attack unless attacked first. You can also just tell them "your character doesn't think they're overtly hostile, just cautious" so they get the message.

Michael Shea

There are lots of ways you can hint that the dungeon is much bigger than the twelve rooms they explore. They might find deeper chambers they can't access, for example. They might find great shafts leading deeper into the earth but you can clarify that their intent isn't to go down there. "You think the dangers in that deep pit are well beyond you". You can "tell, don't show" by putting out all sorts of lore that the dungeon is much more vast than what they find. If they *do* go deeper, you can grab maps from DysonLogos and fill it out with some random encounters and events. You can still reveal interesting secrets and clues. If the characters are focused enough, though, they won't go wandering off if they know their direction lies in those 12 rooms. Hope that helps!

Michael Shea

Hello! I don't have a great way of doing it. I have a big 5e folder filled with PDFs. I also mark ones I find particularly inspirational with a file tag so I can pull up all the inspirational material and sift through it but I tend not to do that very often. The answer is, I don't really have a great way of sorting through this stuff. This previous Q&A might offer more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2kVG2w73Z8&list=PLb39x-29puaoZke5BVk7fjyyyjWXcxCu1&index=8&t=2129s Here's the Twitter thread I mention in the video: https://twitter.com/SlyFlourish/status/1470177247025848320

Michael Shea

Hi Axel! I see many secrets as being "actionable". Sometimes you might learn a piece of lore or history but the big question I ask "what can the characters learn". A secret should matter to the characters. It might not be "actionable" but it should be something useful in some way even if it's just learning about the world. I don't think I'd say that every secret should be actionable because sometimes it just fills out part of the world but maybe half should be. The important ones should be. Good question!

Josh G

Hey Mike! What is the strongest criticism of your D&D prep advice you have heard? Did it change the advice you give?

David Prothero

Are you kidding me with "not a great one?" That's a fantastic answer and now I'm annoyed with YouTube because I clearly missed the notification for that episode (silver lining: I have a new episode to watch!) Keep doing you Mike, thanks for taking the time to link me to that very thoughtful answer.

Casey

Hey Mike! I recently watched your Numenera Deep Dive and have been tempted once again to try it out. One of my concerns, however, is that my players wouldn't really understand the appeal. Do you have any tips on how to pitch the setting of Numenera to your table?

Mick langan

I have been asked to run a 3 hour 'How to DM Q and A for new DMs and people who want to start as a DM, I will of course recommend all of your books and products, also sign post towards MCDM running the game. But in 3 hours, what would you focus on for brand new DMs? Session Zero, Keeping it simple, trust your players, how to have fun, simple prep?

Jason Kemp

After the game has been going on for four or five sessions, I've had a player drop the game because of life stuff. I now need to bring a new player into the game, but they never got to do the Session Zero, that kind of thing. How do you personally bring in new players once the game has begun?

Brian Stanton

Do you know of any resources to help someone self-publish gaming 3rd party content? I have an idea I'd like to move forward with, but I'm a little nervous about making sure I stick to all of the OGL rules. Thanks!

Richard Dustin Schaeffer

we've had a few anthologies now, heists are something you've talked about, how do you feel about the anthologies overall and what lessons do you hope they take into the heist space.

Michael Shea

Hi Josh! Great question! I'd say the strongest criticism I get is that being lazy makes for a bad game and working harder makes games better. That can be true but I think that philosophy discounts understand the value of the work we do to the game we run. The philosophy in Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master focuses on being *efficient* in our prep – really asking the hard question on whether the thing we're doing to prep actually brings joy to the game we run. I think even strong critics would agree with that logic. I've certainly seen arguments against the specifics – that certain types of prep I discount make a big impact on other people's games. Things like setting up rigid scenes with clear threats, environments, puzzles, combatants and the like. I've seen a lot of criticism recently about fudging too much behind the scenes. The whole question of the "quantum ogre" and removing agency from player decisions. I can see the concern but I think when our head is in the right place we can have both flexibility in how we run our game and still give meaningful choices. I improvise a *lot* in my games and still the players have very meaningful choices. Everything I read and hear influences my views. I try to understand and consider any point of view but I haven't seen anything that completely changes my views...yet!. Oh, other criticism I sometimes get is "this is all obvious stuff. Any good DM knows this already." I don't know if they were expecting some sort of magic bullet but my whole drive in the ideas of the Lazy Dungeon Master is to try to take what has worked well for lots of people and distill it down so we can all learn from it. If it's obvious to you, great! But I'm pretty sure it isn't for everyone and I know that having it articulated into one book (or series of books) has made it more available to more people.

