Michael E. Shea's Blog, page 17

Two Years Playing D&D Online

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I went from running D&D exclusively in person to running D&D exclusively online for more than two years. Though the circumstances are terrible, this was an opportunity to re-learn how to run D&D games — this time online — and I found it tremendously valuable.

I wrote a few articles one these experiences including:

Shared Experiences Playing D&D OnlinePlaying D&D over DiscordOwlbear Rodeo: A Simple D&D Virtual TabletopCall on Individual Players During Online D&D Games

I also took to Twitter to see what other DMs learned.

Today, with more than one hundred online games under my belt, I wanted to share my experiences running D&D games online.

It takes more to engage players

Digital distractions abound and not being in front of other people makes it easy to stray away from the game. The whole internet is one tab away and that's hard to compete with. I definitely notice, both as a player and a DM, how easy it is to get distracted from the game.

It takes work on the part of the DM to keep players engaged. Calling on individual players for questions instead of dropping general questions to the whole group helps. So does reiterating the current situation in the game. Don't shame players who get distracted. Summarize what's going on and ask them how they want their characters to respond.

Communication lag is a real problem

Voice lag over the internet definitely causes a social change in how we talk to one another. Even sub-second delays can make it sound like everyone's talking over one another or no one wants to talk at all. Ginny Di offers excellent suggestions for dealing with this social communication change and I touch on the topic in my article, Call on Individual Players During Online D&D Games.

Sharing maps and images is easy

I became so spoiled with the ease of sharing portraits of NPCs, images of events, and maps of locations online that it made me question how we ever managed to do it in physical play. The idea of hand-drawing maps after spending two years dropping Dyson maps into Owlbear Rodeo feels like the difference of writing out a novel long-hand and typing one up in a word processor.

I'm not done with physical maps or terrain at a physical table but I sure look at the problem differently now that I've had two years doing it easily online.

Games are more consistent

I've definitely had better attendance at games, both as a DM and as a player, with online play. This comes as little surprise. Committing to three or four hours in front of a computer in our own home is much easier than committing to a drive across town. Online D&D fits better into many peoples' lives than in-person play. I'm not abandoning in person play, but playing online definitely became a regular way I play D&D from now on.

I can play with people all over the world

I've had the great joy of playing in D&D games run by Ennie-award-winning DM Paul Gabat multiple times — a DM who lives in the Phillipines. During 2021, one of the players I used to play with in person moved half-way across the country yet we still continue to play weekly. I've attended multiple gaming conventions, playing as many games as I used to play in person, without leaving the comfort of my own home.

Playing games online immeasurably improves your access to players and DMs. Instead of only being able to play with people within five to ten miles, you can literally play with anyone on earth. Being comfortable playing D&D online exponentially improves your access to players and games.

Prep times vary between DMs

I find lazy DM prep easily fits online play. The stack of tools I use (Discord, Notion, D&D Beyond, and Owlbear Rodeo) are easy to prepare and easy to run during the game. This isn't true for everyone. For those spending a lot of time tinkering with maps, lighting, tokens, and integrations in thick VTTs like Roll20 or Foundry, prep time is still an issue. I've heard DMs say that it takes them about 1.5x as long as a session to prepare a game. For me it's about 30 to 60 minutes for three hours of gameplay.

We each decide how much time we spend on prep and where we spend that time. If setting up custom maps with dynamic lighting is important enough to you to spend the time doing it, go with the gods. If you're looking to speed up you're prep, there are ways.

Digital accessories are much cheaper than physical and scale much better

Digital tools, products, and assets offer a tremendous value to DMs running games online. If I want four balor miniatures, I'd have to pay about $180 on the miniature market. Four balor tokens for my virtual tabletop? Essentially free. Hell, forty balor miniatures are basically free.

Searching the internet for an image and then banging out a token with Token Stamp is fast, free, and extremely powerful. It's fast enough that I can do it during my game for improvised situations.

Even with a tremendous heirloom-level collection of physical miniatures, I still struggle to find the right miniature for the right situation in a physical game. In an online game, I can build a token for any monster in under a minute (I actually timed myself).

The same is true for maps. Getting a full color map of Loomlurch from Wild Beyond the Witchlight would run like $50 for a full-sized color map. Online I can grab the map from the D&D Beyond version of the adventure and throw it into Owlbear Rodeo in no time at all. Yes, the adventures run about $30 on D&D Beyond, which isn't nothing, but $30 for every map in the adventure is pretty cheap. Third-party versions of maps are often far cheaper.

Technology offers a lot but we must be selective

There are many options for digital tools we can use for our online games. There's a plethora of different virtual tabletops with different features, sources, and levels of complexity. There are tons of sources for online maps, music, visuals, and sound effects.

As DMs, we must be selective about which tools we choose to add to our toolbox. Some offer a wonderful experience for us and our players — often at the cost of time spent preparing.

Seek those tools offering the most fun for you and your players.

I still miss, and prefer, physical games

As much as I love running D&D games online, I desperately missed my in-person games. I've only recently returned to playing games in person and I still much prefer it. The first time my friends gathered around the table laughing, eating chips, rolling dice, and enjoying the game — I almost cried. I was so grateful to have them back at my table again and, whenever possible, I try to run my games in person.

That said, running games online offers me a powerful alternative and wonderful option I have no intention of ever stepping away from.

Some of my favorite sites and tools for online play

Over the past two years I've come to the following stack of software which I regularly use and love.

Owlbear RodeoTokenstampDyson LogosKenku.FMD&D BeyondDiscordNotion

I'll give an honorable mention to Above VTT, a Chrome plugin that lets you run a full virtual tabletop atop D&D Beyond. If you're running official modules in D&D beyond, its fantastic. I've not fully incorporated it into my stack because I'm just comfortable with Discord and Owlbear, but it's a fantastic option and worth checking out.

Thankful for Online Options

I can't think of what it would have been like not to play D&D over the past two years. As terrible as the last two years have been for many of us, having the options to play D&D online not only made it bearable but showed me an entirely new way to play the game — one I plan to use for the rest of my life.

