slyflourish

I love the Pathfinder basic flip mat and bigger basic flip mat. You can use wet and dry erase on them. They’ll last forever. They’re really easy to care for. And they’re inexpensive.

They fold up instead of rolling up but they’re great.

I’ve been using two chessex battle maps for a few months now and they’re great too but dry erase only, more expensive, and need more special care like not leaving anything on them, not folding them, and using the right colors.

If I had to pick one, it would be the Pathfinder basic flip mat.

https://paizo.com/products/btq02eip?Pathfinder-FlipMat-Basic

Really fun video. Getting a consistent group together is probably the hardest part of running a game. If you can enjoy a game with even as few as one or two players, that can work well.

I use a few tricks to keep groups going:

Have six full-time players.
Have two "on call" players – these are players who are interested but might not be able to commit regularly and are willing to jump in when a spot is open.
Run with as few as four. This means it takes five people cancelling before you can't run a game.
Run at a consistent time each week.
Run shorter games – I go for 3 hours.

That's helped me keep multiple groups going for ten years with one group consistent for about 20 years.

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

https://slyflourish.com/running_investigations_and_mysteries.html

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:

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.
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

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

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

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

The Black Flag SRD also has some simpler spellcaster NPCs.

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

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.

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

I’ve been using the Tome of Beasts 1 2023 edition for a few sessions now and I love it.

Thanks so much for the post!

Close! It’s my wife and I now 😀

Nice to see some love for Owlbear Rodeo!

That guys going places

Mike (Sly Flourish)

@ slyflourish @ttrpg.network

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Mike (Sly Flourish)

4$ for Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master

Affordable grid mat options?

Your DnD Party is Too Big [the maths of scheduling]

Tips for creating murder mysteries in my games?

DMG14 Mob Rules - Or How I Learned to Stop Rolling And Love Mass Combat

Which are (some of) your favourites GM-tips/technique ? And how do you use-them in your games ?

Good ttrpg critiques to read/watch/listen

NPC Stat Blocks for Spellcasters?

How to navigate TTRPGs as someone that has never touched one?

Free Dice Roller in CC0

Your most used RPG books and accessories?

Your most used RPG books and accessories?

City of Arches Kickstarter

What RPG have you been dying to run?

What does your gaming notebook or binder look like?

Help needed: how do YOU do things?

Any tips for a complete noob?

[RPGBot] Tome of Beasts 1 (2023 Edition) – A Review

Open5e.com on Morrus’s Unofficial Tabletop Podcast

Looking for advice on running The Wild Beyond The Witchlight

[Sly Flourish] Focus Your Campaign

[Sly Flourish] Focus Your Campaign

[PC Gamer] Taking your D&D campaign online is a game-changer, and so easy I wish I'd done it sooner

RPG daily blog summaries at dndblogs.com

[Sly Flourish] Ensure the Resilience of Your RPGs

What's your favorite piece of GM advice?