It is kind of like being told to "expect the unexpected", isn't it? We hear that a lot, but how do you really expect things you can't expect?
I think in this situation, practice is the best way to do this, and the sooner practice starts, the better.
I am reminded of the legend about Marx Brothers' film scripts, which would be meticulously scripted up to a section that would say simply "Harpo does something funny" - a point where that character's very creative actor would be left free to just make something silly up on the spot. Similarly, the Three Stooges' scripts would often just say something like "Moe punishes Curley", and Moe would just pull one of his many famous Curley-punishing routines out of his hat at that point on screen. Your mileage may vary, but fans would say that the results tend to be a lot more entertaining than anything that could be scripted. In short, these are situations where improv becomes a compartmentalized part of a controlled script.
Using that as a model, a DM might deliberately leave one empty room in an otherwise detailed dungeon with a note of "something is strange about this room" - what? It could be a strange painting on the wall, or the room could be described as having a strange shape, or it's bigger on the inside than it should be from outside, or whatever... don't set anything in stone until the adventurers open the door and walk in. Or, make a note of a generic monster stat block, but leave a blank monster name and description, and just make the description up on the spot when the players step into the room (I've made fairly frequent use of that trick starting early in my career as a DM, using, for example, Goblin stat blocks, and then using my own nightmares or descriptions of monsters from books and movies to come up with the first monster description that occurs to me when the heroes open the door; the result is that most of my dungeons have at least one unique monster the PCs have never seen or heard of before.)
When using published dungeon maps or Dungeon Tiles, I always tell my players that anything printed on the tiles is 'fair game' for them to interact with; the tiles that came with the old 3.5 Edition starter sets have furniture, broken weapons, bones, cobwebs, and things like that printed on them. I've had players say they pick up broken weapons to sell, or throw a skull printed on the tile into a guard room as a distraction before charging in, and things like that. (I had a shopkeeper refuse to buy a broken sword, but make an offer on the gems encrusted in the hilt; the skull distraction gave the players a bonus to their attack for the first round.) It's a great way for both me and my players to improvise.
Players typically provide other opportunities for improv, by talking to NPCs you never counted on, searching areas you never gave second thought to, taking actions you didn't expect, or latching onto mundane objects or minor characters you never planned to give attention to as if they are vitally important to the story. I never like to burst their bubbles when things like this happen... I'll try to find harmless ways to reward their thinking outside the box.
I don't normally sweat letting players know when I'm making something up. For example, when I had a PC decide she was going to go talk to a village apothecary that I didn't know existed, I had no problem with making him up on the spot and telling the player "...OK, we'll call the Apothecary 'Valdemar'... write that down somewhere so I don't forget. He's... he's a strange little old man in a hooded robe with... with an Albert Einstein haircut, and his shoppe is a tiny little hole-in-the-wall packed full of shelves of little bottles... in fact, you are almost afraid of making a wrong move and knocking all the shelves down like dominos! Valdemar seems friendly, though: 'Welcome to my humble shoppe, stranger... how can I be of assistance?'" Maybe it's just my group, but the players seemed quite happy with the fact that I was making no secret of making names, descriptions, and locations up off the top of my head, and Valdemar ended up being a recurring character that helped identify all sorts of obscure magical items (I don't know why the player in question decided that an apothecary was the best person to identify magic items, but I just rolled with it, deciding he was actually a retired wizard.)
Trying to solve out-of-game problems (like cheating, bad attitudes, or poor sportsmanship) with in-game solutions will almost always result in failure, and will probably make matters worse.
Gun Safety Rule #5: Never point the gun at anything you don't intend to destroy. (Never introduce a character, PC, NPC, Villain, or fate of the world into even the possibility of a deadly combat or other dangerous situation, unless you are prepared to destroy it instantly and completely forever.)
Know your group's character sheets, and check them over carefully. You don't want surprises, but, more importantly, they are a gold mine of ideas!
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's a problem if the players aren't having fun and it interferes with a DM's ability to run the game effectively; if it's not a problem, 'fixing' at best does little to help, and at worst causes problems that didn't exist before.
"Hulk Smash" characters are a bad match for open-ended exploration in crowds of civilians; get them out of civilization where they can break things and kill monsters in peace.
Success is not necessarily the same thing as killing an opponent. Failure is not necessarily the same thing as dying.
Failure is always an option. And it's a fine option, too, as long as failure is interesting, entertaining, and fun!
"Broken or not, unbalanced or not, if something seems to be preventing the game from being enjoyable, something has to give: either that thing, or other aspects of the game, or your idea of what's enjoyable." - Centauri
It is kind of like being told to "expect the unexpected", isn't it? We hear that a lot, but how do you really expect things you can't expect?
