Quote Originally Posted by StragaSevera View Post
I never DMed a game, because I'm too anxious. One thing I am anxious of is handling player's improvisation - mechanically.

I don't want to be railroading - I enjoy games that are more free-form. Of course, I will make and structure hypothetical plot, with major NPCs, their motivations and so on - but I fully expect players to not make the decisions I thought of.

But, how do I hande such instances mechanically?

For example, imagine this situation. Party needs help of a priest who knows how to defeat the Demon Lord. Unfortunately, such priest was put in jail because of false accusations of him working for demons.
I thought of three ways my party could solve the problem: bust him out by force (I made a map of the jail and some encounters there), prove his innocence (I planted some hooks that players could find), or make a big financial pledge for him (there is a well-paying contract for monster hunting that will exactly cover the price, and I prepared the monster encounters).

But then, for example, the party learns that a powerful mage lives in this city, but he is away for a buisness trip and will not come back for a few weeks (I made it so they would not try to get his help with this problem). And a party rogue has a genius idea - let's rob the mage's tower, and either find some artifact they can use to teleport a priest out of jail, or, worst case scenario, sell all goods to the underworld dealers and get the money to bail out the priest!

And, in this hypothetical example, I'm sitting speechless and unsure what to do.
It's just another part of the "bust him out" route, just with extra steps. If you think it's a possibility, I'd stat up the mage's tower with a general layout, defenses, and list of items and their location. If the players break into the Mage Tower, you're prepped! If they don't, you've got a nice little layout for if the party ever needs to go there later or something.

The easy way is to railroad them. Rock falls, the wizard teleports back from the trip. But it is not fun.
It would not be unreasonable for Mr Wizard to have some kind of alarm system that would alert him of a break-in, so he could immediately teleport back.

The hard way is to make something on the fly. I don't have problems with having to roleplay it, I'm good with improvisation. I have problems with mechanical part - I did not prepare any encounters that would seem logical in a mage's tower. If the tower is guarded by an elaborate weave of traps that activate golems and summon magic flying worms - what are the stats of the golems and the worms? Should I stop the session, go to Google or my paper Bestiary and construct an encounter while players are bored of waiting?.. Or should I wing it and have a risk of wiping the players (or making an encounter extremely easy and non-satisfying?).
Well, you're here now so why not plan something out now? At least lightly sketch it out. I mean golems and magic worms and an elaborate weave of traps, go pick some of those things out, assemble them into the Mage Tower and boom, prepared!

And such anxiety consumes me in all instances of going off rails. If a player wants to cast a Charm on a merchant to make him give a discount - what should I do mechanically, how high is his Will save? If a players wants to Sneak Attack a questgiver, how much Flat-Footed AC does she have?..
How can I handle this mechanical improvisation?
IMO, most people are just people, they might have a +1 or a +2 bonus somewhere, a Merchant may be smart, so +1 Will saves. A Soldier may be tough so +1 Fort (if they don't have like, 5 levels of Fighter or something).

Ultimately my experience is that you prepare a dozen things, and the players will utilize 2 or 3 of them. Those other things are still prepared, and make it easier to prep more going forward. The best things to prepare are the big things. The Jail. The Mage Tower. The Dungeon. The details of what's in them? Less important. You can fill them up with an assortment of appropriate things once you get there.

A lot of times you just go "Well, this is a pretty average Joe Town Guard, so, 3rd level fighter with good Strength." And yeah, kinda wing it. He'll have a whopping ~30hp, 15AC(Leather +2, shield+2, +1 dex(12)), +3BAB and +3(16 str) to damage and some really pathetic will saves. Boom you have a generic town guard. Copy pasta as many times as you need for more guards.

Plan the Big Stuff. Wing the Small Stuff.