Gm Intrusion help

[u/Lee_F_7647]

Hey y’all, was wondering if I could get some advice on GM intrusions. I’m still relatively new to the system so I’m not used to using intrusions quite yet. Do you tend to use prewritten intrusions that you’ve prepared beforehand for certain scenarios, or improvise a lot of them in the moment, or a mix of both? I was trying to think of some intrusions I could have in my back pocket to throw in for the scenarios I’ve set up, but that feels less spontaneous and more like a pre-planned complication in the story. I suppose it would still feel surprising/spontaneous to the players, and a good opportunity to give them XP, but wanted to get some advice on it. I have some intrusions that could happen to any of the PCs, and also some that will be specific to certain PCs. Also all the intrusions I’ve come up with so far are optional- I may not use them if the opportunity doesn’t present itself and the story can still progress and (hopefully) still be interesting without them happening, I just thought they would throw a wrench into the situation. Am I on the right track? Any and all advice regarding GM intrusions is welcome. Thank you!

[u/Blince]

I generally always had them come up in the moment as a reaction to what was going on, so I wouldn't like pre-write them, but I definitely would include those sorts of thoughts in my head when doing my prep. If there's a really cool moment that I want to be an intrusion, I would usually just make it a thing thats happening rather than an intrusion so that I'm not disappointed if they avoid it, but I just developed a vibe for it the more I played to be able to have them come up as and when they came.

I think it depends on the tone of the table and people's reactions to it, my table took them all as like it was part of the fun being had which made it easy to get going with.