Preoder Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster!
I recommend writing a new set of prep notes for each game session you run. And, of course, I recommend customizing the eight steps of lazy GM Prep based on your preferences and the game you're going to run.
Originally, I recommended writing ten brand-new secrets and clues for each session, keeping them fresh and relevant for the next session you're going to run. In my own experiences, though, I regularly move old secrets into my new list and I think that works just fine too. The main reason to write ten new steps was to avoid building a huge list of previous secrets you carry around with you from game to game. There's little value in continually expanding your secrets list and lots of potential headaches. But moving secrets forward? That can be useful. It's a good lazy trick that saves time and still keeps your game relevant. Review those secrets to make sure they're still relevant and add new secrets based on what's coming up.
Secrets aren't the only thing we can move forward from one session to another. Let's look at each step and consider what we can move forward and save ourselves time during our prep.
We should probably review the characters every session, noting what character-driven secrets might connect them to events in the next session. Reviewing the characters keeps them in your mind throughout the rest of your prep so it's a valuable first step to take. There's not much we can shift forward here that isn't worth reviewing and probably rewriting.
We almost certainly executed our strong start in our last game so we're going to have to come up with a new strong start for our next session. This step is another one we likely can't shift forward.
Some scenes might take place in our session and others we might not get to. When we're writing up new notes, it can help to look at our old notes and see if there are any scenes we want to move forward. Future quests are a good one to move forward if we haven't yet offered them up to the characters. Many times I list out more scenes than I run in my session notes and it's useful to shift scenes that didn’t occur forward as long as they're still relevant.
As mentioned, reviewing past secrets and moving secrets forward that are both still relevant and still undiscovered can save us time during our prep.
We can definitely shift locations forward if we haven't used them yet. Many times our sessions span across larger adventures and quests focused on big adventure locations like a multi-room dungeon or some other big settlement. We can leave out any notes no longer relevant and refocus our location notes based on where the characters are now, moving any useful notes and maps forward for our next session. There's often a big opportunity to reuse material in our locations steps in future prep notes.
We can likewise transfer any NPCs still relevant to our next session to our new notes. Some NPCs might leave the spotlight and others might step in. NPCs might shift from one session to the next, saving us the time of writing them up again. Move forward any NPCs still relevant in the next session.
As with locations and NPCs, we can move monsters forward if they're still relevant to our next session. Our notes might include small lists of potential random encounters or they might detail fights we haven't yet run. Either way, if our lists of potential monsters are still relevant, we can move them forward.
If we haven't awarded particular treasure or rewards yet, we can shift those parcels forward. Be careful to note which treasure you've already awarded so you're not handing out the same magic item two sessions in a row. Otherwise, move undiscovered rewards forward if they're still relevant to the game.
Shifting material forward from one set of session notes to the next a great opportunity to save time and energy while still staying focused on what matters for your next game. Let go of any guilt in reusing your previous notes and focus on preparing the best session you can for the next session you're going to run.
Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.
Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.
Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.
Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on Single Target Number in a Scene and Lashmaraq — Dragon Empire Prep Session 77.
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Preoder Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster!
Some tips, tricks, or tools we use when prepping or running our RPGs provide multiple benefits for minimal effort, giving us super lazy GM powerhouse tricks. These high-value tricks take little time, money, or effort and yet give us several benefits in our games. What are your own high value lazy GM tricks?
Here are some examples.
At the end of a campaign, I like to have the players describe where their characters end up one year after the final events of the game. These one year later montages offer multiple benefits:
The "one year later" montage gives us a high-value low-drag technique for creating fantastic conclusions to long-running campaigns.
Similarly, occasionally asking players to describe what their characters are thinking or feeling when camping out is an easy tool with multiple benefits:
Some GMs like to summarize previous sessions themselves but I always like to ask the following question when our game begins:
"Who would like to describe what happened in last session's game?"
