The Rest of the Stuff in Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster

by Mike on 3 August 2026

Only a few days remain for the Kickstarter for Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster! If you haven't checked it out or grabbed the free preview, please do and share the link with your friends!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/rise-of-the-lazy-game-master?ref=87oswx

Over the past few weeks I've dived into the four major sections of the book:

Today we're going to talk about a bunch of the other stuff you'll find in this book.

Getting Started. The beginning of Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster focuses on how to get the most out of this book. You can find examples of these introductory chapters in the 36 page free preview on the Kickstarter page. It includes How to Read This Book, Top Tips for Lazy GMs, and Getting Started Running RPGs for brand new GMs. We intend for Rise to serve both veteran and new GMs so we wanted to be sure to give our best advice for getting started up front.

Quest Models. After adventure types, we have a couple of chapters covering quest models in Rise including the simplest quest model, the three of five keys quest model, and the 3-2-1 quest model. These tried and tested models give the characters agency to choose their course and enough structure for you to build a solid campaign. We also have a chapter on brittle quest models that seem like good ideas but tend to fall apart in play.

Example Adventure Scenarios. Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster definitely focuses on a "show, don't tell" approach with examples all throughout the book. In particular, we have nine adventure scenarios built using the eight steps of lazy GM prep — each focused on the adventure types highlighted in the book. You can use these example scenarios to get an understanding of what the eight steps of lazy GM prep look like, use them to inspire your own single-session games or longer campaigns, or use them directly as a mini-campaign. They're all set in the City of Arches setting but you can easily move them to your own homebrew or published campaign setting.

Tables. All throughout Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster we have tons of random tables. Some of these tables are embedded right in particular chapters, others you'll find in a huge appendix in the back of the book. These tables serve multiple purposes. They give concrete examples of the topics presented in the book, like 20 strong starts or 20 ways to reveal secrets and clues. They also serve to inspire GMs to come up with their own ideas. GMs can also roll directly on these tables to help shake themselves out of a creative rut. We intend to release a PDF of all of the tables in a printable format so you can drop them into your custom GM screen or into your own GM's notebook. We'll include this table-focused PDF in the ebook package for the book — every backer of the book will get it.

Maps. We dug deep into Dyson Logos's collection of commercially licensable maps to find twenty maps that fit the most common map-focused situations that come up in our RPGs. Dyson updated two of these maps from his earlier collection specifically to support this book! Because of the success of this Kickstarter, we donated money directly to Dyson for all of the fantastic support he gives to the RPG hobby.

Our goal is to make Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster the most comprehensive lazy GM book available, with a big focus on practical table-usable, tips, and tools to help you run your games. Hopefully, from the above and our previous descriptions of the book, you agree!

Please support the Kickstarter campaign and share it with your friends!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/rise-of-the-lazy-game-master?ref=87oswx

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 High Value GM Tricks and Nezari Stormclaw — Dragon Empire Prep Session 74.

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:

Lots of monsters bring a bigger threat than a few bigger monsters.
Find the system that best matches what you want and what your players want.
Have a standing explicit house rule that if a power or mechanic or ability makes the game less fun for you or your players, that you can address it and change it together.
Flavor your game with unique gods and factions but be careful exposing too many of them at once.
Consider potential downtime activities, customized for the characters in your game, when a downtime session is coming up.
Keep a list of your system's skills in front of you so you know what kind of checks to ask for.
Strong starts don’t need to derail your existing story. Let them propel it forward.

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

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