I would say you should plan a strong start + secrets and clues, and rely on published material to inspire you with fantastic locations, and make use of random tables for generating loot, npcs, and random combat encounters. There are a lot of great tools online for generating stuff, including the D100 Subreddit where people have designed D100 roll tables for loads of things.
A tip I've heard is, if you have a cool monster idea but don't have the time/mind to make its stats, use a bear as the base. At least in OSR games, bears are actually kinda beefy statwise so if you just throw on a coat of paint and a cool ability or two, you're golden!
The last session I ran, I didn't have very much time to plan so I felt super under prepared. I hurried and threw together a quick dungeon and thought I could railroad them there pretty easily. Well they ended up "foiling" all my plans, and within 30 minutes we were in unknown and improved territory. I can honestly say it was one of my top 3 favorite sessions. I don't think it would work that way every time, but I actually found that less planning actually made me feel I had more freedom in my game. So the 15-minute prep can still create some amazing sessions.
yesss!! group storytelling is chaotic and naturally spontaneous so i just go with it and prep to make improvising smoother. name list or a few three-detail characters, next steps for my fronts, some secrets (thanks sly) and something special for each character (scene, item, class spotlight). then i play reactive and let the players drive. the style is better supported in other games but when you pull it off in d&d it's rewarding and definitely freeing in an exciting way. congrats on pulling it off :)
I have been DM'ing off and on for years. I've always known my planning was inefficient. I would try to plan for every possible way that my players might interact with a scene, which quickly became overwhelming and anxiety inducing. Prepping and playing DnD felt like going to the Drs office, until yesterday. I used this system, and I felt more confident in my ability to improvise and allow my players to shape the world in turn. I felt relaxed. For the first time, DM'ing was fun, engaging, and creative. Thank you so much.
I started dming last year and I honestly don’t know if I could have done it without your books and videos. Especially the return of the lady dm, the dm workbook and your video guide on phandalin. You are great!
I just started DMing and luckily my friends had a great time! Hurray! ... But I literally prepared for a month and memorized everything I possibly could. I don't have a month to study between games now and I'm starting to get sick before game. The unknown really scares me, even though it's just a game! Having these tips is really helpful. Plus I honestly don't want to study for hours and hours to play a game. It's supposed to be fun, but I'm making it hella stressful haha
I've been using your advice from the Lazy Dungeon Master at the game table and it has enhanced the experience considerably. The secrets and clues tip is an absolute treasure that several seasoned DM's and Players absolutely fell in love with at the game table. Really enjoying your videos, keep up the great work as I am binge watching all of it!
Sly. Have the guide and workbook. Both incredible assets and I appreciate the work you have done. They are staples at my table. Running a NO PREP session where the players tell me the plot hook and I have 5 min to build for a 3h one shot. Needless to say, going to be studying the workbook!
04:50 Maze Rats by Questing Beast is my fav improv tool. All you need is 2d6 and you can improv a whole adventure on the fly. 11 pages filled with random tables and a couple dice can take your gaming evening a long way.
It just dawned on me that your secrets and clues are basically a great tool for PCs "exploring" in TTRPGs! I have always wondered what is exploration, and now I realize it is giving your players ideas for interacting with your game! Sooo powerful! Thank you Sly Flourish!!
MIke, another winner of a video (so much so that I'm trying to figure out how to riff on this for an episode of Radio Grognard). It reminds me of what George Burns once said: "If you can get a great start and great finish you don't have to worry about all that dull stuff in-between."
Since Ive started watching the channel, youve turned me on to some many good techniques and resources, not just for ttrpgs but also for my own personal creative writing. Absolutely excellent content, thank you so much, it is hugely appreciated.
It actually heavily depends on the movie. Some movies work really well for D&D games and other more plot-driven movies don't work well at all because the director and writer didn't have five players changing the script while it's playing.
I had a few questions though. 1) I have trouble with the strong start. Doesn't pushing the characters in a combat at the start makes session starts... Predictable? And if I don't throw them to combat, making a big event can completely derail the quest they are going through. Sure, improv is part of the DM job, but sometimes you want to gently steer characters in one direction. And if we are inside a cave or temple, that we finish the session there because we are out of time, doesn't starting again with an event break the original flow of the dungeon / cave / temple we were in when we stopped? 2) How do you keep track of all the clues, named locations and story arcs you invent each session? If I am to set up 10 or so clues / secrets each session, that makes a LOT to track no?
