Sly Flourish's The Lazy Dungeon Master

By: Michael E. Shea

Narrated by: Colby Elliott

Length: 2 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

You love Dungeons and Dragons. As an experienced dungeon master, you've run dozens, if not hundreds of games. You put a lot of work into making your games great. What if there's another way to look at how you prepare your game? What if it turned out you could spend less time and less energy and have a better game as a result? It's time to unleash The Lazy Dungeon Master.

Written in the style of Sly Flourish's Dungeon Master Tips and Running Epic Tier D&D Games, The Lazy Dungeon Master shows a new approach to game preparation, one that takes less time and gives your game the freedom to grow at the table. This book will help a dungeon master prepare awesome games for any version of D&D.

Based on the real-world experiences of hundreds of dungeon masters and dozens of professional game designers, The Lazy Dungeon Master includes interviews with veteran D&D DMs and a complete toolkit to help you improvise an entire game. Whether you play 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, Pathfinder, or the D&D Next playtest, The Lazy Dungeon Master has tips, techniques, and advice to make preparation easier and help you run a flexible and entertaining game.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2012 Michael E. Shea (P)2016 Last Word Audio, LLC

Helpful tips for Dungeon Masters

As a DM who is often overwhelmed by the amount of prep work associated with bringing a module to to table in a competent manner, I found this book has a lot of helpful information about how to reduce some of the things that eat up a lot of time and don't provide a lot of in-game payoff. Also, the book gets to the point and doesn't waste a lot of time. At under 3 hours, it's not a huge time investment to get the knowledge it offers.

-1 star as it refers to a pdf a number of times that is supposed to be supplied with this audiobook that you never receive with Audible. It doesn't hamper things too much, but it really would have been nice to have.

Exactly what I was looking for

I was looking for a resource that would help me develop as a DM. I had been a DM for years doing the same thing over and over. I felt like something was missing but couldn't figure out what it was. This book helped.

Outdated for 5e, but concepts hold up

I really enjoy this audiobook. Just finished my second listen through after taking about a year, and I got a ton more out of it. The book is from the 4e era, but it all still fits.

Just wish for more content

This is certainly a useful resource for DMs who want tips on how to make games more lively, without having to spend countless hours per session preparing. The main issue I have with it is that it is so very short. The author has published a great deal of blog posts - I would love to see more of that content updated, edited or rewritten and added to this work.

For a DM who prepares too much!

If you are like me and you don't really prepare much at all this book was an interesting exploration of a way to look at running a table top RPG, especially D&D. If you are a DM who spends much time preparing for your game this is a MUST READ. It will help you learn how to prepare a better game in less time.

This Rocks!

As a rather lazy human I love this book. I used bunches of these tips in my own game. This book is amazing and it’s worth the money

Genuinely Helpful

This book was enjoyable to read and my players have commented that it made me a better DM!

good tips on running quick and easy d&d

liked a lot of the tips, most of the stuff I already do. still very informative.

Run More on Less!

Basically, this is a great tool for any GM that wants to run more games with Less preptime. And who wouldn't?

fantastic for a DM without much free time.

highly recommend checking this out if you find yourself low on prep time, but full of ideas

Helped me plan my sessions more efficiently

A tip for Mobile listeners seeking the accompanying PDF: it took me too long to find the "accompanying PDF" so hopefully this will save you some hassle. The reference PDF can be found on the library page of the DESKTOP site. There should be an option of loading the desktop version of the site using your phone internet browser.

Dry listening but good advice

A short book- not even three hours long, and most of the second half is repeared answers from multiple DMs to a questionnaire.

The information is certainly helpful, if a little out of date now that there's a whole new edition of D&D and another new one is on the way, but the broad strokes are helpful and it contains some good advice.

The narration is pretty dry and doesn't do much to keep your attention.

Could use some EQ on the narrator volume.

Also, there are still some specific tips relating to the obsolete 4th edition. Still, the general principles and tips are sound, and applicable to most editions of dnd and possibly other RPG systems as well.

Interestingly, quotes and interviews come from 4E DMs. No Pathfinder GMs are quoted directly. Is this just because Mike doesn't play Pathfinder, or because Pathfinder is so effing complicated that these tips don't work with that system.

You make the call.

From a new DM

This helped me re-think my whole campaign.
Big help, thanks guys and it’s help me create more on the go content

Good tips for anybody who's DMing for any edition.

As a 4th Ed DM this is a useful reminder of where to spend your energy and how to reduce the labour of session preparation.

For those who need to take a walk on the lazy side

Great stuff. I shall be coming back to it many times to beat myself over the head repeatedly to get the wisdom to go in. Shame a lot of the material is in, quote, "the accompanying PDF", which I have yet to track down (hey, I'm getting into this lazy thing) but I guess that's the drawback of the audio format