I am a Lazy Game Master, and I’m not going to rehash what someone else has already nailed. Go get this book! Go consume and dissect media! Go out and live in the real world! Do all of it—experience, observe, analyze—and you’ll be a better GM in any system.
Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
Keep in mind that Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master focuses on d20 gameplay and you have to make a major mental shift when using 3d6. Games that use a d20 give a 5% chance of rolling any number between 1 and 20, which makes Saves and Checks feel more luck-based—or “swingy.” That’s why d20 characters tend to have lots of hit points: you never know what’s coming. Rolling 3d6 produces a very different probability curve, where middle-range results are much more common and extreme highs or lows are rarer. For all the details read 3d6 Dice Math for the Nerds, but know that rolling 3d6 creates a curve and players have a 12.5% chance of rolling 10 or 11 and 0.46% chance of critical success or failure. This means that we can more confidently throw more at our agents because we have a better understanding of how quickly characters can go down. This is because of the Damage Thresholds and Damage Dice Scale. They make any hit deadly for weak Actors (NPC) and serious for Agents (PC). Let’s talk about what makes an Actor strong or weak, how to make some, and how to throw them at your player characters.
Creating an actor for this system is pretty simple.
First off, what are we doing in Death Mesa!? The “we” in this context being everyone and anything that’s not an . “They”, the Considerations, are here against their will trying to survive. “We” have a myriad of motives and means, but we all have one thing in common, we are more established in Death Mesa and unwilling to take shit from aConsideration. When a character enters Death Mesa, and for the first few sessions, it will be impossible for characters to avoid constant encounters. NPCs will always assume a Consideration is exploitable, new characters are on the bottom rung of the Death Mesa Asshole Ladder. So what are our motivations.
Motivations
Let’s start with the things we know and don’t know about the Actor and ask a few questions about them. We know where the agents meet the actor because all Considerations enter the city by way of the Arrival Platform in Sugar Skull Station. These locations have links to places that connect to them and suggestions for the type of actors that might be found there. For an overview of who hangs out where check out the Turf Grouping of the table. You should be able to see who is in an area at a glance using that table.
An important part of how Death Mesa gets played is that sometimes, maybe often, the GM will not know what the players will be up against. The Actor Motivation Matrix will allow GMs to figure this out. But, even if you don’t like that playstyle, you should read the following to get a better understanding of how character motivations align in Death Mesa.
Malevolence, Indifference, Exploitation, Reciprocation, and Benevolence cover a character’s True Intent on the motivational spectrum. Friendly/Open, Neutral/Fishing, and Antagonistic/Obfuscating are a character’s Disposition on the motivational spectrum. When players encounter characters or crews you can find out their motivations with a single 3d6 roll on the following table.