Mike Bourke from CampaignMastery.com suggested this as an obvious follow-up to last week’s email, so here goes!
At some point, your players will go in a direction you didn’t prepare for.
One way or another, you will run into something you don’t have ready. (You do have a list of NPC names behind the screen, right? ‘Cause you do know they’ll ask!)
What do you do?
The single most useful thing I’ve found in these kinds of situations is to take a breath. You don’t need to say “hang on a minute … let me check my notes … *madly shuffles papers* … uhh … ah here it is!”
Just pause.
Three seconds is a long time for you to mentally scramble, but it’s just a dramatic pause for your players. (You can even throw in a smile if you really want to wig them out.)
During that pause, ask one question: What would actually happen in this world if the PCs do/say that?
And then answer.
If you’re not quite sure what would happen—it could go one way or another—well, that’s what skill checks are for! But only if you can’t answer without one.
The next-level application here is to remember at any given moment that 1) nothing in your world “exists” until the players encounter it, and that 2) everything in your world is a gameplay element that’s only there to challenge or aid your players or provide them with information or some other satisfying interaction while keeping the pacing of the session moving smoothly.
But that’s … a lot.
It’s usually enough, at least with NPCs that you didn’t expect the players to interact with, to use those few seconds to scrabble up a quick sense of what purpose they can serve in your game—impart information, give a quest, drop a clue to a problem the players have, be a resource of some sort, etc.
So, while it’s an imperfect rendering of the underlying mechanics of what’s actually going on, I think of my job as “I present a believable world that the players can interact with.” If I get in an improv pinch, I pause, ask “what would happen?” and then answer. That’s it!
Holistic NPCs: Creating Special Characters - Mike Bourke via Campaign Mastery
Professor Angry’s Office Hours: How Game Masters Don’t Play - The Angry GM
(Both of these ^^^ are actually quite relevant today! Each gives some different perspectives, particularly about NPC generation and portrayal. Lots to think about.)
d12 Monthly – Issue 26 – Guilds & Factions - YUM/DM
Framing Combat Encounters - The Alexandrian
Players creating quests for players - Alex Schroeder: RPG
Dirt simple 2d6 weather roll - Eldritch Fields
Now get out there and tell a story!
Peace,
Maximilian