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<blockquote data-quote="Jack Daniel" data-source="post: 8220507" data-attributes="member: 694">No, not all improvisation. To give a simple example from the DM's side if the screen, if my notes say that map hex 0204 has an orc tribe encamped there with ~100 individuals, ~30 of whom are able-bodied warriors, and the leaders have X amount of treasure (including Y and Z magical items), it doesn't feel like utter naughty word to make up minor details on the fly (NPC names, extrapolating motivations or personalities from the reaction rolls, and so forth). It's important to have the fundamentals already in place, though, or else the game-world might as well be arbitrary. So it's a matter of what particular things get improvised—namely, what's in the world and how dangerous it is in concrete terms.Now if the PCs want to venture off the edge of the prepared map, I will expect both a warning of the players' intent to do this and sufficient prep time to add more map. I wouldn't do it in a 10-minute break, though: I'd hold things until next game session at the very least. The point is, it's the deceptive practices that I absolutely can't abide. Openness abrogates the despicable &quot;Houdini factor.&quot;Even if, however, (speaking as a player now) the DM were honest about making up the next chunk of map ahead of our characters going there, I would certainly feel robbed if it were in some way &quot;custom tailored&quot; to my character and my party. Ice monsters for the pyromancer to melt (or fire monsters for the pyromancer to fail at dealing with), that exact magic sword that the fighter really wants—it's admittedly a matter of degree rather than kind, but too much of that business is just too transparently artificial. Again, it's a verisimilitude-killer.Yes, improv is technically orthogonal to the OP's issue of fixed vs. scaled challenges. The thing is, improv allows for scaled challenges and honestly prepared sandboxes really don't. So it's still correlative.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jack Daniel, post: 8220507, member: 694"] No, not all improvisation. To give a simple example from the DM's side if the screen, if my notes say that map hex 0204 has an orc tribe encamped there with ~100 individuals, ~30 of whom are able-bodied warriors, and the leaders have X amount of treasure (including Y and Z magical items), it doesn't feel like utter naughty word to make up minor details on the fly (NPC names, extrapolating motivations or personalities from the reaction rolls, and so forth). It's important to have the fundamentals already in place, though, or else the game-world might as well be arbitrary. So it's a matter of what particular things get improvised—namely, [I]what's in the world[/I] and [I]how dangerous it is in concrete terms[/I]. Now if the PCs want to venture off the edge of the prepared map, I will expect both a warning of the players' intent to do this and sufficient prep time to add more map. I wouldn't do it in a 10-minute break, though: I'd hold things until next game session at the very least. The point is, it's the [I]deceptive practices [/I]that I absolutely can't abide. Openness abrogates the despicable "Houdini factor." Even if, however, (speaking as a player now) the DM were honest about making up the next chunk of map ahead of our characters going there, I would certainly feel robbed if it were in some way "custom tailored" to my character and my party. Ice monsters for the pyromancer to melt (or fire monsters for the pyromancer to fail at dealing with), that exact magic sword that the fighter really wants—it's admittedly a matter of degree rather than kind, but too much of that business is just too transparently [I]artificial[/I]. Again, it's a verisimilitude-killer. Yes, improv is technically orthogonal to the OP's issue of fixed vs. scaled challenges. The thing is, improv [I]allows for [/I]scaled challenges and honestly prepared sandboxes really don't. So it's still correlative. [/QUOTE]

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