Listening to you comment on WOTC's 3.5 edition release reasoning reminded me of my interaction with a salesperson at the WOTC store at my local mall back in the day (if anyone remembers the WOTC storefronts). The errata for 3.0 for the players handbook was massive. I forget how many pages of errata but it was a lot. When 3.5 came out, I took my 3.0 players handbook to my local WOTC store and presented my case to the store manager that the 3.0 players handbook was a faulty product (referring to the numerous errata pages), and that I wanted to trade my 3.0 players handbook in for the 3.5 players handbook. He went for it. I left with a 3.5 players handbook free of charge. I must have rolled a nat 20 on my negotiations skill. Glad I didn't have to use the 3.0 grapple rules on him. :)
For the backseat veteran players, I got real good advice somewhere: GM: "What book did you read that in?" Player: "Uh, it's in the wilderness chapter of the Sword Coast Adventuring Guide." GM: "Interesting, I guess that book was wrong."
That's fantastic. My group was similar to the Patreon Asker: They did not like off-book changes. They would complain a monster has a different weapon than depicted in the MM. I think the damage was the same, just a different damage type. Then they grew obsessed with the VTT I was using insisting on bigger and better maps. I prefer theater of the mind. Or a simple Chessex battle map. I lost interest in running for them.
Have also been staying away from MCDM stuff because i too wanna see it completed. I want to enjoy what they made and not necessarily watch them make it.
47:00 This is one of the bigger changes in attitude I had to make for PF2e. 5e monsters are best as _objects;_ the focus is squarely on what the characters do - what clever trick they pull out, how long they can endure, how they express their character and build through their various abilities, etc. That's why the Forge of Foes statblocks work so well: they let the DM easily set the most important parameter-difficulty-while providing an ample blank canvas for player expression. PF2e monsters are _verbs;_ they control the action and set the pace. It's not about what _you_ do, it's how you adapt to what _they_ do. The monster's abilities, their fighting style, their resistances and weaknesses, are all riddles to solve in order to win. The game doesn't expect you to just blindly use what's on your sheet, but to analyze the opposition and judiciously _apply_ those abilities that will best counter them. I think I've grown to like the latter better. Too much focus on expression leads to encounters drifting off into white rooms, far from the fiction; places where sheets are swung as swords, and the answers are always the same, since the questions are rhetorical.
Let me add another complimentary series of video casts still going on: 50 Years in the Dungeon with Stan! Every week he advances one year, and illustrates a significant piece of art from the era while talking with people who worked on D&D. He just passed the halfway mark, so there are at least 30 episodes to watch. It's a great, very casual, show.
@@SlyFlourish Normally, it's live at 9pm Eastern on Wednesdays. This week it's prerecorded (live last Tuesday), and with Peter Adkison, WOTC emeritus and GenCon current owner.
"Just Use Bears" I love it. Such a simple way to summarise what you're doing when you improvise a monster. I'm putting it up there with "Steal from everything." "Delegate" "Reward creativity." and "If in doubt, make it up." aka Rule zero
I would also recommend "Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons" by Jon Peterson. It covers the history of D&D up to the departure of Gygax. It does a good job of explaining the lack of management skills during the early history. There was a unique whirlwind of incompetence, entitlement, and sneaky dealing. It focuses on the corporate history, not the actual game (it is an MIT press business book).
I ran an instant monster today for some 10-11 year-olds in an after-school club. It was a monster under the bed, vaguely inspired by the illustration of the lizardy thing with tentacles on the page opposite your monster stat table. I did exactly as you just explained for one of its rolls. I explained that it had to roll a con save to resist a poison effect, explained that the dc of the con save would be 10, explained that the monster is quite tough so it'll be rolling with +2 then rolled in front of the players. I didn't really track hit points. I wrote down the damage they did so they thought it was meaningful, let everyone have a turn then the kid who rolled highest on initiative rolled a nat 20 on his second turn and we had about 4-5 minutes left of game time so I said he hit it between the eyes and it died.
Shannon Appelcline's 'Designers & Dragons' series is also great. It takes a wider view of the industry as a whole, but it's well worth the reader's time.
