I was just writing about this on my blog. I have a horrible time writing commercial adventures because my own prep is so minimalist, and because I regard even the hint of the breath of a railroad with loathing. I typically run adventures with less than an index card of scribbled notes.

-clash

Quote from: The Butcher;559151I realize that I could have statted the strangers and the monsters in advance, and drawn a map of the inn and the surrounding countryside just in case, notes that could have assisted me without toiling away at my freedom to improvise ("wiggle room" as I called it above) at all.

I didn't because (1) I am utterly disorganized when it comes to my gaming life, and (2) I am used to winging it. I know that it's a risky proposition as far as mantaining emulation and the "illusion of preparedness" (thanks, LordVreeg) but it's worked for me so far, so I'm inclined to belive that either I've got good at it, or my notoriously casual players aren't the most demanding audience. And because I'm so hard-pressed for time (who over the age of 25 isn't?), I end up glossing over prep because I've never experienced any untoward effects from lack of it (except maybe for the above-mentioned ill-fated Iron Heroes game, which was as much or more about lack of familiarity with the system as it was about lack of pre-game notes).

I don't think we understand each other. I'm not saying that your way of doing things is bad or that you ought to feel ashamed of it.

Quite the contrary, actually.

What I am saying is that what you are doing is preparing your games. You just don't see it that way, but you are. You don't need much prep in order to run a game. What you really need is (1) a set of rules, including creatures or stats ready, like say having a Monster Manual or table of pregen NPCs in front of you, or not even that, if you assume that all NPCs are average and basta, (2) a base situation to kick start the adventure, including a set of circumstances and a idea of who's involved and why. That's basically *it*.

From there, you can extrapolate on the situation and the PCs react to it. The key element is to keep in mind the actual reality of the game world, to visualize it in your mind's eye, to then remember what unfolded or write notes along the way so that you don't destroy the illusion of reality of the place, and then let your imagination do the rest, filling in the blanks from your subconscious from there. It works really well, if you are so inclined.

And contrarily to what some people might believe, this is NOT the same thing as DM illusionism and the illusion of choice where the DM just makes up shit to keep you entertained. The DM here instead visualizes, internalizes the reality of the game world and just acts as a medium between what he sees as real in his mind's eye as it comes to him and what the players want to do in response to that. There's no "creative agenda" in other words, but the reality of the game world.

And that's perfectly fine to run a game like that IMO.

So. You're still doing prep in fact. You are coming up with a starting situation, you have a set of rules you use and know and stuff. You're just managing in a different way from there when compared to the DM who needs to have all caveats covered in his notes and needs to have all the maps covered before hand and shit. This DM isn't wrong either, btw. He just has a different threshold from which he can grasp the reality of the game world in his mind's eye and run with it.

Quote from: The Butcher;559151Again, your post suggests to me that a group of casual players and a dearth of long-running campaigns has a lot to do with my success at running zero-prep games.

No, I don't think so. The only difference between short and long term campaigns is the scale of the game world and the relative need for consistency in order to maintain its verisimilitude.

What you need to make that same way you are running games now work at a game table running a long term campaign is good memory skills and/or organizational skills (taking notes and remembering what you said five sessions ago and not contradicting yourself on the reality of the game world every now and again). If you got one or both covered, you could be good as gold, depending on your particular threshold/GMing style.

Quote from: CRKrueger;559146The "Illusion of Preparedness" is essential to a good "World in Motion" campaign.  If you come into a town and the players think that most of the buildings are cardboard standups with one or two "actual encounters", then their trip through the town will be much less enjoyable then if they think that no matter what door they go to, there will be a prepped person there.  Now maybe the GM has 100 pages of notes on this town, or maybe he has 1 page of notes and can wing it like a mother, it's the same to the players.

How much do you have to prep?  Just enough.  Just enough so that your players get in the habit of expecting stuff to not be generated on the fly according to what they do.

The critical bit is not generating based on what they do. You can't do that cos then its just a railroad.
Every choice they make needs to have a genuine effect on the game.

