Jemal
Adventurer
Where PC's are concerned, I've found there's generally very little you can accurately plan for. The big stuff, certainly - the main plot, crucial encounters, major NPCs - you need to know beforehand. But if you try creating a lot of the little stuff ahead of time you'll often either be dissapointed that all that work goes to waste when the PC's go a different direction, or you'll have to improvise anyways. So I choose to improvise... a lot.
For example, I probably shouldn't be telling you this but so far only the first post in this thread was planned. I have many characters to use in the school, but havn't decided how to work all of them in. I usually do things like that whenever it seems like 'hey now would be a good time to throw X in there', or 'this scene would be much more interesting if..' . Certain characters are designed to be introduced at certain points, but the majority of them are me making the NPC and then waiting for a time to throw him in.
And with the Drow for example, that was entirely on the fly. I thought to myself "What would happen if a Drow overheard that? Heh, that'd make things.. interesting" so I did it.
The downside to DMing like this is that sometimes it's difficult to make your randomness seem consistant - though with practice, It can be done. I once ran an entire campaign based off only the initial session and a vague idea of the final goal, the rest of the campaign was the PC's and I reacting to each other, with me creating NPC's, encounters, and storyline as needed on the fly. It was a rather fun game.
That's not saying, mind you, that planning isn't useful and often required, b/c it is. A lot of forward planning can do wonders for your campaign provided your PC's don't derail the train... you just need to be able to deal with the inevitability of what to do when they DO derail the train.
For example, I probably shouldn't be telling you this but so far only the first post in this thread was planned. I have many characters to use in the school, but havn't decided how to work all of them in. I usually do things like that whenever it seems like 'hey now would be a good time to throw X in there', or 'this scene would be much more interesting if..' . Certain characters are designed to be introduced at certain points, but the majority of them are me making the NPC and then waiting for a time to throw him in.
And with the Drow for example, that was entirely on the fly. I thought to myself "What would happen if a Drow overheard that? Heh, that'd make things.. interesting" so I did it.
The downside to DMing like this is that sometimes it's difficult to make your randomness seem consistant - though with practice, It can be done. I once ran an entire campaign based off only the initial session and a vague idea of the final goal, the rest of the campaign was the PC's and I reacting to each other, with me creating NPC's, encounters, and storyline as needed on the fly. It was a rather fun game.
That's not saying, mind you, that planning isn't useful and often required, b/c it is. A lot of forward planning can do wonders for your campaign provided your PC's don't derail the train... you just need to be able to deal with the inevitability of what to do when they DO derail the train.
Mentioning the cost of tack would be helpful too. Thanks!
