Improvising a campaign part 2: learning to improvise

Besides the Vampire campaign I described in the last post about improvisation, I ran several other Vampire campaigns at the time where I was, to a higher or lesser degree, improvising. From the first experience, though, I learned that it paid to prepare a list of NPCs and factions with agendas beforehand. With that in place, it was already a lot easier to run a coherent campaign.

Getting to Improvisation Through Preparation

The beginning of the 2000s was a very dry period in my “career” as a roleplayer. I had just moved to the Netherlands because of work, and I was over-conscious of the deficiencies of my English to dare to gamemaster anything. In fact, for a few years, roleplaying was the thing I did when I went to Portugal for holidays.

It took me a long time to gain the courage to run games in a foreign language, and I started with Call of Cthulhu using well-prepared, pre-written scenarios. This wasn’t just about language, however. It was also that I was trying to attract friends and acquaintances that had not played RPGs before from the small community of expats I belonged to. Because of this, I wanted an episodic game with characters who had no supernatural powers. This made it easier for players to understand what their characters could “do” and ensured that the mechanics translated their natural-language descriptions of actions with minimal overhead.

Besides, many Call of Cthulhu scenarios can feel like an Agatha Christie cozy mystery (at least until the tentacles start sprouting everywhere), so I could “sell” the game to people as a kind of murder party with supernatural and horror elements.

This approach worked well, and I was able to assemble new gaming groups to play with. From individual scenarios, I progressed to full-on campaigns, running titles like Tatters of the King, Eternal Lies, Two-Headed Serpent, and Masks of Nyarlathotep for several groups.

Although I initially avoided improvisation—to simplify vocabulary choices and because I felt rusty after not GMing for a while—the truth is that even these campaigns required a certain amount of improvisation. And the larger and wider the campaign, the more you will be called upon to improvise.

Improvising a Swords of the Serpentine Campaign

Recently, I decided to push my improvisational skills further by running an improvised campaign of Swords of the Serpentine. Coming off a two-year-long Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign, I wanted something completely different. I hadn’t run a proper fantasy game in a while, and Swords of the Serpentine intrigued me with its mechanics for collaborative world-building. These mechanics encouraged players to contribute to the fictional world, which seemed like the perfect foundation for an entirely improvised campaign.

For instance:

• The “Laws and Traditions” ability lets players invent a law or tradition of the city of Eversink on the spot.

• The “City Secrets” ability allows them to create a contact, secret passage, or trap out of thin air.

These mechanics made it possible to shift much of the creative responsibility to the players, resulting in a world richer and more diverse than anything I could create alone. They also allowed me to experiment with improvisation in a new way, enabling players to feel ownership of the setting while I maintained the overall structure of the narrative.

The experience taught me invaluable lessons about collective world-building, many of which could be applied to other RPGs—even systems without built-in mechanics for improvisation. In fact, I realized that much of what we did in Swords of the Serpentine could easily be adapted to more traditional RPGs, such as Dungeons & Dragons.

Introducing Player-Driven World-Building

The collaborative techniques I used in Swords of the Serpentine showed me that introducing player-driven elements into any RPG is possible. If you’re curious about trying this, start small by letting players define minor details of the world that don’t significantly impact your overarching plans.

For example, I started by letting players define the taverns where, in a proverbial fantasy scenario, they would meet contractors or hear rumors that would send them on adventures. Think about this: those taverns are often just excuses for assigning missions to the characters. Does the name, appearance, or atmosphere of the tavern truly affect your plans? Most likely not, so it’s a safe and fun way to give players creative input.

You can ask players specific questions to guide their contributions while subtly imposing guardrails to keep their ideas coherent with previously established elements of the setting—or even with plot points you’ve planned to introduce later. For example:

• Instead of asking broadly, “What’s the name of this tavern?” you can frame it as: “What’s the name of this well-known dwarven tavern?”

• To keep the atmosphere consistent, ask: “What does this tavern look like, considering it’s in the rougher district of the city?”

• When asking about patrons, provide context: “Are there many people inside? What kind of people, given that this is a harbor-side tavern?”

• Or tie it directly to in-world constraints: “What’s unique about this Elvish tavern that’s rumored to be a hub for smugglers?”

By phrasing questions in a guided way, you ensure that player contributions remain consistent with the world you’ve already built. This technique also helps players avoid creating elements that could contradict established lore or disrupt narrative plans.

This approach naturally extends to the homes of player characters, their families, and even their social circles. Allowing players to describe where their characters live and the personalities of their friends or contacts enriches the world and creates story hooks, all while maintaining a coherent tone.

After asking these questions, it’s crucial to clearly describe the world back to the players, incorporating the elements they created. For example, after they define the name, look, and atmosphere of the tavern, you should step in and narrate the scene: “You step into the Lantern & Anvil, the dwarven tavern you described. The smoky air is thick with the scent of roasting meat, and dwarves in leather aprons crowd the bar, laughing over tall mugs of ale.” This step signals that their “writing room” moment is over, grounding them back into their roles as characters within the world. It also reaffirms that you, as the GM, are managing the fictional environment, weaving their contributions seamlessly into the established setting.

Over time, you can expand this practice even further. For instance, you might let players define aspects of the campaign’s main villain or decide on encounters during travel. You can even ask them to come up with how these elements fit into the larger world. The key is to maintain your role as the final arbiter of coherence, tweaking or vetoing contributions if necessary to keep the story consistent.

One particularly interesting challenge is letting players shape aspects of your setting while maintaining their immersion in the fictional world. For this to work, it’s crucial to separate the “writing room” moments, where players act as creators, from the immersive roleplaying moments where they act as their characters. It’s also essential to set boundaries so their contributions don’t disrupt established elements of the setting or undermine factional agendas.

By starting small and gradually increasing the scope of player contributions, you’ll foster a richer, more collaborative storytelling experience while retaining control over the larger narrative structure.

Why Improvisation Is Essential

In my opinion, what makes roleplaying so great and unique is that the actions of the player characters are not bound by what was planned by the scenario designer (in contrast to computer games). This is only possible because there’s a human being running the show who can go beyond the confines of the written scenario.

That’s why I often push back against the crowd that sees the GM as a problem, or as a despot who can use their power at the table to oppress the poor players (a debate I’ve had many times on Discord and Reddit). I believe the GM guarantees the freedom of the players by allowing the environment to respond in a coherent way to any unexpected action by the characters. Improvisation, therefore, becomes a key skill for GMs to hone—it’s the fundamental value a GM brings to the table.

Final Thoughts

Improvisation is the heart of great GMing. It allows you to respond to your players’ creativity, maintain the freedom that makes RPGs unique, and craft a campaign that feels alive. By balancing preparation with flexibility, you’ll create an experience that’s as surprising and engaging for you as it is for your players.

So start small, build your confidence, and embrace the unexpected.