D&D 5e: Sly Flourish's The Lazy Dungeon Master

If you've stumbled onto this post, chances are you already know about Sly Flourish: a deeply data-driven game master who has thought extensively and deeply about the ways DMs run their games (and, perhaps more importantly, how games can be run better!).

I've followed Sly Flourish's Twitter for a little more than five years--since roughly the start of the hype for D&D Next/5e. Until this week, I haven't had a chance to actually look at the physical, published work of Mike Shea (the person behind the Sly Flourish "brand"). My wife bought me a copy of the original Lazy Dungeon Master and in between holiday festivities I've happily read through it, using my read-through as a perfect opportunity to test out note-taking in my other Christmas gift, a Rocketbook.

This post, then, does two things: it serves as a look back at what DMing advice looked like before D&D's fifth edition, and it serves as a rough "review" of Shea's original text on the subject.

On page 7, Shea posits the central idea of his project: "Think back over...the most memorable moments...How many were pre-scripted by the DM and how many were memorable simply because no one...had any idea what was about to happen[?]"

Honestly? Almost always, the best moments I've seen while DMing (or as a player) were judiciously prepared ahead of time; a critical choice or even roll is the focus--an inexchangeable  contribution by players--but that moment itself is well-prepared far in advance.

I agree with Shea that the story is build "while the game runs at the table," but, for my players at least, the direction of that story is often set in motion ahead of time.

On page 8, Shea proposes that DMs should "keep [the] choices down to three."

This is solid advice in almost every arena of player interaction. Fewer than three choices can feel scripted. (It must be either this or that!) More than three can feel overwhelming very quickly. Even in the most advanced open-world games, if we're completely directionless the games often become merely playgrounds. Think of the difference  between playing Minecraft and playing Skyrim: Both could be satisfying, but only the second is a roleplaying game.

Shea walks DMs through the process with a sample adventure scheme and asks DMs to create their

own as he unveils the process. One of his first questions is, "Where does your adventure begin?" This is good advice in the pre-5e world. If we're truly doing the start of a campaign, I might replace that now with, "How do the PCs know each other? Why are they together?" I followed the advice and attempted to generate three areas the PCs might encounter/explore, three notable NPCs, and 3 villainous NPCs. I have gone through exercises like this before, and while I find them helpful in theory, I seldom end up using anything I generate in actual play. Perhaps ironically, I find that the time I spend on such exercises is wasted (for me). I hope it actually stretches my creative muscles, but I have no evidence to suggest that it does. 

On page 15, Shea recommends "Don't sell an ending you can't deliver." Put another way, he recommends letting players drive the story. This is sound advice for a group of "active" players! Most of the players I deal with are in the "lazy" category. They are explorers, traveling through the game world like tourists. They want to see, they want to experience, and they want to solve puzzles (in addition to clobbering monsters and becoming more powerful). Put another way, they're not looking for adventure, they're looking for adventure to find them! If there's no world-ending threat, their experience is somehow diminished. It's not to say that an occasional side-quest or silly session can't be rewarding--they are!--but rather that the reason my players play is both to spend time with other/have fun and to be heroes. Shea is right that we shouldn't sell endings we can't deliver, but I'd rather look at this as: "Don't forget to deliver on the ending you've sold!" I don't want to play in a campaign without the ending I "bought." 

On page 26, Shea writes his sixteenth section on "Reskinning". It's solid advice. Never re-create what you can just re-skin! Flavor is easy to change; mechanical calibrations take a lot of time and the chances are that someone has already done it for you. On page 28, Shea (crediting Dave Chalker) introduces the term "Combat Outs" to describe methods a DM might use to end a combat early. I love the term and I'm surprised I didn't come across it sooner. In the same section, Shea talks about how maybe we over-prepare the mechanics of monster strongholds and posits that we could probably get by with the knowledge that there is a stronghold and that it has X number of creatures guarding it. As a DM, I need a LOT more guidance to work with ahead of time than how many monsters there are. How big is the complex? How many of the creatures guard the doors? Are sleeping? Are fighting? What are the rest doing? Eating? Slaving? Gambling? Without that info in advance, I'm likely to treat them as mindless traps, coming to life when the PCs are present in empty, faceless rooms and becoming inert and inactive otherwise. 

