Improvising on the Fly: Cthulu Take the Wheel!

Friday: The party has arrived at the city of Husk, a pirate haven carved from the remains of a great and terrible sea monster, hunting for the North Wind. They arrive at a tavern, generic adventure shenanigans ensue, and the party meets the man who has stolen the ship they crave.

In my adventure guide for these piratical goings-on I had the following written out:

• Party arrives in Husk, goes to tavern or harbor
• Harbor leads them back to tavern
• They meet Ark, he offers to sell them information about the North Wind, he runs with their money
• They fight Ark’s men, chase after the North Wind with a friendly pirate captain.

Three bullet points in and they derailed my plan. They antagonized Ark from the beginning, learned the ship was in harbor, and headed directly there before I could spark a fight. This led to more than three hours of improvising on my part. For those keeping score at home, that’s what historians call a long-ass time.

I love improvising when I run a game. I usually have the barebones of an adventure well lined out but, since I say yes to whatever my players want, I often am forced to make up NPCs, treasures, monsters, buildings, religions, and in some cases rules for gambling and monster arena fighting.

From my pirate adventure I had to cut out an encounter at sea with the reknowned pirate Jeremiah “Broadside” Roberts and instead have a pirate council form in the city. Later when the party came together with the pirate council to deal with the feared, dread pirate Captain Pryde I didn’t expect them to magically enhance their cannonballs and attempt to take on a pirate ship that literally just summoned sea monsters from the deep.

I really do love improvising but sometimes … sometimes these people … I digress.

My first tool for helping with improvising is my treasure chart. The first column is an object like a ring or a dagger or a tankard to determine the cool something-something. Then a column to determine what that object is made out of. See my article about chalcedony and you’ll understand why I need a d20 chart to determine what something is made out of. Finally, a column to determine what culture the object comes from. Dwarf, elf, angel, devil, ancient, modern, etc. Charts are very, very useful. I think I’ll make a race/class/personality chart so I can make random NPCs in the future.

Here are my major tips for helping with improvisation.

• Half of improvisation is preparation. That seems like a contradiction but stay with me. Since you’re a dungeon master you likely already have some NPCs or monsters created from older campaigns or new campaigns you want to run. Sometimes you have to pull in cool ideas you want to save when your players run you completely off rails. Sometimes you have rehash or reskin old ideas.
• Give your players something to fight over. If you need more time then give your players an item or an NPC to fight over. Send some conflict to your players so they have to discuss things amongst themselves which gives you time to think things over.
• It’s ok to pause. If your players have run you sufficiently off your plans ask them to take a small break while you collect yourself and reevaluate your plans. Players can take the break to check the phones you don’t let them use so they likely will be willing to cooperate.
• Have similar level monsters ready to go. Look through a monster manual or bestiary before the adventure and make a mental note of any beasties that would be a challenge for your party. Worst come to worst an evil sorcerer summons a horrible monster and the party has to fight it.
• Get them back to the rails. This sounds like a step backward but if you already have plans then don’t scrap them just because your adventure turned a lil’ wonky. Come up with a reason to return to the path you’ve set.
• Manipulate party motivation, a bit. If one of the party members constantly refuses to do something on principle, have the situation change or give them insight (true or not) into NPC motivations that might convince them to get back on track.
• Players should want to cooperate with the party and the Dungeon Master but sometimes being a Dungeon Master means carrying around a carrot on a stick. Or, depending on your party, a cookie on a stick. Sometimes just a stick. Half-orcs aren’t the brightest.

What’s my one rule? I love improvising.