Lazy D&D Talk Show: The Importance of D&D, Tome of Beasts 3, Level Up 5e Monstrous Menagerie

[@Giantstomp]

Sorry for your loss Mike.

[@stephensayers4998]

Condolences Mike and love to Bryan's family. I bet the memories and games will live forever in your group. My brother is autistic and I have just started running lost mine for him and he is loving the game.

[@TonyFlowNMMM]

Really sorry to hear about your loss. DnD does really bring new friends together in ways that other things don’t. The gaming group that I play with currently originated from me randomly joining a game at a store near me one day. I’ve been playing with the same people now in different forms for about 3 years now. I haven’t met any adult friends in my late 20s early 30s that I have connected with and consistently spent time with outside of gaming like I do with these friends. Unfortunately we are spread out over the northeastern US now but still play remotely and get together for special sessions in person when we can

[@dcyphermanplays8233]

Oh my god so sorry about your friend man That's so sad ❤️

[@keithgaspard9950]

I have a bit of a backlog of your shows so I'm just seeing this now. My condolences, on the loss of your friend. I'm hoping for happy memories of all the awesome gaming you had together to help with the healing.

[@MrElectricTriangle]

Condolences to you all, and sorry to hear for your loss. I want to echo a sentiment ive heard a few times, and one that im feeling with regards to Level Up's A5E (Im going to be calling it LUA5E, or Loo-Ase). I LOVE it so far. The complaints Ive been encountering is that theres a little more to keep track of (more like: actually using the "fatigue and supply" systems), theres a lack of clarity in a few rulings (like that "negative effect", but also , theres a couple of weird typos), and that the Character Creation process is like, 2x as long. Having said that: LUA5E makes my job as a DM SO MUCH EASIER. The exploration pillar is back and fleshed out, very well done, the new conditions like "Rattled" are awesome. They reworked the challenge rating system, making it more intuitive, and honestly i've LOVED dm'ing using it. Martial classes are fun to play as, and there are just so many minor tweaks (expertise die, the detachment of skill from ability score on the sheet itself, meaning its possible for players to inherently separate them) which make things easier to play. side note: being called a "Narrator" instead of a DM or GM feels cool idk man.

[@lonic123]

Really moving to hear you talk about Bryan, thank you for sharing

[@SteveVanderArk]

If monsters in Coville's book are designed using his Action Oriented Monster format, I'm totally on board. That concept has completely reinvigorated combat in my games.

[@SlyFlourish]

They should be! I’m excited for it.

[@gengar1187]

Oh yeah, he's all about it, has stated explicitly that there will be mad AO monsters

[@alisondavis4256]

Sorry to hear about Bryan's passing. D&D really is such a special way of connecting with others and I'm glad you got to have that time with him, and him with you.

[@AdamarLives]

I'm sorry for your loss Mike. Please take of yourself.

[@SlyFlourish]

Thank you. I’m doing ok.

[@bromossunstarranger8706]

Sorry for your loss best wishes to you your group especially Mike's family and other friends of his

[@SchmittySchmitz]

I’m sorry to hear about Bryan. It sounds like he found a community to belong in with you. In regards to the rest of your video, I exclusively use Level Up’s MM book. I have a 4 player campaign with everyone around level 6 and it was getting more difficult to challenge them. The monsters in MM are fun to use, have tons of flavor, and hit like a truck. I especially like the squad rules in the NPC appendix. Trials and Treasures is great for the hex crawl lovers. It’s worth taking a look at it for their exploration and environment rules alone. If I wasn’t already halfway through a campaign I’d try introducing the adventurers guide!

[@henriquefernandes7747]

Man I really feel for your loss. Funny how much we get attached to gaming pals. It's like you said, we share so much and get to express ourselves in so many profound and different ways that it forms a strong bond between us. I hope you can find solace in knowing you made your friend's life better by being a considerate friend and DM.

[@RobertMorrisjrBog]

I'm very sorry sir for your loss. the game does matter and for me, I can say with 90% certainty that the game saved my life. Not to go into my life but I tell you the best people I ever met are from playing D&D. I love this game, I love to write for the game and I love to talk to others about any aspects of the game. Never fall into the "These are the rules" mode. Always remember that it IS a game but it is also your friend's game too.

[@davidu8283]

Thanks Mike , great info as usual! And thank you for sharing the story of your friend!

[@alexg6353]

D&D important? I can’t even begin to quantify how special the game with my son is. Our games together will be memories I will cherish forever.

[@freeyourmind9330]

fully agree about how important it can be socially, got me and some friends through covid, has made me new friends i would not have found. Why it is a fantastic game! Great video!

[@minicarbonara]

I'm sorry for your loss. Thank you for reflecting on it like this. Fills the soul.

[@RobertMorrisjrBog]

#4 backer for TOB#3!! Woot!! I have all of their monster books! All excellent!

[@GibboFastpaws]

Mike, you have my condolences. It's always hard to lose a friend, and I think you did a good job discussing such a heavy topic with an audience.

[@ricksherman34]

Sorry to hear about your friend Mike. Yes it's just a game , but D&D is a great chance to make some good friends.

[@seileurt]

I want to clip the story at the beginning to share with my group. It's a beautiful explanation as to why this game matters.

[@HouseDM]

Hey Mike, thank you for sharing your story. This game truly does matter and I think you must be an incredible DM, and person, to have built such a strong community of friends. Keep it up!

[@petejones284]

Sorry to hear of your loss. There is no doubt I have made new and lifelong friends through gaming and it has changed my life, as i 'm sure it has with other people.

[@jacoblindberg8915]

Thank you for sharing the story about Your friend Bryan, it was really nice and heartwarming and you did it in a classy way. Made me think about my game and the fact that we get to sit down with good people we enjoy spending time with and share this space where we tell stories to each other. I for one know that I wouldn't meet the guys I play with nearly as often as I now do if we didn't have this activity to bring us together, and in the end, life is about doing things you enjoy with good people. Rest in peace Bryan.

[@adamsteed8573]

Hang in there Mike, sorry for your loss. Keep spreading the love, it matters to us all.

[@solarisdevorak]

I just joined a new game with some old friends but there were three new people that joined us and you're right it's amazing how D&D can connect people. I made an instant kinship with them and I am very much looking forward to this campaign and playing with these new people. A very sorry for your loss but I'm also happy that you got to spend so much good quality time with your friend.

[@liquidcitrus145]

Hearts out to you.

[@Throgmoyd]

So, very sorry to hear of your loss. Sending love and condolences to you and everyone affected by this terribly sad news.

[@thecandidman]

Mike, my sincerest condolences to you and to Bryan’s family. Such a wonderful tribute to your friend and how true it is that this game is something that matters. Bringing people together is a big ask and it’s a great bit of therapy and fun together in one package. My son is awaiting his confirmation of having ASD and I will love it if he takes up a love of this game and the joy it can bring.

[@mateofantasma]

Very sorry for your friend, Mike. Your words rang true and I see how well loved Brian was. What you say about DnD being important for friendships, it is, that is totally my experience too.

[@tigrewulph]

There's a common refrain that you see in online circles that "No D&D (or RPG of Choice) is better than Bad D&D". And while I agree with this as a way to keep yourself out of toxic or damaging play groups... for me personally a perhaps more important rule is "Good enough D&D is significantly better than No D&D". A lot of folks burn themselves out planning grandiose campaigns... but for me a prebuilt adventure (I prefer PF2E if I'm running it) and some dice are good enough. It doesn't have to be open ended and off the rails... it doesn't have to have hours long freeform RP sessions. Those things are all nice and definitely make the game shine, but man... if my only interaction with the hobby is thumbing through my books dreaming of characters it's sooooooo bad for my mental health.

[@RangerSierra11]

Thanks for this.

[@kingsfan2099]

Oh man I'm sorry for your loss. Be real my friend, it's ok.

[@toddgrx]

Cooperative games, especially RPGs, allow us to make very special connections with others. Stories to create and share then recall for years after Seems like DDB could have a setting on the character sheet to include or not include the MotM content.

[@matthewpegden7573]

I always have to pinch myself whenever I sit down with my gaming group. Playing every week for the last 3 years always is heartening and I'm sorry to hear of your loss of Bryan, you'll have to name an magic item after him!

[@davec1]

Sorry for your loss, Mike. About Monstrous Menagerie and whether it's better than the Monster Manual; I haven't compared that many monsters and can't say I know the Monster Manual by heart, but from a cursory glance, I got the impression that low-CR monsters in Monstrous Menagerie seem to have more interesting mechanics going for them, vs. the Monster Manual's 2x Claw, 1x Bite -Attack-creatures. Personally, I like that, even though it's totally fine to have some simple monsters, too, and sometimes it might even be preferable to keep it simple. I also think the little lore tables that give you details PCs can remember with a skill check, the signs, behaviors and example encounters are very neat additions to the point where if the books were otherwise identical, that alone would be enough for me to say Monstrous Menagerie is better. The way they make the effort to ground Legendary Resistances in the narrative and also sometimes give you a little mechanical reward for burning through them (I think I saw a dragon whose AC got reduced once you'd removed all Resistances), I find that significantly superior to the original Monster Manual. Now, all of that, you could obviously come up with on your own and experienced DMs might have an easy time to answer a PC asking: "what do we know about this creature?" or coming up with ways to foreshadow the presence of a Monster with signs. But from what I've seen so far, I like how Monstrous Menageries does that work for you, to do some hard work for you and spark ideas, even if in theory you don't need any books at all and could come up with rules and content on your own, if you wanted to invest the time.

[@micklangan7544]

For my game certain monsters, Lich, Ancient Dragons, elder Vampire etc are monsters with back story. So they are always going to be Bespoke to my game and have dialogue options as well. The book stat block is the foundation, then add personality.

[@MannonMartin]

Maybe try running one small adventure, like one dungeon with just Level Up 5e Monstrous Menagerie monsters and see how it goes.

[@Blairrows]

I totally agree about bonus actions. They're supposed to be small additives to your character's turn, but a part of me thinks they're almost becoming more impactful than regular actions in some cases. PCs basically have two actions per turn now with how powerful certain bonus actions can be. Spiritual Weapon, Telekinetic Shunt and Battlesmith/Beastmaster/etc. pet attacks are doubling the bang for each turn's buck. I don't play the "anything else?" game anymore unless the player is brand new. I ask what they do, they tell me, we resolve it and move on. If you forget to do something, you can do it next turn. Effects like Hex/Hexblade's Curse/Hunter's Mark/All of the Paladin Smites should really be cast as a part of taking the attack action. Has anyone ever cast them and done anything other than attack with their action, ever?

[@WalkOnNick]

The MotMM previews came very timely. I just ran a Deathlock Mastermind + Deathlock Wight fight and the new versions worked great. The previous versions would have been such a hassle to learn all the spells and figure out a good strategy just for one fight.

[@christianstraubhaar339]

Would love to hear your thoughts on the other A5e/Level up books. I had a very mixed initial response.

[@SlyFlourish]

I probably won’t cover the player book. It’s not for me.

[@wirelesstkd]

@@SlyFlourish I'd really love to hear your thoughts on the Level Up DM book, FWIW. If you get around to it. Although, on second thought, the thing I love about your channel is that you don't really give a hoot about what people want you to cover and you really just cover what you really want to cover. It makes your videos really, really, authentic. So I guess ignore this comment, lol. Review it if you are inspired to do so!

[@solarisdevorak]

Wanted to keep this separate from the friendship comment, as far as D&D beyond goes they'll probably just add some sort of toggle during the character creation screen like they have for everything else to enable or disable the new versions just like they have for Tasha's etc. As far as the monsters go that could be a little trickier I would assume that they would just say either purchase the book or don't and if you have the book it'll rewrite your monsters. But that's just an assumption the character sheet seems easier than the monster section. They could however have a tab on each monster kind of like when you go to the forgotten realms wiki where they have tabs for each of the additions they could have a tab on the monster page that shows the volos version and then you click a tab for the multiverse version.

[@euansmith3699]

I'm sorry to hear that you've lost a friend. Regarding the Intelligent Weapons as "NPCs"; I think it could be fun to expand Intelligence to other items, like an intelligent backpack, and an intelligent helmet. This could create a Rogue Trooper style character.

[@mithren86]

Elite monsters sound just like angry DMs Paragon monsters from back in the day!

[@shaddowdancer5430]

Very sorry Mike!

[@richarddufault]

In Roll20, different versions of creatures have the sourcebook listed next to them.

[@tigrewulph]

Foundry, also has pretty robust 3rd party support as far as VTTs go.

[@tedm3081]

Does Level Up 5e have VTT support? I've never played in person, run games online and tend to focus my purchases around what I can easily use on Fantasy Grounds. Presetup monsters goes a LONG way towards cutting down my prep time. Curious how many other DMs are focusing on online focused purchases? Thing I feel like I'm missing out on the most? Buying dice!

[@SlyFlourish]

I believe so

[@jltheking3]

Level up already has roll20 and Foundry support, though the VTT compendium is currently a work-in-progress.

[@leandrochavez6480]

Hey Mike, i have a little problem with the Lazy DM metodology, i prepare the scenes (we play in foundry), the secrets, npcs, etc. But when we start i get a little overwhelmed by the players interactions (6 lvl 9, everyone with their own agenda but doesnt interfere with the game, just add a lot of minor quest and plothooks) and kinda forget the secrets i was supossed to throw and before you know it we played 5 hours (19:30-00:30), do you have some tips to remember the prep and details of the session?

[@CJWproductions]

Put em on your DM screen! Use clips!

[@SlyFlourish]

Secrets are there to help you out when the characters enter a scene and discover something. If they're already getting interesting stuff and you're not dropping in the secrets, that's fine! I bet a lot of the info in secrets is getting out there anyway. Secrets serve you! You don't owe them anything!

[@leandrochavez6480]

thanks for the tips! :D

[@simonfernandes6809]

Once 2024 rolls around and 5.5 comes out, either Volos and MToF get changed to include the new PC and monster abilities or they go OOP. So new players from then on in will only have access to the new PC races. It has happened before, it will happen again.

[@dxmachinanz7426]

The lvl up 5e book looks like the 4e books

[@darjr]

So sorry.

[@kingsfan2099]

Damn man its dusty in here...

[@seileurt]

With Level Up 5e, I think if I wanted to play PF2, I would just do that. The worst thing in 5e combat is when it drags on. As a DM, I don't want two pages of info dump because I'm not going to read that. I am guilty of not actually reading any of the stat blocks until I pull them up during the session. Monster prep in my 8 steps means calculating CR and writing them all up, not actually reading them. I wouldn't get a monster book that makes monsters more difficult to run. I think I'd just turn up dials to fine tune the encounter.

[@jltheking3]

It’s funny that you say that because 5e stat blocks to me are basically unrunnable. The math is off, and the monster is so boring that nearly every circumstance I have to go Mike’s route and customize the monsters to fix the math / make them more interesting. Using the A5E monster book (as well as some other good 3PP books like Kobold Press’) is the rare circumstances in which I DON’T need to read any of the stat blocks before I pull them out during the session because I know the monster is well designed - something that cannot be said for WOTC monsters.

[@seileurt]

@@jltheking3 Yeah, shorter doesn't mean better or well designed for certain. When it's two pages, I'm definitely going to miss quite a bit when running a monster. 5e MM tends to give useless spells in monsters or lack of punch. A5e monsters may be better designed, but I'm never going to test that for myself because I'm never going to actually read through all that. If they would have given the same thing but just put in sections to refer to WOTC material (spells/etc) then I'd find it way more useful.

[@jltheking3]

@@seileurt I think it’s clearly just a preference thing. You see a big stat block and you go “nooooooo”. I see a big stat block and I go “yes!!!!!!!!!!!”. Like Mike, I do enjoy buying and reading monster books. The more interesting the monster the better. Generally speaking, the bigger that stat block the more interesting the monster.

[@seileurt]

@@jltheking3 If you could take the same design and boil it down to an index card, then it'd be perfect for me. In my game, that doesn't change the impact of the monster on the story, just the combat where it's run. I find books like Ironsworn or Worlds Without Numbers more inspiring for me, but I can see how you'd see a cool monster and frame a story around it.

[@jltheking3]

@@seileurt I enjoy the nitty gritty of crunchy tactical combat. When I say “interesting”, I also refer to how unique they are mechanically, the new challenges that it poses to the players compared to other monsters. Pathfinder 2, 4e, those games are my jam and my table loves it. Give me a long stat block any day. If you can fit something on an index card, in my view it means it’s not interesting enough. I suppose that’s where we differ.

[@DM_Kat]

I run 2 games with autistic players. I've never thought about a cheat sheet for others. Is there any way you would share your sheet or do a video on it with advice on creating one for whatever autistic quirks players have?

[@SlyFlourish]

It wasn’t an actual sheet and it’s really something you have to figure out for each person. It’s not really my field of expertise. Thank you!

[@johnandrewbellner]

Conjure spells aren't that big a deal, and they are a big mechanical part of several classes and subclasses. Tasha's option spells, not replacements, are not on par with the conjure spells. Unprepared players are what make any of these spells seem to take a long time. Critical hit paladins and rogues, or spellcasters with big AoE (lots of damage dice and saving throws) take as much time at every table I've played or DM'd at.

[@DnDNerd1978]

Sorry for your loss Mike.