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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 6812488" data-attributes="member: 7635">In my experience, most DMs who rely heavily on Improv do it poorly. They fall into certain traps when relying on top-of-head for the majority of their ideas. Some of the Improv traps I've seen DMs fall into:* Overreliance on the Familiar. They tend to fall back on things that they know well or are well accustomed to and recycle ideas liberally. For example, he might go to favorite types of monsters (undead, demons, orcs, drow) or stock locations and plots. That can get repetitive quickly. ("Another Demon Cult?") * Overreliance on the Random. Else, without a clear focus, he relies on the dice to determine everything. Every encounter, every NPC reaction, every bit of treasure, randomly generated. This slows down the pace as the DM is constantly dropping dice to determine stuff.* Linear Dungeons. Ironically, most DMs who improv through a dungeon (such as the mine complex the PCs opted to check out on the hunch drow were there) tend to create linear dungeons with the illusion of choice. The PCs reach a hall where they can turn left or right; no matter what choice they make, the next idea the DM had will be in that room, regardless of which direction they actually went. Ergo, the dungeon turns out to be 10 rooms, one after another, with the illusion turning left and right. Additionally, the DM can only keep so much backlog of material running, so they tend to be devoid of window dressing (false turns, magical tricks, secret doors, etc). * Stock. Improv DMs (especially in 3e/PF) are usually forced to use stock monsters, treasure, and NPCs because of the difficulty of creating new stats on the fly. (Less a problem in 4e, 5e, and AD&D, but one that does pop up). This can occasionally get repetitive as cool ideas are jettisoned for "what's at hand."* Wild Balance Swings. Especially in later editions of D&D, DMs who build encounters on the fly don't bother to balance the encounter. As such, fights can range from cakewalk to TPK very quickly from using too few/many monsters, monsters who are deceptive for their Challenge Rating, or pulling a monster whom you're not familiar with and missing important information when trying to run it on the fly. ("Oh, I missed that. Everyone make a Wisdom save vs. Fear, which you should have done in round 1". or "Ah, I didn't realize that this thing had Spell Resistance. I'll roll it from here on out. You got a few free spells there.") Those are some of the many problems I've encountered with DMs who run "on the fly". Not every improv DM runs into these problems, but I find that many of the DMs I've known who run "sans prep" fall into one or more of these traps. Its acceptable when the PCs left-field you and you make some mistakes trying to deal in an area you didn't prep for on occasion, but steady diets of this gets repetitive and boring quickly.</blockquote>

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