I think the popularity of 5e was not just because of the play-testing (which I’m sure was part of it) but also because of the prevalence of TH-cam and Podcasts of D&D sessions, such as Critical Role. I myself heard about it from The Incomparable podcast “Total Party Kill” (I had been an Incomparable listener already). When I heard about the new edition, and saw examples of it being played (and by adults like me, no less), it got me back into the game (after nearly 30 years away). So I think it was a combination of a well-written revision to the game, coming out at exactly the right time when TH-cam and podcasting were getting huge.
It would be interesting to hear some rough stats for YOUR (Mike Shay’s) games. Like - how long are your game sessions? How long do your combats last? How many combats per session? Just a little info to help us understand how your planning and reactions to content translate to the experience of your played games.
For the first patron: In addition to letting the player/s know the bad etiquette, my line is “it doesn’t say that in my copy of the book.” Or something like that has worked well. It’s a polite coded way to say “our game, my rules.”
From Matt’s stream it sounds like they are not yet sure what the final wording of the license will be and this clause is mostly in case they left a hole open they realize they need to plug. Not sure why they do not simply use CC-BY, it seems to do exactly what they want their license to be / do as well
I wish there were bundles of holding or humble bundles for physical materials and books. I'd love to buy a bundle of the a5e books but I cant personally justify spending that money on a pdf :( I completely understand that physical materials are more expensive and they might not be able to afford selling the books for cheap, but Im too much of a luddite to spend money on ebooks
I’m not much of an instant monster guy but I do like having that option for when players make choices that are off the rails and I need to leave what I’ve prepped behind. Personally, I prefer having things prepped ahead of time. But that isn’t always possible. Btw. My one criticism of Forge of Foes is that it doesn’t have nearly enough monster powers and what is there is not ideally organized
I think it was called outdoor survival for the overlands if my memory serves me. I remember starting playing dnd in 1975. before that it was chainmail and the tsr game outdoor survival.
Watch secrets of blackmoor. You need Chainmail and wilderness survival to play. This is hands down the best way to play D&d. Future editions got it wrong.
Hey Sly, For the steps in the lazy dungeon master guide, how much of that would you reuse if the players did not encounter it? I think I remember you saying to refresh secrets every prep sesh, but what if they barely got to that and either took too long of combat or were off on a tangent. Would that be a case of overprep, and should I recycle? I was just wondering because I was DMing for a large group (~9 or so people) and we barely got to the material I thought I needed. This time I am looking to undercut it, so I feel like by reusing the prepped things I can just save prep time. Thank you!
I have unfortunately experienced the backseating metagaming player, he would constantly preempt me with questions and expecting to know what I was going to say. Which is weird because this was a homebrew game so that style of anticipatory knowledge made no sense. Also he was some sort of cop or security IRL, and always wanted to call the authorities/responders in-game. So annoying, like bro, YOU'RE THE HEROES, stop calling for help lol
10:20 You can mix 'n' match but different settings might assume different power levels as a default. You just need to be aware of that and scale things appropriately for your game.
Is there such a thing called Level Down 5E XD. The OSR games all feel to deadly and thin to me. But A5E takes things the opposite direction and introduces way to much for my little lazy brain
So, the question about "you are running that monster wrong" is defo a result of players not DMing... And mistaking dnd5e for a strategic war game. Dnd STILL maintains a myth that this is the case - but anyone who has been behind the screen (especially if they have tried to run a wotc 5e published campaign) knows that these days - that is a HUGE lie... That seemingly most players are still beholden to!
The ogl has only been popular in the company when they thought d&d was dying. 3e and 5e were both made as the "final edition" of the game, so they got an ogl. 4e happened because they tried to enforce their copy rights once it got popular.
Absolutely hate that WoTC stole questing beasts supply mechanic. Before long they will have a class that can extra bonus actions equal to your supply lol jk…. But I wouldn’t be surprised tho
1st advice question: I usually do not criticize the Lazy DM because it is advice of his style, so it often boils down to "this is how I would do it," but I am going to call this out because the advice contradicts the anticdote of what he actually did. Sly assumes the agreement of the players and dm. His anticdote was he bowed out of organized play because the players wanted to play the module as written, presumably because all the players did not like it. The problem was him as he broke the social contract. This person does not say what their social contract is, but the fact he questions it implies he thought the other players have a point. Ie, if you are throwing a lot of gods into a darksun game, you are not playing darksun and players generally have a right to be like, "this is not what I signed up for; you said you would give me x so give me x or I am gone." He is kind of giving them the opposite advice of what he did, and I kind of feel the players have a point. If you invite me for 5e d&d and start with, "no, roll a d6 for checks instead of a d20," clearly that is not what I signed up for.