Howdy! First, a strong start doesn't always have to be combat. The question you ask yourself is "what happens at the start of the session". I like it to be something outside of the actions of the characters. Sometimes this strong start can *push* them towards the quest instead of distracting them. Ask yourself "what happens" and see what comes to mind!. 2. Don't worry about keeping track of secrets game to game. Only worry about your next game. You don't need to have a big database of past secrets. The story will move where it moves and you only need worry about the ten secrets that may come up next. Throw away secrets that don't come up or let some repeat if they're really important but you don't need to track them. good luck!
@@SlyFlourish Ok! So just use some secrets if they come up, and throw away most of the rest. It's less set in stone, and more about a free flow kind of thing then. What would you recommend to do when starting in the middle of dungeon? A town and the wilderness has lots of possibilities for event, but I find a dungeon a bit harder. Thanks!
@@joellajoie-corriveau477 for me I see the strong start as something that gets the game session going. If they are in a dungeon have monsters burst through a door, or a voice calling out in the darkness or a trap that is sprung. Anything that pushes the players to act. It doesn’t have to be epic, it’s more about pushing towards some sort of situation that requires the PCs to do something. At least that’s my understanding
@@joellajoie-corriveau477 and yeah you can totally throw away clues that don’t come up. As it says in the book if if the players don’t yet know about something then it doesn’t have to exist in the world.
@joel replying to your 2nd Q: record the game sessions (audio only) as part of your notes process. When you need or have time, relisten to the session. It's amazing how many little details get lost in the the moment.
Late to this. What if you are, like great ideas but, just not a writer. How prepared do you need to be? I really need to pick up Return of The Lazy Dungeon Master.
I like to put more emphasis on combats. Often you're able to transfer unused secrets like "They didn't discover the Thieves Guild in Town A but maybe there's a ToTaLlY dIfFeReNt [wink] Guild in Town B. But I think bad combats are the worst. Combat takes so much playtime, it should be fun, special and most of all balanced. Let's be honest, all of us have changed stats on the fly because the epic Boss fell in Round 1 or the random Goblin Raid was going to TPK the group...
@@Hellnikko It'll take far more then 15 minutes to simply parse out sufficient material for a session, but take your pick, wotc adventures are all poorly designed, *especially* from a usuability perspective.
Related to the strong start, how often do you time skip between sessions? I worry about hindering player agency if I skip ahead a couple days and place them in a new spot to pump up the start. For example, right now I'm running ToA. They just swiped the last unguarded cube from a bunch of Red Wizards and are planning to confront the Yuan'ti. I could skip them ahead to the entrance of the lair or start them where they are hiding out in the ruins and let them find it... but potentially at the expense of a strong start.
You could just have something happen where they are hiding out that Spurs them into action. A yuan-ti scout starts moving through the ruins. This could help them find the location of the lair. As long as it pushes the players to act it doesn’t need to be something epic
This was a real thorn in my side in my last adventure. From an outside perspective, it seems like it should be fine if you assume competence on the part of the characters, and avoid making them make mistakes by your hand. But I don't think it's that simple. :/
(mild TOA spoilers?) Ended up starting immediately following the previous session with a dream sequence. Our cleric speaks primordial, so I decided to make that particular night a Yuan'ti ritual night. Because she spoke the language, she was sensitive to Dendar being summoned through the dream world and saw her arrive at the Yuan'ti temple from the PCs' camp across the city. I gave her a few different checks to determine what she could learn from the dream and whether she could move about the dream world. The result gave the PCs a clue as to the location of the temple, gave spotlight time to a player who normally hangs back and has not provided a lot of background for her character, and helped make the audience with Ras Nsi feel more "alive" as they passed by slaves hauling the remains of the previous night's ritual out of the blood pool.
yeah, lol, if a list of names saves one's ass, how does that work? is one really good at improv conversation but can't think of a random name? one would still have three hours of improvising npc conversation. that means padding out a secret with 12-18 minutes (for 15 to 10 secrets, respectively) of conversation. even 30 minutes of that (if the rest of the time is combat, exploration, player-to-player discussion, etc) is straight-up exhausting. (btw, a very easy way to think of random names on the spot is to think of a regular name and replace or add/subtract one (or more) phonemes or letters . and If the list of names doesn't rhyme they don't even seem like they came from the same origin name. George => Morge. J/Geord. Peorle. Lorge. Lyrge. Neorne. etc. (and obvi you wouldn't use all those at once unless you were like doing snow white and the seven dwarves or something). if you need more fantasy flavor, have the last name be a compound word, nouns and adjectives and, if they are too transparent or too silly (or not silly enough) do the same thing. Just thought of "doorstop"? how about Doorslop? great for a low-status character. (or just use doorstop) Or compress it. Dottop. mid-status. Or add to it. Doriniastripathal. high status. yeah if you're trying to be really "specific" like "Ameringer Basil-Whilts-Plumbody" then you might need to prep. but like , ... you don't. or just say that this session they gave their nickname and next session a secret is their full name. Fireman ==> Fittlemass. Crabapple ==> Braboopple. Dirty Butt ==> Nirtishba. Dumb idiot ==> fumliddy. I hate myself ==> hattemsell. Why am i like this ==> Wymalithis . For gods sake why can't i think of a name ==> John. etc.
