Article Archive

DM Tips Twitter Archive: January 2012

03 February 2012 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for January 2012. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! Here's to a new year of dice rolling and monster slaying! Ha...

Tile Tools: Toolbox Liner and Acrylic Sheets

30 January 2012 - Overall, I'm not a big fan of dungeon tiles. Dollar for dollar, I find poster maps to be the best quality encounter accessory we can get. That said, poster maps don't include the flexibility we often ...

Monster Group Bosses

23 January 2012 - Boss monsters need help. We've discussed the problem and potential solutions before but it's worth returning to the topic again. Boss monsters; whether they be elites, normals, or solos; all act like ...

Building a Modular 4e Game

17 January 2012 - There's been a lot of talk and speculation about the new edition of Dungeons and Dragons, particularly in WOTC's attempt to build a more modular form of D&D. Of course, we'll all be keeping an eye...

Getting the Most from the Book of Vile Darkness

09 January 2012 - This month, Wizards of the Coast released Robert J. Schwalb's Book of Vile Darkness supplement for 4th edition D&D. Today we're going to look at how to squeeze the most use out of this product for...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: December 2011

06 January 2012 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for December 2011. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! Ran a skill challenge based on Inception tonight. The playe...

Default Feats

03 January 2012 - From time to time you might be called upon to build characters for other players. Whether it's for a one-shot game, a convention game, a guest player, or a player who simply cannot be bothered to main...

Sandbox Gaming Podcast with Erik Scott De Bie

27 December 2011 - Last month I had the excellent opportunity to spend an hour talking with Erik Scott De Bie, fantasy author and freelance game designer for Wizards of the Coast. Erik worked on Shadowfell: Gloomwrought...

Abyssal Plague Environmental Effects

19 December 2011 - This past week, Wizards of the Coast published my second Abyssal Plague article, Abyssal Plague Epic Threats (DDI Subscription required). This article contains four epic-tier Abyssal Plague monsters i...

2011 Poster Map Buyer's Guide

12 December 2011 - The Battle Map Comparisons article on this site continues to be a popular draw. We all love our encounter maps and there's a lot of potential options available. The more we use these options, the more...

Building Great Traps

05 December 2011 - Good traps are hard to find. Using the rules as written, you might expend a monsters-worth of experience from your encounter experience budget and have the whole party avoid the trap completely. Today...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: November 2011

03 December 2011 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for November 2011. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip: Try running your game without a DM screen to keep...

Heroic Tier Boss: Aspect of Graz'zt

28 November 2011 - Last week I discussed the advantages of a level 1 to 10 campaign but one thing such a campaign lacks is the feeling of facing truly powerful and devastating enemies. The Neverwinter Campaign Sourceboo...

The Sweet Spot of 4th Edition

21 November 2011 - As much as we love 4th edition D&D, the design begins to break down as levels increase. The scaling power of PCs makes it harder and harder for 4e dungeon masters to build challenging encounters. ...

Inherent Bonuses and Random Loot

14 November 2011 - In October 2011, Monte Cook wrote a Legends and Lore article entitled Magic and Mystery that discussed some of the problems with the magic item system of 4th edition. It's an article worth reading, bu...

Dave Chalker on Epic D&D

07 November 2011 - Recently Dave "The Game" Chalker, my friend and editor of the Ennie-award-winning gaming blog, Critical Hits spent an hour talking about the conclusion of his epic-tier campaign. As you can imagine, D...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: October 2011

04 November 2011 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for August 2011. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip: Time to go look for that bargain-bin halloween prop...

Auto-damage Effects

30 October 2011 - We DMs have a lot of things to balance when building encounters. We want mechanics that are fun for our players and fun for us. We want mechanics that keep the threat of a battle high. We want mechani...

Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium Random Loot Tables

24 October 2011 - Introduced in the earliest days of D&D, random loot tables have been woefully lacking in 4th edition. With a lot of excellent updated items in the Dungeon Master's Kit and Mordenkainen's Magnifice...

Dungeon Effects

17 October 2011 - Wizards's latest Organized Play program, Lair Assault: Forge of the Dawn Titan, includes an interesting twist: dungeon-wide effects. This single-encounter adventure includes dungeon-wide effects that ...

Increase Epic Aura Damage

10 October 2011 - While most math in 4th edition scales linearly, player power scales on an increasingly steep curve. While monster damage increases by about 1 point every level, player healing increases even faster. W...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: September 2011

07 October 2011 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for August 2011. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! By the way @dndtweets also pulls from @4eblogs so you probabl...

Poster Map Visual Index

03 October 2011 - The published poster map is one of the greatest tools of the lazy dungeon master. It gives lazy DMs a large, high quality map full of great details for environmental effects and terrain powers. Figuri...

Introducing DnDTweets.com

26 September 2011 - You're a busy person. You have a regular game to prepare, a family to pay attention to, and a full time job. You don't have time to surf Twitter every ten minutes looking for D&D news. Yet there's...

Skill Challenges with Quinn Murphy

19 September 2011 - Back in mid August I had a chance to talk to Quinn Murphy, the lead writer for the website At Will. Quinn has spent significant time thinking about and designing skill challenges, one of the more chal...

Randomly Selected Character Themes

12 September 2011 - Introduced in the Dark Sun Campaign Setting, character themes add a new layer of mechanics and story to your players' PCs. While typically players would choose a theme to fit their character, today we...

Tools of the Lazy Dungeon Master

06 September 2011 - Good dungeon masters know where best to spend their time when preparing a game. Custom building monster stat blocks, designing intrictate skill challenges, and developing huge encounter areas take a l...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: August 2011

02 September 2011 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for August 2011. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! I think published poster maps are one of the three best lazy ...

