Improvisation tips?

Hi! I'm going to try to run a night of improvised gaming soon. I'm a little burned out, and I did some experiments and found improvising to be a great cure. I'm running a campaign right now, which is takning place in a major city. I'm going to run the session as a serious of short one shots where the players take the roles of several mundane and special characters around the city. These one shots are going to give them some more information around the story they are playing in the real campaign. Now, I'm wondering, has anyone tried something like this before, and does anyone have any suggestions or tips on how to make this a better and easier experience for both me and my players...?

hey! What's wrong with my sig?

Over the years I have found myself improvising, both by choice and by necessity, a great number of times.

One time it was a case of the characters getting so interested in one side issue that they spent the whole night on essentially 1 sentence in my game outline; another time it was a case of having a player spy an interesting plot hole, dive into it, and me catching up. Other times I have specifically "winged it" just to see what would happen.

Couple of suggestions.

1) Keep notepaper handy. As you make up names of people and places, write them down so you will have them for later.

2) Along the same line, come up with a list of possible names so that you can put them together on the fly. This way not every single tavern is The Hungry Hog and not every person is Bort, son of Gerd.

3) Allow a LOT of player input -- if they determine that they frequent a given tavern for a given reason, allow that. If they say that Sunwine is the best vintage around, bingo. Since both sides are improvising, both sides can add to the world.

4) Keep some "standard stats" on hand, in case of brawls. Have pages like "Joe Peasant", "Orc Ruffian" and the like so that you don't have to work out a stat block in your head on short notice.

5) Feel free to ignore rules and make up rules on the fly, but be FAIR about this. When running improv it is quite likely that a lot of material will be concieved on the spot; if the players sense you are either favouring them or your own design, they will grouse loud and often.

6) Be up front to your players if the improv is going to be a long-running campaign style. That way they will know that they can add to the fun.

Just a few notions off the top of my head...

Wombat hit all the major points, I think.

note-taking during the game is extremely important -- in an improvised game it is much easier to be inconsistent because you aren't detailing everything ahead of time. good notes of what you are creating on the spot are essential.

also, as Wombat said, having a list of "generic" NPC stats and random names is vital.

improv DMing can be a lot of work, but at least it's only a lot of work one night a week.

wombats post kicks hard, but remember, it is a fantasy world.

lots of what would be there is wacky, and that can be hard to remeber when improvising. really sit down with a list of high level spells and think about how the world would be different

Improvising-

I like having a list of names for on the fly naming, sometimes a thing list (just cool words or nouns). I also like a list of traits or things that fit or describe the setting. Short lists, maybe 20 items tops. All on the same page. These are prepared before hand, but help feed the on the fly monster.

You can get instant memorable NPC's by: select name from list (consult a random name generator online for some), then pick a trait for them from the list of traits. Then use appropriate generic stats from the DMG.

Sometimes juxtapose things (put two things that you don't think would go well together). You know Chocolate and peanut butter. Mix some odd things up, it works okay.

Most importantly (just like acting improvisation- which I'm sure you could find some more information on):

Listen to the players.

-Erratic K

I just read Robin's laws of good gamemastering and he has a chapter on improving improv. So would any acting book you could find at your local library.

I just bought that PDF called "Everyone Else: Book of NPCs", and although I have not used it yet, it looks like it could really help in improvising a game. Stats for almost every type of person you might need, of varying levels and strengths. I highly recommend it.

Aside from that, a list of names and taverns comes in handy.

Also, if you stat up some general encounters and then insert them as needed.

I'm going to be putting a binder together for just this purpose.

Good luck!

~Chris

html is turned off in sigs; you have to convert all your html code to vB code.

I improvise all the time. In fact, we're running a campaign where one of the rules is we rotate DMs every week, and we have to improvise; it's a rule of the campaign. Story hour in my sig, if you want to see how it's worked out so far.

Use mostly standard monsters out of the book so you can use the printed stats at a glance.

Change the names and descriptions if you want to keep it fresh, such as a large grey ape with claws and a nasty set of fangs could use the owlbear stats.

Templates take time to work out unless you are very familiar with them or they are very minor modifications. Is it Liber Bestarius that has Quickplates or is it the Monsternomicon?

I usually pick one non-MM monster or a random MM monster and then find some place to introduce it during the adventure that would make sense.


Pre made NPC stats are nice but often not immediately needed for most NPCs the party starts talking to. Stats are generally needed for fights, magic use, or indepth skill use. It is ok to guestimate sense motive, spot, and listen ranks.

Since you are doing some one shots where they take on different roles, you can even kill the one shot Characters to set up a bad guy, but keep him masked or something so the PCs no he's out there but not that he is the duke when they meet him in court.

I'll just give you the 8 steps to improvisation Roben Laws wrote (without the explanation). I think it's quite good:
1. Relax
2. Imagine the most obvious result
3. Imagine the most challenging result (for PC's background, character, etc)
4. Imagine the most surprising result
5. Imagne the result most pleasing to the player
6. Pick one
7. Think of consequences
8. Go with it.

Some of the results might be the same. Example: A PC wants to step into a pool of lava.
Obvious result: He burns to ashes
Most challenging result: perhaps to have his leg burnt off?
Most surprising result: The lava is, in fact, an illusion leading to a treasure.
Most pleasing result: The ring of fire resistance is, in fact, a ring of fire mastery and protects the player fully.

Let's choose the most pleasing one, as a treasure isn't good right now and a burnt leg - nah. So what does it mean if the ring is a better one than previously estimated? The PC wealth goes up. Perhaps the PC himself will become better than his peers. However, all he has is total fire resistance plus some perks that kick in not very regularly. You could try whether it's unbalancing.

So you say, "As you step into the molten rock, the golden ring on your finger burns with a white flame, engulfing you with a protective sheath of light. You fire warmthcoursing through you, but it doesn't burn you."
Player: "Sweet. I knew it!"