Improvising Rooms & Building
We’ve all been there - Or more specifically nobody was planning on going here at all! Instead of going where you expected, your protagonists have gone in a wildly different direction or even soared ahead faster than your notes prepared for. Either way, now you need to come up with a new location immediately. Here are some tips to hopefully help:
1. Start out by going big and vague; start with the layout of the building. A good way to start is to use the layout of a building you have been to. If you are worried about dimensions, again try to judge rooms based on places you have visited. If you need something a little more concrete to build upon, consider using a grid/battlemap.
2. From there full the building in with rooms. What type of room do you need? Is it lower, middle, upper class? Thai mentioned maybe for a lower class room go for a medieval feel, but go into the victorian era for Nobles. Is it a bar, apartment complex, keep, etc.
3. Give a general purpose for the room. If you tell a player it appears to be a living room, their imagination is already at work filling it in. They know there will probably be some chairs, a coffee table, a bookshelf, etc. Adding in emotion/senses can help establish the atmosphere. If your players walk into a creepy place let them know their hair stands on end. If they entered a kitchen, maybe you can smell a freshly made meal. If they entered a kids room, the pain they would feel stepping on a lego will immeditely let them know where they are.
4. Work your way from the outside in. Starting with the walls, are there any doorways, windows, paintings, mirrors, kool-aid man sized holes etc.
5. One step smaller is to start describing anything that is in the room. Is there any furniture? If so, add a small tidbit to give the room some flavor. The room needs to be a bit spooky, add cobwebs to the chair, or a door off its hinges. Don't worry about filling the room with everything you can think of, just the big stuff. As a side note, make sure to give each item you describe the same amount of time. If you spend too much time describing a chair players might think it is special. In reality, its just a chair that you said an extra decriptor about.
6. At this point your players will have enough to get a feel for the room and will start interacting with it. As they do, you can add in the smaller stuff. Trash can, dog at their feet, decorative area rug, kid toys littered about.
How do you get your players to go someplace specific?
There isn't a good way. You can always try giving some smaller hints. Let them know a certain smell is wafting through the air coming from that direction, or the room you want them to go to is the only one with the door open or off its hinges. Be prepared for your players to miss subtle or obvious hints to investigate a certian place. It happens and it is ok. Just be prepared to switch things up a bit. If they were supposed to find a certain item there, you can always relocate it to a new place. If they were supposed to find a dead body, maybe in the next day or two the townspeople are whispering about a body that law enforcement found.
How do you make a room feel lived in?
Have food being prepared or already done by having a pie sitting on the windowsill, good smells coming through the house, steam fogging up a window.
Have a person doing something. People don't just activate when your characters walk into the room, they have their own lives. Walk into a shop, maybe the shopkeep is reading a book. Walk in to a bar and maybe they are cleaning up after a fight broke up.
other add ons -- Lit candles, pets, having a kid answer the door, give the place a noise level