Three Powers for Solos to Shake Status Effects

29 August 2011 - Solos need help. A while back I wrote about the economy of actions and the devastation that limiting those actions can have on a powerful solo monster. In short, a daze, stun, or dominate against a so...

Reduce Table Transactions

22 August 2011 - Running a smooth game requires a lot of management at the table. There are a few easy tricks, however, to keep things running smooth. A good DM, for example, learns how to manage the flow of informati...

D&D Essential Conversations with Kato Katonian

15 August 2011 - After Gencon 2011 I had a chance to have a conversation with the internet’s Kato Katonian about D&D Essentials, D&D 4e design improvements over time, 4e’s broken bits, and limiting...

Alternate Weapon Breakage Variants

08 August 2011 - In practice, Dark Sun's weapon breakage rules don't really work that well. While the concept helps define the world of Athas, it's a mess when used in practice. I won't spend a lot of time talking abo...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: July 2011

05 August 2011 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for July 2011. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd gencon tip: Only pack the books you absolutely need. Most ...

Three Tips for Running a Level 30 Encounter

01 August 2011 - Running an epic-tier game is challenging enough, but running a level 30 game is something else entirely. Today, we’re going to look at three tips for running a level 30 encounter that keep the g...

Dissection of a Plague Demon

25 July 2011 - Last week my third DDI article, Creature Incarnations: Abyssal Plague Demons, was published on the D&D Insider website. Today we’re going to take some time to put these beasts out on the sla...

Making Stun and Dominate Not Suck

18 July 2011 - Stuns and dominates are no fun. They aren’t fun for the players and they aren’t fun for the dungeon master. They steal away the most precious of resources: actions, and leave everyone invo...

Chris Sims and Mike Shea on Encounter Design Podcast

11 July 2011 - A couple of weeks ago, over on the Critical Hits podcast, I had the opportunity to talk to Chris Sims, freelance game designer, former WOTC designer and editor, and fellow writer over at Critical Hits...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: June 2011

07 July 2011 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for June 2011. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! Very much looking forward to running my group through this Gloo...

Encounter Optimization: Monster Mix

04 July 2011 - Today we begin a new series of articles entitled “Encounter Optimization”. The intent of this series is to explore ways to build encounters that provide a fun fast challenge for D&D 4t...

Interview on the Id DM: Ego Check

27 June 2011 - Michael, (the Id DM on Twitter) of The Id DM blog just posted an interview with me called The Ego Check: Mike Shea of Sly Flourish. I try to avoid bringing my ego too much into the site here. I'm far...

Calculating Monster Damage

20 June 2011 - Since the Monster Manual 3, monster damage has changed drastically. Charts like that found in the most recent Dungeon Master’s Screen, the update to the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and my own ...

Monster Makeover: the Demilich

13 June 2011 - Last Friday, my second Monster Makeover article, the Demilich, was published on D&D Insider. This was a particularly difficult monster to make over, given the importance of the soul drain and the ...

Four More Skill Challenge Worksheets

06 June 2011 - A few weeks ago I talked about Skill Challenge Worksheets, a way to add a more mechanical and gamey feel to the abstract concepts of skill challenges. Today I'm putting up four additional skill chall...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: May 2011

03 June 2011 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for May 2011. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! And, of course, including Combat Outs in every one of your battl...

Terrain Effects and Terrain Props Podcast

30 May 2011 - Randall Walker, @deadorcs on Twitter and writer at Initiative or What, spent some time with me discussing terrain effects and terrain props in our D&D games at the Critical Hits podcast. You can l...

Monster Optimization: Pimp My Kalarel

23 May 2011 - Each version of D&D has a different key villain in my mind when I think about it. For me, 4th edition’s key villain is Kalarel, the Scion of Orcus that first appeared in Keep on the Shadowfe...

Power Creep in 4e Podcast

16 May 2011 - Back in the beginning of May I had a chance to talk with Matt James, published WOTC author and webmaster of Loremaster on Power Creep in 4th Edition. We talked a lot about the issues surrounding the g...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: April 2011

13 May 2011 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for April 2011. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip: Try designing puzzle encounters that have set goals ...

The Skill Challenge Worksheet

09 May 2011 - Different players have different opinions on skill challenges. Some love the chance to interact in the world while others see them as a speed bump between battles. For this latter category, we can try...

Get Your Players To Say "Done"

02 May 2011 - We're all looking for tips and tricks to get our game to run smoother. We've tried changing how we build encounters. We've talked about how to limit PCs. We've talked about table tricks to speed thing...

Interview with Dave Chalker on "The Out"

28 April 2011 - Last week I had the opportunity to sit down with Dave "The Game" Chalker, editor of Critical Hits on "The Out". Dave wrote about this method to build unique, dynamic, and speedy combats in his articl...

Scaling Solo Monsters

25 April 2011 - A reader on Twitter asked about scaling solos the other day so today we're going to take a quick look at what you can do to scale solo monsters up from one level to another. To begin, read Chris Perki...

Monster Makeover: Shademaw the Ancient Black Dragon

22 April 2011 - Yesterday Wizards of the Coast published my first of hopefully a series of Monster Makeover articles entitled Monster Makeover: Shademaw the Ancient Black Dragon. The intent of this article is to buil...

Monster Optimization: The Beholder

18 April 2011 - In case you haven't heard, the Monster Vault is the definitive source for 4th edition monsters. With two years of updated mechanics since the release of the 4e Monster Manual, the creatures in the Vau...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: March 2011

14 April 2011 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for March 2011. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip: Make heavy use of the DCs and Damage Per Level chart...

