Expanding Each of the Eight Steps

by Mike on 6 July 2026

The Kickstarter for Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster has begun! I hope you'll check out the Kickstarter, download the preview, and support our new book. Please pass it along to other GMs you think might enjoy it.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/rise-of-the-lazy-game-master?ref=603clt

Over the next few weeks I'll be diving into the big chunks that make up this book:

The Eight Steps – Expanded (today's article!)
Building and Running Lazy Campaigns
Adventure Types
The Lazy GM's Toolbox

The Same Eight Steps – Expanded

First, good news — the eight steps of Lazy GM Prep haven't changed. They still include:

Review the Characters
Create a Strong Start
Outline Potential Scenes
Define Secrets and Clues
Develop Fantastic Locations
Outline Important NPCs
Choose Relevant Monsters
Select Rewards

Only one of these steps has a slight name change — "Select Magic Item Rewards" to just "Select Rewards". This change is an example of what we've done with the eight steps throughout Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster. They're still the same eight steps but we've learned a lot from running and playing games. We received a lot of feedback on the steps over the past eight years. Many new games have come out since then and the eight steps still hold up but we can expand them further.

Each of the chapters on the eight steps in Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster dive deep into the step — recognizing how these steps change depending on you, your group, where you are in your campaign, what sort of campaign you've built, and what system you're running.

Review the Characters now includes discussions on character motivations, campfire tales, stars and wishes, character-based secrets, noting character mechanics, and wish lists.

Creating a Strong Start includes lists of twenty strong starts and twenty hooks to draw your characters into the game. You'll find these inspirational tables of twenty options throughout the whole book. Just about every chapter has one or more lists. You can read them, consider them as examples, roll on them, or hack them into your own game. A sidebar in this chapter also talks about mashing the strong start into your "scenes" list to help consolidate your notes — a trick I've been doing myself now for a year or so.

Outlining Potential Scenes talks about the vast array of scenes you might pack into this step — sequential scenes, potential parallel options, future quest hooks, and more. Scenes became the junk drawer of the eight steps (in a good way) — letting you jam in all sorts of things to help you get your head around your next session.

Defining Secrets and Clues offers lists of both what sort of secrets you might consider and how your characters might find them — two very common requests as GMs get their head around this idea. It also talks about using secrets and clues with mysteries (also further covered in the Investigations and Mysteries adventure type) and talking about the advantage of moving past secrets forward when it makes sense.

Developing Fantastic Locations expands beyond large set-piece locations that typically focus on an evocative name and three "aspects". Now it also includes filling out large maps with just a one or two word name to define a place or writing down a list of potential rooms when you're not sure what path the characters might take. This chapter has six tables of twenty options covering monuments, origins, factions, effects, dungeon rooms, and dungeon types.

Outlining Important NPCs notes several potential character traits and using the technique of thinking through the eyes of your NPC to figure out how they'd act and react in any given situation. It also discusses when to act and when to roll.

Choosing Relevant Monsters discusses how to choose relevant monsters for the situation, understanding encounter balance for whatever system you play, the importance of monsters, situations, and pacing, and which battles need more planning and which can be shaped by the situation in the world and the dice you roll.

Selecting Rewards talks about managing random treasure and player wish lists, the different kinds of rewards different systems offer, with examples of common magic items for various fantasy RPGs, integrating intelligent magic items, and keeping an eye out for items that can make your game more difficult to run.

Independent and Complementary

When writing Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster it was important for me to hit several goals. I had a lot more to say about the eight steps and wanted to focus on those steps as the cornerstone of my definition and path for Lazy GMing. I wanted to ensure this book stood on its own for those new to gamemastering but also stood alongside all my previous books like Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, The Lazy DM's Companion, and The Lazy DM's Workbook. You'll see from the above descriptions that the steps remain the same as those found in Return but expand each of them with all new tips and experiences to help you run awesome games.

I hope you'll support the Kickstarter for Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster and join us for this new journey

Pass it along!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/rise-of-the-lazy-game-master?ref=603clt

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.

Talk Show Links

Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.

Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on Prepping RPG Campaigns Part 1 and Jabir al Seki – Dragon Empire Prep Session 70.

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

Keep things simple for campaign conclusions. Give them what they want.
Have extra time for prep? Expand the world, enrich factions, and design cool locations.
Drop in one interesting scene as the characters travel from one place to another.
Anchor scenes with a notable physical monument like a statue, megalith, cenotaph, well, or ruin.
Prep situations with multiple potential approaches and outcomes.
Make a list of the gods, factions, and historical figures. Use it to flavor monuments, dungeons, and items.
Build a local archive of maps you can use in a pinch.

Share this article using this link: https://slyflourish.com/expanding_each_of_the_eight_steps.html

Subscribe to Sly Flourish

Subscribe to the weekly Sly Flourish newsletter and receive a free adventure generator PDF!

Get More from Sly Flourish

Sly Flourish's Books

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

This work is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. It allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, for noncommercial purposes only by including the following statement in the new work:

This work includes material taken from SlyFlourish.com by Michael E. Shea available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license.

This site may use affiliate links to Amazon and DriveThruRPG. Thanks for your support!