They have 2 options (infact they have loads of other choices but these are the two they are discussing) take the kings road through the forest or hire a ship to go down river. You decide that there are pirates on the river and the forest has a group of elves who will assist them in their quest.
You really like the pirates and as they are talking about what they are going to do you have sussed the lead pirate will be a hot leatherclad female and that the pirates will all sound french and use blackpower which the party has yet to encounter in this game.

The party opt to go through the forest. That little voice in your head is telling you to reskin the pirates as bandits and run the encounter anyway. THIS YOU CAN NOT DO. They made a choice get on with thinking up how the elves will run. but tuck those pirates away and remember which river they ply and maybe they will turn up again, certainly have the trader at the store they purchase their horses at explain how wise they were not to risk Black Bess and the river pirates but when you adlib you have to adlib as if you had designed it all weeks before and written it all down

There all sort of consideration here.

• If you can run a fun game with less work that's a win, unless you really enjoy the prep.


• An overly prepped game can sometimes blind the GM to what is actually happening in play.


• A highly improvised game can often feel fresher and reflect better the actions of the players and mood around the table.


• The ideas you come up with on the fly as GM might be okay but they can sometimes lack that extra polish and depth found in properly prepped material.


• It is easier to improvise in an established, ongoing campaign in which a lot of things are already in motion.


• Improvised games aren't ideal for the sort of game in which resource management and attrition are important factors.


• For some people the degree to which the GM improvises is inversely proportional to the degree of player agency. This can be a highly emotive issue.


• No matter how well prepared you are as a GM, you'll find yourself improvising anyway or something has gone terribly wrong.


• GMng is kind of boring if things go exactly as planned.

Quote from: jibbajibba;559243The critical bit is not generating based on what they do. You can't do that cos then its just a railroad.
Every choice they make needs to have a genuine effect on the game.

They have 2 options (infact they have loads of other choices but these are the two they are discussing) take the kings road through the forest or hire a ship to go down river. You decide that there are pirates on the river and the forest has a group of elves who will assist them in their quest.
You really like the pirates and as they are talking about what they are going to do you have sussed the lead pirate will be a hot leatherclad female and that the pirates will all sound french and use blackpower which the party has yet to encounter in this game.

The party opt to go through the forest. That little voice in your head is telling you to reskin the pirates as bandits and run the encounter anyway. THIS YOU CAN NOT DO. They made a choice get on with thinking up how the elves will run. but tuck those pirates away and remember which river they ply and maybe they will turn up again, certainly have the trader at the store they purchase their horses at explain how wise they were not to risk Black Bess and the river pirates but when you adlib you have to adlib as if you had designed it all weeks before and written it all down

Solid post is solid. Emphasis added for emphasis.

Quote from: jibbajibba;559243The critical bit is not generating based on what they do. You can't do that cos then its just a railroad.
Every choice they make needs to have a genuine effect on the game.

They have 2 options (infact they have loads of other choices but these are the two they are discussing) take the kings road through the forest or hire a ship to go down river. You decide that there are pirates on the river and the forest has a group of elves who will assist them in their quest.
You really like the pirates and as they are talking about what they are going to do you have sussed the lead pirate will be a hot leatherclad female and that the pirates will all sound french and use blackpower which the party has yet to encounter in this game.

The party opt to go through the forest. That little voice in your head is telling you to reskin the pirates as bandits and run the encounter anyway. THIS YOU CAN NOT DO. They made a choice get on with thinking up how the elves will run. but tuck those pirates away and remember which river they ply and maybe they will turn up again, certainly have the trader at the store they purchase their horses at explain how wise they were not to risk Black Bess and the river pirates but when you adlib you have to adlib as if you had designed it all weeks before and written it all down

I agree but only to a point. What matters here is why the player choose to go by road. If they though it through and choose the road over the sea route because they felt it was safer than absolutely do not reskin the encounter.

On the other hand if it was a choice just made on a whim with no expectation of it bearing consequences and let's say that there had not been much combat that session and some of the players are looking a bit bored or restless then reskinning the encounter is totally the right call.

It's these kind of calls that a good GM has to make.

