“Your party has just come into town after a week of following the necromancer’s trail. Night has all but fallen and it looks like the spitting drizzle you’ve been traveling with is going to turn into a full on storm. The lights seemingly haven’t been lit on this muddy street, but you notice a tavern only a block away. The swinging-sign shows a woman with a pointed black hat riding backwards on a magic broom and a placard above the door reads ‘The Tipsy Witch.’ What do you do?”
“I pull out my bow and start climbing the nearest building”
“I unsling my axe and prepare for any escaping undead”
“I call down holy fire to cleanse the tavern!”
And all of a sudden, the quirky little encounter you designed to advance the plot has become your players’ next audition for homicidal maniacs of the month club. Welcome to our article on flying-by-the-s… I mean improvising.
Improvisation. It’s a word that inspires dread in many. Its potential for humor has long been overshadowed by its proclivity for filler words and its social stigma. This kind of on-stage improvisation is not what we’re focusing on today.
No, we need to ask ourselves how we respond when things (inevitably) go sideways in our games; whether it’s narratively as seen in the example above or in a combat situation where things need to be altered so that a satisfactory (notice I didn’t say “the right”) outcome is reached. With a decent amount of time playing D&D, you will experience or be the cause of many of these moments.
First off, narrative. There are the classic Leroy Jenkins moments. The moments when you thought the party would zig instead of zag. Your beautiful rails, so well made and shiny, have been completely avoided. What now?
There is this lovely term that has been tossed around for a long time called “yes, and…” It is implied that you take what your party wants to do and then add in some extra details so the plot continues, as intended or not. This method of reframing your story to meet your players’ suggestions and preconceptions can work very well to tailor a story to a certain group. Sometimes your tavern has to burn on the bonfire of a good overall story.
However, sometimes there are consequences to such actions which would be unknowably ill-fitting within the context of the story. We could be tempted to protect our worlds at great cost, they’re our children after all, and we might just want to sacrifice the story and fun of our players so that our beautiful golden rails are preserved. These are not the kind of consequences I mean. What I’m referring to is the overall narrative. If changing something now will interfere with continuity or disrupt the overall storyline to an irreparable point, it is ok to instead of saying “yes, and…” say “no, but…” With this method we also reframe the players’ desire so that it flows better within the story. A character wants to will a deity into existence by acquiring enough followers for it. Your world doesn’t have faith-based elevations, but your character could be a charlatan who convinces everyone he sees on the good and holy works of the immortal Terry. Perhaps this cult will take off and dividends will be gained, but regardless, your player is the high priest of this religion.
You will be surprised sooner or later, and it’s ok to not always give in to the way the wind is blowing, just focus on everyone at the table having fun, including you.
Obviously, there’s a lot more to be said about running the game at the table and rolling with the story. My hope is that you feel empowered to be the mediator between players and storyline and not be utterly beholden to one or the other.
I want to talk soon about improvising combat. It’s something a lot of people who run and play have very strong feelings about (understandably). Next week we will go more in depth on character focused/character driven games to wrap up our mini-series on player-assisted world-building.
As always, please feel free to leave a comment either here on our website or on the Facebook page. If there is a specific topic you want us to discuss, or if you’d like to join us in writing and publishing articles, please let us know!
Thanks so much for joining us, and until next time, keep on rolling!
-Dalton