Other Sly Flourish NewsLast week I released Stars Over Stormwreck, a bridge adventure between Dragons of Stormwreck Isle from the new D&D Starter Set and Light of Xaryxis from the D&D Spelljammer Boxed Set. Watch the release video!I discuss my Numenera campaign finale and offer tips for D&D DMs from Numenera and tips for GMs considering running Numenera.I recorded my preparation for my Scarlet Citadel Session Zero for my brand new campaign focusing heavily on Kobold Press 5th edition material.Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

Free Drowned Sailors Encounter from WOTCStars Over Stormwreck Adventure Coming This Week!The One D&D Experts PlaytestDungeoncraft on Why D&D Editions Don't MatterTeos Abadia on Freelance RatesPatreon Questions

Every week on the Lazy D&D Talk Show I answers D&D-related questions from the Sly Flourish Patreon. You too can join in the conversation by becoming a Patreon of Sly Flourish.

Last week's questions and answers came out in two videos with links to each question below:

Your Thoughts and Plans for PatreonPractical Jokes with Tiny HutExperienced Player Tips for Inexperienced DMsThe Three Most Useful Third-Party ProductsWhat's In Front Of You When You DM?How Do You Choose and Run Lots of Campaigns?Helping New Players Avoid Bad ChoicesCharismatic Players with Non-Charismatic CharactersHow to Get Value from Purchased RPG MaterialIs a Focused Campaign Railroading?Drawing Quiet Players and Barbarians Into Political IntrigueThe Morality of Killing CultistsRunning Lotsb of Allies in CombatComing Up with Exploration and Social Encounters Instead of Just Combat All The TimeVerifying The Difficulty of Third Party D&D MonstersBalancing D&D in our LivesCan Three Villains Work in One Organization?Tips for Game Prep from Adventure WritingDealing with the Characters of Abscent or Missing PlayersD&D Tips for the Week

Every week I write down seven tips I learned in the last game I ran. Here are this week's D&D tips.

Give players meaningful choices when exploring a dungeon.Address the characters of quiet players.What ten secrets and clues might the characters uncover in your next game?Focus your game around the plotlines you enjoy the most.Embrace third party material. Expand your selection of campaigns, adventures, monsters, and character options.What can the characters learn about the activities of the villains behind the scenes?Write and email short flash fiction between games to keep players engaged.Related ArticlesShared Experiences Playing D&D OnlineJames Introcaso on Running Great D&D Games with Roll20 Owlbear Rodeo: A Simple D&D Virtual TabletopInterviewing New D&D Players for Online GamesCall on Individual Players During Online D&D GamesGet 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

Dealing with D&D Pre-Game Nervousness

We all feel it. It's game night and your friends are coming over (either in person or online). We feel it in the pits of our stomachs. Will this be the one? Will this be the game we drop on the floor? Are we stuck like Carrie White hearing a voice in our head repeating "they're all going to laugh at you!"?

For some who have not yet DMed a D&D game, even getting the confidence to run a D&D game is difficult. But even for those of us who have been doing this for years or decades, the nervousness of running a game doesn't go away.

Many DMs feel this pre-game nervousness, regardless of their skill or longevity in the hobby. It's common and it's ok. We're about to engage in a complicated performance. We're going to be spinning a lot of plates and throwing out words to build worlds no one has ever seen before. We're going to be mananging rules and adjudicating complicated mechanics and, somehow, keeping it all together so at the end of the session our friends walk away with a smile on their faces. That's a lot to manage and not feel anxious about it.

This feeling is normal. It's ok. We all feel it. I feel it every time I'm getting ready to run a game. This nervousness is an old friend and I know where to put it. Sure, I'm nervous, but it will be ok.

If it helps, you can check out my five minutes to D&D pep talk or "You Are Not Prepared" - Battling the Resistance videos on this topic.

Here are some things I try to remember when I feel this nervousness before a game:

My friends want me to succeed in this. They'll help me out. No one is out to get me.Soon I'll be laughing alongside my friends in an activity we all enjoy.I know what I'm doing. I've done it before.I have what I need to run the game and go where the flow takes it.Every game is an accomplishment.Running a game helps my friends as much as it helps me.My friends have been coming for years and keep coming back.

These little sayings help keep my nervousness in check. They remind me that, as Steven Pressfield would say, my doubt is "the resistance" and it's always out to keep me from creating things.

Trust Your System

I think Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is popular because it gives DMs a system — any system — that works well enough to prepare and run games. I never claim that the eight steps in Return are the end-all be-all of dungeon master prep, but the system can work and does work for lots of DMs, myself included. I feel like Return is a piece of boyant driftwood in a raging river of untamed creativity. It gives us some structure to build our games around.

Having a system, any system, helps tame pre-game nervousness. We can channel that nervousness into our game prep. If we don't have a system, such prep becomes a bottomless hole into which many DMs fall. They prep and prep and prep, taking their nervousness and thrashing about in all sorts of directions — many of which have no value to the game they plan to run. They wire whole sessions so tightly that there's no room for the story to twist, turn, and breathe as the game travels into new directions.

A framework like the eight steps helps us feel prepared for a game but not tie it so tightly together that we freak out if the game goes in a direction we weren't ready for.

Whatever system you choose, keep it focused on what you need and ensure there's an end to your prep other than burning every hour you have until its time to run the game.

Find Your Tricks

What helps you break past the pre-game nervousness you feel? What sayings do you have? What rituals do you conduct? Know that your nervousness will be there before your next game and know what you need to do to deal with it. Whether it's a set of preparation steps or a handful of mantras to remind you that we're all just here to have a good time, keeping these tools in mind will help you deal with your pre-game nervousness.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

WOTC D&D After-School ProgramGood Digital Tools for WOTC + Third Party Product UseSharing Third Party PDFs With Your PlayersRunning Wild Beyond the Witchlight for Tier 2 CharactersWhen Is It Appropriate To Hit Downed PCs?Advice I Regret from Return of the Lazy Dungeon MasterDealing With Player Optimizing Away From FunWhy Do NPCs Not Use Character Classes?Is 5e Too Complex?Related ArticlesBattling the Resistance That Wants You to Fail at D&DGaining Confidence to Run D&D GamesManaging D&D Tips2016 D&D 5th Edition Dungeon Master QuestionnaireInterviewing New D&D Players for Online GamesGet 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

Convert and Scale Published D&D Adventures

With thousands of adventures written before the release of the 5th edition of D&D, we have a huge legacy of content we can use in our games. All it needs is some conversion.

Luckily, converting adventures to 5th edition is easy enough to do. It mostly come down to replacing the monsters in the adventure with monster from the Monster Manual. Choose the one closest to the one described in the adventure and you're done. If a monster in the adventure doesn't have a 5th edition equivalent (and I'd be surprised, there are literally thousands of 5e monsters these days), take the mechanically closest monster you can find in 5e and reskin it into the one described in the adventure.

