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by Mike on 11 November 2024
For those of us who spend a lot of time thinking about improving our games, our minds often dive into the details. How can we speed up combat? How can we draw the characters deeper into the story? How can we offer more meaningful choices? How can we prep enough to fill out the world?
These questions are useful but there's the larger question of why. When we're considering a new approach to our game, or a new tool or accessory we want to use at the table, or a new feature of a VTT – why do we pick the ones we pick and omit the ones we don't?
In Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master I focus on getting more out of your RPGs by preparing less. We can break down this goal into two parts:
There's a careful balance between these two goals. Sometimes, however, the techniques that make our games easier to prepare and run also make our games more fun for us and our players. Here are some examples:
Sometimes, it's worth extra time to prepare the elements of the game that really matter – the things that bring the most fun to the game. Here are some examples:
The eight steps from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master are my thoughts about where we can spend our time to bring out the most fun in our games. Other GMs and other groups have their own lists of most beneficial activities to prepare and run their games.
Think about where you spend your time on your prep and ask yourself if that activity makes it easier to prepare and run your game or truly makes the game more fun for your players.
If your approach makes it both easier to run your game and more fun, that's awesome. If your approach does one or the other, that's fine too.
If your activity isn't making your game easier to prep or run, and isn't bringing more fun to the table, why do it?
Last week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Is Shadowdark the Best Intro to D&D? and The Ghost Walkers – Dragon Empire Prep Session 1.
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 time stamped links to the YouTube video:
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
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:
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