Off The Cuff GMing

[Torm]

I once ran a Star Wars campaign, for almost a year, with no prep notes, and usually with very little idea of what was going to happen next, myself, when I was on my way to run the game. I know - irresponsible. BUT, I found that some of my best GMing sessions, and some of the ones my players seem to have enjoyed the most too, were the ones where I'm flying completely by the seat of my pants and almost anything can happen. And thinking about that got me wondering...

Do any of you find this to be particularly true? Particularly false? Do any of you have any stories of times doing this caused things to go really weird, or really well or badly, or.....?

Basically, I guess what I'm asking is, have any of you ever had your party rescue Vader from a Force cage, and take him to Dagobah to get him retrained by Yoda? Ever had your party use a recently deceased Corellon Larethian as an impromptu spaceship engine in a D&D game? Or had things go similarly out of control, for good or bad?

(P.S. Please ignore Henry if he says anything about having his Jawa commit suicide during that campaign - he enjoyed it, or at least, enjoys it in hindsight, and he knows it. )

 

[DragonLancer]

I have done and although I'm not that good at winging it, I have never had any games that went downhill from it.

My best was the result of a random dice roll. It was a 2nd ed homebrew world and the heroes had reached 9th or 10th, and owned a castle and oversaw several villages along a major trade road between two cities. I had found an old issue of Dragon that had random monthly event tables and I decided to see if anything came up for them to deal with before they set off on the real adventure. I forget what was actually rolled, but the players investigated the situation and it turned into that nights game. Its one of the few times that I've players psyched and discussing it for weeks after.

 

[Henry]

Lightsaber under the chin... quick, painless, never know what hit you...


I'll occasionally run totally note-free (Torm may note I did some of that last week), but I find that I need at least a GENERAL idea of what I'm going to have as possible encounters. If I don't, I wind up using the same ideas over and over again, with new dressing; so I plan at least the "cool elements" beforehand; how they actually come out in game is usually up toi the players.

For instance, I came up with an off-the-cuff window dressing in the form of a "sand-sucker" on Tatooine in a star wars game once. One player was so obsessed with the darned thing he actually went back to its location and STOLE IT. The fight to steal and escape with the thing was a major highlight of the session.

 

[Caspian Moon Prince]

Yep....I've done it plenty of times. During 16-to-20 hour gaming sessions, I had no possible way of planning everything, so I winged a lot of it.

The best job of it I've done was when I was running this weird Neon Genesis Evengelien(it's an anime if you're wondering). Anyone that has seen the series knows that it is a mind trip. I still don't understand all of it. Anyways, I was winging it and coming up with all this great stuff. Mind blowing even. Winging that game and sleep depravation will do that.

I don't wing things as much anymore, because I think I finally killed that part of my brain overusing it. It's great, but can be hard. Just make sure you write all the NPC's names down as you go.

 

[Ibram]

id say maybe 20% to 30% of my games are just me winging it, with nothing more then a few pieces of paper with creature stats on them (thugs of various levesl ect..)

 

[Wormwood]

I maintain scrupulous game notes...because without them every game ends up featuring autoerotic asphyxiation.

Then the neighbors start complaining and it's a whole big deal.

So it's easier to just have game notes.

 

[the Jester]

I wing it a lot.

Not as much with 3e, but in the old days I'd wing it for months or years at a time and we all had a blast. 3e requires more prep, imho.

 

[Mark Plemmons]

I have the basic adventure planned out, but I always expect the players to go somewhere I didn't expect. So, yes, I definitely favor off-the-cuff.

 

[dren]

games, I find are quite easy to do. Follow some comic book, movie, book, tv show, especially if nobody recognizes the plot, and then change it near the end. simple and easy.

It's best when you have some of your basic ideas (races, monsters, cultures, themes) already laid out in your head if you want to have a campaign, or something that resembles one. Eventually you may start either contradicting yourself or repeating the same ideas....

 

[Alynnalizza]

About 33% of the game I run currently is consistent with 'winging' it. I only do it for inbetween chapters of my game. Let the players fully decide what they want to do on a given day, and then go from there. Generally I get amazed looks when I tell them afterwords I completely winged it.

Although my greatest moment as a DM came from completely winging it. I had sent a group of 7 pc's back in time to the land of dinosaurs. Humans and elves were completely different, but key. (Majority of the party was Human and Half-elf). Once I sent them back, I had one thing written down at the beginning. Watch and Listen. The players were so paranoid about what was going on, that I used their fears as fodder for what happened. I still get evil looks from some of the players about that. But boy was it fun for 4 sessions not having to really plan anything!