Gamma World Adventure: The Dark Freighter

11 April 2011 - The following short Gamma World adventure was inspired by this award winning zombie safehouse design and a conversation between Tracy of SarahDarkmagic.com and myself. I originally designed it as a sh...

Avoiding the Early Out

04 April 2011 - Dave Chalker's "Out" is one of the best advanced DMing techniques you can pick up. It keeps encounters unique and interesting, keeps your game focused on your story, and keeps your battles short and t...

Gaming Convention Survival Guide

28 March 2011 - Having just gotten back from PAX East (an awesome time) and now being a veteran of four Gencons, I think I have enough data to write my personal survival guide for attending gaming conventions. While ...

D&D Challenge Adventure: Gravemyst

21 March 2011 - This year at PAX East, Wizards of the Coast sponsored the second Dungeon Master's Challenge. Dungeon masters were to come to PAX East prepared to run a level 8 adventure for a group of unknown players...

Three Examples for Ending a Battle Early

14 March 2011 - You've heard me talk a lot about Dave the Game's "Out". Though a bit of an advanced trick, once you get your head around building "outs" into your encounters, they will run smooth and fast and every o...

Adding Skill Challenges, Knowledge Checks, and Puzzles to 4e Encounters

07 March 2011 - A while back I talked about how to get back your players' attention. In it I briefly describe holding a player's attention by keeping them busy at the table bu running your table like a three-ring cir...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: February 2011

04 March 2011 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for February 2011. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip: Powerful villains should have some protection mec...

Building Simple Skill Challenges

28 February 2011 - In D&D 4th edition there are few areas less clear than how to run great skill challenges. Some groups love them, some hate them. Some DM's have no problem with them, some feel like they're steerin...

Designing 30 Minute Skirmishes in 4e

21 February 2011 - Long battles are a big common complaint of D&D 4th edition. Most encounters can take an hour to 90 minutes with very few taking any less than 45 minutes. There are lots of things you can do to spe...

Sly Flourish's Running Epic Tier D&D Games

16 February 2011 - This last weekend I officially released my latest book, Sly Flourish's Running Epic Tier D&D Games. With a such a narrow focus, this is definitely a labor of love. Running an epic game is hard, t...

Dave Chalker and Mike Shea on Paragon D&D

14 February 2011 - Today we have a recorded discussion between Dave "The Game" Chalker of Critical Hits and myself on his recent completion of a paragon tier campaign. In this recording, you'll hear about Dave's game, ...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: January 2011

12 February 2011 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for January 2011. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! I will probably milka months-worth of DM tips out of the Exp...

A New DM's Guide to Keeping Things Simple

07 February 2011 - I recently received a note from a reader what a likely common delemma for new DMs. Today we'll look at his note and discuss potential solutions for simplifying his game and getting things on track for...

A New DM's Buyers Guide to D&D 4th Edition

31 January 2011 - Three years ago, it was a struggle to get all the components required to run a great D&D game. For a game based on tactical grid-based battles, getting the right miniatures meant either spending a...

Limiting 4e Source Material

24 January 2011 - It's been two and a half years since the release of Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition. For the past 30 months Wizards has released dozens of sourcebooks and hundreds of Dungeon and Dragon magazine arti...

DM Tip Twitter Archive: December 2010

21 January 2011 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for December 2010. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip: Use a sheet of 20x by 30x acrylic from Home Depot...

Extreme Reskinning: Young White Dragon into Cyborg Assassin

17 January 2011 - One of the greatest strengths in 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons is the ability to re-skin one monster into another. I don't know if we had this ability in previous versions but, for some reason, the...

The 5x5 Method for Antagonists

10 January 2011 - I'm a huge fan of Dave Chalker's 5x5 method for campaign design. If you don't know about it, go read his primer on the topic and come on back. The 5x5 method lets you build an open world for your play...

2011 D&D Gaming Goals

03 January 2011 - It's nice to hit the reset button on life every so often. A new year gives us this chance. We can start fresh, with new goals and new plans to get us where we want to go. This is no different in our c...

The Best of Sly Flourish

27 December 2010 - With over 130 articles over the past couple of years, it's easy to lose some of the most useful Sly Flourish posts in the general noise of the site. Below you'll find my favorite ten Sly Flourish arti...

Refine Your Stories

20 December 2010 - Rumors on the internets say that the Valve team responsible for the game Portal spent significant time testing their game during development. One of the things they continually tested was the story of...

DM Tip Twitter Archive: November 2010

18 December 2010 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for November 2010. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! RT @criticalhits: Junkulator: #gammaworld junk generator ht...

Five Reasons to Love Gamma World

13 December 2010 - Unless you've been living inside of an empty can of beans, you've heard all about Gamma World, the recent 4e-based post apocalypticdds RPG released this past fall. Players most certainly love this gam...

Interviewing Potential Players

06 December 2010 - The hardest part of running a great D&D game is finding a great group. Getting five people together who all have the same drive for D&D that you do is a daunting challenge. Even harder than fi...

Pimp My Orcus

29 November 2010 - Of all of the creatures in the monster manual 1 most worthy of an update, none needs it more than Orcus, the Prince of Undeath himself. Since the beginning of D&D 4th Edition, there have been thre...

Guest Article: Artifacts are for the Dungeon Master

25 November 2010 - Note: The following is a guest article by our very own Jeff Greiner, host of the Tome Show and creator of Temporary Hit Points. I want to thank Jeff for letting me crash his podcast so many times and ...

Understanding the Economy of Actions

22 November 2010 - We're going to get a little gamey in today's article, putting on our lab coats and drawing equations out on a chalk board. Today we're going to talk about the economy of actions in D&D 4e and how ...

