Quote from: Jack Spencer JrSo, if, following this, the ghost was in the south wing, then what happened while exploring the north wing for the last half hour?

I would assume things to heighten the suspence: noises from afar, glimpses of something out of the corner of your eye, etc. Otherwise it's just boring "nope, nothing there" which can easily occur when everything is mapped out in advance.

For the record, I tend to use a combination of the two techniques. I map most stuff out ahead of time if possible, but sometimes things are going slow or the group headed off on a tangent. In those cases I'm not above adding something in to pick up the pace, whether it was planned, theorized, or swiped from something the players said that I thought sounded cool.

James, it might be "nope, nothing there", or it could be clues or frightened patients, whatever would be there.

QuoteI tend to use a combination of the two techniques. I map most stuff out ahead of time if possible, but sometimes things are going slow or the group headed off on a tangent. In those cases I'm not above adding something in to pick up the pace, whether it was planned, theorized, or swiped from something the players said that I thought sounded cool.

Great, that works for you and your players. (It might work for me, too.) But you do see them as separate techniques, which is a prerequisite to a conversation about differing tastes and approaches.

Quote from: James McMurrayHow often does it happen that the group doesn't head towards where you've prepared for? I do something similar when I'm running, but without an episodic layout, and it seems like my group almost always heads where they're pointed. Not always, but usually.

Ha, every game man.

Though perhaps I need to go more into how I lay things out.  The hospital episode was something of an anomoly.  We don't normally do a lot in the way of exploring.  The action takes place on familiar sets - the english class, the football field, the graveyard, the local all ages club full of indie bands and vampires, and so on.  It's not a *place* that's paticularly important, it's events.

So let's say I plan on having a scene with the Slayer and pals encountering a new gang of vampires.  No, I don't plot out where they are in town and ask the PCs where they go and what they do.  I ask who's on patrol and set the scene.  

So where they head doesn't tend to be in a literal sense - they go north or south isn't incredibly relevent.  Hell, in my fictional town I don't know if you go north or south to get to the high school from the graveyard, or east or west, or whatever.  It's considered an unimportant detail.  I set the scene, if someone wants to go from point A to point B we cut from A to B, unless something happens along the way.

The metagame mechanics tend to keep this from being a problem.  By spending a point they can easily say that someone just happens to show up, or a cop drives by, or what have you.  I'm not controlling them because they are setting the scenes as well.

And headed where I prepare?  I don't think they've done that yet.  

QuoteIt is and it isn't. Obviously we can't make up fully formed worlds beforehand. But the approach to GMing can be more or less simulative of the experience of exploring a world, as opposed to emulating a fictional structure. E.g., by not making a map of the hospital, you fill in the blanks as necessary. What criteria do you use when asked to fill them in? Let's say that in the first half hour of play the PCs have explored the north wing of the hospital. Did they run into a ghost? No? Was it because the ghost encounter was "being saved" for the second half hour? In that case, what if they'd begun by exploring the south wing of the hospital--would they have run into the ghost then?

I don't write encounters, I set scenes.  They aren't reliant on location but on events.  The ghost made herself known when they entered.  I had it set up so that there was something going on with these ghosts.  Wherever the PCs wanted to explore there was something interesting for them to do or discover.  Once they had gotten enough of the pieces they figured out a way to stop the ghost, yay scoobies.

So overall, do I use changing landscapes?  Sometimes, but those landscapes aren't relevent.  No one really cares if the slayer's ex boyfriend reveals himself as a vampire outside the school or in the park.  What I don't use is changing events - I run the game dynamically as I can, using the antagonists to set off the players' conflicts, and deal with the themes the characters are exploring.

Someone wanting to micromanage all their plans, equipment, movement, and choices of daily minutae likely aren't going to enjoy my game much.  That's okay though, there's other games.  

Ah, cool. Given that setup I'd like to propose a variation of my question: how often do the events you've prepared not happen? How often is that becuase the players avoid it vs. how often is it because events just unfold that way?

I guess the overall question is: you've got some stuff prepared and through gameplay it becomes apparent what the general gist of that stuff is. How often do your players just refuse to do it? It seems to me that you've got a general idea of what will happen in the game. "The group meets vampires and come into conflict" or "they stumble across some ghosts and fix things" ro even "Joanie dumps Chachi and Chachi whines about it to the group, begging them to help him get her back." Having at times done something similar, I know how helkpful it is to have accomodating players. How accomodating are yours?

Quote from: MaddmanSo overall, do I use changing landscapes?  Sometimes, but those landscapes aren't relevent.  No one really cares if the slayer's ex boyfriend reveals himself as a vampire outside the school or in the park.  What I don't use is changing events - I run the game dynamically as I can, using the antagonists to set off the players' conflicts, and deal with the themes the characters are exploring.

Someone wanting to micromanage all their plans, equipment, movement, and choices of daily minutae likely aren't going to enjoy my game much.  That's okay though, there's other games.  

Yes, I respect that. I also want to quote something you wrote earlier,

QuoteIf they'd declined to go to the hospital, well the Big Bad would have converted a whole wing of patients into his undead demon army.

Within a game we can have all sorts of abstraction, particularly of location and detail, maybe time, too. I can't speak for Sett, but those aren't what I'd consider distinguishing points between some notional "story-creating" game and one where you "explore a fully-formed world". If the players have freedom to ignore the hospital with real consequences for doing so, well, that's the same thing I'd expect in an "explorative" game.

