TheRPGSite

Hey gang, my second thread here and hopefully it will draw interest and discussion but less ire than my first one.

First off let me stress the title of the thread is Preplanned AND Spontaneous Worlds, not V.S. I am making no attempt to elevate one above the other, Im just interested in which GMs tend to use, how and why?

My first thread directed at GMs fudging on the rules lost its way somehow but some of the wayward posts were enlightening. There were instances were a GM that shuddered at the idea of not using an NPC's stats in a fight or meddling with the action taking place outside what the rules would indicate had no problem at all generating elements of the game/world on the fly, including combatants. I can see where someone might wonder what the difference is - fudging a bit with some NPC performance in order to enhance the storyline or making up some NPCs on the spot for a similar reason. Im sure there are points for and against this comparison but that's not really what this thread is directed at.

Those comments in the last thread revealed just how different GMs approach their world building. One guy says he runs entire campaigns from 3 sentences on a posty note. Another guy spends weeks and generates gigabytes of data before he holds his first session - and still feels unprepared!  Where do you stand and why?

Now granted there are some specifics that have to be considered here. For example, I would have no problem running a completely original fantasy environment from scratch as we play, after all it doesn't exist until I make it. Or perhaps a modern genre where I am already familiar with the setting. (even then I would probably flesh out some details, but that's just me.) But running something like I am now - a 1876 period gothic horror campaign in New Orleans and I would defy anybody (other than perhaps an author who just happens to have written a book on the subject) to 'wing' it to any fair degree and maintain at least some historical accuracy.

I have used both methods, depending on the type of game we are playing, although I must admit I prefer a game with some solid preplanning and research. I enjoy seeing the world laid out there and watching my players engage with it, instead of creating it a second before they experience it. Its interesting and exciting for me and provides a whole other level of enjoyment to see the world as it is with, or without the players, as if it existed before them and will no doubt outlast them. Which of course, it does.

As a brief example I have the city of New Orleans, circa 1876 - mapped and populated with about 100 locations and NPCs as well as a ton of notes on culture, government, music, art, race relations, commerce and so on. I have pictures and sketches prepared for a great many of these. I also have the surrounding parishes fleshed out to a lesser degree but complete with small communities, plantations, landmarks, plot seeds and the like. There are perhaps 20 or so major plot-hooks waiting the players with rough outlines where each might lead, including deviations based on their major choices. Lastly I have a couple dozen factual historical incidents which took place around that time that I can bring into play should the situation become appropriate. (Political extremists holding the city hall at gun point, a police strike, a boiler explosion on a steam boat at dock, a string of grizzly murders etc.) I look for the opportunity to present these and involve them to lend a feeling of realism to the characters experience there. (its pretty cool for them to go home and google an event that happened in the game and find that it really did occur, perhaps their characters WERE the cause, despite what Wikepedia says.)

This took me a couple of months to prepare before our first session and I would guess I spend 6-8 hours of prep time now between each 2-3 hour session to keep up and plan ahead. It may sound like work but I truly love this part of GMing. Creating a world then watching it come alive during play is a truly rewarding experience.

How do you approach your games?

I find world building a hobby in itself and will glad spend hours developing details of game worlds that my players may never see. I don't do a lot of specific prep for any given game session as no plan withstands contact with the PCs, but I do try to have a pretty good idea of who's where and what they are up to. That gives me a framework of solidly thought out world around which I can improvise in response to the players' actions.

I don't think I could run a "make it all up on the spot" game very well unless I had players who were skilled at improv and were commited to "yes, and..."

I do consider myself a fairly wing it style GM, but my comfort with that comes from knowing my worlds as well as I can.

Reposted from other thread and some addendums.

The crux is to build on what you create on the fly and once you know A is there then you know that probably B and C are there too. So the players have the party seek out the local militia captain for advice. So I as the DM can either say "No. There is no militia captain." or I can whip one up on the spot and roll from there. From that moment on this militia captain is set and rolling and I know know a few more things about the town. A: Theres a militia, and B: based on the captains personality, I know the general outlook of his men and the size of the militia based on the size of the town.

Or we take a step back further and Im creating the very town on the spot. Based on its size and location on the edge of civilization I might think theres a town militia. From there I can consider if they are organized or not, and if they are organized then likely theres a captain.

The pieces of the puzzle fall into place.

For some DMs this is immense fun for them as THEY dont know whats over the next hill either and theres a sense of exploration and discovery and world building.

Personally I run with a hybrid. I usually start with a seed of an idea and prep some basics. Often a town or a map of the region and then from there things grow during the session and whatever ideas inspired after session. If the PCs are local then I prep a little more with some "common knowledge and local history" bits of info everyone would know.

And lets be brutally to the point here. At various points the DM MUST make things up on the fly. Very few modules have everything hammerd down to the last nail in the welcome sign and piece of lint in the mayors pocket and sooner or later a player will venture into the uncharted and the DM has to wing it. Though I knew one DM that locked up at these decision gates and had to stop the session to parse it out.

One reason I dont plot out alot of the world as its more than a little useless most of the time unless it is somehow impacting the area the PCs are in. I'll work out those things is the players actually initiate something that requires it, or sets in motion something that will.

Scope of the campaign is another factor.
For when I ran Oriental Adventures I plotted out a loose map of the starting kingdom and its neighbors. The reason being that in OA you can have events like a visiting dignitary from a neighboring kingdom and other events. These can also help to shape my ideas on those kingdoms before and after depending on how things went. I didnt hammer down too many details, a name and that was about it. The rest developed during gameplay.

Or I might randomly generate a map and use that to base ideas off. Here is one early try.

(https://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic2037004.png)

From there I'd roll for habitations in each hex and that would give me some ideas to work with. But I could have just as easily drawn the map then only random gen habitations as hexes are explored. Or just winged it. Lots of ways to approach.

As noted before. A freeform approach is very much not easy for some DMs. You have to be able to both think on your feet AND take notes as you go or remember all those little details that are going to impact later. You are going to be mapping and noting alot at some point.

Planned campaigns have their own perks and downfalls.

The biggest perk is you have it all done and all you need do is refference it now and then as needed. How much is hammered out is up to the individual DM. But I've seen way too many burn out trying to build a whole world, with detailed kingdoms, cities, personalities and the works. Keep the scope tighter and expand from there. Rare will the PCs range outside a kingdoms worth of territory unless they have access to transportation that can cover lots of ground. How mobile you expect the PCs to be can dictate how much and where you want to flesh out. But once done its done and you dont need to worry about that now.

And the rest as mentioned probably run with various hybrids of some parts are planned, some are winged. The map is made but no points of interest or habitations. Or you have some local towns worked out. But no map. And so on.

And this doesnt even touch on the fact many DMs and players love game settings. Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and so on. This frees up the DM even more.

Theres a huge amount of variety.

I will readily admit that another major influence in my decision to preplan is the admittedly personal fear that I will 'get something wrong'.

Now, again, this isn't an issue if Im making up my own fantasy world or a vastly different version of our own earth or a far distant future or something. In these cases there is very little to 'get wrong' and with that fear removed a GM is free to run amok, and that can be a lot of fun.

When running a historical or established setting the situation is very different. Understanding players may never complain, nor perhaps even care but if I make a blunder when improvising and discover it later, it bothers me. A few of these embarrassing and aggravating goofs has left me a little gun shy and in response I try very very hard to avoid recurrences. (although its true enough you cant avoid them altogether but only strive to keep them to a minimum)

In the very first session of our current campaign I described the glow of early electric streetlights during a few scenes. It was a fair assumption they were in use by then but as it turned out, they were still using gas for another 20 years. A big deal? No, not really, I mentioned the change to my players and moved on. However, the goof got me reading and I discovered a number of other errors I had made in describing the city. Street cars, mooring practices of steam ships, music preferences and so on. I had done quite a bit of research on the areas that would be reflected in the game but I discovered a wealth of additional color detail that was needed to present the locale convincingly. I took a short break from the game, informed the players there might be some setting changes and again we moved on.

My point is, without this time and effort I would be presenting some strange altered reality and not New Orleans as I described it when we embarked on the campaign. I suppose that is an option. "The game takes place in New Orleans but not exactly the one from the history books" and then who cares, run automobiles in 1876, machineguns and diesel powered shipping but that's now what was planned, stated or intended. When players expect to play a historical game, I would think they expect some accuracy. Just as if they are playing a Vietnam war based campaign, or in Greyhawk or a Star Wars game, the GM has a sort of responsibility to present it accurately. How one does this on a wing and a prayer I cant imagine.

I start with a hex map, as above, then generate a few important places. I drop in the powers that be, their personages, and agendas. I solicit info from the players about THEIR PCs and places, and so on. Then, a lot of dropping in info. If I use a pre-made adventure, I just find a place to drop it in and it becomes part of the world. I don't generally weave everything whole cloth, though I am warming to the idea lately.

