How do you improv Veeky Forums GM?

>tfw draw the map as they go
>always doesn't turn out half bad

You can take improv classes, like for improv comedy. The principles are the same, and making your group do improv warmup games before playing will make sessions run smoother. (Things like Wordball and copy/paste.)

The basics are pretty simple:
- Try to build on what you're given. ("Yes, and...")
- Work from the top of your head. (What's obvious in the moment, not trying to be purple monkey dishwasher, not trying to set up a convoluted plan that requires other people to be psychic.)

The most useful intermediate stuff:
- Pick an emotional response, the four emotions are mad/glad/sad/afrad.
- How does this person perceive their status relative to others?
- In what way is this person full of shit?

And then the advanced recommendation: art is half observation. Go out into the world and look at things and read non-fiction on relevant topics. Go to the zoo and see how animals move, go to a cave or castle. Read up on geology or archeology or zoology. Read about historical politics, or medieval weapons treatises or whatever the fuck. Then next time you have to put a cave on a map, you'll subconsciously put the stalactites in the right places, and your players will feel like this place is more real. (Just resist the urge to turn the game into a dissertation on tetrapod zoology)

I prepare some NPCs and statblocks at first and I have some idea of what said NPCs want.

Everything else is done on the fly

What I call it is "assisted improv".

My note/documents consist of the following:
>5 bullet points of what I plan to happen during session
>a list of NPC names by race (so I can read off the list to add NPCs as needed)
>a list of shops I randomly generated before hand, with store inventories
>a list of inns/taverns/brothels/etc each with an attached list of servers, patrons, and owner
>list of custom magic items I might give the players, along with 'loot packages' appropriate to their level
>list of encounters with monster/page references I can draw from

So basically I don't come up with retarded names of the spot but planned those before hand. I planned balanced encounters beforehand. I planned locations beforehand. However I have long lists so no matter where the PCs go I will probably have something to draw from or at least something close enough to adapt.

This gets rid of "blorb the goblin" issues where NPCs start having stupid names as you add more and more, and issues of long umms while being asked what a shop sells.

I don't recommend more than 5 bullet points for your A to B to C plan for session as players often won't follow what you think they will.

At the end of every session I always ask my players what they plan to do next session to let me think it over a little easier, but even then.

Don't steer, guide. Don't force, encourage.

I like this advice, but what do you mean by "not trying to be purple monkey dishwasher"?

>(Just resist the urge to turn the game into a dissertation on tetrapod zoology
FUCK.
YOU.
DAVE.

What's obvious to you is usually fairly clever. When you reach to try to intentionally do something unexpected (you're attacked by penguins!) you just sound like a teenager trying to be lolrandom.

Perfect randomness is white noise. Random is not what you're aspiring to.

So I think river ecology is pretty cool. And that means that one of my go-to excuses for what the fuck this giant monster eats is "Giant hellgrammites! As big as your arm!"

But that doesn't mean we need to worry about the lifecycle of the giant dobsonfly.

Lots and tables and short details.

Fucking this.

I also sometimes shit out some random tables

Don't forget you can also say no.

I figure out where I want the game to end and where it will begin and let everything in the middle just kind of "happen".

Granted, I'm currently running a game where the PCs got pulled into another universe and the end will happen after a set amount of time, so I don't really have to worry about my players trying to take stuff off the rails; it's impossible for them to get off the rails, but they're okay with that because it's a pretty damn wide set of rails.

Also, something I found that works really well for me, is to only develop NPCs as far as you need to at the time, and then develop them more whenever your players take an interest in learning more about them.

For instance, I had this lamia lady starting up an anti-human activist group of various non-human races that felt like they were getting discriminated upon by humans. (Long story, not important for what I'm getting at here.)

So when she first showed up, that's all she was: Just some lamia woman who was angry at humans. Later on, my players expressed interest in figuring out more about who she was and WHY she hated humans, so it was then that I came up with her back story reasons and added more character to her.

It's a great way to make it seem like all your NPCs are interesting and have great depth without having to make a detailed background for *every* NPC; you only have to put in effort on the NPCs your players actually care about, and your players don't have to know everything about every NPC unless they actually want to.

I've said this before, but it's a method that I've found works really well with the right group of players in a sandbox-style game.

Rather than spending time filling in the world yourself, use your players to help fill it in.

Their characters have lived in this world so it doesn't make sense that they'd know very little about it.

So, during session zero, while they're making their characters, we also do some world building.

I start with a blank map and fill it in with 'pins' representing towns, places of interest, etc.

Then we work together to flesh out these places and begin to get a feel for the world we're about to start playing in.

I do this during actual play as well. Asking my players questions about places their characters have been before, people they've met, rumors they've heard, bits of history they know.

>"Okay Pardue, you've visited this town before, what happened?"

Or:

you see smoke rising in the distance. Roll perception. Okay, Theial rolled highest, what does she think it is?

>"Theial thinks the smoke could be from a few stove-fires in a small village"

Okay, Orboir, rolled second highest, what does she think?

>"Orboir can smell roasting meat on the air and burning metal, something is wrong."

Usually I just get a vauge outline and react to players. Like just how things will go absent pc intervention, and then plans and npc reactions to the PCs most likely actions. Also, every single time NPCs are introduced I have a back up for if things go south.

I keep no less than five contingency plot hooks that I know my players would immediately bite on. They're all about a sessions worth of time so I have time to prepare for next weeks mishaps.

Some include:
>A stranger appears from the shadows and informs them that great riches await just up ahead. Leading to a secret (insert relavent environment entrance here) where they encounter a few traps and monsters.

>They receive word that their home is under seige by Goblins. They must hurry home to defend it. They encounter bandits on the road and get a bit of lore dump about who exactly is responsible.

>Woops, something magical bars your path. Go back to town and find help from the local temple/Wizard/Druid to break the accursed magic. They of course will require a few special ingredients from the local area as components.

more shitposting
Killing everyone and anyone making a rational statement

Create NPCs

Put party into contact with NPCs

Make shit up

Have a library of enemies and battlemaps autistically catalogued so that I can insert them smoothly into what would otherwise be a pure RP segment, not that there is anything wrong with pure RP segment, I'm as much a fan of melodramatic philosophy hour as the next guy, but a couple of my players like there to be some combat so I accomodate as best I can.