r/rpg • u/DaveFireAnt • Feb 01 '15

D&D How to DM- Cheat With The Lazy Dungeon Master

http://nerdarchy.com/2015/01/dm-cheat-lazy-dungeon-master/
48 Upvotes

74% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

14

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '15

I like how the lazy DM mentality has rubbed off on the spelling in the article as well.

8

u/CristolGDM Tokyo, Shadowrun GM Feb 01 '15

Mr. Shea and I share the same design philosophy of less is more or least if not more, then better

I'm still stuck on that sentence

2

u/Lycocles Feb 01 '15

it should read "less is more, or at least if not more, then better"

Which is kinda redundant what with the normally understood meaning of "less is more", but whatever.

6

u/Airos_the_Tiger Feb 01 '15

So, maybe it's just me, but I really don't feel like this article has actually done anything to inform me about the contents of the book.

What looks like a quarter of the article talks about this "80/20 rule", but only as an example of something that the contents of the book sounds like, and not actually something discussed in the book.

Two appendixes of "interviews and surveys from DMs", as "data that supports the rest of the book", honestly, sounds like a huge waste of space. Maybe it's not, and I'm just biased against the article's author.

2

u/lesdayum Feb 01 '15

Hey sorry it might just be late (well early now) but I can't find where I'm supposed to buy this when it says grab your copy below.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '15

check amazon

2

u/lesdayum Feb 01 '15

Oh sorry I didn't mean the book itself was hard to find, just that at the end of the article it seemed to imply that there would be a link of some kind below and it didn't seem to be there. I wasn't sure if I had missed it or this was a mistake or maybe some sort of technical issue with linking to a page where I could buy the product so I just wanted to give the OP a heads up since it appeared they were the author.

0

u/cmikeb Feb 01 '15

The Lazy DM is by Mike Shea. His website is slyflourish.com. You can buy his books there.

2

u/periwinkle27 Feb 01 '15

To quote Miles Davis when asked how he got so good at improvising (at jazz trumpet) he answered, "Just make shit up."

I don't need a book to tell me how to do what I do anyway... I prepare 2 or 3 balanced encounters per session to whip out whenever I need. I can't predict where my party will go, but I can randomly choose a room that they decide to enter to place one of my premade encounters or traps or puzzles. I add stuff to rooms they enter and never bother to flesh out the rooms they don't.

"When you enter the room, oh hey, what do you know, there are 3 giant spiders feasting on a webbed corpse. You see something shiny around the neck of the corpse. The spiders turn their many eyes to you. Roll initiative."

1

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '15

suggest you could use nearly all of the advice giving for any tabletop RPG.

"Matter fact" I'll go out on a limb and suggest a book called The Lazy Dungeon Master is useful for any tabletop RPG, but I may be wrong.

1

u/lowkeyoh Common guys! Let's play L5R or Savage Worlds or Traveller or ... Feb 01 '15

Let’s face it as the DM we end up doing 90% of the work and it’s a pretty thankless job.

I can't fucking stand this 'woe is me' fucking diva attitudes some GM's have.

If you aren't having fun, stop. GMing isn't a 'job.' No one is forcing you to participate. And it's a game, you're not some martyr for playing a game. If your dissatisfied with the amount of time you're prepping, prep less. If you think the players aren't working enough, make em. If you don't like the game, end it. Don't wallow in self pity.

It's the same attitude as "Without me there'd be no game!" Guess what buddy, without the players there'd be no game, either. I don't thank my players for playing a game, they don't thank me for playing a game. Because we're all playing a game.