Asking players to summarize the previous session has multiple benefits:
Read more on these sorts of ideas in Empowering Player-Driven Storytelling.
Preparing handouts isn’t exactly lazy but they offer a lot of value for the effort. An example handout might be the physical note found on a dead minion of a boss. Read Making Great Handouts for tips and tricks to make great handouts. Such handouts can be physical or digital if you're playing online. Here are some of the benefits physical handouts offer:
I love using fantastic monuments as the focal point or backdrop to a scene – whether in a city, during travel, or found in dungeons deep. The core adventure generators from the Lazy GM's Resource Document includes tables you can use to generate and flavor monuments with origins, conditions, and effects. Monuments are easy to roll up or improvise and offer a lot of advantages.
Instead of identifying monsters as “troll 1” through “troll 4”, ask your players to identify an interesting physical characteristic of a particular troll after they damage it. Read more about this trick in A Troll Named Handbag. Identifying monsters using physical characteristics trick has several advantages.
Player roles give players particular jobs to help our games run even more smoothly. When our games begin, we can ask players to take on specific activities during our game such as:
These player roles have several advantages:
Index cards are an incredibly flexible tool for RPGs. I wrote more about them in Ten Ways to Use Index Cards. Here are some ways index cards provide a lot of value:
Throw some index cards in your GM kit and you won’t be sorry.
I've been a sucker for blank battle mats for decades. I love both the Pathfinder Basic Flip Mat and the Chessex Battle Mat. These blank battle mats have several advantages:
This list is just a taste of useful tips, tricks, and tools that offer several advantages for a low amount of effort in our RPGs. What are your favorite tricks and what multiple advantages do they offer you as you prep and run your games?
Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.
Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.
Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.
Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on Lazy Campaign Prep Part 2 and The Aberrant Sewers — Dragon Empire Prep Session 76.
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Preoder Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster!
Lightning Rods are monsters selected to showcase specific character abilities in our D&D and 5e games. You can learn more about this concept in my article, Lightning Rods – Showcase Powerful Character Abilities, and in the book Forge of Foes by myself, Scott Fitzgerald Gray, and Teos Abadia.
For an easy cheat-sheet, there are two types of monsters that work well as lightning rods:
Big brutes with poor dexterity, wisdom, and charisma are great lighting rods for spells like banishment, hypnotic pattern, charm monster, dominate monster, and other single-target control-type spells. When we know characters lean heavily on such powerful monster-removal spells (often called “save or suck” spells), we might include big brutes in our battles specifically so characters can control them as part of our encounter design. "Tank" style characters like fighters, paladins, and barbarians also love locking down and controlling brutes so they can't smush wizards, bards, and other characters with lower defensive capabilities.
Hordes of weaker enemies are great lightning rods for spells and abilities that hit a group of creatures. Players love to hit big piles of monsters with fireball, cone of cold, sleep, hypnotic pattern, spirit guardians, Turn Undead, and similar spells and abilities.
Those two types of monsters and groups of monsters are an easy shorthand when you want to include monster types into an encounter that shows off character abilities.
It isn't until 5th level in our 5e games that characters really start to define themselves. Thus, you likely don't need to worry about setting up lightning rods until 5th level or above. These levels are when we start to see spells like fireball, multiple attacks from melee attackers, and other new abilities begin to shine. This power growth continues from 5th level and onward – when the use of lightning rods really showcases new character abilities.
Lightning rods aren’t as vital in lower level play as they can be in higher levels.
Let's break down some specific monster types and situations ideal for each of the twelve character classes in D&D and other 5e games. The bullets under each class describe what type of monster works well to showcase that class’s abilities.
Every level or so, ask your players what spells and abilities they have that they enjoy using or want to use more. Write their comments down. Take note of the spells and abilities each of the characters has. If you can, look at their character sheets to see what abilities they have that don't get a lot of use. Experiment with different kinds of monsters in different situations to see how the characters (and their players) react.