1st and 2nd edition D&D adventures are likely easiest to convert over to 5th edition. They're style aligns closely to the adventure style found in 5th edition. If you're worried that battles are too hard once you've done the conversion, use the lazy encounter benchmark to check what a deadly encounter might look like. If things are easy, you may want to beef up boss battles, but you can likely leave the rest of it alone.

What about scaling adventures up or down in level? This is a little tricker. Again, using the lazy encounter benchmark and monster dials, you can do a lot to change up the difficulty of an adventure.

There's one area where leveling an adventure up or down can be a problem though, and it has nothing to do with mechanics, it has to do with theme.

The Right Theme for the Right Tier

In Tier Appropriate Adventure Locations I offer a list of the types of locations that make sense for characters of a given tier. When I describe choosing the monsters that makes sense for the situation, we don't choose monsters based on the level of the characters. Instead we choose quests, locations, and overall situations that make sense for the current status (level) of the characters. You don't ask 1st level characters to drop into Thanatos and kill Orcus. Nor do you ask 18th level characters to go down into Uncle Ed's cellars to take care of his giant rat problem. (I've often considered a quest in which Uncle Ed sends 18th level characters into his basement to take care of his Orcus problem.) Quests should match the character's capabilities and station in the world (often represented by level) and this all has to do with story, not mechanics. Here's a quick breakdown of what that looks like:

1st level (tier 0). Small problems. Rats in the basement of the local inn.2nd to 4th level (tier 1). Local problems. Bandits, thieves, local evil mercenaries.5th to 10th level (tier 2). Regional problems. Evil kingdoms. Rampaging dragons. Invading undead armies.11th to 16th level (tier 3). Global problems. World-ending magic. Lichs. Ancient dragons. Invading planar beings. Evil moons.17th to 20th level (tier 4). Multiverse problems. Planar doomsday weapons. Demon princes. Archdevils. Archlichs. Invasions of the Nine Hells. Abyssal apocalypses.

When you're scaling an adventure for the characters, ask if the theme of the adventure fits the level of the characters using the breakdown above. Is this the kind of job they should be doing? Are they too powerful and important to deal with such things? Are they too weak to take on a big job? Matching the theme of an adventure to the power of the characters matters.

Can you change the entire theme of an adventure to fit the characters? Maybe, but that's probably not worth the effort. Better is to find an adventure that makes sense for the characters.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

Amazing Encounters and Places by CZRPGApocalypse Keys by Evil Hat GamesD&D Beyond, Limiting Character Options, and Third Party ProductsThe Sly Flourish Stream Bingo CardRunning the Same Campaign for Multiple GroupsD&D Plots and Inspiration from WesternsConflicting Secrets and Clues? No Thanks!Describing Your DM Style to New PlayersRelated ArticlesTier Appropriate Adventure LocationsBuilding 1st Level Combat EncountersChoose Monsters Based on the StoryRunning Dragon of Icespire Peak from the D&D Essentials KitScaling the Story to the Level of the CharactersGet 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

Pause for a Minute

Sometimes we need a way to quickly break character and check in with the players. This might be part of a set of safety tools to make sure everyone's ok with the content of our game at any given point or it might be a way to arbitrate the results of a decision by speaking to the players instead of the characters.

The X-Card by John Stavropoulos is one of the more popular safety tools often used to indicate one's discomfort with a given situation in a non-confrontational way. It's popular enough that Roll20 integrated it directly into their game platform.

The X-card is an excellent tool but it's not the easiest thing to incorporate in an online game. Instead, we can look to one of the elements of Beau Sheldon's script change. In particular the element of "pause". I call this "Pause for a Minute" and here's how it works:

At any point, any player or the DM can say "pause for a minute". All in-character and out-of-character conversations stop.Whoever paused can either talk about their current thought, ask for a break, or ask to talk to the DM privately.When the situation is resolved, the DM can say "game on" and the game returns.

Players or DMs can call for a pause for any of the following reasons:

They're uncomfortable with something going on in-game.They're not happy with a decision getting made by the characters.They want to clarify that everyone else is ok with what they're doing.The DM wants to ensure everyone's ok with the direction things are going.They want to figure out where everyone is in the story or catch up after losing track.

During a session zero DMs can discuss how to use "pause for a minute" and what it means for the DM and the players.

For more on this topic, see the following:

SF Video on Safety ToolsSF Article on Safety Tools60 Seconds on Pause for a MinuteNot Just For Safety

The most important use of "pause for a minute" is to make sure players and the DM are ok with the content or situations going on in a game. It gives everyone a way to say "hang on, I'm not digging this" and stop it before it cascades into something worse.

But another use for "pause for a minute" is to ensure everyone's having a good time and on the same page. This is a great way to break out of the dreaded "it's what my character would do" situations. Pausing for a minute doesn't have to be matter of emotional safety; it can just be a way for the players to break away from the drives of their characters and make sure those drives align with the other characters and the game itself.

"Pause for a minute" helps us deal with in-character conflicts like rogues stealing from the group or wizards fireballing their allies.

"Pause for a minute. Rex, are you ok if Elfuel fireballs you to kill all the skeletons around you? Yes? Cool! Game on."

Use It Frequently

Because "pause for a minute" can be used for a wide range of situations, DMs should regularly use it to get players comfortable with using it themselves and to make sure players are good with the game.

"Pause for a minute. Is everyone ok with Gor using animate dead on the dead drow warriors? Oh yeah, I forget you all had a zombie ogre carting around your loot for the last eleven months. Game on!"

The more comfortable everyone is using "pause for a minute", the easier it becomes for someone to use it when it is a matter of emotional safety. As long as it's always respected — everyone breaks character and stops conversations to hear what the pausing player has to say — using it frequently only makes games better.

Try It Out

Some DMs find the whole concept of safety tools strange or somehow insulting. I urge you to keep an open mind. I didn't often use or integrate safety tools into my games and I regret it. It doesn't have to be a group of players you don't know. Someone you've known and gamed with for 20 years could be affected by something happening in-game and be upset by it. Do you really not want to offer an opportunity for someone to avoid feeling bad?

Beyond that, a tool like "pause for a minute" just helps a game run smoother. It's a great way to step away from the characters and talk to your players. It's a great way to re-baseline and move forward with the awesome adventures to come.

