Michael E. Shea's Blog, page 25

Video Collaboration with Johnn Four

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Johnn Four from Roleplaying Tips and I partnered up to do a series of four YouTube videos to help GMs run awesome RPGs! You can get the first video on "Situations and the Five Room Dungeon", no strings attached, at the following URL:

https://youtu.be/L0xYZZoxVY0

You can get the next video in the series on the topic of "RPG Map Designs" by signing up on the following page:

https://www.roleplayingtips.com/lazy-gms/

This subscribes you to both my weekly newsletter and Johnn Four's weekly newsletter. Don't worry if you've already subscribed to one or both, you will still get the video and won't be subscribed twice.

The third video in the series is on "Running Heists and Capers" and is available to patrons of Sly Flourish's Patreon page which you can find here:

https://www.patreon.com/slyflourish

And the four video on "Running Mysteries" is available to patrons of Johnn Four's Patreon which you can find at:

https://www.patreon.com/johnnfour/

Johnn and I hope you love these videos as much as we loved putting them together! Thanks for checking them out!

Related ArticlesReturn of the Lazy Dungeon Master Video SeriesWhat D&D Looks LikeA Year with D&D 5e VideoReturn of the Lazy Dungeon MasterRime of the Frostmaiden Session Zero

New to Sly Flourish? Start here, subscribe to the weekly newsletter, watch Sly Flourish videos on Youtube, join the Sly Flourish Discord server, or support Sly Flourish on Patreon!

Check out Mike's books including Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, the Lazy DM's Workbook, Fantastic Adventures, and Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot.

Send feedback to mike@mikeshea.net.

This article is copyright 2020 by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish.

Stay in the Fiction

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I had a wonderful chat with Johnn Four of Roleplaying Tips recently and he said something that crystalized a thought swimming around my head for a while.

The world is the game.

More and more, when I look at various aspects of D&D, I come back to the same general advice: stay in the fiction. Instead, of asking how the game mechanics work for something, ask how that thing works in the world and then let the mechanics represent that. What monsters should you use in a given scene? What monsters make sense for the situation.

We sometimes forget that the mechanics represent what's happening in the world. They don't stand alone. When a DM is asked to judge a given situation, they can start by trying to understand what makes sense in the game world first and then judging the situation based on that understanding.

When you're thinking about an NPC, ask yourself how that NPC would act in the world. What do they want? Where did they come from? Do that before you start assigning DCs.

When you're trying to figure out how to fill up a dungeon, ask yourself what the dungeon used to be and what monsters or traps make sense. Think about the ecology.

When you pick up the monster manual, read the story of a monster before reading the stat block. Before you choose a monster of a given challenge rating because it fits the level of the characters, first look for monsters that make sense for the environment.

Want to keep combat interseting? Start and end with the fiction. Describe the situation based on what the characters see, ask for their actions, and then describe what happens. Did they get a killing blow? Ask them to describe what it looks like in the world.

Afraid every ogre looks or runs like every other ogre? Change up their in-world details before worrying about changing their mechanics. Maybe one has tattoos all up one half of his body while the other carries a club made out of the femur of a dragon.

Do you want a big complicated set of ability checks in a final battle? First, think about the ritual taking place in that final battle and how it works in the world. Let the choices of the players drive which mechanics you need to arbitrate the situation.

When it's time to wrap a situation in the world with mechanics, most of the time we can do so by assigning a DC and choosing an appropriate ability score and skill to attempt it. The simple ability check answers most of what we need most of the time.

Stay in the fiction. Bathe in the world. Think about what's happening in the story before choosing the mechanics to represent it.

The world is the game.

Related ArticlesThe Story Focus of D&DOur Ability Check ToolboxInstant NPCs for Fifth Edition D&DA New Dungeon Master's Guide For Building Encounters13 Tips to Speed Up D&D Combat

New to Sly Flourish? Start here, subscribe to the weekly newsletter, watch Sly Flourish videos on Youtube, join the Sly Flourish Discord server, or support Sly Flourish on Patreon!

Check out Mike's books including Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, the Lazy DM's Workbook, Fantastic Adventures, and Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot.

Send feedback to mike@mikeshea.net.

This article is copyright 2020 by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish.

Demogorgon Must Die: A Twenty Level D&D Campaign Outline

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This article outlines a twenty level campaign centering around the sinister plots of the demon prince Demorgorgon. Like The Hunger and Harvester of Worlds, this outline describes location-based adventures for each tier of play following a central arc. It's intended to inspire your own campaign outlines, offer subplots you can weave into your own campaigns, or even inspire your own Demogorgon-based campaign. Enjoy!

Campaign Elevator Pitch

Demogorgon begins a war...against themselves! Aameul, the charismatic and calculating head of the twin-headed demon prince plants the seed of a plot to finally split from their brutal chaotic other half, Hethradiah. All that must be done is to die. Unfortunately, such a feat will destroy much of the world along with it and birth a new chaotic demon prince in the process. The characters must untangle this thread, protect the world from the demon prince's war, and perhaps destroy the demon prince forever.

The Six Truths of Demogorgon Must DieCults are on the rise in the region.Mutated livestock have been born with two heads.Twisted nightmares pushed orc and goblinoid raiders back deep into their caves.Strange shadows and ghouls rise from fetid swamps attacking local villages.Strange symbols appear in ancient swampy caves, black myres, and forgotten grottos.Local lords and regional kings began conscripting and mobilizing armies for a coming war.1st Level: A Missing Mind

The campaign begins with the characters conscripted by an elderly mother whose son has gone missing in the nearby woods. Nightmares told the old woman that something unfathomable and sinister grips her son's body, lifts him, and pierces into his skull with a black tentacle.