Quote from: Soylent Green;559263I agree but only to a point. What matters here is why the player choose to go by road. If they though it through and choose the road over the sea route because they felt it was safer than absolutely do not reskin the encounter.

On the other hand if it was a choice just made on a whim with no expectation of it bearing consequences and let's say that there had not been much combat that session and some of the players are looking a bit bored or restless then reskinning the encounter is totally the right call.

It's these kind of calls that a good GM has to make.

I disagree. I've been on the receiving end of this and when I found out later that it was a regular occurrence I felt totally let down, because none of the choices i made mattered.
This is where random encounters and  pre-generated hexes come in.

Quote from: Soylent Green;559263I agree but only to a point. What matters here is why the player choose to go by road. If they though it through and choose the road over the sea route because they felt it was safer than absolutely do not reskin the encounter.

On the other hand if it was a choice just made on a whim with no expectation of it bearing consequences and let's say that there had not been much combat that session and some of the players are looking a bit bored or restless then reskinning the encounter is totally the right call.

It's these kind of calls that a good GM has to make.

Nah I agree with Aos on this one.

When you are designing a game you ad lib it. You can ad lib it 3 weeks before you play and write it all down or you can ad lib it at the table. The important thing is that you keep the process the same. You have to allow the PCs to be in a free and open world. If what ever they do they end up in the Lord's Dungeon becuase only there can they learn that he is really a doppleganger... then that is a railroad. If you want to play that game start them all as prisoners in the Lord's dungeon. They might complain but its at least honest.

Quote from: Gib;559265I disagree. I've been on the receiving end of this and when I found out later that it was a regular occurrence I felt totally let down, because none of the choices i made mattered.
This is where random encounters and  pre-generated hexes come in.

Quote from: jibbajibba;559271When you are designing a game you ad lib it. You can ad lib it 3 weeks before you play and write it all down or you can ad lib it at the table. The important thing is that you keep the process the same. You have to allow the PCs to be in a free and open world. If what ever they do they end up in the Lord's Dungeon becuase only there can they learn that he is really a doppleganger... then that is a railroad. If you want to play that game start them all as prisoners in the Lord's dungeon. They might complain but its at least honest.

I agree with Gib and Jibba.

Quote from: Benoist;559100(1) it's not about "prep or no prep." It's about what you prep, and how you prep.

(2) notes you write to run an adventure of your own making can be composed in different ways. They don't have to read like published modules, or even complete sentences. Also, the organization of the information can reflect a certain fluidity and dynamism that could work for you.

This is pretty spot-on. "Prep" can mean a wide variety of things and done in a wide variety of ways. One problem with published adventures is that they might not organize information in the same way that you would, or even in a way that makes any sense to you, making them more difficult to really get into it.

As an example, that's the very thing that turned me off WotC's 4E D&D modules - they were organized much differently than older modules, and I found them much harder to process because of that.

Quote from: Gib;559265I disagree. I've been on the receiving end of this and when I found out later that it was a regular occurrence I felt totally let down, because none of the choices i made mattered.
This is where random encounters and  pre-generated hexes come in.

Meh, i disagree (very politely). Change the pirates to bandits if you want. It's not a railroad if there really are bandits in the forest. To me, the railroad starts when you force the PC's onto the ship to face the pirates.

The encounter does not make the game.

I've said this before so we'll all just have to agree to disagree, but if everyone at the table is having fun fighting bandits, how can you be doing it wrong?

Pete

The second sentence in the post you quoted answers your question.

Quote from: CRKrueger;559146The "Illusion of Preparedness" is essential to a good "World in Motion" campaign.  If you come into a town and the players think that most of the buildings are cardboard standups with one or two "actual encounters", then their trip through the town will be much less enjoyable then if they think that no matter what door they go to, there will be a prepped person there.  Now maybe the GM has 100 pages of notes on this town, or maybe he has 1 page of notes and can wing it like a mother, it's the same to the players.

How much do you have to prep?  Just enough.  Just enough so that your players get in the habit of expecting stuff to not be generated on the fly according to what they do.

good rule of thumb, at one level.  (and BTW...nice use of terms...LOL)

Now, I am going to also make another suggestion, or at least ask another question, or make a statement, or something...(being at work while doing this is hard).