I think a real difference in style, if there is one, would have to be at the level of "framing" vs. "intervention". By "framing", I mean that in any RPG, there is some point, at least at the beginning of the campaign if not at the beginning of an episode or scenario, where somebody should ask what it is of interest that they hope to get out of the game. And then they should ensure either that it's already there (e.g. if picking an established setting) or they should put it in there. You want to hack & slay? Then there need to be monsters and enemies. Want to encounter ghosts and vampires? Then there need to be ghosts and vampires. Maybe the players trust the GM to just make an awesome setting. Even so, the GM will make it so: it doesn't just happen.

But what I mean by "intervention" is where the GM, or possibly someone else, takes action during the course of playing out whatever's been framed, to make it follow a certain course. For example if some evil plot is being formed, and the PCs are trying to stop it, I believe there are groups where the GM will delay or speed up the hatching of the plot for the sake of a dramatic arc, as opposed to the natural evolution of cause & effect. Or in the hospital example, some event could have been triggered only once the PCs had gathered all the clues.

I'm not sure I can tell whether you do that or not, and at what points. It's also possible that some of the differences in perspective could be ones of scale. "Framing" a scenario, for one group, maybe feel like "intervention in the middle of the campaign" to another.

Quote from: Jack Spencer JrSo, if, following this, the ghost was in the south wing, then what happened while exploring the north wing for the last half hour?

Hearing all the noise and commotion, the ghost went to check it out. After observing the group for awhile, he decided to cause a bit of merriment to amuse himself.

Quote from: James McMurrayAh, cool. Given that setup I'd like to propose a variation of my question: how often do the events you've prepared not happen? How often is that becuase the players avoid it vs. how often is it because events just unfold that way?

I guess the overall question is: you've got some stuff prepared and through gameplay it becomes apparent what the general gist of that stuff is. How often do your players just refuse to do it? It seems to me that you've got a general idea of what will happen in the game. "The group meets vampires and come into conflict" or "they stumble across some ghosts and fix things" ro even "Joanie dumps Chachi and Chachi whines about it to the group, begging them to help him get her back." Having at times done something similar, I know how helkpful it is to have accomodating players. How accomodating are yours?

They're pretty accomidating really.  And the initial setup only happens at the beginning of the session where the conflict is introduced - someone turned up dead, new gang of vamps in town, whatever.  After that I'll usually describe a couple of likely scenes for them exploring - I have a Watcher PC now for instance, and it's nice to have a couple articles already written up for when they do research.  But they don't always go those routes, and I'm more than willing to drop them.  And most times I have no resolution in mind at all - I don't design a climax and lead them to it, I present them with a problem and see how they solve it.

QuoteI think a real difference in style, if there is one, would have to be at the level of "framing" vs. "intervention". By "framing", I mean that in any RPG, there is some point, at least at the beginning of the campaign if not at the beginning of an episode or scenario, where somebody should ask what it is of interest that they hope to get out of the game. And then they should ensure either that it's already there (e.g. if picking an established setting) or they should put it in there. You want to hack & slay? Then there need to be monsters and enemies. Want to encounter ghosts and vampires? Then there need to be ghosts and vampires. Maybe the players trust the GM to just make an awesome setting. Even so, the GM will make it so: it doesn't just happen.

I would agree with that - you have to have buy-in from the players.  They have to be interested in playing the kinds of characters the game will feature.  In Buffy, that means the PCs are teenagers or people with a (non-creepy) reason to hang around them all day.  They will want to fight against monsters once they discover they exist, and they will wrestle with moral and personal issues at the same time.  If you aren't interested in that I don't see how the game would be fun.   It would be like a Rebellion-era Star Wars game where you didn't want to fight stormtroopers, or Exalted where you just wanted to be a regular guy.

QuoteBut what I mean by "intervention" is where the GM, or possibly someone else, takes action during the course of playing out whatever's been framed, to make it follow a certain course. For example if some evil plot is being formed, and the PCs are trying to stop it, I believe there are groups where the GM will delay or speed up the hatching of the plot for the sake of a dramatic arc, as opposed to the natural evolution of cause & effect. Or in the hospital example, some event could have been triggered only once the PCs had gathered all the clues.

I regularly speed up or slow down events for the sake of the dramatic arc, and yeah some may find that heavy handed.  The effect though is that the games are exciting and remembered fondly, so no one seems to mind.

Quote from: James McMurrayI would assume things to heighten the suspence: noises from afar, glimpses of something out of the corner of your eye, etc. Otherwise it's just boring "nope, nothing there" which can easily occur when everything is mapped out in advance.

So I guess what's important is that something does happen there that heightens suspense or builds mood, at least, so that the time spent searching the north wing is not  a wild goose chase and time wasted because that would have the opposite effect.

That's definitely important. If "pacing" means "saying 'thatere's nothing there' for two hours" the GM needs to be usurped.

Quote from: James McMurrayThat's definitely important. If "pacing" means "saying 'there's nothing there' for two hours" the GM needs to be usurped.

Or to be forced to play in his own game and see how long it takes before he starts wondering how many nails he could drive into his dick before passing out.