The characters find the poor lad, comatose, with no visible wounds. A strange glyph has been burned into the grass surrounding the young man. Shadows (one for every two characters) slide out of the woods speaking in the abyssal tongue of the Deep Father as the lad rises up as a ghoul. The characters return to the woman with their grim news and reach 2nd level.

2nd to 4th Level: Rise of the Sibilant Beast

The characters uncover signs of not one but two cults vying for power in the region, each seeking to draw their own demon prince into the world and build it's throne.

Ruins of the Hungering Maw. The characters follow the signs of a nearby cult to ancient ruins of a dark keep. There they discover cultists pulling a demon out of the Gaping Maw.

Monastery of the Still Mind. Following the leads of those whose minds have been shattered, the characters travel to a nearby monastery supposedly helping those victims. Instead they discover an entirely different cult devouring the consciousness of their victims.

Altar of Spiraling Depths. Following clues from both cults, the characters travel to an underground temple where the Cult of Aameul and the Cult of Hethradiah wage war against one another only to find that both cults follow the same being — Demogorgon!

5th to 10th Level: The War of Spiraling Depths

The cults of Aameul and Hethradiah wage war across the land, corrupting kings and murdering hundreds as they crash together. The characters begin to unweave the plot of the twin-headed demon prince.

The Sundered Village. The characters travel to a village overtaken by festering ghouls and cultists of Hethradiah.

Pits of the Black Mire. The characters learn of a festering pit hidden away in the Black Mire where the Cult of Hethradiah spawns terrible psionic-empowered ghouls attacking neighboring villages.

Library of the Imprisoned One. In order to understand the true depths of the twin cults and the horror they worship, the characters travel to the library of Helm. There in the forbidden stacks, they discover that a sect of Helm's priests and paladins have supported Aameul for centuries.

Horror from the Gaping Maw. Vithriax, a two-headed troll priest, uses the power of both cults to call horrible demons out of the ancient gateway of Ix. The characters must travel to the gateway, face its demonic hordes, and close the portal to end the infestation.

Palace of Shattered Minds. The characters learn that the Cult of Aameul have dominated the minds of the rulers of Wyndgard palace, the city surrounding it, and the armies that protect it. The characters must make their way into the palace and break the Sphere of Aameul dominating the lords.

Warlocks of the Twisting Serpents. The characters travel to the spire of Twisted Serpents to face the yuan-ti warlocks of Demogorgon; the only followers who understand Demogorgon's duality. Only they know the true drive of both Aameul and Hethradiah.

11th to 16th Level: Discordia

The character learn that in order to save the world they must slay the avatar of Demogorgon in the world, acquire the only weapon capable of killing Demogorgon in their home world of the Gaping Maw, and travel to that accursed world to end Demogorgon's reign of destruction.

Return to Darklake. Years ago the kuo-toa summoned Demogorgon to the underdark through sheer force of will. How they did so remains a mystery sunken in the depths of Darklake. The characters must make their way to the ruined kuo-toa city and face the horrors they have manifested through their own mad callings before reaching the ruins beneath the black water and discovering the prophecy speaking secrets of the twin-headed demon prince.

The Bloodfields. Twisted by the influence of both Aameul and Hethradiah, war rages in the land. Deformed giants and demons led by the twin-headed ancient black dragon Selivis Twintongue fight the mind-twisted armies of the city of Wyndgard in league with Aamuel. The characters must find a way to stop both armies before they destroy every town and village stuck between them.

Hall of Secrets. Far in the frozen north lives a lich sage trapped in his own unhallowed halls. Having long-since given his soul to extend his life, the lich, Xorrus, is the only being who has discovered the true secret of Aameul's plot, the location of the weapon capable of destroying Demogorgon, and the yawning gateway that leads from this world to Demogorgon's own world, the Gaping Maw.

City of Shattered Mines. The avatar of Demogorgon destroys the city of Wyndgard, shredding bodies with its twisted tentacles and minds with its psionic attacks. The characters must return to the broken city, face, and defeat the avatar before it continues its reign of destruction.

Castle Discordia. The characters track back the trail of the avatar of Demogorgon to the legendary Castle Discordia, an ancient keep once thought to be pure myth. In its twisted halls and endless chambers the characters must find the portal to the Gaping Maw and the weapon capable of slaying the demon prince forever, guarded by Demogorgon's most powerful cultists and guardians.

The Gaping Maw. In the depths beneath Castle Discordia, beings of pure nightmare lurk in the darkness, never having seen the sun of the world above. The most loyal cultists, priests, and archmages in service to the cult of the Deep Father guard the portal between the world and the Gaping Maw. If the characters wish to save the world above they must enter the portal and close it from the other side.

17th to 20th Level: Death and Birth in the Gaping Maw

The characters step into the Gaping Maw, the abyssal layer of Demogorgon where the demon prince's war has shattered the plane. There they must make their choice to follow through with Aameul's plot, betray Aameul to Hethradiah, attempt to kill Demogorgon, or slay the resulting new demon prince rising from Aaemul's treachery.

The Brine Flats. The characters traverse an endless shore of white bones along the acidic oceans of the Gaping Maw. They come across the ruins of cities and temples fallen from other worlds and torn apart by the rampages of twisted undead and mutated demons before making their way to the gates of the Endless Jungle.

The Endless Jungle. The characters navigate the swamps and jungle stretching from the Brine Flats to the tower of Abysm. They find themselves hunted by the broken fomorian hunters of the jungle who serve the twin dracolichs who sired Selivis Twintongue.

The Towers of Abysm. The characters crawl through the catacombs beneath the twin twisted towers of Abysm seeking an entrance through the maddening labyrinth. Climbing within they face their own worst memories, torn from their minds and manifested. Along the way the final plots and seeds of both Aamuel and Hethradiah slide through the minds of the characters, offering them eternal glory should they side the right way.

