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Running Waterdeep Dragon Heist Chapter 2: Trollskull Alley
This is the third in a series of articles on running Waterdeep Dragon Heist. The other articles include: Session Zero of Waterdeep Dragon Heist Running Waterdeep Dragon Heist Chapter 1: A Friend In...
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Choosing the Right Steps from the Lazy DM Checklist
Chapter 12 of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master describes ways to reduce the eight steps of RPG preparation down to the ones that matter the most for your game. This list changes depending on the type...
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D&D Tips from the 2018 D&D Open: Gangs of Waterdeep
In the summer of 2018 at Origins, Wizards of the Coast and the D&D Adventurer's League ran the D&D Open, a multi-table competition-based D&D adventure called "Gangs of Waterdeep" as a...
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The Old Man and the Bowl
Leavold Goldenfingers worked his magic. Across the icy rocks of his home, high up in the Spine of the World, the sound of his tiny hammer clinking on the golden bowl echoed across the mountains. His...
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Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot Kickstarter
Last week I launched the Kickstarter for Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot. You can learn all about it on the Kickstarter's page, of course, but for those of you who frequent Sly Flourish,...
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On Writing Adventures
I've recently been doing a lot of adventure writing, the results of which you can find in the Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot Kickstarter. As part of this project, I wanted to dig deep...
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Running Waterdeep Dragon Heist Chapter 3: Fireball
Note: This article contains spoilers for Waterdeep Dragon Heist. Chapter 3 of Waterdeep Dragon Heist may be the best chapter in the book. This chapter fits well into the model of adventure design...
View ArticleLazy Dungeon Master Adventure Prep Template
One of the nice things about the eight steps for preparing a session of D&D from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is that it works with just about any tool you already like to use. If you're a...
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Running Waterdeep Dragon Heist Chapter 4: Dragon Season
Waterdeep Dragon Heist's chapters alternate through many different playstyles. Chapter 1 runs much like any standard Dungeons & Dragons adventure with a strong start, a quest, some investigation...
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Letters to New and Veteran Dungeon Masters
We're in an amazing time for our hobby. The number of people playing D&D appears to be roughly doubling every two years. That's a lot of new Dungeons & Dragons dungeon masters coming into the...
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Waterdeep Dragon Heist Chapter 5: The Heist
This article contains spoilers for Waterdeep Dragon Heist. This is one of a series of articles covering the hardback Dungeons & Dragons adventure Waterdeep Dragon Heist. You can read all of the...
View ArticleDM Deep Dive: Monster Design with Jeremy Crawford
Back in July 2018 I had the great honor to talk with Jeremy Crawford on the DM's Deep Dive. I had neglected to write up the notes for this interview and seek to remedy that problem right now. You can...
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Two Thugs in the Woods
Here at Sly Flourish we're big on setting up situations in our Dungeons & Dragons games instead of building pre-determined encounters. Instead of deciding that there are three bandits and two...
View ArticleLearning About the Characters
The first step for Dungeon & Dragons game prep recommended in Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is to review the characters. The characters are the primary interface between the players and the...
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Ghosts of Saltmarsh Session Zero
Chapter 17 of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master describes the value of running a "session zero" for a new campaign. In a session zero, our players can build their characters together while also...
View ArticleD&D DM Tip Generator
Over the past ten years, I've been posting a single D&D dungeon master tip each day to Twitter. I've collected these over the years and released them in a single big archive so anyone who wants to...
View ArticleDM's Deep Dive with David Christ
In July 2019 I had the pleasure of speaking with David Chris on the DM's Deep Dive. David Christ is the owner of Baldman Games, the company that runs D&D organized play events at a half-dozen of...
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Running Ghosts of Saltmarsh Chapter 2: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
Warning: This article contains spoilers for the adventure Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh is the first adventure in the Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign adventure book. In this article we...
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The Case for Static Monster Damage
This article has been updated from the original written in November 2015. The Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition Monster Manual includes static damage as the default in every monsters' stat block and...
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Running Downtime Sessions
Most of our Dungeons & Dragons games focus on exploration, roleplaying, and combat. We typically describe time in minutes and hours for exploration and roleplaying and seconds during combat....
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