@@chewbacca7856 issue is the context of the advice. "Lock your doors and call the police" is good advice if you are being stalked, but bad advice for how to deal with a first date. The questioner and the Lazy DM acknowledge they are the ones violating player expectations to the players in both the question and the anticdote with the organized play game. The Lazy DM did not use his own advice because he was the one violating the social contract with players in organized play.
The "Draw Steel" license is a poison pill. Games tend to take 2 years to develop, and the old license is based on the publishing date, not the development date. You can waste 33 months of work because they change the license a month before you are about to publish. That is really, really risky for a publisher.
@@Blink-cx8eh the date that matters in the license is the publish date, not the development start date. That is the date listed in the license. This is for MCDM's protection as I can say I started developing this game today and did not publish it for 30 years so I cannot use a 30 year old license, but that also means they can say the new license changes all the terms of that game you spent 3 years developing. The license chages going into effect 2 years after posting is favorable to the producer as it gives anything in the pipe time to work itself out. They could change this tomorrow without repercussions if Matt sold it to WotC.
The exploration boardgame required for the original D&D is called "Outdoor Survival".
Correct sir. I have it to. ❤
Listening to you comment on WOTC's 3.5 edition release reasoning reminded me of my interaction with a salesperson at the WOTC store at my local mall back in the day (if anyone remembers the WOTC storefronts). The errata for 3.0 for the players handbook was massive. I forget how many pages of errata but it was a lot. When 3.5 came out, I took my 3.0 players handbook to my local WOTC store and presented my case to the store manager that the 3.0 players handbook was a faulty product (referring to the numerous errata pages), and that I wanted to trade my 3.0 players handbook in for the 3.5 players handbook. He went for it. I left with a 3.5 players handbook free of charge. I must have rolled a nat 20 on my negotiations skill. Glad I didn't have to use the 3.0 grapple rules on him. :)
For the backseat veteran players, I got real good advice somewhere:
GM: "What book did you read that in?"
Player: "Uh, it's in the wilderness chapter of the Sword Coast Adventuring Guide."
GM: "Interesting, I guess that book was wrong."
imagine having 'played for 40 years' and having not ever learned how to be good player??
That's fantastic. My group was similar to the Patreon Asker: They did not like off-book changes. They would complain a monster has a different weapon than depicted in the MM. I think the damage was the same, just a different damage type. Then they grew obsessed with the VTT I was using insisting on bigger and better maps. I prefer theater of the mind. Or a simple Chessex battle map. I lost interest in running for them.
Have also been staying away from MCDM stuff because i too wanna see it completed. I want to enjoy what they made and not necessarily watch them make it.
47:00 This is one of the bigger changes in attitude I had to make for PF2e. 5e monsters are best as _objects;_ the focus is squarely on what the characters do - what clever trick they pull out, how long they can endure, how they express their character and build through their various abilities, etc. That's why the Forge of Foes statblocks work so well: they let the DM easily set the most important parameter-difficulty-while providing an ample blank canvas for player expression.
PF2e monsters are _verbs;_ they control the action and set the pace. It's not about what _you_ do, it's how you adapt to what _they_ do. The monster's abilities, their fighting style, their resistances and weaknesses, are all riddles to solve in order to win. The game doesn't expect you to just blindly use what's on your sheet, but to analyze the opposition and judiciously _apply_ those abilities that will best counter them.
I think I've grown to like the latter better. Too much focus on expression leads to encounters drifting off into white rooms, far from the fiction; places where sheets are swung as swords, and the answers are always the same, since the questions are rhetorical.
Let me add another complimentary series of video casts still going on: 50 Years in the Dungeon with Stan! Every week he advances one year, and illustrates a significant piece of art from the era while talking with people who worked on D&D. He just passed the halfway mark, so there are at least 30 episodes to watch. It's a great, very casual, show.
I need to check it out!
@@SlyFlourish Normally, it's live at 9pm Eastern on Wednesdays. This week it's prerecorded (live last Tuesday), and with Peter Adkison, WOTC emeritus and GenCon current owner.
Holy cow those are cool! Thanks for telling us about it.
"Just Use Bears" I love it. Such a simple way to summarise what you're doing when you improvise a monster.
I'm putting it up there with
"Steal from everything."
