I DM for my brother’s four kids. Their ages are 14, 13, 12, and 10. I made everything up in the world, so it’s not an official campaign. They’re asking questions that I didn’t even think that they’d ask. What am I supposed to do in this situation? I try to answer their questions, but it’s kinda tricky.
They ask questions like (if they’re in the woods) "Can I go 20 miles from here in search of a village?", "May I roll perception, then run back to the previous village?", "What would happen if I drank the water from the creek?"…
The players are asking questions about the world that I have not prepared an answer for – how do you handle these in game?
Best Answer
Redirect questions seeking information by asking what the character is doing to learn that information.
Here is how I would respond to each of the example questions you give:
It is my experience that newer players are often less comfortable with roleplaying and try to gain information as the player instead of as the character. When DMing for newer players, it helps to directly encourage the players to lean into rule 2 of How to Play the game:
When your players ask questions from the players perspective, redirect that question back at them by encouraging them to describe what they are doing from the character's perspective.
Obviously, if you're faced with describing something about your world you haven't prepared for, you will have to improvise (NautArch's answer gives guidance on improvisation), but in my experience it is much easier to improvise facts about your world in the context of the player's actions, rather than just making up trivia.
Setting expectations: What are you trying to achieve?
In a comment, user Dan W mentioned an excellent question DMs can use to help their players, a question I ask all the time:
Once we have gotten our players in the frame of mind of asking questions and describing actions from the perspective of the characters, it is often helpful to ask this question so that you and the player can be on the same page about their intent for their actions. Dan W gave an excellent example about setting expectations:
In this situation, the DM is in the dark about the character's motivation for climbing on the roof, and as a result, they have misaligned expectations about the outcome of climbing on the roof. This is easily resolved by asking "What are you trying to achieve?":
In this situation, now the player and the DM have aligned their expectations about the outcome of climbing on the roof, and the player is now better equipped to make a decision on their turn, and they won't be disappointed that things didn't turn out the way they thought they would.