Quote from: DavetheLost;912417I find world building a hobby in itself and will glad spend hours developing details of game worlds that my players may never see. I don't do a lot of specific prep for any given game session as no plan withstands contact with the PCs, but I do try to have a pretty good idea of who's where and what they are up to. That gives me a framework of solidly thought out world around which I can improvise in response to the players' actions.

That's pretty much exactly the same as how I prefer to run things, though I can run a game from a general idea of the setting if need be.  Either way, my big secret[1] is that I make heavy use of random/procedural content while running a session, so that, when the players ask something I don't already know from my worldbuilding, I'm discovering the answer at the same time as the players rather than making it up from whole cloth based primarily on my personal whim of the moment.


[1] Not really a secret.  While I don't go out of my way to announce that I'm randomizing an answer, it's obvious enough that I've had players comment on how I have a table for everything.

Do you make your own random tables?  If not where did you find your "random tables of world building +10"

I cant say Ive ever actually created tables but I do use a random element in my games to a great degree, sometimes I wonder if I over do it. Regardless of the system I am using (currently Ubiquity) I keep a pair of percentile dice at hand and roll them constantly.

Is there a carriage available nearby?
How hard is it raining?
How busy is the saloon tonight?
How drunk is the guy the party is supposed to question?
How stingy is the ferryman when quoting a price?

etc.

I do this sort of thing constantly and at times I suppose I do create a little mental chart now that I think of it, with low rolls meaning one thing and higher rolls meaning something else.

"The crowd is getting pretty rowdy, roll for an event - low roll leans towards a fight breaking out, high roll meaning the police settle things down, middle rolls indicating a mix of both. A 67..hmm, looks like the cops show up and start running everybody off but a few don't like it and put up a fight."

For fantasy, I generally start with one village or city and map the local area, then add sketchy details about other areas, often just names and one-liners for the most distant. Things get added as needed, and for me, that usually involved randomization. Even the geography can be created randomly.

Arguably, a modern or historic setting should be handled differently, but really, you could handle it all with random tables and improv, as long as you are OK with a fictionalized version of the world: Anytown, USA is not too far from Bigopolis, in a modern setting, and historic European campaigns could be set in the Grand Duchy of Ersatz. There's even a benefit for historical campaigns in that you can use history as a source for news or rumors that make it to your village. You just need to get everyone to agree that you aren't going to worry about complete historical accuracy and not go apeshit that you aren't using period street maps or census data. If the players decide to head for a real-world city or get involved in a known historic event, they have to be aware that you'll keep the details internally consistent, but that you aren't going to fret about accuracy. You can do a quick search for prominent landmarks in a historic city and broad districts, then improvise around those, sort of as discussed in the thread about New York City as a sandbox.

Quote from: Headless;912510Do you make your own random tables?  If not where did you find your "random tables of world building +10"

It's really disorganized...

• I've got a couple hundred PDFs of various RPG products on the laptop I run games from, along with several files containing lists of page references for different tables.  These hardly ever get used because of the time it takes to find the right topic in one of the lists, find the book itself, open the file, and jump to the page.
• I have an ongoing on-again-off-again project of converting the various tables from various books into software; combining tables for similar things into single, larger tables; and revising them to reference other tables where applicable so that I can instantly generate something from complex sets of multiple tables, but that's progressing slowly because the actual process of retyping or copy/pasting the table contents is a lot of boring drudge work.
• So I mostly end up using existing online generators.  I started with Seventh Sanctum (http://www.seventhsanctum.com/) many years ago, then Chaotic Shiny (http://www.chaoticshiny.com/), then WizarDawn (http://wizardawn.and-mag.com/) and Abulafia (http://www.random-generator.com/index.php).  Lately, I'm moving more towards donjon (http://donjon.bin.sh/)'s generators, but I still use all of the others (and lots of smaller random-gen sites), too.  The only one that's really fallen out of use for me is Seventh Sanctum, and that's more because they alphabetize the results from most of their generators than because of the results themselves.
  

I frequently do also make my own tables from scratch while I'm world-building, but those tend to be very location-specific, so they're not that useful in other contexts.

Is there really that much of a perceived difference between a decision made by the GM in the best interests of the game and one pulled from a random chart?

The party needs to cross a river. It isn't clear just how big the river is or how hard it will be to cross.

A) The GM decides there is a nearby ford and easy crossing as the real meat of the current adventure lies ahead at the fortress, slowing the action now for a dangerous river crossing doesn't really add anything and he rules it out.

B) The GM rolls the dice and determines the crossing is an easy one, a nearby ford perhaps.

Result - GM: "One of the hired men at arms grew up around this area and reports he knows of a shallow ford a couple of miles down the river. Should make for an uneventful crossing."

Why is it so many frown on option A when the results are identical? The GM creates the world after all. Whats the difference if he placed a ford there a week ago when fleshing out the map or just now when the question arises? Its his world isn't it?

Quote from: rgrove0172;912688Why is it so many frown on option A when the results are identical? The GM creates the world after all. Whats the difference if he placed a ford there a week ago when fleshing out the map or just now when the question arises? Its his world isn't it?

I dont think anyone is speaking against one or the other.

The problem comes from when a DM rolls and then just makes something up anyhow because he never intended to use the roll.

Theres a simmilar thread over on BGG/RPGG with a DM explaining the wonders of... pregenning encounters and then dropping them in the players path no matter which way they go.

Both remove the players choice and turns the game into either an invisible railroad, or a story with a veneer or role playing.

Very different from say rolling on the terrain table and getting a river and then making a decision wether or not to use it. Does it fit the rest of the terrain? No? Then do you feel like coming up with a reason why theres a river here out of the blue. Yes? Then off you go and now youve got a potential adventure hook. If No. Then roll again, use whats closest on the table that makes sense, or just more of the same terrain, etc.

Its the how you got there and the intent. Ones an illusion the other is a decision.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912688Is there really that much of a perceived difference between a decision made by the GM in the best interests of the game and one pulled from a random chart?

The party needs to cross a river. It isn't clear just how big the river is or how hard it will be to cross.

A) The GM decides there is a nearby ford and easy crossing as the real meat of the current adventure lies ahead at the fortress, slowing the action now for a dangerous river crossing doesn't really add anything and he rules it out.

B) The GM rolls the dice and determines the crossing is an easy one, a nearby ford perhaps.

Result - GM: "One of the hired men at arms grew up around this area and reports he knows of a shallow ford a couple of miles down the river. Should make for an uneventful crossing."

Why is it so many frown on option A when the results are identical? The GM creates the world after all. Whats the difference if he placed a ford there a week ago when fleshing out the map or just now when the question arises? Its his world isn't it?

Does anyone actually frown on option A? I don't think anyone ever complains that improvised answers are worse than random rolls. I've seen the opposite, though.

Only time improvising an answer really becomes an issue is in two cases:

A) GMs may not like it because they want to be surprised, too, so they prefer to rely more on random rolls, only improvising where the answer is already obvious ("Of course there's a way to cross the river. How did the fortress get supplies from towns on this side of the river, if there wasn't?")

B) Players may not like it if the GM is obviously improvising with a bias against them, for example throwing up obstacles to the journey to the fortress just because it's fun to punish the players.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912412How do you approach your games?

A one-shot lets me see how players are using the characters they made in a sandbox setting that I allow the players to create stuff in. If the one-shot takes up a life of its own, as it were, I then do prep for another session that will have more detail in the setting and for the NPCs that will be needed.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912688Is there really that much of a perceived difference between a decision made by the GM in the best interests of the game and one pulled from a random chart?

Over on the other thread, you commented:

Quote from: rgrove0172;912348So when running a session from 3 sentences of prep you are creating the entire game in reaction to the players action on the spur of the moment. The entire world materializes on the gm's momentary whim.

For me, a big part of the reason for using procedural generation rather than pure improvisation is specifically because the entire world doesn't materialize based on my momentary whim, nor is it a direct reaction to the players' actions.  And that, to me, is a very big difference.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912688A) The GM decides there is a nearby ford and easy crossing as the real meat of the current adventure lies ahead at the fortress, slowing the action now for a dangerous river crossing doesn't really add anything and he rules it out.

I think this is really the primary difference between how you run games and how I do.  To me, the real meat of the game is in seeing what happens.  A dangerous river crossing is just as good as visiting the fortress.  Or losing a couple days while finding a ford and taking an alternate route.  Or deciding that the river is too dangerous so they go back to town and wait a week for it to go down before trying again.  Or going to look for a ford, finding a (randomly-generated) mill, falling in love with the miller's daughter and deciding to abandon the trip to the fortress in favor of staying with her.