"What if you only have 10 minutes to prepare for a DnD game? You'd be screwed, because this is how to prepare in 15 minutes."
I would say you should plan a strong start + secrets and clues, and rely on published material to inspire you with fantastic locations, and make use of random tables for generating loot, npcs, and random combat encounters. There are a lot of great tools online for generating stuff, including the D100 Subreddit where people have designed D100 roll tables for loads of things.
Yep. Start with a strong start and hammer out some secrets and clues. Maybe grab a Dyson map and run a dungeon adventure.
A tip I've heard is, if you have a cool monster idea but don't have the time/mind to make its stats, use a bear as the base. At least in OSR games, bears are actually kinda beefy statwise so if you just throw on a coat of paint and a cool ability or two, you're golden!
I do the same thing with ogres.
I love doing this with my enemies I use other base stat blocks as well it’s very helpful
Oh I love this! Thank you
Now I want a 15 minute real-time video where you do all this and show that it can be done!
I actually did test it out a few times to make sure I could do it.
@@SlyFlourish thank you for the research, planning and preparation that you put in to these short videos. It really shows
The last session I ran, I didn't have very much time to plan so I felt super under prepared. I hurried and threw together a quick dungeon and thought I could railroad them there pretty easily.
Well they ended up "foiling" all my plans, and within 30 minutes we were in unknown and improved territory. I can honestly say it was one of my top 3 favorite sessions. I don't think it would work that way every time, but I actually found that less planning actually made me feel I had more freedom in my game. So the 15-minute prep can still create some amazing sessions.
This is a core philosophy of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. Run better games by preparing less.
yesss!! group storytelling is chaotic and naturally spontaneous so i just go with it and prep to make improvising smoother. name list or a few three-detail characters, next steps for my fronts, some secrets (thanks sly) and something special for each character (scene, item, class spotlight). then i play reactive and let the players drive.
the style is better supported in other games but when you pull it off in d&d it's rewarding and definitely freeing in an exciting way. congrats on pulling it off :)
I have been DM'ing off and on for years. I've always known my planning was inefficient. I would try to plan for every possible way that my players might interact with a scene, which quickly became overwhelming and anxiety inducing. Prepping and playing DnD felt like going to the Drs office, until yesterday. I used this system, and I felt more confident in my ability to improvise and allow my players to shape the world in turn. I felt relaxed. For the first time, DM'ing was fun, engaging, and creative. Thank you so much.
Awesome!!
Just ran my first homebrew session using the steps and it was my best session yet!
Thats awesome!! Glad it worked out!
I started dming last year and I honestly don’t know if I could have done it without your books and videos. Especially the return of the lady dm, the dm workbook and your video guide on phandalin. You are great!
Thank you so much!
I just started DMing and luckily my friends had a great time! Hurray! ... But I literally prepared for a month and memorized everything I possibly could. I don't have a month to study between games now and I'm starting to get sick before game. The unknown really scares me, even though it's just a game!
Having these tips is really helpful. Plus I honestly don't want to study for hours and hours to play a game. It's supposed to be fun, but I'm making it hella stressful haha
I've been using your advice from the Lazy Dungeon Master at the game table and it has enhanced the experience considerably. The secrets and clues tip is an absolute treasure that several seasoned DM's and Players absolutely fell in love with at the game table. Really enjoying your videos, keep up the great work as I am binge watching all of it!
I have been absolutely amazed at how good the clues and secrets are for building an interesting session.
Sly. Have the guide and workbook. Both incredible assets and I appreciate the work you have done. They are staples at my table.
Running a NO PREP session where the players tell me the plot hook and I have 5 min to build for a 3h one shot. Needless to say, going to be studying the workbook!
Oof!
