Just wondering how many GMs plan their quests and how many decide to "wing it," or any options in-between.
Generally, I find myself with a basic outline and maybe a few maps, but I never actually write full adventures. My style is just too organic and adaptive for that. Often, I don't even have pre-designed encounters.
I had a quest wherein the party was going to help a guide service who had to cease business because their caravans were getting attacked by Dhampir in the mountains. That was my entire adventure summary. As the game progressed, I decided that the Dhampir were being led by an Urdefhan (sp?) and its Skaveling bodyguard (I just got Bestiary 2 at the time). After defeating the Skaveling and a few Dhampir outside the Urdefhan's lair, the party retreated back to the guide camp at the base of the mountain. I then asked myself why the Urdefhan was attacking caravans with the Dhampir? I decided it needed the blood, and through a few more self-questions, decided it was attempting to summon a Daemon with blood magic.
As it turned out, the party rested in camp for too long after the encounter with the Urdefhan, and he succeeded in summoning a Leukodaemon. It slaughtered him and the remaining Dhampir before claiming dominion over the entire area.
The party is level 2.
In other words, I inadvertently invented a BBEG through random, organic play. The only thing I ever had planned was the guide camp and the dhampir. The rest just...happened.
How do others do this? Are there a lot of "on the fly," organic GMs out there? Or do most people use pre-generated adventures/write their own?
-The Beast
I am somewhere in between. While I certainly allow things to develop as organically as I can, I usually have a solid first plan to start with. Along with alot of stat blocks of potential enemies. For monsters you can just flip through the bestiary, but for NPC's I need to have things preped before hand. After that it depends where my PC's go and what they do, and I try to shift the campaign around their actions. I definately have some encounters that are set pieces and highly prepared while others are more adhoc where I just had a general idea of what they were going to face, and pulled together a few stat blocks for the encounter.
I have done both, the first campaign I made I tried to think like the people in my group, planning out different possibilities just to try and cover what they would most likely do. After that first campaign I began winging it more, designing maps and a basic plot idea and setting up encounters but nothing concrete.
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For me, it depends entirely on the players. For example, when I play, I love following the DM's story and seeing where everything goes and what they came up with. That's fun for me.
As a DM, though, it rarely works (for me). The people I play with are all quite smart, and love thinking outside the box, and they really don't like being led around by their noses. I CAN'T preplan for them, because if I do, it isn't any fun, so I'm forced to wing a good bit of my game.
I change from planned linear adventures to sandbox games with alot of wing action, alternate them every once in a while and mix them, many players will dislike an abundance of either. I usually have a spare village or npc I can place on the fly with named npc's and such not to make it obvious I am winging it and ruining some of the immersion.
I've tended to present fairly detailed quests and plots, with a lot of background and a good deal of railroading. Fortunately my players are too lazy to think up anything themselves ;) so they're usually happy to follow the breadcrumbs.
Contrasts nicely with the other GM in the group, who rarely does any prep, and makes it all up on the fly. The one time he did plan something out, it went a bit sour - he had a Hornblower-esque adventure of naval shennanigans on the high seas laid out for us. Unfortunately all our characters' interests were firmly on dry land, so we all said "no thanks" and headed back inland.
Baldy
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I plan and prepare a great deal for each game. If a detail comes up for which I did not plan then I can wing it but those usually come up on minor details that players are always latching onto.
I have never had a DM who could organically wing an adventure during the session without seriously bogging the game down. "uh uh wait what does this power do?" "uh uh that guard's name is ummmmmmmm Clock!" etc.
Some winging it is always necessary but it goes a lot better with solid prep.
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Some of my best GM sessions were ones that I winged. Actually, last weekend, I winged the entire final showdown, epic battle for the last session of my groups nearly-2-year Star Wars game. I had the basic idea of what I wanted to happen, but I didn't have anything on paper.
It turned out surprisingly well. Sadly, better than some of my "well-planned" sessions.
-Skeld
I would say 6 0f one and a half dozen of the other.
I have learned that less can be more. get your outline and basic notes, set some loot that makes sense and be ready for the players to throw a right hook that changes everything.
Fast and loose but with a nod to the overall plot
A lot of this depends on how knowledgeable the characters are about their surroundings early on. The game I'm running started with the PCs being from fairly wealthy and/or prominent families, so they have access to maps of all civilized lands. One of the characters is the child of a pair of sea captains who can give information about distant lands; another is third in line for a minor title and has access to lots of court gossip and intrigue, etc.
With a start like this, I can't just invent a city somewhere if it's convenient, so I've had to stat up lots of NPCs ahead of time, and at least have a skeleton of the adventure plotted out from the beginning.
If the PCs were starting out as local kids heading off to adventure in the big wide world, I wouldn't have to have nearly as much planned out.
Having said all that, I think that all GMs, regardless of style, can benefit from a long list of names written down ahead of time, so that any place or person the characters encounter can have a name right off the bat (this makes it look like you are more prepared than you are), and at least one side diversion planned out that can be thrown in the way at any time, just to buy you some time when your players take off in a direction you have absolutely nothing prepared for.
Having said all that, I think that all GMs, regardless of style, can benefit from a long list of names written down ahead of time, so that any place or person the characters encounter can have a name right off the bat (this makes it look like you are more prepared than you are), and at least one side diversion planned out that can be thrown in the way at any time, just to buy you some time when your players take off in a direction you have absolutely nothing prepared for.
Agreed. I actually keep 3 100-name lists on me when I GM (Male, Female, Surname) that I roll on for un-prepped NPCs. Places are usually randomly generated or random syllables put together from my DVD/BD/Game collection (Botokass = Boston Legal + Toy Story + Kick-Ass)
I'm usually pretty good at ass-pull as far as random quests go. I just have issues with names, thus the lists.
-The Beast