Michael E. Shea's Blog, page 13

Focus Your Campaign

"Child Rowland to the dark tower came."- Robert Browning, 1852

Chapter 16 of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master describes focusing your game around a single campaign hook and presenting this hook to your players during your session zero. Example hooks include:

Prevent the rise of the Ghoul Imperium at the Crossroads of Midgard.Save Ten-Towns from the endless night.End the theft of souls in Chult.Prevent the second Mourning.Stop Tiamat's rise.Kill Strahd.

Such focus clarifies the campaign and its goals to your players. It offers a clear sense of direction for both you and your players. You have a shining star by which to navigate the campaign.

The plot can still get complicated. There are still side quests. There are still twists and turns as the characters follow their path. Clarifying your campaign early doesn't tell you how the characters attempt to accomplish this goal. That happens as the campaign plays out.

Blow the Surprise

We're tempted to hold back the goal and theme of the campaign. This leads to a common problem: the GM sits back with all of the secrets of their rich campaign hidden behind their GM screen while players fumble around wondering what they're supposed to do. Don't hide your campaign's goal and drive. Spill the beans. Show them what they're in for. Let players build their characters knowing where they're headed. Every week they'll know what to do and where they're going.

Big Goals, Small Steps

Think about the goal of our campaign as a big shining north star with lots of potential adventures leading up to it. Each adventure takes small steps toward the big conclusion. Don't map out each step along the way. Focus on the very next one and keep that shining star in sight. None of the rest of the campaign matters compared to the next session you're going to run. That session is real. The rest are just ideas.

State the Goal, Not the Approach

When we're thinking about our campaign and its big central drive, don't think about how the characters will accomplish it. Build situations where we set up locations, inhabitants, and goals, and the characters choose their approach. Such a focus feels like railroading but it's not. We don't dictate the characters approach. We don't decide the outcome. We experience the story right alongside our players.

State the goal. Prep your next session. Let the characters choose their path.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

Build a Vampire Knight with Forge of FoesShard TabletopNew 2024 D&D Playtest PacketTwo Tales of the Valiant PlaytestsPatreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:

Using PbtA Mechanics in 5e GamesGiving Bonus Info for High Ability RollsImproving Evocative Location DescriptionsTelling Players about Changes You Made in Published AdventuresRPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:

Clearly describe when characters face a foe too powerful to defeat. Give characters the option of engaging in random encounters or not. Plan one scene for roughly every 45 minutes of session timePrep locations, NPCs, villains, and goals. Let players choose paths and approaches. Mix easy combat, hard combat, exploration, and roleplaying scenes. Let players choose from three paths forward at the end of a session. Draw connections between character backgrounds and the story in front of them. Related ArticlesSpiral Campaign and World Building in D&DBuild from the Characters OutwardsTwenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social MediaCalm Pre-Game Nerves with Session-Focused Character HooksFive Ways to Integrate Characters Into Your CampaignGet More from Sly FlourishRead more Sly Flourish articlesBuy Sly Flourish's BooksWatch Sly Flourish's YouTube videosSubscribe to Sly Flourish's PodcastSupport Sly Flourish on PatreonBuy Sly Flourish's Books Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master The Lazy DM's Companion Lazy DM's Workbook Fantastic Lairs Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Ensure the Resilience of Your RPGs

In January 2023 we saw the biggest up-ending we've seen for the RPG hobby. After 23 years, Wizards of the Coast attempted to de-authorize the Open Gaming License, shaking third party publishers of D&D and others who used the Open Gaming License for their own end. The backlash was the biggest I've seen in this hobby.

Such an event brings up many questions about D&D and RPGs in general. We really don't know what the future holds for the companies who publish our favorite RPGs and the directions they want to take them. Even those currently working at the company can't predict what decisions others may make in the future. Unlike an online video game, however, how RPG companies change doesn't affect the RPG products we have right now. Mostly.

Today we're going to look at what GMs can do to ensure our own handle on the tabletop RPG hobby stays resilient to changes in TTRPG companies and the industry overall.

The 6,000 Year Proven Technology of Books

Physical books are incredibly resilient compared to digital products. Even if you have all of your RPG material in PDFs, formats change, systems break down, drives go bad, shit happens, and those files can get lost. Books, however, can survive a whole lot. Their medium and their media are the same. There's no software. It's just the book. The oldest D&D books still survive today and, with care, there's no reason your favorite RPG books can't survive the rest of your life.

Also, thousands to millions of these books have been produced over the years. Unless your favorite RPG is very niche, you can likely buy a second-hand copy if yours gets destroyed in a flood.

The first step to keeping your RPGs resilient? Trust physical books.

Be Ready to Play with Pencil, Paper, and Physical Dice.

I know we love our online tools. It's been extremely hard to get even my own players to try pencil and paper again after the ease of D&D Beyond, but we can't trust D&D Beyond like we can trust pencils and paper. It was years before D&D Beyond existed and we still managed to play D&D 5e. You can do it. Your players can do it.

Even if you still want to use online tools to help with character creation, encounter building, and what-not — be ready with a backup plan. What happens if you decide you don't want to use D&D Beyond anymore? Can you still play? Are your players ready to play? Export and print those character sheets.

We don't have to avoid digital tools. We need to be ready to switch when these tools change or disappear.

Books and pencils have been around for 5,000 years. The d20 has been around for 2,000 years. That's resilience.