Michael Shea

Hi Casey! I think if you have a way to show off some of the art, that can help. The art in Numenera is the best in the industry and really captures the ideas of the game and the world. This page has good intro information: http://numenera.com/what-is-numenera/ I think some of the key features I might recommend are: * Flexible three-variable system for character creation: You're a blank blank who blanks for example you are a Graceful Glave who Rides the Lignting. * Far future science fantasy in which our heroes progress by exploring the fantastic world all around them. * A traditional RPG experience but within a fantastic world with creatures, locations, and treasure never seen before. * Fast and simple gameplay. Easy to pick up and run in a single session.

Michael Shea

I think its worth having a mid-campaign session zero. Tell your whole group that you're going to spend some time in the next session orienting the new participant and also checking in with everyone else – doing character introductions, talking about the big things going on in the world at this point, going over safety tools – all the things you'd normally do in a session zero but re-baselined for the current spot in the game.

Michael Shea

HI Brian! Regarding the OGL, it's worth reading it over carefully and understanding what's there. It's also worth reading various blog articles on the topic to be sure where your boundaries lie. Regarding publishing in general, I have an email I send out on such requests which I'll post below. I try to keep it up to date: To start, I have a few links that may help. These are shows I either made myself or was on where I talk about making D&D stuff overall but might have some insights into what I’ve done and what worked for me. https://youtu.be/sOgJiqr5-rg https://youtu.be/TCqFPkFIdSA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmEgKbfLVXU https://inspirationpoint.buzzsprout.com/1192916/8912449 This one is out of date but might have some info: http://mikeshea.net/kickstarter_experiences.html Teos Abadia also has a series of videos that talk more about this: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC2nUvBg384O-Rm7SqBDxjnYwotF6IzOH Some things I’d recommend, recognizing that advice is bullshit (http://mikeshea.net/advice_is_bullshit.html) I’d start with a smaller project than a big one. Check out MT Black’s Iskandar sourcebook as an example of what to put out before one puts out a big campaign book. The same is true for Kickstarter. No one I know goes from not having published anything to making significant money on Kickstarter. There are some but I expect they have some weird behind-the-scenes marketing thing going on. Start with print-on-demand. It’s much easier to do fulfillment this way. Only if you’re going to ship like 5,000 books should you start worrying about doing off-set printing which is a HUGE step. Work with partners who can give you things you know you can’t do yourself. I ran all my Kickstarters myself until this last one where I counted on a handful of other companies to help me manage the Kickstarter, handle fulfillment, and actually print the books. Know what each person you work with brings to the table and how much it’s going to cost. Lots of people out there are happy to take your money for no real benefit. Hire a good editor who understands the system you’re writing for. It’s a specialized skill and hard to find. If you can’t do the layout yourself, find someone who can do the layout for you. I learned a little bit at a time over ten years of doing this sort of thing. I haven’t found a crash course that offers all the experiences. Put out small projects and learn from each one of them is the best advice I can offer. And, oh yeah, be lucky =)

Michael Shea

Hi Richard! This is sort of two questions, I think. First, I think anthologies are great products to put out in conjunction with larger campaigns. I think Wizards is taking the right approach. I think its particularly useful to use anthologies as a way to work with a lot of freelance writers so each writer gets their own slice of the book to work on independently of all the other chapters. I think big campaign adventures work best when they have an overall voice writing most of the adventure. I think I've seen this change in quality between the various hardcover adventures. There were lots of writers for Descent into Avernus and Rime of the Frostmaiden and I think they suffered for it. Meanwhile Tomb of Annihilation, Curse of Strahd, and Wild Beyond the Witchlight had fewer writers and they felt more well tied together and easier to run. I think books like Candlekeep Mysteries and Radiant Citadel work much better for lots of writers. I also think both formats are very useful for DMs. Do you want a bunch of one-shot adventures or do you want a big campaign? Each product serves each of these purposes. As far as heists are concerned, I'd want a published heist adventure to follow the model I prefer, of course: https://slyflourish.com/running_heists.html

Brian Stanton

This is one of the most helpful responses I’ve ever gotten. Thanks so much! I am glad I was in the right mindset already - start small, don’t be overcommitted, etc. I will check out all of the info you sent over…looks like great stuff.

