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We at /r/DnD are excited to host Mike Shea of SlyFlourish.com! He'll be discussing his upcoming Kickstarter, his vast history as a freelancer in the TTRPG space, and anything else! Save all your questions and join us on Tuesday, July 7!

From Mike:

Hello!

I'm Mike Shea, writer for SlyFlourish.com and author of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master and other books. A few years back I also released the Lazy GM's Resource Document into the Creative Commons to share what I've learned and gathered from other GMs into the world.

I've been playing RPGs since the mid-80s and writing about RPGs since 2008. I've been freelancing for various RPG companies for the past 15 years or so including Wizards of the Coast, Kobold Press, MCDM, Arcane Library, Pelgrane Press, and many others.

The Kickstarter for my latest book, Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster, is going on now! This is the latest of the Lazy GM books, expanding each of the eight steps of Lazy GM prep and taking a new focus on campaign planning, adventure types, and an expansive lazy GM toolkit. I hope you'll check it out.

I'm excited to be here to talk to you all about RPGs!

Hi everyone. Meet Robin - she's a dwarf barbarian who works as a bouncer in a tavern "Racing Pony". Short stature doesn't make her less tough, therefore everyone knows best to not piss her off. She grew up as a part of a desert tribe, but then moved into a sprawling city of Talantus. She also well known as a boat expert - sometimes she's hired to sail the boat as well as providing security on the way. You can also check the painting timelapse for this image.

Not as in what subclasses are the rarest for a player to use but if you lived in a DnD world, what subclass are you least likely to run into. Like a Thief Rogue, Oath of Devotion Paladin, or Life Domain Cleric are probably so common everyone's seen one at some point in their life. But what are the odds you'll run into a Circle of Stars Druid or Gloomstalker Ranger?

Sorry in advance for the heavy subject. But i wanted to share my experience on how important D&D is to me, and can be to many.

Bit of context: i began playing D&D in 2015 (wow, 10 years that feel like yesterday). Back then, i was struggling with a really bad gaming addiction. I had just finished school, was working 10 hours a week, seeing no one and playing video games from 8 am to 2-3 am the next day, every day. I felt really bad, like i was stuck in limbo with a static life going nowhere. No goals, no emotion, nada.

But then I joined a D&D group with strangers. The guys quickly became friends, and suddenly i couldnt just do "one last game" over and over again. I had to wait for the next week's game. There was no clear progression or grind. All I could do is be excited for the next session. It felt exilarating to be excited about something again.

Life went on, i moved back to my home town, got back with old friends and started DMing for them. They all fell in love and we now have a community of about 14 players with 5 playing constantly and the rest doing it on and off. Some of them are manual working blue collar dads, some of them were reluctant to try and are now loving it, some other even wanting to try to DM.

My childhood best friend is doing a major in social studies and his paper is about the possibility of using D&D to help people with severe anxiety or social difficulties. He is teaching at a class for adults with a hard time understand and joining society. People who never learned to live, like how does paying bill or do groceries even work. He showed D&D to the 30 adults (from 20 y/o to 60) and they loved it.

My other friend recently came to me with a plaid for help. His intense anxiety prevents him for keeping a job. He is 31 and having suicidal toughts. I added him to our D&D group where he's made a goblin artificer with self sabotaging problems. Everyone is having a blast.

He just left my house with tears in his eyes, telling me how much D&D had been helping for the last few months. He's made new friends. He's looking forward to the next game.

Just wanted to share with yall how absolutely unique our hobby can be. We're not just playing with dolls and make pretend, we're forging relashionship and in some case even helping real life death saving throws. This shit is real and needs to be shared. Share your love for tabletop rpg. Take care of your friends. Love eachother. D&D is a cure for the modern nostalgia.

^(a player took the pic) I feel like I had more fun behind the screen than on the other side haha. Players all had a blast too! The setting is an art deco underdark city called Midnight Station. I'm shooting for 5 sessions to finish the story, with everything culminating in a heist on City Hall during Founding Day. The goal is to make it as narrative and roleplay-driven as possible, with computers handling all the numbers behind the scenes. So far, everything has felt like an epic story, not a game of stats. All the hours of work and world building paid off, and I'm really having fun improvising NPCs (including Bastion and his bodyguard, Sebastion) 😂

(Preface: your DM may hate you for doing this.)

Spell description:
Mold Earth - Cantrip, 1 Action, Range 30ft (affects a 5ft cube), Somatic, Transmutation. Druid, Wizard, Sorcerer.