Mr. Butcher, sir...How do you organize your notes?  How do you find stuff?  how do you prepare?  For example, how do you keep track of the exact dates a group is at?  and the calendar they use?

Quote from: Benoist;559273I agree with Gib and Jibba.

as do I...it is a failed 'Illusion of Preparedness' to the next power.  The power of player choice is tied to the Illusion of Preparedness. It matters if it is left or right, since the world is real, or exiists somewhere, somehow.

Quote from: The Butcher;559066I have never, ever, in 19 years of gaming (20 in a few months) ran a published adventure.

I lie: a couple of years back I ran Sarah Newton's Escape From Venu adventure for Mindjammer. And a month or so ago I ran Through The Drakwald, the adventure in the WFRP 2e core rulebook.

In both instances, I was very dissatisfied with the result. I felt I was fumbling things to proceed in a certain manner (i.e. railroading my PCs) in order for the adventure to pass through certain "checkpoints". The structured approach to events feels constraining, and I feel like I was robbing players of their choice. I was less at ease to improvise, I didn't know for sure how much "wiggle room" I had in case PCs did something unexpected, how much I could bend the script before it broke.

Today I ran a different scenario, with a different group: PCs are all travelers forced into a roadside inn by inclement weather, when three strangers running from otherworldly forces arrive seeking shelter under the same roof, only to bring horrific forces of Chaos down upon them -- come midnight the inn was attacked by a Chaos sorcerer and a pack of six Chaos Hounds (a critter I improvised on the spot combining stats from Dire Wolves, Giant Wolves and Chaos demons), vs. 4 PCs and 3 relatively unskilled NPCs.

It was a relatively easy fight with most PCs walking away unharmed, except for the Dwarf Watchman who was bit twice, and down to 1 Wound when the last monster fell. (note to self: more and/or badder foes next time.) 1 NPC was killed in a suitably dramatic (and mechanically handwavey) manner, complete with guts spilling on the floor and a mercy killing by the Kithband Warrior (after a heal check suggested to him he was beyond hope).

It's probably the most hackneyed and unimaginative scenario ever, but it was my hackneyed and unimaginative scenario. I had all the wiggle room in the world because I ad-libbed the whole thing and didn't write down a single thing (even the monster stats were cooked up on the spot). If the PCs decided to run away and leave the strangers to their fate, I was cool with it; they'd probaby have to deal with the same Chaos sorcerer, plus powerful artifact, later down the road if they stuck to the region. It's certainly not "sandboxy" -- the strangers and their pursuers arrived at the same tavern, in the same night as the PCs, not because of anything the PCs decided to do, but because the GM decided it -- but I suppose it works for a campaign jump-starter.

This is how I did things back in the day. This is how I've always run my games; we arrived home from school, I cracked open the D&D RC on the Mystara maps at the back, and as players traversed each hex I rolled on the wandering monster tables (in the wilderness) and urban encounter tables (when in town), and improvised from there. Met an alchemist? He's got an order for an exotic component, some body part from some monster only a big burly Fighter with a two-handed sword could hope to harvest. Ran into an orc patrol? What the fuck are orcs doing this close to civilization? It's a skill I've honed to the detriment and atrophy of any sane attempt at prep.

I admire and envy GMs who make copious notes and set up sprawling maps and stat dozens of NPCs in advance... but it's just not my thing. All for the best, maybe; I work 80+ hour weeks and can't afford to spend a lot of time crafting material (I actually feel a bit guilty from taking so much wondrous material from this forum's contributors, when I have so little from my own hand that I can share). The few times I made notes, my own notes felt constraining to me. That's how fucked up in the head (brain damaged?) I am.

I think I can work with "location-based adventures" like most old school, AD&D 1e and B/X modules (e.g. "here's a dungeon [or city, or wilderness map] for you to explore at your own pace and however you damn please"), which straddle the line between setting supplement and adventure module as we post-Dragonlance, AD&D 2e generation kids -- the middle children of the hobby -- understand them.

Sorry for the long and rambling post.

Let me know what you all think.

80+ hours. What do you do?