How to be a good player… in an improvisational TTRPG

This post is inspired by the blogwagon summons on the Prismatic Wasteland blog. Since I’ve been reading and thinking about improvisation recently, I decided to write up some suggestions for being a good player in an improvisational tabletop role-playing game. What do I mean by an “improvisational” tabletop role-playing game? It’s one where there isn’t a pre-planned story or sequence of events. Instead, the game master (GM) may set up antagonists with goals and other challenges, but doesn’t decide in advance how these will be resolved or what will happen next. The GM will determine how the situation evolves based on what the player characters decide to do. Games can vary in how improvisational they are. In some cases, the GM will have a loosely planned story but will improvise at a smaller scale. At the high end of the improvisation scale, the GM isn’t planning ahead at all. For some players, improvisational games seem natural (perhaps more natural than other types of games). But other…

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