Dude you got to help me! they found a way out way to early for to be able to plan what's next on the adventure! What do I do man I didn't plan for this?
If you and your internal DM monolog haven't had this internal discussion with its self, then I look forward to the day that it will eventually happen to you.
I would like to make one thing perfectly clear for every new DM out there in the world, you can not plan for every possible outcome that your players or the game will, its impossible to try and do so and to try and think of every possible outcome is in its self and exercise in futility.
Once you accept this and fully embrace your fate then the true prep can begin ….
Have you taken your 10 months of meditation to think of the premise of fully embracing not being prepared ?
No? well, screw it we don't have the time for that let's begin.
The true key to dealing with being unprepared is to be prepared.
No I'm not answering the question in deep philosophical way I'm stating the fact , the best way to deal with the unexpected is to be prepared, but instead of having a detailed list of the main character you've spent hour developing and fully detailed maps of every possible building within your city I'm going to show you some tricks and tips to surviving this torment.
Tip number one, have a list of name for each race in your world, preferably ones for both male and female characters that you can keep at hand at all time , this is used to combat what I call the "multiple Steve disorder" , that awkward moment when your players ask the name of a new randomly generated NPC that owns an even more newly generated seedy underground tavern and all you can think of is "Hi my name is ….umm….Steve". Firstly having that list of a name will allow you to confidently answer in a loud and brash baritone "Good Morrow to thy, my humble Patrons I am Selkion Messernik the owner of this quaint little tavern, what can I get you to drink!?" , because of instead of using your brain power to try and come up with a believable name for this random NPC you can now focus on the much easier task of describing his physical appearance, the way he holds himself, his body language and other things that increase the willing suspension of disbelief for your players. It also allows you to then after the session to have a reminder for that characters name should your players decide they want to increase this character's importance from random NPC to somewhat seen on a regular basis ally, because if anything is going to take your players out of the feeling of being in a fully fleshed living world, it's the experience of an NPC forgetting their own name.
Tip number two, if in doubt steal from films. You'll always have a moment when your players decide they want to attempt to do something that you did plan for, this is fine because its little things such as pickpocketing the town guard or leaving a pit trap outside someone's door, however, I had the uncomfortable moment when my players decided with full-hearted bravado "lets rob a bank!"
After I got over the momentary cold chills that went up my spine, I started to think of all the heist movies I'd ever seen, and quickly my mind chose "Oceans Eleven". Its a film I have seen many times and as soon as my players started to discuss how they were going to gather the information and started to talk amongst themselves I was silently and rapidly making notes for what was about to come.
I actively encouraged the players to discuss plans and thoughts about what might be in their way, saying things like "well you might need someone to disarm traps and be the grease man " or you can certainly try and find information out about the bank" and "there might be some blueprints kept in the public library".
By encouraging my players to talk about their plans it actively gave me time to plan myself, when they went to find plans and were successful I told the players that there were three banks in town that due to a slew of bank robberies have culminated together to created a combined vault that was connected through a system of tunnels built by dwarves , which lead them down another route to try and see if they could find the orginal architect, all of this was giving me more and more time , and while I did have to end the session about half an hour early then I orginally intended , the players understood that this was to give me time to go home, plan and create the next level of thier adventure.
And last but by no means, least, don't say no.
While this tip may seem like it can bring a halt to your plans and/or permanently screw up the story you have ready, telling your players that they can't try or attempt something is detrimental to your player's enjoyment of your game. You could find that the stories that come out of this way of thinking can instead be more vibrant, funny and interesting than the ones you had originally intended, so allow yourself to open up to the ideas of what the party wants to do if they want to rob a bank allow them to try.
They could fail.
They could fail so spectacularly that they never want to attempt anything like that again, but if they succeed then that is an epic moment that your players will love you and your game for.
Now when I say don't say no, I don't mean always say yes. There's a difference. Instantly allowing them to run rampant in your world can detract from your enjoyment of the game, you've spent to much time on this to allow it to be messed with entirely. Make sure the players have all the information that you would deem them to have and allow them to run into situations that they may not fully grasp the whole gravity of, if you have to take five minutes to think of how something would plan out then take five minutes, if you have to end a session early then end early, as long as your players and more importantly your are having as much fun as when your first began running the game, that's the most important thing.
I really hope this has been helpful guys and until next time.
Bye!
Comments
Post a Comment