If You Can't Download It, You Don't Own It

Any money you spend on an online service isn't buying anything, it's renting. We've seen high profile online services terminate their services, leaving those who spent money on them with nothing. Every book you buy on D&D Beyond or Roll 20 isn't ownership, it's a rental. You're leasing that book as long as that service decides to keep it up. This is the part of the license agreements we tend to skip over but it's a big one. If you can't hold it in your hand (or download it to a thumb drive), you don't really own it.

It's fine to use services like these. Just don't pretend you own anything when whoever runs the company changes their mind.

Back Up Your Digital Products

As digital products go, PDFs are pretty resilient. If you can get your RPG products in PDF, you own it. Don't trust a server-side library to hold it forever and don't trust your computer not to explode.

Back up your stuff.

I know, it's like flossing three times a day, but seriously, back up your stuff. Set up a schedule. Follow the 3-2-1 backup strategy: have three backups, two local copies (maybe one in the cloud and one on your local machine), and one off-site copy. Update and rotate your off-line USB disk every 6 months and keep it somewhere safe and away from your other computing equipment. Set up a calendar event and follow through when the time comes.

Back up your digital products to your local computer, your cloud service, and an offline USB disk every six months.

Have an Alternate Stack

For online play, we GMs often rely on a digital stack of software. Maybe it's D&D Beyond and Foundry. Maybe it's Roll 20. Maybe it's Notion and Discord and Owlbear Rodeo.

Whatever online stack you use, be ready to find replacements. Sit for a moment and think about each piece of software you use in your online stack and ask what you'd use instead. If it's hard to find one, you're stack is fragile. If you have a solid replacement for every component in your software stack, you're pretty good.

Even if you've spent a lot of money on one platform, you may need to move anyway. Be ready and remember, you're just renting.

Ponder Other RPGs

There may come a time when, for any number of reasons, it's time to move to another RPG. Which one would you choose? Which ones would you try out? Why not give them a quick try between campaigns? The more you're not bound to any one RPG, the stronger your relationship with the hobby overall. Maybe you'll have a handful of RPGs you're happy to fall back on when the timing is right.

Think up list of alternative RPGs and run one-shot games. Strengthen your connection with the whole RPG hobby.

Resilient RPGs Aren't Easy

Our always-online digital world makes it easier than ever to play RPGs but comes with fragility. The more bound you are to any one online service, one owned by a big company, the more you're at the whim of that company and the chaos of digital loss. Books are resilient. Pencils, paper, and dice are resilient. The files you can hold on your own local systems are resilient. Online tools are fantastic, but they can't be trusted to serve you forever.

Be ready. Be resilient.

Related ArticlesTwo Years Playing D&D OnlineShared Experiences Playing D&D OnlineOrganizing Digital RPG MaterialsSeven Fantastic Tools to Play RPGs OnlineJames Introcaso on Running Great D&D Games with Roll20 Get More from Sly FlourishRead more Sly Flourish articlesBuy Sly Flourish's BooksWatch Sly Flourish's YouTube videosSubscribe to Sly Flourish's PodcastSupport Sly Flourish on PatreonBuy Sly Flourish's Books Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master The Lazy DM's Companion Lazy DM's Workbook Fantastic Lairs Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Five Ways to Integrate Characters Into Your Campaign

When we think about where best to spend our time to maximize the fun of our game, we can do far worse than focusing our attention on the characters.

In the eyes of our players, no aspect of our game is more important than their characters. Characters are the interface between the players and the rest of the world.

Whether running a published or homebrew campaign, finding ways to integrate the characters �����their goals, motivations, backgrounds �����is time very well spent.

Here are five ways to integrate characters into our campaigns.

Relate to an NPC

Build relationships between characters and key NPCs. Maybe they're old war buddies. Maybe their cousins. Maybe they grew up together on the streets. Relate important NPCs to the characters so those NPCs become part of the characters' background. It's one thing to take down a high ranking cultist of the Cult of the Dragon, it's something else when that high-ranking cultist is the character's cousin.

When running a published adventure, either tie NPCs in the adventure to characters with your own connections or make up entirely new NPCs from the character's background and weave them into the adventure.

Build Meaningful Magic Items

Players love magic items. When we spend time tailoring magic items around the characters, and the desire of the players, we're almost sure to make players happy. Even better is when the story of that magic item relates to the character and their background. You might even work with the player to strengthen and solidify the bond between this magic item and the character.

Expose the Characters' History in Lore

When characters explore dungeons deep and caverns old we can bathe these locations in history and lore through secrets and clues the characters can discover. It works really well when the characters learn about themselves from these histories and lore. A paladin might learn more of their ancient order and the deeds the order fulfilled centuries ago. An occultist bearfolk might learn more of the strange cults they research and how their own lineage is woven in. A ranger in league with the deity known as the Hunter might learn more about past rangers and the path they took under the Hunter's mantle.

Reveal history and lore meaningful to the characters instead of just general history. Each session, look at the characters and ask how you can paint the location they're exploring in history that means something to them.

Change the Characters

One way to make a campaign more meaningful to a player is to have their character actually change during the campaign. This is something you'll want to work on very closely with the player before implementing anything. If they're into the idea that their character changes, lean into those changes. The player represents the character and you represent the world. How does the world react to this change?

Always make such changes a choice for the player. Don't take away their agency. Let the player decide how their character changes even if those changes weren't optional to the character. Examples include drinking eldritch fluid that changes the character into a vampyr, having a character realize their divine nature, or having a character physically evolve after a curse or as part of the nature of their ancestry.