Add "pause for a minute" to your session zero or even talk about it with your players in the middle of the campaign. Tell them how to use it. Tell them what it's for. Use it to help steer your game in the right direction, and enjoy the tales you all share around the table.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

Wastes of Chaos by Kobold PressNew Lazy D&D Talk Show Topic Database for PatronsAnatomy of an Adventure by MT BlackPath of the Planebreaker by Monte Cook GamesDealing with Secret Truths of a Campaign WorldAI-generated Art and the Lazy DMRelated ArticlesD&D Safety ToolsFacilitating ChoicesTalking To Your PlayersTake a BreakRunning Session ZerosGet 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

Improvise D&D Monster Abilities

From this moment forward, consider yourself given the freedom to change monsters as you see fit for the fun of your game.

You, of course, had this freedom all along but I suspect some DMs feel like modifying monster stat blocks, particularly in the middle of a session, is "cheating".

It's not.

It takes experience to know what to add to a monster to make it interesting in the moment. It's not something a new DM can likely do without breaking something. But eventually we run enough monsters to have some back-pocket special abilities we can add to a monster. Maybe it's as simple as an extra attack. Maybe it's some elemental damage. Maybe it's a spell effect. I loved adding spell effects to armored flesh golems in my Tomb of Annihilation game. Every flesh golem was a unique horror.

When should we consider such changes? Sometimes we want a monster to act more appropriately dangerous mechanically to fit its story. Sometimes we want to change up a monster the players are already used to seeing. Sometimes we want to change a boring encounter into a nail-biter. Sometimes we want to make a monster unique.

What are some simple ways you can modify existing stat blocks? Here are a few. For DCs, make the DC 12 + 1/2 the CR of the monster.

Strength save or be knocked prone.Strength save or be pushed back.Super-fast movement that doesn't provoke opportunity attacks.A ranged attack if they don't have one (use one of its melee attack stats but reflavor it).An extra attack if they could use another.Pack tactics.A whirlwind or ground stomp attack that attacks adjacent enemies.Constitution save or be poisoned until the end of the monster's next tur.Elemental damage based on the monster's story to its weapon attack. Consider 3 (1d6) damage up to CR 5, 7 (2d6) at CR 5 to 10, 14 (4d6) at CR 11 to 16, 28 (8d6) at CR 17+.A fire shield like damaging shield. Consider 4 (1d8) damage up to CR 4, 9 (2d8) at CR 5 to 10, 13 (3d8) at CR 11 to 16, 18 (4d8) at CR 17+. Flavor the damage based on the monster's story.A spirit guardians like damage aura in which those who start within or enter it take damage. Consider 9 (2d8) damage up to CR 4, 13 (3d8) at CR 5 to 10, 18 (4d8) at CR 11 to 16, 27 (6d8) at CR 17+. Flavor the damage based on the monster's story.

Of course, these new abilities should make sense for the monster and for the situation. Flavor these abilities in the fiction of the game. Telegraph them so players can see the monster's doing something different. Show the fire giant who sets its blade ablaze. Describe flails dripping with acid or assassins surrounded by the screaming spirits of their slain victims. Show the vampiric-touched ghoul who moves faster than the eye can see. Wrap your mechanical changes in interesting flavorful descriptions.

Add these abilities when they make combat more interesting or tell a more interesting story. Don't add them to punish players, particularly to punish players for good ideas or good luck. And don't go overboard. One modification per monster is often enough. Bosses might have lots of things to do but a normal monster might just have a kicker effect on its normal attack.

Become comfortable enough with the mechanics of D&D to be confident adding these sorts of changes. Once you start to get comfortable, once you see your players enjoying the change in tactics and mechanics, you'll know you're in the right place.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

One D&D Origins Playtest SurveyMastering Dungeons on the Origins One D&D PlaytestWorld of Dead Temples and Secrets of Summervine VillaSpelljammer ErrataDungeon Delver's GuidePlanegeaI don't Review Third Party Products I Don't Like5e Isn't 5e Compatible - We're On Our OwnStrongest Criticism of Lazy DM AdviceAdding a New Player Mid CampaignSpelljammer for New PlayersAdventure Anthologies and HeistsAwarding Gold with the Lazy DM's CompanionTips for Reaching a Satisfying Campaign ConclusionRelated ArticlesInstant NPCs for Fifth Edition D&DAdd Necrotic DamageMaking Monsters InterestingCustomizing MonstersD&D's Nastier SpecialsGet 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

Villainous Titles

Give cool titles to your villains.

This is a trick I picked up from an excellent post on Reddit about stealing tricks from WWE and from playing Dark Souls and Elden Ring (the From Software developers absolutely nailed names)

Bertana, Singer of SoulsAvelyn, The Viper's KissThoas, Heroes' FallThornheart, The King's SwordTiberius, The Black Blade Adala, Winter's TouchVorug, The Poison BloomGorzum, Chaos BornRydel, The Red WhisperZenoch, Spawn of the Black Pit

Giving a villain a title defines them in your campaign, both for you and your players. While proper names are easily forgotten (by both you and your players), a name with a title sticks in our minds.

Titles like these make villains important in the mind of players. They are someone. You're not just facing the troll Venog. You're facing Venog the Blight Bringer. You can almost feel the epic music queue up when they appear in the game.

Generating names like this often starts with a good fantasy name generator. This gets the creative juices going. You can also draw titles from your mind when you write them down. What would others know them by? What deeds have they committed? What interesting effects do they bring to combat?

When you say it out loud, does the name sound cool? Feel free to enjoy the campy nature of the name. As Clarksvillain DM on Twitter says, channel your inner five-year-old. Would you buy the action figure?

A truly powerful villain may be known by many names. Their reputation might expand into multiple groups who give them multiple names. Endelyn Moongrave, one of the three hags of the Hourglass Coven in Wild Beyond the Witchlight has many titles including Bitter End, Creeping Lyn, and the Dame of Unhappy Endings. Players can enjoy drawing connections, tying multiple names and multiple reputations down to just one single villain. The more powerful a villain, the more titles they likely hold.