Death and Rebirth. In the highest reaches of the Towers of Abysm the characters face Demogorgon's final guardians and uncover Aameul's sarcophagus containing their new body. In the final chamber the characters must defeat Demogorgon and their protectors before siding with one head over the other or choosing to destroy both and create a vacuum for something new. The decisions they choose change the face of the multiverse forever.

An Outline for Inspiration

The goal for an outline like this is to inspire your own campaign ideas and show one approach for outlining an entire campaign without writing a novel's worth of situations that may never come to pass. Campaign outlines give us the freedom to fill out an entire 1st to 20th level campaign arc without creating material that never hit the table. Hopefully this arc inspires your own campaign seeds and the adventures you share around the table with your friends and family.

New to Sly Flourish? Start here, subscribe to the weekly newsletter, watch Sly Flourish videos on Youtube, join the Sly Flourish Discord server, or support Sly Flourish on Patreon!

Check out Mike's books including Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, the Lazy DM's Workbook, Fantastic Adventures, and Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot.

Send feedback to mike@mikeshea.net.

This article is copyright 2020 by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish.

Three of Five Keys: A Quest Design Pattern

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Consider a quest where the door to the infamous Black Vault requires five gemstone keys and an evil wizard seeks these five keys to open it. In this scenario, the characters need only acquire one key to end the entire quest for the villain. Grab a key, throw it into the ocean, and the villain's whole quest is over.

Flip the situation around and we still have the same problem. If the characters seek to open the door and the Cult of the Black Vault seeks to keep it closed, all the cult must do is destroy one key and the characters can't succeed.

This is the problem with all-or-nothing collection quests. Any one item falling into the wrong hands can break the entire quest. These quest models are fragile.

Instead, a slight change to this quest design makes the quest more flexible and provides a robust framework for stronger confrontations between villains and characters.

What if the vault door required only three of five keys to open instead of all of them? Now, instead of needing to find only one key to stop the evil wizard, the characters have to find three of them. The chase is on as the characters and the Cult of the Black Vault hunt for keys all over the land.

If you prefer a video on this topic, see my Three of Five Keys Youtube Video.

Requiring the Majority of Keys

We can fix collection quests like this by ensuring that the quest requires only the majority of items to complete the quest, not all of them. Maybe it's four of seven keys. Maybe it's five of nine. The more keys required, the longer the quest will take. Instead of an easy victory, characters may be traveling all over the world to acquire the majority of keys before the villains get them.

Often such collection quests include a moment where either the villains or the characters need to steal keys from the other. Instead of this being a requirement (when all keys are needed), now the results of such a heist can go either way and the whole quest isn't over should one side or the other succeed.

Requiring the majority of keys, instead of all of them, makes collection quests more robust and flexible. It gives us room for fun improvisation. Our carefully designed campaign won't fall apart when the characters get crafty and acquire a key we didn't expect. It gives us room to let the game go where it goes. We know that, whether a character or a villain acquires an item, more keys are needed to stop one side or the other.

When running quests where a number of items are required to complete the quest, ensure only the majority of items (three of five keys, four of seven keys, etc) are needed so the quest isn't over if one key falls into the wrong hands. This powerful quest design pattern gives you a durable quest model with great flexibility and lots of opportunities for a fun chase across a fantastic land.

New to Sly Flourish? Start here, subscribe to the weekly newsletter, watch Sly Flourish videos on Youtube, join the Sly Flourish Discord server, or support Sly Flourish on Patreon!

Check out Mike's books including Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, the Lazy DM's Workbook, Fantastic Adventures, and Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot.

Send feedback to mike@mikeshea.net.

This article is copyright 2020 by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish.

The Dials of Monster Difficulty

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When running Dungeons & Dragons we DMs have a number of dials we can turn to change the difficulty and challenge of any monster. Some dials work best when we turn them before the battle begins, others we can turn while combat is already underway. We can use these dials to change up the pacing of our game, making things more or less challenging depending on what works for the moment. These monster dials include:

The number of monstersEach monster's hit pointsThe monster's number of attacksThe amount of damage a monster inflicts

Turning these dials changes monsters significantly, giving us a lot of control over how dangerous any given monster is.

Best of all, we don't have to spend a lot of time turning these dials. We can turn them up or down in our head, making them awesome tools for improvisational play.

Let's look at each of these dials and see what effects it can have on our game.

Tune the Number of Monsters

Before a battle begins, we can decide how many monsters might be in that battle. We can start by asking ourselves what makes sense for the situation. Is it likely to be twenty hobgoblins in the mess hall or just four? Like many of our decisions in D&D, we start by asking ourselves what makes sense for the situation in-world. That isn't the final answer, though. We have another question to ask:

What will make the game more fun right now? Sometimes the answer to this question is "more monsters". Othertimes it's "less monsters". If the characters have already recently fought in a big knock-down drag-out fight, maybe we want to go with less monsters. Not every battle needs to be a challenge. Run easy battles from time to time. They can offer a lot of interest and a lot more fun than you may realize.

Start by asking what makes sense and then tune the number up or down to fit the pacing and energy of the game. If you need to, use the lazy encounter benchmark to see if the battle might be deadly.

A battle may be deadly if the sum total of monster challenge ratings is greater than one quarter of the sum total of character levels, or one half if the characters are above fourth level.

You can also turn this dial during combat if the in-world circumstances make sense. Another wave of monsters might follow the first, for example, or another group may stray off or get distracted. It's harder to turn this dial without the players seeing it though, and they'll know if you're adding monsters just to make things harder if it's too ham-fisted.

Turn the Hit Point Dial

As written, the hit points of a monster can fluctuate between the minimum and maximum allowed by the monster's hit dice. An ogre's stat block reads 59 (7d10 + 21). 59 is the average. An ogre can have anywhere from 28 to 91 and still be within range of its hit points. We can decide, during the game, how many hit points an ogre has within this range based on how we feel the battle is going. Will it help if the ogres present more of a threat? Turn the dial up and give them up to 91. Is it time for those ogres to go down? Turn the dial down to 21.

If we're willing to break the rules even more, and I give you full permission to do so for the fun of your game, you can safely double a monster's hit point if you feel it works for the story and the pacing of the current situation or drop them down to 1 if it's time for the monsters to go away. While the hit point dial is safely turned within the range of a monster's hit dice, I think it's perfectly fine to turn the dial outside of the margins and increase a monster's hit points up to double their average or down to 1 when it suits the situation.

Being willing to double a monster's hit points or reduce them to 1 is also much easier math than figuring out the minimum and maximum values of a monster's hit dice. When in doubt, be lazy.

Change a monster's hit points up to double its average or down to 1 hit point based on what fits the story, pacing, and current situation.

Turn the Number of Attacks Dial

Sometimes it isn't just the hit points or damage that pushes monsters into the danger zone. Sometimes they need to do more stuff. Many monsters have a multiattack action. If we want to turn up the threat, we can give monsters an additional attack in that multi-attack action. If we overcalculated and things are too deadly, we can remove attacks, maybe knocking it down to just one.

Sometimes monsters with additional abilities never have a chance to use those abilities if it's simply better for them to attack. The ankheg, for example, has a bite and web attack but can only choose one. This might be completely appropriate but if we want to get nasty, turn up the attack dial and let the ankheg do both in one turn. If we have a monster that can both multiattack and cast spells, let the monster drop one of its attacks from multiattack and cast a spell in its place.

Increase or decrease the number of attacks or actions a monster can take to fit the situation, and pacing of the scene.

Turn the Damage Dial

Just like the hit point dial, the damage dial can follow the minimum or maximum amount of damage listed by the damage dice equation. If an ogre can hit for 2d8+4 it could hit for as little as 6 or as much as 20. It's rare that we want to turn this dial down, unless things got out of control, but we may want to turn it up if a monster just isn't posing much of a threat and such a threat is warranted for the situation.

If we're using static monster damage, something I recommend, it's easy to turn the dial up and down on damage. Just change the amount. Maybe the ogre's doing 18 damage on a hit instead of the 13 average it normally does. Often adding 50% more damage works well. If, like most DMs, you use dice for damage, you can add 50% more dice to the attack when it's time to turn the damage dial up. Most of the time this means dropping in an extra weapon die; two at the most.

Turning the damage dial can be tricky. We don't want our players to know we're turning the dials. If we use static damage, our players will know when we're changing it. If we use dice, we can throw in an extra die or two and likely never tip our hand.

If we're using static damage, we can, instead, come up with a story-based reason that the damage goes up. Say the characters are fighting a helmed horror and having a hell of a time getting past it's 20 AC, we can describe how the fires within the horror start to burn hotter and hotter; beams of white light coming out of its eyes; as its blade blazes with white fire. Now it inflicts an extra d8 of fire damage on its attack); maybe even 2d8 if we really want to get nasty. At the same time, its armor begins to melt, dropping its AC down to 18 or even 16.

If we know that a monster is hitting lower than we think is right for the situation, we can jam that damage dial into the red right from the beginning, maximizing its damage from the first hit or doubling the damage dice of the hit. This essentially gives the monster free critical hits all the time — obviously very nasty — but sometime's that's what fits the story.

Turn up the damage dial by increasing the amount of static damage a monster inflicts on its attacks or adding one or more dice to it's damage dice.

Grant Circumstantial Advantage

When we have weak monsters attacking stronger characters, we might come up with a way to grant the monsters circumstantial advantage. Perhaps a monument nearby fills them with violent power. Perhaps cultists drank demonic blood and can now attack with advantage until they explode into demons. Perhaps the monsters have the high ground and are able to attack with advantage from their perfect angle.

Use in-story circumstances to grant weaker monsters advantage on their attacks.

Tweaking Attributes

You can also, of course, take the path of tweaking attributes or giving monsters different armor to increase their AC. A particularly strong monster might have +2 to attack and damage. A heavily armored one might have an increase to AC based on its armor. There are lots of ways to change up monsters with just a few tweaks to its flavor.

Giving Yourself Flexibility to Run a Fun Game

We don't turn these dials to stick it to the characters (or the players). These dials give us the ability to change the pacing of the game so it's always the most fun. Perhaps we turn the dials to make things harder. Perhaps, instead, we turn the dials to give the characters a break after a long slog of battles. The tools that help us control pacing are vital for running a fun game and the ones we can use easily, like these monster dials, give us the improvisational aids we need to do so.

New to Sly Flourish? Start here, subscribe to the weekly newsletter, watch Sly Flourish videos on Youtube, join the Sly Flourish Discord server, or support Sly Flourish on Patreon!

Check out Mike's books including Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, the Lazy DM's Workbook, Fantastic Adventures, and Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot.

Send feedback to mike@mikeshea.net.

This article is copyright 2020 by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish.

13 Tips to Speed Up D&D Combat

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Though not nearly as big a problem as it was in previous editions, some DMs still find combat in the fifth edition of D&D takes too long for their or their players' liking. Today I'll offer a few tips to speed up combat. Not all tips work well for all groups, so choose those that work well for your and your group.

Show Initiative

Many times DMs keep track of initiative but don't show it to the players. Instead, make sure you share whatever initiative system you use so the players know what the order is and who is on deck. You can even put a player in charge of taking initiative instead of doing it yourself. Easy initiative cards are a great way to go.