Building a glowing crystal prop video

18 November 2010 - Here's a video I recently shot on building a scintillating portal prop. If you liked this video, consider using this link to purchase your own multi-colored tea-lights or bookmark this link to purc...

Five Reasons to Love Auras

15 November 2010 - Most of the articles on this site have taken a broad look at ways to make your monsters challenging and fun. Today, howver, we're going to dig deeper into one particular attribute found most often on ...

Writing Awesome Read-Aloud Text

08 November 2010 - Not all of us can improv like Robin Williams. We can't spout off Tolkeinesque descriptions of fantastic locations while our friends stare at us with a half a slice of pizza in their hands. We may unde...

DM Tip Twitter Archive: October 2010

05 November 2010 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for October 2010. Get daily DM tips athttp://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip: To scare your powergamers, hit them with fearsome s...

Monster Optimization: Pimp my Tarrasque

01 November 2010 - Few monsters invoke such emotional responses from old-school D&D gamers like the Tarrasque. A beast of wanton destruction, a destroyer of worlds, and unique among the cosmos; the Tarrasque should ...

Five Inspirations for Gamma World

25 October 2010 - With the recent release of Gamma World, dungeon masters all across the world are shifting their perspectives to think up new adventures in a bizarre new world where multiple realities crash together i...

Monster Knowledge Cards

18 October 2010 - After a certain point in a battle, we can grow weary of constantly comparing attack rolls to the monster's defenses. At this point anyone who was paying attention would likely know the defenses of the...

Making Awesome Dungeons

11 October 2010 - So twitter is all a twitter (cough) with conversations for and against dungeons. I fall on the pro-dungeon side myself. I see dungeons as a staple in fantasy roleplaying games and Dungeons and Dragons...

DM Tip Twitter Archive: September 2010

08 October 2010 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for September 2010. Get daily DM tips athttp://twitter.com/slyflourish! Got some cool dungeon 3d accessories from Mage Knight: http...

The Eight Most Useful Lords of Madness Minis

04 October 2010 - Wizards of the Coast recently released the Lords of Madness Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures set. It's been a while since we've had a new minis set and this set is clearly designed to give you lots of ...

Dungeon Tile Master Set Video Tips

30 September 2010 - Earlier today I recorded a video of a review and tips for the D&D Essentials Dungeon Tile Master Set. You can watch the video below. If you like these tips, please take a look at Sly Flourish's...

Five Tips for New Dungeon Masters

27 September 2010 - A reader recently sent me a note stating that, while he had spent a lot of time in D&D, he had yet to DM and found the idea rather intimidating. What are the best things someone can do to get star...

Four Things Every Solo Monster Should Have

20 September 2010 - Building the perfect solo creature is a good mix of art and science. We want a solo creature to really threaten a party. We want them to act as the giant creature that wets a thousand suits of armor. ...

Monster Optimization: Rebuilding the Lich

13 September 2010 - Liches are my favorite monster in D&D. They are ancient beyond imagination and twisted by black magics older than any living mage could even begin to understand. They've forgotten more lore than m...

DM Tip Twitter Archive: August 2010

10 September 2010 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for August 2010. Get daily DM tips athttp://twitter.com/slyflourish! .@DnDPrincessAria I have the Dark Sun Creature Catalog. It's g...

Effort-based Experience Rewards

06 September 2010 - In his blog, In the Eye of the Beholder, D&D producer Greg Bilsland states that experience points are a good way for a newer dungeon master to build battles and award PCs for their efforts. In thi...

Defining Skills: Arcane, Nature, Divine

30 August 2010 - Update: OK, this probably wasn't a great idea. There appears to be a lot of overlap between my ideas for how to use these skills and actual rituals. I'd still like to find a way to make skills more sp...

Three Encounter-Changing Effects

23 August 2010 - It's hard to come up with a unique encounter week after week. We DMs have to constantly seek new ways to make each battle different from all of the others. Creatures can help to a point but their mech...

DM Tip Twitter Archive: July 2010

21 August 2010 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for July 2010. Get daily DM tips athttp://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip: use MM3 solos as a model for older ones. What do they ...

Monster Optimization: Pimp My Ghoul King

16 August 2010 - Running tough high epic-tier battles is hard to do. The combination of feats, powers, and items possessed by our PCs push them well beyond their equivalent effectiveness at lower levels. Yet to keep s...

Epic-Tier Pitfalls

09 August 2010 - I recently read an excellent post on Enworld that described one DM's experience running two epic-tier campaigns. I've recently been at the tail end of an ongoing 1 to 30 campaign, with a group of PCs ...

Run your game like D&D Encounters

02 August 2010 - Wizards of the Coast has been supporting a new style of play they call D&D Encounters. Players get together at their friendly local game shop each Wednesday and run through a single big encounter....

Gencon 2010 Schedule and DM Kit

31 July 2010 - So I'm heading to Gencon next week for my favorite four days of gaming! I'll be seeing the other RPG bloggers, checking out WOTC's new stuff, talking to their designers and developers, and rolling a h...

Monster Optimization: Solo Githyanki Psionist

26 July 2010 - In a recent epic-level game, my party was soon to come up against a Chaos Ship full of Githyanki pirates. I wanted a strong leader for these pirates, someone they would fear and someone who could stee...

Status Effect Alternatives

19 July 2010 - There's been a lot of talk about status effects. If you've played a game above level five or so, you've seen the grind that can come from a deluge of status effects. Being stunned or dazed (save ends)...

DM Tip Twitter Archive: June 2010

15 July 2010 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for June 2010. Get daily DM tips athttp://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip: Watch out for too many dazes and weakens - they genera...

Monster Optimization: Vampires

12 July 2010 - Vampires are a staple monster in nearly every Dungeons and Dragons campaign. They invoke a common sense of mystery and dread, something we would almost love to be and certainly love to kill. Today we'...

DM Tips book released

09 July 2010 - This week I released Sly Flourish's Dungeon Master Tips, an e-book focused on giving you useful tips to help you prepare and run awesome 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons games. You can learn all abou...

Three D&D Tips from Breaking Bad

05 July 2010 - Breaking Bad is one of the greatest television dramas in the past twenty years. With an amazing depth of character, great writing, and wonderful cinematography, Breaking Bad makes us wince but never l...

Dwarven Forge Buyer's Guide

28 June 2010 - If you're a continuing reader of the site or you've visited my Flickr album of D&D pics, you'll notice I'm a big fan of Dwarven Forge. I wrote about these heavy resin-based 3D dungeon props in my ...

Desert of Athas Dungeon Tiles, Environmental Effects and Terrain Powers

21 June 2010 - With the recent release of the Desert of Athas D&D Dungeon Tiles, we now have many options for desert environments of all types. It is up to us to turn these environments into exciting, dynamic ar...

DM Advice: Contention At The Table

14 June 2010 - We're going to try something a little different with this article today. I received a note from Youseph Tanha, a writer for Stargazer's World that I thought would be of interest to a lot of Dungeon Ma...

DM Tip Twitter Archive: May 2010

10 June 2010 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for April 2010. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip: Model your fantasy towns and cities after the econom...

Three Tips to Prepare for the Monster Manual 3

07 June 2010 - Back in mid-May I had the opportunity to ask Greg Bilsland some questions about the Monster Manual 3. You can find the full text of that interview over at my Critical hits article: Monster Manual 3 In...

Three Cool Story Ideas to Avoid

31 May 2010 - The night before writing this I ran a bad game. It didn't appear bad when I wrote it. I followed a lot of my own advice. I spent time in the eyes of the villain, thinking about what he wanted and how ...

Skill Challenges for Combat Groups

24 May 2010 - Some groups love role playing. They love weaving detailed intricate stories among themselves. They love thinking how their character would think. They love sitting back, closing their eyes, and imagin...

Monster Optimization: Pimp My Beholder

17 May 2010 - There's few creatures as iconic in Dungeons and Dragons as the Beholder. A ball of intellect and destruction, beholders should always bring terror to those who find themselves facing one. A party that...

DM Tip Twitter Archive: April 2010

13 May 2010 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for April 2010. Get daily DM tips athttp://twitter.com/slyflourish! RT @DM_Simonides: #dnd DM Tip: Remember: its about the players;...

Providing Real Choices

10 May 2010 - "With the Kobold prince slain and his bodyguards broken across the floor, you find yourself with two choices: the left door or the right door." This has long been the traditional choices offered to p...

Making Terrain Fun

03 May 2010 - Often, perhaps too often, we DM's focus on building terrain as a challenge to PCs. In later levels in D&D 4th Edition, it can become hard to keep the challenge and threat high for our PCs and terr...

Three Ways to use Music in your Game

26 April 2010 - When writing the script for his films, Quinten Tarrantino likes to sit in his music room spinning 78s of his favorite yet forgotten tunes to get his mind wandering. "I am always looking for some cool...

Monster Optimization: Grells and Quicklings

19 April 2010 - We're back for another episode of Monster Optimization where we twist the screws a little harder and send those fancy pants Monks and Seekers back to their safe little points of light. Today we're goi...

Three Monster Powers to Speed Up Combat

12 April 2010 - Speeding up combat is a constant desire for a lot of DMs. Most experienced DMs have come up with a variety of tips to keep things fast. Some recommend focusing monsters around Skirmishers and Artiller...

DM Tip Twitter Archive: March 2010

08 April 2010 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for March 2010. Get daily DM tips athttp://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip from @newbiedm: AWESOME resource for fantasy names and...

How to Protect Your Elite Villains

05 April 2010 - From a storytelling angle, we all love the big bad evil guy (BBEG). We love our main villains whether they be Sarumon or Hans Gruber. They are the mastermind behind the treachery faced by your PCs and...

Three D&D Tips we can learn from Farmville

01 April 2010 - For the past two years, Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition has suffered through constant bombardments that it is "Too WoW Like". This has become the flag of the angry old-school gamer whose eyes glow re...

Monster Optimization: Immoliths and Inferno Bats

29 March 2010 - It's time for another Monster Optimization! This time we're going to dive into the middle of the paragon tier with the Immolith and Inferno Bats. These beasts are both level 15 which would make them a...

Harrowing Halls Terrain Effects

22 March 2010 - With the Harrowing Halls dungeon tile set, Wizards gives us some fun and excellent 3d terrain to spruce up our encounter settings. When designing an encounter, however, it is always worth spending the...

On Environmental Powers

15 March 2010 - The Dungeon Master's Guide 2 is likely the best D&D 4e book published for Dungeon Masters. One of the great additions to this book, and to the 4e system in general, is the concept of "environmenta...

Pimp My Mindflayer

12 March 2010 - Note: This article was originally published by me on the Wizards D&D Community site on 11 March 2010. There is a certain class of creatures we hold to a higher standard than the others. While kob...

DM Tip Twitter Archive: February 2010

11 March 2010 - DM Tip Twitter Archive: January 2010 Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for February 2010. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip: Have a spym...

DM Tips Video: Building a Portal Prop

08 March 2010 - Here's a short three minute video on how to build cool props for your D&D game. In it, I discuss building a light-up portal for some nasty beast to enter from a foul world. Here's a pic of the ...

Losing Control

01 March 2010 - or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Combat Challenge. There's a very good e-book on Lulu that describes the attitudes and philosophies of the 0e D&D Dungeon Master called "A Quick Primer f...

DM Tips Seminar Podcast

25 February 2010 - Earlier this month, at SynDCon, I had the privilege of running a Dungeon Master Tips seminar with my friends Dave "The Game" Chalker and Matt James. We discussed preparation aids and tools one could u...

Monster Optimization: Anatomy of a Dracolich

22 February 2010 - In one of my recent games, our level 22 party traversed the twisted mountains of madness in northern Death's Reach. There they faced a beast of great power and ancient dark magic - the Dracolich Ashen...

Quests for Villains

15 February 2010 - "You sent them to their death," said Akti.Aranthamturned his black eyes to the ice-lich. "Uganan knew this - I could see it in his eyes." "It was necessary," saidArantham. "With the power of the sou...

DM Table Tip Video: The Portable Dungeon Master Kit

13 February 2010 - Here's a short video showing off the gear I brought with me to SynDCOn today. It's intended to show all of the bits of stuff one might need to run a game on the road. Enjoy! ...

DM Tip Twitter Archive: January 2010

11 February 2010 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for January 2010. Get daily DM tips athttp://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip: Give dragons a ranged breath weapon that shares the...

DM Table Tips Episode 1

08 February 2010 - This is the first of a series of short videos focusing on Dungeons and Draogns 4th Edition table tips. In this episode we're going to look at using black t-shirts as a fog of war, pipe cleaners for ar...

Three D&D Tips I Learned From Dragon Age

01 February 2010 - Quite a few D&D players and DMs have been all about the Dragon Age these past couple of months. While not a perfect game, it shows just how far computer and console RPGs can go. There's a lot to l...

Monster Optimization: Foulspawn Mangler + Foulspawn Seer

25 January 2010 - In previous Monster Optimizations we've looked at the Bodaks and Wights, Shadow Dragons, and Ghouls and Deathlocks. In Today's Monster Optimzation we're going into the high heroic tier with a nasty co...

Sly Flourish on the Tome Show 124

23 January 2010 - I had the wonderful opportunity to join Jeff Greiner (aka, @Squach) on the Tome Show 124, released last night. Jeff and I talk in detail about the Foulspawn Seer / Foulspawn Mangler monster optimizati...

Powerhouse Dragons

18 January 2010 - Dragons are the absolute staple monster in Dungeons and Dragons (hell, it's even in the name). 4th Edition did a great job of breaking these beasts out from the rest of the pack with the concept of "s...

James Bond Encounter Design

11 January 2010 - One of my favorite holiday traditions is watching as much James Bond as I can over Thanksgiving and Christmas. This year, while watching the new Casino Royale, I was thinking about how each action sce...

DM Tip Twitter Archive, November 2009

07 January 2010 - Somehow I missed posting my tweets from November. Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for November 2009. Get your own daily DM tips athttp://twitter.com/slyflourish! #...

DM Tip Twitter Archive, December 2009

07 January 2010 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for December 2009. Get your own daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! Great #dnd article from roleplaying tips: 9 Things...

Monster Optimization: Ghouls and Deathlock Wights

04 January 2010 - Since posting my first Monster Optimization article on wraiths, I've had a lot of requests for some optimizations at the heroic tier. Today we're going to set up an optimized encounter at around level...

Evernote for Dungeon Masters

28 December 2009 - I am a huge fan of Twyla Tharp's book, The Creative Habit, and I've written before about the "idea box" for Dungeons and Dragons. In my spare time I am always looking for new and interesting ways to c...

Giving 4e an Old School Feel

21 December 2009 - 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons has a clear focus on "encounters". Each encounter usually (not always) consists of a setting, like a big room, with a bunch of creatures carefully calculated out to me...

Monster Optimization: Shadow Dragons

14 December 2009 - Most monster optimizations require a careful combination of monsters to bring about truly devastating effects. Today, however, we're going to look at a single creature whose power is quite remarkable ...

Ten Ways to Challenge Powerful Parties

07 December 2009 - If you've been reading other Sly Flourish articles, you might have seen a common thread - challenging players. In my experience, as D&D 4e PCs get up into the paragon tier and above, it becomes ha...

Scaling 4th Edition for Six Players

30 November 2009 - We'd all like to have a perfect set of five players every time we play D&D but in the age of constant busyness, it can be harder and harder to achieve. One way to get close is to build a pool of p...

Magic Gems for Item Reward Flexability

23 November 2009 - One of the bits I often toss to the side when planning out a series of adventures or even a campaign is loot. With the vast array of possible loot available in 4e and the picky tastes of my players, I...

DM Tip Twitter Archive, October 2009

19 November 2009 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for October 2009. Get your own daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip: For a change, have a monster that can s...

Monster Optimization: Mind Flayer + Umber Hulk

16 November 2009 - Welcome to another edition of Monster Optimization. Like last time, in our look at Bodaks and Wights, we will find a particularly lethal combination of monsters to challenge the toughest party. I wan...

Creative Uses for Minions

09 November 2009 - We all love minions (or we should) but sometimes, particularly at paragon and above, it can be hard to find a good use for them. We might throw sixteen minions instead of four but the result is the sa...

Dungeons and Dragons 4e: Hard Mode

02 November 2009 - 4th Edition player characters are a stout bunch. With thousands of magical items and thousands of possible powers, there is an incredible array of possibilities for PCs. If your players are particular...

