Just a quick video today where I shout out two DM's products that I use and why I both
use and highly recommend them, the first is Sly Flourish's Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master,
which I have mentioned on my worldbuilding livestreams, various DM's round tables and in
discussions on my discord server but I wanted to talk about some specifics in that book and
about my Dungeon Mastering style, the second is 2cgaming's Total Party Kill Handbook volume two,
and specifically the section on Hazards, which is an expansion on fundamental encounter design
which allows you to plan out and include neutral environmental threats to your encounter scenes
which are not intentional dangers, like traps, but are either constant or triggered threats that
exist as part of the terrain naturally, or supernaturally as the case may be.
I can easily recommend Sly Flourish's Lazy Dungeon master products because, simply put,
they encapsulate the exact play style that I have naturally developed over my many years of gaming,
there is not a single part of the advice and methods laid out in this book which I don't
fully agree with and use in all of my campaign and encounter planning,
and they way I play not just Dungeons & Dragons, but basically any Roleplaying game.
It's a lean, mean book that weighs in at 94 pages, softcover, so you can slip it in
with your core books without breaking your back lugging game books around, of course,
its also available as a PDF that I do recommend you keep as a file on your phone, actually,
after reading this book you will probably pick up the companion book.. literally titled the Lazy
DM's Companion, this is also written by Michael E. Shea, is 58 pages long and absolutely packed
with extremely handy tips, checklists, secrets, specifics on how to handle all sorts of aspects
and facets of the game, as well as resources that are just brilliant, such as a compilation
of media sources that are inspirational to dungeon masters and so, so many lists that
you will be jotting down in your DM's notebook. I can safely say that, if I were asked to make
a book on how I run games, everything in these two books is exactly what I would include, so,
yeah, not just the beginner dungeon master, or the returning veteran can benefit from these books,
they are of value to anyone running games for people, kind of like how the original first
edition Pathfinder Game Mastery Guide was just a really solid book that went above and beyond
just being applicable to Pathfinder RPG, it was my favorite DM's handbook... not anymore,
the Lazy DMs handbook and companion pack more goodness into less pages and the layout, indexing
and readability of the text is way better, most topics are covered in two or three pages that you
can read in a few minutes, but will be re-reading and absorbing the wisdom over and over and over
again until, like a well practiced martial arts move, you will just be able to bring these tools
to the table in your natural DMing style... this is Dungeon Mastering kung fu, you are
Neo, if you read these books and absorb them, you will be an excellent Dungeon Master... must buy.
Sly Flourish has a number of other products you can also pick up, fantastic locations and
fantastic Adventures, also on the final couple of pages in Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
there is a big list of Recommended Reading, this is absolute Gold, its a heap of articles online,
all sorts of sources, massive piles of wisdom and useful tools, random lists, tips, tricks, guides
and practical know how from very experienced DMs in the hobby. Also, Sly Flourish is a very
active publishing team, they have podcasts and youtube videos and newsletters and web resources
and a thriving community online, so, dive into it. Links to the products down below, these are not
affiliate links and I am not being paid by Sly Flourish to promote their products, I was just
a backer on their latest Kickstarter and really love what they are doing.
OK, back to 2cgaming's total party kill handbook volume two, I did get sent a copy of this book,
but again, I am not getting paid and the links to this product are not affiliate links, I only talk
about products that I personally use and recommend on my channel, I don't do paid promotions.
Written by Steven Gordon, this book contains 150 pages of example encounters that you can drop
into your campaign, plan a campaign around, use as is or modify to your hearts content. Its got
treetop skirmishes, beholders, arcane anomalies, mechanized goblin mayhem, magical locations and
much more, these are referrenced thoroughly at the end of the book with various encounter
indexes that organise them by level, terrain type, monster type, challenge rating and so on.
The bit of the book I basically want to rip out of the covers and paste into my Dungeon Masters
ring binder though, is the section from pages 156 to 166, the Hazard Workshop.. this is extremely
handy, its as useful as the trap design system in core D&D, well it's more like an advanced
and logical expansion on the idea of traps, which correctly redifines what an environmental hazard
is and gives practical charts, tables, tools and examples to add to your DM's tool belt... again,
if you learn these few pages, you will know hazard kung fu. Encounter location design is
something I consider equally important to monster and NPC design, its like,
you will never encounter the same troll in my games, because every troll has a personality,
a history and is influenced by the environment you encounter that troll in... the location is as
important in encounter design as any other aspect of the game, in many cases, the location is the
real star of the show, its the most memorable part of the encounter. My players may not even
remember what was attacking them, but they sure as hell remember that they were on a narrow bridge
of rock across a lake of fuming liquid lava, and they just happen to have used the lid of a stone
sarcophagus to defend themselves from a trap they passed through to get to the lava room,
and they then got further use of that very heavy stone lid to bridge a broken part of the stone
pathway over the lava, while fighting and running from a hail of arrows getting pelted at them from
long range by some jeering toadies that they got some sweet revenge on in a latter encounter.. each
of the encounters had elements which were included in the other locations, each location
was a combination of multiple threats and hazards, and together, they made the dungeon make sense,
and made the players feel like they were using all the tools that the situation offered as best
they could be used, and they felt rewarded for the clever ways they used those things.
The thing that really makes the encounters included in the total party kill handbook volume
two is the layout of the encounters in the book, and I think this is the best system for presenting
a dungeon master with the encounter I have seen yet in 5th edition products. For example,
the first encounter is called Run for Your Life, it starts with a box which lists all
the elements of the encounter at a glance, its got encounter level, terrain tags, which type of
characters the encounter favors, the Foils, or danger and difficulty themes,
the encounter weight, so, how difficult and time and resource consuming, the creatures included
and the experience point worth, for those who use experience points. This is very handy when
flipping through to book looking for any of these elements.. the favors part is just brilliant, so
in this encounter, it favors the Monk, Rogue and anyone who can make use of Thunder damage, its got
real mobility challenges and the player characters are going to be dealing with poison damage, its a
moderate enounter for a dungeon that ranges from level three but can be intensified to suit a party
of level seven adventurers, and all of that before I have even read a line of the encounter itself.
There is a summary in text under that box which describes what is going on very briefly,
a location and timeline description including example text you can read to the players, the
traps are each presented in box text and organised very systematically, always the same format so you
get all the info at a glance, the terrain has a brief but detailed description and some stats,
there is a box of text for an option to extend a chase aspect of the encounter, there is a heading
for the tactics of the encounter monsters, again, brief and to the point, a heading for the treasure
and all of it is listed there, a heading for Plot Hooks, with three options, a heading for changing
the flavor of the encounter and a heading for Scaling the encounter for different character
levels and scaling the encounter for different tactics, the monsters included have two box texts
of stats and abilities, and there is an encounter location map included. All up, that is all packed
into 4 pages of text, a full page map and a full page illustration of the encounter in full swing.
The same format is followed by the letter for every encounter in the book,
so its very easy to use this at the table as a dungeon master, very easy indeed.
2cgaming has been putting out some notably high level oriented products,
the total party kill bestiary is a compilation of high level monsters, an emphasis on non-legendary,
but very gnarly types that will kick the piss out of cocky high level characters if they are not too
careful. They have published Epic Legacy, a core rulebook expansion taking players
beyond, into the world of level 21 to 30th level player characters. They also have a book
dedicated to ready to use NPC villains titled Tyrants & Hellions. Plus the company sports a
regular newsletter and other gaming products, including a few adventures that are linked
into a six part campaign, still in progress. Righto, thats all I have for you today, back
to more RPG lore and monster goodness, as always, I will be back with more for you, very soon.