04:50 Maze Rats by Questing Beast is my fav improv tool. All you need is 2d6 and you can improv a whole adventure on the fly. 11 pages filled with random tables and a couple dice can take your gaming evening a long way.
I’ll check it out. Thanks!
It just dawned on me that your secrets and clues are basically a great tool for PCs "exploring" in TTRPGs! I have always wondered what is exploration, and now I realize it is giving your players ideas for interacting with your game! Sooo powerful! Thank you Sly Flourish!!
MIke, another winner of a video (so much so that I'm trying to figure out how to riff on this for an episode of Radio Grognard).
It reminds me of what George Burns once said: "If you can get a great start and great finish you don't have to worry about all that dull stuff in-between."
Awesome quote!
Since Ive started watching the channel, youve turned me on to some many good techniques and resources, not just for ttrpgs but also for my own personal creative writing. Absolutely excellent content, thank you so much, it is hugely appreciated.
Great to hear!
We've definitely used Dyson Logos! Fantastic maps. Great setup for the videos, Sly!
Return of the Lazy Dungeonmaster is a great read
Thank you so much!
Attack of the procrastinating dungeon master
Projects take whatever time you give them!
Always outstanding advice. I always make sure maps & monsters are taken care of, but the 10 secrets is something I ought to be doing as well. Thanks!
Woo! Watched it and still have over 8 minutes to spare for planning!
Came across your videos while prepping for part 2 of my Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign in the Caves of Hunger. Love your prep style brother 🤙🏼
I have enjoyed your book so much. Thank you!!
Thank you so much for your support!
Really concise lecture. Thanks guy!
I have been using you book the last few months. My Dm sometimes isnt able to dm for a certain week, so i will throw something together when I arrive.
Awesome!
A very practical video. Great to see.
Glad you liked it!
What method if purchase provides you the most return? Keep up the great content
Buy whatever best works for you. I just want you to enjoy the book however you want to enjoy it.
Another awesome video. Thanks for the examples of strong starts as well as secrets and clues. What was the map URL, dysonlogos?
dysonlogos.blog/maps/
Yo sly, do you ever do voice acting? I'd really love to see you run a game, I'm curious how your process looks.
Pick your favorite movie and run that
Ssshhh, there may be players nearby.
It actually heavily depends on the movie. Some movies work really well for D&D games and other more plot-driven movies don't work well at all because the director and writer didn't have five players changing the script while it's playing.
I had a few questions though.
1) I have trouble with the strong start. Doesn't pushing the characters in a combat at the start makes session starts... Predictable? And if I don't throw them to combat, making a big event can completely derail the quest they are going through. Sure, improv is part of the DM job, but sometimes you want to gently steer characters in one direction. And if we are inside a cave or temple, that we finish the session there because we are out of time, doesn't starting again with an event break the original flow of the dungeon / cave / temple we were in when we stopped?
2) How do you keep track of all the clues, named locations and story arcs you invent each session? If I am to set up 10 or so clues / secrets each session, that makes a LOT to track no?
Howdy! First, a strong start doesn't always have to be combat. The question you ask yourself is "what happens at the start of the session". I like it to be something outside of the actions of the characters. Sometimes this strong start can *push* them towards the quest instead of distracting them. Ask yourself "what happens" and see what comes to mind!.
2. Don't worry about keeping track of secrets game to game. Only worry about your next game. You don't need to have a big database of past secrets. The story will move where it moves and you only need worry about the ten secrets that may come up next. Throw away secrets that don't come up or let some repeat if they're really important but you don't need to track them.
good luck!
@@SlyFlourish Ok! So just use some secrets if they come up, and throw away most of the rest. It's less set in stone, and more about a free flow kind of thing then.
What would you recommend to do when starting in the middle of dungeon? A town and the wilderness has lots of possibilities for event, but I find a dungeon a bit harder.
Thanks!
@@joellajoie-corriveau477 for me I see the strong start as something that gets the game session going. If they are in a dungeon have monsters burst through a door, or a voice calling out in the darkness or a trap that is sprung. Anything that pushes the players to act. It doesn’t have to be epic, it’s more about pushing towards some sort of situation that requires the PCs to do something.
At least that’s my understanding
@@joellajoie-corriveau477 and yeah you can totally throw away clues that don’t come up. As it says in the book if if the players don’t yet know about something then it doesn’t have to exist in the world.
@joel replying to your 2nd Q: record the game sessions (audio only) as part of your notes process. When you need or have time, relisten to the session. It's amazing how many little details get lost in the the moment.
Late to this. What if you are, like great ideas but, just not a writer. How prepared do you need to be? I really need to pick up Return of The Lazy Dungeon Master.
I like to put more emphasis on combats. Often you're able to transfer unused secrets like "They didn't discover the Thieves Guild in Town A but maybe there's a ToTaLlY dIfFeReNt [wink] Guild in Town B. But I think bad combats are the worst. Combat takes so much playtime, it should be fun, special and most of all balanced. Let's be honest, all of us have changed stats on the fly because the epic Boss fell in Round 1 or the random Goblin Raid was going to TPK the group...
What kind of microphone do you use?
But Sly.... how am I supposed to re-write a broken chapter in a WotC Adventure in 15 minutes???? lol
That depends. Which one?
Go back to the steps! Find a strong start, write down the secrets and clues, use what works in the adventure and dump what doesn't.
@@Hellnikko It'll take far more then 15 minutes to simply parse out sufficient material for a session, but take your pick, wotc adventures are all poorly designed, *especially* from a usuability perspective.
@@yohahn12 I completely agree. I think I forgot my /s. Haha
Related to the strong start, how often do you time skip between sessions? I worry about hindering player agency if I skip ahead a couple days and place them in a new spot to pump up the start. For example, right now I'm running ToA. They just swiped the last unguarded cube from a bunch of Red Wizards and are planning to confront the Yuan'ti. I could skip them ahead to the entrance of the lair or start them where they are hiding out in the ruins and let them find it... but potentially at the expense of a strong start.
I'll skip time if it makes sense. You can ask the players to describe what their characters would do in the downtime.
You could just have something happen where they are hiding out that Spurs them into action. A yuan-ti scout starts moving through the ruins. This could help them find the location of the lair. As long as it pushes the players to act it doesn’t need to be something epic
This was a real thorn in my side in my last adventure. From an outside perspective, it seems like it should be fine if you assume competence on the part of the characters, and avoid making them make mistakes by your hand. But I don't think it's that simple. :/
(mild TOA spoilers?)
Ended up starting immediately following the previous session with a dream sequence. Our cleric speaks primordial, so I decided to make that particular night a Yuan'ti ritual night. Because she spoke the language, she was sensitive to Dendar being summoned through the dream world and saw her arrive at the Yuan'ti temple from the PCs' camp across the city. I gave her a few different checks to determine what she could learn from the dream and whether she could move about the dream world. The result gave the PCs a clue as to the location of the temple, gave spotlight time to a player who normally hangs back and has not provided a lot of background for her character, and helped make the audience with Ras Nsi feel more "alive" as they passed by slaves hauling the remains of the previous night's ritual out of the blood pool.
Nice speakers. Turntable too?
Nope, just an old iPhone and Amazon Music HD to my Schiit stack (and a Vidar under the table!)
Oh man, I'd just call it off. I can't improv to save my life.
You can do it!
yeah, lol, if a list of names saves one's ass, how does that work? is one really good at improv conversation but can't think of a random name? one would still have three hours of improvising npc conversation. that means padding out a secret with 12-18 minutes (for 15 to 10 secrets, respectively) of conversation. even 30 minutes of that (if the rest of the time is combat, exploration, player-to-player discussion, etc) is straight-up exhausting.
(btw, a very easy way to think of random names on the spot is to think of a regular name and replace or add/subtract one (or more) phonemes or letters . and If the list of names doesn't rhyme they don't even seem like they came from the same origin name. George => Morge. J/Geord. Peorle. Lorge. Lyrge. Neorne. etc. (and obvi you wouldn't use all those at once unless you were like doing snow white and the seven dwarves or something). if you need more fantasy flavor, have the last name be a compound word, nouns and adjectives and, if they are too transparent or too silly (or not silly enough) do the same thing. Just thought of "doorstop"? how about Doorslop? great for a low-status character. (or just use doorstop) Or compress it. Dottop. mid-status. Or add to it. Doriniastripathal. high status. yeah if you're trying to be really "specific" like "Ameringer Basil-Whilts-Plumbody" then you might need to prep. but like , ... you don't. or just say that this session they gave their nickname and next session a secret is their full name. Fireman ==> Fittlemass. Crabapple ==> Braboopple. Dirty Butt ==> Nirtishba. Dumb idiot ==> fumliddy. I hate myself ==> hattemsell. Why am i like this ==> Wymalithis . For gods sake why can't i think of a name ==> John. etc.
No. I'd rather play any other system in existence.
fair, lol