You choose a portion of dirt or stone that you can see within range and that fits within a 5-foot cube. You manipulate it in one of the following ways:

• If you target an area of loose earth, you can instantaneously excavate it, move it along the ground, and deposit it up to 5 feet away. This movement doesn’t have enough force to cause damage.
• You cause shapes, colors, or both to appear on the dirt or stone, spelling out words, creating images, or shaping patterns. The changes last for 1 hour.
• If the dirt or stone you target is on the ground, you cause it to become difficult terrain. Alternatively, you can cause the ground to become normal terrain if it is already difficult terrain. This change lasts for 1 hour.

If you cast this spell multiple times, you can have no more than two of its non-instantaneous effects active at a time, and you can dismiss such an effect as an action.

The Tactic:

this uses the first option for the effect which is the only instantaneous effect you can spam. For all Examples I highly suggest securing a Rope or Ladder on the back wall for easy access for the Defenders. using Rope or ladder wont cost you extra movement. Just be sure to pull it up behind you, so your enemy cant use it.

See. Example A of the Diagram; Move a piece of Earth (S1-Green) to one side of your trench, this will be YOUR defensive wall. The resulting wall will be 5ft high, allowing for either 3/4 or Half cover (+5 or +2 bonus to AC respectively) at your DM's discretion to anyone behind it. Like wise anyone in the trench will receive the same benefit. The enemy (Red) will be fully exposed to melee/ranged attacks from Defenders in the trench, and ranged attacks from Defenders manning the defensive wall (S1-Green). Any creature Without a Climbing Speed attempting to Scale the 10ft back wall of the trench will need to expend Twice the Amount of Movement (20ft) to climb up. Meaning Red will use 30ft of movement to travel laterally 15ft, ending up on top of the Green block. (DM discretion: Add a Athletics check to climb the Back Wall)

Example B: Same idea as A. but just wider for whatever reason you might need a 10ft wide trench (for example Ball Bearings). For this, You move S1-Green as an Ex. A, then move S2-Blue to the front of your trench. This gives defenders inside the trench Full Cover, but also gives Attackers cover in the form of S2-Blue. However, Attacker Red Cannot reach the other side of the trench in one turn, without using the DASH action. If they Dash they cannot attack that turn, only use a bonus action.

Example C: Verdun. Follow the steps to make Examples A and B, then take a cube from the bottom of the trench (S3-Yellow) and place it where S2-Blue used to be. The Defender in the trench now has Full Cover, if you have a rope or ladder, the Defender can climb up to the Firing Stand on top of S3-Yellow to defend against any attackers, Use a Reach weapon to target Attackers attempting to hide behind S2-Blue. Get overwhelmed, jump down into the deepest area of trench, Since its 10ft deep only weapons with Reach or ranged weapons will be able target creatures at different heights inside the trench. At this point there is now way Attacker Red will be able to scale the back wall without a climb speed, or the use of a rope or ladder.

Note: Fireball will still hit you anywhere in this trench.

The Madness:

To Make Example A. requires 1 use of the Mold Earth Cantrip, so 1 round or 6 seconds.

Example B: 2 rounds, 12 secs

Example C: 3 rounds, 18 secs

Obviously, you probably dont want to make a trench mid combat, the most sensible option to use mid combat would be Ex. A. You'd make this during any downtime you may have as a quick defensive trench line to protect your camp for the night, protect a village your staying at, reinforce an area your defending long term.

How quick is it to make a trench line using Example A? (FOR 1 PERSON USING THE CANTRIP)

(remember there are 60 secs in 1 min, 3600 secs in 1 hour)

Example: 50ft trench line: 50ft/5ft= 10 rounds or 1 minute.

100ft trench Line: 100/5 = 20 rounds or 2 minutes

1000ft trench line: 1000/5 = 200rounds (1,200secs) or 20 minutes

1 mile: 5,280ft: 5,280/5 = 1,056 rounds (6,336secs) or 105.6 minutes/ 1hr 45mins and 36secs

to make Either Example B or C trenches just double or Triple the time respectively.

1 mile of B trench = 3:31:12 hrs (3hr 31min 12sec)

1 mile of C trench = 5:16:48 hrs (5hr 16min 48 sec)

I have no idea WHY in the world anyone would need to make 1 mile of 15ft deep 20ft wide trench line in a DnD campaign, but 1 Madlad of a Wizard can do it in under 5.5 hrs.

Design the top down layout of that trench however you want to impede sightlines, or allow easier access for you and your allies. Oil, caltrops, ball bearings, bear traps, or any spell capable of causing difficult terrain are all added benefits to increasing the trenches defensive and impeding capabilities. If your character has proficiency with carpenter's tools look into setting up Abatis using felled and sharpened trees, or Cheval de Frise all along the trench line.

Well this one is a shameless borrow from the Dungeon Crawler Carl book series. Thanks Matt!

Re-reading the books and I was thinking about this item from DCC. I desperately wanted to make this into an item to give to my players... So I did. It's meant to be an "oh shit" failsafe type thing rather than a super tactical use item.

Thoughts on implementation and balance?

It seems pretty fair to me since it's a pretty clean 50/50 shot at obliteration or mega-healing. I did the temp hit points thing because I wanted to prevent players from using this at the start of a fight when enemies are already at max HP. They CAN attempt to heal themselves with it, but it requires strategic positioning and also healing at least one enemy. That, or they'll blow themselves to smithereens.

FWIW this is for a difficult campaign where deaths are expected, and the players know that. They wanted a gritty campaign with real consequences, so ... Here we are. Can't wait to dangle this shiny carrot in front of them.

Like just characters with no major tragic backstories or had much motives before the campaign. Like I'm doing a Hill Dwarf character that happens to be a druid named John Deere Acorn. He really likes mowing lawns and nature. He started a lawn care service and kinda adventured with the party, probably as an extra way to earn money and mows lawns along the way. Other than that, he's pretty normal. How do DMs feel when it comes to really normal characters?

Lifeless skin reverberates dead tales.
Formidable rites quake the earth anew,
Landscapes of flesh and pale veins.
The Giants are forever dormant in azure rest.
Their revival is in the hands of desperate knives.
The harvest is rich in forgotten magic,
Pulsing into the hands of endangered minds.
Awakening the mountain’s rage one more time.

The beckoning eye sees beyond the veils of life.
It sees the layers of maggots and silk
And the spells of death put to rest
The bones of a past engulfed in burning rites
Whose flame reached their minds
Into the profound rays of sunlight,
While the purity of snow and ice
Dismembers fingers into the fight
For the conviction to eradicate the dark
And purify with ember blight.

The Sword of the King is a weapon that is enchanted so that the more people respect and adore you, the less the sword weighs. This has allowed the dynasty to gauge how well their rule is received by their people, getting direct feedback to their decrees and edicts.

One fateful day, the King has passed and a succession crisis has unfolded. The sons and daughters of the King have found that the sword weighs exceedingly heavy when they attempt to pry it from the ground where the blade has dug itself into. Their succession crisis has caused great turmoil in the kingdom.

You seek to undo this mess. To stabilize your home village and ensure that all threats posed to it are quelled and rendered null. Through your deeds, the people can potentially grow fond of you and - in time - you will claim the Sword of the King by effortlessly plucking the sword from the cobblestone road where the King fell.

Will your players be worthy of the blade? Or will they be judged poorly by the people that were scorned while others were favored? After all, negotiations can lead to prosperity for all while merely being murder-hobos can lead to favor from some and vitriol from others.

Hear ye, hear ye!
Tales From the Tables is back with episode 62: Stage Fright, part 2!

Our intrepid misadventurers continue the encounter with the dreaded (?) Undertakers, slowly learning the story of this failed troupe.

Apologies for cutting this one at two pages, I've wanted to do at least one more, ideally two more, but I realized I'd be pushing myself beyond sanity limits to get that done... Besides, it's a perfectly fine pausing point, and the resolution of the Undertakers encounter can move to episode 63, providing a smooth transition into what I want to tell in 64 <3

I want to share this tale with you SO BAD, but there's only so fast I can draw, especially when life throws unexpected emergencies at us.

We've pulled through a massive storm and flash flood that left most of our neighbors chucking waterlogged furniture, belongings and soggy drywall to the curb. Our house mercifully pulled through fine, my foundation fixes I did a couple year ago undeoubtedly saved us, and our sump pump kept up with the inflow of water, keeping our house safe and dry...

Still, there's been a bunch of important upkeep to do, plus the exercise in frustration in trying to get the AC in my Jeep fixed... It breaks my heart to see our little bean boiling in his booster seat on the way home from daycare

Hopefully the insane heat wave won't last too much longer, and I get the AC sorted out soon.

In other news, little bean is starting school (K4) this September! He's absolutely excited for it, and we are absolutely proud of our little boy ^^

That will mean 2h more drawing time each day for me starting this September!

I've also been helping out a little with something very, VERY special... from a very, very big name in the Forgotten Realms. The biggest, actually... And I'm excited for the day I'll be able to reveal it, but for now, my lips are sealed!