Playing D&D without study or preparation.

[mmadsen]

It seems that everyone agrees that you need experience DMing to run a game without lots of preparation. Thus, you either need to "cram" for a game, or you need to know the material inside and out by having "studied" (and used) it for awhile first.

What would make the game more playable "out of the box"?

 

[Umbran]

What would make the game more playable "out of the box"?

In general, a drastic enough simplification of the game to make it restrictive. One of the majorproblems with DMing "off the cuff" is that both the players and the DM have so many options that one needs careful consideration or great knowledge to properly handle them all. If the choices were restricted, this would be far less of an issue.

Also, the answer to this question varies depending on the kind of game you want to run. Running an exciting hack and slash one shot is not the same thing as running a long-term, personality driven role-play heavy campaign.

Some of the barriers to running off the cuff are not in the rules at all. Sense of dramatic timing, for example, can only really be learned through use. No change in the game as printed will instill that sense in the DM.

 

[DaemonBolo]

It's impossible to run a game without prepartion. Personally, I hardly prepare for an adventure at all. I just write up an events outline and manage everything else on the fly; however, I can only do this because I have created my own world. Since I have wrtten everything, including the races and prestige classes, then I can be familiar with everything.

 

[jester47]

Wow, there are some really good suggestions and antecdotes here. I have never run a game off the cuff really. I have always prepared. Especially in 3E. However, I think the reason is that there is so much you can do in 3e that you would really want to be familiar with what the NPCs can do.

Some of the suggestions have given me some ideas that I am going to try out:

I am going to have a one pager. This is sort of the "adventure bible." It states what is going on and the real options that the PCs have. I lists the different things going on in the area and it has a list of suggestions as to how the characters can get involved. Being a bit more random. So there is an 80' dragon in a room and the corridor is only 10' wide. Perhaps the dragon has a story as to how he got in there... Plan out the major npcs, but only those that are really major, such as running antagonists, the guy behind the guy, the helper, etc. Silly minions can easily be generated...

Aaron.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Gads I hate it when a DM just makes stuff up as we go along.

Well, it's the GM's job to make sure that people like you never find out.

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

a few hints for winging it

1. The NPC tables in the DMG are incredibly helpful. Use them.
2. Feel free to rip off NPCs from other adventures, Dungeon magazine, etc.
3. Use the CR table at the back of the monster manual.
4. If things get boring, "At this point, the door behind you opens and {insert monster} walks in..." is almost never the wrong thing to say.

 

[jester47]

Another thought is, not everything has to be explainable. If things get boring and you are following step four from above, and it is completely random, I would expect to hear pharses like "where did that come from?!" "How did a chain golem get in the other room?" and "A what?!" Who says you have to explain everything? Considering that the world has ass loads of magic, things really dont have to make sense. Chewbacca can live on Endor and its all good. I am looking forward to trying this very soon.

Aaron.

 

[Tewligan]

Well, it's the GM's job to make sure that people like you never find out.

I've found that players are easily fooled if you flip through a (mostly blank) notebook right before you make something up. The soothing sound of rustling paper somehow convinces them that you are prepared, and not scrambling to stay one step ahead of them.

 

[Agback]

G'day

D&D I'm not so sure about, since in D&D so much depends on knowing details about features of the D&D game world, such as what particular spells, objects, feats, and monster can do. But in a game world with less special content, a world that is more like the real world or more like the world of a well-known fantasy, it is certainly possible to GM without formal preparation. I used to undertake to run an adventure in my usual fantasy setting, my usual SF setting, the present day, the 'Sixties spy genre, or the 'Twenties given fifteen minutes notice.

I guess this is a function of familiarity and practice. Once you become sufficiently familiar with the monsters, spells, and feats it is probably possible to run a 3E adventure with no more preparation than it takes to think of a skeletal plot. (This is the reason that I as a GM dislike the constant issue of supplements containing new monsters, spells, classes, and feats: they impose a burden of continual learning. I much prefer supplementary materials that contain rule-free setting information.)

Regards,


Agback

 

[Agback]

What would make the game more playable "out of the box"?

Realism. If the world implied by D&D were more like the real world and the [comparatively] realistic worlds of most adventure fiction, GMs would be able to rely on their general knowledge and common sense more, and would have less need to learn the peculiarities of the D&D world.

That in turn suggests that reducing the number of classes, feats, monsters, races, and spells would help ill-prepared GMs. Note, however, that such simplifications would make it easier for GMs to design their own adventures and settings, and would reduce the sales of setting books and modules. Combined with the loss of sales of complicating splatbooks, this would be very bad commercial sense for the publishers.

Regards,


Agback