"Delegate"
"Reward creativity."
and
"If in doubt, make it up." aka Rule zero
I would also recommend "Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons" by Jon Peterson. It covers the history of D&D up to the departure of Gygax. It does a good job of explaining the lack of management skills during the early history. There was a unique whirlwind of incompetence, entitlement, and sneaky dealing. It focuses on the corporate history, not the actual game (it is an MIT press business book).
When we were wizards is enthralling. So freakin good. It's gold
I ran an instant monster today for some 10-11 year-olds in an after-school club. It was a monster under the bed, vaguely inspired by the illustration of the lizardy thing with tentacles on the page opposite your monster stat table. I did exactly as you just explained for one of its rolls. I explained that it had to roll a con save to resist a poison effect, explained that the dc of the con save would be 10, explained that the monster is quite tough so it'll be rolling with +2 then rolled in front of the players. I didn't really track hit points. I wrote down the damage they did so they thought it was meaningful, let everyone have a turn then the kid who rolled highest on initiative rolled a nat 20 on his second turn and we had about 4-5 minutes left of game time so I said he hit it between the eyes and it died.
Ooh, that SD monster stat guide is amazing! I'm running I6 Ravenloft for Halloween in Shadowdark, so it's great timing!
Shannon Appelcline's 'Designers & Dragons' series is also great. It takes a wider view of the industry as a whole, but it's well worth the reader's time.
Hi Mike,
regarding Patreon Question: Handling Back Seat Driving Veteran Players I believe it was Teos who said to quip back, "this is a variant"
What great timing to log on to TH-cam! Never been this early before lol
I've been watching the clock for like 20 minutes....lol
I think the popularity of 5e was not just because of the play-testing (which I’m sure was part of it) but also because of the prevalence of TH-cam and Podcasts of D&D sessions, such as Critical Role. I myself heard about it from The Incomparable podcast “Total Party Kill” (I had been an Incomparable listener already). When I heard about the new edition, and saw examples of it being played (and by adults like me, no less), it got me back into the game (after nearly 30 years away). So I think it was a combination of a well-written revision to the game, coming out at exactly the right time when TH-cam and podcasting were getting huge.
For more 0e context, Peterson's "Playing at the World (Volume 1)" and Griff Morgan's "Blackmoor Foundations" are essential.
Come for the recommendations, stay for the links…so many good links today
It would be interesting to hear some rough stats for YOUR (Mike Shay’s) games.
Like - how long are your game sessions? How long do your combats last? How many combats per session?
Just a little info to help us understand how your planning and reactions to content translate to the experience of your played games.
Banger episode! 10/10
Real missed opportunity not calling that the "build a bear" table
For the first patron:
In addition to letting the player/s know the bad etiquette, my line is “it doesn’t say that in my copy of the book.” Or something like that has worked well. It’s a polite coded way to say “our game, my rules.”
From Matt’s stream it sounds like they are not yet sure what the final wording of the license will be and this clause is mostly in case they left a hole open they realize they need to plug.
Not sure why they do not simply use CC-BY, it seems to do exactly what they want their license to be / do as well
I wish there were bundles of holding or humble bundles for physical materials and books. I'd love to buy a bundle of the a5e books but I cant personally justify spending that money on a pdf :(
I completely understand that physical materials are more expensive and they might not be able to afford selling the books for cheap, but Im too much of a luddite to spend money on ebooks
I’m not much of an instant monster guy but I do like having that option for when players make choices that are off the rails and I need to leave what I’ve prepped behind. Personally, I prefer having things prepped ahead of time. But that isn’t always possible. Btw. My one criticism of Forge of Foes is that it doesn’t have nearly enough monster powers and what is there is not ideally organized
Extremely disappointed that you didn't advertise Forge of Foes as Build-a-Bear for DnD until just now.
I think it was called outdoor survival for the overlands if my memory serves me. I remember starting playing dnd in 1975. before that it was chainmail and the tsr game outdoor survival.
I'd also recommend "Of Dice and Men" for more DnD history
I think you should rip the Forge of Foes ad out as a separate video, so it is easier to share with my friends.
