Five Scenes

by Mike on 29 June 2026

Five scenes is all you're likely to get through in a four-hour RPG session. Narrow your prep down to the five scenes you might run to help you focus and avoid getting lost in the vast and overwhelming possibilities of the worlds you create.

What are the five potential scenes in your next game?

Overprep is a common problem among gamemasters. We often feel like we need to prepare more than we actually do and, the more we prep, the more we might force the game into one particular direction instead of letting the game flow from the actions of the characters and the reactions of the world. The vastness of the worlds we create out of the depths of our imaginations and expand with the imaginations of our friends around the table can be paralyzing.

Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master offers a framework to help us focus our prep while swimming in the vast seas and unknown depths of our games. Step 2 of these eight steps is "Outline Potential Scenes".

What if we focused our prep around that single step? What are the five potential scenes we'll run in our next session?

Why five? As a loose estimation, we can assume any given scene takes up about 45 minutes of game time. Some scenes take longer (like big battles in 5e games) and some are shorter. Your chosen system or the number of players you have also change this math. But, I'd say typically, five scenes can fill a four-hour game with a break in the middle.

Which Scenes?

Sometimes we don't know which scenes will take place in the next session. The characters have options. There are forks in their path. That's why we include the word "might" in our scene-development prompt:

What five scenes might take place in the next session?

We know our game can take different turns. That's why we abstract other elements of our prep like NPCs, monsters, locations, secrets, and so on. With those things prepped in their own little compartments, we can build scenes on the fly depending on the path the characters choose and how the world reacts.

Other times we have a pretty clear idea what scenes might take place. We can include NPCs, monsters, and locations in our scenes step. Our first scene is almost certainly our strong start.

Here's an example strong start that includes other steps mashed into it:

In the Mausoleum of Astaria, the characters learn from the ghost of Astaria of the coming of the Nameless King and the location of the King's three soul vessels before five shrouded ice devils attack!

The above description includes a strong start, a scene, monsters, an NPC, and a location all in one.

We can fill out the remaining four scenes with these short descriptions:

The characters gain access to Astaria's armory and find the Blade of Irixthius.
The characters choose the fate of the Dread Necropolis.
Council meeting with Garland Willowmane and Roselyn Zeshe at Roselyn's secret council room discussing the soul vessels of the Nameless King.
The Nameless King attacks the City of Arches!

Is That It?

Do we need anything else? Probably. I'd almost certainly still do my ten secrets and clues. Obviously, there are things missing from the scenes above (what's in Astaria's armory?) Prep what you need to run your next session and skip the rest.

Focus on Five Scenes

If you feel overwhelmed by the game looming ahead of you, ask yourself a simple question: what five scenes might you run in your next game?

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 Daggerheart Review.

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:

Read your monster stat blocks twice over. Make sure you understand them.
Keep the spotlight moving between players or groups during downtime. Watch your pacing.
Build city locations based on those the characters might want to visit.
Follow your players’ interests.
Relax.
Keep the characters’ names in front of you.
Flavor treasure with factions and history.

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