Improv's Role at the Table
The discussion of improvisation and its role at the table continues to fester in my mind, especially after my post on Improv, Play Culture, and Authority. I've only scratched the surface in that relationship, but I want to focus on improv's role at the table when it's a real-time table vs. a play-by-post (pbp) one.
Play-By-Post Prep
I've been running a play-by-post of Blades in the Dark with Deep Cuts since early February. There are only 2 players, and we agreed on posting at least once a day. In prepartion, I read the “How I Do Play By Post" and took as much of it to heart as I could.
All of us played in Over/Under which was how we met, so we were familiar with OOC (out-of-character) and RP (roleplay) channels. Planning and rolls occur in OOC and any clarifying questions about the world, the scene, etc. Everything else is in RP If you're unfamiliar with Blades in the Dark (BitD), the gameplay cycles through 3 phases. Free Play, Score, and Downtime. The book does a decent-ish job at supporting the GM, though I think there could be more. Regardless, the breakdown of the phases of play provides discrete chunks of the type of play expected. Free Play is information gathering and setting the stage for the Score. Scores are scenarios where the players must accomplish x, y, and z without becoming too stressed or getting caught. Downtime is the aftermath of the Score.
There's quite a bit of negotiation with Blades given that any time a player does something, there's an immediate cost/it changes the situation. One could say it's difficult to run in a PBP setting, but I've discovered with the right level of expectations and candid conversations, it's doable!
Table Prep
Conversely, I'm also running an online open table of Cloud Empress. There's an ongoing series of GM Play Reports that I've been writing which you can read here to get a feel for my prep in that regard.
The most notable things are I do minimal prep in those sessions! I roll for weather, perhaps an encounter, and check back to my notes on what last happened. If the party is about to enter a dungeon or similar interior space, I need to spend a little more time with it. Beyond that, I'm at the whim of the party and explore what they want to do/let them discuss.
Inquiry-Based Improv
For the sake of this post, improvisation will be anything that is not pre-planned at the table. The concept is certainly present in both a PBP and real-time table, but its role is what varies.
With a PBP table, there's a limited number of times you're going to post. It's something you establish in your Session 0. This means when the GM is providing the opening scene for a scenario, they won't write a single sentence or two. Instead, there will be enough information for players to take actions without needing to make additional queries.
Conversely, a real-time table allows you to provide a sentence or two and then give space for the players to ask questions and seek details. This banter is much harder to get in PBP due to posting frequency and GM prep. Here, the GM doesn't necessarily need to follow their own prep, or have prep at all, but can instead rely on their players to add details and create connection where there was none. Let's use an example and apply it to both tables.
Opening Scene: The party is trapped inside a haunted house on Halloween, and the front door has been barred by a bully your group hates.
If I were doing a play-by-post, I would present the information like this:
The party hears the door close behind them as they explore the Foyer. Squatters appear to have taken residence from the ash in the fireplace and the trash strewn about the rotting couch in the living room. A grandfather clock strikes midnight, rattling the group. Ahead lies a hallway to the kitchen, while a coat closet sits to the party’s right. Water drips into the coat closet. Water damage can be seen throughout the house. The smell of sewage and rot overwhelms the senses. Nothing but moonlight lights the area.
If I were at a real-time table, I would say this:
The party hears the door close behind them with a lock. There’s no one else in the house but your group. A dilapidated coat closet sits to your right, and a living room to your left with a couch and fireplace. Down the hallway in front of you, there's a kitchen through it's dark.
Both examples start the same, but in a PBP, sufficient context and information needs to be supplied to give players something to actionably do while offline. Meanwhile, at the real-time table, depending on what players ask about, I can tease out those details with each question asked. This is where the improv comes into play. Based on what players ask me, how I answer will change the scene, often dramatically. This is true of PBP, but I have hours to craft a response, adding as much detail as I want or need. That difference feels less like improv and more like prep, which I already don’t do much of! In addition to the improv that feels like prep, I can spend time giving NPCs backgrounds and a richer story of why and how they are where they are. The dialogue the PCs say is specific and intentional and maybe even sometimes good.
It could be argued that comparing a FitD game with a Panic Engine hexcrawl doesn't make much sense, but for how I GM, I don’t believe it makes much difference. I've discovered that I love to banter with my table to create the space together even if it’s not explicitly expected or stated in the rules. I did run into some friction points with my PBP group when a player said they needed clear stakes to be set before taking an action whereas I expected questions from the players to get more details. I needed to shift my mindset a little bit in the exposition I’m providing my players with, especially in relation to posting frequency.
Running a PBP is fulfilling and provides me a space to discover my GM style and examine it in a way I could not previously. With a transcript of all the GM decisions, story exposition, and rulings laid out, it’s a gold mine for analysis. I’d be curious if other PBP GMs feel similar and their relationship with improv.