On The Fly DMingt
Written by J.D. Ward aka "Kain Bloodbane"
I remember when I used to play Dungeons & Dragons (first or second edition I think) with my dad back in the day. Every time we wanted to play, we would have to wait for a week or two just for the Dungeon Master, which was him, to set up a storyline, dungeons and etcetera. This seems to be the commonly accepted way of DMing that I've seen, and I've done a bit of it myself. One thing I've come across in my own time as a DM is the amount of times your players will constantly go off your carefully constructed rails. I'm sure many DMs are familar with this problem. Your players won't take your carefully thought out bait to go to the area you've spent hours to create, and then complain when the place they have put themselves in is barren, because you have nothing prepared.
What I'm about to explain here is a technique I've used in varying degrees to run a couple campaigns, one which spanned nearly five years (Seriously). On The Fly DMing is probably not a technique for every Dungeon Master. It requires an extensive (and quick) imagination and storytelling ability. However, it's use will hopefully keep your game running smoothly. This technique is generally not as good to use in a non-combat oriented scenario.
So How Does It Work?
"On The Fly" may be a bit of a misleading term, as to make sure it runs smoothly in certain areas (As in dungeon crawls, which I'll be getting to later) it requires a bit of preperation. You might think that makes this whole concept useless, as that's exactly how a game is normally run. However, this kind of preperation is what I call Interchangeable Preperation. This will be covered shortly.
The whole idea behind On The Fly DMing is to keep your game running smoothly, whether the players need a bit of a break from the main storyline with a side-quest, or if they've been diving right off your rails constantly. The main thing On The Fly DMing could be compared to is Improv Comedy. As most people know, Improv Comedy is simply improvising humorous material on the spot, when required to. The same basic concept applies to On The Fly DMing. The DM improvises a situation when and where it's required. The main difference is that the DM is allowed to have some Interchangeable Preperation in his game.
Interchangeable Preperation
The problem with improvising situations is often that you cannot come up with a proper discription or detail for the area your PCs have entered, or for the creatures and treasures they encounter. This can be bypassed to a certain extent with Interchangeable Preperation. One of the most important elements of Interchangeable Preperation, and one that will often come up with the players is the Dungeon Crawl. Dungeon Crawls provide a small break from the main storyline or quest, and allow the players to gain some valuable experience, items, etcetera.
Creating an Interchangeable Dungeon Crawl might not be as difficult as you think. Spend some time before your next gaming session writing up a couple dungeons. They don't have to be incredibly long or extremely complex, but should provide enough challenges to keep your players interested. Ensure that the dungeon is stocked with monsters that are around the players level, so that they won't feel overwhelmed. If you've gone a long way in your game without using one of your Interchangeable Dungeons, and you find your players have become to powerful for said dungeon, then simply take some time to rewrite it a bit. Change the monsters to reflect the PC's current levels, and maybe add some more traps and tricky areas.
A couple ideas for Interchangeable Dungeon Crawls:
-Cave System: A network of tunnels in the mountain, perhaps the home of a monster that has been terrorizing the countryside, and stocked with it's treasure hoard (Players of a Kick In The Door type game will like this).
-Passage/Tunnel: Useable for most types of dungeons, the tunnel is like it says, it provides a passage from one side of an area to another, such as through a mountain to the other side, or under a river, etcetera.
-Tomb of Ancient King/Knight/Lich/Etc: A rumoured tomb that the players have either stumbled across, been tipped off about, or drawn to inexplicably by a strange force. It will usually contain a very powerful end boss, and be stocked with treasure.
-Old Mine Complex: A fairly common dungeon, mines just seem to attract monsters. Perhaps this mine has been taken over by a malevolent force, and a nearby village wants the players to liberate.
-Ruined Village: The players encounter a village that has been overrun with the undead, controlled by a lich situated in the catacombs of the church. What the PC's must do is obvious.
There are of course many, many more Dungeon Crawl settings you can have. These are only a few.
One thing you may wish to do for your dungeons is to have several descriptions ready. If the PCs are heading through the mountains, use cave-like descriptions to describe the tunnel they enter. If the PC's are going underground through a field, use descriptions that reflect rough dirt wall, and so on. Sometimes you will find that in the process of following your main storyline, you may have missed an important piece as to how the players get to a certain place. A little bit of Improvised Dungeon Crawls and Events can keep your game going in a pinch.
More Preperation
A couple more good preperation ideas:
-Know the world! This is very important in improvision! If your Campaign setting is in the Forgotten Realms, then you had better know of Drizzt Do'Urden and Eliminister. If your setting is the Discworld, then you better know what Ankh-Morpork and EcksEcksEcksEcks are! This will help you come up with descriptions on the fly, as you will know where the PCs are heading to.
-Keep a list of magical items relevent to the PCs level. Flipping through the treasure tables of the D&D v3.5 book and picking out some magic items related to your current campaign and PC level is a good idea. Having a couple items on hand to reward the players and keep morale high is always helpful. The items you choose at random should not be too powerful though, lest you unbalance your game, leading to a disaster.
-Have a couple different wandering monster parties available, or have a random encounter table handy. Random encounters can relive monotony of a long trek through a vast landscape, and having specially tailored monster parties can help with balance issues of a completely random table. Make sure they have loot! Ambushes can work too!
-Some stock descriptions, Keep a couple stock descriptions on hand. If the players are crossing a field, make sure you have a basic description of it. If several fields have been crossed, you can improvise from your basic description easily.
-Having events such as witnessing a caravan being robbed, a town being sacked, and so on, can give the PCs something to solve, and gain a reward from. Some events can also be used to introduce a quest NPC to get them back on your rails, or to put them back on track (a landslide blocking the path perhaps?).
-Avoid blatent attempts to hurdle the PCs back onto the rails. If you've attempted through means of an NPC or event already, and they're heading off rails, use a couple Interchangeable Dungeons and Events to gently ease them back onto the rails. Make it seem as if they did what you wanted all along.
-Stock NPCs. Write up a couple more detailed NPCs, with appearance descriptions. Stats may or may not be important, depending on the NPC, but having a couple colorful NPCs can remove the feeling of a lackluster campaign, and infuse life to the world.
This was just a small guide to On The Fly DMing, and I have found it to be quite sucessful in my campaigns. This technique may or may not be for you, as not everyone is good at on the spot improvision, but it you find your PCs running off the rains constantly, then maybe this little technique can give you the edge to get them back on track and keep them entertained, which is the most important part of any game.