The Crux

I'd like to use the space of a blog post, rather than a comment box, to clarify some matters discussed by ViP under this post.  Starting with this (and please, read the whole comment for context):

"Linking these thoughts to your current subject, I can't bring myself to imagine how such improvisation, which those DM most certainly perform on their regular campaigns as well, can play out without leading to all the perverse results you described : unbreakable plot armor, disappearance of all meaningful challenges, death of the game. Am I wrong? Can you really decide what's real in a near-vacuum and still be playing D&D?"

Quickly looking at each of these.  Unbreakable plot armour is NOT caused by "improvisation," but by the DM deciding that, perhaps in the heat of the moment, perhaps long before the game is played, that the character either should not die at all, or otherwise ONLY in circumstances where raising the character again will be a minor problem.  I can see where someone might think that because the DM "improvises" the dice, or "improvises" a cavalry coming over the hill, or "improvises" some other nick-of-time saving circumstance, it's a bad thing, but this is not a problem of improvisation, but rather what it's used for.  It's a mistake to equate the tool with the practice that tool is used for.

The disappearance of meaningful challenges is far more a pre-generation problem, reflecting the DM's desire to "tell a story" as being much more important than putting the party under threat.  In the immediate moment, yes, the DM might be gun-shy about spontaneously creating a dangerous situation, possibly because the DM is so uncertain as to HOW dangerous the situation should be ... but this is a problem of the DM lacking experience, or having weak knees, or putting too little faith in the party to overcome a problem, or a host of other problems having to do with introducing danger into the campaign.  NONE of which has the least to do with something "improvisation" creates.  Obviously, if the DM doesn't know how to improvise, or is afraid of it, or is otherwise doubtful of the usefulness of improvisation, then he or she probably will fuck up an improvisational moment.  But this has everything to do with being unable to use the tool, and not some problem having to do with the tool itself.

As far as "death of the game," my apologies to ViP, but I really don't know what the fuck this means.  "Death IN the game" is one thing, but in no way can improvisation itself, or its practice, be assigned blame because some DM's game blows up just as improvisation happens to have been tried.  Again, this is a case of incompetence or using improvisation for the wrong reasons.  Metaphorically, either cutting yourself in the leg while using an axe, or using an axe to chop vegetables for a salad.  Neither makes the axe a poor tool.

In a later comment on the same post, ViP asks,

"... to make a stuffed toy talk to my kids, that I could do for hours with ease (I did). And you're right, when you're in character, whether it's a NASCAR driver teddy bear or a super spy alligator, you can get into a "diffuse" mode of thinking and rely on heuristics to instantly come out with answers that will delight the child.

"My rephrased question would then be: when you do that for some length of time with adults, is there a moment when you effectively stop playing D&D and start just doing some kind of structured improv?"

I had made the point that at a young age, typically before 36 months, children learn to "play-act" with their toys, making dolls talk to one another, this sort of thing.  This activity is the basis for human imaginative creation later in life, just as a writer creates dialogue between two fictional characters in a story, or an artist is able to convey thought and purpose to an audience without speech or even, sometimes, without the actor even moving.  The "creativeness" comes from essentially mocking real life by compartmentalising actual experiences into artistic boxes that can be presented to the audience.

For example; I take my real-life experiences of hiking through forests and use them to improvise descriptions of a forest the party is walking through.  I rely on my memories, so I don't need to write out these descriptions ahead of time; and I am a practiced speaker, so I rely on my ability to improvise the words I'll need to explain the look of the grass, the trees, the image of a deer in the distance, the sound of trees crashing somewhere half a mile away and so on.  This is the business of improvisation.  I already know these things SO WELL that I don't need to prep.

