Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Improvisation!
From: mikew@mdcbbs.com (Mike 'the Bard' Whitaker)
Date: 18 Aug 92 08:35:44 PDT
Organization: Shape Data - a division of EDS Ltd

I'm gonna regret this, I know I am - but this IS one of my favourite subjects..

In article <1992Aug16.030758.58183@cc.usu.edu> 
sl9b4@cc.usu.edu (Deep Six) writes:
>In article <Bt1MyM.E0p@acsu.buffalo.edu>,  
> swann@acsu.buffalo.edu (Stephen Swann) writes:
>Post 1: I like my way.
>Post 2: I like my way, but it's all a matter of personal choice.
>Post 3: Okay. Nice chatting with you.
>
>Nice and polite, easy to follow, but not very enlightening, I'd say.
>I've really enjoyed this thread, and have learned a lot about the 
>merits of ``winging it.''
Thank goodness you guys actually got as far as "I like my way BECAUSE!"

>>>Why not try to prepare, and if they do pull something you didn't 
>>>expect, THEN improvise.
>> 
>> Because (1) that method takes more time than I want to spend (i.e. any),
Now there's a man after my own heart....
>> and (2) I don't need to.  :-)
>Ah, but by your own admission there are things you can't do by just
>improvising, so you are limiting yourself. Other GMs (like me) have  
>the benefit of using both ways (using prep as their front line and improv
>as a back up, or vice versa). 
True, true. 

I guess I fit largely into the improvising but occasionally preparing stuff
category. I can and DO improvise whole sessions (the classic case I've quoted 
on here before is a murder mystery I once ran completely cold, not knowing
whatwas going to happen or even who-dunnit when I started. Note that while
this was the case, the player who knows I GM that way said it didn't detract 
at all from her enjoyment of the game, and the other player didn't even 
realise! But in a long running campaign, I do prepare to the extent that I 
think about, and occasionally commit to paper purely to gather my thoughts 
together, what the 'bad guys' are going to do next, and then leave the players 
to decide what THEY are going to do and pull the two together. I occasionally
prepare handouts (usually lost scrolls or whatever (in one case 6 pages worth)
for things I KNOW the players are going to find (listening to your players 
plan is a good way of keeping ahead) or expect that they will, but I do
not plan beyond a broad sketch of the likely highlights, and improvise in
the gaps.

>>>Well, you certainly didn't invent rebels, dissidents, cults, betrayals, 
>>>or any of that other stuff. 
>> 
>> That's a rather silly flame, don't you think?
>
>Well, when you quote just that one line, I guess it could be considered
>a flame, but it wasn't intended as such, and I apologize if you took it
>as one. The point of that statement was that political science and 
>sociology are already there, and if a person knows enough about them
>(like you), he/she can use basic principles as cards. The different
>combinations are your plots.

Perhaps.... But the detailed interplay of that particular set of 'cards', and 
even more so the fresh ideas that spring off from the juxtaposition of two
seemingly unrelated elemnts (Gods, did I really just say that???) are 
definitely improvisation. I spent Sunday running a very political D&D scenario,
in which one of the player's grandfathers, a horse breeder, had had four horses
stolen and taken a LONG way away (where their provenace could not be rapidly 
checked) to use to frame a Lord of a city in the area to which they had been 
taken. This basically was the scenario hook, formed from a desire to a) involve
particular characters and b) put some more flesh on the bones of a city I'd
just designed (ok, put in an hours preparation B-) ) by actually having some
players interact with it.

Now the players in question were razor-sharp, really on the ball, and got well
stuck into the local politics, leaving me with no choice but to flesh things 
out the hard way, on the fly (which I guess was what I wanted) - in doing so
I discovered several connections between different factions in the city, 
and just how DEEP in the Thieves Guild's pay some of the Council of Nobles 
were - this kind of thing I find MUCH harder to work out in advance - for me
there's no substitute for getting my fingers dirty!

