is DMing on the fly and making shit up as you go a terrible idea?
>>44287128
The first 10 sessions of my last campaign were completely off the top of my head, and they were the best 10 sessions of the game
Once I started planning ahead, it because less fun.
It depends how good you are at it. For me personally if a DM is able to keep interesting and build on it IDGAF, but I also hate /reddit/-tier memefests where it's just whatever the wackiest, most random thing is that the DM goes with.
I personally use a lot of random tables when I run and build campaigns, which I suppose is something of a halfway point between structured and totally on the fly. I would advise more people to use random tables, honestly, I think people really underestimate their usefulness as a session and campaign tool.
>>44287128
No it isn't, as long as you take enough notes as you go to keep within hailing distance of internal consistency later on in the campaign.
I go into a session with a "here's what happens to the party in the first hour" plan, then improvise as they react for the next three hours. It's worked fine for the past eight years or so.
well I don't really DM a lot but when I do I don't use any books or references or notes.
It really works and I'm not even a good DM.
>>44287128
Ideally you reach a middle point with experience.
I've been a DM for almost 15 years. Nowadays my prep is a bullet-point list for plot, monster stats and physical handouts whenever possible. I wing most of the rest. But you have to know at least the most important things that you want to happen, no one likes to be led in a wild goose chase.
>>44287128
It's the best way to narrate imo since you'll tailor the story directly with what the players want. The problem is that it's hard.
>>44287222
Same, sadly.
Currently overthynking my own campaign over the long break.
>>44287274
Good site for random tables ?
>>44287668
http://www.ikea.com/
>>44287128
No, because planning means you try to account for every individual variable and the players will inevitably break the plan.
GMing style is a very personal thing. Don't listen to anyone who tells you there's a right way to do it. Experiment with different techniques and methods, but always in the context of trying to figure out what works for you.
The balance between improvisation and planning varies a lot. Some GMs are almost entirely one or the other, but most strike a balance. Personally, I tend to have a plan to fall back on, but mostly improvise at the time, taking the ideas of my players and letting them guide me new directions, but if things fall through or start to stagnate I always have notes and plans to use to keep things going and keep the session fun and enjoyable for everyone.
This is only one method, and I'm sure you'll be told a hundred more in this thread. Just remember that none of them are correct. The only 'wrong' way to GM is to not enable people to enjoy the game, yourself included. If you and the group are having fun, you're doing it right.
>>44287721
I've only recently started GMing, but is there a 50/50 a good balance? Most of the players in my group seem to be GMing their own games, and I always feel kind of underequipped when I'm running. Everyone's got really well written characters and gimmicks, and while they seem to be having fun, I feel I could do more.
ran a campaign this year that was very minimal prep, mainly because I was swamped with other things. It was alright, but certainly not my best work.
>>44287668
YOUR OWN BRAIN, ANON.
The whole point of a random table (to me, anyway) is that it's a means to have a factor of unpredictability - which is more or less impossible to imitate - while still controlling what the options will be. That means that it's not that useful unless you construct and amend them yourself.
I tend to have a good outline, maybe a mind map style of branching off ideas to reference, but a lot of what I do it off the seat of my pants to fill the actual storyline. If they branch off in an unexpected direction as my party is oft to do, oh well, I run with it.
Although if they are approaching a dungeon for sure and I have time to prepare it between sessions, you bet I'll make it more fleshed out in advance.
Whatever goes for holding a presentation goes for DMing.
Ofcourse you can prepare every sentence, ofcourse you can plan out every detail, but you can also just wing it and still get an A as long as you manage to pull stuff out of your ass quickly and reliably enough.
What I like to do for both scenarion is to write everything out as one solid piece of text. I then reread it a few times. I read it out loud and try not to look at the paper. After I am done recitingna paragraph from memory I look back at the paper to see if I have missed any important details. At that point I don't give a flying fuck wether or not I actually said the exact words I have written down, as long as I get the messge across I am ok to continue to the next paragraph.
This works for both, DMing and holding presentation. In both cases learning everything by heart would be retarded, but winging it comes with a lot of risks, so I try to wing it as much as possible and if shit goes wrong I can doublecheck my with my notes.
>>44287128
Depends really, you can't have everything in control in my opinion. You need to have good improv DMing skill to pull of something good.
In my campaings I have my notes an all and try to keep the core idea, but if the players decide to do something unexpected or stupid I follow along with it.
DMing is the illusion you have everything under your control, and that sometimes imply coming up with thing on the fly.
>>44287128
Just so long as you try to keep it internally consistent. Which may become more difficult the longer you play it like that.
>>44287684
ayy
>>44288520
Lmao
>tfw I have never run a game with planning and all my stuff if off the cuff
>tfw my players consistently tell me they enjoy my games and love how the story is tailored to me
>tfw they think everything is pre-planned and that I have books full of notes and random charts but I don't
I'm terrified that they will find out some day. But I keep telling them its all in the notes. I am a fraud.