Give your villains titles. Write those titles down in your prep notes. Watch their importance grow in the stories you share.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

WOTC Offering Refunds for Dragonlance Pre-OrdersHorror at Devil's RunSebastian Crowe's Guide to DrakkenheimSpelljammer - Adventure's In Space Boxed SetIs Witchlight Still Great Without Dreadful Incursions?How Well Does Numenera's Stat Point Spend and Roll Negotiation Work?How Much Character Background for New Players?Making a Dungeon Feel Like a MegadungeonActionable and Relevant Secrets and CluesRelated ArticlesBuild Resilient and Evolving Villainous PlotsAdd Dreadful Incursions to Wild Beyond the WitchlightMusic for D&DBuild Resilient CampaignsSecrets Serve YouGet 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

Immerse Yourself in D&D

Playing a D&D game is a magical experience. Where else do we get to sit together with our friends and all share in an imaginary world of fantasy and wonder?

This experience becomes stronger the more we immerse ourselves in the world.

What helps immerse you in the D&D games you share with your friends?

I took the question to Twitter, asking what most immersed players in the world of D&D. You can read the thread here.

Common Trends for Immersion

Common themes across the roughly 130 replies to the tweet including:

MusicArtMapsPropsNo PhonesCharacter AgencyClear GoalsLiving WorldsSenses; Smell, Taste, TouchUsing miniaturesEvocative in-world detailsClosing one's eyes and thinking about the world in the first personGood roleplay

Yes, pot was also on the list but that's a topic for some other blog.

Think First Person

"If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it."

Willy Wonka

If I was to offer the single best way for DMs and players to both get into D&D, it would be this:

Close your eyes and imagine the world through the eyes of the characters.

You can do this anywhere, anytime, and use it to think about your world as part of prep or to get deeper into your character. You can do it before bed. You can do it in a boring meeting. You can do it during a walk. Spend a moment to imagine the world, not from the clouds but as though you were standing right there.

You can, of course, do this in-game as well. As a DM, you're probably not actually going to close your eyes, but you can do so during your prep and capture the details you note in your mind's eye.

If you're a player and the DM begins to describe something. Stop for a minute, close your eyes, and let their voice build the image in your head. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What grabs your attention?

Let yourself go there.

Capture the Senses

Many of the replies to my query surround one core concept: capturing the senses. We might do this with music, art, maps, and props.

[Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master] covers these ideas in Chapter 13: Other High Value Preparation Activities. They're not critical to run a good game, thus not covered in the core eight steps of game prep in Return, but they came up often as ways to stay immersed in D&D.

Want to immerse your players deeper into the world of your game?

Find good music.Share great representative artwork.Share overland maps, dungeon maps, and encounter maps with your players.Use props to give players a physical tactile object to bind them to the world.A Topic Worth Pondering

As a DM, thinking about how we can better immerse our players in the world is a topic worth thinking about. It's easy to get caught up in our own story, spend lots of time tuning combat encounters, or spend hours writing histories and theologies. Instead, think about how you can better immerse your players in the world itself.

Come with me and you'll be in a world of pure imagination.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show: One D&D

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Last week I talked all about the latest Wizards of the Coast announcements including diving into the first playtest for the next D&D core books. Here's the episode!

Related ArticlesSpending a Whole Day Preparing a D&D Game2016 D&D 5th Edition Dungeon Master QuestionnaireGoing ThereMaking Great HandoutsOptimizing Towards FunGet 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

Running a Dungeon Crawl

I love dungeons. Whenever I find the story of my campaigns leading to a dungeon, I feel a great sense of relief. Not everyone feels this way. Some DMs dread running dungeons.

Different DMs approach dungeons differently. Some prefer a procedural turn-driven approach focusing on resource management such as food, lighting, encumbrance, and rests. Some see running dungeons as a fundamentally different experience than running other parts of the game like wilderness exploration, city investigations, or other types of scenes. I don't.

To me, dungeon adventures are location-based situations like any other in D&D. They're not that different from infiltrating a lord's manor to steal a relic or tracking down a murderer in a city. The in-fiction situation drives the gameplay.

That said, there are some common traits when running a dungeon worth considering. They include:

A dungeon is a focused location with fixed boundaries and meaningful choices.A dungeon is a hostile place filled with traps and monsters.

These differentiate a dungeon from walking through a city or traveling through safe woods.

Define Your Dungeon

When preparing a dungeon, we can ask ourselves a few questions:

What does the dungeon look like? What's the layout? I love using one of the thousand Dyson Logos maps to grab a map for nearly any situation.Why are the characters going there? What's the goal? Dungeons are dangerous. You'd only go into one if you had a good reason.Who's there? What creatures inhabit the dungeon? Are there multiple factions? Consider populating different sections with a mix of intelligent creatures wild monsters.What is the dungeon's purpose? Who built it and why? What is it used for now? These questions bring richness and depth to our dungeons. Reveal the dungeon's history through secrets and clues the characters discover while exploring the dungeon.What entrances does the dungeon have? Consider starting a dungeon with a choice right away. Do you want to try to get past the front guards or sneak in through the old sewers underneath? Multiple entrances, each with their own advantages and disadvantages, give players agency over their approach.What's the situation in the dungeon? Are the intelligent inhabitants preparing for war? Are they sending out hunting parties? Do they wall off the monster-filled sewers below? Are they all hammered from festivities? What's happening in there? Make the dungeon a living place.Design Your Dungeon

I love using pre-made maps from established cartographers like Dyson Logos but if you're interested in designing your own dungeon maps, check out Justin Alexander's articles on Jaquaying the Dungeon. The second article in particular gets into the juicy details of what makes great map design. These include:

Multiple entrancesLoopbacksSecret doors, passages, and roomsAn asymmetric design that rewards explorationElevation changesIf it's multi-level, multiple ways to reach those levels

Justin goes into more features of these fun dungeon designs in the articles linked above.

Fill Out Your Dungeon

Now it's time to fill in the details of the various rooms. This might be a list of interesting features we can drop into rooms while the characters explore, or we might key features to particular rooms. The overall purpose (both past and present) often define the individual rooms we drop in.

When stuck for ideas, use Appendix A: Random Dungeons in the Dungeon Master's Guide for inspiration. It has tables of rooms tied to many dungeon types. You can also generate monuments when you're stuck for ideas or use the tables in the Lazy DM's Workbook and Lazy DM's Companion to fill things out.

Ensure your dungeon has a number of secret doors, secret tunnels, and secret rooms to discover. Finding a secret door and a hallway that bypasses the main halls is always fun. Finding secrets are powerful upward beats in dungeon adventures.

We don't have to tie individual creatures to each chamber. Instead, improvise which creatures inhabit which rooms based on the evolving situation in the dungeon and the pacing of the game.

Run easy encounters when the characters have had a hard go of it.

Add Discoverable Traps

Fun traps are discovered traps. While certainly characters might trigger traps, it's more fun to find, understand, and disarm traps than it is to get shot in the eye with a poison dart.

Add traps that make sense for the situation but don't be afraid to have the characters find, disarm, and avoid many of these. Justin Alexander recommends that, for every ten single-fire traps, the characters should discover nine of them.

For some fun trap ideas, see the traps page in the Lazy DM's Workbook.

For more on finding, investigating, and disarming traps, see the Flow of Trap Detection.

Running the Dungeon Crawl

When it comes time to actually run a dungeon, a few steps help define how characters approach the dungeon. These include:

Clarify the goal. Why are the characters going into this dungeon?Choose an entrance. How will the characters get into the dungeon? Which path will they take and why?Choose a marching order. Who goes first? Clarify that the front two characters can use their passive Perceptions but not the back rows.Choose an approach. Do the characters want to try to sneak in? Are they going to kick in the front door?Choose lighting. Is the dungeon completely dark or well-lit? If its dark, do the characters want to use light? Remember that characters with darkvision are still are at disadvantage on Perception checks in total darkness.

With those choices clarified, it's time to delve into the dark. And how do we run that dungeon? The same way we run the rest of D&D:

The DM describes the situation.The players describes what they want their characters to do.The DM determines if this is challenging. If so, they ask for an ability check against a DC determined by the DM.The DM adjudicates and describes the results.

See Our Ability Check Toolbox for more information on how to run all the different types of ability checks that can happen in a dungeon (and everywhere else).

Mapping the Dungeon

How do you show the characters' progress through a dungeon? If you're running online, sharing screenshots of your dungeon map or using a virtual tabletop like Owlbear Rodeo works well even if combat isn't the focus.

For in-person play there's no perfect solution but many different options. Here are some in-person options for drawing or displaying dungeon maps:

Project images or a virtual tabletop to a screen everyone can see.Draw the map ahead of time on 1 inch square poster paper or the gridded back side of cheap wrapping paper.Make a rough sketch of the map on a sheet of paper.Print out a big map as a blueprint at a local printer (often for very cheap).Print individual sections of a dungeon on paper and show them in sequence.Draw out the map on a wet-erase or dry-erase poster map.Timing, Turns, and Resources

Some DMs, when they run dungeon crawls, want to focus more on timing, turns, and resources. Time should be carefully tracked. Moving through a dungeon should require turns. Resources should be spent as the characters travel through the dungeon. That's a fine way to play if you and your players want to play that way. This style isn't for me, though. I prefer to focus on the bigger story taking place in the dungeon.

For timing, consider flexing the time in and out as the story demands. Focus on timing when it matters and skip over it when it doesn't.

Cantrips like light and the many class features and spells producing food and water mean we don't typically need to track such resources. D&D 5e does support weight and encumbrance but I argue this isn't the most exciting part of the story we share. In games like Out of the Abyss tracking resource and encumbrance might be fun for the initial survival-aspect of the campaign but soon, when it becomes trivial for the characters to manage resources like this, we can widen our focus to the bigger problems surround the characters.

You may disagree, of course. If you have a style of grittier turn-based dungeon crawling that you and your players prefer, go with the gods. If you're looking for such systems, consider looking at Old School Essentials or Five Torches Deep. Both have systems you can modify and bring into your D&D 5e games if you desire.

Managing Rests

Managing rests in a dungeon is a resource worth paying attention to. Rests, both short and long, are big deals. Where can characters make these rests? Can they make them at all?

I suggest that the characters can rest when it makes sense for the story and situation (as in everything else in D&D). If they find a room they can safely secure, staying out of the eyes of the monsters wandering around, they can likely rest. If they try to take a rest in a four-way intersection in the middle of a well-populated dungeon, some villain is going to notice. Consider reinforcing the following general principal of dungeon delving to players before they enter the dungeon:

Rests are difficult in this dungeon. Short rests are easier than long rests. Be careful with your resources, you don't know where you'll be able to find a long rest in this place. Plan accordingly.

This leaves me the option to determine when and where rests can occur safely. As a DM, I don't want to be handcuffed by hard rules about resting in dungeons. If it improves the fun of the game to give the characters an option for a long rest, I want the freedom to add it.

How can we improvise safe locations to rest? Here are some examples.

A collapsed wall reveals a healing font.A glyphed urn contains a magical portal to a restful demiplane.An empty section of the dungeon hasn't been touched in centuries.The characters fall into a fresco depicting a restful room.The characters find a scroll with a tiny hut spell on it.A cracked stopwatch allows an eight-hour time stop before breaking.A trickster faerie invites the characters for a quick stay in the feywild.An enterprising goblin takes the characters to a hidden safe chamber for a price.A chalice filled with blue liquid offers the equivalent of eight hours of rest when ingested.The characters find a long-hidden saferoom beneath the tiles of the floor.

Short and long rests are part of the pacing and upward and downward beats of our game. Don't limit yourself out of these tools.

For more on this topic see Upward and Downward Beats of a Dungeon Crawl.

Principles of the Dungeon Crawl

With these details out of the way, let's consider some opinionated principles for running dungeon crawls. Many of these are in response to replies to a Tweet asking for the hardest parts of running dungeons.

Focus on the fun parts. Choose what parts of a dungeon crawl work for you and your group. Focus on the parts that bring the most fun to the game. Agree on these things with your players. If some part of the process stops being interesting, skip it and move on.

Avoid "gotchas". Avoid unpleasant surprises the characters would have seen but players did not. The players are not their characters. They don't see the situation in front of them the same way their characters would. Work with your players to help them understand the challenges in front of the characters. If a player makes a mistake they'd have avoided in the world, let them roll it back.

Plan some upward beats. Dungeons in particular seem like a hard place to add upward beats. Plan out some potential upward beats and add them when they're useful. Here are ten example upward beats for dungeon exploration:

Finding an abandoned pack with useful items.Discovering a secret on a moss-covered mural.Finding a blessed spring healing the equivalent of a potion of greater healing.Finding a hollow statue filled with treasure.Getting the drop on unaware enemies.Finding a secret passage filled with sprung traps and bones.Finding a map to the dungeon.Facing weak yet overconfident foes.Finding a portal leading to a nearby friendly town.Discovering a passage shortcutting a huge swath of the dungeon.Finding a fortified location the characters can use as an internal home base.