I don't have an adventure that needs to be completed.  I don't have a story to tell.  I just have a world with a lot of things going on in it, then let the players decide what objectives they want to pursue within that world and we play the game to find out what happens as they attempt to do so.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912688The GM creates the world after all. Whats the difference if he placed a ford there a week ago when fleshing out the map or just now when the question arises?

It's the difference between "The ford is at this location.  If they PCs go there, then they can use the ford.  If they go somewhere else, they can't use the ford because it isn't there." and "No matter where the PCs go, that's where the ford will be.  Or maybe it won't, depending on the GM's mood when they get there."

Quote from: Omega;912690The problem comes from when a DM rolls and then just makes something up anyhow because he never intended to use the roll.

Theres a simmilar thread over on BGG/RPGG with a DM explaining the wonders of... pregenning encounters and then dropping them in the players path no matter which way they go.

Both remove the players choice and turns the game into either an invisible railroad, or a story with a veneer or role playing.

Yeah, that's the point I've been trying to get through to him ever since his first thread of RPGnet.

Quote from: talysman;912699Only time improvising an answer really becomes an issue is in two cases:

A) GMs may not like it because they want to be surprised, too, so they prefer to rely more on random rolls, only improvising where the answer is already obvious ("Of course there's a way to cross the river. How did the fortress get supplies from towns on this side of the river, if there wasn't?")

B) Players may not like it if the GM is obviously improvising with a bias against them, for example throwing up obstacles to the journey to the fortress just because it's fun to punish the players.

C) People (I've seen this from both players and GMs) may feel that it makes the game world feel more "real" when new elements are added by an impartial, objective source instead of a person sitting at the table making it up based on their momentary whim.

Over on the other thread, you commented:

I did indeed comment on the other side of the argument over on RPG.net. Im not so much guarding a personal preference as probing for why others hold to theirs. That may not come across at times, and perhaps in the middle of a discussion I may find myself defending a particular outlook but its not typically the purpose of such thread posed like this one.

falling in love with the miller's daughter and deciding to abandon the trip to the fortress in favor of staying with her.

I realize you were using a funny example but that in itself is one of the reasons a more scripted adventure approach is sometimes preferred. Players sometimes are distracted by unintentional details dropped by the GM and can completely run off course. Personally I would be pretty disappointed if the big cool quest to save the castle fell apart because the Cleric fell in love with the buxom miller's daughter. That was not the game we came to play. Im not saying there isn't a place for a completely sandbox, go where you want, kind of game -  only that everyone would have to be aware and approve. It would definitely be a deviation from the norm in my group.

No matter where the PCs go, that's where the ford will be

I don't particularly like this approach either, although in some situations I have used it when circumstances warranted. A critical encounter for example, like meeting an important NPC or finding a special item, and the risk of the players simply overlooking or going the wrong way compel me to make sure it occurs in any number of settings. Ive heard many GMs on RPG.net claim the same, moving a band of pirates for example to the desert as a band of nomads when the players decide not to take the boat. I don't have a problem with it actually, only that rarely is an encounter so important as to make it necessary.

I've been trying to get through to him ever since his first thread of RPGnet.

And I appreciate your input but you, and a few others, cant seem to help describing your style of GMing from a perceived superiority, which it clearly is not. Every published adventure I have read in 35 years of gaming essentially ignores many of  the arguments you list as critical to a successful game. Im not arguing that some players, perhaps most players crave that player fiat that seems so integral to some GM approaches, but some don't and place their priorities elsewhere.

People (I've seen this from both players and GMs) may feel that it makes the game world feel more "real" when new elements are added by an impartial, objective source instead of a person sitting at the table making it up based on their momentary whim.

And other people, myself included, feel it makes the game feel more "real" when new elements are placed by a dedicated and imaginative author/creator with a mind towards the entirety of the setting and an imagined, if not yet published, knowledge of what is there. I would prefer he have the time to think things through, compare notes, do a little research and create the world before I wander into it but if given the choice, personally Ill take his educated whim over a die roll that throws a village in front of me, when there could have just as easily been a ruin, a fort, a city or a cave.

Oops, double post, sorry

Quote from: rgrove0172;912688Why is it so many frown on option A when the results are identical?

I've never seen anyone frown on option A. In literally 25+ years of online and real-world discussion I have never seen that.

Quote from: Omega;912690The problem comes from when a DM rolls and then just makes something up anyhow because he never intended to use the roll.

Personally, I do draw a distinction between mechanical resolution and procedural content generators. For example, I roll on stocking tables for a hexmap to get inspiration. If I'm not inspired by the result, I don't feel bound by it. This is very different than fudging an action check in order to enforce a preconceived outcome (and thus negating the player's contribution to the session).

How did the players get to that river?  Random travel?  If you randomly come to a river walking through the wilderness, there's a pretty small chance it's fordable right there unless it's a very small river.  If they were walking along a path, then paths indicate use, and not many people are going to use a path going to an unfordable area of the river unless there was a ferry.  How you determine the fordability doesn't really matter as long as it works for the table.

However, the idea that the river doesn't matter, because the Evil Castle is the point of "this Quest" means the players are playing in your story, you've made the decision as to what's dramatically important for the players, and you're steering them towards that goal because for them to be distracted means to lose the opportunity of following along your cool story.

That's the danger of high prep.  You put so much work into determing everything that could happen, and the likelihood of what might happen, that you begin to plan what should happen.  It's going beyond worldbuilding to storytelling.

I probably do too much prep myself and have fallen into this trap.  I've come to the personal decision that it's more fun to see what path the characters take than it is to see if they succeed at finishing the path I place them on.  

When I ran The Enemy Within Campaign it got gloriously derailed in Epic fashion, and the Empire was torn apart by civil war, eventually to be saved, but nothing past Death on the Reik was even close to the storyline.  It was really my Baptism of Fire into both improvisational GMing and playing the world in reaction to the characters, not just authoring a world for the characters to react to.

At this point, my players know the future is never set.  They can fuck things up big time.  They might not be the only ones who can save the world, but they might be the right ones in the right place at the right time, and if things go south, events may take a turn for the worse.  They are people who can change things, people of consequence, but not literal literary protagonists.

Also remember if the PCs never made it to that Evil Castle, there's nothing to say that a different Evil Castle they visit two years later won't be somewhat similar.  Schrodinger's Ogre is lame, moving unused content around to save yourself preptime is just good for your sanity.  It's all about the intent.  I try to stay true to the setting and leave things where they belong to be discovered later...or not.  

Of course all this works for me and mine, YMMV.  Although I do abide by the old saying "You don't know what you don't know" and would suggest trying other methods.  Your favorite food is only your current favorite food, to be possibly replaced...unless you never try anything else.

Hey, please don't misunderstand. There is always a necessity for a little improve in even the most well laid out games. As we all know the most elegant of plans falls to pieces within 5 minutes of play. Create a cool tavern and the players will pick another to visit. Prepare an atmospheric scene at the North Gate and the will take the south etc. You have to be ready to improvise, move the details around a bit - and I totally get those of you that shy from doing so if it in some way affects the player's choice or free will. Moving the Northgate encounter is probably fine if its just a random encounter as they enter the city but if they purposely are trying to avoid something like the encounter, moving it in front of them is kind of shitty. Yep, got it.

But back to topic, I still have a hard time imagining running an entire session, including the creating of the setting, without some prep. Ive heard many GMs brag how they went to Con and ran a 4 hour D&D adventure with nothing but what they came up with in their head while in the car. This sort of claim just blows me away. Not that I cant come up with interesting and imaginative stuff on the fly, we all can, but to remain consistent in its presentation and not fall into the very trap some of you are warning about (creating detail simply to further the plot) would seem to be difficult.

In our current game a relatively short carriage trip out of New Orleans ended up in a mishap on a lonely stretch of bayou road during a storm. I had nothing but coons and gators in that area but decided on a whim to introduce a crazy old swamp hermit and his rickety old shack - a fun little encounter that really captured the atmosphere of the locale. I got to relate a spooky ghost story too which I brought back into play a couple of sessions later. This is all well and good and any GM worth his salt probably does it all the time. BUT....

If suddenly the party were to, mid session, tell me they decided to take the next ship to Charleston S.C., the session would probably be ending relatively quickly. I might generate the ship and get them started but no way Im going to improvise the trip out of the Gulf, possible landings along the way at various ports, random encounters like Federals looking for smugglers, pirates or what have you.. and much less Charleston it self, an entirely new massive setting for the game?

We are talking about a historical place here, not some fantasy locale... Some research would be necessary, maps pulled up, locations detailed, NPCs, plot hooks and so on. Probably a couple weeks or a month of work before we were able to continue. I consider that necessary, especially in a historical game.. but you may differ.

Just how would you improv Charleston S.C 1876 if you don't live there already or aren't a history major?

