Excellent advice. I truly enjoy when GMs lean into my out of the box thinking for solutions to puzzling scenarios. Plus it’s a rewarding feeling when they work. I will be doing by best to implement this mentally in a session this week.
I'll be a polite dissenting voice. I think there's nothing wrong with being prepared for some obvious potential courses of action. In fact, I find having several "if x then y" scenarios very briefly mapped out really helps my confidence - I feel I've done some work rather than just telling myself "the best DMs are ready for anything and everything" and feeling bad if I am blindsided by something. It's reassuring to me know that I've made an effort and I'm ready. Because, it's not a binary! Even if you do have a couple of specific thoughts about how the zombie might be prevented from killing the tailor, I don't see pigeon-holing your mind or railroading your players as massive dangers. If they come up with some ingenious way to deal with the zombie, great! Roll with it. You don't have to insist they do it the way you prepped. I think you gain something by thinking ahead and lose very little, if anything. Think about likely courses of action (you know your players after all), but be ready to go with something bespoke if your players come up with it. I feel like most DMs will benefit from being more prepared than less.
Hi! Thanks for the comment :) I'll preface this by saying, my advice is never meant as universal truths, and everyone should do what works for them. So, if what you're doing works for you, that's awesome!
I think, more than anything, pre-planning responses in this way leads to GMs limiting the creativity and strangeness of their situations. Your default approach becomes designing situations for which you can find a few good solutions, but that limits your creations to only things that you also have the creative mind and player skill abilities to solve. By not including solutions and focusing purely on strange, curious, engaging, exciting situations, you free yourself from the obligation of coming up with solutions, creating more open ended encounters, and even *gasp* the possibility of a scenario without solutions at all. A real Kobayashi Maru :)
LOVE this so much. Thinking of examples on how this can cut down on word count by saying "is hiding a secret" rather than "if the players ask, he will lie about it" etc. the former hints at personality rather than just adding to the situation flowchart
absolutely! because the players may coerce the secret out of them, or befriend them and the secret will come out willingly, or read their mind and the secret is revealed, or find their hidden journal, etc etc etc. Keeping it strictly to the facts rather than planning conditions makes things so much more flexible!
Excellent advice. I truly enjoy when GMs lean into my out of the box thinking for solutions to puzzling scenarios. Plus it’s a rewarding feeling when they work. I will be doing by best to implement this mentally in a session this week.
I'll be a polite dissenting voice. I think there's nothing wrong with being prepared for some obvious potential courses of action. In fact, I find having several "if x then y" scenarios very briefly mapped out really helps my confidence - I feel I've done some work rather than just telling myself "the best DMs are ready for anything and everything" and feeling bad if I am blindsided by something. It's reassuring to me know that I've made an effort and I'm ready. Because, it's not a binary! Even if you do have a couple of specific thoughts about how the zombie might be prevented from killing the tailor, I don't see pigeon-holing your mind or railroading your players as massive dangers. If they come up with some ingenious way to deal with the zombie, great! Roll with it. You don't have to insist they do it the way you prepped. I think you gain something by thinking ahead and lose very little, if anything. Think about likely courses of action (you know your players after all), but be ready to go with something bespoke if your players come up with it. I feel like most DMs will benefit from being more prepared than less.
Hi! Thanks for the comment :) I'll preface this by saying, my advice is never meant as universal truths, and everyone should do what works for them. So, if what you're doing works for you, that's awesome!
I think, more than anything, pre-planning responses in this way leads to GMs limiting the creativity and strangeness of their situations. Your default approach becomes designing situations for which you can find a few good solutions, but that limits your creations to only things that you also have the creative mind and player skill abilities to solve. By not including solutions and focusing purely on strange, curious, engaging, exciting situations, you free yourself from the obligation of coming up with solutions, creating more open ended encounters, and even *gasp* the possibility of a scenario without solutions at all. A real Kobayashi Maru :)
LOVE this so much. Thinking of examples on how this can cut down on word count by saying "is hiding a secret" rather than "if the players ask, he will lie about it" etc. the former hints at personality rather than just adding to the situation flowchart
absolutely! because the players may coerce the secret out of them, or befriend them and the secret will come out willingly, or read their mind and the secret is revealed, or find their hidden journal, etc etc etc. Keeping it strictly to the facts rather than planning conditions makes things so much more flexible!