...
Using that as a model, a DM might deliberately leave one empty room in an otherwise detailed dungeon with a note of "something is strange about this room" - what? It could be a strange painting on the wall, or the room could be described as having a strange shape, or it's bigger on the inside than it should be from outside, or whatever... don't set anything in stone until the adventurers open the door and walk in. Or, make a note of a generic monster stat block, but leave a blank monster name and description, and just make the description up on the spot when the players step into the room (I've made fairly frequent use of that trick starting early in my career as a DM, using, for example, Goblin stat blocks, and then using my own nightmares or descriptions of monsters from books and movies to come up with the first monster description that occurs to me when the heroes open the door; the result is that most of my dungeons have at least one unique monster the PCs have never seen or heard of before.)
When using published dungeon maps or Dungeon Tiles, I always tell my players that anything printed on the tiles is 'fair game' for them to interact with; the tiles that came with the old 3.5 Edition starter sets have furniture, broken weapons, bones, cobwebs, and things like that printed on them. I've had players say they pick up broken weapons to sell, or throw a skull printed on the tile into a guard room as a distraction before charging in, and things like that. (I had a shopkeeper refuse to buy a broken sword, but make an offer on the gems encrusted in the hilt; the skull distraction gave the players a bonus to their attack for the first round.) It's a great way for both me and my players to improvise.
Players typically provide other opportunities for improv, by talking to NPCs you never counted on, searching areas you never gave second thought to, taking actions you didn't expect, or latching onto mundane objects or minor characters you never planned to give attention to as if they are vitally important to the story. I never like to burst their bubbles when things like this happen... I'll try to find harmless ways to reward their thinking outside the box.
I don't normally sweat letting players know when I'm making something up. For example, when I had a PC decide she was going to go talk to a village apothecary that I didn't know existed, I had no problem with making him up on the spot and telling the player "...OK, we'll call the Apothecary 'Valdemar'... write that down somewhere so I don't forget. He's... he's a strange little old man in a hooded robe with... with an Albert Einstein haircut, and his shoppe is a tiny little hole-in-the-wall packed full of shelves of little bottles... in fact, you are almost afraid of making a wrong move and knocking all the shelves down like dominos! Valdemar seems friendly, though: 'Welcome to my humble shoppe, stranger... how can I be of assistance?'" Maybe it's just my group, but the players seemed quite happy with the fact that I was making no secret of making names, descriptions, and locations up off the top of my head, and Valdemar ended up being a recurring character that helped identify all sorts of obscure magical items (I don't know why the player in question decided that an apothecary was the best person to identify magic items, but I just rolled with it, deciding he was actually a retired wizard.)
Wow, this is brilliant. I'm going to start pushing myself to do the 'leave one monster blank' during my game. I think that is a cool idea and it will keep me from sweating encounter design so much.
I tend to over-design and over-plan, in part because I enjoy designing and planning. But I definitely concur that some memorable moments have occurred from improv. I want to get better at it and be less afraid to lean on it.
This is great advice! Might even deserve it's own thread.
I normally tend to over-design and over-plan, in part because I enjoy it, and in part because of insecurity about getting caught with my pants down, and worry about what I would do.
Giving myself structured opportunities to improvise helps me to actually get used to it, and handle it better and enjoy it more whenever something unexpected comes up.
So, it's really just a technique that helps me to keep my sanity under all the pressures of being a DM with social anxiety. If it helps other people out too, that's even better
Trying to solve out-of-game problems (like cheating, bad attitudes, or poor sportsmanship) with in-game solutions will almost always result in failure, and will probably make matters worse.
Gun Safety Rule #5: Never point the gun at anything you don't intend to destroy. (Never introduce a character, PC, NPC, Villain, or fate of the world into even the possibility of a deadly combat or other dangerous situation, unless you are prepared to destroy it instantly and completely forever.)
Know your group's character sheets, and check them over carefully. You don't want surprises, but, more importantly, they are a gold mine of ideas!
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's a problem if the players aren't having fun and it interferes with a DM's ability to run the game effectively; if it's not a problem, 'fixing' at best does little to help, and at worst causes problems that didn't exist before.
"Hulk Smash" characters are a bad match for open-ended exploration in crowds of civilians; get them out of civilization where they can break things and kill monsters in peace.
Success is not necessarily the same thing as killing an opponent. Failure is not necessarily the same thing as dying.
Failure is always an option. And it's a fine option, too, as long as failure is interesting, entertaining, and fun!
"Broken or not, unbalanced or not, if something seems to be preventing the game from being enjoyable, something has to give: either that thing, or other aspects of the game, or your idea of what's enjoyable." - Centauri