Quote from: Justin Alexander;912773Personally, I do draw a distinction between mechanical resolution and procedural content generators. For example, I roll on stocking tables for a hexmap to get inspiration. If I'm not inspired by the result, I don't feel bound by it. This is very different than fudging an action check in order to enforce a preconceived outcome (and thus negating the player's contribution to the session).

Exactly. I roll on the table with intent to use that roll somehow. Either to straight up get the encounter, or get an idea from something better suited near the rolls locale. As opposed to before rolling deciding orcs were going to attack the party and really just rolling to pretend it was all random.

Usually I look at the locale or whats been established before to help determine if a roll is used or not. Like its been established that this dungeon is an extensive orc lair. So for whatever reason I rolled an encounter and got... skeletons. From there I can either use the skeletons and build on that. The orcs have a witch doctor whos creating them, or the orcs opened a tomb, or maybee the skeletons are all er, dead... A mystery. Or I can glance at whats near the skeleton entry and use that if it fits better. Trogs? nah, Rats? hmm, that works, Go!

Quote from: rgrove0172;912792But back to topic, I still have a hard time imagining running an entire session, including the creating of the setting, without some prep. Ive heard many GMs brag how they went to Con and ran a 4 hour D&D adventure with nothing but what they came up with in their head while in the car. This sort of claim just blows me away. Not that I cant come up with interesting and imaginative stuff on the fly, we all can, but to remain consistent in its presentation and not fall into the very trap some of you are warning about (creating detail simply to further the plot) would seem to be difficult.

If suddenly the party were to, mid session, tell me they decided to take the next ship to Charleston S.C., the session would probably be ending relatively quickly. I might generate the ship and get them started but no way Im going to improvise the trip out of the Gulf, possible landings along the way at various ports, random encounters like Federals looking for smugglers, pirates or what have you.. and much less Charleston it self, an entirely new massive setting for the game?

We are talking about a historical place here, not some fantasy locale... Some research would be necessary, maps pulled up, locations detailed, NPCs, plot hooks and so on. Probably a couple weeks or a month of work before we were able to continue. I consider that necessary, especially in a historical game.. but you may differ.

Just how would you improve Charleston S.C 1876 if you don't live there already or aren't a history major?

1: Been there. Done that. Lots.

I wouldnt call it something to brag about though. Staying consistent is easy. Not going overboard is for some is very not easy. Again the key is to focus on whats relevant. Do you really need to be pondering if the thieves guild a city over is selling a magic +1 dagger today. If the PCs arent there now or going to be somehow made aware its there?

2: Why would you bog things down with every little port and wayside? What is the point of such minutia? Focus on A: finding a ship and acquiring a cabin on it. B: maybee a check for bad weather or a search, maybee not. C: the arrival.

quick example: In BX D&D the group travels from the 5 Shires to Wereskalot. Following the roads Im checking only once a day of travel and that is a 16% chance of something. Not necessarily hostile. In 6 days t ravel I got just one encounter. encounter roll was some Fire Salamanders. Reaction roll and... They just wave at the party and slither on their way.

3: Why would you need to research or get maps? Odds are the players know about as much about the locale as you do. Just describe it as any other town of the era instead of bogging down in the minutia. You can embellish later after some research. But in general its probably going to be lost on the party.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912688The GM creates the world after all.... It's his world isn't it?

I think that is the distinction being made. Some DMs allow the players to shape and make the world with their decisions.  Therefore, it is their world. I've done it both ways.

I have binders in my closet of game worlds I have made, of adventures written and that went undiscovered because the players just went a completely different direction, pulling at a thread I didn't even realize was loose. I've also written "adventure paths" that presented the illusion of choice, but railroaded the players into a story of my creation. Is one better than the other? I suppose it depends upon what your players are seeking. I've had some tell me flat out they just wanted to get to the next adventure. I've had some that let me know beyond a shadow of a doubt they want an open campaign world. Both versions can test your skills as a DM.

Having played in both, and having enjoyed both styles of campaign, I come down firmly in the camp of allowing the players to choose. I can honestly say the worst campaign I ever played in was one in which the characters had no affect whatsoever on the DMs pet meta-plot. That was the most hopeless, dreary, and pointless game ever. Seriously, Saturdays became a drudgery and something I no longer looked forward to. My wife and I both stopped playing for a while when that group disbanded.

As opposed to before rolling deciding orcs were going to attack the party and really just rolling to pretend it was all random.[/B]
Funny, I still detect a sneer when this tactic is used. I cannot believe Im the only GM in the world that has presented a planned plot element with the illusion of randomness.

PC is watching to see  if there is a lookout present. I know there is one but roll the dice to make it look as though there may not be. "Oops, yeah, looks like they have a guard posted." The perception of randomness adds something to the drama, like the guard's presence was a matter of bad luck than a plotting GM. That's the whole point. I mean, lets get real, the entire world is controlled by the GM, a little illusion of randomness lends in the portrayal of the place as a real functioning world. It doesn't detract from the player's enjoyment as long as it is handled right, in fact it adds to it.

Consider the PC group has just narrowly survived a major encounter and are headed for home, wounded and exhausted. The area they are in calls for a possible random encounter which results in a very nasty attack. As GM I decide to let it slide, the group was truly heroic, Im not going to let this bit of bad luck ravage them, but I like the bit of drama the threat presents. So I present the monsters but have them automatically fail to notice the hiding characters, rolling the dice for dramatic tension.  A Crime?

Why would you bog things down with every little port and wayside? What is the point of such minutia? Focus on A: finding a ship and acquiring a cabin on it. B: maybee a check for bad weather or a search, maybee not. C: the arrival.

 quick example: In BX D&D the group travels from the 5 Shires to Wereskalot. Following the roads Im checking only once a day of travel and that is a 16% chance of something. Not necessarily hostile. In 6 days t ravel I got just one encounter. encounter roll was some Fire Salamanders. Reaction roll and... They just wave at the party and slither on their way.

Hmm, perhaps we have hit on something very important here in our obvious disagreement. It appears from your statement above that we play a very different game. I get the feeling from your post that a ship passage from New Orleans to Charleston would be narrated in perhaps a sentence or two, barring any random encounters. The trip from the 5 Shires to Wereskalot, 6 days of travel, was handled in about 30 seconds even with the inclusion of a near encounter with the Salamanders.

Either of these trips would have taken our group an hour or perhaps longer to play through, and that's without any major encounters as you indicated. I state the following with no intent to criticize anyone else's style of play or shamelessly brag about my own but only to highlight a critical difference.

Whereas one GM might narrate the trip to Charleston this way...
"Your trip down river, through the Gulf and up the southeastern coast is generally uneventful. A few short stops for passengers and freight and a bit of squall running south of the Keys fail to break up the monotony of shipboard travel and you find you are thrilled to see your destination at last on the horizon."

Nothing wrong with that I suppose. In our game it would sound a bit different.

"You leave the docks at New Orleans and begin the tedious and slow winding course south towards the Gulf. The Mississippi is an unforgiving mistress and the pilot keeps the ship slow and steady, watching for warnings of sandbar shifts which rarely make even the most updated charts. You pass Woodville, St. Claire and then Bellaire but stop for a small but noisy load of pigs at Poverty Point. The trade agent assures you the stinking beasts will be off loaded to the men at Ft. Jackson, only a few hours ahead for which you and the other passengers are decidedly grateful. As morning passes to midday you come upon a elderly Frenchman, a businessman it would seem by his worn suit, sitting alone at the stern. He watches you from the corner of his eye whenever you come near but makes no gesture of greeting. Do you want to introduce yourself?"

What I am eluding to here is that we enjoy experiencing the period, the setting, the world. Rushing past the seemingly 'uninteresting' is something we may occasionally have to do but prefer not to. Even a dull trip around the Florida peninsula can be made interesting, encounters with fellow passengers, sights seen from the gunwale or short stays at any number of little ports along the way. These may have nothing to do with the main plot of the game, or perhaps they can made to link up somehow. That is up to me, the GM. I can choose to allow any number of these to provide distractions and perhaps detour the group's plan or I can maintain them as 'local color' only, serving to lend a little flare to an otherwise dull point in the game without derailing the direction the story is going. The GM has that control and a trusting player group benefits from it.

Why would you need to research or get maps? Odds are the players know about as much about the locale as you do.

I find that pretty narrow minded. Isnt it the responsibility of the GM to know his world? He knows the cultural practices of his Elves. He knows the military hierarchy of his Orcs. He knows where the border of Fermeldian intersects with the Black Valley Clans... why would he not know the actual layout and something of the nature of Charleston? Its the same thing.. a bit more difficult to come by admittedly but no less important to the integrity of the setting.