Give the characters their opportunities to shine.
Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.
Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.
Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.
Last week I also posted a YouTube video on Ruins of Numera — Dragon Empire Prep Session 75.
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Preoder Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster!
Only a few days remain for the Kickstarter for Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster! If you haven't checked it out or grabbed the free preview, please do and share the link with your friends!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/rise-of-the-lazy-game-master?ref=87oswx
Over the past few weeks I've dived into the four major sections of the book:
Today we're going to talk about a bunch of the other stuff you'll find in this book.
Getting Started. The beginning of Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster focuses on how to get the most out of this book. You can find examples of these introductory chapters in the 36 page free preview on the Kickstarter page. It includes How to Read This Book, Top Tips for Lazy GMs, and Getting Started Running RPGs for brand new GMs. We intend for Rise to serve both veteran and new GMs so we wanted to be sure to give our best advice for getting started up front.
Quest Models. After adventure types, we have a couple of chapters covering quest models in Rise including the simplest quest model, the three of five keys quest model, and the 3-2-1 quest model. These tried and tested models give the characters agency to choose their course and enough structure for you to build a solid campaign. We also have a chapter on brittle quest models that seem like good ideas but tend to fall apart in play.
Example Adventure Scenarios. Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster definitely focuses on a "show, don't tell" approach with examples all throughout the book. In particular, we have nine adventure scenarios built using the eight steps of lazy GM prep — each focused on the adventure types highlighted in the book. You can use these example scenarios to get an understanding of what the eight steps of lazy GM prep look like, use them to inspire your own single-session games or longer campaigns, or use them directly as a mini-campaign. They're all set in the City of Arches setting but you can easily move them to your own homebrew or published campaign setting.
Tables. All throughout Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster we have tons of random tables. Some of these tables are embedded right in particular chapters, others you'll find in a huge appendix in the back of the book. These tables serve multiple purposes. They give concrete examples of the topics presented in the book, like 20 strong starts or 20 ways to reveal secrets and clues. They also serve to inspire GMs to come up with their own ideas. GMs can also roll directly on these tables to help shake themselves out of a creative rut. We intend to release a PDF of all of the tables in a printable format so you can drop them into your custom GM screen or into your own GM's notebook. We'll include this table-focused PDF in the ebook package for the book — every backer of the book will get it.
Maps. We dug deep into Dyson Logos's collection of commercially licensable maps to find twenty maps that fit the most common map-focused situations that come up in our RPGs. Dyson updated two of these maps from his earlier collection specifically to support this book! Because of the success of this Kickstarter, we donated money directly to Dyson for all of the fantastic support he gives to the RPG hobby.
Our goal is to make Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster the most comprehensive lazy GM book available, with a big focus on practical table-usable, tips, and tools to help you run your games. Hopefully, from the above and our previous descriptions of the book, you agree!
Please support the Kickstarter campaign and share it with your friends!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/rise-of-the-lazy-game-master?ref=87oswx
Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.
Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.
Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.
Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on High Value GM Tricks and Nezari Stormclaw — Dragon Empire Prep Session 74.
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Preoder Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster!
The Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster Kickstarter marches on thanks to all of you who supported the project, shared it with your favorite GMs, and posted it on your favorite online haunts!
If you haven't, please visit the project, check out the free preview, and pass along the following link:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/rise-of-the-lazy-game-master?ref=bm1dia
In previous articles we've talked about the following big focuses of the book:
In a future article I'll cover Adventure Scenarios and other stuff.
Today we're going to talk about the Lazy GM's Toolkit.
The Lazy GM's Toolkit is a huge chapter in Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster with over sixty tips, tricks, and tools I've gathered over the past eighteen years writing for Sly Flourish and my previous books. Some GM tools are little tricks you can keep in your mind. Others are actual physical tools to help you run games.
Each tool is described in a succinct paragraph that goes right into how the tool works and what value it brings to your game.
The 36 page preview includes a full list of all 60 (there's actually 61 now — I added one after the preview went live) so you can see what they all are. I thought I'd talk about a few examples and why they work well in the book.
Alarms and Timers. Not to be confused with "clocks" — alarms and timers are actually physical alarms and timers to help you keep track of the timing and pacing of your game. It's easy to lose track of time when you're in the flow of the game. Setting physical timers helps you ensure you're getting done what you want to get done and keeps you on track to run your game in the time you have.
Book Tabs. I think many GMs fail to see the value in using physical books. Small adhesive tabs are a great tool to help us get more value out of our physical books. Even if you play online, having a reference book on hand with good tabs to your most-used sections can be faster than trying to dork around with a half-ass online search tool.
Describing Killing Blows. A fantastic way to add some excitement to our games, "describe your killing blow" gets your players into the fiction of the game — breaking out of the mechanics of our games and into the world we all share.
Dice Averages. Who really wants to roll 24d6 for a dragon breath? Who has that kind of time? Likewise, what if you find yourself with a static damage number but want to convert it to its dice equivalent? This table in Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster helps you convert any static number to any dice equivalent and vice versa.
Domain List. When running in a homebrew campaign setting or in a published campaign setting that doesn't quite fill out the details of the world's pantheon as much as you like, we have a generic set of twenty theological domains — both good and evil — to help you fill in the world. A solid list of domains helps you flavor NPCs, quests, locations, monuments, and items.
Escalation Die. The escalation die is a tool from 13th Age that works just as well in most d20 games. On the second round of combat, you put out a D6 on the 1 and add +1 to attacks (or damage or both). At the beginning of the next round, you move the D6 to the next highest number. This incremental bonus speeds up play and adds interesting tension. You can give the bonus to just characters or both characters and monsters. You can also let the die trigger other interesting effects in the battle similar to a clock (another tool in the toolbox).
Flashbacks. From Blades in the Dark, flashbacks give players the opportunity, sometimes at a cost, to "flash back" to an earlier scene that might not have happened yet during the game. Perhaps they had bribed the guards or left a useful tool in just the right place. You might call for a check to see if they succeed or might use up some other form of in-game currency to determine if the flashback succeeds.
Handouts. Handouts are a high-value activity that helps draw your players into the game, helps GMs focus on what's important, and brings a fun tactile feature to a game that otherwise occurs in dialog. The tool description discusses some fast and effective ways to make great handouts.
Initiative Systems. Lots of different systems exist for managing initiative. Some methods are particular to one type of game but others can be used in several different RPG systems. This tool description talks about some of the fastest and easiest ways to manage turns in and out of combat.
Mashing Up Random Encounters. One of my favorite tricks for getting more out of random encounter tables is to mix them up — either with different tables or by rolling twice and mashing up the results. This tool description digs into this concept.
Player Roles. Some new and old games alike include roles not just for the characters in our games but for our players as well. This section describes roles like the cartographer, scribe, and the caller who helps coordinate the rest of the players around the decisions they want to make.
The above tools are just a sample of the tools you'll find in the lazy GM's toolbox in Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster. With them, you can pick and choose the tools that fit best into your own personal toolbox, adding them alongside some of your own favorite tricks for running your own games.
Michelle and I really hope you'll check out Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster. We're really excited to bring it into your hands and help GMs all over the world run great games for their friends. Check out the Kickstarter here and please share it with your friends!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/rise-of-the-lazy-game-master?ref=bm1dia
Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.
Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.
Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.
Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on Hunting Lashmaraq – Dragon Empire Prep Session 73 and On Puzzles.
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Preoder Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster!
