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mcv
2009-07-13, 07:24 AM
In another thread I came across:

I improvise everything, because I realized a while ago that doing that makes not one whit of difference to the quality of the games I DM.

For me it's quite the opposite: improvising everything makes quite a lot of difference to the quality of the games I GM: they get a lot better.

I like complex, intricate plots, conspiracies, intrigue, etcetera. But whenever I prepare a game like that, my players get bored out of their skull. The few times when I prepare only a few vague ideas and just run with whatever my players decide to do, everybody has a wonderful time.

And then I think: see? I'm not such a bad GM after all, so I begin planning my next big epic which will utterly bore everybody to death.

So what's it like for you? Are you better at improvising everything, or are your games better when you've got everything planned and prepared? Or does it not matter much? Does your talent work with your preferred style, or are they at odds with each other (like in my case)?

Gaiyamato
2009-07-13, 07:27 AM
Same. I have found that too much preparation ruins a lot of the creativity and spontaneity of the roleplaying. The players cannot exploer the characters enough and contribute to the story unless you are willing to tear up and re-do some of your preparation.
It also tends to lend heavily to roleplaying.

The furthers I go is I make the world and then explore it along with my players.
I can come up with entire complex cities and names at the drop of a hat though, which helps.
:)

So yeah. I am all for improvising!

AslanCross
2009-07-13, 07:39 AM
There are some things that I don't mind improvising. Dialogue, typically, I improvise. Descriptions of monsters and reactions to PC actions, definitely. Monster choices, treasure, and encounter building: never.

mcv
2009-07-13, 08:28 AM
I have a lot of trouble coming up with good names and personalities for NPCs at the drop of a hat. Except sometimes when inspiration strikes and I come up with this hilarious nonsense character that suddenly becomes the center of the entire setting.

Improvisation is easier for me when it's funny, I think. Serious is harder.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-07-13, 09:21 AM
I prepare by planning the first session, the last session, and tons of NPCs. NPCs get statted, things get named, and a vague plot gets written. When the PCs diverge from it, I have lots of stat blocks and names to use and an idea of where to point the PCs for the endgame.

This worked out mostly well for my last campaign, where I was teaching a bunch of new players and the two players who'd D&D'd before were intentionally trying to screw with the plot...though I must admit the giant flying sentient turtle fortress with disintegrate cannons was a bit unexpected.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2009-07-13, 09:25 AM
I go into a game with a rough plot outline, a few important NPCs (unstatted), and a general idea of where the session is going.

I'll admit to improving anything and everything past that point. My monsters are usually roughly statted or completely unstatted, may possess abilities not in any book, and may not follow the rules.

It always seems to work incredibly well for me. My players haven't complained once either...which I was surprised about, since often the enemies shatter the game rules into little pieces.

Farlion
2009-07-13, 09:44 AM
I go into a game with a rough plot outline, a few important NPCs (unstatted), and a general idea of where the session is going.

I'll admit to improving anything and everything past that point. My monsters are usually roughly statted or completely unstatted, may possess abilities not in any book, and may not follow the rules.

It always seems to work incredibly well for me. My players haven't complained once either...which I was surprised about, since often the enemies shatter the game rules into little pieces.

Exactly how I do it. Rough plot (since in my campaign there's alot of politics), important NPC's have names (but no stats) and a rough idea what I'd like the party to accomplish.

What I've found extremely useful is a list of names. I just take too long to find cool names, so I have my list.

What I found to be very important when improvising: write down names of people your characters meet and a short description.

Example: Drun (Barkeeper of the Broken Horn Inn, has a big wart on his face, always has a peace of wood in his mouth, thus talks strange)

(I actually stuck a toothpick in my mouth, everytime they talk to him, made him really unforgettable ;-)

I've found it really important to take notes, even if I sometimes forget to and really hate doing it ...

Cheers,
Farlion

adanedhel9
2009-07-13, 09:57 AM
I read somewhere that preperation allows one to improvise - the more you know about the setting and characters involved ahead of time, the better you can make last minute adjustments and respond to the players' actions. I completely agree with this.

I start by knowing my campaign world inside and out. On top of that I have a very vague campaign outline, which I keep in the back of my head at all times. I have a slightly more detailed outline for each session, but it's very fluid - mostly just a framework to place combat encounters into.

I prepare most combat encounters ahead of time - I'm a bit O-C about NPC and monster stats. This might just be an artifact of the D20 system; if I were to run a more rules-light game, this might be different. But I do find that doing details stats for an NPC helps me to role-play them better, as the mechanics of feat choices and equipment selection and so on feed back into the personality of the character.

valadil
2009-07-13, 10:03 AM
I prepare by planning the first session, the last session, and tons of NPCs. NPCs get statted, things get named, and a vague plot gets written. When the PCs diverge from it, I have lots of stat blocks and names to use and an idea of where to point the PCs for the endgame.


That's freakishly similar to how I plan.

My planning consists of running everything that's going on in the city. I write out what's happening at point A and point B but I don't care if the players even think about visiting those points. If the players show up at any point they can see what's happening and affect it, but that's where I improvise. My only plans are the world moving on its own and the players can show up wherever they please.

That said, I will try to nudge them towards things I expect to be interesting.

There are a few things I won't improv. I'm terrible with names. My DM screen has lists of male names, female names, surnames, titles, and taverns. There are also some disposition related lists but I don't use them so much. Oh and I like to prewrite descriptions because I make them too brief otherwise.

ZeroNumerous
2009-07-13, 10:10 AM
You people and your "general plots". Real DMs get their players together in a tavern and go gallivanting across the country side. (http://xkcd.com/378/) :smallamused:

Cyrion
2009-07-13, 10:17 AM
There are some things that I don't mind improvising. Dialogue, typically, I improvise. Descriptions of monsters and reactions to PC actions, definitely. Monster choices, treasure, and encounter building: never.

Same here as far as monster choices, etc. at least as far as the main campaign material goes. Sometimes I have to improvise when the party rogue goes haring off spontaneously on her own. I find my best tactic for non-dungeon crawls is to have a detailed plan for what the BBEG wants and how he plans to get it and maybe what he expects the party to do. That makes it fairly easy to improvise then when the party throws their giant monkey wrench into the works.

Indon
2009-07-13, 10:39 AM
You people and your "general plots". Real DMs get their players together in a tavern and go gallivanting across the country side. (http://xkcd.com/378/) :smallamused:

Yes, but then you risk a recursion scenario.

Personally, I like to drop my players into situations - I stat out the major NPC's in said situations, and from there I just have the players interact however they will. I prefer a more 'sandbox' style of play, so I pretty much have to improvise at least some.

PaladinBoy
2009-07-13, 10:53 AM
I can do either. I usually prefer huge complicated stories as opposed to just coming up with something, but I try to make things so that my players can solve the problem in any number of different ways. They do usually end up feeling like failures on my part, if only because the players never see most of what I prepare, but they're usually fun anyway. (It's almost more fun explaining what I had planned for and how massively they subverted it after we're done.)

Then again, there was the one time where I gave the players an objective and a time limit (around three days if I remember correctly) and told them to do whatever they could think of. The result was some of the most fun I've had in a long time.

Choco
2009-07-13, 11:23 AM
The only real preparation I do is as follows:
I of course make a campaign map with major sites located and described.
I determine who all the major players (NPCs and organizations) in the campaign will be, what their goals are, and how they will go about accomplishing them.
I prepare a few level-appropriate encounters that can be thrown in whenever, though honestly I improv over half of them anyway.

After that I just throw the PC's into the game and let them have at it. The major players mentioned above will go about trying to accomplish their goals and non-conflicting goals will often succeed without PC interference, the good and the bad. Other than that, I just improv the game around what the PC's chose to do.

On a related note, I don't even bother statting NPC's that the players don't stand a chance against or could easily wipe out. If they chose to attack a peasant, s/he is dead. If they choose to attack the great warlord at lvl 3, then if they are lucky he uses nonlethal damage and 1-hit KO's them...

Radar
2009-07-13, 12:21 PM
Same here as far as monster choices, etc. at least as far as the main campaign material goes. Sometimes I have to improvise when the party rogue goes haring off spontaneously on her own. I find my best tactic for non-dungeon crawls is to have a detailed plan for what the BBEG wants and how he plans to get it and maybe what he expects the party to do. That makes it fairly easy to improvise then when the party throws their giant monkey wrench into the works.
That is the way i see planing an adventure. Stat a few main NPCs, state their goals and course of action (if not disturbed) and anything the party would fight gets relevant stats as well. I think, it's not worth that much effort to plan every detail out in advance, if it can be easily thwarted by PC's unexpected decisions. :smallamused:

Yet, whatever or whoever i made up during the session, stays in the game.

-Cor-
2009-07-13, 12:45 PM
To use an analogy, I guess I like to think of my adventures like a mansion. I know what the mansion looks like from the outside. I know where that mansion is in the world(universe). I have an idea about the general decor and time period in which that mansion was built. I know how many floors (levels) it has and can guess how many rooms.

But, I have no idea what's in every room while others I know explicitly. I'm not sure who all is in the mansion, but others I know everything about them.

Basically, to answer your question I like a balance; to have a big broad outline with some of the really important things filled out, but all the rest I like to improvise.

I treat pre-written modules like this too... throw away any pre-gen text, but keep the big broad outline and important encounters.

Ichneumon
2009-07-13, 12:48 PM
I plan the main story idea ahead of time, but change things depending on how the players behave. Actual stats of NPCs I often improvise, I usually have just 4 different NPC type of stats during of the level of the players I use.