Use Side Initiative and Go Around the Table

For shorter skirmishes, skip having each character roll initiative individually and go around the table instead. Have one player roll for the group with no modifiers versus the monster with no modifiers. Or, instead, let the circumstances decide whether monsters or characters go first and then go around the table. Alternate which direction you go so no one ends up last all the time.

Use Average Monster Damage

The Monster Manual lists average damage for every monster in the book as the default. Though only about one in ten surveyed DMs use static monster damage, it's an easy way to speed up combat, particularly when using a lot of monsters. Give it a try, at least for less important monsters.

Run Theater of the Mind

More than half of surveyed DMs use a 5-foot-per-square gridded battle map and miniatures or tokens for combat. This can be a lot of fun for big crunchy battles with lots of different monsters and interesting terrain. For quick skirmishes, try running combat in the theater of the mind or use a quick abstract battle map. Most battles don't need to be big knock down, drag out slug fests. Keep theater of the mind combat in your toolbox and use it for battles where positioning isn't nearly as important. It will speed up a lot of your battles.

Use Fewer Monsters and Use Monsters of the Same Type

Speed up combat by using fewer monsters and using monsters of the same type. It's much easier to run a fight against four ogres than it is to run a fight with two ogres, six goblins, and a hobgoblin war mage. Instead of trying to differentiate monsters with mechanics, differentiate monsters with your in-world descriptions. Describe the unique weapon each ogre wields or their own particular appearance, style, or mannerisms. Make battles unique by describing in-world differences instead of worrying about mechanics.

Keep Battlegrounds Simple

Simpler combat areas make for faster battles. The temptation to make every battleground interesting is strong, but sometimes a room without a lot of obstacles or a narrow hallway is all you need. Not every fight needs to be a tactical chess match. Sometimes you just surround an ogre and beat it into the ground.

Run Easier Battles

Not every battle needs to be a perfectly balanced hard fight for the characters. Throw lots of low challenge monsters at the characters and let them have fun destroying them with powerful spells and attacks. Use the cleave rules from the Dungeon Master's Guide so melee attackers can cleave through opponents like Conan the Barbarian. Easy fights are a great way to have some fun and not take up a lot of time. Of course, consider running these easier fights off the grid to save some time.

Run with Fewer Players

It's not always possible to select the number of players in your game but, if you can, four players are generally ideal. With four players you get lots of synergy between characters but each character gets a good deal of screen time. This also makes battles much easier to manage than those with five or more players. Fewer players means fewer monsters so everything gets easier.

Use Horde Guidelines for Lots of Monsters

It's fun to run battles with dozens to hundreds of monsters and yet seems completely paralyzing to do so. Instead of running each monster independently use the Sly Flourish horde guidelines to run lots of monsters easily. Here they are for easy reference:

Tally damage done to the horde instead of tracking damage done to individual monsters. Every time any monster in the horde takes damage equal to an individual monster's hit points, remove that monster. Round monster hit points to the nearest 5 or 10 to make life easy.Anytime a bunch of monsters in the horde attacks or makes a saving throw, assume one quarter of them succeed. Round up or down depending on the circumstances. If they have advantage, half succeed. If they have disadvantage, assume one in ten succeed or maybe they all fail.Determine Targets Randomly

Instead of carefully choosing targets, roll to determine the character a monster attacks. If a lot of monsters are attacking at once spread it around to the whole group unless a character is specifically trying to stop it. It's a quick way to determine how the battle goes and requires zero thought from the DM.

Reveal the Monster's AC

Once the characters have attacked the monster a few times, reveal the AC of the monster so players can figure out if they hit or miss without having to consult you. You can even write it down and show it to them so they can reference it during the fight.

Use Hit Point, Attack, and Damage Dials to Pace Combat

Never feel like you have to run a fight using the averages for damage and hit points. To increase the threat but speed up the fight, you can decrease the hit points of the monsters and increase their damage. Now they're going down fast but are super scary when they hit.

Hit points, damage, the number of attacks, and the number of monsters are all dials you can turn to keep the pace of a battle fast and exciting. Turn those dials during a fight for the fun of the game.

Use "Combat Outs"

Use alternative goals in combat other than the full-scale slaughter of one side or another. Give the characters goals that don't require them to kill every monster they see. These goals may be quick and dangerous, keeping the fun high but the length of the battle shorter. See Dave Chalker's article on the Combat Out for more.

Don't Lose the Fiction

Though we seek to strip things down as much as possible to keep combat fast, never lose the story. Start and end with the story. Describe what's happening in the world, not the mechanics at the table. It can be tempting to throw away all the flowery descriptions but it's those descriptions that make D&D a fantasy instead of simply a tactical wargame. Revel in the fiction and keep the mechanics fast so you and your friends can enjoy awesome battles against terrible foes.

New to Sly Flourish? Start here, subscribe to the weekly newsletter, watch Sly Flourish videos on Youtube, join the Sly Flourish Discord server, or support Sly Flourish on Patreon!

Check out Mike's books including Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, the Lazy DM's Workbook, Fantastic Adventures, and Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot.

Send feedback to mike@mikeshea.net.

This article is copyright 2020 by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish.

GM Intrusions and Complications in D&D

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The excellent science fantasy RPG Numenera and its underlying system, the Cypher System, includes a mechanic known as the GM Intrusion. The Numenera supplement, Taking the Narrative by the Tail: GM Intrusions by Monte Cook, gives deeper insight into this mechanic for under a buck.

Monte Cook describes the GM Intrusion this way:

GM intrusions are the primary at-the-table tool for GMs to participate in helping to craft the story that the group is creating. In the same way that a player contributes by stating what her character will do as her action, a GM intrusion is the GM���s action. It���s the GM���s contribution to the ongoing events to make things more interesting.