Thiago L.

Hey Mike, I'm running into a very unique problem: my players don't want to level up! They are all new to DnD, and after 5 sessions I felt they were finally ready to reach level 3, but because it involves the subclass choice and gaining some new features, I gave them the option to retain the XP until we were done with this arc of the campaign (2-3 more sessions) and then level up during a downtime session where they could roleplay a short training arc. Alternatively, they could level up immediately and just justify their subclass training through background training being consolidated. The group (6 people) unanimously took the first option, and their justifications were between "not in a hurry to level up" to, more worryingly, "combat in DnD is too complex as it is and I'm afraid if I gain new abilities I won't be able to keep up, decision-making will become even harder". And I'm struggling to dispel that notion. Sorry for the long story! What do I do?

Bernie the Wordsmith

Hi Mike (I know my name is super long so you can call me Bernie!) I am a proud owner of the Lazy DM's Companion and I would love for you to elaborate on the Gold per Level system in one of your videos. Do you create the rewards for them to be "discovered" organically or do you prefer to award gold if the characters get a level increase? An example on how to use those parcels would be awesome

Scott Miller

Do you use passive skills in your games? One of my players insists that perception checks should never be rolled in favor of the DM just using characters' passive perception. As a DM, this seems useless. If I design an ambush or a trap with a trip wire that can be seen with a Passive Perception of DC 14, it's stupid if any player has a PP of 14+. I know my player's PP's, why would I even bother taking the time knowing they'll avoid it? My players have complained about consistency with passive perception in the past and I don't have a good answer other than "it's just not fun to spoil everything to everyone."

Richard Carey-Knight

Any advice on introducing a new system to a playing group? I am considering running a few sessions of Mongoose Traveller for the D&D group I play with, but I've not run the system before, and my group are most familiar with class based systems like 5e.

K. Ivan Ruppert

Reposted from Discord by Request: Most of the games I've run and played did not have a satisfying conclusion. For one reason or another, and that reason is so varied it's meaningless in this context, a campaign fizzles three sessions, or eight sessions, or twenty sessions in after everyone agrees that the campaign is just not feasible, and it just stops. This jives with what I've heard talking to every gamer I've brought this up with, and received wisdom I've heard from people online: Maybe once in your life will you get a campaign that goes every week for multiple years, only a handful of times in your life will a campaign come to a satisfying end, and for every campaign that ends, five or more will fizzle out before anything major happens. And yet, you run campaign after campaign, straight bangers two campaigns a week and every man jack of them ends properly. How do you do it?

Joe G

Hi Mike. How do you track spell concentration for PCs and monsters in your 5e games? Do you use different approaches for online and in-person games? Thanks!

ChappyThoughts

Hey Mike, I noticed in the One playtest materials that Wizards is continuing to leave creature types relatively undefined ( there are no unifying mechanics that make a demon a demon for example). I feel like this is a mistake but I wondered what you thought. Thanks.

Michael Shea

Hi Thiago! I think its perfectly fine to slow down leveling and let them get comfortable with their characters. If you're using experience points, it's unlikely they'll get so many experience points from just killing monsters to level up quickly. You can always switch to event-based leveling and let them know which events will level them up (or offer enough experience points to do so). That way they can control what they do and where they go before they decide to level. Really you control when they level. The D&D Adventurer's League lets players choose to level after each adventure – they don't have to. You could do something like that too. In short, if they're not comfortable leveling, I don't see any reason why you should have to push them to do so.

Michael Shea

Hi Bernie! Good question! The treasure table is there to give you an idea how much treasure the characters should get over a level but you're free and encouraged to drop that treasure where it makes sense during the adventure. The Companion assumes four treasure parcels per level dropped somewhere during the adventure – often a hoard held by some monster or bunch of baddies. They could also be the reward from a patron. You can vary it up by rolling or mash together multiple parcels for one big hoard if they only get one in a level. The intent is that the characters find treasure in the world during the game – not just be rewarded it when they level – but its often easy to tie the two together. If you find you haven't rewarded any treasure for a while, drop a bunch of parcels together. Your players won't mind.

