Wingin' It: DMing Without a Script
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First off, we’ve got a new logo! Look up above. Hope you all like it.
Anyway… For the last 6 months I’ve been running D&D 4e using the pre-made adventures of Keep on the Shadowfell and Thunderspire Labyrinth. But no more. We began our Forgotten Realms campaign and it felt fantastic to be running without a script. A year ago, I was running a Star Wars campaign scriptless, going with the flow of the players, making it up as I went, but with the new 4e, I didn’t have the confidence to do that.
Now, I feel like I am finally in control of the rules and the rules aren’t in control of me. The players decide to visit a bar, I make one up on the spot. The players decide to jump a few men sneaking suspiciously down the street, I decide in an instant to give them each 25 hit points with an 18 to their AC.
When the game first came out, it took a lot of getting used to. The ACs and stats for all monsters were bumped up, so I didn’t know what a group of 1st level characters were capable of taking on. Now I do.
It feels liberating.
How about you all? How scripted do you run your games?
My wife is currently the DM of our group – but I can say that all the games I’ve run over the last 20 years or so have been varying degrees of “scriptless”. From sandbox games all the way to derailing prefab adventures – I enjoy RPGs without a script much more than those that stick to the storyline. Afterall, its D&D and the DM is the Dungeons Master. If the DM were instead called a “Storyteller” then we’d be playing something else completely… =D
As a back-up game to our normal campaign, I run Spirit of the Century, which is actually designed to be run with minimal prep. Most of the time, I don’t even know I’m going to be running it until everyone shows up. The underlying FATE system is flexible enough that I can pull anything I need out of thin air, from air pirates to necromancers to Daleks.
I tried to run a scripted game recently, and the group didn’t seem to react any differently. It depends on how self-directed the group is, and how well the GM knows the system, I guess. I like your idea of starting with the adventure modules until you learn the system enough to improvise. I wish I’d done that myself.