Winging V.S. Planning

[Gogo525]

I just recently started a campaign that I was not to prepared for so on the first day I just winged it. The players loved it and that is a rarity with my campaigns (I am not the normal DM). Usually when I plan my campaigns is when I get the negative feedback. So I was wondering if maybe I should just wing it from now on or should I put some thought into it? I really like making campaigns but I usually give them something to powerful or make them fight a monster that is to powerful. What should I do?

[kamikasei]

I just recently started a campaign that I was not to prepared for so on the first day I just winged it. The players loved it and that is a rarity with my campaigns (I am not the normal DM). Usually when I plan my campaigns is when I get the negative feedback. So I was wondering if maybe I should just wing it from now on or should I put some thought into it? I really like making campaigns but I usually give them something to powerful or make them fight a monster that is to powerful. What should I do?

Think about what you did differently than you normally did. Were you more flexible? Was your delivery more natural? Did you involve the players more closely in events? Did you give them more of a feeling of freedom?

What about the session did they enjoy that they usually don't?

[Kurald Galain]

An important part of DM'ing is finding a style that works for you (and your group). It may well be that improvising fits your style better than planning does. It is never a priori wrong to wing things as a DM, and it's arguably better than railroading the players because "that's the part you prepared for".

But then, I've been known to make up entire castles out of thin air because the PCs had the choice between going north or west, and they ended up going east...

[Winterwind]

I find that improvising yields usually much better results. You are free to fully address the PCs' actions and decisions. If the characters derail your plot you don't lose anything you invested too much time in. You make much more additions which just fit the moment, since you are spontaneous all the time and are not afraid from straying away from your plans.

What I usually do is think of a basic outline of a campaign - maybe just as much as how it begins and how it shall end - and then make up the adventures in the five minutes before each session starts. It works wonderfully for our group.

[jameswilliamogle]

Just don't forget to put in some traps if you wing it, else the Rogues might feel left out. :P

[The J Pizzel]

Just don't forget to put in some traps if you wing it, else the Rogues might feel left out. :P

QFT.

I usually just have a very rough outline of whats happening in my sessions. The players have all agreed that I do my best DMing on the fly. Every now and then I try to design a dungeon and they would always claim it was boring and manufactured. So, screw it. If my players are in need of a dungeon crawl, I'll pick a few monsters and through in a bunch of rooms. The only downside to DMing by improv. is that I think it's a larger strain on the mind, therefore you get drained faster. I find myself taking more small breaks per session when I'm improving.

But yes, DMing on the fly is perfectly normal and if your players like your DMing better that way, do it.

[Lord Zentei]

There can be such a thing as too much planning. When you are planning (as opposed to winging) you cannot gauge the feelings of the players and so provide precisely what is "right" for the situation. Conversely, when winging it, you are less likely to force the game into a preconceived mould.

Personally, I have increased the Wing:Plan ratio throughout my tenure as DM; while initially I had things plotted down to the last gp, now I sometimes run games where I have no more idea what is going to happen than the payers until perhaps a couple of hours before they arrive. In that I draw from experience and have old maps of the countryside and generic castles if I use any maps at all. Any outline of the game is limited to a brief set of lists with the names, roles and objectives of the NPCs as well as plot points I want to put in there, as necessary. I don't always follow those lists, mind.

[Townopolis]

Winging has worked for me, and it sounds like it's working for you. Really it's a matter of having a general idea of what the game world environment is like, and keeping notes on what you've done in the past, so that when the PCs revisit the Running Boar Inn they'll meet the same bartender as last time.

[Blanks]

If you are new to "winging it" heres some tips:

Have an encounter planned out, nothing much, maybe just a few monsters + their items. It has to be a type that can show up everywhere (eg human bandits). In that way you can always throw in the "planned" encounter if you get stuck. When the party are done slaugthering your encounter, you have had 5-10 minutes to think ahead :)
Do the same with a standard dungeon room.

Lists of common stuff you will need:
Make a list of npc names.
magical items to give out (if you are not just giving out random).

In this way the one shot villain you created on the spot wont be named "Evil Bob" when he somehow becomes one of the main baddies (yes im talking from experience luckily it was a little better than bob but still ... )

[silentknight]

I usually rough out an outline of how the adventure or overall campaign will go, draw maps for important locations (such as a dungeon or castle), and do up the stats for key NPCs, otherwise I wing the filler, cause I know the players will do something unexpected or go off on tangents I couldn't hope to have planned for. I need to learn to DM off the cuff more often, rather than flipping pages to look up cumbersome or complicated rules (like grapple).

[Kvenulf]

I do a lot of extensive planning before I run a campaign or a session. But this planning is usually limited to knowing what is going on, where things are in general, and that sort of thing. I usually have a pretty good idea of where monsters are, and loosely how much stuff they'll have. More importantly, I know the ecology of the region, what the important tribes, settlements, and such look like, and where they are. What happens exactly is based more on what the characters do and how they do it. This gives me a lot of flexibility, while also giving me some rough ideas should players do anything wildly unexpected.
I'm not telling you what to do, just what works for me.

[SoD]

I enjoy a bit of a mixture, a rough idea for a campaign idea, a lot of NPCs statted out, fleshed out, both good guys, bad guys and ugly guys, and take stuff as it comes.

[lin_fusan]

The two main problems I get with winging it is:

1) Screwing up my own details. Occasionally, I will let loose a detail and the players immediately notice a plothole or inconsistency. Sometimes I can cover it up with a subplot which is cool, but taxing. Other times it's as stupid as "that castle was never there before!"

"Uh, it was covered by trees. Like how ruins in South America are hidden from even satellites.

Yeah. Hidden. That's the answer...er, reason."

