The first installment of this series introduced the idea of running a roleplaying campaign like an author writing a novel. I touched on the similarities between the two processes: in-depth world-building, establishing starting and ending points, and creating and ramping up conflict. It also brought up the importance of getting buy-in from the players before attempting to ignore the dice in crucial situations and railroad the characters in the desired direction.
This time, I want to go into more detail on how you, the GM, can “wing it” at the table to achieve an outcome that feels like a thriller or mystery novel. This can be a scary prospect, particularly if you are the sort who likes to be organized, with all your game notes cross-indexed, color-coded, and filled out in triplicate. I’m here to tell you, though, that it doesn’t have to terrify you.
What is “Winging It”?
What exactly is “winging it,” and how do you execute it effectively? Simply put, it means having some solid, if general, ideas about the main events you want to occur during gameplay but having the flexibility to change the details about those events to accommodate the sometimes-unexpected twists and turns the players take while getting there.
It’s going with the flow, adjusting on the fly, and even allowing sudden inspiration to unfold in unanticipated ways. Mostly, it’s trusting yourself to keep the action moving in the direction you want without sweating the small stuff.
In fiction, writers often refer to their work habits along a Pantsing-Plotting spectrum. Plotters do serious outlining in exact detail before beginning at Chapter 1, while Pantsers just sit down at the computer and start typing, letting the words lead the way. They might not even start at the beginning of the story.
If you want to run a campaign like an author, you need to find a happy middle ground on the Pantsing-Plotting spectrum. You need some notion of Point A, Point B, and Point C in your campaign arc (or the portion of it you’ll be running for the next couple of sessions), but how you get there is left to the last minute, while the game is in session.
It’s Not a Lack of Preparation (Until It Is)
Winging it doesn’t mean you show up for the game session without a clue, completely unprepared for what’s about to happen. Even the most extreme pantser tackles a new writing project with at least a few concrete ideas about the story they’re about to write.
What you’re looking for in your campaign are those great scenes you need to push the conflict and the story forward. You still need some sense of the NPCs, monsters, locations, weather, and meaningful details to set the scene and drive the action.
An Extended Example
Suppose you’ve been running an urban campaign focused on corruption in a central city, using tools you found in Kobold Press’s Campaign Builder: Cities & Towns. You created some different criminal organizations, a corrupt official or three, and lots of maps of the different districts showing where hideouts and illicit businesses are located.
However, your players keep getting distracted by the newest shiny side quest or the desire to spend the evening preparing for the next mission rather than actually going on it. You need to shake things up.
Raymond Chandler, who wrote hard-boiled detective stories and created private eye Philip Marlowe as his main protagonist, was known for Chandler’s Law: “When all else fails, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.”
It was a remedy for breaking writer’s block, but let’s use it to punch up the wow factor for all these great plans of yours your players keep missing. So, you’re going to build an encounter, but you don’t know when or where it’s going to occur. You’re going to prepare it with the bare minimum of what you need, then you’re going to wing it.
OK, So What Do You Need?
Mostly, you need opponents. It’s quick work to grab the sellsword and spellhawk stat blocks from the NPC section of Cities & Towns to create a small team of toughs ready to cause trouble for your characters. A memorable bruiser in the mix is good, so you imagine a big Goliath type. He’s human, but he’s not very bright. Toss in the ogre stat block. Get those three pages open on your tablet or laptop or printed out and clipped to your GM screen and you’re good to go.
Now you have this set of NPCs and their motive in your pocket, ready to use at the right moment. And the right moment? It’s when the players have bogged down, debating whether to go into the sewers immediately in pursuit of pickpockets or to visit the temple to grab extra healing potions first. Whatever the event, when the momentum stalls, you have this great ambush in your pocket that you can drop on them to pick things up again.
What you don’t need is a map for each potential ambush site, a decision about how many of foes you’ll use, and knowledge of every spell the spellhawk has at her disposal. Let that stuff stay fertile in your mind without committing to one solution.
Because what if the players decide their characters are going to the temple and while there, they hunt for a map of the sewer system? You can spring this ambush on them by disguising the foes priests who maneuver into position without alarming suspicious characters. If you committed to a rigid plan and prepped for it, this sideshow would just be a lull in the action. Instead, you can harvest that unexpected opportunity and exploit it.
Because you’re winging it.
Next Time
We’ll talk about how to fudge this battle we set up to make it intense, exciting, and deliver an outcome you want to keep pushing plot forward.
Read more at this site