Category Archives: DM/GM Tips

How to random table adventure ideas

D&D, DM/GM Tips, RPG

Recently (in the last month) there have been two great videos put out on YouTube that show creating ideas for adventures using random tables.

I like these type of videos as they basically act as “how to” videos, and also give a sneak peak in to the creative process of those doing the video.

Plus we all know how I feel about using random tables to generate ideas. So I’m bound to be biased and love these videos.

The first video is by Kelsey aka The Arcane Library, and the tables used are from the pretty amazing book Tome of Adventure Design.

Kelsey has talked about this before in her adhoc enewsletter and I followed those steps in a previous post (there was a second post too).

I’m looking forward to when Kelsey does part two.

The second video is by Mike aka Sly Flourish who did this video as part of his current Kickstarter for the Lazy DM’s Companion.

The Companion is the third book in the Lazy DM series, and is chock full of guidelines and adventure generators (read themed tables) to inspire you.

It’s those adventure generators that Mike uses in these videos, in particular the ones from the free sample pdf on the Kickstarter (you don’t even have to be a backer to get it!)

What I like about the generators aka tables in the Companion is that they are themed. Otherwise they most definitely scratch my random generation itch that I get. Maybe I should follow in Mike’s foot steps and do a post using the generators (although I’ll use the pdf of them from the Patreon instead of the freebie sample). I mean I have done posts following Kelsey’s steps previously. Only right I should do the way of the Lazy DM too.

UPDATE 22/10/22: Last night Mike aka Sly Flourish did another twitch stream as part of his Kickstarter that is part two to his Let’s Make an Adventure video. It’s now on YouTube (embedded below). In this one Mike goes into how to fill out a dungeon. Well worth a watch.

UPDATE 18/11/21: A couple of days ago (it might be 3 or 4, dats are blurring into each other these days) Kelsey live-streamed the second part to her video I embedded above. Just like that one I’ve embedded it below so everything is in one nice handy place.

I’m also embedding a recent video from Sly Flourish about building lazy magic items. It fits in with the whole theme of this post and using tables to inspire and create content.

Improvising Legendary Monsters the Lazy DM Way!

D&D, DM/GM Tips, RPG

Yesterday Sly Flourish put up one of his DM Tips/Short Cuts videos that was about “Improvising Legendary D&D Boss Monsters” (video embedded below).

I love videos like this. I love how they help DM’s, whether new or old, have the tools to help them up their game while running a D&D session. But especially videos like this that help build up tools you can use to react to unplanned events at the table.

After all even in my short time as a DM I know that the party of adventurers will go off book, do the unexpected. You can’t plan for everything. And the way of the Lazy DM doesn’t try to.

But it does give you the tools to be able to handle everything. Even if you are making it up as you are going along at the table. Or improvising as it’s called.

I was going to write up some notes on the video for me to refer to at the table. An aid memoir.

But before I did that I thought let’s just see if Sly Flourish has written a blog post on this to go along with the video. He had not. There was a post on “Improvising Colville-style Action Oriented Monsters in D&D” which has been added to my notes.

There was one last place to check before sitting down and scribbling down some stuff. That place was the Uncovered Secrets pdf on his Patreon for patreons (although later this year will be part of a third book in the Lazy DM series).

I hit pay dirt. Sly had written up the notes for me already. How kind. That saves me a lot of time. I know I have the pdf, and can print the page out. But I’m hoping that when it comes to putting the new book together that this makes the cut. Sly has said on his live streams that one or two of the Patreon articles that makes up Uncovered Secrets and the Adventure Generators pdf (both will make up the new book) will remain Patreon exclusives.

I’m also crossing my fingers that the above linked article about Action Oriented monsters gets added.

So you’ve just read a post about how I haven’t made some notes on a video I like! Is this a none post? I’ll try better in the next post.

Quest Models

Cyberpunk Red, D&D, DM/GM Tips, Eberron, genesys, Judge Dredd, Paranoia, Rogue Trooper, RPG, Strontium Dog, Uncategorized, W.O.I.N.

This recent video by Sly Flourish is one of many short DM advice videos that he has released recently. They are rather nifty, and brilliant for those with busy lives.

The reason I’ve embed the video and talking about it here is that I think this advice is pretty universal to which ever RPG system you are playing.

The three common quest models Sly briefly covers in the above video are:

  • Kill the boss quest
  • Recover the artifact
  • Rescue somebody

Sly points out that it’s the flavour that makes these quest models interesting. To aid in that flavour I think the adventuring party needs a patron of some kind. Whether that patron is a crime lord, guild leader, a fixer, wealthy, powerful, a corporation (I think you get the idea) they are a handy plot device to use to introduce one of the quest models above, and not just away to give the party useful equipment.

For instance they could have to eliminate a rival crime lord, steal a top secret device/plans from a rival corporation, or rescue hostages.

This isn’t the first time that Sly has talked about quest models. In the video below he talks about “The Three-of-Five Collection Quest”.

