I stink at winging it- HELP!

[Stoat]

Analyze. Prepare. Cheat.

Analyze:
Do your players deviate from the module in predictable ways? What regular habits do they have? What deviations cause you trouble? Frex, some folks start fights with noncombatants. Some wander away from the dungeon and head off into unexplored territory. Some like to talk when the adventure expects them to fight. All of these situations may require you to improvise.

Prepare:
Try to anticipate and prepare for deviations your players are likely to take. If they like to start fights, prep extra statblocks. If they like to wander off, prep a few quickie side trecks (the DDI Chaos Scar adventures are good for this). If they like to talk, take a few minutes and think about any NPC's they might want to talk to: their goals, motivations, etc. etc.

Cheat:
Use Seventh Sanctum and similar random generators in game to come up with names, motivations, etc. for NPC's.

Reskin the monsters in published combat encounters and use them for impromptu battles.

Listen to your players' table talk and then make their speculations reality. If a player says, "maybe there's a tribe of angry goblins behind all this." Then by god, there is a tribe of angry goblins behind all this.

Steal plots and characters from movies, comic books and cheesy novels. It might be hard to improvise dialog for "a fighter" its a lot easier to improvise dialog for "a fighter who is basically Owen Wilson from Bottle Rocket."

 

[Hand of Evil]

First see the link in my sig on DM Advice. Second, always have a backup plan, just something you can pull out of a hat to keep the players on track, sometimes these are clues, sometimes NPCs, sometimes encounters.

Example of this for me was where the players needed to explore a castle, just after they enter it, they make the plan to go back outside and walk around the castle to see if there is another way in. I just told them a fog had formed, tick as pea soup (vision sucked) then filled the area with undead. They stayed in and explored the castle.

Mostly just HAVE FUN, don't let it get to you.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Steal plots and characters from movies, comic books and cheesy novels. It might be hard to improvise dialog for "a fighter" its a lot easier to improvise dialog for "a fighter who is basically Owen Wilson from Bottle Rocket."

That's a good one. I find it really helps me do voices if I have an actor in mind to aim for.

 

[bouncyhead]

Would be useful to know what kind of situations you're finding it difficult to wing.

I'm pretty much always winging stuff, from an entire evening's play (back in the day, thankfully not any more) to a quick NPC or encounter.

1. Don't panic.
2. Don't sweat the numbers.
3. No-one is ever going to know.

For instant combat opponents: don't sweat the numbers. If you need an AC, just pick one that seems right and rationalize it later - no one is ever going to know. Same for pretty much any combat stats. Pick a to-hit +, what's the guy carrying - a longsword? - OK so d8 +... well whatever seems right. How many hp? - well, how long do you want him to last? 3x (I play Pathfinder) encourages 'ground up' construction, but since no-one is ever going to know, why worry about any of that?

As for something a little out of the ordinary how about "You land a solid blow, but as your blade strikes there is a slight shimmer in the air and he doesn't seem as wounded by that as you might expect." What strange force is at work here? - I have no clue - just make it up. They'll never know. Perhaps when they finally knock him on the head they'll find a breastplate/ring/keychain/anklet/thingummy that gives DR5/-. You can worry about that later.

How about some poison on his blade? That's an idea. Skim to poisons - pick a relatively mild one.

And when they knock him on the head? How about a tattoo of a blue naga tucked away on the upper arm somewhere (hardly original I know!). But what could it signify? Is there a cult of the blue naga? Who knows? You just made it up. When the party reach town they might ask some questions and if you want it to lead somewhere, that's splendid. Time to do the map of their hideout...

Or from another angle... things are lagging in the underdark and the PCs are tarrying in an area with little to offer. How about a noise? Just the sound of leather against stone, or the snick of what might be a blade leaving a scabbard, faint as anything, carried to the ears of the party by a subterranean breeze. Where did it come from? - Who cares? It's just a cue to get people frosty and moving in the right direction. Perhaps it's the guy with the made up armour class from earlier. And if they catch him? Interrogate him? He won't tell them anything (he doesn't have anything to tell, you just made him up) but while he resists you can stick something together quickly in your head. Why would he be there? He's been sent to track the party (made up people have always been sent by someone, it buys you time). By who? Er... well if your module supports it, now is the time to plug this desperate bit of improvisation back in the main story. Otherwise you're going to have to think of a name, and fast... perhaps it’s the Cult of the Blue Naga.

Is this the kind of thing you're thinking of? Or is it more the party knocking on the wrong door/deciding to head off to the wrong town/shouting 'Hastur' three times kind of thing?

 

[weem]

Good advice so far, especially the calls to not panic!

Some things I would mention I have talked about in a previous post, but additionally I want to second the use of characters from movies.

I actually have an example from my game last night!

The players ended up trying to get some information about a man they were looking for. They went into a tavern and asked around. I described a few of the patrons there, one which I said was "a very large man with a number of people at his table... they all seem to be giving him their attention".

When they talked to the bartender, he pointed to this man as a source of more information on said individual.

