Freeform GMing

[Thasmodious]

I'm talking about freedom, man. Puttin' your conceptions aside and just experience RPG life, man. Let the players do the heavy lifting, just kick back and take it all in, roll some dice, and see what happens, man.

Ok, so not quite like that, but the last couple of years, my GM style has become increasingly freeform to the point where I plan next to nothing narratively or structurally and run a game where the players really dictate the action. It's not the same thing as sandbox, with its site-based adventuring (if the PCs go here, this happens or they encounter this) although some elements of sandbox show up. And it's pretty far removed from narrative GMing, although the PCs manage to get involved in plenty of plot lines.

What I most enjoy about the form is the freedom (both for the GM and the players) and challenge of thinking on my feet and focusing prep on tools that allow me to do so as fluidly as possible. I'm curious how many others GM in a similar vein and what they see as the strengths and weaknesses of this style (could we call it GMing Commando, or Freeballin'?). And any tips, tricks and tools they'd like to share? Critical discussion of the merits or demerits of the style are very welcome as well.

 

[Mark CMG]

I love running whole sessions of city adventures based entirely on whatever the players want to do, explore, purchase things, taverning, getting involved in the politics, anything! Having some big cities in a setting where the players can get some non-wilderness, non-dungeon freeform sandbox roleplaying in is one of my favorite parts of the game.

 

[ffy]

Seems really awesome, but what happens when the players actions (and the logics of the world) lead to a session that (d)evolves into a hack'n'slash? I mean, if the PCs are actively looking for fights and the opponents giving up or fleeing isn't exactly feasible at that point - since you only do light prep work, it's gonna be hard to string together multiple fun, engaging and different encounters.
I guess what would save you in that situation is knowing MM/MM2/MM3/MV thoroughly enough to find the monsters you want to use in seconds, should the need arise - or if you are very proficient in thinking on your feet, putting together monsters as they are rolling for initiative

I envy you for you (and your players) being imaginative enough, as well as being good enough roleplayers to be able to run games in that type. Seems like a great thing to be a part of.

 

[JohnRL]

This sounds great, but it sounds like it relies on relatively proactive and mature players who neither expect to be handed hooks on a plate, nor indulge in antisocial/homicidal behaviour where it is best for them to be confined to a dungeon for the safety of all non-evil NPCs.
It may have been 20 years ago playing D&D at school, but I still have memories of adolescent jerks unleashing their power-crazed PCs on Restenford and Hommlet in the name of "finding their own adventures".

 

[Rune]

My notes for a session I ran (impromptu) a few weeks back were five words long.

 

[Aeolius]

In my undersea campaign, the party is currently in the region of the Sinking Isle (World of Greyhawk) in the company of humans once enslaved by a kraken. To defeat the enclave of tentacle-tailed mermaids who now command the kraken’s power, the party must fashion a weapon of Oerthblood in a forge known as the Hearth of Hearts.

While the Sinking Isle is mentioned in Greyhawk Adventures, I pretty much play the game by ear. On-the-fly DMing is my bread and butter, I enjoy plucking things out of my brain that fall in to place at a later date. I tend to run three hours of adventure with a handful of rough notes at the most.

Scia, the elderly druid leader of the imprisoned Drylanders, presented the party with a proposal. She knew the Isle would rise from the bottom of the ocean, if an intelligent being was sacrificed on an altar hidden in the depths. She offered her own life, so that the Isle might rise and the weapon might be forged.

That’s how the game ended two sessions ago. In yesterday’s game, she presented the party with a ceremonial dagger, with which to perform the sacrifice. I decided that the dagger was made of a substance similar to blue sea glass, the same substance from which the altar was fashioned. The altar is briefly mentioned in Greyhawk Adventures, but I made it one of three similar sets of ruins, each capable of summoning an extra-planar maelstrom.

Then I decided that the dagger was actually made from a shard of the altar (yes, Dark Crystal reference). As a description seemed forthcoming, I googled images of obsidian knives and daggers. In the end we ended up with a dagger of blue crystal with a hilt made from the bone of a leviathan. Scia mentioned the dagger held “potent magics”.

Uh-oh. The PCs would want more information than that. Then it hit me. Scia didn’t really want to die. She knew that she was old. She knew that anyone who lived in the caverns of the Hearth could never leave, for while the mysterious radiation of the Heath granted near immortality, one could never leave the caverns or all of their years would come rushing back (yep, borrowed from “War-Gods of the Deep”). She found a way to escape. On a whim, I have the dagger powers similar to a demi-lich’s soul gem. If you were slain by the dagger, it would absorb your soul. The next victim of the dagger would present an empty shell for the soul to inhabit.

Yes, I have too much fun, for people.

I was waiting at the credit union, earlier today, when it hit me. There was already a soul trapped in the dagger. Okay, that could be fun. It would be released into Scia’s body, when she sacrificed herself. It would be the sacrifice of this entrapped creature, now released into a body rapidly aging and wounded, that would fuel the altar.

So, what might tomorrow bring? What happens when this trapped soul is freed, even for the briefest of moments? Will it be friend or foe? Will impart ancient wisdom or reveal the location of treasures untoward?

Mind you, I DMed this game for over three years knowing that the BBEG wanted to use the planar maelstroms to drain the Solnor Ocean. I never knew why. It seemed an evil enough act in and of itself. Over time I decided that the waters would travel to the interior of a hollow world, in this case the lesser moon Celene. It seemed like a lovely place to visit; an adventure for later days.