Having played in both, and having enjoyed both styles of campaign, I come down firmly in the camp of allowing the players to choose

I have played in both as well and have come to the opposite preference. In the 'Off the Cuff" games that I have participated in or generally watched (Admittedly I haven't actually played as a player in many) the freedom of choice, the sandbox approach, comes with a price. Quality of setting. NOW Your game might be different, I wouldn't know and wouldn't pretend to critique what I know nothing about but..in the games I witnessed the 'made up on the spot' worlds were somewhat vanilla, easily anticipated and bland. The elements of the setting tended towards the conventional, at times bordering on common place. Fat tavern keepers in filthy aprons drying mugs while their hot daughter watches from the kitchen door. You know what I mean? These stereotypes, and a million others like them after decades of gaming and popular related fiction, are hard to avoid.. hard even when sitting down to ponder them, more difficult when forced to pull them up in an instant.

Yes, Im sure some of you don't have the problem, that's awesome, really! I have seen many that do though and generally they are good GMs with active imaginations and a wealth of good ideas that only needed some time to put down properly. Creating original settings, interesting and individual NPCs, interwoven plot lines and the like, all at a moment's whim is a tough job. Try it in an established setting, one where you intend to uphold its integrity, and it becomes almost impossible.

How many of us could run a short 5 or 6 session campaign in the are of Bree, MiddleEarth - right now, no prep? Answer? All of us... now how many could do so and and keep a knowledgeable and passionate Tolkien fan happy? Introducing new story and setting elements in a way that don't conflict but rather blend seamlessly with the original work? Given some time and a little refresher reading and again I think we all could but right now?

I think the issue is actually in the expectation of the player rather than the approach of the GM. My players would balk if I were to blur a trip or the description of a setting. (Charleston spreads before you, another aging coastal city only now crawling its way out of the pastoral pre-Civil War years and towards the industrial revolution.) where as perhaps your group would be bored stiff by my elaborate handling of the same.

Oh, I see what I did there. I made that a rather ambiguous statement. When I said I come down firmly on the side of letting the players choose, I meant I let them decide which of the two options they want: either a DM-driven campaign, or a PC-driven campaign. Some people prefer one or the other, and I can enjoy DMing either way, so I let the players tell me what they expect as far as the campaign story. Sorry I wasn't more clear there!

Quote from: rgrove0172;912792But back to topic, I still have a hard time imagining running an entire session, including the creating of the setting, without some prep. Ive heard many GMs brag how they went to Con and ran a 4 hour D&D adventure with nothing but what they came up with in their head while in the car. This sort of claim just blows me away. Not that I cant come up with interesting and imaginative stuff on the fly, we all can, but to remain consistent in its presentation and not fall into the very trap some of you are warning about (creating detail simply to further the plot) would seem to be difficult.

Not that hard. "Prep", you have to keep in mind, does not necessarily mean "everything's written, math has been double-checked, all plot holes have been plugged, all descriptions fully realized, all details are original."

Start with a narrow example. Players say, "Let's find a tavern," and they are in an area that hasn't been detailed. No problem for most GMs, because they've probably drawn maps of taverns before (fantasy or historic setting, doesn't really matter.) Or used such maps, drawn by other people. Or have been in an actual tavern, bar, or pub and can just change the modern details to match the setting. Players say, "Let's sneak into the kitchen. What do we find?" Kitchen stuff, obviously. Even though you might not have written what's in that kitchen, because the kitchen didn't even exist until you improvised the tavern a few minutes ago, you have a good idea what would be in a kitchen, so you could just tell the players, and if they say they look for a skillet or a large pot, you would realize that's reasonable and just tell them they'd found it.

Now broaden the example to a town. You've done towns before. You've been to real towns. You can base any on-the-fly town off those, with a few tweaks to make them stand out. Even if you don't have a written example, your memory of other towns, real or imagined, is your prep.

And the same goes for a larger territory or even a world. Pretty much any GM or game designer creating a fully-detailed setting starts with examples, anyway. "This setting is a fictionalized Victorian London with Aztec architecture." Even if you've never been to London or done historical research, you've probably read Sherlock Holmes and seen a couple period movies, and you've probably seen National Geographic drawings of Aztec architecture, or seen Apocalypto. As long as none of the players are expecting extreme accuracy, you can improvise an entire setting from that, drawing social behavior and most technology from shows like Penny Dreadful, but describing buildings as pyramids intermixed with terraced brick buildings. Floor plans are adaptations of actual buildings you've been in, regardless of whether they are actually from either period.

You start with broad, sketchy ideas for your world, name your main country and a couple enemies and allies, add sketchy details for each of these, then zoom in to smaller and smaller areas, basically just adding two or three statements at each level, like "Fascist clerics run this town and have outlawed magic". You use those statements to improvise details when needed, and write them down as you play. Writing it down after you use it means you can maintain consistency.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912792Just how would you improv Charleston S.C 1876 if you don't live there already or aren't a history major?

Depends on what your group is expecting, what you'd be happy with, and how much you already know. Why did you pick the South in 1876 in the first place? Presumably, because it intrigued you. You must have seen something from the period, some typically buildings. Maybe you've only done research for New Orleans, but in a pinch, you can adapt that to other cities in the time period. As long as you don't have experts on Charleston in 1876, or as long as everyone understands you're aiming for detail but not necessarily accuracy, you can muddle through. And with a cell phone, laptop, or tablet and the internet, you could pull up a generic Gulf Coast map, pick a number out of your ass for how many stops seems reasonable, and have the ship stop in a couple ports. Look at the map to get the names, then Google each city as you reach it to get major landmarks. If the players explore, again, unless someone knows the area and is hardnosed about mistakes, just make up stuff that sounds typical of the period, based on the cities you've already detailed.

Maybe this won't fly with your group. But that's another point: you are thinking it's impossible for some guy to make up a setting in his head during a trip to a pick-up game with random people at a con because you could never do that with your own established group that expects a lot of historical accuracy. It's two different extremes.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912821As opposed to before rolling deciding orcs were going to attack the party and really just rolling to pretend it was all random.[/B]
Funny, I still detect a sneer when this tactic is used. I cannot believe Im the only GM in the world that has presented a planned plot element with the illusion of randomness.

You arent. As noted theres a whole thread on it over on BGG/RPGG.

QuoteHmm, perhaps we have hit on something very important here in our obvious disagreement. It appears from your statement above that we play a very different game. I get the feeling from your post that a ship passage from New Orleans to Charleston would be narrated in perhaps a sentence or two, barring any random encounters. The trip from the 5 Shires to Wereskalot, 6 days of travel, was handled in about 30 seconds even with the inclusion of a near encounter with the Salamanders.

Either of these trips would have taken our group an hour or perhaps longer to play through, and that's without any major encounters as you indicated. I state the following with no intent to criticize anyone else's style of play or shamelessly brag about my own but only to highlight a critical difference.

Whereas one GM might narrate the trip to Charleston this way...
"Your trip down river, through the Gulf and up the southeastern coast is generally uneventful. A few short stops for passengers and freight and a bit of squall running south of the Keys fail to break up the monotony of shipboard travel and you find you are thrilled to see your destination at last on the horizon."

Nothing wrong with that I suppose. In our game it would sound a bit different.

"You leave the docks at New Orleans and begin the tedious and slow winding course south towards the Gulf. The Mississippi is an unforgiving mistress and the pilot keeps the ship slow and steady, watching for warnings of sandbar shifts which rarely make even the most updated charts. You pass Woodville, St. Claire and then Bellaire but stop for a small but noisy load of pigs at Poverty Point. The trade agent assures you the stinking beasts will be off loaded to the men at Ft. Jackson, only a few hours ahead for which you and the other passengers are decidedly grateful. As morning passes to midday you come upon a elderly Frenchman, a businessman it would seem by his worn suit, sitting alone at the stern. He watches you from the corner of his eye whenever you come near but makes no gesture of greeting. Do you want to introduce yourself?"

What I am eluding to here is that we enjoy experiencing the period, the setting, the world.

Funny, I still detect a sneer when this tactic is used. :D
You guessed wrongly. I tend to describe the locales passed through if the players actually have their characters stop and look around. Or they are entering a region for the first time. Depending on how attentive or not the players are. Or how impatient they are to get from point A to point B. I dislike impatient players.

The whole trek from Five Shires to the destination took about half an hour as the players would set camp carefully each night. Whos on watch, when, etc. Once youve described one section of road and hill tends to look alot like the next section of road and hill. Till you get to the road and plains. Wheras a run by boat downriver to Specularum went along pretty quick after introductions and setting things up. It was uneventfull and not much to describe on the way. Arrival was a very different matter and it took a whole session just to get through the great city.

QuoteI find that pretty narrow minded. Isnt it the responsibility of the GM to know his world? He knows the cultural practices of his Elves. He knows the military hierarchy of his Orcs. He knows where the border of Fermeldian intersects with the Black Valley Clans... why would he not know the actual layout and something of the nature of Charleston? Its the same thing.. a bit more difficult to come by admittedly but no less important to the integrity of the setting.