Pages 29-30 are the most dated in the book. Credit to Shea, though, as he foreshadows both the way 5e deals with experience (milestones) and ascending power bonuses (proficiency). His "PC Wish List" has a charm to it, but takes a lot of the fun out of random loot. What I've done in the past is to ask PCs to choose/make a single magic item for their character that I, as DM, will supply as a reward or piece of loot at some point in the campaign. That way, PCs get the opportunity to be a part of a reward system without taking away the majority of the fun of random loot! 

On pages 31-32, Shea offers his critique of using published materials. His objections revolve around the time costs of preparing them and the "generic" nature of them. He's right about both. I suspect the generic nature is one of the reasons published campaigns so seldom write their way through the upper teens to make characters level 20 (and simultaneously, why so many campaigns don't make it to the upper teens). Regarding that preparation, I find it useful time spent because any moment spent preparing for a published campaign is guaranteed effective; it points somewhere! The story/arc are present, the clues/foreshadowing are already figured out, all that has to be done is to drop players in and let them play. Preparing or running a homebrew (or "lazy") game may end in a dead-end. Published campaigns don't. It requires "active" players to maintain the momentum of a "lazy" campaign; I don't sustain that as a player, and I think it might be a tough sell for my own players! As far as the "generic" part, that's where using them "loosely" as "inspiration, not gospel" comes in and makes sense. Running published adventures can't be done slavishly in the best of conditions, but it needs to be done artfully to be done well. 

On page 33, Shea writes that we should "delegate to the most distracted" player(s), and this is excellent advice at any game table. Give players responsibilities that are simple but recurring. On page 34, Shea skates the surface of what "Lazy Dungeon Mastering" is all about: Improving Improvisation. Improv is a very important skill; in the home games I've been a part of, however, solving the "big mystery" that defines the campaign is one of the main reasons we enjoy it together! Improv for NPCs, voices, side-quests--that's all exceptionally good and useful. On the other hand, improvising the campaign from a single seed is...too undeveloped for me. If that mystery isn't there to unravel, it doesn't matter what the "trust" situation" is like. Having said that, most of the section contains great advice: practice, practice, practice, and ultimately aim for relaxed awareness at the table. 

The last section of the book involves transcriptions of his interviews with ten notable DMs. I think this section was the most shocking in that the DMs overwhelmingly (eight out of ten!) were in favor of a lot of preparation before their games.

What all ten seemed to agree on:

1. DMs are not novelists or lore developers: don't waste time on extraneous lore or world-building. Let all of that flow naturally. 
2. Mechanical effects are important when designing set-piece encounters, but almost none of the DMs mentioned monster or NPC stat creation. Their time was spent on the personality or motives of NPCs/monsters. Stats come from the manuals.
3. The best sessions blossom when PCs respond to the DM and the DM responds to the players. 

Conclusion: Preparation (of the right kinds) is extremely important.
 
Overall, I'm glad I read it, but in retrospect, I should probably have read Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master instead!

One side note that bothered me as a teacher of English is the number of typos. Shea does need to hire an editor for future projects!

MPQ: How to Make the Most of Your Time in Marvel Puzzle Quest

For the uninitiated, Marvel Puzzle Quest is a "match 3" mobile game in the line of Bejeweled (or Candy Crush) but with two notable twists. The first is the addition of "powers" which change the gameplay or gameboard as well as providing a competitive defeat-your-opponent (rather than "the board") objective. The second is the addition of Marvel heroes and villains as placeholders of the various powers, attached to hit points that determine whether you win or lose.

This is not a review of that game (or an advertisement for it), but rather my thoughts on how to make the most of the game as quickly as possible. I like systems and procedures to streamline complicated experiences, and MPQ lends itself well to that.

