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I stink at winging it- HELP!
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5213690" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Panic is 90% of what stops a DM from being able to handle improvisation. If you take the DM away from the table, and sit them down with a peice of paper, the same DM that can't improvise in play is usually able to freely produce a flowing stream of all sorts of ideas.</p><p></p><p>So, my first peice of advice to you is to make sure you are capable of producing your own ideas when you aren't in a panic position. Start creating your own mini-adventures to run in between premade adventures or as side quests. Start expanding premade adventures with new encounter areas. That's usually pretty easy to do and often necessary, as its not unusual to find premade adventures containing very vague areas that the writer didn't have the space in the text to detail to any great degree.</p><p></p><p>Once you know that you can improvise when you aren't under pressure, the next thing you have to do is get rid of your panic. The key to that is to have at your fingertips sufficient material to spark your imagination when the time comes. In my opinion the single most important crutch for a DM in this situation is the random table. Even if you don't use it randomly, having those ideas at your finger tips can keep the game flowing long enough to fill out the session and give you oppurtunity to detail your ideas in between sessions. I'd suggest getting AEG Toolbox (or Ultimate Toolbox), looking at the tables in the back of the 1e DMG, and composing your own random encounter, event, and discovery tables. This is never going to be wasted work, because even if you don't use these ideas immediately, even if you never roll against the table, the ideas you create, mine, and refine while creating these tables will serve you well when creating material in other contexts. </p><p></p><p>Make sure you cover your own weaknesses. Every DM I think has had that momment of panic when the PC's want to know the name of some hitherto unnamed NPC. Keep lists of names at hand so that you can push past that panic. I think you'll find if you control your panic and practice creating between sessions you'll be able to create during a session.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 5213690, member: 4937"] Panic is 90% of what stops a DM from being able to handle improvisation. If you take the DM away from the table, and sit them down with a peice of paper, the same DM that can't improvise in play is usually able to freely produce a flowing stream of all sorts of ideas. So, my first peice of advice to you is to make sure you are capable of producing your own ideas when you aren't in a panic position. Start creating your own mini-adventures to run in between premade adventures or as side quests. Start expanding premade adventures with new encounter areas. That's usually pretty easy to do and often necessary, as its not unusual to find premade adventures containing very vague areas that the writer didn't have the space in the text to detail to any great degree. Once you know that you can improvise when you aren't under pressure, the next thing you have to do is get rid of your panic. The key to that is to have at your fingertips sufficient material to spark your imagination when the time comes. In my opinion the single most important crutch for a DM in this situation is the random table. Even if you don't use it randomly, having those ideas at your finger tips can keep the game flowing long enough to fill out the session and give you oppurtunity to detail your ideas in between sessions. I'd suggest getting AEG Toolbox (or Ultimate Toolbox), looking at the tables in the back of the 1e DMG, and composing your own random encounter, event, and discovery tables. This is never going to be wasted work, because even if you don't use these ideas immediately, even if you never roll against the table, the ideas you create, mine, and refine while creating these tables will serve you well when creating material in other contexts. Make sure you cover your own weaknesses. Every DM I think has had that momment of panic when the PC's want to know the name of some hitherto unnamed NPC. Keep lists of names at hand so that you can push past that panic. I think you'll find if you control your panic and practice creating between sessions you'll be able to create during a session. [/QUOTE]
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