Sly Flourish
Helping Game Masters run great roleplaying games.
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Favorite Articles
- Playing D&D can Save Your Life
- How to Play D&D
- How to Be a Great D&D Dungeon Master
- Running Theater of the Mind Combat
- The Lazy Encounter Benchmark
- Running Hordes
- Building Stronger Friendships through D&D
Latest Articles
- How Many Encounters Per Day in D&D? - 22 May 2023
- Using Maps for In-Person Games - 15 May 2023
- Organizing Digital RPG Materials - 8 May 2023
- Build from the Characters Outwards - 1 May 2023
- Build Your World with Immersive Daydreaming - 24 Apr 2023
- How Many Players are Ideal for a D&D 5e Group? Four. - 17 Apr 2023
- Spiral Campaign and World Building in D&D - 10 Apr 2023
- Converting Adventures Between Systems - 3 Apr 2023
- Multiple Solutions to a Single Problem - 27 Mar 2023
- Use Static Initiative for Monsters - 20 Mar 2023
- View All Articles
Sly Flourish's Books
- The Lazy DM's Forge of Foes
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
- Fantastic Locations
The Lazy GM's Resource Document
Some material in the Lazy DM series has been released under a Creative Commons Attribution license in the Lazy GM's Resource Document.
Older Books
The following books primarily focused on older editions of D&D and are largely outdated by the books above but you can enjoy them here for free under a Creative Commons license.
Lazy Dungeon Mastering
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- Choosing the Right Lazy DM Steps
- Running Session Zeros
- Review the Characters
- Start Strong
- Secrets and Clues
- Choosing Monsters
- Lazy D&D Prep through Handouts
DM Tools
- Tools of the Lazy DM
- Safety Tools
- Lazy D&D Cheat Sheet
- Lazy Monster Tokens
- Notion.so for Lazy D&D Prep
- Writing a One-Page Campaign Guide
- Progress Clocks for Complex Situations in D&D
- Pointcrawls for Overland Travel
- Replace Flanking with Cinematic Advantage
- Lightning Rods — Showcase Powerful Character Abilities
- Campfire Story Prompts During Rests in D&D
- Easy Initiative Cards
- Notable Third-Party Products for D&D
- Random Generators: Names, Monuments, Relics, Traps
DM Advice
- It's Five Minutes to Game Time
- The Ability Check — The Only D&D Subsystem You Need
- Improving Pacing
- Upward and Downward Beats
- Think Two Horizons Out
- Quest Pattern — Three of Five Keys
- Running Heists
- Running Downtime Sessions
- Think Through the Eyes of your Villains
- Build Resilient and Evolving Villainous Plots
- Recovering from a Bad Game
- A DM's Reading List
Combat Encounter Building
- Tracking Combat in D&D
- Guide to "Theater of the Mind" Combat
- The Lazy Encounter Benchmark
- Abstract Battlemaps
- Choose Monsters Based on the Story
- Dials of Monster Difficulty
- Reskinning Monsters
- Running Hordes
- Let Go of Defined Encounters
- Run Easy Battles
- Running Wars
- Two Thugs in the Woods
- Set Piece Battles
- Improving Boss Fights
Running D&D Online
- Experiences Running D&D Online
- Two Years Playing D&D Online
- Playing D&D over Discord
- Text-based Combat Tracking
- Call on Individual Players During Online D&D Games
- Interviewing New D&D Players for Online Games
Campaign Outlines
- A World Without Heroes — A 1st to 20th level Campaign Outline
- Harvester of Worlds — A Githyanki Campaign
- The Hunger — A Gnoll Campaign
- Demogorgon Must Die
One-on-One D&D
Rules Discussion
- Our Ability Check Toolbox
- Darkvision Isn't as Good As You Think
- What Does Passive Perception Show You?
- Handling Surprise
- The Flow of Trap Detection
- The Old Man and the Bowl
D&D Surveys and Polls
- A Study of DM Tricks
- D&D Twitter and Facebook Polls
- Analysis of DM Traits
- 2016 D&D Survey Results
- 2012 D&D Survey Results
D&D Published Adventure Guides
- Guide to WOTC's D&D Adventures
- Running Dragons of Stormwreck Isle — The 2022 D&D Starter Set Adventure
- Running Lost Mine of Phandelver from the 2014 D&D Starter Set
- Running Dragon of Icespire Peak from the D&D Essentials Kit
- i6 Ravenloft and Curse of Strahd
- Tomb of Annihilation
- Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat
- Ghosts of Saltmarsh
- Storm King's Thunder
- Waterdeep Dragon Heist
- Out of the Abyss
- Rime of the Frostmaiden
- Descent into Avernus
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