“The Three-of-Five Collection Quest” is a variation of “recover the artifact” quest. Sly also lists three other quest models within the above video, the “heist”, “kill the lieutenant” and “destroy the thing”. But in reality to the initial list from the quest models video we are only adding one new quest to our tool box.

  • Kill some-one
  • Recover the thing/heist
  • Rescue somebody
  • Destroy the thing

I would argue a heist is a variation of the recover the thing quest model, if not the same thing. I don’t see any difference between the “kill the boss” and “kill the lieutenant” quests. They are basically go kill some-one for some reason. So I think count as one.

UPDATE: adding a fifth quest model escort/protect someone/thing.

With these handful of quest models it should be easy to come up with quests for your campaign or even at a push on the fly.

Oh while I’m talking RPGs. It struck me as I was binge watching Leverage for the third or fourth time that the Leverage team is the perfect party make up for a cyberpunk (Red or Android) party.

I’m not sure what the mastermind role would map to, but they are basically the brains of the group. But every other role maps I believe. At a push this could be a D&D party too. What do you think?

Quick and Easy Dire Creatures

D&D, DM/GM Tips, RPG

I think it’s no secret to those that read this blog that I like the advice that Sly Flourish gives, and the whole Lazy DM approach to preparing for a D&D session.

A while back I was watching his YouTube video (embedded below) for the preparation he does for the weekly D&D session he runs.

These are great to watch because you get to see the Lazy DM approach in action, and pick up snippets of great advice about running D&D at the same time.

The video I was watching had a doozy at the beginning. As usual the start of the video Sly retells the events of the previous session. However during that retelling we get a great bit of advice about creating dire versions of creatures on the fly.

I liked that advice so much I thought I needed to write this down somewhere. Which brings us to the whole point of this post.

Before I note the simple steps used to create a dire creature, what is a dire creature? Up to this point like many the only other time I can remember hearing of one is from A Game of Thrones with the dire wolves. So a dire creature is a larger, tougher, meaner version of the creature (there is a brief interesting discussion about it here).

I think these following notes will be simpler to follow with an example. So I’m going to create a dire ankheg!

The first thing Sly does for a new dire creature is double the hit points of the base creature. So this dire ankheg would have 78 hit points.

Give it an extra attack action or double the amount of attacks it does. So the Ankheg can now do two bite attacks a turn.

Basically bump numerical things up a couple of points.

Give it a couple of points on the Attack & Damage, so the Bite is now +7 to hit and does 11 points of damage.

Or you could do as Sly so succinctly summarises in this tweet I stumbled upon yesterday.

I have plans for using this a lot, it’s a dire world we live in out there!

Essential DM Reading For D&D

D&D, DM/GM Tips

Who am I as a newbie DM giving advice? How do I know what to advise another new Dm needs to read and pay particular attention to from the core books?

Luckily the Dungeon Dudes talked about this in a video Christmas Eve. Yes I know this might seem a bit late to be telling you about it. But to be fair I wasn’t going to do a post about it. Then Sly Flourish did a post about reading material for DM’s and I thought you know what I should make a record of this for myself (and share it with others).

So I have screen grabbed the summary from the Dungeon Dudes video (link below) of the pages that they think a beginning DM should read. I added the image to the notes app on iOS (it seems to be my go to note keeping place at the moment).

You can watch the video HERE, or jump straight to the detailed good stuff that they put into a Google doc HERE.

Personally I think I have distilled a lot of this stuff down to a single A4 page!

I call it a cheat sheet, and is something I can refer to quickly (it’s something I keep wanting to do for the likes of Genesys or Judge Dredd too). It’s basically all the dice based checks as simple formula (as the snippet above shows). You can pick up a copy from Dropbox HERE (it’s a word doc so you can edit to fit your own needs if you want).

In the DM Guide there is the infamous Appendix D: Dungeon Master Inspiration with a list of books to “help you become a better storyteller, writer, performer,and mapmaker.”

However Sly Flourish recently (in the last couple of days as I write this) wrote a post with an alternative reading list for DM’s (link HERE). Which I thought was a particularly good reading list (with links), and not just because I had more than one of the books on the list (and felt a little smug having them already).

I like lists like this because they often suggest titles that I may never have considered or even known about. And new sources of inspiration and knowledge are always welcome.

I hope folks have found this a useful post.

More DM tips from social media

D&D, DM/GM Tips, RPG

Thought I’d capture on here one or two DM tips that I decided to capture for future reference.

Hopefully I’ll remember these once we start our campaign back up.

I don’t think any of the spellslingers in our campaign currently have counterspell as something they can cast. But it’s handy to bear this in mind.

One thing I do need to improve are my descriptions of locations. But I agree with the tip below. So I need to get the balance right.

I think I’ve shared this one before. But better save than sorry.

The nice thing about this one is that you can create tables before hand to roll against, or buy one of the many pdfs that have such tables to save the effort of creating your own. Although I do like the personal touch of creating my own.