In will
Watch secrets of blackmoor. You need Chainmail and wilderness survival to play. This is hands down the best way to play D&d. Future editions got it wrong.
they should force the guys from hasbro to listen to those "DnD's history" podcasts :D
Stop recommending such good stuff!! I'm running out of money!!! ;)
Hey Sly,
For the steps in the lazy dungeon master guide, how much of that would you reuse if the players did not encounter it? I think I remember you saying to refresh secrets every prep sesh, but what if they barely got to that and either took too long of combat or were off on a tangent. Would that be a case of overprep, and should I recycle? I was just wondering because I was DMing for a large group (~9 or so people) and we barely got to the material I thought I needed. This time I am looking to undercut it, so I feel like by reusing the prepped things I can just save prep time.
Thank you!
Absolutely feel free to reuse or recycle. I do it all the time.
I have unfortunately experienced the backseating metagaming player, he would constantly preempt me with questions and expecting to know what I was going to say. Which is weird because this was a homebrew game so that style of anticipatory knowledge made no sense. Also he was some sort of cop or security IRL, and always wanted to call the authorities/responders in-game. So annoying, like bro, YOU'RE THE HEROES, stop calling for help lol
Does Mike not know that all of the original D&D PDFS have been up on DMs Guild for some time now?
10:20 You can mix 'n' match but different settings might assume different power levels as a default. You just need to be aware of that and scale things appropriately for your game.
I can tell you, most adventure and campaign writers play very loose with encounter difficulty
I'm not a lawyer, but that MCDM licnse looks like a lot of legal grey area for both sides...
Is there such a thing called Level Down 5E XD. The OSR games all feel to deadly and thin to me. But A5E takes things the opposite direction and introduces way to much for my little lazy brain
You might be interested in Nimble 5e. Lots of youtube videos about it but it's a simplified but not too simplified version of 5e
Yep. It's called Shadowdark. More meat than most OSR games but soooooo easy to run.
Also designers and dragons
No Playing at the World?
So, the question about "you are running that monster wrong" is defo a result of players not DMing... And mistaking dnd5e for a strategic war game. Dnd STILL maintains a myth that this is the case - but anyone who has been behind the screen (especially if they have tried to run a wotc 5e published campaign) knows that these days - that is a HUGE lie... That seemingly most players are still beholden to!
The ogl has only been popular in the company when they thought d&d was dying. 3e and 5e were both made as the "final edition" of the game, so they got an ogl. 4e happened because they tried to enforce their copy rights once it got popular.
Absolutely hate that WoTC stole questing beasts supply mechanic.
Before long they will have a class that can extra bonus actions equal to your supply lol jk…. But I wouldn’t be surprised tho
1st advice question: I usually do not criticize the Lazy DM because it is advice of his style, so it often boils down to "this is how I would do it," but I am going to call this out because the advice contradicts the anticdote of what he actually did.
Sly assumes the agreement of the players and dm. His anticdote was he bowed out of organized play because the players wanted to play the module as written, presumably because all the players did not like it. The problem was him as he broke the social contract. This person does not say what their social contract is, but the fact he questions it implies he thought the other players have a point. Ie, if you are throwing a lot of gods into a darksun game, you are not playing darksun and players generally have a right to be like, "this is not what I signed up for; you said you would give me x so give me x or I am gone."
He is kind of giving them the opposite advice of what he did, and I kind of feel the players have a point. If you invite me for 5e d&d and start with, "no, roll a d6 for checks instead of a d20," clearly that is not what I signed up for.
I think his advice was fine.
@@chewbacca7856 issue is the context of the advice. "Lock your doors and call the police" is good advice if you are being stalked, but bad advice for how to deal with a first date. The questioner and the Lazy DM acknowledge they are the ones violating player expectations to the players in both the question and the anticdote with the organized play game. The Lazy DM did not use his own advice because he was the one violating the social contract with players in organized play.
The "Draw Steel" license is a poison pill. Games tend to take 2 years to develop, and the old license is based on the publishing date, not the development date. You can waste 33 months of work because they change the license a month before you are about to publish. That is really, really risky for a publisher.
That runs counter to the ‘if you are working on it already, you can finish it using the old license’ part…
@@Blink-cx8eh the date that matters in the license is the publish date, not the development start date. That is the date listed in the license. This is for MCDM's protection as I can say I started developing this game today and did not publish it for 30 years so I cannot use a 30 year old license, but that also means they can say the new license changes all the terms of that game you spent 3 years developing.
The license chages going into effect 2 years after posting is favorable to the producer as it gives anything in the pipe time to work itself out. They could change this tomorrow without repercussions if Matt sold it to WotC.