>>>And playing off the cuff that way, you could
>>>not have created the actual scroll as a prop (like I think I would have).
>> 
>> You mean, you would have created and actual piece of paper with all that
>> info on it?
>
>Well, I think I would have made a scroll on weathered paper that is
>ready to fall apart. 
[description of prop creation deleted without prejudice B-) ]
>Wing that.
Wouldn't dream of trying.... 
I have said, on a couple of occasions, said "gimme five - make some coffee, dig
out the munchies" and dived at the Mac upstairs to create a prop that I
discovered I needed, but more often that not those get prepared ahead of time.
>
>Well that's why I said ``in a way'' that counts as preparation. The 
>point was that, if you can take random scraps from your forebrain and
>put together good plots, advance prep can work wonders.

I think, if you're saying what I think you're saying - I agree...
but for me all the prep does is give me a fairly skimpy framework around
which to build.....

>> Isn't the essence of creativity just taking things that already exist,
>> and combining them in new and interesting ways?  
>
>Yes, but the difference is that you're just making it up here and there,
>while in a prepared scenario, the characters are discovering things set
>there for them to discover. Example -- the players are searching a room.
[...]
>If they do find something, it's not a reward, it's just some
>thing you thought into existance seconds (or even minutes before). See
>the difference?
Yes I do.... However, if I do it right, my players *don't* see the difference.

One of the MAJOR arts for the improvisiational GM is retconnning - retroactive
continuity that's good enough that it looks like it was there all along.
The whole Midnight's Bane campaign (see r.g.f.archives when I get off my 
backside and repost the stuff to date) is based on one of the most humungous
pieces of retconning ever (B-)), in which I rationalised WHY the evil goddess 
on my world was imprisoned by the other gods, a fact known to some of my 
players for 5 years, with several odd happenings over the previosu 6 months. 
There is a certain *immense* joy to be gained when things just *click* into
place and something suddenly looks like its been there all along! 

>> Do they tell you what they're planning to do next session?  My players
>> don't tell me.
>
>Well of course they tell me. I hear this sort of thing all the time --
>``Hey I think one of these times we should probe hill on the perimeter,
>it's an infiltration waiting to happen.'' I don't have to prepare the 
>hill right then, I just make a note and start thinking about it. I'll 
>prepare it later. And what is to keep you from asking your players what
>they might be doing next session?
Nothing - I do it all the time! Being engaged to one helps!
>
>Very good. And no, I didn't hear that old one before. Maybe you ARE 
>in the wrong business. But plots are only part of the game. There is 
>no WAY you can improvise mechanics as fast as a prepared GM can. I mean, 
>you're running AD&D, right? 
Yup
>You have to at least write up hit points
>and you probably have to write up more (like weapons, special skills
>or whatever).
Yup. I GM with figures on hexsheet + wipeoff markers which only comes out for 
combat. 
Gives me five minutes while the players set it up....
And no I'm not kidding....

>Unless you are using ``cookie cutter'' enemies (boring)
But frequently true for what I run... Often the encounter is with several
cookie cutter monsters plus one or two 'specials' - so I only have to stat up
the specials on the fly....

>>Another thing I don't do is have "planned endings" to adventures).
>That should read ``can't do.'' Of course there are no planned endings
>in your games. There's no planned anything. You have no idea what the 
>players are going to do and neither do you. There's no reward system
>there's nothing for the players to ``figure out.''

We're almost reaching a third intermediate stage between you two guys here...
The EVOLVED adventure.... It isn't planned, it's run inprovised, but over
time it gets more focussed because the PLAYERS know what they are trying to 
do, and the DM can plan (or improvise) encounters along the path to their goal.
Often I find myself (semi-)planning encounters on the lines of:
"well, ultinately the players are going to need to do THIS - they know they 
need to do SOMETHING but not what yet - time to push 'em in the right
direction"


>Now, I am not trying to convert you here, and I know you aren't trying
>to convert me. I see this as a learning thing, where you show me the 
>strong points of your preferences, and I do the same. It's not really a
>contest to see who has better ideas or who can argue better, but it is 
>stimulating to debate and counter-debate, even if it is just about
>gaming.

hope you don't mind me chipping in....
-- 
Mike Whitaker +44-223 | mikew@mdcbbs.com, bard@spuddy.uucp | Me: Bards just
Shape Data/EDS 316673 | -or- mwhitaker@cix.compulink.co.uk | KNOW things...
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc