Pantsers vs. Plotters: Being an Agile GM

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In our August Wizard of Adventure Q&A Zoom, the topic of plotting came up. Afterwards, fellow GM Loren sent me this note about different ways of plotting a book:

Quick note on “pantsers and planners”: I’m sure I’ve seen it elsewhere, but James Scott Bell starts his “Write You Novel from the Middle” with discussion on “pantsers and plotters” and then provides advice for both types of writers at different points in the book.

Not sure how helpful the writing from the middle idea is in terms of getting a novel written, because I’ve never done that, but the book did change the way I break movies down when analyzing story structure.

Similarly, your writing on 5 Room Dungeons has me seeing EPSBR (Entrance, Puzzle, Setback, Battle, Revelation) in nearly every movie, especially science fiction and adventure films. 5RD is also observable in individual scenes or sequences of scenes.

Becoming aware of this and keeping a pertinent example in mind during lessons/play has helped immensely with improvising/riffing on the consequences of student/player actions and keeping the narrative moving forward.

After receiving this note, I became curious about the referenced book. To learn more, I asked Zorgon, or AI in Campaign Logger to summarize the section Loren spoke of.

And lo! It turns out we are all smarter than we thought. Because the AI’s analysis matches a lot of what we talk about together in this newsletter.

What I’ve done below, then, is to share what Zorgon told me and add comments to our corollary GM tools, tips, and techniques we’ve talked about before.

Terms & Definitions

Here is what I asked of mighty Zorgon:

Johnn: Hello Zorgon. James Scott Bell’s book “Write Your Novel from the Middle” discusses at the start “pantsers and plotters” and then provides advice for both types of writers. Could you please summarize his thoughts and advice in this matter?

Zorgon: Ah, greetings, fellow GM! Bell’s perspective on “pantsers” and “plotters” offers excellent insights that can be translated perfectly into our roleplaying games.

Firstly, let’s define the terms:

Pantsers: These are the writers (or game masters) who prefer to discover the story as they go along, without much pre-planning. They essentially write (or run their games) by the seat of their pants.

Plotters: These individuals plan out their stories and plot points extensively before they start writing or bringing those plots to life in a campaign.

Johnn: I’ll interrupt Zorgon’s reply here with a couple of thoughts.

Pantsers equate to GMs who improvise most of their plots and sessions. Pantsers are also often bottom-up world builders who start with a dot on the map and then play to discover and develop more of the world.

Plotter GMs, in the extreme, run scripted campaigns and adventures. A lot of WotC D&D adventure are done in this fashion.

I worry a lot about Plotter game masters, because they must spend so much energy during sessions keeping the PCs on-script or madly course-correcting when players ruin the plot with unexpected choices.

Pantser GMs who don’t plot enough also worry me. I’ve played under such GMs in the past, and their stories soon became incoherent with many Logic Bombs, too many open Loops, and other, stuff that stopped making sense.

I could also see those GMs always knotting their eyebrows as they worked hard during sessions to improvise, because they had no strong foundation to riff off of.

I prefer a middle ground method, which I call Plotlines in the Wizard of Adventure trainings. In under an hour, you can have a complete and wonderful plot in your hands that’ll give you great details (especially for clues and foreshadowing) and confidence at the table.

Your Plotline also gives you maximum agility for when players inevitably surprise you. Perhaps they go murder hobo on you. Or they think of something super-creative you didn’t.

When this happens, it’s takes only about 15 minutes between sessions to update your Plotline using my methods to reflect the new bucket of mess the PCs have poured all over themselves.

This gives us the best of both Plotter and Pantser worlds.

(If you are a platinum Wizard of Adventure, or invested in my Wizard of Story online course, you can find the complete tutorial for developing, GMing, and updating Plotlines in agile fashion here in Module II: Campaign Plotline.)

Pantser Advice

Let’s return to what Zorgon has to say about Pantsers:

Zorgon: Bell acknowledges these two styles and provides tailored advice for each.

For Pantsers:

Embrace Discovery

Bell encourages pantsers to explore characters and worlds organically. This means you can start your RPG sessions with just a basic premise and let player actions shape the direction of your campaign.

Johnn: Excellent approach. We’ve got a few tools in our GM Toolbox to help with this, including:

Sandcrawls & Hexcrawls
TreasureCrawls
West Marches Campaigns
“Leave blanks on the map” ala Dungeon World
Campaign Logger for taking detailed session notes to mine later
Mining Character Backstories
Spiral World-Building
Prepare to Improvise

By not over-plotting, we can make rapid adjustments.

