QuoteYou just have to stop being scared of faking it and changing it and winging it and making it up as you go along.

I'm not afraid. I'was a heavy hip shooter in my Star Wars days. That just doesn't satisfy me anymore. And as anyone I played with can tell you, I'm the worlds best improvisator.

Quotehe Old-school answer is this: either they don't matter, or you make them up. If they don't matter to the players or the DM, then its not part of the adventure and you just ignore it.
If it matters to the DM, its only because its going to add another layer of adventure (lets say that the dragon has the maidens in his service to trade with some gnollish raiders... the whole point being that it means after you can throw some gnolls at the PCs).

This is where we are approaching the core of the problem:

tactics vs strategy

That's what I dig. Strategic decisions and conflicts. I just had the relevation that we had a very similiar discussion a while ago about FtA!, where I asked "What to do with the gold?"

It's the same thing.

So it's prep intensive for strategic gaming, but off the cuff runnable for the tactical element.

Case settled, thanks to all.

Quote from: RPGPunditIts the old "start from the village then create the empire" trick; basically, when you DO state something, it becomes part of the setting, and then if you're a good GM you'll write that down and keep it as something that is significant later on.  So instead of starting out with the whole campaign/setting determined from the beginning, you are filling in the gaps more and more as you go along, and the things that come up in the campaign itself are what shape the world.

You know, this is the first time I've read something by you with which I completely agree.

Settembrini - this and the post before it are very good ways to describe how I run my games.  If something catches the players' attention, I expand on it and develop it.  If something doesn't, I don't waste my time.

-O

QuoteThe main thing that differs, I think, and I don't know if its because you're German, or because of your "generation" is that you have a considerable less trust in your own ability to improvise and keep it fun without having it all laid down beforehand.

You have to believe in your power as a GM to make it fun. That's the first step, grasshopper.

Although I already stated I am very confident in my abilities and improvisational master of the flying guillotine, I sense deeper misunderstanding here:

My understanding was, that especially D&D cater(s/ed) to a mindset of wargaming. Wherein all challenges are laid out beforehand, and where the DM is more of a Referee than an entertainment machine. The minutiae of dungeon design, monster statting, treasure tables are all continously mocked by "ambience gamers" over here, as they are seen as anal retentive useless detail. Thex come to this conclusion because they are "wingin it" every time, and don't stat that much and don't give a damn for wargaming mindset.

Now you tell me, Classic D&D is the same?

Settembrini, you have a very legitimate approach to D&D.  You arrange all your assets and wait for the players to interact with them.  That's cool.  From everything I've read that's how Uncle Gary would want everyone to play.  Your approach and mine might be a generational difference.  I'm from a later generation of gamers than the original wargamer D&Ders.   I was one of the snot-nosed punks who got into the game in the late seventies and early eighties with the Basic set.  Making shit up on the fly was how we did everything when I started, because we lacked the organizational skills to do it the wargamer way.  Keep in mind I was dungeonmastering for years before I went through puberty!  My organizational skills are much better and some days I want to run a campaign using a more objective approach like you use, but I get a lot of enjoyment out of the organic by-the-seat-of-your-pants method.

Jeff, that was enlightening. So there are even differences in style for the olden days.

I self-studied the Way of the Wargamer (should I call it strategic roleplaying?), by wallowing in traveller material in the late nineties. This naturally lends itself to the strategic style, as well as strengthening the GM = Referee/Umpire  thinking.
I think, the GM is even called Referee in Traveller. So I naturally thought Classic D&D would be just the same, and Old School would be just the same.

Interesting.

So all that remains now from the Wargame approach in WotC D&D is the tactical element, pushed with dungeon tiles, minis, Tomes of Battle etc.
It is only myself, with the help of rules like those in Traveller, Harnmaster and Mechwarrior (RC has mass combat and dominion rules too), that bring in the strategic dimension.

Wow, productive thread, at least for me.

BTW, all point based character creation systems are character centered, and thereby non-Wargamey e.g. strategic in approach. Now I know and can verbalize why I dislike them. Real men roll up their characters. May GDWs eternal shadow fall upon us...

Quote from: SettembriniSo there are even differences in style for the olden days.

Oh, yeah.  I think you might be able to trace two schools of DMing thought to Gygax and Arneson.

For example, Robilar (Rob Kuntz's PC) and Mordenkainen (Gygax's GMPC/PC in Kuntz's game) once went on an adventure to the City of the Gods in Blackmoor.  Arneson looked at their charsheets and told them they have too many magic items, they could each pick 3 items and a potion of extra-healing.  According to Kuntz's recollection, no in-game justification was offered.  I'm pretty confident that in that same situation Gygax would have come up with an in-game way to cut down on the magic items.  Even something lame like "you wake up as the thieves are escaping with most of your stuff".

Another difference was PC lethality.  For the longest time Arneson intentionally avoided killing any PCs.  Richard Snider might still play his original guy.  Meanwhile Gygax was the original killer DM.  One of his players started the terrible tradition of playing the same basic character over and over.  Fred the Dwarf became Fred 2 became Fred 3, etc.

Mmm. But I understand Classic D&D was more Arnesony than Gygaxian? Gygax was the AD&D 1st promoter, wasn't he?

So should I better play AD&D 1st?

I think you're fine with either.  Gygax wrote B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, the seminal Basic D&D module for many folks.  AD&D is the original game and the most of the stuff in the supplements that Gygax edited for clarity and put in three hardbounds.  Basic is a parallel product but that doesn't make it Arneson's baby.  He had little direct involvement in the development of either game.

So why is there so much RC love, and so few 1st Edition Love?

Quote from: SettembriniSo why is there so much RC love, and so few 1st Edition Love?

I have much 1st edition... respect. I consider it the best edition of D&D period.

From me, that may be damning with faint praise

QuoteFrom me, that may be damning with faint praise

Elaborate!

Quote from: SettembriniElaborate!

As to why calling 1st edition may be faint praise?

Because to a large extend I don't like D&D in any of it versions. By my personal standards it is and has always been a rather poor design.

However...

I must state that it does what it does very well. And that it has always been the market leader in the rpg industry whatever the reason for that may be.

It was also my first RPG, one that I played solidly for three years- having great fun while doing so.

Which is why, even through I say I don't like the game- I still put in my Top Five games of all time list (found here: http://www.fandomlife.net/fln/article.cfm?ID=18)

Quote from: SettembriniSo why is there so much RC love, and so few 1st Edition Love?

You can find plenty of 1st edition love.  Dragonsfoot has plenty of 1E fans, for example.  RC has some cache on RPGnet and that's partially why you seem to see a lot of love for it.  One of the things the RC has going for it is that it is encased in amber, preserved for all time.  There's no 2nd edition RC that spoiled the love for some fans, no equivalent to Unearthed Arcana or Oriental Adventures that hangs like an albatross around the neck of the game.  In some ways the RC is the girl you had a crush on that moved away before you acted on your feelings.  It's idealized in some ways that you can't getaway with when you look at AD&D with all its history.  AD&D is more like a girl you actually lost your virginity to then had a bad break-up with.  I dunno.  I'm probably talking crazy at this point.

Quote from: jrientsI dunno.  I'm probably talking crazy at this point.

:shrug: It made sense to me at least, and was an interesting way of looking at/stating it.  If the board had that function, I'd have rep'd you for it.

Quote from: jrientsI dunno.  I'm probably talking crazy at this point.

When you start comparing rpgs to sex...

Let's just say that a bit of worry about you may be justified