We all make mistakes. Rules interpretation, forgetting to add a bonus, adding a bonus twice, etc. But as a GM we get to make bigger mistakes!
One of those is screwing up something in the game itself. This is more common in sandbox or homebrew because modules have the track to follow. But there's times when something just ain't right and we need to go back and fix it.
There's always a way to fix it. Part of it depends on how badly you screwed it up. Part of it depends on how your players feel about changes. Part of it depends on if you can fix it at all.
If it's something small you can sneak it in later, like you planned it all along. Forgot to drop that vital clue? They find it in another place. Gave them the wrong information? They figure out it was wrong information. Stuff like that they'll never notice and can make your game better. Or at least not making it any worse.
When it's something larger you have options. You can say you want to do a rewind (retcon) and start again from a place further back in the story. I feel there's a window on this one and it's one game session. If you're saying that the last three sessions don't count you're cheating your players. In my opinion. You can take a left turn in the narrative and send them to where you wanted them to go in the first place, effectively erasing the mistake.
When the mistake is a whopper then I feel you have no choice but to admit just how badly you screwed up and discuss how to proceed. An accidental TPK falls into this category. An intentional one does not. There may be no fixing this one and it may start a new game. Or it may end the current game.
Here's where I was going with this. Mistakes happen. Most of the time they can be fixed. But your players need to trust you. If you're having to correct yourself every few games then they're going to slowly lose faith in your ability to keep the narrative going. Some groups are fine with that and others are not. You should never be fine with making that many mistakes.
As the GM it's your place to keep a coherent narrative, no matter where the players take the game. If they go way out of what you had planned tell them you need to take a short break and figure out what to do. If they figure out how to defeat your BBEG in a few rounds of combat rather than the full game session then you'll need a backup plan.
A backup plan? Wassat? Who has time to make backup plans when there's this whole game to keep running?
You do.
I'm a big fan of notecards. Ask any player who's ever sat at my table and they'll tell you I freaking love my notecards. One thing I use them for is story hooks. Those come from everywhere. Take a TV show episode plotline that interests you. Take them from books. Listen to your players when they're trying to figure out a problem. Read adventures and modules and pick pieces that you want to use. Write down that idea that came to you while driving to work.
They don't have to be much more than a sentence or two. All you need is a hook to continue whatever you've got going or have to keep going. The BBEG is defeated? Well yes. And his chief adviser snuck out through the secret door in the back to continue the fight. There's your answer to that problem.
Stuck on what to do when you're in the middle of nowhere? Drop a five room dungeon adventure on them (read down the page for the basic format but also sign up for the newsletter for some premade ones). These can be caverns, an abandoned building, etc. They're a way to kill some time while you work out what they're going to encounter later.
The whole point of this post is to say it's OK to make mistakes. The trick is not doing them too often and working with your players to fix them when they do happen. Or fixing them so the players never know you made a mistake.
We're not perfect. We're running a world around the PCs. We want them to believe their decisions and actions matter. If you screw up then fix it in a way they still do.
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