%% Last Updated: [[2021-02-22]] %% # Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master [Readwise URL](https://readwise.io/bookreview/7341591)---  --- Usually, it's enough to come up with only a few words per scene, and to expect one or two scenes per hour of play. ^136373258 --- Describe each location with a short evocative title such as "The Sunspire." Then write down three fantastic aspects for it, along the lines of: "Blazing beam of light shining to the heavens," "Moat of molten rock," or "Huge elven glyphs carved into ancient stone." ^136373259 --- "I don't use the encounter-building rules. Fights are as tough as is appropriate to the location and situation." --Mike Mearls, lead designer for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons ^145977638 --- The challenge rating for a single monster is roughly equivalent to one-quarter of a character's level, or to half a character's level if that level is 5th or higher. ^145977639 --- use challenge ratings as a loose gauge to understand the potential difficulty of a combat encounter. ^145977640 --- Roughly thirty minutes to an hour before your game, you should give your notes a solid review. ^146293043 --- Whether time is short or your connection to your upcoming session is particularly strong, it's possible to cut the Lazy Dungeon Master's checklist down to just three things: Create a strong start Define secrets and clues Develop fantastic locations ^146293044 --- Seek continual feedback and engage in regular self-evaluation to improve your skills as a GM. ^146293045 --- Handouts create a physical connection to the story and the world. They help solidify clues for the players, and give them physical evidence they can refer to throughout a campaign. ^146293046 --- The following list of popular soundtracks (plus two instrumental artists) are recommended by numerous GMs and players: Conan the Barbarian The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and the rest of the Elder Scrolls series Lord of the Rings Pillars of Eternity Dragon Age Diablo Stranger Things Pirates of the Caribbean Final Fantasy series Darkest Dungeon Midnight Syndicate Two Steps From Hell ^146293047 --- Though the Lazy Dungeon Master's checklist covers everything you need, some additional prep activities can make your games even better. Build handouts to give players a physical connection to the story. Use printed poster maps to pull players into the world. Find evocative artwork of people, places, and monsters to show to the players. Play soundtracks from video games and movies to add to the atmosphere of your game. ^146293048 --- Instead, just find a monster with the rough power level you're considering and whose general features meet that of the statue. In this example, the stat block for a powerful giant might fit the bill. Then simply use that stat block and call it the "Guardian of the Temple." When you describe its attacks, you'll describe them as the attacks of a titanic statue. No one is the wiser. ^147865713 --- Checklist for Reskinning Take something that already exists and describe it as something new. Reskin monsters, dungeons, towns, cities, adventures, and entire campaign worlds from published RPG books. To reskin a monster, wrap an existing stat block with new flavor that fits your campaign story. Take ideas from multiple sources and mash them together into a single new thing. Borrow liberally from published fantasy RPG sourcebooks, adventures, and monster books. ^147865714 --- This approach is called "spiral campaign development," and it's a common method of world building. Using the campaign spiral, you build your campaign from the characters' starting location, filling in the details of immediate interest to the characters and the players, or those that might come up in the next session. You don't worry about the details of the larger world because you have no idea where in that world the story is going to head. Instead, you focus your attention on the characters, the locations closest to them, and whatever local concerns connect to their direct interest. ^147865715 --- Develop a spiral campaign that focuses on what matters to the characters right now, and which spirals out as the characters move out into the larger world. Build a campaign hook that focuses the campaign on a single major goal everyone can understand. State the six truths of your campaign that separate it from other campaigns. ^148905864 --- Define three fronts--the major actors for the campaign--including their goals and three grim portents that show their progress. ^148905865 --- Active listening gives you insights into what the players see in the story, what they see in their characters, and what they want out of the game. ^148905866 --- When we're ready to start a game session, we can start by asking the players to summarize the previous session--and then carefully observe the responses we get. ^148905867 --- it helps you see what sorts of things the players remembered. What events or NPCs resonated with them? What details of the story did they forget? ^148905868 --- Only after the players are done should you fill in any crucial information required to move the story forward. ^148905869 --- "Describe Your Killing Blow" ^148905870 --- NPCs don't sit around waiting for the characters to show up. It's not the GM's job to plan out exactly how a game session will go. Your job is to set the stage, describe it to the players, and let them interact with it. ^149093594 --- Theater-of-the-mind combat works best under certain circumstances, including the following: Combat that clearly favors the characters. Combat that's going to be over quickly. Combat that takes place in a simple environment such as a hallway, a square room, or an open field. Combat that includes more monsters than you can represent with miniatures, such as holding a castle gate against two hundred orcs. Scenes that might result in combat only under certain circumstances, such as a heated negotiation. Scenes that might be resolved with a large change to the environment, such as a collapsing cliff that crushes a force of hobgoblins below. Situations where any