Build Characters Around the Campaign

If we give players enough information about the campaign, the main story, the arcs, the organizations, and the NPCs before they build their characters, they can build their characters around these themes. If you hand the characters a list of potential patrons, they can decide during character creation if they're related to the patron. If you give the players a list of organizations, they can tie their background directly to these organizations. Give out meaningful campaign one-sheets before running your session zero and players can build their characters around the campaign just as you sew those characters into the campaign as it plays out.

Integrating characters into a campaign is a two-way street. You can bend, meld, and form the world around the characters. At the same time, players can bend, mold, and form their characters including history, background, goals, and motivations, around the themes, histories, and NPCs of the campaign.

Time spent bending your campaign around the characters, and vice versa, is almost always well spent. It's one of the best places we lazy DMs can spend our time and energy.

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Mix up exploration, roleplaying, and combat encounters. Don't run too much of one series in a row.Strange healing pools are an easy upward beat in a dangerous dungeon.Mix up strange magic items and those that directly benefit a character's mechanics in your treasure hoards.Stick to one or two monster books at a time. Drawing monsters from too many sources can complicate your prep.Print or screen-shot artwork and show it off during your game.Treat single "gotcha" monsters as traps. A wraith hidden in an altar or a black pudding lurking in the bottom of a garderobe are fun traps but not big combat encounters.Paint dungeons with murals, statues, mosaics, and frescoes of their history.Related ArticlesBuild from the Characters OutwardsSpiral Campaign and World Building in D&DCalm Pre-Game Nerves with Session-Focused Character HooksBuilding a Great D&D CharacterHow Many Players are Ideal for a D&D 5e Group? Four.Get More from Sly FlourishRead more Sly Flourish articlesBuy Sly Flourish's BooksWatch Sly Flourish's YouTube videosSubscribe to Sly Flourish's PodcastSupport Sly Flourish on PatreonBuy Sly Flourish's Books Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master The Lazy DM's Companion Lazy DM's Workbook Fantastic Lairs Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Calm Pre-Game Nerves with Session-Focused Character Hooks

Sometimes, right before a game, I get the pre-game nervousness. Am I really ready? I've done my eight steps. I've got my maps. I've got my minis. I've got my strong start and my secrets and clues. But I'm still nervous. What else do I need? What am I missing?

We can calm these pre-game nerves by remembering what our players want out of the game: to watch their characters do awesome things.

Focus on the Characters

Anytime we're worried about our game or spending time we don't have on stuff we're not sure we're going to use, we can always go back to step 1 and��focus on the characters. What's going on with the characters? Who are they? What do they want? What makes them look cool? What abilities do they like to use? What places do they want to visit?

What hooks can we drop into our next session to draw in each character?

Write One Session Hook Per Character

A character hook might be a magic item befitting a character. It might be a secret tied to their background. It might be reintroducing an NPC a character is particularly fond of. It might be including a statue of a deity recognized by a character. It might be a circumstance in a combat encounter particularly suited to a character's abilities. This session-based character hook is a way to draw characters (and players) deeper into the game.

When we're feeling that pre-game nervousness, write down one of these character-focused hooks for each character, each intended to occur or be revealed in the next session.

Real-World Examples

Here are six examples from my Empire of the Ghouls game:

The warriors of the Huldramose recognize Wynasia's ties to the Daughters of Perunalia and give her the respect she deserves.The skeletons coming from the cursed tomb of Bacco come in groups perfect for Durim's fireballs.The rogues operating around Huldramose recognize HB as "the founder." It's not clear how his reputation made it this far north.Ved Pinion understands the wild lands of the North and recognizes settlements as shining points of light in the wild and dangerous dark of the North. The wrong path can lead them to starvation, exposure, and death as easily as the claws of a beast.Bruno recognizes the mark of the Split Oak bearfolk of the Shadow Roads on the Tree of Moonlight Spears — an anchor to the northern Shadow Road known as the Shield Maiden's Fancy.Rohalin dreams of his former adventuring companion Parlina. "You left me in the desert to die but I forgive you," she whispers.

Next time you feel nervous before your game, write down a hook for each character to draw your players into the story you share.

What are your characters' hooks?

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Introduce cities from the desire of the characters outwards. Reveal city locations characters arelikely to want to explore. Focus cities on one neighborhood at a time. What three notable features make your city unique?Give characters something to do while exploring a city. Seeing it isn't enough. Give characters one to three NPCs to help them understand the city around them. Spend the time to read up on the cities you plan to run. Related ArticlesBuild from the Characters OutwardsTwenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social MediaBuild Cities Around the CharactersHow Many Players are Ideal for a D&D 5e Group? Four.Describe your GM StyleGet More from Sly FlourishRead more Sly Flourish articlesBuy Sly Flourish's BooksWatch Sly Flourish's YouTube videosSubscribe to Sly Flourish's PodcastSupport Sly Flourish on PatreonBuy Sly Flourish's Books Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master The Lazy DM's Companion Lazy DM's Workbook Fantastic Lairs Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Three Reasons to Fudge Monster Hit Points

Fudge monster hit points whenever it leads to a more fun game. This seems obvious but it's not always easy to know when that is. If the curtain gets pulled back and players realize hit points are more of a guideline than an actual rule, their agency and their connection to the game can falter.

There are times, though, when most would agree that it's ok to fudge hit points�������even preferable. Today we're going to look at three times it's perfectly ok to fudge hit points.

Fudge When it Ends a Battle That's Overstayed It's Welcome

Many times the characters get past the climax of a battle and yet it still drags on. The boss is dead. The main goal of the battle has been accomplished. But a bunch of bodyguards or sycophants or summoned monsters linger. It doesn't make sense for them to just quit and walk away so we keep going.