Monster Optimization: Wights + Bodaks

26 October 2009 - Welcome to the first article in our new series: Monster Optimization. Players might have all of those fancy character optimization forums and wikis with seventeen rulebooks worth of ways for their pal...

Ration Tracking System

19 October 2009 - Back in August, at Gencon, I had more than a couple of really excellent and informative conversations with Quinn from At Will. Like a lot of folks, Quinn has an amazing amount of passion for the game ...

Four Tips for New Dungeon Masters

12 October 2009 - On Saturday, 19 September 2009, I had the pleasure of playing in the Worldwide D&D Gameday focused on the Dungeon Master's Guide 2. For this gameday they had each group build an adventure with som...

How to Handle Player Resistances

05 October 2009 - Recently, during my paragon-tier campaign, player resistances have come into much greater effect than I expected. In running a battle of Fay Lingerers from the Monster Manual 2, it became clear that t...

DM Tip Twitter Archive, September 2009

01 October 2009 - \#dnd tip: Mix open map and dungeon encounters to give your players a variety of battlefields. \#dnd tip: When running a Demilich, remember the Soul Drain is the primary attack. Damage almost doesn't ...

Dwarven Forge Tips

28 September 2009 - I'm a big fan of Dwarven Forge, though the expense can hardly be justified. Today we're going to look at four tips to get the most out of your Dwarven Forge investment. This article assumes you have a...

Tips for Running Paragon

21 September 2009 - With the 4th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons out for a year now, some groups have breeched into the Paragon tier. This month we will see the release of the second Dungeon Master's Guide with a focus o...

Three Acting Tips for D&D

14 September 2009 - During the "meet the press" event at Gencon 2009 I had the opportunity to pick the brain of David Nett, a professional actor and creator of Gold: The Series. During our conversation, I asked him for t...

Running Solos the Monster Manual 2 Way

07 September 2009 - During the Wizards of the Coast Epic-Level seminar at the 2009 Gencon, the group discussed the differences between Monster Manual 1 and Monster Manual 2 creatures. One of the members of the audience a...

DM Tip Twitter Archive, August 2009

03 September 2009 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for August 2009. Get your own daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip: Not every battle has to be in wide open ro...

How to Get Back Your Player's Attention

31 August 2009 - Anyone who has DMed for any length of time has seen it many times. Combat in 4th Edition D&D takes some time and during this time, the attention of our players will wander. They go read their othe...

Four Tips for Running Solo Creatures

24 August 2009 - One of the great improvements of D&D 4th Edition over previous editions is the inclusion of minion, elite, and solo creatures. Finally we have a mechanic for powerful bodyguards and that single bi...

Four Tips for Character Development

17 August 2009 - With the refinement of combat in 4th edition, it is easy to forget what separated D&D from the tabletop wargame from which it evolved. Character. Today we will discuss four tips for helping your p...

Four Principles for House Rules

10 August 2009 - Our ability to modify the game we play, to customize it around the desires of our players and our own desires as well. The desire to tinker with systems is what drove us to run our own games in the fi...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: July 2009

06 August 2009 - Below is an archive of DM tips posted throughout the month of July to mySly Flourish Twitter feed. Enjoy! #dnd tip: Everyone in Eberron has been affected by the Last War. Everyone knows someone who d...

Battle Map Comparisons

03 August 2009 - Which option we use for our battle maps can drastically change the type of D&D 4e game we run. The options range everywhere from simple to complex, light enough to carry in a poster tube to heavy ...

Four Questions with Robin Laws

27 July 2009 - Recently I had the great opportunity of asking Robin Laws four questions about running 4th Edition D&D games. Robin is the author and co-author of many roleplaying game books including the D&D...

Four Tips for King of the Trollhaunt Warrens

20 July 2009 - Our intrepid adventurers, just escaped from the vile Pyramid of Shadows, find themselves traveling south into the realm of the Trollhaunt where they might help save a city from the clutches of a vile ...

Four Tips From Robin's Laws

13 July 2009 - It wasn't until a few months ago that I learned about the little book written by Robin Laws, the prolific game designer of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, known as "Robin's Laws to Good Game Mastering". Thi...

Four Skill Challenge Tips

06 July 2009 - Skill challenges are mysterious business. While D&D 4th edition gives us the most refined combat system in over thirty years, the skill challenge system clearly has room for improvement. Unlike th...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: June 2009

02 July 2009 - awesome tip of using a double dog dish as a dice roller from @unclebear : http://tr.im/qnB8 send email to specific players to give them info only their character knows. Be careful not to drive a wedg...

Three Motivations for Your Villains

29 June 2009 - Motivation is a core component of good storytelling. Few things ruin a good story like poor character motivations. The worst characters have one dimensional motives - the worst of these being the "ins...

Three New Ways to use the Monster Manual 2

22 June 2009 - With the recent release of the Monster Manual 2, Wizards of the Coast added a much needed variety of new creatures to off-set the wide variety of new PC classes, races, powers, and abilities released ...

Tome Show: Monster Manual 2

16 June 2009 - Last week I had the great pleasure of joining Phil from ChattyDM and Quinn from At Will as guests on Jeff Greiner's The Tome Show discussing the Monster Manual 2. I'll be posting a longer article disc...

Three Tips for the Pyramid of Shadows

15 June 2009 - Note: This article contains spoilers for Pyramid of Shadows. If you plan on playing in this adventure, skip this article. With Pyramid of Shadows, Mike Mearls and James Wyatt have re-created the Gyga...

4e One Year Later Tome Show Podcast

10 June 2009 - Last week I was one of a handful of guest bloggers who had the opportunity to discuss the past and future of D&D 4th Edition with James Wyatt and Chris Perkins of Wizards of the Coast on The Tome ...

Build Worlds, Not Stories

08 June 2009 - There are dozens of components that make a good D&D game. Encounter design, rulesets, table management, theatrics, fair rulings, map and tile layouts, props; all of these combine to build an enjoy...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: May 2009

05 June 2009 - Below is an archive of DM tips posted throughout the month of may to my Sly Flourish Twitter feed. Enjoy! Cut and fold 3X5 cards horizontally for init cards and vertically for status effect cards. #d...

Skill Challenge Tips in Tome Show Podcast

04 June 2009 - A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of speaking with Jeff Greiner on The Tome Show (subscribe with iTunes), a podcast dedicated to 4e Dungeon and Dragons. In the episode we had two topics: buil...

Four Ways To Get Your Imagination Back

01 June 2009 - Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition is a rules-heavy game. Only a year old, we have dozens of books with thousands of pages of new powers, items, feats, and monsters. We have a combat system refined over...

Four Tips for Buying D&D Miniatures

25 May 2009 - Today we're going to talk about some tips for buying D&D miniatures. While the edition wars continue to rage on, one battle front always appears to be on the use of miniatures. For the purposes of...

Three Tips for Thunderspire Labyrinth

18 May 2009 - Kalarel has been defeated and the dark portal has closed, at least for now. Not all the kidnapped slaves of Winterhaven have been recovered, however, and their tracks lead into the Thunderspire Labyri...

Tips For Running One-Shot Games

11 May 2009 - Dungeons and Dragons is a game meant to be played week by week over a long period of time. Sometimes, however, we just want to play some quick D&D with some friends. Maybe we have a group that onl...

DM Tips, 1 May-8 May 2009

08 May 2009 - Below is the digest of this week's Sly Flourish DM Tips published from the SlyFlourish Twitter feed. Follow today! Have an old villain open an abyssal gate in the sewers of your PCs' home town with D...

Getting Ideas for D&D

04 May 2009 - In his excellent book, On Writing, Stephen King discusses the most common question he receives when he's talking to his fans. "How do you get your ideas?" seems a common question given to many fiction...

DM Tips, 22-30 April

01 May 2009 - More DM Tips from the SlyFlourish Twitter feed! Need a quick attack or defense score? Try level+4 for a base attack and level+14 for a base defense. Use + or - 2 to tailor it. #dnd Very much liked t...

Three Tips for Keep on the Shadowfell

27 April 2009 - Update: Wizards recently released Keep on the Shadowfell and the 4e Quick Start Rules for free on their website. The tips below can help make this excellent free adventure even more fun. Though nearl...

DM Tip Twitter Archive: April 15-22 2009

23 April 2009 - Below are the tweets for the seven days between 15 and 22 April 2009. Un-cursing a possessed Treant during combat made for a fun skill challenge when the treant was bloodied. Good for earthday! \#dn...

Three Cheap 4e Game Aids

20 April 2009 - We all know the primary needs for a good D&D game. Books, dice, pencils, miniatures, a battle mat, these are all either required or very helpful in playing D&D 4th Edition. There are, however,...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: April 2009

18 April 2009 - While Sly Flourish the web blog will focus on bringing you an article a week focused on making your D&D 4th Edition game better, that's not the only place we'll provide tips. Subscribe to http://t...

4e Adventure Checklist

13 April 2009 - It can be hard to remember all the elements that make up a good 4e game. There are a lot of them to remember, and if you're running a game every week, it's easy to miss some of the components that mak...

D&D Dungeon Tile Tips

05 April 2009 - With the recent release of Dungeon Delve and the strong push to table top combat in D&D 4th Edition, D&D Dungeon Tiles are becoming more and more important in people's games. While the truly i...

Build a Twyla Tharp Style Campaign Box

29 March 2009 - I've spent the past couple of months reading Twyla Tharp's book, The Creative Habit. Over the past couple of weeks, as I finished the book, it dawned on me how many of these habits - habits formed by ...

Dungeon Delve Review

20 March 2009 - The minute I heard about the Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Delve product, I knew it was the product for me. While I have a nice weekly D&D game with five to six players and four hours of play time,...

Start Here

18 March 2009 - Welcome to Sly Flourish. This weblog has a single focus: to build the better 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons dungeon master. This blog is written by Mike Shea, a gamer and writer hailing from Vienna,...

Pyramid of Shadows Adventure Review

07 February 2009 - This review is intended for Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Masters. It will contain spoilers. If you plan on playing through this adventure, stop now and go read some Penny Arcade instead. Pyramid of ...

Manual of the Planes Review

01 January 2009 - After my happiness with the Draconomicon, I looked forward quite a bit to the Manual of the Planes. Who doesn't want to read about the powerful and dangerous outer worlds? Who doesn't want to find out...

Draconomicon Review

01 January 2009 - What would Christmas be without a fine tome filled with horrors buried in the deepest darkest depths of the known worlds? Pretty lame, if you ask me. Lucky for me, I was the proud receiver of Draconom...

Dwarven Forge Caverns Review

28 December 2008 - Every time I open a new box of Dwarven Forge dungeon tiles I am always surprised how much I love them. All concerns about the price, all concerns about the "investment", all concerns that my money wou...

Dwarven Forge 3D Dungeon Terrain

05 August 2008 - You know you're beginning to fall too hard into D&D when $100 a set for 3-D dungeon pieces seems reasonable. You really know you've hit heroin-levels of addiction when you look in your dining room...

Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition Review

03 July 2008 - Dungeons and Dragons has been a staple in my nerd pedigree since I was 16 years old. I've played on and off since high school, playing D&D 2nd edition and D&D 3.5. For most of this time I was ...