DM Poll Question

[scurv]

Just wondering, Who here plans encounters before hand, or improvises as they go, And do any give their players a warning when they are moving out of preplaned content?

((as a note, When i say planed content, I tend to refer to combat encounters on paths they will be on, And having premade the dungon they are about to enter. NPC dialogues I tend to improvise as i go with only loose plans on how it will play out.))

[OverdrivePrime]

For random encounters, I tend to work from a table I have put together weeks ahead of time with monsters, NPCs and their equipment all statted out. That way I don't have my players run into a wandering ogre magi, kill it and discover in his loot a rod of quicken that the ogre magi should have been using throughout the fight.

I always hate when my players say something like, "Oh sweet loot! Buy why wasn't the monster using this in the fight? Is it cursed?"

As far as conversation and normal encounters, I tend to scribble down notes, loosely stat out NPCs, Monsters and possible equipment, and then just interact with the players organically.

[valadil]

I plan to improvise. This means that when the party does something I didn't predict, I've got a good enough idea of what's going on in the world that I can roll with it and they don't notice.

Encounters are usually drawn up in advance. My last game was 4e. The game has its flaws, but encounter prep isn't one of them. I can grab thematically appropriate monsters in the right level/XP range and have the whole encounter fully statted in 5 minutes tops. Usually I'd print out two or three per session. If the players did what I expected, we did the fight as written. If they circumvented it, no biggie that was only 5 minutes of prep time wasted and I might still be able to use the encounter next week. If they did something odd and unexpected, I'd adapt what I had.

One of my favorite tricks when I don't know how to improvise is to let the players do it for me. If I have a fight prepped and mapped out, but the PCs lure out the enemies and ambush them, I have enemy stats but no map. Instead of improvising new terrain, I let the PCs do it (within reason anyway). I figure they were the ones who set the ambush. They picked the ground they'll fight on. Why not let them draw out the alley exactly the way they want it?

[ArcturusV]

Yeah. I ran a 4th Edition campaign for my last one. I spent pretty much zero time preplanning encounters. Monster creation was simple enough that I could do it "on the fly" without my players really noticing I was doing it, and thus was a lot easier to mold to whoever showed up that particular day. So I spent most of my time and energy coming up with locations and plot seeds.

But outside 4th? I still don't usually put THAT much time into it. I'll plan out boss encounters. I'll plan out the rank and file enemies that they'll run into time and time again just so I don't have to reinvent the wheel. But otherwise it's a lot of flexibility and being able to respond to things. I like it that way. I can't really predict how a group of 3-6 people are going to decide to approach any given situation, so it seems wrong to set things up presuming X, when X isn't set in stone.

[Remmirath]

I usually have a fair amount planned out beforehand -- everything that I expect them to be doing, and everything that I want them to be doing -- but then on top of that I am prepared to improvise.

I draw up a table of random monsters for each large area that the characters will be going through, including any stats and loot that I'll need for those encounters, and then go from there.

If the characters manage to go so far off the beaten trail that I don't even have random encounters, then I just start winging it wholesale. This can have mixed results, but usually I'm good enough at it to tide them over until they find their way back to the campaign.

I never warn them if they get off track. Assuming they're following the plot of the campaign at all, they'll figure it out soon enough anyhow, and if they're not then obviously I didn't do a good enough job hooking them to begin with, so I am then busy improvising a new hook.

[DigoDragon]

I plan out boss and mini-boss fights, but usually go with semi-random tables for regular encounters.

[Kol Korran]

I'm one of those DMs who tend to be quite thoroughly planned, in order to have useful info to improvise if the time comes. I oftne plan for situations though, not preset encounters, and fit terrain, enemies, time, constraints and so on depending on what the party does.

I don't warn the party when they go "off track", unless they have really thrown me into a curved ball, and then i ask them to give me 10-15 minutes to come with something plausible. happened less than handful so far- as I said, I prepare a LOT.

Hope this answers your question.

[killem2]

Just wondering, Who here plans encounters before hand, or improvises as they go, And do any give their players a warning when they are moving out of preplaned content?

((as a note, When i say planed content, I tend to refer to combat encounters on paths they will be on, And having premade the dungon they are about to enter. NPC dialogues I tend to improvise as i go with only loose plans on how it will play out.))

I have just about every thing planned out, based on the ECL of the party, then I usually add in 1-2 more fights above and beyond what the book suggests.

[Friv]

I tend to put in an obscene amount of planning effort on societies, personalities and the like, and then improvise like mad when my players invariably abandon the plot ten minutes in.

I don't let them know I'm doing it at the time, but I will sometimes gently gripe about it afterwards (such as the lovely time when they decided to visit a nation, spent enough time studying it and learning about it that I'd given them the framework that I'd put together, ended the session, and then five minutes into the next session suddenly decided to go somewhere completely different which I hadn't designed at all. ).

I do tend to have three or four encounters prepared at any given time that I can drop in as delays, so that while the players are busy investigating something and throwing ideas back and forth I can quietly but furiously decide what's going to happen next. These encounters have led to some of my favorite moments in games, sometimes utterly changing the course of a campaign.

[Jay R]

When I'm performing on stage, I will sometimes lose my place, and have to improvise for a bit until I find it again. If I told the audience I was improvising, it hurts the performance. And if they can tell, I've failed.

DMing is the same.

[valcorwabajak]

I generally develop branching campaigns so my players don't feel railroaded I also develop lots of content for if they just decide to leave the planned area I have the whole world planned with city's and content

[Anderlith]

I set everything up to begin with. But you have to improvise during.

Say, I have them in a goblin infested forest. They will encounter some goblins while passing through.

The party will kill some goblins but a few run off.

