You can of course plan the big lines of the campaign, but the more precise you get and far ahead of the present, the more you will either lose or railroad to not lose. Both suck
You can of course plan the big lines of the campaign, but the more precise you get and far ahead of the present, the more you will either lose or railroad to not lose. Both suck
Yeah, there’s a fine line here. The DM improvising something whimsical and funny on the spot can be enjoyable to everyone, but if the party is going out of their way to do their absolute best to derail and force DM to waste any and all prepared material they’re just dicks. The DM is still a player in the game doing it have fun too and doesn’t owe you a campaign that bends to all whims of the party without restraint.
Also, a good lesson for GMs is to try and write any prepared material in a way that allows it to later be reused if players manage to miss it. Just because the party didn’t investigate that one cave with a goblin ambush in it doesn’t mean they can’t run into a goblin ambush later down the line somewhere entirely different.
Yes and no. Sure recycling is good. I did it as much as I could. But sometimes you tailor make something that would be just as much effort recycling as starting over.
Mostly combat encounters taking the terrain into account. The best sort of combat.