2) Sometimes the players do need a little railroading. I winged a Mage: The Ascension game and the players literately had a three-page list of Things to Do, because they kept wandering off every season to do something different. The game pretty much collapsed from raw confusion.

[Falrin]

Know your World.

When you know what's going on, what organization roam about and how Average joe reacts to any gien situation wingin it will bacome more natural & consistant.


Know the Rules.

With some experience you can dish out an 7th LvL Ranger without (much) preparation.


Plan Some NPC.

Joe the bounty Hunter will always encounter the Party.
Greenear the goblin leader (LvL 4Fighter) , Longear his advisor (3th lvL druid), His bodyguards (2*3th LvL Fighter), His scouts (2* 3th lvL rogues) and his +/- 50 Warriors all live in their fort attacking nearby caravans. As long as you keep greenears personality in your mind the PC's can do wathever they like. ( In the example given: Mine died after using the 'kick the front door' tactics')


Plan some important Plot Events.

if you want a Plot, your PC's have to do encounter, feeel, see, hear, fight, talk to or wathever certain things, monsters, people or wathever.
Know the Goblin messenger has message X, be certain the PC's see Human Y get killed.


Plan on details.

This seems weird, but I'll explain. Have certain 'special/unique/fun' ideas in your head. Work these out. A specific magic item (CLW 3/day), a Special Ability (Go Hulk 1/Day) or a New spell (Summon Cow). Add these to a given NPC to keep the game fresh, even when you're wining it.

So the 5th lvL Fighter you just made up has the feat you prepared (and the PC's have never seen this) or the crazy druid suddenly summons a Cow (bad example, but you get the point.)

[Nowhere Girl]

It probably depends on your abilities, but I'll say this:

The best DM I ever played under (actually Storyteller, since it was WoD) winged everything. He just sat down and proceeded to make it up based on whatever you did. He also made you pursue your own goals -- you couldn't just be a quest-doing machine because a lot of the time, the world wasn't interested in throwing quests at you. Sometimes, you had to come up with your own plans.

I think it helps if you play in a setting with an established geography. A detailed homebrew campaign, a detailed world setting like Forgotten Realms, or in the case of WoD, our modern world (in which case all you need is your knowledge of the world and perhaps an atlas and some other minor reference tools, if it comes to that).

[de-trick]

planning is nice if your not confident but if the PC's screw up something then you get mad because you wasted time on making something and the pcs don't even bother to go there

winging it mine usually isn't very elaborate or complete

[valadil]

If you can get by with just winging it, go for it. Most GMs can wing a session or two but it gets bland if that keeps happening.

I ran a very strange two player campaign just by winging it. The idea was that it wasn't a regularly ran game, but something we could just break out riding around in the car or waiting for food at a restaurant. Not the best game but it was interesting and memorable. Eventually I didn't wing every last detail, but I didn't sit down and plan either. I just collected ideas in my head and let them out when there was a player in front of me.

[Skjaldbakka]

I create the world, in a great deal of detail, and then it doesn't matter what the players do or where they go, I know what is there, and what is going on for them to interact with.

[Ravyn]

I do very minimal planning--I have major NPCs and a few interesting events, but that's about it. This is mainly because my players break plots by existing--even during what's supposed to be character downtime. Recruiting what are supposed to be running antagonists? Done it. Lipped off to the most powerful mortal being in the setting? Check. Put the moves on elder gods? Yep. Shouted at their own gods about dereliction of duty? Been there, done that. So if I have plans, they'll either break or bypass them. Best to be safe.

[SilverClawShift]

My DM usually "Plans on Winging It" if that makes any sense.

He has notes about the overall concept of what we're playing for, plus lists of stuff that he thinks is cool, a good idea, or needs to happen to progress the story. Examples are lists of monsters, information about possible locations we'll wind up, characters and things like that.
But he doesn't stat everything out or try to make a story about it, that's what the game is for. Instead of detailing a city explicitly, he'll have landmarks, information about the way a place functions, NPCs, religions, and the like, and build them up based on what we're doing ("You don't need to map out a city, you need to map out the part the players see and make sure they don't stumble into any prop backgrounds" essentially). Or he'll come up with variances on monsters on the fly, so we don't know what we're up against. Or he'll make characters with a few hooks, but generic enough that he can flesh them out as we play.

Most of the time, he does it in a way that we can't even tell he's doing it. Wherever we go in the world, it seems like a living place, but when he's scribbling out notes or maps while he tells us what's going on in between turns, we know what he's up to.

Now, this is the only group I've ever played with, but I've seen other groups playing. Personally, I can't stand the idea that you have some pre-set story you're acting out. It doesn't even seem like a group activity, you might as well be playing a video game.

[Prometheus]

I second the comments of Silver Claw Shift
I distinguish between two kinds of planning Active and Reactive:

Active has things happen to the characters, typically events that surprise them or move along the plot in a determined way. This can also be used for "random" monsters. Sometime though a "cinema scene" or a series of events is too confining or gets derailed. On the plus side, you can go all out with detail and you can be really quick when it really matters. On the minus side, players lose the flexibility. Sometimes I have prepared multiple results of their choices, but this reaches it limits.

Reactive is more akin to a scenario with a free solution. When half the party was jailed i wasn't going to try to anticipate all the breakout schemes, I simply wrote up the dungeon and let the characters decide how to get though it. Typically this tends to give a more satisfying result than completely winging it.

[Gogo525]

Wow.... Alot more responses than I thought. That is good though. I didn't realize that so many people actually wing their campaigns this much. I have played another game since then and I have finally got around to reading this and this is what I have come up with

Only plan out the world and some other minor detail Ex: Few NPC's, Major towns, memorable places and the such

Wing so I wont feel as bad when my plot gets completely destroyed (last weekend for instance )

and finally random encounters always help when the next part need some thinking put into it.

Anything else I should take into account?