When a battle overstays its welcome is a perfect time to lower the remaining monsters' hit points — even dropping it to one just so the next damage done kills the opponent.

Players who recognize that the battle was dragging on anyway aren't likely upset that a monster who might have had three or four hits left in it dropped after one. They want to move on too. If players do complain, it's likely that they still wanted to play out the fight, so be careful not to drop hit points to speed up the end of a battle too early. Give the players a chance to enjoy their final blows when the main challenge has subsided.

When You're Beefing Up Bosses

Boss monsters have a hard life in 5e. They're a prime target. Players love to unload everything they have on the boss as fast as they can. Bosses are underpowered for their challenge rating just by the very fact that they are a boss.

There are many ways to protect bosses. Bring them out later in a multi-wave battle. Give them the ability to spread damage to their minions. But one way to keep them around a while longer is to give them more hit points. It won't help bosses deal with "save or suck" or just plain "suck" effects (I'm looking at you, force cage) but more hit points gives bosses a chance to survive the onslaught of paladin chain smiting, great weapon master fighter action surges, and rogue sharpshooter sneak attacks.

Instead of fudging up on hit points during a boss fight, consider starting high and lowering hit points if you find you don't need them. Give boss monsters the maximum for their hit dice and lower them to the average or lower if it turns out they don't need the boost. Your vampire might start with 204 hit points instad of 144 but you can lower it if it turns out they don't need them. Don't be afraid to break past the hit dice barrier either. Maybe that vampire boss needs double the hit points to be effective.

When It Makes Sense for the Story

Sometimes the hit points of a published 5e monster don't make sense for the story of that monster. A lich, for example, really should have more than 135 hit points (so little a paladin and a fighter could kill it before it ever gets to act). Other times the story we have in mind for a monster leads to it having more hit points. Dire-basilisks might have twice the hit points of a normal basilisk. When we look at the story of a monster and then at it's published hit points, it might not match up. That's a good time to consider changing those hit points. We might not even notice until we're running the monster that its hit points are low for its fiction. Changing hit points during the battle to support the story the monster's telling in the fiction is fine — keeping in mind that we might want to change it again if the monster overstays its welcome.

A Spring-loaded Dial

I imagine hit points, like the other dials of monster difficulty, as a spring-loaded dial whose natural state is the average hit points of a monster. We can turn it one way or another, but the dial likes to be at the average. We don't change hit points willy nilly or if we're mad the characters are doing so well. We change them when we have a good reason. Keep your hand on the hit point dial and be ready to turn it when it improves your game.

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Mix up battles against lots of monsters, a handful of monsters, and solo monsters. Begin your prep by asking how you'll hook each character into the next session's adventure. Lean in on the humor that happens at the table. Aim towards what brings the most excitement and fun at the table. Mix up simple and complex battles. Include interesting NPCs even in the darkest dungeons. Build battles to showcase character abilities. Related ArticlesTweaking Monster Hit PointsThe Dials of Monster DifficultyThe Lazy Approach to Stronger EncountersDM Deep Dive: Monster Design with Jeremy Crawford13 Tips to Speed Up D&D CombatGet More from Sly FlourishRead more Sly Flourish articlesBuy Sly Flourish's BooksWatch Sly Flourish's YouTube videosSubscribe to Sly Flourish's PodcastSupport Sly Flourish on PatreonBuy Sly Flourish's Books Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master The Lazy DM's Companion Lazy DM's Workbook Fantastic Lairs Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Running Travel Scenes in 5e

Travel scenes can be hard to run. Like downtime, travel scenes can lack structure, not offer any meaningful actions to the characters, and not offer any interesting choices to players.

Some GMs run a travel montage ��� describing what happens and asking for checks to survive in the wilderness. Others hand-wave the whole thing. "After three weeks of grueling travel, you reach Castle Kaverice".

For more on this topic, Ginny Di has an excellent video digging into interesting travel encounters.

Pointcrawls offer an alternative ��� turning travel into an almost dungeon-crawl-like experience with locations and paths instead of chambers and hallways. Sometimes, though, we don't need anything as complicated as a network of routes and locations. There's one main road, the characters are on it, and off they go.

How can we make these journeys meaningful? One way is to run encounters during the journey.

Some GMs roll random encounters right at the table. Sometimes they're fun����� particularly of the GM is good at improvising such encounters and making them relevant. Other times they're a drag. Instead, consider rolling random encounters during prep to build interesting and relevant encounters the players might enjoy more. Here's how:

Develop a Location

Where does the encounter take place? What makes this location interesting? Random tables help. You might use the random monument tables in the Lazy DM's Workbook and the Lazy DM's Companion to build out interesting central monuments for travel scenes. Roll a bunch of times until you get one you like. Build your encounter around that monument and use the monument itself as a vehicle for secrets and clues, giving the characters discoveries relevant to their drives and goals.

Add Some Creatures

Fill out the location with creatures. Maybe they're monsters. Maybe they're nice people. Maybe a mix of both. Maybe roll on a random monster table a couple of times and mix two encounters together. This is a great way to make an encounter rich and deep. Not every encounter should be just one or more hostile monsters. Sometimes they're just friendly travelers or wary lizardfolk. Combat isn't always the goal.

Want tools to improvise creatures on the spot? Check out Forge of Foes!

Build a Situation

What's happening at this location? Maybe a monster already passed through and the characters can follow its trail (or not). Maybe the characters witness one group fighting another or stumble on one group who just defeated another. Maybe it's just an argument between a dwarf merchant and an acolyte of a god the dwarf hates.

