What just happened?

We’ve all been there. You painstakingly plan and craft a magnificent puzzle, encounter, trap or whatever it may be and then come the heroes. Instead of playing thoughtfully, they murder hobo the whole town! Now you have to pivot, so what do you do?

Improvise

Yes and… That’s what improvising is all about. Just say yes this happened and because of that it caused (blank) reaction. If you are good at it, just try to go with the flow. It can end up creating some very memorable moments. If things go more awry, at least it was already messed up in the first place.

Backup plan

For those inevitable times when the party drastically messes things up, you need to have a backup plan. Maybe even more than one. What is most important about this back up plan is that it helps to right the hero’s course. Something to get them back on their way to where they need to go. There are a few ways you can do this.

Extra NPC

Create another NPC that can lead them to the location they need to go or to the BBEG. If they kill the original NPC with the information, just have the new one relay that information to the heroes. It could even be an NPC just passing by that drops the information in the form of a note. It could even be an overheard conversation in the bar. You could also just make it so a local, already created NPC, has the information.

trail

For some extra fun make a trail that leads them where they need to go. They could find footsteps or carriage tracks that least them through a forest. Have random encounters in the forest where the enemies give up information upon being attacked. Or maybe they have items from the person or place the heroes are looking for on them. Have them do Investigation or Perception checks to find more tracks or maybe torn pieces of clothing. They could do a history check to know information about where an enemy would hide or where a building could be located.

Map

I would, personally, try something more on the creative side first, but if all else fails throw them a bone. Give them a map. Again this could be something someone drops or maybe they find it lying on a table. You could always create a situation where they have to steal it from someone as well. You just need something that tells the party where they need to go.

Encounters

Another way your game can get messed up is with encounters. Sometimes the whole party doesn’t show, or maybe they bring a guest. When encounters get messed up, you just need to scale. Add monsters if the encounter is too easy or take them away when it’s too hard. Most TTRPGS have some kind of counter balancing scale for parties in the GM handbook. If not, or if they are home brewed monsters, start by lowering lair actions, legendary attacks, and multi attack. If a spell is too powerful only use it once or save it and see how the encounter goes, then use it if the monsters start loosing. When in doubt just enter the info into an ai, like Claude, and ask it to lower the encounter rating to the current party level.

side quest

When you are not sure how to fix what they did, don’t. Send them on a side quest if they mess up the main story. This will give you some extra time, even if it is just until the next session, to figure out how to undo the mess. This way everyone still gets to play.

take a moment

It’s just what it says. Take a moment to clear your head. Go outside for some air, grab a snack, or even go to the bathroom. Just do something to take yourself away from the situation. Allow what happened to sink in a little and calm. Then try to figure out how to get themselves out of the mess they created.

be honest

Just tell them the truth. It’s happened to me, we accidentally released a BBEG who turned half the town into zombies. Oops! Our dm told us he didn’t know what to do because it was so unexpected. We all understood. It honestly was no big deal and it’s kind of funny. Now our bard tells tales of how he single handedly killed 150 zombies, no it was not that many, the number just goes up every time he tells the story. Obviously the honesty thing only applies to DMs in this case.

do you have a plan?

It sucks when plans derail. You have to get back on track somehow. Use one of these suggestions or a combination of them to return from that What just happened moment. I’m sure your game will be running smoothly in no time. As always, I’m here to help!