1. Hero Prioritization:

1. General Notes: It will be tempting to start collecting higher-star covers (heroes) as soon as possible, but don't add heroes to your roster until you've completed your collection for the tiers two below. (As an example, don't bother adding four-star heroes until you've completed collecting the three one-stars you need and all of the two-star heroes.)
2. One-Star Heroes: Snag Spiderman, Storm, and Iron Man and level them up to 50 as soon as possible. Sell off any other one-star heroes you gain access to. When you get additional covers for the first three, use them to "upgrade" your existing heroes even when they're at max level. This will give you +10xp per upgrade. Overtime, this will be of greater value to you than the 100 iso. (Eventually, you'll go back to selling them off, but early Shield Levels, the product of that xp, are worth more iso.)
3. Two-Star Heroes: Collect all of them! When you've got them all up to level 94 and are starting to upgrade the champion levels, get a second set of Storm, Magneto, and Hawkeye. Leave one of these sets at max level at all times. With all of the other two-stars, as you hit max champion level, wait until you get a new cover for that hero (one that you "can't" use) then sell off the champion with all of his upgrades and covers and re-recruit him with the unused cover. By "cycling" the two-star heroes in this way, you'll always have what you need for specific events (like the Deadpool Daily) and you'll also have a constant source of hero coins, heroic tokens, and three-star covers. While this process may seem iso-8 intensive, the other rewards more than outweigh the costs.
4. Three-Star Heroes: Collect all of them! The three-stars are much more useful for non-specific events than the two-stars; do not cycle them in the same way as the two-stars. Earn all of the three star covers you need, get them to champion levels, max out the champion levels, and then get a second of the same hero and repeat the process. Only when you've maxed out the second hero should you sell off one of them and repeat the process. Again, this is an opportunity to earn hero coins, heroic tokens, and four-star covers.
5. Four-Star Heroes: Collect all of them! The four-stars are the bread-and-butter of the game--the heavy lifters who offer most of the unique game-play options. They will also be the (second) most expensive (iso-8-wise) to level up to champion level and the (second) hardest to get covers for. Bottom line: prioritize heroes you have covers for. When you get 13 covers for a hero you possess, start making progress toward champion level. Do whatever you can to get heroes to champion level as quickly as possible so that future covers are put to use as bonuses (rather than sitting in storage or being lost).
6. Five-Star Heroes: Everyone wants five-stars. They are the best heroes in the game and when fully upgraded a team of them can demolish almost any opponent with ease. These are the only heroes that are an understandable reason to pass up a 3- or 4-star hero. Eventually, of course, it's important to have room for all of them, but like the other groups there are a lot of them. When you get one with a few covers (that you like the gameplay style of) toss the bonus star on 'em so that you can accelerate the process of maxing 'em out.

2. Currency Management:

1. Iso-8: This is the "standard" or basic currency that can be earned for almost every activity in the game. It is used to level-up standard heroes; prioritize its use on heroes you can achieve maximum level on and upgrade to "champion" status. This may sound counter-intuitive, but prioritize lower-star rated heroes first. The cost is less up front and the champ-level rewards are worthwhile. This is the cleanest way to avoid "wasting" covers or having to sell hero covers for more iso.
2. Hero Coins: This is the good stuff, the currency you want to use on exactly the right things to avoid running out. This is definitely the currency the game wants you to use up quickly and pay more real-world money for. Use it on roster slots ONLY until you no longer have heroes left you want to recruit! This is incredibly important as the best/easiest way to get more hero coins is to level up champion-level characters with more covers--and the fastest and easiest way to do that is to have as many characters as possible. Only after you have achieved a greater than maximum roster (see above) you can use the hero coins to gamble on more covers. Do this sparingly: never pay more than 100 hero coins for a chance at another cover. Usually, the first hero coin expenditure of the day costs 100 coins for a given event. After that, the price spikes. Just be patient; you'll burn through those coins soon enough even at the rate of 100 per event per day!
3. Command Points: These were added after the game started picking up steam and they're a great way for a new player to "catch up" to existing players. The game wants you to spend your command points in blocks of 25 on "new legendary tokens." This is always a scam. Use your command points to unlock covers of your 3-star heroes until all of your 3-star heroes are at champion level. Similarly, if you're low on hero coins when you have maxed out your 3-stars (that is, you don't have a ton of 4-star heroes and you don't have hero coins to buy more roster slots) use the command points to boost your existing 4-stars toward champion level status. Once you reach maximum roster saturation, then you can use the command points (in blocks of 20) to purchase a standard legendary token which might yield you a 5-star (the ultimate goal) or which more likely will give you a random 4-star cover (which, since you have maxed your roster, won't go to waste!).
4. Red Iso: This is the newest currency and goes with the new "support" system. Supports are fun--and can be very powerful--but the bottom line is to use them however you wish. I have little advice for these because supports are not easy to come by (especially powerful ones) without spending real-world money. They don't work in any versus events, they often only work a percentage of the time, and they take a lot of red iso to level up to max level. Enjoy your supports, but don't worry about them. Make sure you put the supports you have to work on the characters you use most often.  
5. Deadpool Daily: If you do nothing else, get used to doing the six missions in the Deadpool Daily. Early on, you'll only be able to do the first mission, then the first three. Eventually, you'll be able to do all six missions (and occasionally make use of the seventh, offered every five days). With the right line-ups, this takes around fifteen minutes of time to play all six or seven missions.
• Early Team (2-star): Early on, the team of 2-star Magneto, Storm, and Hawkeye is a very effective set. Prioritize purple and blue (and then red) to use Magneto's purple to make 5-matches of blue (for Hawkeye's passive and Storm's blue ability).
• Mid-Level Team: There are a lot of ways to arrange three-stars; check out other internet guides for the heroes you enjoy playing! For the Deadpool Daily, you will want to have either 5- or 3-star Thanos leveled up as quickly as possible for missions five and six; being able to down one opponent and have Thanos's Court Death ability clean up the rest of the field is a huge time saver! As soon as you have a 3-star Deadpool, make sure that you bring him on at least one mission a day to get the "Deadpool Points." The ability to drop "all the whales" (see his purple ability for details) can help you win particularly difficult fights in a pinch, but you'll need Deadpool Points to do that.
• High Level Team: When available, take 5-star Black Bolt alongside Thanos (and maybe 3-star Deadpool) for the upper level Daily missions. His passive Channel Energy ability will help down that first opponent fast, making even quicker use of Thanos's passive black ability.

