Re: [DL] Improv

[Chris Nelson <chris@pre-press.com>]

> How much of a role should improvisation play?  I'm basing my
> adventure off of
> a PEG adventure and one of my own, and I am new to the
> Marshalling process.

To start with, Brian Leybourne's 100% correct, in the respect that you
can never predict what your Posse will do in an adventure.  As a matter
of fact, you can bet that whatever you plan for, the Posse will probably
do something totally different.

The real trick to effective Marshalling is to make everything look like
you planned it.  Although very few people can consistently run
adventures off the top of their heads, it does happen sometime. 
However, generally, most people plan about a quarter of their adventure
and improv the rest.

I'd recommend you sketch out your adventure on paper first, in very
broad strokes.  To begin with, your main goal should be to unite the
Posse into a group (or at least introduce them together, if they're not
a group already), and then worry about where the adventure is going. 
Some really good adventures will write this part for you, or at least
give you a few ideas.

If the posse throws you a curveball, don't panic.  Even if you think
you're not keeping a good poker face, or that the Posse is starting to
think you're unprepared, keep in mind that what you see in yourself is
almost never what your Posse will see.

My group has a player that recently started Marshalling for the first
time, and at the end of every session he swears that we knew that he was
panicking one moment, and drawing blanks the next.  But the simple truth
is, we never noticed.

Provided you never do something as obvious as start mumbling "um, er,
uh" and flipping nervously through your notes, your players will never
suspect a thing.
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                      Chris Nelson <cnelsonweb@hotmail.com>
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