The Secret of Improvisation As a Game Master
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 มี.ค. 2019
- In this week's video I'm talking about improv and how proper planning can mean you never have to truly improvise and run a session by the seat of your pants again.
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I love it when a good improv comes together. Anecdotes help give credence to your advice: it helps people to see that yes these tips have worked in a real game. That said, the factual part is important too. I think you hit a very good balance with this video.
I have recently started playing DnD and I love it. Been trying to write my own world and be a DM. And your videos are so helpful
Glad you're enjoying them 😊
Welcome! I hope your time has been super fun!
I use the phrase, "Great idea. Let me get back to that in a sec."
Then I take a moment to read a narration piece out loud (even if it doesn't matter). That gives me a moment to come up with something to connect what they want to do, to something I'm prepared for.
Presto! The basement they were supposed to investigate becomes the cave that they follow the suspicious character to.
It's one more reason that I label my maps with numbers, rather than names. That way I can repurpose something on the fly.
Leaving names off player maps and only having numbers is a brilliant idea!
I also don't normally use grid maps w miniatures. I'll provide a map of a town or city with no labels, and let them label it or make notes as they go. How well they track it is up to them. I had a smart player point out his Outlander background feature and ask for help... So I helped label and scale it.
No help on dungeons or places they haven't been yet though...
Thank you for this series. I've been planning an rpg set in the Harry Potter universe and this will be my first time DMing. Though its not necessarily d&d, your videos are are helping me know how to build a narrative and a world.
I'm glad you're enjoying it and finding it helpful!
That’s an awesome session!
It was a sick session :D
Name check 😊
where do i find the random tables you are talking ? great video :)
Dndspeak.com has loads of them!
Do you still have twitter? The link you posted goes to an account that doesn't exist :-(
Yes! I just changed the handle to @IcarusGamesUK
twitter.com/IcarusGamesUK?s=09
I'll be going through the videos and update next week.
TL;DR: don't improvise, just prepare
(just wish you'd said it up front instead of telling me a story for 15 minutes)
Yes, the TL;DR is don't "improvise", just prepare more improvisational tools.
I could put that in a tweet but the context of *how* you might go about preparing to "improvise" would be lost, and I think that's far more useful than the headline advice of "don't actually improvise".
there are a lot of videos out there helping you learn how to prepare properly but i wanted to find useful tips on improvising; specifically aimed at dms... i get that it's not your responsibility to provide the precise video i'm looking for but wouldn't you agree that, if i search for 'how to ride a bike' and the video explains at length how much better their car is than a bike, it seems - at worst, malignantly and at best unprofessionally - misleading on the part of the uploader?
i mean, you know how people decide what video to watch, right?
That's totally fair! Genuinely though, I think the best advice for improvisation is to be as prepared as possible. If you know your world, the centeal tension, and have plenty of random tables and lists handy, you'll rarely need to truly improvise. The more you know your setting the less you'll have to pull from the top of your head.
@@IcarusGames absolutely, it's definitely a way to go; matt colville, matt mercer and mark hulmes all seem like that's how they prepare (even if it's not the only resource they utilise on stream that session) but i was looking for more stuff like mike shea from sly flourish and... (well i guess that's the point; i can't find many more...) who seems to have more of an ad hoc, almost fully improvised air with less emphasis on preparation for people who don't have that luxury... like i get that freestyle battle rappers tend to have those bars prepared ahead of time but there also do exist actual freestylers that can take objects from the crowd and rhyme with those things and stuff... i know that's not an ideal example because there's obviously a level of natural physiological talent there but i guess i'm more frustrated that it seems more and more likely to be the case here too... :\
that said, the information is valuable and i like your other videos, as i was saying though i just wish the intended nugget was upfront and would be more annoyed if it seemed like you were putting it at the end for like clickbait-related reasons...
(too early to edit, sorry)
Using the rapper example, which I think is a really good one. Even if they don't prepare their bars, they "prepare" in the sense that they learn new words, rhyms, and often read a LOT to absorb similes and metaphors which train their rapping"muscles" to be able to come up with things faster.
I'm sure there are people who wouldn't need to do any kind of prep, including knowing their worlds, to be effective "improvisors", but I think most good improv comes from preparation, even if it's just reading the rules and knowing what combinations work well.
For future videos like this though I will try and put the most useful stuff at the start of the video :)