And again thats bogging down in things that often arent needed of detailing untill the subject comes up. If the PCs are passing through the elven town on their way to beating up orcs elsewhere. Very little of the above might come into use. If any. More important to the moment would be the NPCs the party is interacting with. Their manner of dress, speech, and so on. If the players want to stop and delve into the local elven culture THEN worry about fleshing things out more.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912821As opposed to before rolling deciding orcs were going to attack the party and really just rolling to pretend it was all random.[/B]
Funny, I still detect a sneer when this tactic is used. I cannot believe Im the only GM in the world that has presented a planned plot element with the illusion of randomness.

PC is watching to see  if there is a lookout present. I know there is one but roll the dice to make it look as though there may not be. "Oops, yeah, looks like they have a guard posted." The perception of randomness adds something to the drama, like the guard's presence was a matter of bad luck than a plotting GM. That's the whole point. I mean, lets get real, the entire world is controlled by the GM, a little illusion of randomness lends in the portrayal of the place as a real functioning world. It doesn't detract from the player's enjoyment as long as it is handled right, in fact it adds to it.

Consider the PC group has just narrowly survived a major encounter and are headed for home, wounded and exhausted. The area they are in calls for a possible random encounter which results in a very nasty attack. As GM I decide to let it slide, the group was truly heroic, Im not going to let this bit of bad luck ravage them, but I like the bit of drama the threat presents. So I present the monsters but have them automatically fail to notice the hiding characters, rolling the dice for dramatic tension.  A Crime?

There's a difference between an Illusion of Randomness and an Illusion of Choice.  Any time the characters are making an opposed check, the capacity exists for the GM to fudge the result.  How do the players know what the NPC needed?  Most of the time they don't.  Some GMs play it straight always, some run on pure decision and the die roll is meaningless.  Everyone else is in the middle.  Illusion of Randomness (fudging) lets you ease off or drop the hammer and blame the dice.  

But, if you never intend for them to run into The Dragon of the Dales while roaming the Dales, why is it on your encounter chart?  Why is the notion of posting guards the sign of a "Cruel DM"?

Once you put yourself in the role of controlling pacing for the sake of what is dramatic, interesting, etc. to you then you're getting into the other kind of illusion - the Illusion of Choice (Schrodinger's etc).   Why did the PCs decide to head home wounded and exhausted without preparing themselves for the return journey.  Why not hole up?  Were they aware of the Big Nasty in the area?  If not, is that your fault, for not including some natural way for them to know, or their fault for not finding it out?

You removing the encounter nullified the consequences of their choice (in modern theory parlance, robbed them of their Agency).  Again, a reminder to the players ("You guys are not in too good a shape, are you sure you're in the condition to travel?) is almost always better than being the Invisible Hand fixing things for the characters. IMO, YMMV, etc.

BTW, as far as prep goes, I'm a prep whore and proud of it.  I can freestyle, but I'm much better when there's existing knowledge.  Just how my mind works.  I make a town or completely internalize one already outlined and blueprinted, like Hommlet, then I could riff new stuff for a whole weekend.  Give me a brand new town, it's much, much harder.  Not that I couldn't come up with something that would probably be sufficient if the players didn't get too crazy, but not up to the standards I set for myself as GM.

Also, my gut tells me a prepless campaign isn't going to be as good as a prepped one, but I've seen people pull some stunning sessions completely out of their colon.  Whether they can do that for 3 years of regular campaigning without the seams beginning to show is something else.  But I figure I'm kind of biased that way, so I'm willing to accept people's claims and not die on that hill.

Quote from: Harlock;912823Oh, I see what I did there. I made that a rather ambiguous statement. When I said I come down firmly on the side of letting the players choose, I meant I let them decide which of the two options they want: either a DM-driven campaign, or a PC-driven campaign. Some people prefer one or the other, and I can enjoy DMing either way, so I let the players tell me what they expect as far as the campaign story. Sorry I wasn't more clear there!

Oh, apologies, I completely misunderstood..and I applaud you on being open to both, based on the preference of your players. If I were given a firm request to alter my own approach by those I play with, I would certainly consider doing so.

Quote from: talysman;912828Not that hard. "Prep", you have to keep in mind, does not necessarily mean "everything's written, math has been double-checked, all plot holes have been plugged, all descriptions fully realized, all details are original."

Start with a narrow example. Players say, "Let's find a tavern," and they are in an area that hasn't been detailed. No problem for most GMs, because they've probably drawn maps of taverns before (fantasy or historic setting, doesn't really matter.) Or used such maps, drawn by other people. Or have been in an actual tavern, bar, or pub and can just change the modern details to match the setting. Players say, "Let's sneak into the kitchen. What do we find?" Kitchen stuff, obviously. Even though you might not have written what's in that kitchen, because the kitchen didn't even exist until you improvised the tavern a few minutes ago, you have a good idea what would be in a kitchen, so you could just tell the players, and if they say they look for a skillet or a large pot, you would realize that's reasonable and just tell them they'd found it.

Now broaden the example to a town. You've done towns before. You've been to real towns. You can base any on-the-fly town off those, with a few tweaks to make them stand out. Even if you don't have a written example, your memory of other towns, real or imagined, is your prep.

And the same goes for a larger territory or even a world. Pretty much any GM or game designer creating a fully-detailed setting starts with examples, anyway. "This setting is a fictionalized Victorian London with Aztec architecture." Even if you've never been to London or done historical research, you've probably read Sherlock Holmes and seen a couple period movies, and you've probably seen National Geographic drawings of Aztec architecture, or seen Apocalypto. As long as none of the players are expecting extreme accuracy, you can improvise an entire setting from that, drawing social behavior and most technology from shows like Penny Dreadful, but describing buildings as pyramids intermixed with terraced brick buildings. Floor plans are adaptations of actual buildings you've been in, regardless of whether they are actually from either period.

You start with broad, sketchy ideas for your world, name your main country and a couple enemies and allies, add sketchy details for each of these, then zoom in to smaller and smaller areas, basically just adding two or three statements at each level, like "Fascist clerics run this town and have outlawed magic". You use those statements to improvise details when needed, and write them down as you play. Writing it down after you use it means you can maintain consistency.



Depends on what your group is expecting, what you'd be happy with, and how much you already know. Why did you pick the South in 1876 in the first place? Presumably, because it intrigued you. You must have seen something from the period, some typically buildings. Maybe you've only done research for New Orleans, but in a pinch, you can adapt that to other cities in the time period. As long as you don't have experts on Charleston in 1876, or as long as everyone understands you're aiming for detail but not necessarily accuracy, you can muddle through. And with a cell phone, laptop, or tablet and the internet, you could pull up a generic Gulf Coast map, pick a number out of your ass for how many stops seems reasonable, and have the ship stop in a couple ports. Look at the map to get the names, then Google each city as you reach it to get major landmarks. If the players explore, again, unless someone knows the area and is hardnosed about mistakes, just make up stuff that sounds typical of the period, based on the cities you've already detailed.

Maybe this won't fly with your group. But that's another point: you are thinking it's impossible for some guy to make up a setting in his head during a trip to a pick-up game with random people at a con because you could never do that with your own established group that expects a lot of historical accuracy. It's two different extremes.

Im am sorry, I respect that you can play this way, I truly do but the very thought makes me cringe. I would be terrified to sit down at the gaming table with this as my GM plan. And your right, its because of the expectation of my players. They are not conventional roleplayers, having no experience in the hobby at all outside their relationship with me, and aren't interested in seeking any. These are avid readers and movie watchers only that carry an expectation that this odd 'game' we are playing will present something along those lines. Its a peculiar dynamic for a gaming group but its the only one I have had for some time.

I have sounded off on some of this 'gaming theory' business with a couple of them once or twice and gotten only confused and annoyed expressions in return. Laugh

Oh and as to why I chose to run a game in that era and that beginning location ... the lead player (My wife) read a few of Anne Rice's books and then accompanied me on vacation in the crescent city. Together with a years worth of related reading and TV specials on hauntings in the south she became enamored with the idea and encouraged me to run a period/gothic/horror/romance type of game. (Yeah, you should have seen my face) Ive wanted her to try a game for years and this was the first time she was interested. I had been without local players for more than a year (Group broke up after two key members passed away) and seized the chance to at least be gaming again, even if it was a little outside my GM box. We found another player in a family member and have been going strong for several months now.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912849Its a peculiar dynamic for a gaming group but its the only one I have had for some time.

I imagine that's a product of having to game in Big Spring. Unless you are willing to spend an hour and a half total to get to Midland and back, which would open up some options. I admit, I'd likely not be very willing to do that myself. I'm very lucky to have had a fairly stable gaming group for several years now consisting only of friends from church. We had one member move from here in San Angelo to North Dakota, but we now simply Skype him in. I do love technology. I also admit it can be a challenging group at times as well.

Some have different expectations, or perhaps it's more precise to say that they find different things more fun in a game. One expects combat, at least a few times per session. Another really likes political intrigue and intense social role-play. Striking a balance is difficult, but rewarding. And I think that is really the best practical answer to your original query. Play what and how you and your group prefer. No one else's opinion of your game really means a darn thing.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912412hopefully it will draw interest and discussion but less ire than my first one.

What was your first thread?

Link us to the delicious ire!

Quote from: rgrove0172;912412One guy says he runs entire campaigns from 3 sentences on a posty note. Another guy spends weeks and generates gigabytes of data before he holds his first session - and still feels unprepared!  Where do you stand and why?

I give the players 1 page (usually double sided, 14 point font, 1.5 spacing).

That's all I can trust them to read.

On my side of the screen, I will do weeks of work - but that's really fun for me.

I do lots of one shot events. For a 4 hour game, I often do 40 hours of prep from the adventure to the pre-gen PCs. But that's because convention one shots have to have a beginning, middle and end in the 4 hour time slot so I tighten things far more than I ever would for a home campaign where we always have next week to continue.

But for home campaigns, I know that 40 hours pre-prep for the campaign plus 4 hours prep for a 6-8 hour session is pretty normal for me IF I have the luxury of time.

As for "spontaneous" vs. "planned", its not fully accurate for me because when I do stuff "spontaneously" on the table I am calling upon 35+ years of GMing experience and gigabytes worth of dozens of campaigns for dozens of RPGs.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912412This took me a couple of months to prepare before our first session and I would guess I spend 6-8 hours of prep time now between each 2-3 hour session to keep up and plan ahead. It may sound like work but I truly love this part of GMing. Creating a world then watching it come alive during play is a truly rewarding experience.

It's not work if its fun and the players' appreciate it.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912412How do you approach your games?

From behind, so I can get x4 backstab damage.

Quote from: CRKrueger;912783However, the idea that the river doesn't matter, because the Evil Castle is the point of "this Quest" means the players are playing in your story, you've made the decision as to what's dramatically important for the players, and you're steering them towards that goal because for them to be distracted means to lose the opportunity of following along your cool story.

That's the danger of high prep.

I disagree that this is a danger of high prep. It's a danger of wanting a cool story, which can occur with little or no prep as easily as with high prep. I've seen GMs get fixated instantaneously on a cool story idea that they just improvised.

Where I think you have a point is that some people, who might be less wedded to using their cool story preparation, may still be taken in by the sunk cost fallacy. But it is a fallacy. You already spent the prep time. Whether you use it or not is no longer relevant after you've spent the time. You can't get that time back no matter what you do. (Now if you find yourself doing a lot of prep and seldom using it, and you don't enjoy the process of prep itself, then you might decide to do less prep in the future. But that still won't recover time already spent on prep.)

I do a whole lot of prep. But I'm not trying to tell or create a cool story. I'm trying to find out what happens next. Case in point: a couple years ago I did a bunch of preparation (10+ hours) for what I thought was going to be an exciting prison break in an old medieval castle where the upper floors of castle dunjon formed the prison. I found an actual castle, looked up floor plans, photos, and the terrain on Google earth then figured out the guards and guard captain, the watches, interior maps, etc. When it came time to play out the jail break, one of the players asked, "Where do they perform the execution?"

"Why do you ask," I said.

"Because if they do the executions in town, then we could skip breaking them out of prison by freeing the prisoner during transport."

I hadn't thought of that. Based on my knowledge of custom in the period, executions were held in a public place, so the transport idea was valid. It totally ignored the majority of my prep, but the players had a better plan than what I had imagined, so they did that. Maybe one day they will return to Lyon. And if they do maybe they will need to break in or out of the prison for some reason. But I really doubt that will occur. And I don't care.

One might then wonder, why I do a lot of prep if sometimes it never gets used. Well I like doing prep. World creation is fun. Research is interesting. I enjoy having a detailed world. I do prep mostly for my own enjoyment and secondarily because I need some prep to run a world in motion. I can run with little or no prep, I just choose not to.

QuoteI've come to the personal decision that it's more fun to see what path the characters take than it is to see if they succeed at finishing the path I place them on.  

I agree.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912849Oh and as to why I chose to run a game in that era and that beginning location ... the lead player (My wife) read a few of Anne Rice's books and then accompanied me on vacation in the crescent city. Together with a years worth of related reading and TV specials on hauntings in the south she became enamored with the idea and encouraged me to run a period/gothic/horror/romance type of game. (Yeah, you should have seen my face) Ive wanted her to try a game for years and this was the first time she was interested. I had been without local players for more than a year (Group broke up after two key members passed away) and seized the chance to at least be gaming again, even if it was a little outside my GM box. We found another player in a family member and have been going strong for several months now.

And then the other player decided to skip New Orleans and head to Charleston? How disappointed was your wife?

Quote from: Bren;912875I disagree that this is a danger of high prep. It's a danger of wanting a cool story, which can occur with little or no prep as easily as with high prep. I've seen GMs get fixated instantaneously on a cool story idea that they just improvised.

Point taken, I just mean that as a GM is designing things, they also are possibly imagining or gaming out what might occur.  Knowing your players, it's sometimes easy to think of what *might* happen.  The more prep you do, the more of these *mights* pop into your head, and some of them might be so cool you become invested in them.  

So the more prep you do, the more possible outcomes you randomly think of.
The more possible outcomes you randomly think of, the greater a chance you may see some as preferable.
Seeing some as preferable leads to the temptation to use the Invisible Hand to steer things that way.

If you don't do any prep, you won't have that problem.

But you are correct, the problem is not the prep, the problem is becoming invested in any particular possible cool outcome.  It's just that the more prep you do, the more possible outcomes get gamed out in your mind.  At least in mine. :D

Quote from: rgrove0172;912767falling in love with the miller's daughter and deciding to abandon the trip to the fortress in favor of staying with her.

I realize you were using a funny example but that in itself is one of the reasons a more scripted adventure approach is sometimes preferred. Players sometimes are distracted by unintentional details dropped by the GM and can completely run off course. Personally I would be pretty disappointed if the big cool quest to save the castle fell apart because the Cleric fell in love with the buxom miller's daughter. That was not the game we came to play. Im not saying there isn't a place for a completely sandbox, go where you want, kind of game -  only that everyone would have to be aware and approve. It would definitely be a deviation from the norm in my group.

Yes and no.  I mean, yes, it was an obviously extreme example included in part for humor value, but it's also something that I honestly would be perfectly happy to see play out in an actual game.  "The players are free to ignore the castle and marry the miller's daughter" is the game I came to play, and I do my best to ensure that everyone else at the table is aware and approving of this.

I figured it would deviate from your group's norms, which is why it appeared in a paragraph about "I think this is the difference between how you run RPGs and how I run them".

Quote from: rgrove0172;912767I've been trying to get through to him ever since his first thread of RPGnet.

And I appreciate your input but you, and a few others, cant seem to help describing your style of GMing from a perceived superiority, which it clearly is not.

I can't speak for anyone else, of course, but that's not my intention.  The only thing that I mean to present as superior is the practice of dealing with your players honestly and eschewing illusionism.  High- vs. low-prep, freeform sandboxes vs. preplanned big cool quests, detailed vs. vague maps, all of that is matters of taste, so run your game however you want and, if your group enjoys it, I have no argument with that, just be honest with them about how you're running it.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912767People (I've seen this from both players and GMs) may feel that it makes the game world feel more "real" when new elements are added by an impartial, objective source instead of a person sitting at the table making it up based on their momentary whim.

And other people, myself included, feel it makes the game feel more "real" when new elements are placed by a dedicated and imaginative author/creator with a mind towards the entirety of the setting and an imagined, if not yet published, knowledge of what is there.  I would prefer he have the time to think things through, compare notes, do a little research and create the world before I wander into it but if given the choice, personally Ill take his educated whim over a die roll that throws a village in front of me, when there could have just as easily been a ruin, a fort, a city or a cave.

Yep, some people definitely do have the opposite preference to mine.  I was just adding that to talysman's list of reasons for why people might prefer random generation over pure GM improvisation.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912792But back to topic, I still have a hard time imagining running an entire session, including the creating of the setting, without some prep.
...
We are talking about a historical place here, not some fantasy locale... Some research would be necessary, maps pulled up, locations detailed, NPCs, plot hooks and so on. Probably a couple weeks or a month of work before we were able to continue. I consider that necessary, especially in a historical game.. but you may differ.