Likewise, because I've been a dungeon master for SO LONG, 42 and some years, I have hurled literally thousands of monsters at parties; I've presented scores of ambushes, adjudicated even more monster-party parleys, run the "we open the door and start shooting" scenario hundreds of times, and many other situations to boot.  As a result, choosing the number of monsters, deciding what they are, where they're going to stand, how they're going to organise themselves to fight, and so on, is a HUGE part of my considerable experience as a dungeon master.  Therefore, I don't need to plan a monster fight.  I don't need to make notes.  I can rely on making up something "new," simply because I've seen fights from every angle ... and if I don't happen to be creative today, I can rely on dredging up some old memory of a fight that the present players weren't at, and use that.

This same argument applies to drawing dungeons, deciding how people in a tavern are going to behave, how guards will react to players doing whatever, describing a village, describing a town, describing a dock, describing actions aboard ship, describing the behaviour of the local nobility and so on, and so forth, to the Nth degree.

This is why I can improvise so easily.  Because I've practiced.  I've trained.

Thus, no, I don't experience what ViP is concerned about.  I don't rely on heuristics to "please" a party, I rely on heuristics to recreate events that are immediately needed by the game's play.  My experience of a "diffuse" mode of thinking isn't random, it's something I've learned to AIM ... and as such, I never "stop playing D&D" because at no time do I ever forget that I AM playing D&D.  Every word out of my mouth is designed for that purpose.

"Structured" improv is not something that occurs spontaneously; unstructured improv does.  Structured improv is the sort that SERVES dungeons & dragons.  It's not an alternative to D&D.  It is D&D.

Allow me to address a point about training and about participation in the immediate moment.  Think of training as "preparation" for the game, and participation as "improvisation."  Now.  An ability to improvise is nice, but it's amateurish if all you know how to do is improvise.   You might be the strongest and bravest fireman in the house.  You might be able to knock in doors and wrestle hoses with the best of them.  You may have 20 years of experience as a fireman, so that you're terrific when a fire happens.

But guess what: no matter how good you are, no matter how much experience you have, no matter how many fires you've fought, you still have to train.  That's because you've got to keep fit; you've got to keep focused; you've got to maintain your edge ... and it's because no matter how many fires you've fought, the act of fighting a fire is so dangerous, so complex, so uncertain, that you won't know enough in one lifetime to be good enough at it.  So you keep training until you retire.  And you remember that it takes just one error to kill you.

Now, is training enough?  If you train and train, so that you know every inch of your equipment, you've built your body to moon, you've demonstrated that you can face any simulation with flying colours, no matter what it is ... does that mean you're done?  NO.  No, fact is, to be any use as a fireman, you've got to fight fires.  And not just one.  Hundreds and hundreds.  Moreover, no matter how much you train, if you can't improvise correctly DURING a fire, you're going to get yourself, and others, killed.  Because fires are uncertain.  They can do anything.  And no matter how many fires you've fought, the next fire can still do something so new and unseen that it can kill you ... just ... like ... that.

So even though I've DMed a LOT, I still prepare.  I still design and review rules, I still investigate into the background of things, I still look for new ideas and promote learning.  But that alone isn't enough.  I'm no more impressed by a DM who has played dozens of "simulated games" created by other people than a fireman would be of someone who has never fought an actual fire.  If you can't create a situation on the fly, in answer to something the players have said or done, then you're not a dungeon master.  You're a trainee.  You may be a very good trainee, but your skill-set is still lacking in a very, very big area.  You may want to pretend you don't need that skill-set. You can argue that your players don't notice the difference.  But as someone with that skill-set, and ALL the training you've had as well, I can tell you plainly that such arguments are pure bullshit.

Therefore, ViP is right in his last comment where he says there's a *huge* difference between spontaneously inventing detail and months-ahead planning.  Only, in fact, he's lost in trying to present these two things as opposing options of play.  They're not.  They're two sides of the same thing.  And so in answer, yes, every DM ought to be able to improvise, and do it well.  AND every DM ought to be constantly training to be a better DM.  Both during the game and outside it.

Is that always attainable?  No.  Not everyone can be a firefighter.  I can't.  And I'm okay with that.  As I see it, much of the community is make up of DMs who can't DM, who aren't okay with that, because they think DMing is wanting to do it, and not actually doing it.