Some folks see prune juice as a "warrior's drink," but I put it to you that coffee beats some dried-up plum juice any day hands down. And yes, that's how I occasionally take my coffee. So now the secret has been revealed! :)
I tried an experiment last week. DMs that I've gamed with in the past, both at cons and in private gaming groups, have been able to improvise an adventure from whole cloth, making everything up on the spur of the moment. I thought I'd give it a shot. I can improvise to a certain degree - you have to if you're a DM because players will often (read: always) come up with solutions that you hadn't thought of; one of these days I'll tell you all about the land boat. Anyway, I tried it with my group (without informing them, naturally) and hoo-boy, did it not go well! I won't go into all the bloody details, but I think a lack of preparedness and low blood sugar on my part does not a good game session make. I did learn one thing, though: I'm just one of those DMs that needs at least a rough outline to work from. So, we live and we learn (usually).
Anyone else have an embarrassing game story they'd feel comfortable sharing? Misery loves company and all that. :)
Take care,
~Rob
I prefer cocoa to coffee. ^_^
And I, too, find outlines invaluable.
Yeah, you have to be in “the zone” to really pull off an off the cuff adventure. AND know your gaming material like the back of your hand… 😉
When I used to DM I had 4-5 NPCs that I used whenever the group took my games off the rails and I needed filler or a way to get them back on the rails. And yes, anyone may feel free to take these guys and use them just do me the small favor of changing the names to protect the innocent and the not so innocent alike,..lol
Farquod the Fabulous -N Kobold who used to work for a very powerful [and dyslexic] wizard as a servant. The Wizard died suddenly [we all know how dangerous Wizarding can be] and Farquod was left locked in the tower with no forseeable way out because the Wizard’s tower was actually mostly in a pocket dimension and Farquod had no idea the combination to the door to make it lead to the Prime Material Plane [all the door lead to when he opened it was the 30 acres of fields and streams the Wizard used for food and such]. Farquod being not too bright decided all the bottles in the cellar were wine so poured all of them into a keg [as a kobold wine was wine and there is no difference between them] so he did not have to keep grabbing bottles when he drank. Sadly they were most various potions that the Wizard had made. Long story short mixing potions being a bad idea caused all sorts of odd things to happen [which is how I explained all the weird things Farquod did]. Basically Farquod was the all around pest for the group,… I could give him just about any ability or power and explain it away with the “potion incident”,… sometimes he had HUGE hit points,..sometimes he was genius level itellect,..sometimes he was made of stone,…sometimes he was 6ft tall,..etc. He was a great utility character for when the group got too out of hand.
Ambrose the Almost CG Genie – basically take Genie from Disneys Alladin, make him slightly hard of hearing and give him a stuttering problem when he does the genie “Om Salla Salla” magic words to grant wishes. Basically he would pop up when the group would try to absurdly misuse magic to create items or things. Being hard of hearing and having a stutter meant any request made of him was VERY easy to adjust for game balance purposes.
Marvin the Magnificent ?? Human – the most powerful Spell slinger in all the worlds. Imagine Merlin from Disney’s Sword in the Stone mixed with Ford Prefect from Hitchhikers Guide, Dr. Brown from Back to the Future, and King Louie from Jungle Book then make him look like Shaggy from Scooby Doo [tall and lanky] then have him appear in all sorts of odd and anachronistic outfits. He was a Time Traveler who had trouble remembering whet century he was in and when he had last seen the group. He would show up dressed like a Chinese Coolie from the cartoons [with the silly accent too] one time,.. wearing a motorcycle jacket another time,… a Zoot suit another time,..etc. He would appear from nowhere like Dungeon Master from the Old D&D Cartoon to give advise or sometimes for no other reason than he was lost again and needed to know where he was.
All these guys were perfect tools to throw into a game to move the story along or create a side story for a night if someone had to miss a game. Usually if I threw them in it gave me some time to pull some stuff out of my backup book for the group to do,….
I said I’d write an adventure years ago and still haven’t finished it.
In my defence, university work does kinda take priority and when my sister comes around with her son, it really does put the brakes on anything since he’s not the quietest 2 year old even without tantrums.
I do try and help around the house where possible as well.
I have the general ideas fleshed out in my head but just not on paper and no map outlay for the final dungeon. I’ve played with so many of the enemy’s stats it’s rather amusing.
Dhur is turning out to be more and more like my own favorite D&D character. I actually have a coffee pot, grinder, and bag-o-coffee-beans on my equipment list.
@Stephen S. : As well he should. 🙂
Nice reference to Worf from Star Trek TNG with the prune juice. I had a sorcerer briefly. Sadly he ran afoul of a female Drow and ended up drinking a potion that would change him from a male sorcerer to a female fighter at random. Each form didn’t know who or what the other was doing. It encouraged me to not play a caster for some time.
Another character of mine, a human fighter, who at one time was in a wizarding school. Found steel to be faster than magic for his tastes. He ended up in an adventuring party as the only human among a party of halflings. The main strategy became “hide behind the big guy and attack knees and groins”
I once (briefly)played in a campaign with a 1st time DM, she was a regular player in our group, who decided it might be “fun” to try being a DM.
Her idea was to take our 2nd Edition D&D fantasy characters, and drop them into a 20th century reality, with no intro, no resources (except our weapons and armor), no idea of how we got there, no knowledge of the culture and laws and no ability to speak the local language. It did not go well.
Not long after arriving in this strange new world, my elven fighter found himself arrested and sitting in a jail cell, for vandalism (because of COURSE if you find a locked door made of glass, you break it) and resisting arrest (pepper spray is nasty stuff).
I then looked at the DM and asked her, “What do I do now?” She replied, “Use your skills!” brightly.
“What skills,” I demanded back, “I’m a fighter not a rogue, they took my weapons and armor, I’m sitting in a jail cell and I don’t speak the language. All I’ve got left are my non-weapon proficiencies and I don’t think my bowyer/fletcher proficiency is going to be much use. What do I do?”
“Use your skills!” she replied back. The game ended soon after and as far as I know, she never DM’d again.