Add friendly encounters. The most obvious upward beat is to meet friendly NPCs. Even if you happen to be trudging through an ancient dungeon there are opportunities to meet NPCs. Here are ten ways to introduce a friendly NPC in a dungeon:

A friendly ghostAn intelligent magic itemA talking statueA petrified adventurer holding a scroll of stone to flesh.An awakened animalA possessed spellbookAn escaped prisonerA magic mouthA dreamscape angelA turncoat monster

Mix easy and hard encounters. Oscillate between upward and downward beats by adding or removing monsters from encounters. An encounter with only one or two monsters is far easier than one with six to eight (depending on the monsters of course). The number of monsters in an encounter is an easy dial for upward or downward beats, even in published adventures. You are never bound to run the exact monsters you planned or found written in a published adventure.

Don't Worry About Puzzles. If you're a fan of puzzles, find them easy to incorporate, and your players love them — enjoy. If you struggle with puzzles, don't worry about them. Think of the whole dungeon as a puzzle. The overall situation in the dungeon is it's own puzzle.

Let Checks Fail Incrementally. Don't let a single failed skill check blow a whole dungeon delve. Just because the characters blow a stealth check doesn't mean everything in the dungeon heard them. Give the characters degrees of failure before the dungeon's inhabitants become aware of them. Perhaps it takes four failures before the guards become fully aware of the characters' infiltration.

On Megadungeons

I have little advice to offer for running megadungeons. For many, dungeon crawls themselves are megadungeons — big multi-floor dungeons with hundreds to thousands of rooms.

My only advice is to clarify the goals, change up the environments, and shift the inhabitants to make each level or section of the dungeon unique and interesting enough. At some point, a mega-dungeon becomes its own world in the campaign of your adventure. Give characters a home base from which they explore and to which they return. Let them travel through familiar sections to reach the un-familiar. Let them enter and exit the dungeon as they need. Keep the drives and directions clear.

Enjoying Dungeon Adventures

Whether it's two rooms connected by an overt and secret hall or a sprawling multi-leveled megadungeon buried beneath the city, dungeons offer DMs a fixed focused setting and yet still provides options and agency to the characters exploring them. Find your favorite system and tools for building and running dungeons and enjoy the stories they bring to the table.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

New 13th Age in 2023A New D&D Ability Score Standard ArrayDungeons of DrakkenheimDistinct Racial Characteristics for NPCsMaking Prophecies Come True Without RailroadingInspiration for City of Arches"Milestone" Event-Based Leveling Without Removing Player AgencyRunning Zero Prep One-Hour GamesRelated ArticlesSeven Tips for Better DungeonsThe Beats of a Dungeon CrawlMaking Awesome Dungeons I, DungeonUpward and Downward BeatsGet 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

What I'd Love from the Next Iteration of D&D

I love 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons. Many have complaints, some justified, and some making mountains out of mole hills. But none can ignore how successful D&D 5th edition has been over the past eight years. This, no doubt, is due to many factors but the solidity of 5th edition as a ruleset certainly made it both accessible and continually interesting for millions of players all over the world. 5th edition hits the sweet spot of being both easy enough to learn and offers enough interesting options to keep people playing for years.

It is from my love of this game that I offer these desires for the next iteration of D&D. I recognize that my own desires come from just one of millions of people who love this game. I make no sweeping statements that my opinions are any more valid than any other fan of this game.

I humbly offer my requests none the less.

Make 5.5 Fully 5e Compatible

I want the next iteration to be as fully compatible with 5th edition as it can. There are millions of 5th edition books in the world — more than any other version of D&D. What an incredible waste it would be if those books become obsolete. I want Monsters of the Multiverse to work with the new version of D&D. I want Tasha's Cauldron of Everything to work with it. I want Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel to work with it. Keep 5.5 fully backward compatible. When an adventure calls for a veteran, I want a compatible veteran coming out of the new Monster Manual and know it still works just fine.

Include Easier Encounter Building

Encounter building in the current 5th edition Dungeon Master's Guide is both complex and inaccurate. The two-table system of experience point values and multipliers for the number of monsters creates a constantly tweaking system that doesn't provide an accurate measure of an easy, medium, hard, or deadly encounter when done and is simply too hard to do.

Xanathar's Guide to Everything includes a much improved chart-based system but still one too complex to easily figure out and one that doesn't provide a clear picture of combat difficulty.

Better, faster, easier, and looser encounter building guidelines could help DMs quickly measure encounters built either before or during the game. Building a reasonably balanced encounter should be easy and fun.

Include "Theater of the Mind" Guidelines for Combat

The Dungeon Master's Guide and Xanathar's Guide to Everything includes pages of optional rules for gridded play and hardly any guidelines for running games using the theater of the mind or an abstract map for combat. Yet some of the most popular streaming game DMs, including games run by Wizards of the Coast dungeon masters run combat the "theater of the mind". While shared experiences among DMs in the community can help, clear guidance and suggestions in the core books could offer DMs a wider range of ways to run combat.

I certainly don't see this as a replacement to gridded play but instead an alternative option — a widening of the options to support lots of styles of play. Including guidelines for both gridded combat and theater of the mind combat further improves the accessibility of the game for both those with trouble visualizing combat in their heads (aphantasia) and those who physically cannot see a battle map (sight-limited or blindness).

Strengthen High-CR Monsters

High CR monsters are often weak for their challenge rating when compared to lower CR monsters. They often don't do enough damage to threaten high level characters.

WOTC's CR calculations overweight abilities high CR monsters require to challenge high level characters. This ends up reducing their effective damage at their CR.

A wolf at level 1 is significantly more dangerous than a balor at level 19. Recent attempts to increase the threat of higher CR monsters in Monsters of the Multiverse wasn't enough. While mid-CR monsters in MotM often increased their damage output, this didn't keep up at higher CRs.

Make balors as deadly as wolves.

Fix Certain Spells and Abilities

Certain spells and abilities prove problematic in play. Spells like force cage circumvent a legendary monster's ability to hold its own against high level characters. Spells like banish and polymorph can instantly remove most non-legendary threats from the game with a single casting, resulting in the equivalent of hundreds of points of damage with a single cast. The poison immunity of Heroes feast reduces the effective difficulty of a huge swath of monsters for everyone in a group for a whole day. Replace spells like conjure animals with the much-improved summon spells from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything so such spells don't give one player nine turns in a round.

