From the article archive
Expanding and Idea: A Bit of Improv Advice
Drat! I’m late again with my article. Well, at least I’m rather consistent with my being late… Bit short this week so let’s get to it.
In the beginning of Mark’s article Cumulative we are told:
“Every time you roll the dice, you take a chance.”
I found this to be of interest to me, as it's something I use in my improv styel. The fact that almost anything is possible at any given time is a great way to break into improv GMing.
Your gun can jam in a gunfight, you opponent’s sword can break as it’s struck against your shied - heck a meteorite could fall from the sky and crush you while walking across the street. Sure the odds of the meteorite falling on you are much slimmer than having a gun jam, but there is a chance such a thing could happen.
Two tools that many RPGs implement to try and simulate these types of seemingly random, yet possible occurrences are critical hits and botches. Sometimes it’s a simple metric that tells us if we do double damage with our powerful hit, or that we loose a turn due to our spectacular failure. Other times it’s a chart that has various events listed on it that happen to use depending on what we are doing (Rolemaster is famous for these). While these options are fine, they can often lead to dull or repetitive results.
One of the things I’ve done to spice the results of these chance events up is add my own descriptors to personalize things a bit. This not only helps to make things more colorful and to cut on repetition, you can then modify the results on the fly if needed.
If the official results are “monster beheaded,” and the PC is actually using a crossbow and not a sword, you can switch the description to something more fitting the situation. These types of changes are simple, but vital to keeping players in the moment.
If you simply read off the stock results of the critical or botch, and then have to back-peddle to correct yourself when you notice it doesn't fit quite right, you effectively stop the game. Which takes everyone out of the game while things are sorted out. Obviously stopping the game isn’t always unavoidable, but the more you can do prevent this the better.
The other tool I use, which is more difficult, is to totally wing it. Don’t use charts, tables or stock descriptions of any kind – look at the situation and determine what would be the most dramatic occurance and that's what happens. This is a skill that needs to be practiced before it will come naturally, but once you figure it out it’s a lot of fun. I must also admit that this tool isn’t very effective if you’re a “let the dice fall as they may” kind of gamer.
Here are the steps I take when I use this improv tool when the players make a critical hit, or the horrible botch:
·Take a quick assessment of what’s going on. Are they in a desperate combat where things are looking grim? Are they digging for a clue in a massive pile of unordered papers and computer disks? Is this a non-dramatic event such as fixing a broken radio while wasting time for an NPC contact to call?
·Feel the mood in the room. This will help you figure out the level of drama to use. The more tense the mood the better off you’ll be going with something very dramatic. If the room is relaxed, you can keep that mood, or you can change it up with some added drama.
·Determine what you as the GM want or need to happen in this encounter. Should the villain escape so that he can trouble the PCs later on as you planned? Would this be a great time to have a new mystery NPC show up to lend a hand? Should you stop the PC from dying/failing because it would throw a huge wrench into your plot?
·Explain the results to the players.
As I said this takes practice. Not everyone is a natural at this kind of quick thinking on their feet while GMing. Practicing this was one of the ways that I broke into improv GMing, and how I continue to work on my skills. While this idea most likely won’t sit well with those who don’t like a narative approach, I think it’s a good way to get into improv GMing as criticals and botches don't happen regularly so you don't have to always be on your toes.
As I said, this was a short one so I'll stop for now and see what eveyone has to say on this. See you on the forums!
In the beginning of Mark’s article Cumulative we are told:
“Every time you roll the dice, you take a chance.”
I found this to be of interest to me, as it's something I use in my improv styel. The fact that almost anything is possible at any given time is a great way to break into improv GMing.
Your gun can jam in a gunfight, you opponent’s sword can break as it’s struck against your shied - heck a meteorite could fall from the sky and crush you while walking across the street. Sure the odds of the meteorite falling on you are much slimmer than having a gun jam, but there is a chance such a thing could happen.
Two tools that many RPGs implement to try and simulate these types of seemingly random, yet possible occurrences are critical hits and botches. Sometimes it’s a simple metric that tells us if we do double damage with our powerful hit, or that we loose a turn due to our spectacular failure. Other times it’s a chart that has various events listed on it that happen to use depending on what we are doing (Rolemaster is famous for these). While these options are fine, they can often lead to dull or repetitive results.
One of the things I’ve done to spice the results of these chance events up is add my own descriptors to personalize things a bit. This not only helps to make things more colorful and to cut on repetition, you can then modify the results on the fly if needed.
If the official results are “monster beheaded,” and the PC is actually using a crossbow and not a sword, you can switch the description to something more fitting the situation. These types of changes are simple, but vital to keeping players in the moment.
If you simply read off the stock results of the critical or botch, and then have to back-peddle to correct yourself when you notice it doesn't fit quite right, you effectively stop the game. Which takes everyone out of the game while things are sorted out. Obviously stopping the game isn’t always unavoidable, but the more you can do prevent this the better.
The other tool I use, which is more difficult, is to totally wing it. Don’t use charts, tables or stock descriptions of any kind – look at the situation and determine what would be the most dramatic occurance and that's what happens. This is a skill that needs to be practiced before it will come naturally, but once you figure it out it’s a lot of fun. I must also admit that this tool isn’t very effective if you’re a “let the dice fall as they may” kind of gamer.
Here are the steps I take when I use this improv tool when the players make a critical hit, or the horrible botch:
·Take a quick assessment of what’s going on. Are they in a desperate combat where things are looking grim? Are they digging for a clue in a massive pile of unordered papers and computer disks? Is this a non-dramatic event such as fixing a broken radio while wasting time for an NPC contact to call?
·Feel the mood in the room. This will help you figure out the level of drama to use. The more tense the mood the better off you’ll be going with something very dramatic. If the room is relaxed, you can keep that mood, or you can change it up with some added drama.
·Determine what you as the GM want or need to happen in this encounter. Should the villain escape so that he can trouble the PCs later on as you planned? Would this be a great time to have a new mystery NPC show up to lend a hand? Should you stop the PC from dying/failing because it would throw a huge wrench into your plot?
·Explain the results to the players.
As I said this takes practice. Not everyone is a natural at this kind of quick thinking on their feet while GMing. Practicing this was one of the ways that I broke into improv GMing, and how I continue to work on my skills. While this idea most likely won’t sit well with those who don’t like a narative approach, I think it’s a good way to get into improv GMing as criticals and botches don't happen regularly so you don't have to always be on your toes.
As I said, this was a short one so I'll stop for now and see what eveyone has to say on this. See you on the forums!
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