Comments on: You Want to Do What?! The Art of Improv in GMing (Part 1)

By: You Want to Do What?! The Art of Improv in GMing (Part 3) – Dungeon Mastering – D&D blog, DM tips, Dungeons and Dragons Tools

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 09:50:02 +0000

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By: You Want to Do What? The Art of Improvisation in GMing (Part 2) | Dungeon Mastering

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:06:37 +0000

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By: David Campitelli

David Campitelli — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:03:58 +0000

but going off the map is the fun part of your games.

anyway I can remember DM’ing a group in college that was being attacked by a blue dragon as they crawled their way across a mountain pass.

As the dragon swooped in to breath lightning death from above, one of the characters cast a ‘Suggestion Spell’ and suggested that the dragon didn’t know how to fly. I thought hey why not roll the saving throw and wouldn’t you know it, I rolled a ‘1′ and the dragon crashed to his doom in the ravine far below, momentarily forgetting that it could fly.

That one earned them some points

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:06:55 +0000

Thanks, Katie! Much like a genie, you should be careful what you ask your DM for…

By: Katie

Katie — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:30:25 +0000

One of the best memories I have of pissing my DM off to no end was when we faced off with a dragon. It was a pretty old and very powerful creature and one of the guys ended up in it’s mouth. He asked if he could try to attack from inside the dragon’s mouth & the DM told him it had to be a small weapon and he need to role percentiles. The guy managed to role the needed percentage and just happend to have an arrow of dragon slaying that he had picked up in a previous session. The dragon failed it’s save and a combat that should’ve kicked our asses was over in 1 round. My DM was so pissed because he had spent a month perfecting that dragon. It was great.

Now my DM no longer spends that much time on anything because he knows we will always go off on a tangent that he didn’t prepare for. He’s very good at improving so it’s really not an issue. It did take us a while to catch on that when he asked us what we thought was going on at the end of a session, it was to get ideas for the story. He got some of his best and nastiest ideas from our speculations.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:47:17 +0000

I have to say that yesterday my players made me put my money where my mouth was — by TOTALLY going off the map… With some quick thinking and LOTS of roleplaying, we came to a mutual agreement, but it was pretty interesting there for a bit. The real key is to never let ‘em see you sweat!

By: Amanda

Amanda — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:26:04 +0000

Thoroughly enjoyable read! :)

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:43:55 +0000

This is sooo true, not just for D&D but for all creative storytelling and even everyday conversations. Keep spittin the truth bro!

By: Yax

Yax — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:11:43 +0000

Awesome article Steve!

By: Krashkow

Krashkow — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:26:05 +0000

Concise, well written and most of all useful. Thanks for attacking DMing from the performance, rather than the planning angle, which I find to be the angle most people get bogged down in. Are you planning on writing something similar for players at any point? It’d be nice to see something that helps players make their characters “pop.”