The Wizard of Oz School of DMing

[Impeesa]

Allow me to be the sour voice of caution here.

3.x is good for adlibbing in that there are standard values for the difficulites of a great many things (climbing, jumping, just about any skill check). The problem comes up as a bit of a trust and control issue. I found that in games where there was more adlibbing, I felt that I was at the complete mercy of the dice to come up with a result skewed enough to make something happen. When I adlib I find that it's sorely tempting to add in things to make the game go the way I want it to go, not necessarrally the way the player would like it to. But, if there's a good bond of trust between the players and the DM, and there's a good feel for how the game's going to go, it leads to some very fun expierences.

I can second this, or at least part of this. Ad-libbing takes a great deal of skill. I've played in games where the GM flew entirely by the seat of their pants, and it became very discouraging for me. When all decisions are based on eyeballing and dice rolls, any effort I put in to making an effective or interesting character goes completely to waste. I can no longer have any reasonable expectations of what I can and cannot do, or expect from my enemies, because what was once defined by the game rules is now solely dependant on the GM's mood.

On the other hand, when I am DM, I find that winging it leads me into bad habits. The instinct to make most encounters a decent challenge leads me to make some things harder than they should be, particularly for higher level characters.

Just speaking from experience.

--Impeesa--

 

[Doug McCrae]

I don't like DMs winging D&D 3 too much, especially the stats of BBEGs. Preparation pays dividends in such a rules intensive system.

 

[random user]

Yeah, I think it's very easy to build NPCs specifically to foil your PCs, and this should be avoided at all costs. It's very important to allow your PCs to shine at certain times (if they choose not to, well that's not your fault).

To get in the habit of buffing all your NPCs with protection from energy: fire when your wizard gets fireball will just lead to grumpy PCs.

I assumed (a bad assumption on my part, I realize now) that almost all die rolls are in the open. Personally I would have a hard time playing in a campaign where the DM rolled hit and damage behind a screen. If you do hide die rolls, all the wizard of oz'ing becomes trivial (ok, not trivial, but you aren't accountable to the numbers which makes it a lot easier).

If I had enough time I would probably stat out more NPCs (and I should note that any NPC which is going to be around for more than 2 sessions I will stat out); however, a lot of times I don't even know those NPCs are going to be interacted with, let alone whether there will be a fight or not.

For example, let's say I have two guards near a cave complex which the PCs have no interest in going in. But they need to get past the two guards, and there are many ways to do this. If they choose to attack the guards (instead of bribing them, intimidating them, sneaking past them etc), and if the guards get a chance to act (ie they don't get slept, or sneak attack killed on first round etc) then they will call for reinforcements.

There is really a very minimal chance that things are going to play out in such a way that I need to use those reinforcements. So I quickly come up with who would probably come (let's say 2 4th level fighters followed by a 3rd level rogue who will sneak) and I leave it at that. If the fight actually breaks out, I don't have a statblock for those NPCs but I know enough that I can wing it, especially since they aren't elite troops, and they are (unless the PCs interact with them) going to fade back into obscurity.

 

[Sandain]

Why cant a mindflayer have bat wings? with a quick thought you can change the entire species. Why cant all Goblins have 50 hp? It will frustrate your players who read the MM - and I love changing monsters stats and descriptions to confuse my players.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

Why cant a mindflayer have bat wings? with a quick thought you can change the entire species. Why cant all Goblins have 50 hp? It will frustrate your players who read the MM - and I love changing monsters stats and descriptions to confuse my players.

It can, and I don't think anyone would say anything otherwise. However mindflayers sprouting wings in response to your wizard casting fly on the party is less cool. And if you give goblins 50 HP, I hope that you're not expecting them to remain a low CR monster anymore.

Now, mind you, I did a lot of custom monster building, so I know the joy of tweaking something.

Anyway, in the games I do a lot of handwaving in, I already have a pretty well pre-determined plan for the game in general. Mostly, it's epic heroism (of the 'you guys are all awesome' variety). Sometimes it's raw horror. Mostly though, it's changing things around to make the PC's more awesome, or having the magical ritual take until just after the PC's kick down the door to complete. It also helps that people had allready figured out guidelines for the system (Mooks roll 3 dice for something they're good at, 1 for something that's completely out of their zone, 2 for most things, and 4 for their area of training). I think that knowing the logical ranges for stats and values is the best way to be ready to handwave. The problem for this in 3.x is that the logical range for challenges keeps moving with level.