Offer Choices

These situations should offer meaningful choices. Do the characters defend one group against another? Do they get involved in a heated argument? Do they track a monster to its lair?

Players want to make choices and have their characters do things, not just listen to you describe the journey. Get the players involved as fast as you can. Are there meaningful choices in the situation you developed above? If not, keep building.

Add a Reward

Ensure the characters are rewarded for their choices. Maybe they find a random magic item or some well-needed gold. Maybe the characters learn valuable information or a treasure map. What do the characters earn for their effort?

Chain Travel Encounters Together with Routes

Returning to pointcrawls, we can connect such encounter locations with routes. If we have the time and it makes sense, offer multiple routes with useful information to help the characters choose their route. Do they want to take the well-traveled but longer route or the shorter but more dangerous route? Offer useful options to help them decide which route to take.

Consider adding secret routes as well. Maybe a surviving goblin from a goblinoid ambushing party shows the characters a secret shortcut through the nearby mountains. Maybe the characters find and activate a fey gate taking them along a shadowy road cutting a long journey into a short one that has a strange toll.

One Encounter Between Major Locations

We probably don't want too many encounters during a journey. One works well between every two major locations the characters visit. This single encounter can give the players a good feeling for the path they took in the same way Weathertop highlights the fellowship's journey from Bree to Rivendell in Lord of the Rings.

One Option of Many

Encounters like these are only one way we might make travel more interesting during our 5e games. Campfire tales offer another in which the players describe what their characters are thinking and feeling while resting underneath the stars. Player-driven travel montages like those in 13th Age hand the story over to the players to describe what happens along a journey. Or we might simply handwave the boring parts and get back to the interesting parts of the story.

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Candela ObscuraTales of the ValiantThe D&D Book Price IncreasePatreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:

Trying Out House RulesDials for Magic ItemsPhysical Tools for Online PlayGods for your Homebrew CampaignAlternatives to NotionRPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:

Use a mix of theater of the mind, drawn maps, printed maps, and 3d terrain for various types of combat. Don't force any one approach all the time.Keep the tools on hand to help you improvise during the game.Ask yourself how you can hook each character into the next session. What's in it for them specifically?Run homebrew adventures in published campaign settings �����get the best of both worlds.Borrow liberally from published material. Take what works for your game. Dump the rest.Modify published adventures to fit what you and your friends enjoy at the table."That's what the adventure says" is as bad as "that's what my character would do".Related ArticlesThree Things to Do While TravelingSingle Encounters for Overland TravelBuild from the Characters OutwardsBuild Cities Around the CharactersTwenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social MediaGet More from Sly FlourishRead more Sly Flourish articlesBuy Sly Flourish's BooksWatch Sly Flourish's YouTube videosSubscribe to Sly Flourish's PodcastSupport Sly Flourish on PatreonBuy Sly Flourish's Books Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master The Lazy DM's Companion Lazy DM's Workbook Fantastic Lairs Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Creating Villains

Villains often drive the story of our RPG. They frame the situations in which the characters find themselves. Good villains drive the game forward, building momentum and reacting to the characters actions.

Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master talks about building villains in chapter 16 on "building a lazy campaign". Return uses the term "fronts" from Powered by the Apocalypse". A front, like a weather front or the front line of an army, is a force moving the story in a particular direction. It's a nice term that includes drivers outside of conscious foes. The burning sun of Athas in Dark Sun could be considered a front.

But the lingo can be hard to grasp, so I'm moving to the term "villains". You're free to use whatever term best suits you. I recognize that villain can be an alien moon, a series of earthquakes, or the deadly sun of Athas. But most of the time, a villain is a sentient entity thwarting the region or world in a way the characters do not like.

Building Villains

There's a series of simple questions Lazy DMs can use to build villains and fill them out enough to drive our campaigns but not so much that we overprep.

Who Are They?

Who's this villain? What are they called? Are they a powerful blue dragon sorcerer? A vampire lord? A world-devouring lich? A beholder crime lord? Get a basic idea who your villain is before answering the rest of the questions.

If you're stuck looking for a villain, the Lazy DM's Companion includes a villain generator on page 21. You can also find a random list of villains and motivations in chapter 3 and 4 of the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide. Or steal villains from popular fiction.

A villain can be a monster, a powerful undead entity, a cult-leader, or a selfish wizard. It can just be someone who wants to watch the world burn. Most important ��� villains act against the goals and desires of the characters.

What Do They Want?

What drives your villain? What's their goal and desire? The Lazy DM's Companion includes twenty possible villainous motivations but you can often come up with your own. Do they seek power? Do they seek wealth? Do they seek destruction?

Good villains have understandable motivations. Magneto knows what happens if the world is left to its own devices hunting muntants. Often the best villainous motivations make sense but are done in the wrong way. Killmonger isn't wrong; he's just an asshole.

These villainous motivations help in several ways. They guide the villain's actions. They guide the villain's reactions once the characters start mucking up their plans. They guide how villains roleplay with the characters. These motivations might even cause the villain to change perspectives when it turns out their drive isn't antithetical to that of the characters.

What Quests do Villains Undertake to Achieve Their Goals?

Our final question asks what they're doing about it. How are they trying to achieve their goal? What quests are they going on? Villainous quests move their plots forward. Good villains don't sit around waiting for the characters to come and kill them. They're doing stuff. They're sending lackeys to accomplish things. They've sent heralds far and wide.

Choose three quests for your villain leading toward the villain's goal. These quests should be resilient. Villains shouldn't rely on a single branch of their quest to succeed in their goal.

