This is a very impressive guide to streamlining your preparation for a gaming session. I tend to over plan, and then have to constantly reorient when my players go off the rails. the reminders to keep in mind what prep will actually elevate the game and the experience are great. The methods here would help any GM make sure the largest amount of their best stuff is on display in actual play sessions. And will help you refine your bests stuff so that each session is memorable, fun, and epic. Highly recommended and well worth the cost.

I backed this on Kickstarter, as I am a fan of the Sly Flourish blog and the original Lazy Dungeon Master. While the concept of the Lazy DM has not changed, Mike Shea has done a great job expanding on his original ideas, and this newest publication seems to work very well with 5e (though most of his advice is system agnostic).

The checklist and methods described are a very good investment of time for those of us who love running D&D, but also have other time commitments. With well under an hour of prep and some practice, you can be ready to DM a four-hour session.

As a bonus, the art in this book is amazing!

I hesitated before buying this PDF, in fact, I discovered it by pure chance. I read yesterday the angryGM blog, it was an article about "How to XP Good" and I liked it. The writer convinced me it was a good thing to give XP to players, but I was troubled by his antagonism towards Mike Mearl and Mike Shea from another blog I read once in while too (Sky Flourish, the author of the PDF I am reviewing), then the same day, I read the announcement of the availability of "Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master" and I was interested.

In fact, I never read the 1st Lazy Dungeon Master, I am french and PDF buying are relatively new in my GM's life, well I buy more PDF since 2017 than I did before. So I cannot compare.

But, what I read from Mike Shea's Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master have very pleased me :). I begun the book yesterday night and I finished it a few minutes ago. There is plenty of good ideas for GM like me who are not lazy at first but who have not much time to prepare game (but who loves GMing anyway ;) ). I am running Tomb of Annihilation at this time and in october, I will run session 8, so I am eager to test all the book's advice soon :).

I still like AngryGM but I am not convinced that lazy GM are bad GM, not with this book anyway :).

I kickstarted this project as I really find Mikes advice useful. I read the original Lazy Dungeon Master and the book had lots of good advice but was geared more for 4E. I am so glad I supported this project as it is worth every penny. This book has useful and clear advice for running a great game. I found that after years of DM/GMing I do many of the suggested tips in the book but it also had plenty of tips that I had never thought of that will help make my game that much better. This book would be great for new DM's as everything in it is laid out logically and easy to understand.

Thanks again for this excellent work Mike S.

Also the cover art is KILLER!