1001 Tips for Winging It: A GM's Guide to Improvising and Cutting Down on Prep Time

[Quickleaf]

These suggestions have more to do with how the gaming group is set up than actual GMing advice...

#25. Invest in the Savage Worlds customizeable landscape GM screen & create your own inserts. Include commonly referenced charts on the player's side too. On the GM's side I suggest creating 1-page action maps - like a dungeon, only mapping flow of events/encounters/twists. Refer to your action map throughout the adventure.

#26. Invest in Alderac's Ultimate Toolbox ...especially if you're playing a fantasy RPG. You'll be glad you did.

#27. Delegate tasks normally associated with the GM to the players: mapper, initiative tracker, treasurer, XP tracker, campaign journaler, NPC tracker, handout keeper, rules lawyer.

#28. Schedule your game sessions to include a short break at some point. Use this break if needed to improvise.

#29. Be prepared for the following common situations: (1) Divination magic, (2) Unexpected defeat of the villain, (3) Death of a PC, (4) The party splitting up, (5) The PCs get on the bad side of the law, and (6) A player can't make it.

#30. Post your ideas to ENWorld. Folks here are awesome about helping out fellow gamers. Who knows what kind of diabolical GM feedback you'll get?

 

[beldar1215]

Bump - so it doesn't get lost

 

[Betote]

#31. Use the Big List of RPG Plots, both for adventures and for side-treks.
#32. Have always prepared 2-3 fast generic encounters to throw at your PCs if things begin to drag.

 

[pukunui]

#25. Invest in the Savage Worlds customizeable landscape GM screen & create your own inserts. Include commonly referenced charts on the player's side too. On the GM's side I suggest creating 1-page action maps - like a dungeon, only mapping flow of events/encounters/twists. Refer to your action map throughout the adventure.

This sounds perfect to me as I will need a custom GM screen for my custom RPG ...

#27. Delegate tasks normally associated with the GM to the players: mapper, initiative tracker, treasurer, XP tracker, campaign journaler, NPC tracker, handout keeper, rules lawyer.

My group's pretty good about sharing tasks. The players take turns handling the initiative board. There's usually one guy who takes it upon himself to keep track of all the treasure. No one keeps a journal though. I think I'm probably the rules lawyer ...

#30. Post your ideas to ENWorld. Folks here are awesome about helping out fellow gamers. Who knows what kind of diabolical GM feedback you'll get?

I second that!





33. Premade adventures can be useful. Even if you don't want to run one in its entirety, there may be a few good encounters or NPCs or even just locations you can use. The adventure module doesn't even have to be for the same game system you're using.

 

[meomwt]

34: If you're writing your own stuff, you don't need to go into the detail that you find in published adventures. Don't over-write fluff text - if you have an idea of what it looks like in your head, that will do fine, describe that at the table. Only note down the important stuff (the magical sword grasped in the bony fingers of a skeleton, the black dragon trying to hide in the corner, that sort of thing).

35: If you get the chance, use an SRD to cut and paste monster stats onto a piece of scratch paper for your game that evening. If you know you'll be using Dire Rats, print out their statblock and have it to hand. Saves book-flipping at the table and gives you something to scribble on during the fight. (works if you have pdf versions of monster books as well - many of my sessions have been enlivebed by using stuff from my pdf of Tome of Horrors I, and the players never knew I was using it

 

[EP]

36. Use an impromptu wound system for hit points. If a player rolls 15 points of damage and the monster has 20 or so left, say screw it and let the monster die. I like to use the monster's Constitution score as a wound threshold - any damage higher than that amount is cause enough to ignore the hit point system and do something horribly final to the beast.

 

[Janx]

Ah yes OK. I get it now. You're saying write "club" down in the generic thug's statblock, but if, when winging it, I say that he's wielding a spear, then it becomes a spear that deals 1d8 damage whether or not a spear does according to the rulebook. That's fine. So really it becomes more of an issue of "how much damage do I want this bad guy to be able to do" than anything else.

Ha ha yes. This is something of a running joke in our group.

Considering it is arbitrary whether the monster holds a club or spear (the GM chooses), it is arbitrary whether the monster's attack does 1d6 or 1d8. The fluff is announcing what weapon the monster is using. The mechanics is how much damage you dish out.

37) cut to the chase. Spend a little time ramping up to get the PCs into the story, but then stop wasting time on travel, room to room crawling and get to the encounters that matter. Don't throw in extra encounters, just for encounters sake.

38) Don't reward the forker. When one player splits off from the party, just so they can do stuff by themselves and get spotlight time, tell them that you will get back to them. Don't make anything "good" happen to them. I have a whole blog article on this, but the key thing is to not let them take control, leaving the rest of the party out.

39) If the party dawdles, make something happen, or move things along. Don't let them sit there. This means bring in a threat, to make them take action, or announce that "time passes" so that the party can be ready to go.

 

[beldar1215]

Janx,
Can you provide a link to your blog. I would like to read that post.

Beldar

 

[Herschel]

Use the pre-gen or published maps. You may know the bad guys you want to run, but the area they inhabit also takes time. Plus, if there happens to be a crossroads on a map, a little improv scene with a planar "salesman" can be fun.

 

[pukunui]

36. Use an impromptu wound system for hit points. If a player rolls 15 points of damage and the monster has 20 or so left, say screw it and let the monster die. I like to use the monster's Constitution score as a wound threshold - any damage higher than that amount is cause enough to ignore the hit point system and do something horribly final to the beast.

I think I'll definitely be doing this.

Considering it is arbitrary whether the monster holds a club or spear (the GM chooses), it is arbitrary whether the monster's attack does 1d6 or 1d8. The fluff is announcing what weapon the monster is using. The mechanics is how much damage you dish out.

Right. Makes even more sense when you put it that way. Thanks.

38) Don't reward the forker. When one player splits off from the party, just so they can do stuff by themselves and get spotlight time, tell them that you will get back to them. Don't make anything "good" happen to them. I have a whole blog article on this, but the key thing is to not let them take control, leaving the rest of the party out.

I think I've been that player ... um yeah ... but it was just this one time. Basically, the other PCs were all acting like they wanted to get arrested or killed or something (they were causing bar fights and making unprovoked attacks on security droids and slavers) and my PC, who was an assassin suffering from amnesia, figured the best way to stay alive and out of jail would be to split away from these wacko strangers ... so it was totally in character and wasn't really a ploy to steal the spotlight. Everyone else had pretty much gone home by then. But it did give the DM a headache and resulted in a rather unpleasant railroading scenario designed solely to get everyone back together again. Anyway ...

Can you provide a link to your blog. I would like to read that post.

I'll second that please.