>>44289147
To them. Not me.
>>44287128
In my two sessions as GM, I had some planning beforehand but I then incorporated new things as the game went on.
Generally, if you know what you want out of your setting/campaign, then just build everything around that.
but that's just my opinion.
>>44287128
If you have a group like my last one, that never does what you expect them to do it's basically your only option.
For me the fun in roleplaying comes from the interaction between different characters and the world. As a DM I make up the world and see how my players characters interact with them. I dislike anything predetermined, like certain plot points that need to be met. Of course I provide hooks for various storylines, but more often than not they will find something else that catches their interest, so we won't even get to that point.
>>44289147
This is good.
OTOH, I was once part of a campaign where the DM wanted to run us through a murder mystery but had nothing planned. The game died after three sessions of bumbling around aimlessly with no real progress.
So, in the end, as long as the players are happy do what you feel. But please know what you are doing.
No, and neither is planning extensively.
>>44287684
iseewhatyoudidthere.jpg
>>44287296
This, really. The only session you should have a meticulous plan for is the first session, and even then it should just be a large set of guidelines.
The players will likely shoehorn themselves into some sort of path within the world. Let them. Draw up generalized notes that handle really important shit that wouldn't normally be quite the norm, like "The king doesn't like men with moustaches".
I plan some major details like key NPC personalitys and terrain features. In some kind of games some hook to start. From there is all on the fly. Usually ends pretty well. Helps a lot using systems that easy the GM work.
I'm currently running my first game, and will say that this isn't the way to go. In the end, if you and you players are serious, it's going to create tons of branching plots which you'll have to scramble to improve on.
Like, you have an event, then three sessions later you think 'Oh shit, what was I going to do with that girl the players encountered on the third layer of this dungeon, now that I've already made her redundant?" And then your players ask questions, and etc etc. You can try it, but in the end, it's useless if you're not doing an lol randumb thing.
>>44290749
>running my first game
There is your problem right there. Everything you described are rookie mistakes. You learn good storytelling skills over time and thru mistakes.
>>44287128
Only if you're terrible at it.
>>44290749
With time, you'll learn that there's no planning that survives contact with the party. Maybe it's just a matter of introducing a minor NPC or plot point that you blurted out as a filler, but the players for some reason took to it, started interacting with it, and to them it becomes important... you'll find yourself running entire nights where your prepwork stopped in the first half hour.
I have a story that's going on that affects the world and the PCs can participate in what I have planned, but usually don't. Doesn't mean those orc pirates aren't going to plunder their home city because they are fucking around somewhere else.
>>44290880
But good news, you can get better at it with practice.
No way!
It's such a great way to minimize your own pain of building up too much content that will be thrown away in exchange for something far more laffo-tier.
Build this impromptu skill for better GMing
>>44287128
I don't know if there is a universal rule that states no prep and complete improvisation is the best or worst. It all depends on you as a DM, personally I've always felt that the DM's job is to come up with the skeleton of the session, NPC's and what they are doing/did independently from the party, locations, encounters should be designed beforehand, even if you aren't going to use them in the way you'd imagine, it's great to have a few ideas on hand in case things go sudden writers block.
The players should be the one fleshing out the game, but they're going to be doing so around the framework that you give them. I suspect the best campaigns are the ones that involve the players the most.
>>44287128
That is what I always do desu I have a sector in space and the only thing I know is what the name of each planet is, what species lives on it and what the major issues on the planet where the players are on are. Aside from that I make up the names of the npc's, the layout of cities and buildings and the loot that they could get. I have mostly heard good things about my campaign till now.
>>44287128
It is possible. It work best if you have some kind of plot/lore already set up for the place, and your players are prone to getting distracted.
Or if panic is fueling you.
However, building an entire campaign out of it won't work
>>44287128
no. no it isnt.
here's why: "no plan survives contact with the enemy". and that holds true to PCs as well
>>44287567
>tfw back in the days you distrusted people claiming to gm for 10+ years
>tfw you realize you've gmed for 8 yaersand there is no end in sighttfw you absolutely love it
>>44287668
>>44287684
aaaaaand fucking screened
World build a lot, create a sandbox. Make nodes of adventure that can move around in time and space as convenient. The details you can ignore.
>>44287128
You should make a very rough, loose outline of a planned campaign and just make the rest up as you go.
>>44287128
That's how I ran my first campaign to test out 5e, I don't think I did too bad, but that game was too broken to go on for much longer
>>44287128
Why is the 1 next to the 20 instead of opposite it?
>>44287128
On one hand this can be a good thing, but on the other hand it can also lead to a large amount of stagnation.
