When I run my D&D 4e game I use a random encounter generator. I look at the stats for the various monsters, and I then put those monsters into the game. This might result in a zombie, some lizard people, a classic magical beast, and a handful of human minions being the encounter. If the PCs decide to travel into the woods that evening these monsters are suddenly ...
As a player I recently experienced two opposite approaches to how a game master can react to the players’ input during a session. One GM made sure to incorporate what the PCs did into the game, and the other made sure to keep the plot on track with what he had prepared. I am not going to go into the details, but guess which game sucked? ...
This year at Gen Con I attended a seminar given by Ramsey “Tome Wyrm” Lundock titled Secrets for Instant GMing. Focused on how a GM can improvise when the players do something unexpected the seminar was informative and well done. I enjoyed the seminar enough that I bought a copy of Lundock’s books Instant GM: A Bag of Tricks and Instant GM II: On Your Mark, Get Set, ...
Drawing maps, statting NPCs, writing plots, and preparing handouts. Prep work is still work no matter how you slice it. Improvising on the other hand is fun! You skip all of those tedious tasks and get right to the good stuff – running the game! I often improvise sessions and it works great for me. The players get a great game, and I don't have to spend days ...
New to the Stew? There are 618 articles packed with GMing tips and advice in our archives. Why not start with our 