Numenera and the Cypher System refine this sort of interaction with a mechanic—the GM Intrusion—but we can take the idea and bring it right into our D&D games. We can even use D&D's inspiration mechanic as the carrot of a GM intrusion stick. Something in the world complicates the lives of the characters, maybe one character in particular, and they gain inspiration for their trouble.

Adding Complications to Your D&D Game

I'm not much of a fan of the term "intrusion". It seems so...intrusive. I prefer the term "complication". As Monte Cook describes in Taking the Narrative by the Tail, this is a technique GMs have been using for decades, we just didn't have a mechanic for it. It may be something you already bring to your games. Sometimes a complication just feels right and so you drop it in.

Complications and Beats

Complications fit well with the idea of "beats" from Hamlet's Hit Points by Robin Laws. Complications are downward beats, bad things happening to the characters, and we likely want another form of GM intrusion for an upward beat. Something nice that happens to the characters. That's a topic for another day.

The Nuances of Downward Beats

This is a bit of advanced DMing. Knowing how to bring in such complications so they enhance the fun of the game and don't just screw players is important. You don't want such complications to take away agency or just bone characters. You want such complications to move the story in new and fun directions. Think hard and watch reactions to see how such complications are taken in. Do they stay in character and seem genuinely excited about what will happen or do they get frustrated out of game? Knowing which complications to drop in when and how is a valuable skill that takes time to develop.

Twenty Complications

What do these complications look like? Here's a list of twenty example complications to inspire your own when you're running your game. You can see dozens of examples in Taking the Narrative by the Tail, making it well worth the buck.

The main villain makes a surprise visit.That unoccupied garderobe turned out to be occupied after all.The local hobgoblins just began their infiltration defense drill practice.Something catches on fire.Mercenary reinforcements show up.The king's foppish advisor turns out to be an expert swashbuckler.The floor collapses.Someone has to sneeze.The evil prince keeps a pen of pet guard drakes.A parade of hooded monks turns the corner to walk through the middle of the street fight.Someone else is robbing the noble's manor at the same time.The king's daughter chooses right now to escape her overbearing father as the characters break into the castle.Of course there's a black pudding in the commode.Not the bees!That detailed trap was actually cover for another far more devious trap.Something is possessed.The guide has no idea where they're going and leads the characters into a trap.A strange magic item causes a wild magic surge.A sundered pillar causes a balcony to collapse.The boat starts sinking.Complications: The World's Action

As Monte Cook describes, think of these complications as the actions of the world in the same way the players describe the actions of their characters. Sometimes the characters do something and the world responds. Other times, things just happen. Above all, these complications serve one goal—to make the story more interesting, more exciting, and more fun.

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Check out Mike's books including Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, the Lazy DM's Workbook, Fantastic Adventures, and Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot.

Send feedback to mike@mikeshea.net.

This article is copyright 2020 by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish.

Running Session Zeros

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Both Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master and Tasha's Cauldron of Everything describe running a session zero for your D&D games. This article summarizes one approach for session zero sessions to help you baseline your D&D campaigns for both you and your players. While the books above go into more depth, hopefully this article gives you an idea of the basics.

What Is a Session Zero?

A session zero is a game session run before a larger campaign in which you and your players talk about the upcoming campaign before you actually run it. Session zeros are intended to get you and your players all on the same page about the game you plan to play, and the campaign you plan to experience. Some DMs go in with little prepared, maybe not even knowing what campaign the group will play. Others, like me, have a good idea what campaign we'll be playing and want to baseline the principals and story of the game with the players.

Session zeros help everyone manage their expectations about what the game is and what it is not. It helps tie the characters to one another, to the world in which they exist, and to the main story of the campaign. It helps everyone understand what kind of game you'll be playing and helps define the boundaries of that game.

Session zeros are a huge benefit when running longer campaigns.

The Session Zero Checklist

When you're running a session zero, here's a list of things you likely want to go over during the session.

The campaign world and it's defining characteristics.The "six truths" of the campaign. What are the major defining characteristics of the world that the characters know but the players may not?The main driver for the campaign. What are the characters trying to do?Any major factions the characters might already know about.Options for the characters' patrons. Tasha's Guide to Everything includes good sets of character patrons you can use directly or as an example.Safety tools you'll use in the game. What sort of content can players expect and what can they do if the game heads into territory where they're uncomfortable? See my safety tools article or Monte Cook Games's free Consent in Gaming for ore.Character creation guidelines. What sorts of characters will have the most fun in the campaign? What books can the players use to build their characters?Character integration. What brings the characters together into a cohesive group? This is a great interactive part of the session that binds the characters together. Often tying them all to a single group patron is an easy way to do it.Go over any house rules. Do you have any house rules that break away from the game? Now is the time to go over them. It may be things like how you run theater of the Mind combat for example.If you need it, this is your time to talk about player etiquette, your rules on cheating, or any other behavioral issues you need to address head on. Nows the time.

You may have other things you want to go over before your campaign begins. This is the time to do it.

Session Zero Campaign One-pager

When I prepare for a new campaign, I like to put together a single page campaign worksheet so my players can quickly internalize what I'm planning for the campaign. You can see my example campaign one-pagers below:

Descent into Avernus Campaign One-pagerGhosts of Saltmarsh Campaign One-pagerEberron Second Mourning Campaign One-pagerRime of the Frostmaiden Campaign One-pager

I've designed these guides with the following principles.

They fit on one page so players will actually read them.They tell the players what this campaign is about.They describe what makes this campaign different from others.They offer any group factions.They offer guidance for building characters best suited for the campaign.Describe content and safety tools.