As they made their way over, I began to think... ok, who is this guy, and suddenly this image of Gawtti ("Skinny Pete" in the Italian Job) popped into my mind...

I went from "large man" to immediately having a personality and a voice for him. Now the people around him giving him their attention? they WORK for him, which immediately made him a noble in my mind. Same attitude and even the same speech pattern as Skinny Pete in the movie, but a completely fresh/new NPC. I even described him as having long dark hair, darker skin and tattoos.

All of that in a few seconds.

 

[Dausuul]

Thank you all so much for the advise. I'll need to spend some time with it after work today. The only problem I see so far is ditching the modules. I'm currently running the adventure path from Dungeon and don't want to toss out the game.

What if you were to take the situation as it stands as of the current adventure, and use that as a basis for creating new adventures "going forward" (as we say in corporate buzzwordspeak)? You can start off on a new path without throwing out the parts you've already covered.

Or is there some additional reason you want to stick with the modules (not enough time to prep your own stuff, etc.)?

 

[Mark]

I encourage anyone in a large metropolitain area to keep their ear to the ground regarding a free improv class. Many places that have improv class programs will have a recurring single seminar or class that is either cheap or free as a way of letting people check out what they teach and how they teach it. If you have a couple of hundred dollars, of course, you could probably take and eight week program of improv which, even at the beginner level, would help any DM tremedously. Being able to react on the fly in a positive manner is the essence of what they teach and you need not be funny or intend to get onto a stage to gain some benefit by such instruction.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Thank you all so much for the advise. I'll need to spend some time with it after work today. The only problem I see so far is ditching the modules. I'm currently running the adventure path from Dungeon and don't want to toss out the game.

Keep the advise coming. I can use all of it I can get.


Beldar

I understand using modules. I certainly don't have time or creativity to write all my own adventures, but what I did like to do was use them as a way to spark my own ideas. I might take a module, change the motivation for the villian to link it to some previous adventure the party played through, toss out a couple of encounters that don't make sense based upon the new motivation, perhaps add one or two others of my own.

I often had modules I knew I would never run the party through (old Dungeon magazines are great for this), but I would mine them for ideas and encounters to drop into whatever I was currently running.

Some of these module "leftovers" were kept in reserve for when I needed to punt because the players decide to do something I am not at all ready for. I would then find a way to insert one of these encounters as a delaying tactic. First time I ever did this, the players drew all kinds of conclusions about the relevance of the encounter; nothing I had thought of since I saw the encounter as a throwaway, but their ideas were so damn good I immediately stole them and made them an important aspect of a future adventure.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

Thank you all so much for the advise. I'll need to spend some time with it after work today. The only problem I see so far is ditching the modules. I'm currently running the adventure path from Dungeon and don't want to toss out the game.

I'm a newish DM myself, so I definitely understand the appeal of running an existing module. One thing I've learned is that it's critical (at least for me) to take the module as a convenient starting point, not as a finished product to run as is.

This attitude is important for two reasons. First, the module writer does not know you, your group, or your campaign, so certain aspects of the adventure may require customization. Second, a published adventure is not immune to the inherent difficulty of anticipating the random outcomes of dice rolls and player choices, even given familiarity with the group.

For these reasons, you must feel free to modify the module. Expand upon material that particularly interests your players, such as by adding role-playing options and notes to combat encounters and developing a supporting cast. Remove material that does not interest your players, such as by excising meaningless or frustrating encounters. Relocate and recycle material to compensate for your players' deviating from the expected path, such as moving an encounter group from a skipped location into the entirely new location they decided to explore.

Because you are working with an adventure path and not just a single module, do try to figure out what the necessary ending conditions are for each chapter. Where do the PCs need to be? What should they have learned and accomplished? For most groups, it is straightforward enough to get the players' explicit buy-in for these goals, as a courtesy to the DM, who may not want to generate an entire campaign from scratch.

One idea I'm considering is chucking out XP. Try telling the PCs that they will level up when they reach the appropriate milestones in the adventure path. They will gain treasure as they accomplish the quests defined by the expected ending conditions discussed above. How they achieve these goals is up to them, leaving you to mix, match, and expand upon the raw ingredients--encounters, locations, NPCs, hooks, plot elements--in the module to make it happen.

In short: what's in the module is just the default. Sometimes I wish all modules were released as editable documents, not as "print-ready" documents.

 

[bouncyhead]

One idea I'm considering is chucking out XP. Try telling the PCs that they will level up when they reach the appropriate milestones in the adventure path. They will gain treasure as they accomplish the quests defined by the expected ending conditions discussed above. How they achieve these goals is up to them, leaving you to mix, match, and expand upon the raw ingredients--encounters, locations, NPCs, hooks, plot elements--in the module to make it happen.

I've been using this method running Rise of the Runelords. Works great. When the conditions are right I tell the players to level up. No more tracking XP. This works well with adventure paths where you get good signposting as to level requirement. Not sure it works so well with more improv/sandbox style stuff as you lose your achievement yardstick but it is definitely possible. Forex the chap in our group running Rappan Athuk is using it with no issues.