slyflourish

joined 2 years ago
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Tips for creating murder mysteries in my games? in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I wrote an article with my thoughts on running mysteries here:

https://slyflourish.com/running_investigations_and_mysteries.html

DMG14 Mob Rules - Or How I Learned to Stop Rolling And Love Mass Combat in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

The new DMG likewise has a big table for figuring out how many rolls would succeed given a target number and number of rolls.

I have two approaches I prefer these days:

  1. The damage pool. Instead of tracking individual damage, you pool damage in a single tally and remove the last monster hit when it crosses the HP of a monster. Add up all the damage and remove a bunch of monsters with an area attack.

  2. Group up sets of monsters into four groups and then roll once for each group. If sixteen skeletons have to save versus a turn undead. Group them into four groups of four and roll four times.

We have a handful of ideas like this in Forge of Foes and the Lazy DMs Companion and released them under a CC license here:

https://slyflourish.com/lazy_gm_resource_document.html#runninghordes

Which are (some of) your favourites GM-tips/technique ? And how do you use-them in your games ? in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

I put my top tips here after about 15 years of collecting the best tips from hundreds of GMs:

https://slyflourish.com/top_advice.html

  • Let the Story Unfold at the Table
  • Set Up Situations and Let the Characters Navigate Them
  • Be On the Characters Side
  • Use Tools and Techniques that Help You Prepare to Improvise
  • Focus on your Next Game
  • Build Your World, Campaign, and Adventures from the Characters Outwards
  • Pay Attention to Pacing
  • Focus on the Fiction First and Mechanics Second
Good ttrpg critiques to read/watch/listen in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

The OSR podcast Between Two Cairns does critiques of old school adventures.

https://open.spotify.com/show/6jxIIEDsjAfm5H6n7kcn8f

NPC Stat Blocks for Spellcasters? in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

The Black Flag SRD also has some simpler spellcaster NPCs.

https://koboldpress.com/black-flag-reference-document/

How to navigate TTRPGs as someone that has never touched one? in c/dnd
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Free Dice Roller in CC0 (slyflourish.com)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
0 comments fedilink
 

A little JavaScript dice roller I whipped up released under a CC0 license.

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Your most used RPG books and accessories? (ttrpg.network)
 

This is a question for TTRPG GMs. What RPG books, supplements, or accessories do you find yourself using year after year? Which RPG products provide the biggest regular impact at your table?

23
City of Arches Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com)
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
3 comments fedilink
 

Hi friends!

I wanted you to know about the City of Arches Kickstarter going on right now!

The City of Arches is a 160 page PDF and hardcover high-fantasy city sourcebook built for Lazy DMs and usable with any version of 5e or other fantasy tabletop RPGs. In this book you’ll find

  • a high fantasy city setting surrounded by countless adventure locations.
  • a setting easily dropped into any existing published or homebrewed campaign world.
  • a setting where any race, species, origin, heritage, and culture makes sense.
  • over a dozen adventure “biomes” with hundreds of adventure locations.
  • three 1st to 20th level campaign arcs.
  • an intro scenario, three adventures, and an adventure toolkit for building your own heist or infiltration adventure.
  • beautiful full-color art, dungeon maps, and overland maps.
  • a player’s guide with background hooks and setting-specific backgrounds.

Download the free 42 page preview on the Kickstarter page! I hope you’ll back this fantastic new book.

Thank you so much!

What RPG have you been dying to run? in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'd love a go at Crown and Skull by Runehammer. It looks really interesting. I'd like to play it before I run it and, frankly, just don't have the time.

What does your gaming notebook or binder look like? in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I am!

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What does your gaming notebook or binder look like? (ttrpg.network)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
10 comments fedilink
 

Show us some pictures of your gaming, notebook or binder. I’m getting back into using a physical binder now that my games are more in person, and I need the inspiration!

Front of my gaming notebook

How is the New Planescape Book? in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I gave my opinions about it here: https://youtu.be/_v-jnQCTZ1Q?si=yOklCEzs4gkqg4n1

Help needed: how do YOU do things? in c/dnd
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Here’s some data on the topic!

https://slyflourish.com/facebook_surveys.html#onlinevsoffline2023

Question: This is a poll for D&D DMs and RPG GMs. Do you primarily play online or in person?

YouTube poll posted 18 April 2023 on YouTube, 2,900 respondents.

Response % of total Primarily online 41% Primarily in person 46% Both roughly equally 13%

Also some advice for in person maps:

https://slyflourish.com/drawing_maps.html

The Unofficial Cheatsheet for DMs that are Lazy in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Awesome stuff! The one thing I’d consider adding are some random names. They’re the number one improv tool.

Any tips for a complete noob? in c/dnd
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Flee Mortals! MCDMs Monster Book Now Available (shop.mcdmproductions.com)
 

MCDM, Matt Coleville’s company, just released Flee Mortals! This 400 page book includes new takes on existing 5e monsters and a few brand new ones – all in MCDMs style of cool tactics and action-oriented designs. I had the great pleasure of designing the vampires in this book including the monstrous Count Rhodar Von Glaur!

Check it out!

15
5.1 SRD in Spanish, Italian, French, and German (www.dndbeyond.com)
 

Wizards of the Coast has released the 5.1 System Reference Document (basically the core rules of D&D 5e) in four new languages alongside English including Spanish, Italian, German, and French.

https://media.wizards.com/2023/downloads/dnd/SRD_CC_v5.1_FR.pdf

https://media.wizards.com/2023/downloads/dnd/SRD_CC_v5.1_IT.pdf

https://media.wizards.com/2023/downloads/dnd/SRD_CC_v5.1_DE.pdf

https://media.wizards.com/2023/downloads/dnd/SRD_CC_v5.1_ES.pdf

All of these have been released under a Creative Commons Attribution License which means creators are free to copy, modify, and use these works – including commercially – by referencing the document and it’s license in their work.

In my opinion, this is an amazing effort and one that helps Wizards of the Coast improve its reputation as a good steward of D&D and good partner of the hobby.

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Open5e.com on Morrus’s Unofficial Tabletop Podcast (morrus.podbean.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/dnd
1 comments fedilink
 

I had a great time checking in on various D&D news and talking to Morrus and Jessica about https://open5e.com on Morrus’s Unofficial Tabletop Podcast yesterday. I hope you give it a listen!

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RPG daily blog summaries at dndblogs.com (dndblogs.com)
 

Hi friends! To do my small part for the TTRPG fediverse, I resurrected an old RPG blog rss aggregator I ran about 10 years ago and refreshed it with some GPT-based summarization. You can find it right here:

https://dndblogs.com/

It updates every morning from the following feed lists.

https://slyflourish.com/sly_flourish_rpg_blogroll.html

If there are any great TTRPG blogs I’m missing, please let me know!

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Community Service Announcement – Open5e.com (open5e.com)
 

Friends! In case you didn’t know it, there’s an awesome volunteer-run website called https://open5e.com/ that includes tons of OGL-released 5e material. If you’re looking for a quick spell or monster lookup, this is your place. If you’re developing a system of your own, you can access the data there through an API in a structured format. It includes the 5e SRD, a lot of material from Level Up Advanced 5e (including all of their awesome monsters), it includes all four Kobold Press monster books and we’re already working on the new Tome of Beasts 1 2023 edition. It has backgrounds and subclasses from Tome of Heroes. It’s just packed with awesome stuff.

You’ll always get better descriptions, art, and design from the books themselves but if you’re looking to link to 5e material, this is the site for you.

If you like what you see there and want to help out, there are lots of ways you can do so. Join the Open 5e Discord server, introduce yourself, and jump on in!

https://discord.gg/EWgm7CeKek

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