Worlds of Design: Improvising the Adventure

When it comes to gamemastering, are you focused on improvising the world or making it believable? Let’s discuss the first.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

I like to categorize as a way toward better understanding. Of the two styles, let’s discuss improvisation by the Game Master in making adventures (and settings). We’ll contrast that style with the second in the following “Worlds of Design” about the “believability” of the adventuring world.

The first style discussion can be seen as the question of how much the GM relies on improvisation. None of these styles are right or wrong; the key to making them work is that everyone (players and GM alike) buys into the style beforehand and that it meshes with their own expectations of play.

(When I refer to “player agency” below I’m talking about how much influence the player can have on the outcome of the game. See “The Tyranny and Freedom of Player Agency”)

Improvisation​

At the one extreme is the style of play as taught by the original Dungeons & Dragons rulesets. The GM improvises a lot, relies on wandering monster rolls and other dice tables, and may rely on the players to help determine where the adventure is going to lead within that adventure. This method is especially good for outdoors adventures as there’s no "dungeon" to make up.

Maximum player agency is achieved in one sense, yet in another they have less agency because so much that happens is random. “Strategizing” depends on logic and causality, and if the GM doesn’t know beforehand what’s actually “there,” then the GM cannot provide clues that would help the players strategize.

Conceivably a GM could use this style to try to tell a story but it might be difficult to impose it on the players. I’d say this is closer to the Situational style than to the Storytelling style.

Situational​

In the middle of the style spectrum is Situational, where the GM sets up a situation with (perhaps) objectives for the players—though there's always exploration and treasure-hunting as objectives—and lets the players "write the story." So there is some structure, but not imposition of activity. Players have strong agency—and if they are too passive, they may fail because they’re expected to be active. (See my first and second column about passive and active players).

This is more like a traditional boardgame than anything else (though most boardgames today are not designed with this in mind). There is a possibility of loss here, and it’s not the GM’s job to make everyone happy. It’s a game, not a storytelling session.

Storytelling​

At the other extreme the GM plans the adventure, and imposes that plan on the players—there is much less player agency. In other words, the GM is storytelling and the players are the listeners, though in RPGs they are more active than typical consumers in other media. A storyteller MUST control what happens in order to make the story work as planned. And a storyteller can reasonably work toward a situation where all the players have a chance to “shine”, where the GM can strongly concern themselves with the happiness of every player. A really good spontaneous storyteller—a rare skill!—can tell stories and still be improvisational.

The key to all this is that the players need to be happy with the style. If the players prefer one style and the GM prefers another then it’s possible that no one will be happy.

Your Turn: How much of an improviser are you?

 

[Shiroiken]

Definitely Situational by these definitions. I setup the adventure with NPCs with motivations and planned actions. I often try to plan for their reactions to probably player actions, but overall it's improv during the session.