You're trying to compare two completely different things here.  Attempting to present a historically-accurate version of a real place is the antithesis of "running an entire session, including the creating of the setting, without some prep."  If you're using an existing setting, then you aren't creating the setting on the fly.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912792Just how would you improv Charleston S.C 1876 if you don't live there already or aren't a history major?

I wouldn't.  :p  If I'm going to run a truly zero-prep game, then I'm going to be creating a new setting on the fly, or perhaps extending an existing (real or fictional) setting that I already know very well.  I'm not going to try to present a historically-accurate version of a real place because, as you've said, that's basically impossible to do without some degree of prep/research.

Plus historical settings really aren't my thing in the first place, unless I'm running Ars Magica.  I tend to prefer running my own homebrew settings.

Prior to moving my previous group had a habit of showing up on weekends for console gaming and me getting asked out of the blue to run an RPG with absolutely zero prep. Sometimes Id say no as I was just drawing a blank or not in the mood. Other times it would be 8 hour sessions of winging it. Since they kept asking me to do that... I must be doing something right.

At one convention, the last CF East, I got asked to emergency GM a Dragon Storm session as the GM was in the hospital. No notes, no prep, nada.
What I did was to ask each player to describe themselves and highlight a bit of their history or past exploits. Two human Dragons, Brother-sister team that was fairly standard but they had secured a rare cure for the Tox. A dwarven Gargoyle on the lam from her family who wanted to marry her off. One standard elven Unicorn who was a shaman. One ebony elf Pegasus who was a disposesed noble with a magic sword taken off a necro. And one clutzy elven Werewolf. That gave me a few points of interest to play off of for a four hour session that ended up running six as the table wasnt required and the players wanted to keep going.

Just so I can be sure Im understood.,..

I have a real respect for improve gaming and have run a few myself. I ran a completely off-the-cuff Zombie Apocalypse game (Fantasy Flight's End of the World) and made it a point to not plan anything. Of course that genre is almost made for that sort of thing as we used our own current town/state as the setting and my career gave me a some insight as to how such an event might unfold. Still, it was absolute improv and I used a ton of random rolls to help flesh out the detail and action.

I think there is a place for such gaming, but I also believe there is a place where - at least for me - it just doesn't belong. Some games I take seriously, some I do not. Where those I take seriously are concerned I just cant imagine being that 'loosey goosey". A one shot or short campaign in a completely custom setting or a very familiar one? Sure.. no problem. A planned epic campaign in a huge, in depth and detailed fantasy world... errr no.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912992I think there is a place for such gaming, but I also believe there is a place where - at least for me - it just doesn't belong. Some games I take seriously, some I do not. Where those I take seriously are concerned I just cant imagine being that 'loosey goosey". A one shot or short campaign in a completely custom setting or a very familiar one? Sure.. no problem.

A planned epic campaign in a huge, in depth and detailed fantasy world... errr no.

1: Note the factor here. "For you." But for a rare few "of us" it is absurdly easy. And "for others" it is effectively impossible. "Everyone else" falls somewhere in between. Or even "those outside" the range. Like GMs who only play published settings and published modules.

2: Been there. DMed that too. The current Spelljammer campaign has been effectively EIGHT YEARS of loosey goosey winging it. 4-5 hour long sessions once a week. The whole campaign settings grown from little more than a sentence of an idea into a sprawling epic.

Quote from: nDervish;912923Yes and no.  I mean, yes, it was an obviously extreme example included in part for humor value, but it's also something that I honestly would be perfectly happy to see play out in an actual game.  "The players are free to ignore the castle and marry the miller's daughter" is the game I came to play, and I do my best to ensure that everyone else at the table is aware and approving of this.

I figured it would deviate from your group's norms, which is why it appeared in a paragraph about "I think this is the difference between how you run RPGs and how I run them".



I can't speak for anyone else, of course, but that's not my intention.  The only thing that I mean to present as superior is the practice of dealing with your players honestly and eschewing illusionism.  High- vs. low-prep, freeform sandboxes vs. preplanned big cool quests, detailed vs. vague maps, all of that is matters of taste, so run your game however you want and, if your group enjoys it, I have no argument with that, just be honest with them about how you're running it.



Yep, some people definitely do have the opposite preference to mine.  I was just adding that to talysman's list of reasons for why people might prefer random generation over pure GM improvisation.



You're trying to compare two completely different things here.  Attempting to present a historically-accurate version of a real place is the antithesis of "running an entire session, including the creating of the setting, without some prep."  If you're using an existing setting, then you aren't creating the setting on the fly.



I wouldn't.  :p  If I'm going to run a truly zero-prep game, then I'm going to be creating a new setting on the fly, or perhaps extending an existing (real or fictional) setting that I already know very well.  I'm not going to try to present a historically-accurate version of a real place because, as you've said, that's basically impossible to do without some degree of prep/research.

Plus historical settings really aren't my thing in the first place, unless I'm running Ars Magica.  I tend to prefer running my own homebrew settings.

Laugh, so half the time you and are arguing about apples and oranges! I suppose I should have been specific about the nature of the particular campaign.

Quote from: rgrove0172;913107Laugh, so half the time you and are arguing about apples and oranges! I suppose I should have been specific about the nature of the particular campaign.

Might have helped. Even in the same post you were sometimes talking about a typical fantasy RPG with orcs and what not set in some invented world (whether the GMs invention or some published author's) and other times you were talking about a fairly strict and accurate historical setting like Charleston, South Carolina in a specific year in the 19th century.

Quote from: Bren;913129Might have helped. Even in the same post you were sometimes talking about a typical fantasy RPG with orcs and what not set in some invented world (whether the GMs invention or some published author's) and other times you were talking about a fairly strict and accurate historical setting like Charleston, South Carolina in a specific year in the 19th century.

Yes, I may treat them close to the same but I realized the big difference in how others might. Should have caught on earlier.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912412Now granted there are some specifics that have to be considered here. For example, I would have no problem running a completely original fantasy environment from scratch as we play, after all it doesn't exist until I make it. Or perhaps a modern genre where I am already familiar with the setting. (even then I would probably flesh out some details, but that's just me.) But running something like I am now - a 1876 period gothic horror campaign in New Orleans and I would defy anybody (other than perhaps an author who just happens to have written a book on the subject) to 'wing' it to any fair degree and maintain at least some historical accuracy.

Certainly my every group of players has their own preferences, but every group with which I have run in a historical period was happy with pastiche and did not care about absolute historical fidelity.  I can absolutely run a pastiche 1870s New Orleans off the top of my head, which is all I will ever need.

Quote from: Old One Eye;913832Certainly my every group of players has their own preferences, but every group with which I have run in a historical period was happy with pastiche and did not care about absolute historical fidelity.  I can absolutely run a pastiche 1870s New Orleans off the top of my head, which is all I will ever need.

If by pastiche you mean making up 90% fiction surrounding maybe 10% you are familiar with from a movie or two and an Anne Rice novel - sure, I get that. My group would pick up on the disparities pretty quick though. They aren't history majors but they are history buffs, otherwise they wouldn't care for historical games.

One thing I did last session that I've never done is plop a large sheet of drawing paper down, with a big square representing the big keep of base town, and a drawing of the river passing nearby, gave my players drawing implements and said, "put down what you think should be here." We included places previously mentioned, as well as some suggestions about what might have been built over the months since the town began to grow (which was when they arrived). There were a few places I asked them to put in, for purposes of metaplot and behind the scenes threads (a new temple, a dedicated garrison and drill field).  It was an interesting experience. They even conceived and designed the lord's heraldry, which I hadn't bothered to think about. We also rolled a couple of random buildings, and ended up with a second, much lower quality tavern, and a seedy brothel. It was a lot more fun than. I thought it would be, and it eliminated the work for me. The look of the place is interesting as well. They did some things I would not have considered.

I want pictures.

Quote from: Bren;913891I want pictures.

I don't think you'd want to see our "artwork." Unless you like really poorly drawn blocks and lines. The lord's shield is interesting though. We used a random name generator at campaign start some months ago and stuck with what we got--Gruntorm Drunkseeker. Oh, he is a horrible man. An oblivious racist (he treated the elf fighter as an illiterate ["and you can draw your X here"] stereotypes the halfling ["hey there, shorty--guess I better watch my wallet, eh? Nyark, nyark"] and, evidently, something of a pederast ("I'm going to marry one of Lord Onaii's daughters. I hope it's not the 12-year old, because I'd hate to wait a year."]) and so on.). They've become business partners with the guy, because he's in debt, and trying desperately to get some monied partners, which the PCs are. Before that, he was just a dick to them.

Well, anyway, the Players (who now really hate this guy) decided the dude's symbol is a white boars head with an overflowing mug under it on a blue field.

I'm sorta hoping they amass enough coin to supplant him. Playng him is fun, but also, a bit gross.

(And I don't know why I tangented there)