Choose Three Villains

For a nice rich campaign, develop three villains using the steps above. Each villain has an identity, a goal, and three quests they undertake to accomplish their goal. Three villains create a rich tapestry of movement, actions, and reactions as the characters get involved in thwarting these quests. Sometimes villains work together. Other times they're independent. As one villain goes down, another villain might stand up in its place.

Building Campaigns from Villains and Characters

Three villains, with goals and quests, give the characters an evolving and dynamic world. Things are going on. Situations are changing. During your prep, instead of trying to figure out what's going to happen next, ask yourself "what are my villains up to?" and see where the question leads.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos:

Do Published Adventures Save you Time?Scarlet Citadel Session 24 PrepLast Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

Maps - Is D&D an Incomplete Product?Maps - No Great Single Solution for In-Person PlayMaps - What Does D&D Recommend for New DMs?Maps - A Big Digital DisplayMaps - The Pathfinder Basic Flip MatMaps - Big Sheets of 1" Gridded Poster PaperMaps - Print "Blueprint" Maps for Cheap.Maps - Use Cloth for a Fog of WarMaps - Print Individual Rooms on Normal PaperMaps - Mixing Different TypesJP Coovert's Drawing Dungeons BookletMaps - Theater of the Mind and Abstract MapsMaps - Try Lots of OptionsThe Works of JP CoovertPatreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:

Rewarding InspirationBalancing Encounters Across the Adventuring DayRPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:

Find music that inspires your game ��� both during prep and play. Offer chances for villainous redemption. Offer multiple paths for long-distance travel. Keep quick build monster stats on hand. Whip up a simple stat block when you cant be bothered to look up a monster in a book. Give custom monsters one or two notable abilities based on their fiction. Give every magic item a name and a cool ability. Spells are encapsulated mechanics you can tie to monsters or magic items. Related ArticlesBuild Resilient and Evolving Villainous PlotsBuilding Villains Like Pro-WrestlersBuild from the Characters OutwardsQuests for Villains How to Protect Your Villains Get More from Sly FlourishRead more Sly Flourish articlesBuy Sly Flourish's BooksWatch Sly Flourish's YouTube videosSubscribe to Sly Flourish's PodcastSupport Sly Flourish on PatreonBuy Sly Flourish's Books Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master The Lazy DM's Companion Lazy DM's Workbook Fantastic Lairs Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

How Many Encounters Per Day in D&D?

How many encounters should you run in a typical adventuring day?

As many or as few as make sense for the story and the situation in the world.

The Dungeon Master's Guide describes the "Adventuring Day" in chapter 3 on page 84 and begins with the following passage:

"Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day." (emphasis mine)

Many DMs think this means characters should face six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. That's not the case. The guideline above intends to show you how many they can handle but the actual number of encounters can vary as much as makes sense for the story.

If you want to see a video on this topic, check out How Many Encounters per D&D Adventuring Day?

What Makes Sense for the Story?

The question "what makes sense in the story?" is powerful GMing. We can ask it all throughout our time prepping our D&D games. Which monsters should we include? What treasure should we include? What ability challenges should we include? What DC should we select?

What makes sense in the story?

Which monsters make sense? How many? Which pieces of lore make sense to reveal? How hard should the DC be given how hard this situation is in the story? How would the NPCs react to the characters if they were real?

"What makes sense for the story" is incredibly useful. It pushes us into a story-focused direction when planning out our game.

How Many Encounters Per Day?

The same question holds true for encounters per day. How many encounters will the characters face? Who knows. Will they even use combat to defeat those encounters? Will they sneak by? Let's play to find out!

Forcing characters to face six to eight medium to hard combat encounters per day pushes us out of the story and into a series of interlinked encounters of which the only intended solution is combat.

How often should the characters be able to rest?

What makes sense in the story?

Are they in a safe place where they're likely not to be interrupted? Are they in the middle of a wraith-infested hell-hole? What makes sense for their current situation?

Are your characters facing enough combat encounters before a full rest? Don't worry about it. Worry about the story. Build interesting situations for the characters to get involved in. Let the characters navigate situations as they come up in the game in ways that make sense given the story. Maybe they sneak by. Maybe they talk their way out. Maybe they fight like a pack of angry barbed devils.

What to Do Instead

What do you do instead of preparing six to eight encounters an adventuring day? Focus on giving yourself the material you need to share the story as it makes sense in the world and as it entertains you and your players. Use your eight steps to prepare what you need for the session. Use your dials of monster difficulty and your upward and downward beats to help you manage pacing.

Worry less about the mechanics of the game and the balance of combat. Focus on prepping the components of your game that lead to an interesting story and let the story evolve in ways you can't predict.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Prepping Session 23 of Scarlet Citadel.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

Crown of the Oathbreaker Physical BookThe Lazy GM's Resource Document in the Creative CommonsLazy Solo 5e generator on PerchanceDevelopers! Help Open5e!Will WOTC Use Open5e?Playing Five RPGs in Three DaysPlaying Dungeon World at 1d4 ConPlaying Pathfinder 2 at 1d4 ConPlaying Call of Cthulhu at 1d4 ConPlaying Dungeon Crawl Classics at 1d4 ConPlaying My Friend's New RPG at 1d4 ConPlayers Questioning the GM's LogicPatreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:

Remembering Campaign-Specific RulesIs the DM the Storyteller or the Referee? Neither!Running 45 Minute Battles with No TweakingReigning in Wanderlust in an Island Hopping CampaignRPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:

