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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bullgrit" data-source="post: 5637537" data-attributes="member: 31216">I ran this game with the boys in a manner completely contrary to how I normally run a D&D game. Normally, I run a status quo game: Room 1 has 4 orcs, Room 2 has a gargoyle, Room 3 has an ogre, etc. (Of course, as the game progresses, the dungeon inhabitants may shift for various reasons -- the orcs may retreat from a losing battle with the PCs and shack up with the ogre, or the ogre may come to the orcs' aid; the gargoyle may come out to investigate noise outside its room; etc.) Treasure is placed before the PCs enter the dungeon. I try to have everything set in writing before starting an adventure.For this game for the boys, nothing was set. I had a selection of index cards with monster stats written on them, and I placed them in rooms, as wandering monsters, etc. as I thought most exciting. There was no set treasure -- I completely made up placement and items and amounts on the spur of the moment. (Heck, I never even told how many coins they found or the value of any of the items.)I pretended to roll for wandering monsters, but really I just had them show up when the boys were noisy or when we needed a little excitement.I pretended to roll for secret door searches, but really I let the boys find them when they thought to search.I listened to the Players talking and I made things happen when and how they mentioned them. For instance, when the magic-user cast detect magic, I made the door glow (and came up with a reason off the top of my head) and determined that there was a magic ring in a non-existent secret compartment in the throne. The method of opening the magically locked door, (by wearing the ring), was an idea spoken by one of the Players after other actions failed to open the door.I was completely making up all this stuff as we played. I wasn't even one step ahead of the Players -- I was making everything up right in the moment.As a matter of fact, anyone familiar with In Search of the Unknown is probably scratching their head when reading the game tale, because most, (pretty much everything but the map layout, and I altered even that), of what the Players found is not from the module as written. I had the cover map open, but I never opened the module booklet except for one time when I needed to pretend to read it for a minute to think of an idea.Some of the boys were talking about how they hoped to fight a dragon. So I put a dragon in the penultimate battle. And I didn't even know it was the penultimate battle. But when the dragon fight went so easy, I added goblins and a wizard behind it.The final treasure room, I came up with the sleep spell defense as the boys walked into the room. The treasure chest being too heavy for one or two fighters to pull it out, I made up right then as a way to involve all the boys in getting the big treasure haul. The two piles of treasure being illusions, I came up with because I noticed it was time for the game session to end and I didn't want to spend time having the boys come up with a way of getting all the coins.This whole thing was completely against my style of DMing. It is the absolute antithesis of my style. I was not a referee, I was a stage director. Other than the rolls in combat, (which were all done in the open for all to see), I completely cheated the hell out of this game to make things happen in the most dramatic ways.And the game was a huge success. Everyone loved the game. Everyone had fun and every boy and both dads said they really wanted to do it all again sometime soon.This causes a bit of a crisis for me. Possibly the best and most exciting game I've ever DMed was done in a style completely reversed of my normal style. The pacing was perfect, the way everything worked out was perfect. All because I managed everything to work out perfect as the game flowed. Nothing happened naturally, or "honestly." And this is so against my style and preference for D&D games. But then, I've seen how my normal style ends up: <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/270979-running-session-basic-d-d-my-game-groups-experience.html" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/270979-running-session-basic-d-d-my-game-groups-experience.html</a>So, have I been a bad DM all these years by following the status quo style? Is the make-it-up-as-you-go and tailored style the most fun? I've got opposing examples of the same game system in the same adventure module to compare results. One ended with "meh" and the other ended with rave reviews.Bullgrit</blockquote>

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