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Multiple Solutions to a Single Problem

by Mike on 27 March 2023

We're on the last week of the Forge of Foes Kickstarter! If you haven't yet checked out the 30 page free preview and pledged to get the book, now is the time! If you're as excited about the project as we are, please share this link wherever you think you can help get the word out:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/the-lazy-dms-forge-of-foes-for-5e?ref=e3rd14

Forge of Foes is built to address a lot of hard parts of running monsters in our 5e games. Many times these problems don't have one single solution. If they did, we'd be using that one and it wouldn't be much of a problem anymore. But some things are hard. How do you balance encounters? How do you design encounters? How should you modify monsters? How do you choose monsters? How do you run great boss battles? What parts of a monster can you modify during play and when should you? How do you run dozens to hundreds of monsters in a single battle?

There's no one perfect solution to the problems above, so we offer multiple. In Forge of Foes you'll find multiple solutions to these common problems. We don't just offer one way to run hordes of monsters — we offer three ways of both managing damage done to monsters in a horde and handling a horde's dice rolls. You pick and choose the tools that work best for running hordes at your own table.

We have entire chapters looking at problems from different angles. Do you choose monsters based on the story or build a story around cool monsters? We talk about both approaches.

This idea of having multiple approaches to a single problem doesn't just define how we write about the topic in Forge of Foes — it's also how you can think about your own GMing toolbox. We each have so many ways we can run our games. There are so many ways we can build and develop NPCs, run scenes and situations, spice up encounters, build magic items, and share the story of the game at our table. There's often no single right solution. There are many right solutions for different circumstances.

When you're putting together your own toolbox of GMing processes and ideas, don't feel like you must have only one solution for each problem. Keep a wide range of tools — choosing the best one at the moment to share our fantastic tales with our friends.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

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. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

Patreon Questions and Answers

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

RPG Tips

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

Ask your players to take notes. Refer to their notes during your recap.
Write down one cool character-focused event for each character in your next session.
Ask players for a loose wishlist of magic items every few levels.
Give magic items a unique name and history.
What is the history of your fantastic location? What happened here before?
Offer choices. Ensure the characters have something to do.
Leave mysteries unanswered.
Spotlight character traits and backgrounds through the eyes and actions of the NPCs.