No matter what the characters do or how the dice roll, our plans can’t be “ruined” because they easily adapt to any outcomes.

However, as Bell advises, we also begin with a basic premise (and a bit more that I call Foundations) to serve as helpful guidance that translates well to our GMing needs.

Find Your Key Turning Point Midway

Zorgon: Even if you’re discovering as you go, identify a central moment or turning point in your story around which everything else will pivot.

In an RPG context, this could be a major revelation about the primary antagonist or an event that drastically changes the world.

Johnn: In Joseph Campbell’s monomyth theory, also often called The Hero’s Journey, he incorporates this at multiple points, including:

The Call to Adventure
Crossing the Return Threshold
Apostasis
Meeting with the Goddess
Road of Trials

Drawing on our GM Toolbox once more, we have some great ways to accomplish this:

5 Room Dungeon: Room III Complication or Setback
5 Room Dungeon: Room IV: Climactic Conflict
5 Room Dungeon: Room V Reward and Revelation
Story Stakes
Twists
Dice!

Why wait for but a single moment of drama in our campaigns? Instead, we can aim to have surprises every adventure, high stakes in each encounter, surprising twists every session, and shocking outcomes with any die roll.

Plotter Advice

Ok, let’s see what tips Zorgon has for GMs who make detailed plots and plans.

Zorgon:

Structure is Your Friend – Use It Well: Make use of structured planning tools like outlines or story maps for your campaigns — know where every major arc begins and ends.

Pinpoint Milestone Moments Early On: Plan significant events or encounters beforehand but be flexible enough so players don’t feel railroaded.

Midpoint Mirror Moment: Like Pantsers, Plotters should also escalate their narrative around a memorable midpoint crisis — perhaps halfway through your campaign season where everything hangs in balance.

Middle Ground Advice

Finally, I asked Zorgon for any tips for GMs who, like me, prefer to combine the best of both approaches. I’ve taken Zorgon’s reply, tweak it, and then added a couple tips of my own:

Add a Mirror Moment

Bell proposes focusing on what he calls ‘The Mirror Moment.’ It’s a critical point roughly halfway through any narrative journey where main characters reflect deeply upon themselves, often reassessing who they are versus who they need/are fated to become before plunging into final conflicts.

Implementing this idea works wonderfully mid-campaign too! Think epic moment reflecting inner turmoil — a leader questioning his purpose during direct confrontation; maybe simple adventurers crossing paths realizing potent destiny thrust upon them reshaping entire quest focus onward?

Create Situation-Based Problems, Not Solutions

Design campaigns, adventures, and encounters with clear problems and conflicts. These should be clear to you and players.

Do not predetermine how players should solve their problems or the problems of the world. Let player creativity drive solutions That’s their fun.

Build a Living World Framework

Develop major NPCs with clear motivations, goals, or instincts.

Use factions to map out relationships and conflicts.

And create timeline of events that would occur without PC intervention. What will happen if the characters do nothing or the players fail? Those are key Stakes.

Try Using Story Nodes Instead of Rails

Plot key dramatic moments as possibilities instead of outcomes your plots and adventures must depend on. Ensure your campaign or adventure logic does not depend on specific outcomes or decisions from players and their characters.

Connect your plot points flexibly, allowing multiple paths. This harkens back to my advice, “The GM takes care of the What and lets players worry about the How.”

Also be willing to move, modify or discard nodes based on player choices. This is where my between-session agile Plotline method comes to the fore.

Maintain a Story Thread Document

I call this The Story So Far and I make it its own page in Campaign Logger.

In The Story So Far, I summarize what’s happened in the campaign to date. And I update this story after each session.

I also keep a list of potential plot hooks or “Loopy Plans” in my lingo. I mine these from character backgrounds, my Session Logs of gameplay notes, and from doing spiral or “agile” world-building based on consequences of encounters.

Having all this in one doc also gives me a quick way to put my campaign into mental RAM just before a prep session or game session.

Create Modular Content

This is my “Legos” or 3 Line Blocks method in action. Quickly design NPCs, Locations, Treasure, Seeds, and Hooks you can drag and drop into play on a moment’s notice.

I also create Back Pocket Encounters created in such as way that I can instantly conjure them into play when I need.

Whew! This is a lot of information and details.

The pantser and plotter approaches to GMing are not mutually exclusive, and I believe it’s best to find a balance between the two.

Hopefully some of the tips today help.

Cheers,
Johnn
roleplayingtips.com
https://discord.gg/6MxTRAqQ76
Have more fun at every game!

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