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Sly Flourish's The Lazy DM's Companion
Winner of the 2022 Gold ENNIE for Best Electronic Book! The Lazy DM's Companion is a 64 page book of guidelines and inspirational generators to help you build, prepare, and run awesome D&D games. Sitting alongside Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master and Lazy DM's Workbook, the Lazy DM's Companion streamlines play and fires off your imagination to build awesome and unique worlds for you and your players to explore.
65 pages, Unknown Binding
Published January 1, 2021
40 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 14, 2024
Mike Shea has great ideas and a good podcast. His books, this one included, show those great ideas. So if you need support as a DM, this is a good source (but make sure to get his Return of the Lazy DM first, it is even more useful.)
But...
His other works I got as PDF's via a Bundle of Holding at a deep discount. I was pleased with those tomes and this looked like a great follow on. And this is fully in line with his other content. But I hate the format and it is feels too expensive. It has got to be the thinnest 64 page book I have ever read and it just doesn't feel worth $25. Pages are a full 8.5" x 11" size and it is perfect-bound so it doesn't lay fully open without breaking the spine which I find makes it hard to read. If it had a smaller page size, making it a thicker book, I believe I would have felt like I was getting more for my $25, and it would have been easier to read to boot.
Yeah, that is all psychological stuff, I know. Doesn't make any real difference. But I would have liked it better. That's me, you mileage may differ. And none of that takes away from the content, the content is good!
But...
His other works I got as PDF's via a Bundle of Holding at a deep discount. I was pleased with those tomes and this looked like a great follow on. And this is fully in line with his other content. But I hate the format and it is feels too expensive. It has got to be the thinnest 64 page book I have ever read and it just doesn't feel worth $25. Pages are a full 8.5" x 11" size and it is perfect-bound so it doesn't lay fully open without breaking the spine which I find makes it hard to read. If it had a smaller page size, making it a thicker book, I believe I would have felt like I was getting more for my $25, and it would have been easier to read to boot.
Yeah, that is all psychological stuff, I know. Doesn't make any real difference. But I would have liked it better. That's me, you mileage may differ. And none of that takes away from the content, the content is good!
October 28, 2025
Na mě příliš DnD centrické, někdy až humorně ("I want to stay close to the cleric so I can use my Protection Fighting Style, but I will keep 10 feet away from the orcs so I can use my Polearm Mastery feat to hit them on their way in"). Plus spousta obsahu mi přišla dost dogmatická. Anyway, nejsem cílovka. Jestli někdo začínáte hrát 5E a potřebujete kuchařku jak dělat generické příběhy (ukázkový příběh "toto jsme uvařili podle našich rad" se doslova jmenuje "Dungeon of Shadows"), tak tomu asi dejte šanci. Random tables byly nice, ty jediné možná vykradu.
July 31, 2024
Useful resource for DMs!
February 21, 2023
Love it! Mike Shea is my favorite RPG content creator. He's insightful and incredibly generous with his advice and his products! His is the only Paetron account I back, and I am happy to do so. Worth every penny. You keep making it, Mike, and I'll keep buying it! Great advice for DMs, even an old Grognard like me (entering year...43!)
October 5, 2022
There is very little to fault with this book, it is a return to form after the disaster that was Lazy DMs workbook.
For the most part this is a system neutral resource that complements "Return of the Lazy DM" perfectly.
Out of 63 pages only about 3 are DnD 5E specific, the rest can be slotted into any system that has DnD like gameplay. You can also see how the layout and the advice has improved taking all the good things from variety of sources, including OSR.
While the book touches on the topics from the Return of the Lazy DM, the information is more condensed and fills out the gaps left by the original book. I view the book as divided into 4 parts:
Part 1 covers everything from safety tools, to session 0, to building strong starts with a good amount of random tables thrown in.
Part 2 covers everything from NPC, Villain, Treasure generators, some 5E specific dials for encounters, point crawls, wilderness travel and exploration etc. up to a Land of Fey. For the most part this is mostly random tables with some explanatory paragraphs that are short and to the point.
Part 3 covers things that can be created in couple of minutes and slotted into an adventure, or indeed build a themed adventure in half an hour to about an hour from them. Things like War-themed campaigns, Haunted lairs, god and cult generators etc. Then come the 2 minute campaign adventure generators themselves that are build around an idea of different popular movies. This is predominantly random tables with just a few to the point explanations where necessary.
Finally Part 4 closes the book with a small adventure generated from the chapters in Part 3 followed by a bunch of maps for good measure.
I would go so far as to say that this would be the most useful book out of the whole line of Sly Flourish's new books in terms of prepping for games and inspiration. The only reason this does not warrant 5 stars from me and as mentioned in other reviews, I do not play 5E, so not able to utilise some parts of the book.
For the most part this is a system neutral resource that complements "Return of the Lazy DM" perfectly.
Out of 63 pages only about 3 are DnD 5E specific, the rest can be slotted into any system that has DnD like gameplay. You can also see how the layout and the advice has improved taking all the good things from variety of sources, including OSR.
While the book touches on the topics from the Return of the Lazy DM, the information is more condensed and fills out the gaps left by the original book. I view the book as divided into 4 parts:
Part 1 covers everything from safety tools, to session 0, to building strong starts with a good amount of random tables thrown in.
Part 2 covers everything from NPC, Villain, Treasure generators, some 5E specific dials for encounters, point crawls, wilderness travel and exploration etc. up to a Land of Fey. For the most part this is mostly random tables with some explanatory paragraphs that are short and to the point.
Part 3 covers things that can be created in couple of minutes and slotted into an adventure, or indeed build a themed adventure in half an hour to about an hour from them. Things like War-themed campaigns, Haunted lairs, god and cult generators etc. Then come the 2 minute campaign adventure generators themselves that are build around an idea of different popular movies. This is predominantly random tables with just a few to the point explanations where necessary.
Finally Part 4 closes the book with a small adventure generated from the chapters in Part 3 followed by a bunch of maps for good measure.
I would go so far as to say that this would be the most useful book out of the whole line of Sly Flourish's new books in terms of prepping for games and inspiration. The only reason this does not warrant 5 stars from me and as mentioned in other reviews, I do not play 5E, so not able to utilise some parts of the book.
October 9, 2022
El companion es un buen libro para ayudarte a preparar tus partidas. No es obligatorio ni necesario para entender a Sly Flourish, pero es un buen complemento si combinas su trilogía de libros.
December 21, 2022
This is an excellent toolbox of tables, tactics, and strategies for running RPG campaigns. My only critique is that is could have been longer.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews