D&D Starter Set Dragons of Stormwreck Isle, New SF Bookstore, Monster Roles – Lazy D&D Talk Show

Phandelver also had minis and a small battle mat

Wasn't there a Stranger Things variant?

Well played store.

Or the 80's animated D&D characters I presume?

I'm sure when some of us get hold of that we'll be discussing it in the forum's including D&D beyond

The checklist for situations is awesome. I ended up with something similar when I was struggling with impromptu combats. And I started pausing for a minute, and running down a quick checklist to help me. But your list is better.

Sly please put out a map pack with all your maps. There amazing

Lost mines of Phendelver was actually the best WotC adventure so far hands down for me. I just loved it. I'll probably won't get Stormwreck isle.

Strange. I have the Essentials Kit and scanned the QR code to (hopefully) get that 1-12 Adventure spoken of... nothing. Just a landing page offering some DM info and other adventures. Am I missing something? What was that 1-12 adventure called?

Thank you, Mike. Truly appreciate the content.

Levels 1-3 is appropriate for a starting group. Phandelver and Icespire Peak are long adventures for a DND-curious group. If the game doesn’t fit the group’s lifestyle and time availability, it’s very unlikely they’ll see the end of the adventure.

Dungeons AND Dragons?! Inconceivable!

Phandelver was the first actual 5E product to hit the market -- I remember playing it at SDCC 2014, which was two or three weeks before Gen Con, where, IIRC, 5E officially premiered. It would've been weird if it'd come out after the PHB. That would've undermined the starter set's appeal, IMO.

Reskin that Quantum Ogre!

Phandelver was on sale for $4.99 last year on Amazon. Crazy!

Quantum ogre is problematic because they negate player agency by penalizing them whatever they do. Quantum clues are awesome because they promote player agency . I can't type this all on my phone. Check out Courtney Campbell's work. You're the best

A lot of people are giving DoSI a qualified pass which I’m baffled by. It’s objectively speaking worse in almost every way compared to the Essentials Kit (except: don’t kill players, how to run D&D). Returned mine to Target for a refund.

I’m sorry, Mike, your description of conjure Woodland beings, or conjure animals, is quite over exaggerated. Those “eight turns“ don’t take most people I’ve ever seen, including myself any longer to adjudicate then a character who is a rogue, paladin, or fire mage. It just doesn’t. You have many examples of how a dungeon master can take their turn more quickly and all of your content. All of that can be applied to the spell easily. Just having eight separate 20 sided dice, using the +5/-5 for advantage/disadvantage, and average damage takes running to spell down to mere seconds. Anyone who moves all of these creatures as individual turns is using the spell incorrectly. They all move together, as one. They aren’t very tactical, you issued verbal commands which they follow as an animal would. Pass turn.

Speculation but I think the lack of any DDB tie-in tells us more about the future of WotC/Hasbro: I think this Starter Set is a commercial bridge (2022-2024) to a very different future (2024+).

There's actually 5 boxed sets, if you include the Rick & Morty and Stranger Things starter sets!

I just wanted to add one thought to your answer about the quantum ogre - sometimes they don't need to fight the ogre. It doesn't have to be that no matter where they go they will definitely fight an ogre. Maybe their choices lead to it not feeling appropriate to have a fight at all. One of the strengths of keeping things loose is that you can always choose NOT to include a fight or other aspect you had in mind during planning if it just doesn't feel right when you are actually at the table.

Audio is out of synch?

For bans I have a very simple baseline. All WotC materials or 3rd party content in a published product you bought is fair game. If you want to use 3rd party stuff just show it to me first.

The only thing I ban outright is variant human and Tasha's custom lineage. And the reason I do that is all my games either start everyone with 1 feat at level 1, or I make them choose between getting all the stuff in variant human added to their base race/background or starting the game with a +1 weapon or equivalent magic item. At lvl4 everyone gets the thing they didn't choose at lvl1.

For summon spells I've homebrewed that problem out of existence. The Tasha's spells are preferred, but if you really want to use the PHB spells you can. The phb conjure spells summon one creature at the max CR the spell can usually summon, or they can summon a number of creatures equal to the number of PCs. Count the number of players and figure out the CR limit from the table in the spell. Summons get one shared turn. On that turn each player rolls the attacks for of the summoned critters.

The other thing I do with summons is turn the Divine Intervention ability from clerics into the summoning system from most final fantasy games.

Love the index card/plot hook idea, Dungeon Dudes have something like this in their Drakkenheim setting. Wish I started my game this way.

The Monster Roles article is great, I just wish it was in a printer-friendly format that I could add to my DM's Binder

It bothers me when they cheap out on dice. Imo every 5e product that includes dice should have 4 d6, the extra d20, & the percentile die.

Cant wait till Aus gets them, will be adding the hardcovers to the collection then.

We were sitting on Stormwreck to see if it tied to Beyond. We’ll wait until we can get it there. I am disappointed to hear it’s not.

With regard to IP thoughts: there's a fine line between being inspired by something and taking almost all of it from another source. Mordheim from Warhammer and Drakkenheim is a good example. For a homebrew setting sure, but for a Kickstarter? Wasn't just the basic premise or even a few similarities......there were tons of things -- even the names are similar. Feels bad.

I used DM David's article to roll for a patron and then the Lazy DM's workbook to roll the rest of my adventure plot points. I am super excited to run the adventure I created using these tools.

How would new players find this if it was at a LGS? The point of it being at Target is so that it gets in front of people that wouldn't otherwise see it. This isn't a product for you and me. Its for the uninitiated.

I really like the idea of secrets and clues, I just find it hard sometimes to come up with 10 ideas each session. Some I repeat if it pertains to the story or not any longer. I like to plan my sessions into two sections possible and probable events. These relate directly to the main story or side quest the PCs are on. It allows me to make an easy checklist during the session and recap last sessions. It allows me to capture it as a scene and not necessarily a situation and allows me to make predictions of the party's choices and get surprised when they choose a different option. For example, Probable events: The party will rescue Daniella from the Bandits of Dragon's Den and return her safely to Holm (roleplay this scene). Possible events: Oberon and his gang spot the party and he takes Daniella away. It makes it fun for a action/reactionary bases.

I`m new to DnD and would like to introduce it to my 6 year old. We played Ironsworn before GM-less. It would be nice to receive some advice on how to make this gm-less or at least 1-1 compatible. Thanks

Just wanted to say I just got physical my copies of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, Lazy DM's Workbook, and Lazy DM's Companion from the kickstarter. I was thrilled to get them even though I already had copies of the first two books, but I'm thrilled to have the hardback and spiral bound versions now. The books are gorgeous. I'm looking forward to putting them to use soon. I actually just realized these are the only physical D&D books I currently own. Everything else I have is digital only. But for these I wanted to be able to kick back and relax while I read through them or to have it more conveniently available while DMing instead of having yet another window open on my PC. Anyway... Not trying to promote Mike's work or anything, this is his channel I'd only be preaching to the choir anyway. Just wanted to say thank you to Mike and all his contributors for these great books.

5 "Starter Sets" in total.
Hunt for the Thessalhydra (Stranger Things Starter Set) is quite small, likely a single quest line when compared to the other ones, but it works REALLY well as a sample of how to play and how to run. More or less takes place in Greyhawk, so you could potentially run it alongside Ghosts of Saltmarsh, or Lost Laboratory of Kwalish and Infernal Machine Rebuild. Edit (and some Tales from the Yawning Portal adventures, since some are originally from Greyhawk)

The Lost Dungeon of Rickedness (D&D vs Rick and Morty Starter Set) has a sprawling dungeon and relatively no storyline. Filled with in-jokes and satire. I'd say it isn't as good of an example for introducing players or a DM. Pure dungeon crawl. However, a few of the snarky comment bubbles added to the rule book actually do help to relate some information. Is it fun? Yeah. Just not as good as an introduction to brand new players and DMs. Edit (the dungeon itself could be inserted into many different settings with some modifications)

You mentioned about the ready made character sheets which can be leveled up. Thats amazing. I am running a D&D starter game, every week I have different players show up. Having a sheet with all the rules they need on it, including spells is wonderful. Thanks.

Thanks Mike for this video and so many others. I never write enough to say how much I appreciate all the videos and good company. I've had hours and hours of good times with lessons from the Lazy DM book, so thanks for that too. I am sure you have too much to do but hope you'll be back with a new one-on-one mini campaign with that new Hasbro starter set. That one y'all did with IceSpire Peak was a blast!

Sorry but quantum ogre is just an excuse for a railroad. Also, uninformed decision-making is not decision-making.

It's a little disappointing to see Wizards drop so much of what made the Essentials Kit interesting. It was in every regard Basic D&D for a new generation, a fully playable and replayable game in an affordable and easily digestible package. I had hoped that they would iterate further on that design (and maybe even streamline the sidekicks further) for 5.5E. Maybe such a product will come in the future