Mix factions in a single location.Mix random and hand-selected magic items.Print rooms of a big dungeon on single sheets of paper. Show each one as discovered.Check in player when dorking with their backstory. Make sure they're cool with your ideas.Have a big dinner or pot luck with your group an hour before the game.Celebrate player birthdays.Add interactive objects into big combat encounters. Have improvisational tools for the effects.When going into a dungeon, ask about lighting and positioning. Remind them of the limitations of darkvision (disadvantage on perception checks, -5 on passive Perception).Related ArticlesBuild from the Characters OutwardsDescribe your GM StyleTwenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social MediaConverting Adventures Between SystemsHow Many Players are Ideal for a D&D 5e Group? Four.Get More from Sly FlourishRead more Sly Flourish articlesBuy Sly Flourish's BooksWatch Sly Flourish's YouTube videosSubscribe to Sly Flourish's PodcastSupport Sly Flourish on PatreonBuy Sly Flourish's Books Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master The Lazy DM's Companion Lazy DM's Workbook Fantastic Lairs Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Using Maps for In-Person Games

Broccoli, a Patron of Sly Flourish, asks:

Do you have any tips on preparing and using maps for in-person games?

After fifty years of different approaches there is no perfect solution for preparing and using maps at in-person games. Instead, there are many different popular solutions. These include:

Hand-drawn maps on paper, dry-erase, or wet-erase matsPublished laminated battle mapsTerrain tilesProfessionally printed poster mapsLarge digital displays3d tabletop terrain (either 3d printed or purchased)

You can read more on these different types of battle maps in my Battle Map Comparisons article.

Each of these solutions come with tradeoffs including:

CostTimeSpaceQualityFlexibility

With these tradeoffs in mind, here are some best practices for using maps for in-person games.

Draw Maps Ahead of Time

I'm a huge fan of the Pathfinder Basic Flip Mat for drawing maps right at the table, but when drawing maps ahead of time, nothing beats drawing maps on big sheets of paper. Drawing maps this way takes time time and requires particular tools but it's relatively cheap, doesn't take up a lot of space, and provides great results when you need a detailed map for your game.

Choose the Right Paper

If you're drawing maps ahead of time, try drawing them on big sheets of paper with a 1 inch grid. Big pads of 1" graph paper provide the best value. These come 27 inches by 34 inches and provide over 2,000 square inches per dollar ��� way better than gaming paper and likely better than even cheap wrapping paper. I like drawing with big sharpies but they bleed through so put a spare sheet underneath before you start drawing.

Learn Your Drawing Style

Practice your style and symbology when drawing maps. Seek techniques that help you draw maps quickly and also capture the details of the environment. Consider these excellent resources:

Chris Perkins's 2012 Map Fu article. Chris shows useful shapes and design ideas for drawing maps. Ten years after its original publication, this remains the best article I've found for drawing maps.The Dyson Logos map key. A key of simple and evocative symbols for fantasy maps. Print out the key and keep it handy when drawing your own maps.JP Coovert's Dungeon Mapping Video and Drawing Dungeons book. JP shows how to draw a map and keep the symbology simple but evocative. His style took 90 minutes to draw in his video but you can save time skipping the painting of negative space.Print Poster-sized Maps as Blueprints

Some local print shops offer large-format black-and-white "blueprint" or "architecture plan" printouts perfect for black and white maps like DysonLogos. These are much cheaper than color maps and look great. You'll need to spend time in an image editor scaling your map to the right size but the result is a big well-drawn map you can drop right onto your table. Here's an article on scaling maps using Gimp. If you can fit the map into 24" by 36" it'll be much easier to use than a 36" by 48" map. Blueprint maps like this run $5 to $10 and save a lot of time drawing things out.

If professional printing isn't an option, you can use tools like Adobe Acrobat to print big maps across multiple sheets of regular-sized printer paper and then cut and paste them together. Again, you'll need to spend time properly sizing the map in an image editor before you print it.

Get a Big Acrylic Sheet for your Table

One of my favorite tools for in-person GMing is a big sheet of acrylic on top of my gaming table. The acrylic sheet provides a perfectly flat, dry-erasable surface that feels awesome with miniatures. You can put maps, handouts, pictures, cheat-sheets, or other flat props under the surface and draw on top of it with dry erase markers. A couple globs of sticky-tack (another incredibly useful GM aid) keeps the sheet from sliding around. You can usually pick up a 36" by 48" sheet for about $30 at a local hardware store, Home Depot, or other home improvement store. It's an excellent investment that lasts for years.

Revealing Maps

If you draw maps ahead of time, you'll need some way to hide what the characters haven't yet found. Cover the parts not yet revealed with sheets of paper or cloth. Sticky tack or heavy objects, like glass tumblers, keep these sheets in place so they don't fly around the table every time someone moves.

