The lazy DM, or how to get back 20 hours of your life.

Just in time engine

Hello, I am a Games mater with 40 years’ experience and I would like to show you how I put together highly personalised games with high player investment with minimal prep.

This method may feel strange at first. That’s because it works differently from how games are usually described.
You are not building a world for the players to explore. You are putting elements into play and letting the players show you what matters. The game grows around that. In short you are using your players to generate content for the game, by showing you what matters to them.

If you try to use this method while still thinking in terms of fixed plots and prepared importance, it will feel chaotic. Once you accept that importance comes from player attention, it becomes simple, so listen to them, they will let you know what matters. This system uses scenes from famous films, books and history and then uses threads and the players to populate them and then it is just a matter of generation, scene after scene.

If you dream of GMing the plot of Lord of the Rings this won't do that, the players will decide, so if you start thinking Lord of the Rings and your players (for whatever reason) are thinking competitive eating contests your players might have fun but you will have Aragorn setting a chilli eating record.

Thread bank

Step 1: The Big Three
Players care about three things:
NPCs
Places
Their own desires

Start with the easiest: desires.
Listen to your players when they are just talking. They will say what they actually want, not what they think you want to hear. Because it’s real, it will often be mumbled,
incomplete, or half-formed. That doesn’t matter—write it down. You are not looking for clarity. You are looking for direction. Use these desires later, or a path toward them. Put them to one side—they will become plots you bring in.

Now create NPCs and places.
Go to a random generator (donjon, or any you like). Generate a few names. For each one, add a single defining trait, then stop—do no more. A trait is anything obvious about the person or place. Make it clear and strong: A greedy mercenary talks constantly about money A pious priest is not kind—he is saintly A port isn’t unruly—it is a criminal’s dream Do not aim for subtlety at this stage. It may feel obvious or cliché to you, but for your players it creates clarity. You can always dial it back later as they become more complex, and this is far less jarring than starting vague and trying to add definition later.

Step 2: Introduce these things often, wherever you can.

Most will fail, so we are not going to spend anything beyond the bare minimum to get them into play. For anyone the players interact with, add only enough detail to support the moment and jot down anything new you invent. Don’t worry about elaborate backstory—just create what you need.

Listen to your players. Their speculation will do a lot of the work for you, and its fine to go with the obvious. (For example: I have 40 years’ experience, therefore I am old.)
Keep each NPC or place to no more than three lines. When play is done, add your notes to that NPC or place. It is now a thread.

Step 3: Pruning and Replacement
You might worry that you will end up with a folder full of half-formed threads. That’s fine—many of them will be thrown away.
Use your players as the test. If they forget a thread, but it comes back quickly when you remind them, keep it. If you have to explain it and it still doesn’t click, remove it.
That thread has failed. Let it go. If you reach your players’ limit and introduce a new thread that they are excited about, replace a weaker thread with the stronger one.
You are not trying to keep everything—only what the players engage with.

Step 4: Growth
The more players interact with a thread, the more important it becomes. As a thread appears in more scenes and the players engage with it, add more detail. Do this gradually—only as needed. Anything you add, make sure it is recorded with that thread, so it stays consistent when it returns.

Creating scenes or adding soap:

Step 1: Identify the roles
Take a scene (your own, published, or stolen) and identify the roles:
Protagonist – who the scene is about
Antagonist – what is stopping them.
Extras – people affecting the scene
Bystanders – background only

You do not need all of these. Most scenes work best with:
- One protagonist (or group)
- One main antagonist

Step 2: Remove the actors
Keep the roles, but remove the original characters. Do not change what happens in the scene—only who is involved.

Step 3: Add your threads
Take one of your threads and place it into any role except bystander.

Step 4: Add the players
Place the players into one of the remaining roles. This can include making them the audience in a cutaway by making them bystanders.

Step 5: Fill the gaps
Add new NPCs or places to complete the scene, these are new threads.
Use the same method as before: name + one strong trait.
You can change genre to fit your setting.

Step 6: Let it play
Run the scene, the players might play along or trash it, either is fine.
When the players decide a new course of action, go back to step one

Example:
We have Borrin, a nervous shopkeeper (our thread), and we use the opening scene of Star Wars:
Original roles:
- Protagonist: Leia
- Antagonist: Vader
- Extras: C-3PO, R2-D2
- Bystanders: soldiers, audience.

Now we replace:
- Borrin takes the role of the droids
- A noblewoman replaces Leia
- An implacable knight replaces Vader
- A carriage replaces the ship, chased by cavalry (star destroyer)
-The players are bystanders as this is a cutaway scene, the audience.
The scene plays out. Before being captured, the noblewoman gives Borrin documents and tells him to find help.
We cut back to the players:
Borrin arrives, frightened, asking: “What am I meant to do with these?”

What is happening here?
You placed a thread into a strong scene.
The players care about Borrin, so they care about the scene.
Everything new introduced alongside him has a higher chance of becoming a thread. 
Players make a decision and you grab a new scene based on what they decided.

How to get started:
Well if you made it this far, get your favourite AI to spit out an adventure at you: So copy pasta as we are all in minimal effort here: " Read this (this post) if you understand it, run it . Create 10 Locations or NPCs, fantasy names 1 strong trait each, each is a thread. Those are your starters, any you use and are interacted with you can then add a point to, to simulate interaction select 2 threads at random to get a bonus point, higher pointed threads use more often, remove one that has the lowest score each scene. Tally points at the end of each scene. Use the following criteria for scenes needed, one criteria per scene and pick well known scenes from books, history and films and note down your inspiration, do NOT put the players as protagonists all the time: Criteria: Disaster, foreshadow, travel, reluctant mentor, trail, hero team up, climax. Dress all scene sets as
fantasy medieval Europe.”

You should get something playable out in say 20 seconds. Play with it, modify the criteria or come up with your own scoring system for the threads. Now This is a simulation but you can get AI to generate at a scene at a time and you can decide on the points, or run the whole thing by yourself.

Soap Opera Logic
Cue eye rolls, but soaps have the same issues  as us DMs, limited cast members (players) which an unnatural number of things happen to, so lets use some of their ideas: There are no mistakes. No matter how badly you think you messed up, you don’t back down ever. It was always intended. If something lines up, use it. Use the same name twice? That’s not a mistake—it’s the same person. Use the same surname? They’re related. Forgot to turn the Starr Destroyer into Cavalry? A Spaceship is chasing down a fleeing carriage now.
Do not correct it. Do not explain it away. Say yes and move on. Your game only breaks if you admit the mistake, players will assume it was intentional. Let them.

Some tricks to use in any game, try some all or none, you are listening to your players now right? You should find something in amongst this that can help or add new ones!

1. If your adventure takes place somewhere you can map onto the real world weather, do that and just read the weather report for the real world as the one for your adventure.

2. Boss monsters should be like puzzles, whilst no method is denied, some should be much easier. So for abilities pick cool name and get the ability to work correctly first and balance a long second, so hard way is well hard, easy way works as intended. Easy way is never your party’s default way.

3. Not every encounter is a boss monster, mix it up.

4. Waste nothing: If a scene has loose ends those ends help fill gaps in later scenes. Remember soap opera logic!

5. Combo bonus: Create a bonus of encounters done/2 per long rest i.e. it resets every long rest. This applies to any d20 roll for the players. This creates a situation where Casters will tend to dominate early day and Martials later in the day. Bonus getting too big? Then lower it encounters done/3. Think short rests should cost something -1. (attb Draw steel)

6. Martial flexibility: If you are proficient in martial weapons then at the start of each of your turns you may split your proficiency bonus (PB) between to hit, AC and damage rather than just to hit. This lasts until the start of your next turn. (attb rolemaster)

7. Relationships: Every character has 5 slots, 2 are goals and 3 are relationships that matter. Characters fill one slot and give it a score of 1 at character creation and can add or subtract 1 every time they level including filling other slots. No score may be above 3 and if a score reaches zero the slot is emptied. For any given roll a character may apply as many or few relationships to the roll as they can justify to the DM, adding the levels as a modifier. Once they do these slots
become deactivated. To reactivate them the DM applies the level as a penalty to a roll of their choice. A relationship does not change state except through these methods. (attb V:tM, Fate)

8. Little details: Any item in your game can have extra details so create a 2 column table and fill the first column with: Symbol of, decorated scene of, Motif of, Materials common to, Uses techniques of and the second column are the major civilizations of the region your players are in and maybe a few outsiders or previous civilizations. Then just roll twice to create instant detail, it hints at things and its up to you if it goes anywhere, So Orc sword is found on the site of battle between Elves and Dwarves perhaps a cover up or just A sword broke and
someone had an Orc sword for back up, you choose. Use it on magic items and mundane ones as you need. Modify the chances of the civilizations so something from that ancient empire is a rare find even if it is just a fork.

9. NPC generator: There are many on the internet, find one and just get a list of names, use this to name those incidental NPCs that the players suddenly find important to avoid the Dave1, Dave2, Dave3 Guard problem.

10. Make a list of traits, make them strong so your NOT Oscar winning acting and the players being oblivious does not stop the trait shining through, you can always tone it down later. Any NPC is name and a trait. Create more detail as you need it. Oh and jot down as you might need it next session!

Thanks for reading, hope some of it is helpful, if you are new to DMing you don't have to spend long on prep, there is no audience to amuse, just you and your players. Laughing because of Dave 1, 2 and 3 and the city of Daves because you had trouble naming new NPCs is fun, not fun to watch, but fun to be part of and being part of it, is the only bit that matters.

Interesting. This boils down to what I typically tell new DMs. 

If you guys are interested in this kind of thing, I picked it up from the Game Master's Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying.