Pulling stuff out of your Rear

[Submortimer]

So, out of curiosity, how many DMs do this with 5e regularly? I recently started running a Spelljammer-themed game, and since there are no published 5e rules of spelljammer yet, I've been making stuff up on the fly.

Turns out, it's REALLY easy in 5e. The low numbers and simplified systems (as compared to 3.5) make "seat of my pants" moments as a dm SO much easier, and my group has a ton of fun.

Off-topic, I like that treasure doesn't totally ruin the game anymore. In said game, the PC's gained "Ownership" over a small planetoid, which they then subsequently sold to a nobleman for a tidy sum of 1 million gold. Since buying magic items is essentially not a thing you can normally do, this became a plot point instead of ACTUAL caracter wealth, and allowed them to buy and crew their first ship.

[Starsinger]

I do my best DMing via the seat of my pants, so I'm rather enjoying the ease of doing so in 5e.

[Justin Sane]

It's pretty much my default GM method in any system that's not DnD.
Seriously, unless I'm running a published adventure, I find there's too much fiddly bits to just wing it, something that doesn't bother me in, say, NWoD games.

[pwykersotz]

I agree. Judgement calls in the heat of the moment are more likely to be on point in this edition, at least for me. I do a lot of planning in advance in 3.5, and I still do it in 5e, but I don't have to do quite as much. In 3.5, a skill check that was 20 at level 5 felt either overwhelming or trivial depending on optimization levels and such, and the party passing easily didn't feel like a worthwhile event, while the party failing spectacularly felt overbearing. Now I set the DC, and if the players pass it feels like an accomplishment, and if they fail it feels like it was still a worthy challenge.

[Feldarove]

I have pretty much resorted to just thinking of cool ideas in my head during the week, and come game day, winging it.

This edition is great for that. Especially with skills. 3.5 lead to sooooo much bickering about skills, because people felt entitled to auto-succeed on checks for skills that had uber-maxed.

[Celcey]

This is the vast majority of what I do. I have a vauge plan, and then I completely wing it. This is partially because I'm a noob and need to find my what works for me, but so far, just a little bit of pre-thinking has worked out fairly well.