of the players cannot see the battle space, such as running a game online or if any of the players are visually impaired. ^149093595 --- Gridded battles work best in the following situations: Combat that includes a number of different types of monsters. Combat in a complicated but mostly horizontal environment. Combat that poses a strong challenge to the characters. Boss battles with lots of potential environmental options. Any battle where the details of movement, range, and the size of areas of effect can have a big impact on the outcome. ^149093596 --- you are a fan of the heroes. You can put difficult challenges in the way of the characters, but your goal is to watch them do awesome things. ^149093597 --- When you use an abstract map, you draw pictures of the encounter environment but reinforce to the players that it isn't drawn to scale. The abstract map shows the environment and the relative position of the characters and the monsters. It shows what's close by, what's far away, who can see what, and which combatants are close enough to attack each other. ^149093598 --- Abstract maps work best in the following circumstances: The battle benefits from everyone seeing the environment. The general locations of characters and monsters are important. The characters' and monsters' specific positions, speeds, distances, and ranges for attacks are not that important. A number of different types of monsters are part of the battle. Miniatures, a map, or 3D terrain will add to the fun of the game. ^149093599 --- How often you say the words, "What do you do?" shows you how close you are to the actions of the characters. If you have a sense that you've been talking for a long while without having said, "What do you do?", it means that you haven't been putting the characters into the middle of the story. They've just been observers. ^149093600 --- When the pace of the game starts to flag, you can help pick it up again by clarifying the characters' existing choices. You might reiterate long-term quests that have fallen to the wayside, remind the players of villains they've forgotten about, or restate the characters' overall goal when they enter a dungeon. ^149093601 --- In Hamlet's Hit Points, Robin Laws describes the story beats of three movies and talks about how to identify these types of story beats in your games. In particular, various beats aim either toward "hope," "fear," or are emotionally neutral. ^149093602 --- Mixing these upward and downward beats keeps players interested in the game. ^149093603 --- Tweaking combat is one way to change a beat from fear to hope, or vice versa. You can do so by adding monsters to make the fight harder, or removing monsters to make it easier. ^149093604 --- Here are ten examples of upward beats that you can drop into the game when the situation warrants it: The characters stumble through a secret wall into a forgotten treasure chamber. An adversary mistakes the characters for allies, spilling her secrets before she realizes her mistake. An enemy of the characters' enemies unexpectedly joins their attack. The environment has a negative impact on the monsters, but not the characters. The villain's lackeys all flee. The monster's weapon shatters. An evil cultist is accidentally immolated by a miscast spell. A raiding party rides out from the keep, giving the characters a chance to creep in. The characters find a font of healing energy that restores their vitality. A character finds a powerful forgotten weapon on the ancient corpse of a fallen explorer. ^149093605 --- The villain shows up--and is revealed as the advisor to the lord who hired the characters. A lone guard runs into the characters while unexpectedly returning to the barracks. The worst storm the city has ever seen hits on the very night of the characters' planned heist. The sewers overflow. The inn catches fire. The paladin's intelligent sword decides that now is the perfect time to force its will upon its wielder. The masked assassin pulls away her cowl to reveal that she is the sister of one of the characters. The warlord wakes up because he has to pee, just as the characters are quietly rifling his bedchamber. An important key falls down into a sewer grate. A burgled merchant happens to be the cousin to the master of the local thieves guild. ^149093606 --- Rotate through exploration, interaction, and combat to keep the pace cycling between action and relaxation.* Understand the upward and downward beats of hope and fear. ^149093607 --- "If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot." --Stephen King, On Writing ^149093608 --- it's worth your time to read and reread the published RPG books for the games you're playing. You can even study and borrow ideas from RPGs you aren't playing. ^149093609 --- Players Want to See Their Characters Do Awesome Things ^149093610 --- The players want to feel like heroes. So everything you do, everything you prepare, everything you put in their way should be built to empower their characters to do awesome and heroic things. ^149093611 --- You are Not the Enemy "Be a fan of the characters." --Dungeon World ^149093612 --- You can't take the players' new toy away from them after you ruled that it worked the first time. So instead, solve the problem by letting the world evolve. The villains learn new tactics, spreading that information out to their minions. The giants learn that it isn't the ape they should be attacking, but the wizard whose concentration maintains the polymorph spell. ^149093613 --- Delegate Initiative Tracking and Other Tasks ^149093614 --- Assign a Rules Lawyer ^149093615 --- Run Low-Level Campaigns It's harder to run high-level games than it is to run low-level games. Characters have many more options available to them at higher levels, making a more complex array of tactics and features for you to think about when designing encounters. ^149093616 --- Use static monster damage to save time on dice rolling and calculations. ^149093617 --- ## Citation ``` [^lazydm]: Shea, M. (2018). _Return of the lazy dungeon master_. [[Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master|My highlights]]. ```