Our current DM has the problem of having all this shit happen, deciding it was a bad idea, or the characters do something different, and then everything changes, as a result we have 24 unchecked on areas to explore, most of which are no longer relevant to the campaign.
Not saying its bad, but it certainly aint good.
Biggest thing to be on guard for is giving players too much shit. They ended up raping Ultimate Equipment after I told them that everything was available to buy, just 3x as expensive. Now I have no fucking clue what kind of enemies to throw at them. Half of them they curbstomp no problem, the other half are almost TPKs.
>>44287128
It's worked for me so far.
Unless your planning a complete railroad, the only thing you should plan ahead is the world. Never EVER bank anything on the players following any kind of plot.
Heres my method of GM'ing that blends beautifully with on the fly style story telling:
>Make the world
>Things are happening in places.
Things are going to happen wether the players are their or not.
>Set events by in game month.
Example: This month, new bandit boss is trying to take over village. If the players miss the village, then next month, the bandit boss has already set in. Even longer? A new bandit boss is trying to take on the old.
>Reactions, ripple effect, consequences
Someone somewhere cares what you did. That shady drug dealer you shook down had a brother. The dragon that escaped your onslaught raised an army of goblins. The forest you set of fire was home to an ancient race of, now angry, druids.
After that, the story pretty much writes itself. If they ignored the obvious ancient evil because they tried to use endless water decanter for some sort of perpetual steam engine, then later on, the evil has already set in. Nothing is "too late" till they are dead.
Also, never give into the "thats bullshit" argument. If they fucked up, you tell them step by step why the lich now has control of the kingdom.
I find having to improv everything frightening, so I'm planning bits and pieces.
Basically a world map, key towns, key NPCs and their backstories, and a few important plot elements that can be touched on at player discretion. I haven't run a campaign yet, but I'm hoping providing a frame and going from there will work.
speaking of which, who has some decent encounter generators? Looking for pathfinder/3.5 that actually has things that might include things like guards and typical wizard ect.
>>44290343
consistency evolves as the game sessions progress, IMO. And I and my players have a weird tendancy to adhere to actual canon when playing in a pre-existing universe... Weird coincidences that just keep happening, that seem to explain plotholes...
E.g. playing a naruto d20 game, came up with a random name for an NPC off the top of my head, ended up becoming a player's best friend, Nagisa Himewari. But here's the twist, the player is adopted by the Hyuuga clan, and the child of two pretty important characters happens to be called Himewari...
I create the world and after that have maybe a few plotlines to hook the players to keep things interesting. Other than that it's completely character driven. I have a clear idea in my mind the personality and morals of each NPC and how they would react to any given action the players might make.
>>44287316
Same. It's usually "here's the situation, how the fuck are you gonna handle it?"
And then I have a number of complicating factors to make the situation worse that I can throw in whenever I feel Like they're getting too comfortable or whatever plan they have at the moment seems like it's going to work.
>>44298067
Do you get a kick out of screencapping your own posts?
>>44287721
I'm the same as you, but in reverse.
I usually have some sort of plan as to how I think the session is gonna play out, fully expecting to be wrong in every way.
I then fall back on improvisation
>>44287128
The most important part of being a DM is worldbuilding. If you can keep a cohesive and dynamic world off the top of your head, go for it. That being said, keep notes on your sessions to inform your next session.
>>44303003
If they were his own posts it would've said (you) in the cap.
>>44287128
Only if your players mind(and can tell) that you're doing it.
>>44287128
Make yourself tools to improvise and take notes as you do, and you're set.
>is DMing on the fly and making shit up as you go
Isn't that what you do in Dungeon World?
>>44287706
Confirmed for shit planner.
You can make a plan like "The Zwedorgians will invade planet Tchulu in six solar years unless the players stop them" and "The smuggler Yogdo, whom the players backstabbed, will frame the players for a heinous crime" without planning for every individual variable.
>>44287128
It works fine depending on the style of GMing you use. I use it all the time with something I call my skeleton system.
It's simple. Just write down the names of places, people, maybe write or sketch down some neat ideas you have for an area or something. Make a skeleton of the whole session, and the whole campaign.
The idea is to do two things; allow players to put on the muscles and skin to the skeleton, let THEM fill in the blanks, and you do the same where needed or good.
This way, you maintain a flexible game that gives players more input, allows you to be creative and on-the-fly without losing your pants on it since you have some prep done, and generally ends up a lot easier and more flowing come session time.
The biggest help is that you can slot things around a LOT easier this way. People, place, events, stuff you need or want to have happen end up being able to malform themselves to a lot more places in the game's timeline or flow. This helps in unexpected ways as well, when you can shuffle content around a lot easier to keep things fresh and cover your ass.
>>44287128
As long as you understand that you can not expect much out of this session.
>>44307012
Bullshit.
If you are a decent DM the best sessions come from leaving the players to drive things forward.