But if the DM knows the style of the game, the players know the style of the game, and both groups are good with the area of play, then by all means, play away.

And to sum up:

Know your ranges.
Use lots of mooks.
Know your game's style.
Recycle everything you can.
Know your players.

 

[Azul]

Winging it is a perfectly valid DMing technique, but it is only one technique and anyone who relies solely upon it is limiting their toolkit pretty drastically.

Improvised DMing works best with relatively simple situations or encounters. In my experience, most seasoned DMs will use this method to deal with unexpected plots twists (PCs do the darnedest things sometimes), wandering monsters and other "filler" encounters.

As the complexity of the situation increases, it becomes harder and harder to "eyeball" what the stats should be. Even more importantly, this means that the improvising DM is increasingly likely to make some poor decisions as the complexity rises. Eyeballing the stats on a basic goblin, ogre or even hill giant is pretty easy.

Eyeballing the stats of a 5th level character of any class can be done in a few moments. Eyeballing the stats of a 20th level barbarian is a bit more challenging but at least that class has relatively few variations. A 20th level fighter is harder to "guestimate" due to the complex possibilities regarding feat choices. A 20th level sorcerer is a step beyond that but at least he's a spontaneous caster. Any 20th level caster that memorizes spells is very challenging to guestimate. A half-fiend spellstitched red great wyrm dracolich?... forget guestimating unless you are a living computer.

Now this all begs the question of "How much statistical detail do you need for your encounter?" If the encounter is non-hostile, such as the party just chatting with the NPC/creature, then even that multi-templated dracolich can be improvised in a manageable manner. If the encounter is a fight-to-the-death, then any improving DM runs a severe risk of reducing his game to complete mess due to arbitrary decision making.

My advice is to stop and think about how important any given encounter is and how likely it is to become a major point of conflict.

- BBEGs can remain vague or unstatted if they are just hiding in the shadows, but they should always be stated out if they are going to be interacting face-to-face with the PCs. Most BBEGs are pretty complicated NPCs and eyeballed numbers are likely to be rather flakey at best.
- Any significant foe, such as a BBEG's lieutenant or a strong monster/NPC of uncertain disposition or any potent ally should also be stated out thoroughly. This is to avoid falling into the traps of arbitrary decision making --> the foe who somehow has a counter to all the PCs special abilities, the super-ally who outshines the party, etc...
- Mooks, lesser foes and other less challenging encounters can be guestimated or you can take a bit of time to write up a few simple stats based on experience (hhmm... chainmail, heavy shield, average dex... call them AC16... battleaxes, kind of muscular 1d8+2 damage sounds right).
- Encounters with NPCs you simply hadn't expected to need, friendly lesser NPCs, innocent bystanders, the wandering monster you just invented to fill in a lull... these are the one you should improve.

 

[The Grackle]

I don't like DMs winging D&D 3 too much, especially the stats of BBEGs. Preparation pays dividends in such a rules intensive system.

The problem is if you're not willing to wing it, you spend a lot of time making NPCs that your players might not even encounter. Preparation can also be a big loss of time & effort.

I've had a lot more bad experiences trying to railroad PCs into the adventures I've planned than I have making stuff up on the fly.

 

[Gez]

The problem with the "Wizard of Oz" School of DMing is that you get munchkins.


I can hardly believe I'm the first with that joke.

 

[The_Gneech]

Insert plug for E-Tools here! Install it on a laptop and when PCs go off the map, you can generate even a high-level character fairly quickly.

-The Gneech

 

[Sebastian Francis]

I just ran a session which included an encounter with a 15th level necromancer, three of his 10th level apprentices, a 10th level guard, four 6th level guards, three clerics (who were mostly inconsequential, but managed to summon a weak manifestation of their deity for a second) and two mummies. The entire 8x8 room the encounter took place in had forbiddance and unhallow cast, and contained a pool of unholy water, as well as lots of cover. Oh yeah, the party had 6 11th-12th level characters, four of which are full spellcasters. Would anybody care to ad-lib it?

But you're missing the point. The entire scenario you just detailed *isn't* adlibbed.