You can build your own one-page campaign guide from these principles and examples for your own campaigns.

Session 0.5

Once we've gotten past the main part of a session zero, I like to run a short session with the characters. I like to start strong and bring the characters right into the campaign with a fun short adventure and a good hook for what's to come. If the characters begin at 1st level (they almost always do in my campaigns), I like to give them a small challenge, some opportunity for roleplaying, and then level them to 2nd level before the real adventure begins.

Setting Expectations

When everyone's on the same page about a game and a campaign, campaigns run much smoother and everyone has a great time. If players come to the table without any expectations defined, they'll bring their own and a mismatch in expectations isn't fun for anyone.

Take the time to plan and run a session zero before your next big game and get everyone off on a grand adventure leading off on the right foot.

New to Sly Flourish? Start here, subscribe to the weekly newsletter, watch Sly Flourish videos on Youtube, join the Sly Flourish Discord server, or support Sly Flourish on Patreon!

Check out Mike's books including Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, the Lazy DM's Workbook, Fantastic Adventures, and Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot.

Send feedback to mike@mikeshea.net.

This article is copyright 2020 by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish.

Running D&D Combat with an Abstract Battle Map

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We often break up D&D combat into two categories: combat on a 5 foot per square grid (which we'll refer to as "gridded combat"), and running combat with pure narration (oftne called "theater of the mind").

In reality, there are many forms of combat that sit around and in-between these systems. There's text-based battle maps, zone-based combat, abstract distances like those found in 13th Age, combat using online tools like Roll 20 or Owlbear Rodeo, and combat run on fancy Dwarven Forge terrain. How we run combat can be completely unique to us and this is a powerful feature of D&D. We get to decide with our players how we want to play it.

Today I'm going to offer one of my favorites: the abstract battle map.

The abstract battle map is a rough visualization of what a combat area looks like. We can draw it on a sheet of paper or a dry-erase battle map. We can even represent it in text. We can use tokens or miniatures to represent characters and mosters as we choose, or we can just draw in circles or letters to represent characters and monsters like we're drawing a football play diagram.

The abstract battle map shows important physical features like terrain, hazards, areas that provide cover, and other landmarks. It also shows the loose position of characters and monsters. Unlike gridded combat, the actual distances of the map aren't set in five foot squares. Instead, distances are a loose approximation and the map is mainly there to show relative positions.

We can mix our abstract map with zone-based combat or more loose theater of the mind guidelines. My concept of text-based battle maps is one example of an abstract battle map you can do in a text channel while playing online.

One of the biggest complaints DMs and players describe when discussing running D&D combat in the theater of the mind is a lack of shared understanding of the details of combat between DMs and players. The abstract map helps close that gap and does it without losing the freedom and imagination we enjoy when running combat in the theater of the mind.

The abstract battle map is very flexible. You can do it for ten cents with a sheet of paper and a pencil or for tens of thousands of dollars with a custom gaming table, 3d terrain, and custom miniatures. It fits whatever budget and materials you have for D&D.

And here's a dirty secret for you. The faster, cheaper, and looser the abstract map, the more room it has for our imagination. The more detailed it gets, the less players listen to in-world descriptions and fill in the blanks with their own ideas. They'll rely on the map more and more, forgetting the smell of the caverns or the echoing sounds of a faraway waterfall. Some Xs and Os on a piece of paper helps players understand general positions and their imaginations fill in the other details.

The abstract map is a bridge between full-featured tactical gridded combat and fully narrated theater of the mind combat. It gives our imagination the freedom to build fantastic scenes of high adventure in our head and still offers enough of a representation of the sitiuation so players feel empowered to make meaningful choices.

Add the abstract map to your DM's toolbox.

New to Sly Flourish? Start here, subscribe to the weekly newsletter, watch Sly Flourish videos on Youtube, join the Sly Flourish Discord server, or support Sly Flourish on Patreon!

Check out Mike's books including Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, the Lazy DM's Workbook, Fantastic Adventures, and Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot.

Send feedback to mike@mikeshea.net.

This article is copyright 2020 by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish.

Safety Tools

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Safety tools provide simple rules to make sure everyone's comfortable and having a good time during our D&D games. There are a lot of different safety tools we can choose from to bring the right ones to our game. Today I'm going to focus on two: "lines and veils"and "pause for a second".

Quick Guide for My Preferred Safety Tools

Here's a set of safety tools you can easily incorporate into your game to ensure you and your players have what you need to run a fun and comfortable game. Discuss these with your group during your session zero before your campaign has begun, and whenever a new player joins the group. These are intended to work both in-person and when playing online.

Give your players a list of potentially disturbing subject matter that may come up in the campaign you're planning. You can use the checklist in Monte Cook Games's free Consent in Gaming for an example list of potential topics. Discuss this list with your players during your session zero and ask if they have any problems with anything on the list.Come up with a list of "lines" (topics that should never come up at all) and "veils" (topics to be handled off-screen or in the abstract) for your game. Discuss this list with your players and add any other lines or veils they come up with. Write down the additions and send the revised list out to your players.Tell your players that anyone (including you) can say "pause for a second" any time during the game to break character and discuss the current situation out of character, including stating "I'm not comfortable with where this is going". The phrase "pause for a second" interrupts anything else going on in the game. It's used to break character and discuss or ask questions about anything going on in-game. Think of this as a verbal X card.Why We Need Safety Tools

Humans are complicated creatures. We've all led unique lives and many of us have dealt with trauma from a wide range of potential sources, situations, or phobias. Whatever these experiences are, we don't need to bring them into our D&D games when we're all just hoping to sit around the table (virtual or physical) and have a few laughs with our friends.

Our adventures aren't always G-rated affairs. As an example, when getting ready to run Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden I wrote down potentially traumatic themes in the adventure and had quite the list at the end including:

DarknessDeadly ColdBetrayalParanoiaMurderIncestIsolationCannibalismMental assaultRitual sacrificeParasitic monsters Child endangermentViolence towards animals

That's a hell of a list and I doubt everyone's fully comfortable with everything on that list. Incest? Seriously?

If we're playing games with more extreme themes like Rime of the Frostmaiden and Descent into Avernus, safety tools are valuable tool to ensure we're steering the game towards a good time for everyone at our table.

Not as Hard As You Think

Safety tools don't need to be a big deal and any group can benefit from them. Even if you've been gaming with your friends for a long time and know them well, you never know if a topic will take a hard turn and adversely affect them. Even they might not realize how something will affect them until it happens. Why not offer a simple tool to give everyone the opportunity, without a big confrontation, to say that they're not happy with the current situation?

There are many different types of safety tools. For more on tor topic see the TTRPG Safety Toolkit and Consent in Gaming. Today we're going to look at a couple of tools we can use together for both in-person and online games.

Campaign Subjects and Themes

When we're first considering a campaign, we can list the specific subjects or themes that some might find troubling. If you want an idea of the sort of things you may want to mention, check out the checklist in Consent in Gaming by Monte Cook Games. It's not perfect (it doesn't mention slavery for example) but it's a good start.

Lines and Veils

Lines and veils work alongside our list of themes mentioned above. Some players may have hard lines to avoid certain themes such as no sexual violence, no harm to children, or no character-driven torture or harm to animals. Some players may prefer to have themes "veiled" — keeping the details off-screen. Torture, slavery, sacrifice, and NPC-based harm to animals may be ok but only if they happen off screen. During the game, we don't dwell on veiled themes.

When we're first sitting down to prepare our session zero, we can define our own list of lines and veils to begin with and let the players add to it during the session.

Lines and veils are a two-way street. The GM can mention what's off limits for the table, what's veiled, and what potentially sensitive topics might come up in the campaign. Players can mention other topics that may not have been mentioned but could cause problems if they do.

This need not be a long conversation but it's an important one — particularly if you're playing with players who might not know your style. Even if you do know your players very well, it's still a useful conversation to have.

"Pause for a Second"

Even after you have a solid list of potentially troubling topics and a good idea of your table's lines and veils; you still want another safety fallback. Not everyone knows what will bother them until it starts coming up during the game. We need a tool that lets players communicate their discomfort without causing a big confrontation.

The X card by John Stavropoulos is the most popular safety tool of this sort. The GM puts a 3x5 card in front of each player with an X on it. If the game is going in a direction uncomfortable to a player, the player can tap the X card and let the GM know they're not comfortable.

The X card can feel strange for a group that isn't used to it. Instead, there's an easier verbal version I think fits better into our typical gameplay from a system called Script Change.

Script Change offers up that we can say "pause", "fast forward", "rewind", or "frame by frame" to change the pacing of the current scene. That's all good but I think "pause" is the most important piece and we can work it into a simple bit of natural language thusly:

"Pause for a second"

This is the verbal way of tapping the X card. It's a way for players or GMs to stop what's going on in-game and pop out of character to make sure things are going in the right direction or steer the direction.

While this phrase is in natural language, GMs should clearly define it during a session zero so everyone knows that when someone says it, we all need to break out of character and pay attention to what the person asking for a pause is saying.

This also works very well in online games where not everyone might see someone holding up an X card or typing it into a chat. "Pause for a second" should immediately interrupt whatever else is going on.

The person calling for the pause can bring up what they need, the others agree, and the game moves forward. Here are a few examples:

"Pause for a second. Let's skip the details on the sacrifice."

"Pause for a second. Can the spiders be something else?"

"Pause for a second. I don't need the details of the sex scene, can we skip forward?"

"Pause for a second. I'm not comfortable beating this goblin for information."

"Pause for a second. I'd like to slow down and make sure we're all cool with the decisions we're making."

Like the X card, the person asking for the pause need not explain why they're asking. It's important that the group respect the privacy of the person asking and recognize that they simply don't want something or want to steer the game away from certain subject matter.

"Pause for a second" can be used for numerous purposes. If the characters are having a conflict about what to do with a potentially dangerous magic item, we can say "Pause for a second. Out of character, are you ok destroying the item if the others vote that way? Do we need to do something else?" Not everything needs to be about big traumatic experiences, we can normalize its use by ensuring everyone's on the same page in lots of circumstances. This makes it less confrontational when someone does use it to check in on a potentially traumatic situation.

Safety Tools: A Simple Technique to Keep Things Fun

Safety tools are an easy way to ensure everyone around the table is having a good time. They're not overbearing. They only take a little time to implement, and they put in place some powerful tools to make sure the players behind the characters are having a great time. Find the right tools to bring to your own game to ensure you and your players are having a great time sharing tales of high adventure.

Other Resources

The topic of safety tools has exploded in the last few years. Here are some of the resources I found most valuable while researching this topic.

Campaign Safety & Consent ChecklistConsent in GamingDigital RPG Consent ChecklistOptional Rule Safety Concent RPG ChecklistSafety tool reference by Tomer GurantzScript Change PrintableScript ChangeSpelltheory on Safety ToolsThe X cardTTRPG Safety Toolkit ResourcesTTRPG Safety Toolkit

New to Sly Flourish? Start here, subscribe to the weekly newsletter, watch Sly Flourish videos on Youtube, join the Sly Flourish Discord server, or support Sly Flourish on Patreon!

Check out Mike's books including Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, the Lazy DM's Workbook, Fantastic Adventures, and Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot.

Send feedback to mike@mikeshea.net.

This article is copyright 2020 by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish.