Lazy DMing

I've run a few games in the past month, and I should reflect on them here a bit. But this is all through the filter of lazy DMing. I bought a bundle of holding a while back, that had the Lazy Dungeon Master in it. Its pretty good, and I think must have been some of the intention behind those creating 4e.

See, I was also playing 13th Age, and I've come to suspect that the big minds at Wizards actually run games differently than the publish them. Perhaps normal D&D needs to be sanitized a bit for the mass market, and maybe we're getting some of the variants back in 4e rather than scripture to run games by. Anyway, as I look back on 4e I think that its not as bad or video-gamey as people suggest, but the presentation influences the play style to be even more so.

In a 4e game, I often felt like I was building a set of 3 encounters for the night. Now, I would keep things a little flexible, and its a testament to the encounter building of 4e that it was easy for me to swap creatures in and out on the fly while my PCs were taking their turns. It helped that I printed out a huge stack of loose-leaf monster sheets and shuffled through them constantly, I suppose.

I felt a little of this while running 13th Age and a 5e Planescape one-shot. But I've tried to consciously keep it lazy. Its not hard to build a quick list of all the possible monsters and their XP/CR/whatever stats you need to build encounters for the night. For this planescape one-shot, I knew there'd be a mind flayer, probably some intellect devourers, githzerai thralls, rival githyanki hunters, maybe some Harmonium goons, and assorted citizens of Sigil who may or may not be thralls (sad, I didn't end up pulling in the host of children in the end). But this is basically what I used towards the end of my Dark Sun game, just a bit differently organized because I don't have everything printer-ready.

The planescape one-shot would have gone a little smoother if I had had time to write down some more notes on the creatures, and realized that both Intellect Devourers and Mind Flayers force Int saves so I could have given the players that for their Githzerai bonus instead of recommending useless Wis saves. Meh. Live and learn.

Aside: The plot was the PCs were a (mostly) githzerai rrakkma band trying to oust a mindflayer from Sigil. They had a deadline for when a deed would be signed making the mind flayer a property-owning citizen of Sigil, and had to act before that deadline. There was a scheduled delivery of some trunks to the property, and an inn (stolen from In the Cage) where the mind flayer was staying. Pretty darn simple but enough for a solid 6-hour session (1-9pm but we took at least an hour to chat and get started and had a couple minor interruptions, though I also meant to give one more quick break).

I didn't get as much feedback from the players as I might have liked for the Planescape one-shot, so I hope everyone mostly enjoyed themselves. There were 6 players because I wanted to invite people who I hadn't played with in a while, and also possibly get a new person or two into (or back into?) Zack's orbit for his regular games. I had thought going in that I would say from the beginning that I was going to be an anti-phone/tablet tyrant, but decided not to. There was a lot of investigation with a lot of players, and its hard to keep that engaging for everyone. I tried to hand-wave some table-talk by saying that players could still give suggestions and stuff, and I think that worked reasonably well. At least no one was sharing youtube videos during the game, which was an unfortunate thing I also saw recently.

In terms of what to prep to be lazy, I really liked Zack's contacts he gave people for his Planescape one-shot, so I totally lifted that, though it wasn't as well-done as it could have been. Particularly for a one-shot, you need to give people some short and clear info that's useable. I was relatively proud of my Githzerai racial bonds table (though some were lifted from ENworld or Wizards of the Coast forums:

Githzerai Racial Bonds (roll d12 or use the list as inspiration).

1. Any enemy of the mind flayers is a friend of mine.
2. All my friends know I said that githzerai should only think about their freedom and independence, leaving ancient feuds behind.
3. Once, when I nearly died, I had a vision of the Nine Hells flash before my eyes. Now I seek to atone for whatever sins I’ve committed.
4. Our race’s traditions are as important as our personal beliefs.
5. I swore an oath that I would only kill in the most dire of circumstances.
6. I’ve been convicted of a crime I didn’t commit and must redeem myself in the eyes of my fellow githzerai.
7. My significant other is a leader of the githzerai in Sigil.
8. Something from my childhood makes me afraid of the dark.
9. The destruction of mind flayers is more important than any faction or feud (even with the githyanki).
10. My best friend will never walk again because of a battle I provoked. I choose my fights with greater care now.
11. I hate mind flayers and githyankai so much it drives me to take irrational risks, even when I know I shouldn’t take them.
12. My brother is a drunk, so his wife and children depend on me to keep them safe and financially secure.

Obviously not all of these came into play and some could have been better, but I thought it would give players some possibly appropriate personality traits for their Githzerai, who are supposed to be a dour and stoic lot. I even made good use of #7 by replacing the not-so-great NPC (Parakk the Rat Catcher) I was going to used to instigate things with the spouse. This was somewhat inspired by the Appendix A from Hoard of the Dragon Queen which I also loved in its simplicity, though I could have probably personalized it a bit more if I had more time. But its a hard balance between what to prep and how much time to spend prepping it. A few of my own plus some cut-and-paste from a forum search got me in solid B range.

The racial bonds table isn't something you need for every session, but I had a couple very similar lists I was referencing at the table: rumors they might find, the actual facts they needed to discover, and the true motivations of the illithid. But I was ready to roll some random rumors if people were into streetwise checks and that. It turns out when you give actual contacts then players tend to focus on what they have in front of them though (their contacts). Its all about prepping the right lists. Also, I like lists.

Rambles aside, I think that Lazy DMing is a pretty good way to go. At least for me. Though I still love me a good module at times, even prepping a module requires a good list or two.