Michael Shea

I don't think I have any outstanding advice for this. Most games have useful introductions to help teach the mechanics and flow of the game. Some complicated games are harder to pick up than simpler ones. Whatever you do, I'd try to get into the game as fast as you can instead of reciting rules for most of the session. Good luck!

Michael Shea

I was really curious how this topic breaks out for people so I ran a YouTube poll and the results shocked me. You're right, few people (about 1 in 20) almost always land good conclusions to their campaigns. About half of respondents say they rarely or almost never reach a satisfying conclusion to their game. This is dismaying! Here's a link to the survey: https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxLwNm6lkRgwZISW1_G5pLQxBvKF1Cjyrf I think I really need to dig into the problem more to see what I can do but I'll offer up some hypothetical reasons why some groups reach good conclusions and many do not: 1. Run shorter campaigns. The shorter the campaign, the more likely it is to finish. I haven't had a campaign take more than two years over the past eight. Most of my campaigns are 8 to 16 months long. 2. Focus your campaign on a clear goal. Stick to that goal. Keep the campaign focused. 3. Be willing to continue on even if players leave the game – be it for a short amount of time or a long one. 4. Be ready to add new players to your game even in the middle of a campaign. 5. Play at a consistent time every week if at all possible. Don't try to schedule games one game at a time. Schedule a series of games. Those are probably my best advice for now but this is clearly a topic I want to spend more time with. Thanks for the fantastic question!

Michael Shea

Hi Joe! I never tend to worry about. I, or the player, tends to remember and we just go with it. Sometimes we forget and roll back the concentration saves to see if it goes out at the moment. The best trick I heard for this is using an LED tea-light for each player and the DM. If the light is on, they're concentrating. For online play, using some sort of token marker or other way to represent concentration can work. If you use a text-based combat tracker (https://slyflourish.com/text-based_battle_maps.html) you can put a "C" next to the name of someone concentrating. Depending on how you show or use initiative you can put something there like a little red C or something.

Michael Shea

Hi Chappy! I'm not too unhappy with how it's been in 5e so far. I have lots of little nitpicky problems but that wasn't one of them. So I really don't have an opinion on the matter. Sorry!

Thiago L.

Hey Mike, thanks for answering this question. I think this is indeed a tough topic for many of us. I can tell you as someone who DM'd for decades, I followed many of those suggestions you gave and sometimes it still wasn't enough. They all help, absolutely, but I want to echo your hunch that there's definitely more to this question. I'm looking forward to see where your investigation leads you on this.

Schizogen

Greetings and salutations, Mr. Flourish Do you have any advice or know any good links to help a DM with extreme social anxiety (and maybe even a high functioning undiagnosed adult autistic)?

Jonathan Roy

Hi Mike! Can you recommend any official WotC adventures besides Dragons of Icespire Peak for duet style play? Also, do you have any opinions on sidekicks vs dmpc? Thanks!

Cirosmar

What advice do you have for play-by-post games to help keep up the flow and urgency when it's harder to hold people to a clock between posts.

Michael Shea

Hi Cirosmar! I'm afraid I really don't have great advice for this. I've never played in a play-by-post game. I'd recommend digging around Reddit or seeking PbP Discord servers to see what you can find. Good luck!

Michael Shea

Hi Schizogen! I'm certainly no expert in this topic. I think the first thing I'd recommend is actually getting diagnosed. Seek out a professional who can give you good proven tips for navigating all parts of the world - not even just D&D. There are some Discord servers that support neurodiverse DMs. I'm seeking them out now. Found it! https://discord.gg/xfXenQ2M Good luck!

Joshua

Hello, Mike-- First, let me thank you for your work and advice; I've got to say that it is brilliant, and I don't throw compliments around lightly. I have a question that I don't >think< has been addressed here...which is this: I'm having trouble squaring the Six Truths about a world with not providing spoilers to the players; specifically...what if one (or more) of the truths are entirely unknown to the characters--or, to put it another way, what if one of the Truths is also one of the Secrets/Clues within the campaign? I don't see how a DM should share that in a session zero without "giving away too much." Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated-!!!