Then I discovered a bit of buried lore. The demon lord Dagon and elemental princess Olhydra had twin daughters. That was it. All there was. All mine. I decided that Dagon imprisoned his daughters within Celene, each trapped in separate subterranean lakes now tended by kuo-toans. Only if the lakes were joined, would the daughters be joined once more. Together, they are a force to be reckoned with.

Oh... guess where all that water to join the lakes will be coming from?

 

[jedavis]

During the last game I ran, I knew my (Traveller) players were headed for a particular system. My notes boiled down to "System under Imperial interdiction due to meme-demon plague induced by <Malevolent NPC>. Fat Trader Albatross broken down near gas giant, Signal GKing - engineer driven insane by <Malevolent NPC>, released demons into ship, one survivor on bridge." I ended up coming up with stats for the demons on the fly - I had stats for some warp panthers (modeled after the Hounds of Tindalos, with the cornerjumping), so I changed claws to bite, added shadowdancer-style shadowporting, and a 1 in 6 miss chance against ranged weapons to create the Ixathil shadow-demons... as the PCs were fighting them. A little instant reskinning goes a long way. Likewise, Traveller's very helpful with the standard-issue deckplans; instant dungeon, just add description.

They made it through the ship and the demons with only one almost-death, then decided to head planetside and I really started making things up; checks to evade imperial interdiction, then evading (and fighting) starport security to get to the computers that tracked the Malevolent NPC's arrival, then to a warehouse to disrupt his vile ritual of demonic ascension (with their starship laser, naturally... I love it when I don't even need stats for combat). And that ended that session...

 

[Smoss]

I love to freeform GM. Heck, I designed my RPG system to make that easier on me. (When you have ZERO need for NPC stats in 99% of cases, it is SO much easier.) Heh, nothing like knowing what you like and doing your best to make what you like easier to do.

But yeah, all of my last few campaigns have been just dropping PCs in a world and watching them have at it. It helps to have good players (Thanks Karin and Shawna, you two rocked...)

I'm hoping to do another good one in the future. Have some old friends moving back to my area. I really need to do more setting work to be prepared. To have more world better defined in my head.
Smoss

 

[Ycore Rixle]

It's the only way I've GMed for a long time. I usually prep with a list of challenges that can come up for each character - 2 to 4 things that can pop out of the woodwork and be interesting to that character. Then, based on what the group has been doing and has said they were interested in doing, I'll have one or two multi-area encounters ready, for combats or social scenes or chases or whatnot. I'll tailor the dressing on the encounters to fit whatever the players' goals are. Long-lasting NPCs are already made up, and new NPCs have relevant stats made up on the fly, pretty much.

This works very well, in my experience. Of course, I have to remember to make the players' choices have consequences. If they go to the Caves of Chaos, then the witch in Thingizzard's Hut can proceed with her plans unhindered. One of the PCs' brothers might be dead when they return, or the village mayor might now be a Yeenoghu-worshipper. If the PCs go on a mission they chose because of the potential for loot, and they're successful, they have to get loot. But I also make sure to have other options that they know of - through rumors, plot hook items, etc. - that offer rewards other than loot. Then if they take those options, and they are successful, then the reward is not loot. 'course that's just one way to make choices have consequences.

I also list for each challenge in a plot point or location one way to accomplish the challenge with stealth, one way with combat, and one way with a social encounter. That way I can nudge the players if necessary, adjust the pacing (no four-combat encounters in a row!), or point out that X is No Longer An Option because of some choice the players have made.

 

[Thasmodious]

Seems really awesome, but what happens when the players actions (and the logics of the world) lead to a session that (d)evolves into a hack'n'slash? I mean, if the PCs are actively looking for fights and the opponents giving up or fleeing isn't exactly feasible at that point - since you only do light prep work, it's gonna be hard to string together multiple fun, engaging and different encounters.
I guess what would save you in that situation is knowing MM/MM2/MM3/MV thoroughly enough to find the monsters you want to use in seconds, should the need arise - or if you are very proficient in thinking on your feet, putting together monsters as they are rolling for initiative

Sometimes hack'n'slash happens, its not always a devolution. The first season of my Firefly game, the PCs got into maybe 4-5 fights the entire run. The last one, though, was an action fest. They actually talked their way out of an ambush on a derelict transport ship by a rival group that beat them to the cargo, then once back on their own ship engaged in a fight with the pirate ship and then Reavers, who disabled their ship and boarded, which led to a desperate bloody fight in their home. It was wall to wall action, but it was a blast, too.

As for handling on the fly and multiple encounters, I do it largely as you suggest. I gravitate towards systems that make NPC/monster building easy and predictable on the page with room to be creative on the tabletop. For example, for 4e games, the formula to raise or lower a monsters stats to hit a certain level works for +/- 5 levels. So, if the PCs are in the Heroic range, I put base stats for the different monster roles on a sheet along with elites and solos, the formula for changing them, and a page or two of powers ripped from monsters that fit a wide array of situations (one brutes overhead axe attack is anothers tentacle smash is anothers fist of fury). All I need to do is adjust stats and add the flavor and I'm ready to stat up anything on the fly for the full range of Heroic levels. For Savage Worlds, the stats are just really easy to wing as there isn't nearly the level of complication of D&D.