Our Kickstarter for Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster continues to march on! If you haven't, please check out the campaign, enjoy the free 36 page PDF preview, and, if you dig it, support the project. Backing this Kickstarter is one of the best ways to support the work we do here at Sly Flourish. If you're already backing the project, please, share it with your friends!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/rise-of-the-lazy-game-master?ref=2pmml2
Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster can be loosely broken up into four big sections:
We've covered what's new with the eight steps for lazy GM prep and the chapters covering prepping and running lazy campaigns. Today we're going to talk about adventure types. Next week we'll talk all about the Lazy GM Toolkit.
I've been pondering adventure types ever since reading Robin Laws's Adventure Crucible. I wrote a series of articles on Sly Flourish covering adventure types but these articles aren't the same as what we cover in Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster. When considering adventure types, I had to consider what the most common adventure types were. When we're sitting down to prep and run our games, what common models do our games often fall into? I ended up with ten common models.
For each of these models, I wanted to understand what made each model different from one another and how we can use the models to help us prepare and run our games. Here's the common approach we take for discussing each model in Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster:
Each adventure type includes lots of examples, including rollable tables, to show what an actual adventure looks like that follows this type and help you get into the weeds for preparing your adventures.
Here's a list of the ten adventure types we cover in Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster. The list is loosely prioritized by the most to least common adventure types with some exceptions like "Mashups and the Undefined".
Scene-based Adventures. The most common adventure type in which the characters follow through a series of scenes and situations. You can think of this as the "default" adventure type.
Dungeon Crawls. A common adventure type in which the characters travel through a hostile location where each room might contain a unique danger. We included this adventure type in the free 36 page sample of Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster so you can see what these adventure types look like.
Infiltrations and Heists. Adventures in which the characters infiltrate a fortress, stronghold, manor, or other location. There they must navigate neutral or hostile forces while achieving a goal. Infiltrations and heists often require planning ahead of time and subterfuge and stealth while engaging in the heist.
Investigations and Mysteries. Adventures in which the characters investigate situations — often traveling from one location to another while gathering clues, talking to NPCs, and maybe fighting some hostile forces, but mostly they’re focused on learning the truth of a situation.
Downtime. Adventures in which time spreads out and characters go on individual quests or conduct personal activities such as researching magic, meeting with old friends or comrades, learning important lore, building magic items, or engaging in other longer-term activities.
Overland Exploration and Travel. Adventures in which the characters travel from one location to another. While this chapter talks about both hex-crawls and point-crawls, the lazy approach for exploration and travel is to set up an interesting situation between two locations.
Roleplay and Intrigue. Sometimes our adventures focus on the conversations the characters have with the NPCs in the world — convincing them of a course of action, discovering clues, uncovering secrets, or otherwise changing the course of the campaign.
Combat. Sometimes our adventures focus on combat. The characters get into a scrape with several groups of enemies, fighting waves of enemies, or facing dastardly bosses.
Defense. In defense adventures, the characters must defend a location from a larger force. Defensive adventures focus on preparing the defense, engaging in reconnaissance, and facing off against the oncoming force.
Mashups and the Undefined. Few adventures or sessions actually focus exclusively on one single adventure type. Instead, they're often a combination of several different adventure types or follow a model all on their own. This chapter talks about how to use the structures for prep and play from other adventure types and put them together to run your own particular adventure.
Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster also includes specific adventure scenarios for each adventure type. These adventure scenarios follow the eight steps — more filled out than you'd typically have for your own notes since I'm communicating the adventure type to you. Each of them follows along a campaign arc and can be used in several ways:
The adventure types described in Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster are designed to help bring further practicality to the eight steps of lazy GM prep. The steps themselves offer a solid framework for getting your hands around the prep for your game. When mixed with these adventure types, you know what you can focus on to support the style of play you and your players will enjoy in the next game you run.
I hope you'll check out the Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster Kickstarter. We're really proud of it and overjoyed that so many folks are excited for the book. If you're already supporting it, thank you so much and please share it with your friends!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/rise-of-the-lazy-game-master?ref=2pmml2
Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.
Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.
Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.
Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on Modifying Published Adventures and Hunting Lashmaraq – Dragon Empire Prep Session 72.
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Preoder Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster!
The Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster Kickstarter campaign is going strong! We had the strongest first days of any campaign we've ever run and we can't wait to get this book into your hands.
Please check out the campaign, support our work, and share it with your friends!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/rise-of-the-lazy-game-master?ref=dvqil8
Last week we talked about Expanding Each of the Eight Steps in Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster. Today we're going to talk about what the book has to offer for prepping and running lazy campaigns. In the next two weeks I’ll talk about adventure types and the lazy GM toolbox.
Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster offers a process for preparing and running your campaigns spanning several chapters. Here's a list of those chapters and what you can find within them:
Find and Maintain a Great Group. Advice for the hardest part of running RPGs — getting your friends together regularly to enjoy your game sessions. The chapter includes advice for finding new players, ensuring those players are right for your group, maintaining a consistent schedule, and keeping games running even when players move on. It includes a list of questions to help ensure the players you bring to your table for your style of GMing, suitable for in-person and online games.
Run Single-Session Games. Though not strictly about running longer campaigns, this chapter covers how to prep and run "one-shot" games. It talks about running a mini-session zero, ensuring you keep track of time, running timed adventures, and expanding single-session games into short-run multi-session games.
Build and Run a Lazy Campaign. This main chapter, available in the preview PDF on the Kickstarter page, describes the high level process for preparing and running a lazy campaign. It discusses choosing what world to set your games in, defining your campaign's hook, detailing the campaign's "truths", developing patrons or factions, considering questions for player-focused world-building, and preparing a starting adventure.
Write a Short Campaign Guide covers your creation of a guide you can give to your players before your session zero. It outlines the campaign’s hook, the truths, the characters' role and a group bond for the campaign, potential connections to patrons or factions, a description of house rules, and describes your chosen safety tools. The chapter also includes an example campaign guide for the City of Arches setting.
Run a Session Zero discusses how to get your campaign off on the right foot by going over the campaign guide with your players, discussing your safety tools, building characters together and connecting them to one another, choosing a patron or faction, asking world-building questions, and finally running a short adventure to get campaign started.
Fill Out Your Lazy Campaign talks about how to build out your campaign from the results of your first session with "spiral campaign development" — building from the characters outward. It offers guidance for building a starting location based on common places characters want to visit, adding adventure locations and quests, outlining three potential villains, and further developing factions.
Run Lazy Campaign Adventures takes you beyond your first session and on to the next . It discusses quests and hooks, the value of offering quests at the end of a session, thinking two horizons out, having a world that reacts to the characters actions, thinking through the eyes of your villain, keeping your hands on the pacing of the game, and focusing on your next session.
Lazy World Building steps back from your individual sessions to help you build a useful and practical world for your campaign. It discusses the creation of a practical history, pantheon, geography, magic system, and economy. This chapter mostly focuses on building what you need to run your sessions, quests, and adventures.
Running Games Online talks about how to run games with online tools by building your own online toolbox, using a resilient software stack, using and allowing for physical dice and books even when playing online, how to find players online, and tricks to manage player turns when running online.
Ending Campaigns discusses how to build a final boss battle for your game, the importance of giving players what they want instead of attempting a rug-pull final plot shift (I'm looking at you, Game of Thrones), and using "one year later" montages to let the players define the final outcome of their characters.
You can see from the above that we're taking a big comprehensive look at the full scope of campaign prep and play in Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster. This comprehensive focus is the sort of detailed approach you'll find throughout the whole book.
If you haven't yet checked it out, please support the Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster Kickstarter and if you already have, please share it with your friends!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/rise-of-the-lazy-game-master?ref=dvqil8
Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.
Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.
Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.
Last week I also posted a YouTube video on Two Million Gold – Dragon Empire Prep Session 71.
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Preoder Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster!
