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Improvisation isn’t limited to just NPCs, dungeons, and towns. It applies to whole worlds, and even campaign settings. Generally, just start small, the let it grow bit by bit as you go along with your players.

Of course, the key point here is that you’re making it up while you’re in the middle of DMing. Start with a small idea, like maybe a tavern (yes, it’s stereotypical     ), then just make up the rest of the world as players go to and fro.

So first, you’ll start out with the tavern. Then, when the PCs step outside, make up what they see. Perhaps you make up one section of a town. Or perhaps it’s a section of a city district. It’s totally up to you, and what you feel like doing at that particular moment. But, do keep in mind to at least let it make some sense.

Eventually, the PCs will want to travel out of town. At that point, it’s time to start making up what’s on the outskirts. Perhaps you’ll start adding in names for other towns for the PCs to travel to. There’s also ruins, caves, and whatnot you can stick here and there, at your whim, for your PCs to adventure in.

And hey, before you know it, you’ll have a whole world in front of you!

A Good, Recent Example
I recently played in a little test campaign that my girlfriend wanted to do, just to have a bit of practice with DMing. She had DMed a campaign once before, but it had been a while.

So, she had me and one other player start off in a prison. His character got out of his cell first, and explored the prison a bit. Eventually, he helped my character get out of his cell, and thus we both were looking for a way to escape. Neither of us had a clue why we were there. (And yes, this does sound very similar to the usual beginning of each game in one of my favorite game series. )

Eventually, we did find a way out, though it was a long fall to the ocean. Not only that, but we were being pelted by arrows as well (yay for Mage Armor!). Then we simply swam as far away as possible. Fortunately, we did see a land mass in the distance ahead, but it took a very long time to even reach it.

In fact, as we kept on swimming, and eventually becoming exhausted, my character ended up being attacked by something. He grappled with it (yes, I actually used those dreaded grapple rules. They’re not as bad as what those WotC announcers made it out to be during the announcement of 4th Ed.) , tore the creature in half, and tried to keep on swimming. However, he eventually passed out (his companion had passed out before the attack, if I recall).

Sometime later, both our characters were dangling from a fishing net, apparently inadvertently rescued by a fishing ship. We were given passage to their home town, as well as food and drink. My character did need healing though, as the creature that attacked him injected a pretty nasty poison into him.

Eventually, we landed at the docks, made our way to the town healer (who was a bit outside of town), and were taken care of. However, the healer also slipped our characters something to knock us out. The session ended with both our characters passed out.

None of that was Pre-Planned
Even though it may look like that example could have easily been planned ahead of time, none of it was. Also, that was a rather brief description of what happened and what the PCs saw. There were more details that we had gotten that I left out just for the sake of expediency.

Suffice it to say, I think it’s rather impressive the amount of stuff that was made up. The details of the prison, the guards, the magic within the prison, the state of the land outside the prison, the lore concerning that body of water we swam in, the creature that attacked, etc. It was all made up right there during the session. My girlfriend didn’t prepare for it at all.

If you’ve never given this a try before, I suggest that you do. Perhaps do it for a one-shot campaign/adventure. Or if you’re going to be starting a new campaign, use this method with it.

One suggestion I want to make though: take notes! It always helps to be consistent with your campaigns.

Now, I’m curious. How many of you have improvised an entire campaign like this? Or if not a campaign, what about an adventure? How did it go? What did your players think? Please leave a comment and share your experience!