Rebalance spells and abilities to ensure no single one changes how a DM needs to run the game.

Include Tasha Upgrades

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything includes many excellent quality-of-life changes such as flexibile attribute allocation, replacing abilities on level-ups, and more. I hope and expect many of these changes make their way into 5.5.

Provide Less Problematic Race Descriptions

It wouldn't surprise me if one of the main reasons for a refresh of 5th edition is to cover problematic race descriptions like the racial essentialism of goblins and orcs in the Monster Manual. Other fans offer much better advice on this than I and I support such changes for a wider, richer, more interesting, and more inclusive game.

Update the System Resource Document under the Open Gaming License

As a producer of 5th edition material, the Open Gaming License helps me publish material any DM can use to make their game better. While I can still publish under the current 5th edition System Resource Document (SRD) (and will do so should it not be updated), a new SRD would help further connect the widespread community of 5th edition publishers to this new edition of D&D. The OGL and SRD helps bring D&D to the whole community and ensure it lasts the ages. Please update the SRD with new changes and continue to support third party publishers who love this game as much as you do.

Leave the Rest Be

I see posts all the time asking for radical changes. No classes! No more ability scores! No spells! No vancian casting! It goes on and on. A game trying to meet these big changes isn't D&D. Such desires are fine — there are so many awesome RPGs out there, but D&D isn't D&D if you strip everything out of it that made it D&D.

Whatever changes you make to D&D, remember its core roots and embrace how successful 5th edition has been so far. Very little needs changing to make the game enjoyable and successful for another ten years as it has for the past eight.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

Sly Flourish Wins Two ENNIES!Wizards Presents Announcements 18 AugustFinal Spelljammer Academy AdventureDragons of Stormwreck Isle Character Sheet PDFsFace Folio by M BlakeEncounter Building by Dragna CartaBest Adventure for New PlayersChoosing Your Next Campaign With Your PlayersBuilding a Quest BoardNot Enjoying Game PrepRelated ArticlesThoughts on Unearthed Arcana's Encounter Building GuidelinesBuilding Encounters in Fifth Edition Dungeons & DragonsWhat I Learned Running D&D 5e from Level 1 to 20A D&D 4th Edition DM's Guide to 5th EditionMaking Monsters InterestingGet 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

Build Resilient Campaigns

What if your campaign jumped 14 months into the future in the middle of a session? Would you be able to keep going or would your campaign shatter under such a change?

This happened to me in my Numenera game. In the middle of a fight, one of the characters activated a "mystery box" and, on a random roll, teleported himself and all of his companions 14 months into the future.

Did I panic? On yeah. But I also loved the idea. I had to make it work.

Luckily, the way I structure my campaigns supports such wild jumps. I don't build campaigns from the expected actions of the characters. I think of the world as an organic and evolving place. I build campaigns from the villains outward — from their goals and the quests they undertake to accomplish those goals. I knew who these villains were. I knew what they wanted. I knew where they were going to go.

So I moved those agendas ahead 14 months. In ten minutes I jotted down the big changes occurring over the past 14 months. The whole campaign changed. And it was awesome.

What Is a Resilient Campaign?

A resilient campaign can shift, evolve, and continue on even when major changes occur based on the actions of the characters and the reactions of the world around them.

We build resilient campaigns by ensuring we don't have too tight a grip on the longer story of the campaign. We don't write out detailed plans for future adventures. We don't build the campaign arc assuming one path or set of choices the characters make. The characters can make lots of big choices leading in many potential directions.

We might write out a rough outline for the campaign. We might have some big ideas for things we want to run in the future, but we don't fill them out because we don't know if they'll happen or, if they do, that they'll happen the way we think. We leave ourselves room to change things depending on how they go.

Instead of building big campaign arcs focus your attention on other areas:

Villains. Focus on the three big villains of the campaign. What are their goals? What do they want? Where do they think they're going? What steps are they or their minions undertaking to accomplish those goals.

The Next Adventure. After that, focus on your very next adventure. Where does it start? In what locations will it take place? What NPCs and monsters might be there? What secrets and clues might the characters uncover? What treasure might they acquire? And what adventures might our next session lead to next? This comes right out of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master.

Test Your Campaign's Resilience

How do we know if our campaign is resilient? We can test it. Ask yourself the following questions:

If the characters jumped one year in the future, what would the campaign look like?Can your campaign accept a major random change? If you rolled up a new villain from some random tables like those found in the Lazy DM's Companion, how easily could they be integrated?Could your campaign move smoothly if the characters discovered a major secret early? Does your campaign hinge on keeping information out of the characters' hands?If the characters suddenly faced the main villain and killed them, where would your campaign go then?Set Opportunities for Big Changes

What if, instead of just ensuring the resilience of our campaign, you actually built in potential big changes you can't control? What if you give your characters the equivalent of a nuclear bomb without defining when or where they use it? What if you set up a scene where the characters meet the main villain without knowing if it turns into a fight or a conversation? What if the characters find a powerful relic able to teleport them to an alternate plane of existence or shift forward or backward in time? What if the characters face an opportunity to either forge an alliance or make a new enemy with a super-powerful entity like a trapped demon, a jailed vampire, a forgotten lich, or a fallen celestial?

Asking ourselves "what if" is a tremendously powerful question for testing the resilience of our campaigns or even pushing them in new directions.

Building Stories No One Can Predict

Resilient campaigns offer tremendous opportunity to share stories with our players with no defined expectations. It's scary, but it's also awesome. Resilient campaigns build fertile ground for epic campaigns everyone's sure to remember for years to come.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

D&D Starter Set Dragons of Stormwreck IsleThe Sly Flourish Bookstore is Open!DM David On Monster RolesENWorld's Review of Radiant CitadelBanning and Limiting Material In Your GameDealing with Tag-Along NPCsHow Many Monster Types in a Battle?Players Catching On to Film HomageStealing Ideas for Homebrew Campaign SettingChecklist for Building SituationsLazy Dungeon Mastering and the Quantum OgrebRanking Wild Beyond the WitchlightDealing with PrisonersPre-Gen Story Hooks for One-Shot GamesRelated Articles14 Months LaterBuild Resilient and Evolving Villainous PlotsRunning Session ZerosWriting a One-Page Campaign GuideRunning Episodic GamesGet 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