Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Improv and RPGs
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 9257831" data-attributes="member: 2209"><p>I just started an improv class this weekend with an RPG theme.</p><p></p><p>I had taken an improvisational drama class once in high school but this was the first explicit improv thing I had done in the last 30+ years.</p><p></p><p>About half the class was straight improv games and warmups and the second half was playing a modified D&D themed version of Honey Heist (a one page RPG rule set which I learned at the table) as a one shot.</p><p></p><p>The game felt a lot like a normal game, with adventuring and joking, just with a bunch of enthusiastic strangers who like to first person roleplay.</p><p></p><p>We made characters by rolling a d6 on a chart for an adjective and then for a class, so I was a rookie cleric, but we also had two slick knights, an incompetent mage, a washed up fighter, another rookie cleric, a rookie mage, etc. There were nine PCs so a big group.</p><p></p><p>My favorite line I came up with was when we found out a hospital was overrun with snakes. I said. "Oh snakes, we covered this!" I turned to the other rookie cleric and said "We should do the Ireland protocol!" he agreed and said "Oh yes absolutely, the Ireland protocol." About 10 minutes later as one of the knights and the thief were instead taking care of the snakes my fellow rookie cleric said to me out of character that he had thought that was just a random thing I said as an idea creation and he had gone along with it in character, but he realized after the fact that it was actually also a nice Saint Patrick joke.</p><p></p><p>The big noticeable difference for me came at the end of the session. We had successfully gotten the townsfolk loaded up on wagons to flee a Dune sized purple worm coming to eat the town, we had set a huge dynamite trap for when the worm ate the town for it to swallow and blow up from the inside, and we had set off the long fuse successfully. One knight then decided out of the blue that the belltower of the town was actually the magical heart of the town that the worm was after and needed saving so she raced in to recover it on her own. Everyone else besides her and me had spent their actions pulling off this last minute culmination of setting off the fuse and clearing everybody out.</p><p></p><p>My instinct as a DM is to normally try and do things at base naturalistically for what happens based on PC choices and the situation, throwing fun stuff onto that base, but generally first instinct sticking to reasonable resolution of actions.</p><p></p><p>My thought was she was dead, running into a town where we had worked hard to set up a ridiculous amount of dynamite on a specific fuse to explode in a massive conflagration, and to then singlehandedly wrestle down a tower bell. The timing and logistics just seemed off and we had collectively specifically made it a dangerous situation emphasizing to get everybody out before the worm and the explosion.</p><p></p><p>I in character prayed for a miracle to try and help her from the inevitable explosion as all I could think of to help.</p><p></p><p>The DM went all yes and for her action with her super speed charging in and super strength to wrestle out the bell, almost getting caught by the worm as it was eating the town and then loomed up over her to devour her and the bell whole, then the action movie explosion fireball happened and she flew threw the air along with tons of worm flesh to tumble and be shaken but OK, and with the town's bell recovered.</p><p></p><p>That ending matched the tone we had developed for the game a bit more than would my DM default judgment that there was not enough time to successfully do her plan and she would be blown up. </p><p></p><p>Have you had any experience with Improv that influences your games or improv like approaches in how you approach RPGs as a player or a DM?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Voadam, post: 9257831, member: 2209"] I just started an improv class this weekend with an RPG theme. I had taken an improvisational drama class once in high school but this was the first explicit improv thing I had done in the last 30+ years. About half the class was straight improv games and warmups and the second half was playing a modified D&D themed version of Honey Heist (a one page RPG rule set which I learned at the table) as a one shot. The game felt a lot like a normal game, with adventuring and joking, just with a bunch of enthusiastic strangers who like to first person roleplay. We made characters by rolling a d6 on a chart for an adjective and then for a class, so I was a rookie cleric, but we also had two slick knights, an incompetent mage, a washed up fighter, another rookie cleric, a rookie mage, etc. There were nine PCs so a big group. My favorite line I came up with was when we found out a hospital was overrun with snakes. I said. "Oh snakes, we covered this!" I turned to the other rookie cleric and said "We should do the Ireland protocol!" he agreed and said "Oh yes absolutely, the Ireland protocol." About 10 minutes later as one of the knights and the thief were instead taking care of the snakes my fellow rookie cleric said to me out of character that he had thought that was just a random thing I said as an idea creation and he had gone along with it in character, but he realized after the fact that it was actually also a nice Saint Patrick joke. The big noticeable difference for me came at the end of the session. We had successfully gotten the townsfolk loaded up on wagons to flee a Dune sized purple worm coming to eat the town, we had set a huge dynamite trap for when the worm ate the town for it to swallow and blow up from the inside, and we had set off the long fuse successfully. One knight then decided out of the blue that the belltower of the town was actually the magical heart of the town that the worm was after and needed saving so she raced in to recover it on her own. Everyone else besides her and me had spent their actions pulling off this last minute culmination of setting off the fuse and clearing everybody out. My instinct as a DM is to normally try and do things at base naturalistically for what happens based on PC choices and the situation, throwing fun stuff onto that base, but generally first instinct sticking to reasonable resolution of actions. My thought was she was dead, running into a town where we had worked hard to set up a ridiculous amount of dynamite on a specific fuse to explode in a massive conflagration, and to then singlehandedly wrestle down a tower bell. The timing and logistics just seemed off and we had collectively specifically made it a dangerous situation emphasizing to get everybody out before the worm and the explosion. I in character prayed for a miracle to try and help her from the inevitable explosion as all I could think of to help. The DM went all yes and for her action with her super speed charging in and super strength to wrestle out the bell, almost getting caught by the worm as it was eating the town and then loomed up over her to devour her and the bell whole, then the action movie explosion fireball happened and she flew threw the air along with tons of worm flesh to tumble and be shaken but OK, and with the town's bell recovered. That ending matched the tone we had developed for the game a bit more than would my DM default judgment that there was not enough time to successfully do her plan and she would be blown up. Have you had any experience with Improv that influences your games or improv like approaches in how you approach RPGs as a player or a DM? [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Improv and RPGs
Top