Now a bunch of new goblins are going to be stalking them waiting to ambush.

Technically they were only supposed to fight the original group of goblins, but now have to contend with the logical fallout of being in a goblin infested forest.

[AttilaTheGeek]

When I'm performing on stage, I will sometimes lose my place, and have to improvise for a bit until I find it again. If I told the audience I was improvising, it hurts the performance. And if they can tell, I've failed.

DMing is the same.

Mm hmm. I try to prepare enough that I can improvise without looking like I'm improvising.

[Jay R]

Short improv just isn't that hard.

I just started teaching my niece and nephew to play yesterday. I thought I was going to just help my 11-year-old nephew learn the rules, and set up a character, to play later. But my niece was watching and paying attention, and soon she wanted a character too.

When they were finished, there was about an hour of time to play, so I had to invent a short scenario on the spot.

No problem. In the five minute break between the setup and the game, I came up with a quick scenario with two combats, tracking, and a little diplomacy, using specific proficiencies for each one.

[Lupos]

In all honesty, while DMing, I'm flying by the seat of my pants the entire time and my players can never even tell unless I tell them or they are extremely perceptive. I don't build encounters, I don't even build a story until the PCs start making one for themselves. The only real planing I do I building the world, the setting. I build the lore, the major places, and the major powers, and even then I make a lot of it up as I go. I generally just come up with 20+ ideas on the fly at once because of a hyperactive mind and set them to a D20/D% roll to see what the players get.

What can I say? Improvising seems to be the only way I can DM, yet all my players think I plan for everything some how.

[ArcturusV]

It's easy to improvise it. The one dead give away though that you're improvising, and is going to frustrate players is saying "... no." In whatever terms come by. Railroading is often mentioned but even when it's NOT really railroading. When you're just thinking, "You know... I don't mind what they do... OTHER THAN THAT." and say no to them, it instantly tells them that you're off track, didn't plan for it, and don't know how to cope with it.

So as they taught me in acting class when I was knee high to a grasshopper, it's always "Yes and..." and "No/Just". Long as you keep saying "Yes and..." to everything they give you, it's easy to go with it.

[darklink_shadow]

I plan the name of about half the monsters they encounter, use online tools to decide some wander creature, and then the stats of the planned monsters are bull****ted, usually mid combat, and the rest of the day is bull****ted, usually as it happens. I make a world, fill it with people with motives, and then turn the party loose. With that strategy, 90% of my planned content either doesn't happen or happens in a way I couldn't plan for.

I never stick to the plan either. If this fight is too easy? Boss time. Fight is too hard? Gimp the fighters a bit, the mages run out of spells, and the other baddies they fight start rolling poorly.

I've ran probably 10 or so campaigns now, and I am getting pretty good. I haven't had many complaints since I started, and none in the last 5 years. Just be creative, and let them do what they want to, or punish them badly for being stupid. Intimidating a town guard? Well, he's alone so it works. But... tomorrow his friends beat you up and take your cool new sword.

Decide the best way to intimidate the nasty old troll is to pretend you haven't noticed him and sing about all the dragons you slayed? It worked, even though you rolled 8 less than his counter roll, why? Roleplaying bonus.

That's another thing, role playing bonuses and penalties are handed out like candy in my campaigns. It makes the people invest more in the game and they get more out of a campaign they have invested more in. Someone literally cried and left the game, causing a session to end early, when the local city guard they had befriended died fighting demons with them.

Anyways, just my method.

[Jon_Dahl]

I always pre-plan everything, because random encounters are often too easy or too difficult (just plain lethal), since they are not carefully thought out.

Sometimes I had random encounters and they are the main ingredient of TPKs. I also never cheat, so if the random encounter proved to be too difficult, it will be like that until the bitter end.

[Kerrin]

I tend to plan things ahead of time, but once we get into an encounter I'm perfectly willing to wing things to make them more dramatic, epic, tension-filled, grandiose, etc depending on what's happening.

[Silva Stormrage]

I tend to plan general things and I make a lot of fodder/random troops to occupy them if need be. Most of the time my players are completely straight laced though and don't cause that much improvisation.

[NichG]

Generally I try to have a vague (and this can be very vague) idea about what kind of stuff is along what I consider to be the most likely paths the party will follow, as well as generally what things I want to arrange for the party to find at some point or other, which I then slot in when its appropriate.

However I always improvise the details, including combat encounters and the like.

The only exception to this is when I'm doing a focussed mystery plotline. Then I need to have it planned out so the clues actually indicate what I think they do.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I prepare encounters in as much as I have a set of antagonists ready (which might just be a list like 3 orcs, or 1 medusa, but usually includes some note of the antagonists' motivation for the scene).

I use random encounter tables, but I improvise them into little side adventures, especially when the rolled number appearing is high. The few bandits (or whatever) the party encounter on the road are part of a larger group, which has a hideout nearby, to which they can be tracked - that sort of thing.

I tell the players when they're moving out of my prepared content, but not as a warning to get them to reconsider, more as a warning that I'll need a little time to prepare things on the fly.

[rockdeworld]

I almost never know which path my PCs will take, so I improvise. I generally imagine locations and provide enemies via cutscenes or random encounter tables.

[Blarmb]

This almost entirely depends how busy I was with work in the week preceding the session. It can be anywhere from having full stats for wholly different encounters I see as probable, plus generalized backups.

To having no clue whatsoever until they walk into a situation where their might be combat and determining AC by setting it to whatever the first attack roll that "Feels about right" is.

[cosmicAstrogazr]

I plan, to a degree, but I try to think of all the most likely things my group will do, based on who's in the group at any given moment. Like, an 'if-then' branching thing.