D&D 5e: The Value of Boxed Text

Boxed Text (or read-alouds) is one of those widely debated and highly contested pieces of D&D adventures.

If you're totally unfamiliar, boxed text is a bit of narration that is generally tagged or keyed to an encounter area in an adventure. Most published adventures for the last few editions of the game have made copious use of them; the players I work with (and I) are so trained to look for them that when an encounter area doesn't have boxed text, we tend to think the area is not a "real area" or at the very least it's unimportant.

While I understand the issues associated with boxed text, which I'll review shortly, it fills a necessary niche in the module. In very real terms, it's one of the main reasons I buy and run published adventures.

To the blessings:

1. Boxed text cuts down on prep time. There. I said it. The number one reason I will always choose modules with boxed text over modules without is that it reduces the amount of work I have to do on the fly at the table. 
2. Boxed text reminds players that they're participating in a cooperative story. In between the inside jokes, quips about Mt. Dew and Cheetos, and the inevitable mechanical foul-ups that bureaucratize the experience of Dungeons and Dragons, boxed text re-centers the players (and the DM) on the story at hand. 
3. Boxed text allows the DM to worry more about the encounter than what the encounter looks like. If the players don't notice a key detail in read-aloud text, it can be repeated. If the DM has to make up an appropriate description on the spot, two problems arise: first, the DM may miss a crucial detail ("Oh, wait, the suits of armor are headless?") and second, the DM may end up contradicting their own descriptions on subsequent re-tellings ("I thought you said Jurime was a drow? That's the whole reason I wanted to hide!"). 

Admittedly, boxed text is not perfect--but it can get pretty close. Many more experienced writers and DMs than myself have tackled this question before.

1. Shawn Merwin: In a 2010 article called "Thinking Outside the Boxed Text," Merwin poses a scenario in which players' characters are tossed out of the narrative because the boxed text gets details about their game world experience wrong. His solution is an appropriate one: shift the focus away from "you" when writing boxed text; the 2nd person is a bit too specific to apply well across characters. Merwin's advice continues by saying to keep boxed text reasonably short, direct, and clear--something that all effective module writing should be.
2. Courtney Campbell: In a 2013 article called "On the Definitive Inadequacy of Boxed Text," Campbell makes the case that boxed text causes more problems than it solves. His main contention seems to be that boxed text reads like fiction, that human beings struggle to use the particular kind of focus that boxed text requires for longer than a few seconds, and that therefore almost anything would be a better alternative to boxed text. The one "solution" proposed is to have the text that is written for the DM's own eyes to be slightly more evocative (only slightly!) and therefore to have the DM's information occasionally spill over into what the players hear. This emphasis increases prep time, removes the narrative element in favor of a focus on mechanics, and doesn't solve the problem of burying important details.

The bottom line is that boxed text should never have to be read aloud. It can be read verbatim, it can be paraphrased, or it can be ignored. However, it should always be there for published adventures. It cuts down on prep time, it engages the narrative sense of the players, and it makes the DM's job at the table easier by ensuring that all relevant ideas are conveyed effectively to players at the start of an encounter or area. They can absolutely be done badly, but the existence of bad read-alouds is no excuse for throwing out the baby with the bathwater.