Darin

So I am curious about your thoughts on a campaign where the king is the BBEG, but as a relatable villain. My idea is opening the campaign with a cinematic where the king, say Brelish king, is discussing that the five PCs must be killed before anyone finds out . This would cause him to send out the Kingsguard as a hit squad, but unbeknownst to the PCs, essentially causing a flee or fight scenario eventually leading to a rebellion. It’s not should I do the campaign that I am looking for advice on, more so how you execute this scenario where the players know something the characters don’t and what moves would you make narratively to make the threat feel real?

Joe Barzilai

Hi Mike, on one of your podcasts you mentioned that you ported the Cypher system for items over to 5E. How did you do that? Did you build a table for generating the items or use the Cypher tables? Were there any tricks?

Casey

Thanks for the Response Mike! I did end up showing a couple of my players the what is numenera page on the website and it did help to peak their interest a bit. When I have a chance to move forward with pitching it I will keep these tips in mind. Thanks again!

morkaphene

Hi Mike. With Spelljammer not quite living up to expectations, I've been looking for other 5e space/sci-fi settings to use instead. I've checked out Mage Hand Press's Dark Matter and really like it. Have you found any that you would recommend?

c0wfunk

In your panning of the spelljammer box and other places you talk a lot about how useful van richtens guide has been to you. In my read of it, it feels very specialty and I have a hard time seeing the universality of it. Aside from your dreadful incursions, which tbh seems like a shoehorn, can you describe other places you have found uses for this content?

Michael Shea

Hi Joshua! The Campaign Truths and Secrets and Clues are really different animals. Campaign Truths are *intended* to be known by the characters. If you have a campaign truth that *isn't* intended to be known by the characters, that goes somewhere else. You can note it for yourself if you need (although I probably wouldn't bother). Instead, think about what makes your campaign world different from others so you can tell that to your players. Of course, you're free to do them however you wish but this is how I think of them. Take a look at the various one-page campaign guides I've done for examples: https://slyflourish_content.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/frostmaiden_one_page_campaign_guide.pdf https://slyflourish_content.s3.amazonaws.com/empire_of_the_ghouls_campaign_sheet.pdf https://slyflourish_content.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/avernus_campaign_one_page.pdf https://slyflourish_content.s3.amazonaws.com/witchlight_one_page_campaign_guide.pdf https://slyflourish_content.s3.amazonaws.com/eberron_campaign_one-sheet.pdf https://slyflourish_content.s3.amazonaws.com/ghosts_of_saltmarsh_players_guide.pdf

Michael Shea

I'm a fan of giving the players information their characters don't have but I probably wouldn't do something where the the players know the truth of a big mystery and then have to roleplay their characters as though they don't. Better might be if the rest of the world doesn't realize the king is a bad guy but both the players and the characters do. Half the fun can be the characters trying to *prove* that the king is a bad dude and discredit him in front of his court. Think of it as a detective story where the detective is pretty sure who did it but has to prove it instead of one where the detective doesn't know the real answer.

Michael Shea

Hi Joe! I didn't port them over directly, although you can see a bunch of 5e compatible cyphers in Arcana of the Ancients by Monte Cook Games. Instead, I built random lists of items with origins, conditions, and powers. You can read about them here: https://slyflourish.com/relics.html I also have generators for them in the Lazy DM's Workbook and Lazy DM's Companion: https://shop.slyflourish.com/products/the-lazy-dms-companion https://shop.slyflourish.com/products/the-lazy-dms-workbook

Michael Shea

It definitely swings towards a dark atmosphere but I think having descriptions of all of those worlds can fit in a lot of RPGs. You can use it as lore discovered by the characters as they learn more of other worlds. They might find portals to these places in the deep. If I think about the City of Arches, it's a perfect supplement to include strange worlds beyond this one. It's definitely dark fantasy but I think it has a lot of versatility showing off dark parallel worlds. Maybe it's because I gravitate towards places like that because they're so ripe for adventure.

Darin

Thank you!

Joe Barzilai

This is great! Thank you. Please ignore the Patreon message I sent, I didn't know this Q&A thread existed until after I sent that, sorry. I just got the Return of the Lazy DM and the DMs Workbook but haven't really memorized all the generators in them. Looks like I might need the Lazy DMs Companion too.