The Kickstarter for Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster has begun! I hope you'll check out the Kickstarter, download the preview, and support our new book. Please pass it along to other GMs you think might enjoy it.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/rise-of-the-lazy-game-master?ref=603clt
Over the next few weeks I'll be diving into the big chunks that make up this book:
First, good news — the eight steps of Lazy GM Prep haven't changed. They still include:
Only one of these steps has a slight name change — "Select Magic Item Rewards" to just "Select Rewards". This change is an example of what we've done with the eight steps throughout Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster. They're still the same eight steps but we've learned a lot from running and playing games. We received a lot of feedback on the steps over the past eight years. Many new games have come out since then and the eight steps still hold up but we can expand them further.
Each of the chapters on the eight steps in Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster dive deep into the step — recognizing how these steps change depending on you, your group, where you are in your campaign, what sort of campaign you've built, and what system you're running.
Review the Characters now includes discussions on character motivations, campfire tales, stars and wishes, character-based secrets, noting character mechanics, and wish lists.
Creating a Strong Start includes lists of twenty strong starts and twenty hooks to draw your characters into the game. You'll find these inspirational tables of twenty options throughout the whole book. Just about every chapter has one or more lists. You can read them, consider them as examples, roll on them, or hack them into your own game. A sidebar in this chapter also talks about mashing the strong start into your "scenes" list to help consolidate your notes — a trick I've been doing myself now for a year or so.
Outlining Potential Scenes talks about the vast array of scenes you might pack into this step — sequential scenes, potential parallel options, future quest hooks, and more. Scenes became the junk drawer of the eight steps (in a good way) — letting you jam in all sorts of things to help you get your head around your next session.
Defining Secrets and Clues offers lists of both what sort of secrets you might consider and how your characters might find them — two very common requests as GMs get their head around this idea. It also talks about using secrets and clues with mysteries (also further covered in the Investigations and Mysteries adventure type) and talking about the advantage of moving past secrets forward when it makes sense.
Developing Fantastic Locations expands beyond large set-piece locations that typically focus on an evocative name and three "aspects". Now it also includes filling out large maps with just a one or two word name to define a place or writing down a list of potential rooms when you're not sure what path the characters might take. This chapter has six tables of twenty options covering monuments, origins, factions, effects, dungeon rooms, and dungeon types.
Outlining Important NPCs notes several potential character traits and using the technique of thinking through the eyes of your NPC to figure out how they'd act and react in any given situation. It also discusses when to act and when to roll.
Choosing Relevant Monsters discusses how to choose relevant monsters for the situation, understanding encounter balance for whatever system you play, the importance of monsters, situations, and pacing, and which battles need more planning and which can be shaped by the situation in the world and the dice you roll.
Selecting Rewards talks about managing random treasure and player wish lists, the different kinds of rewards different systems offer, with examples of common magic items for various fantasy RPGs, integrating intelligent magic items, and keeping an eye out for items that can make your game more difficult to run.
When writing Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster it was important for me to hit several goals. I had a lot more to say about the eight steps and wanted to focus on those steps as the cornerstone of my definition and path for Lazy GMing. I wanted to ensure this book stood on its own for those new to gamemastering but also stood alongside all my previous books like Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, The Lazy DM's Companion, and The Lazy DM's Workbook. You'll see from the above descriptions that the steps remain the same as those found in Return but expand each of them with all new tips and experiences to help you run awesome games.
I hope you'll support the Kickstarter for Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster and join us for this new journey
Pass it along!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/rise-of-the-lazy-game-master?ref=603clt
Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.
Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.
Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.
Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on Prepping RPG Campaigns Part 1 and Jabir al Seki – Dragon Empire Prep Session 70.
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Preoder Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster!
Five scenes is all you're likely to get through in a four-hour RPG session. Narrow your prep down to the five scenes you might run to help you focus and avoid getting lost in the vast and overwhelming possibilities of the worlds you create.
What are the five potential scenes in your next game?
