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<blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 7417763" data-attributes="member: 6785785">Oh I've had my players take a throwaway comment and decide to make the entire session about that thing. It happens. In a case like that, the improvised detail becomes a more relevant detail. In a case like that, I tend to remember what it was that I said. Or if I don't, the players have since they are the ones who latched onto it. I'm also open about forgetting details like that....I'll lean on my players to remind me of things, and they have no problem like that. I think it's a case of making up details on the fly more than making up everything on the fly. They're fine with the first, but can sometimes be a bit wary of the second. I tend to outline ahead of time, but I keep it very loose. I have story ideas, and I have some campaign notes written down, but it's not a lot. My notes that I tend to use for any given session usually consist of a list of bullet points of things I expect to happen, or that are likely given my players and their characters. I try to predict and account for the most obvious courses of action, but there's never any way to fully predict what these maniacs may do, so I do wind up having to improvise a bit. However, I find my loose outline to actually be a better tool to help improvise than a ton of specific details.&nbsp; I think it's good to have information to lean on when the players go off in a direction you did not expect, but I think having that info be broadly defined allows you to adapt things easily. So the thieves guild members stats that I came up with can instead become orc raiders when the PCs abandon investigating the thieves and go off in the hills to chase orcs. That kind of thing. If I did that, then the entire game would be improvised, and quite sloppily!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="hawkeyefan, post: 7417763, member: 6785785"] Oh I've had my players take a throwaway comment and decide to make the entire session about that thing. It happens. In a case like that, the improvised detail becomes a more relevant detail. In a case like that, I tend to remember what it was that I said. Or if I don't, the players have since they are the ones who latched onto it. I'm also open about forgetting details like that....I'll lean on my players to remind me of things, and they have no problem like that. I think it's a case of making up details on the fly more than making up everything on the fly. They're fine with the first, but can sometimes be a bit wary of the second. I tend to outline ahead of time, but I keep it very loose. I have story ideas, and I have some campaign notes written down, but it's not a lot. My notes that I tend to use for any given session usually consist of a list of bullet points of things I expect to happen, or that are likely given my players and their characters. I try to predict and account for the most obvious courses of action, but there's never any way to fully predict what these maniacs may do, so I do wind up having to improvise a bit. However, I find my loose outline to actually be a better tool to help improvise than a ton of specific details. I think it's good to have information to lean on when the players go off in a direction you did not expect, but I think having that info be broadly defined allows you to adapt things easily. So the thieves guild members stats that I came up with can instead become orc raiders when the PCs abandon investigating the thieves and go off in the hills to chase orcs. That kind of thing. If I did that, then the entire game would be improvised, and quite sloppily! [/QUOTE]

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