Mixing Theater of the Mind and Gridded Maps

Be open to running theater of the mind or abstract combat options along with your tabletop maps. Consider using smaller maps of larger dungeons and use bigger detailed battle maps when terrain and positioning really matters. The laziest map to draw is the one you don't draw at all.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a YouTube videos on how to Add 2,000 5e monsters in Owlbear Rodeo 2.0 with the Clash plugin.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

Knave 2.0Amazing Encounters and QuestsEmporium of WondersTips from the Midnight TemplePatreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:

Organizing an big RPG Club and CommunityBuilding Mythic MonstersAction-Oriented Monsters in Forge of Foes?Playing In Person after 30 Years AwayLazy Gamemaster's Guide?Does Curse of Strahd Take a Lot of Work to Fix? NoNeeding to Take a Break?Top Tips for New and Experienced GMsRPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:

Offer options with different gameplay styles. Let the players choose between combat, exploration, and roleplaying.Let the players see the world through the trained eyes of their characters.Get your player's permission before revealing earthshaking secrets about their character.Pay attention to which characters haven't gotten a good magic item in a while.Print individual rooms of a big dungeon. Piece them together like a puzzle during your game.Print pictures of monsters and NPCs. Pass them around during your game.Offer to run scenes offline for players who miss a session.Related ArticlesThe Only Dungeon Map You'll Ever NeedLove Letter to the Pathfinder Flip MatBattle Map Comparisons Kitbashing DungeonsA Simpler Checklist for Jaquays-style Dungeon MapsGet More from Sly FlourishRead more Sly Flourish articlesBuy Sly Flourish's BooksWatch Sly Flourish's YouTube videosSubscribe to Sly Flourish's PodcastSupport Sly Flourish on PatreonBuy Sly Flourish's Books Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master The Lazy DM's Companion Lazy DM's Workbook Fantastic Lairs Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Organizing Digital RPG Materials

One effective way to organize digital RPG material is by making a directory structure of "RPGs", then system, then publisher (if needed), then product. It should look something like this:

/RPGs/5e/Sly Flourish/lazy_dms_companion.pdf

Skip publisher if there's really only one publisher for the system:

/RPGs/Shadowdark/Shadowdark_RPG_V1.pdf

How do You Do It?

Often on the Sly Flourish Patreon I get asked how best to store digital materials — mostly PDFs of RPG products. I didn't have a very effective system so I put up a YouTube post on the topic to find out what systems others use to store digital files.

Many don't have an organized process, which can work just fine if you have a good desktop search (see below). A few mentioned the directory structure above and, after switching to it, I love it.

"RPGs"", System, Publisher, Product

Create a set of directories starting with "RPGs", then game system, publisher, and product.

Here's an example:

/RPGs/system/publisher/product.pdf

and here are some examples:

/RPGs/5e/Kobold Press/scarlet_citadel.pdf/RPGs/13th Age/13th_age.pdf/RPGs/Numenera/weird_discoveri... Publishers/knave_1.0.pdf (for companies that produce basically one product)

You don't have to use the publisher name unless many different companies write for one system. This is only 5e for me. I also have a /RPGs/5e/DM's Guild/ directory holding all my single-publication DM's Guild products. Both my /RPGs/ directory and /RPGs/5e/ directories have "Independent Publisher" directories with PDFs of publishers who only produced a single product.

This system is flexible enough to hold lots of products and simple enough to find what you want when you want it.

One organizational trick is to sort by last opened. You're likely to look for the same files often and sorting by last opened means the files you need are often on the top.

I spent a few hours reorganizing my PDFs this way and love it, but it probably wasn't worth it. How come?

Because we can use our desktop search.

Using Search

Sorting through piles of files in a directory isn't great when we know what we want. Instead, both Macs and PCs have a desktop search built in. I'm on a Mac so I use Spotlight for search. It never worked particularly well until I spent the time to learn some tricks for it.

It's definitely worth the time to learn how to customize the search tool of your computer. For example, you'll want to:

Limit searches to just PDF. On a Mac, you do this by typing "kind:pdf" in your search query.Limit which directories your computer indexes. On a Mac, you can find this under your system settings for Spotlight and its privacy settings to turn off directories you don't want to search.Limit which types of files and data you want to search. On a Mac, this is under the system settings for Spotlight. Uncheck the stuff you don't want returned.Figure out how to open the directory containing the result instead of the result itself. On a Mac you do this by holding the command key down when you double-click the file.

Spending a few minutes learning how to customize and use your desktop search tool saves a lot of time when hunting down RPG PDFs. It's worth the time to learn how.

One final thought. Don't spend too much time worrying about PDF organization. You can waste a lot of time renaming files, moving them around, and organizing stuff that really doesn't need to be organized. Keep your system simple. Keep it flexible. Put your time into preparing and running awesome games for your friends.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Designing Interactive Monuments and Prepping Scarlet Citadel Session 23.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

Owen KC Stevens Bundles on DriveThruRPGOwlbear Rodel 2.0 Official Release in JulyKobold Press Tales of the Valiant Monsters Playtest2024 D&D Players Handbook Playtest 5Mass Effect Style Preludes and WarsTuning the Lazy Encounter BechmarkPatreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:

Chat GPT and AI For Adventure GenerationRunning Ship Battles in Light of XaryxisCharacter Grabbing the Wrong HookRPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:

Monsters don't always behave optimally. Chaos affects both sides.Run waves of monsters in big boss fights.Run some super-hard battles and let the characters get away with lots of shenanigans. Let the characters (and players) get a glimpse of the environment in which they're going to engage in a big boss battle.Keep track of what magic items the characters have. Know who's due for another one.Give the characters their opportunity to shine when they've prepared something really fun.Think through the eyes of your villains. There's a time to fight and a time to run.Related ArticlesTwenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social MediaDescribe your GM StyleBuild from the Characters OutwardsIdentify Good D&D Adventures and ProductsConverting Adventures Between SystemsGet More from Sly FlourishRead more Sly Flourish articlesBuy Sly Flourish's BooksWatch Sly Flourish's YouTube videosSubscribe to Sly Flourish's PodcastSupport Sly Flourish on PatreonBuy Sly Flourish's Books Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master The Lazy DM's Companion Lazy DM's Workbook Fantastic Lairs Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.