Overprep is a common problem among gamemasters. We often feel like we need to prepare more than we actually do and, the more we prep, the more we might force the game into one particular direction instead of letting the game flow from the actions of the characters and the reactions of the world. The vastness of the worlds we create out of the depths of our imaginations and expand with the imaginations of our friends around the table can be paralyzing.
Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master offers a framework to help us focus our prep while swimming in the vast seas and unknown depths of our games. Step 2 of these eight steps is "Outline Potential Scenes".
What if we focused our prep around that single step? What are the five potential scenes we'll run in our next session?
Why five? As a loose estimation, we can assume any given scene takes up about 45 minutes of game time. Some scenes take longer (like big battles in 5e games) and some are shorter. Your chosen system or the number of players you have also change this math. But, I'd say typically, five scenes can fill a four-hour game with a break in the middle.
Sometimes we don't know which scenes will take place in the next session. The characters have options. There are forks in their path. That's why we include the word "might" in our scene-development prompt:
What five scenes might take place in the next session?
We know our game can take different turns. That's why we abstract other elements of our prep like NPCs, monsters, locations, secrets, and so on. With those things prepped in their own little compartments, we can build scenes on the fly depending on the path the characters choose and how the world reacts.
Other times we have a pretty clear idea what scenes might take place. We can include NPCs, monsters, and locations in our scenes step. Our first scene is almost certainly our strong start.
Here's an example strong start that includes other steps mashed into it:
In the Mausoleum of Astaria, the characters learn from the ghost of Astaria of the coming of the Nameless King and the location of the King's three soul vessels before five shrouded ice devils attack!
The above description includes a strong start, a scene, monsters, an NPC, and a location all in one.
We can fill out the remaining four scenes with these short descriptions:
Do we need anything else? Probably. I'd almost certainly still do my ten secrets and clues. Obviously, there are things missing from the scenes above (what's in Astaria's armory?) Prep what you need to run your next session and skip the rest.
If you feel overwhelmed by the game looming ahead of you, ask yourself a simple question: what five scenes might you run in your next game?
Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.
Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.
Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.
Last week I also posted a Daggerheart Review.
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Preoder Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster!
Describe monsters instead of labelling them so every encounter with a monster is a unique and fresh experience.
Ogres are scary. Even if a player watched previous characters battle ogres twenty times before, the first time they face an ogre with a new character, that character would be right to be terrified. We lose this terror if we simply call it an "ogre" and jump to rolling the dice.
Instead, use flavorful and distinctive descriptions to bring back the terror of facing such a foe. Ogres are big. Ogres are powerful. They might have gory scars or terrifying tattoos or chipped tusks. Their weapon may be a runed femur with a spiked skull on the end. They might have filed their teeth into points or shaped their mohawk out of the dried blood of their enemies.
With the right description, every creature in our RPGs can be unique among all others. Every monster can be scary again, even if our players faced them dozens of times before. We don't have to make such monsters unique with mechanics. We can use our words to make monsters unique.
The fantastic book Monster Overhaul by Skerples has seven tables worth of customization for ogres (just one of hundreds of monsters covered in Monster Overhaul). If you find yourself having trouble coming up with unique descriptions, you can go far with some random tables. Write some tables up yourself to help shore up the areas you have trouble with. Here's a quick one of unique appearances:
Write your own table to suit your game or use one of the many appearance generators out there to spawn some ideas. Connect monsters to factions or gods unique to your world through symbology on equipment or body art.
These characteristics can also help you identify monsters in combat and you can work with your player-driven monster characteristics to make monsters even more unique.
RPGs are a blend of fiction and mechanics. Sometimes we lean too heavily on the mechanics side and forget that it's the fiction that makes our games unique from one session to the next.
Every ogre can be scary if you describe it in an interesting way.
Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.
Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.
Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.
Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on Running Great Campaign endings and Mindsplinter – Dragon Empire Prep Session 69.
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.