TheRPGSite

Not to call bull shit, but I'm going to call bull shit.  

On the other thread there are a bunch of people that say they do 15 minuets or less of prep.   Then they say they do a bunch of campaign prep so the don't have to do session prep.  Then they say they have pre generated dungeons rdy to go.  

So first of all bull shit you aren't doing zero prep.

Second of all and more importantly.  Can you teach me your ways?  You have a couple of short cuts and cheats that (from the sounds of it) vastly shorten you prep time (just not down to zero).

Specifically. How much campagin prep do you do?  How much time?  How many dungeons do you have preped?  How many NPCs? ( do you recycle NPCs?) world map?  How much of a plot do you have?  

If you are working it out as you go along who takes the notes?  When do you take them, during or after?  How long does it take?

Dungeons.  Do you have a source for pre generated ones?  How long does it take you to build one from scratch?  Renovate one?  

Please add any other other tricks that can help cut down prep time.  When I was younger I wanted to world build.  Now I just want to play.

For me. Literally zero prep. (Not counting the players creating characters. Thats not DM prep) No nada.

Other times I'll grab the mostly blank Karameikos map as a basis and roll from there.

But as play progeresses I note down whats happened, whos been met and so on so what has transpired is now set and part of the world as it grows.

Dungeons are just plotted out on the fly. Sometimes not even using a random generator, just calling turns as seems to fit the locale. Usually sketching it out as things progress so there arent any irregularities.

I keep alot of index cards handy to jot down notes either during or after a session.

Quote from: Omega;924161For me. Literally zero prep. (Not counting the players creating characters. Thats not DM prep) No nada.

Other times I'll grab the mostly blank Karameikos map as a basis and roll from there.

But as play progeresses I note down whats happened, whos been met and so on so what has transpired is now set and part of the world as it grows.

Dungeons are just plotted out on the fly. Sometimes not even using a random generator, just calling turns as seems to fit the locale. Usually sketching it out as things progress so there arent any irregularities.

I keep alot of index cards handy to jot down notes either during or after a session.

If I have a good story, with clear scenes in my head that I want to run, then I don't need much prep beyond that these days.

For me, it comes down to what kind of adventure I wish to run. Often my players are interested in mindless dungeon crawls, and for me those really do take pretty much zero prep time. I have my old Judges Guild dungeon maps or I simply google "dungeon" and "map" and print one off. I often populate the dungeon on the fly, sometimes by just making something up or opening the monster book to a point at random and using that.

 Keep in mind, however, that my players are used to my "on the fly" methods and realize that they are not always "supposed" to beat a monster just because they encounter it -- the whole notion of balancing encounters by challenge ratings is a newfangled thingie (starting around 2000, I think, with 3E) and I don't subscribe to it.

 Sometimes I use random encounter tables balanced a little by level so that low-level characters don't get eaten by dragons or the like all of the time. Sometimes I think of a generic plotline (rescue the princess, steal the gem, escort the caravan to the next village) and we just go from there. I have a few generic NPCs that pop up over and over and the players are familiar with their quirks. Most come from books or movies, so I'm not really having to make them up from scratch.

 Adventures with puzzles, a complex plot, or really innovative NPCs take longer to prep.

For me, it comes down to what kind of adventure I wish to run. Often my players are interested in mindless dungeon crawls, and for me those really do take pretty much zero prep time. I have my old Judges Guild dungeon maps or I simply google "dungeon" and "map" and print one off. I often populate the dungeon on the fly, sometimes by just making something up or opening the monster book to a point at random and using that.

Keep in mind, however, that my players are used to my "on the fly" methods and realize that they are not always "supposed" to beat a monster just because they encounter it -- the whole notion of balancing encounters by challenge ratings is a newfangled thingie (starting around 2000, I think, with 3E) and I don't subscribe to it.

Sometimes I use random encounter tables balanced a little by level so that low-level characters don't get eaten by dragons or the like all of the time. Sometimes I think of a generic plotline (rescue the princess, steal the gem, escort the caravan to the next village) and we just go from there. I have a few generic NPCs that pop up over and over and the players are familiar with their qui

Adventures with puzzles, a complex plot, or really innovative NPCs take longer to prep.

When I think of  Zero Prep games we go right to Apocalypse World. The game even calls out the MC (their version of a GM) and tells them not to plan anything for the session. As for the overall campaign, the setting is developed collectively and the only prep I can think of is the assigning of Fronts, these are potential scarcities or threats as based on the setting the group has established. In game these fronts only come into play as a means to drive story when there is a lull.

Quote from: Headless;924139Can you teach me your ways?

I could, but since you have already declared them to be "bull shit" why should I bother? :D

Quote from: Headless;924139Not to call bull shit, but I'm going to call bull shit.

And right you are.

QuoteSecond of all and more importantly.  Can you teach me your ways?

And there you have it. Either there are methods to reduce prep time to zero (or at least vastly reduce it) or there are not. But it took time to develop those methods. So, still not zero no matter what.

Because that's all prep time is. An investment to make future games or events run better/smoother/different. That's why someone bothered to take the time to make rules for "lets pretend", why there are different rules available (to ostensibly produce different results), and why we bother even so much as statting out characters.

In my "zero prep" days, I simply allowed players to wander around the World of Greyhawk (which of course someone else took the time to prep), and whenever they wandered into a particular location or did some set of actions, or encountered particular random encounters (rolled from tables someone took time to prep) that happened to trigger some adventure module I'd read (which took someone time to write and me time to read), I'd have a full-fledged adventure waiting for them.

I found some legit drawbacks to the absence of prep. Some players, not the majority, but some--the ones I deemed the best--were forward-looking enough where I was left with three choices a) frustrate their forward looking with no information of interest, b) improvise the new content on the fly, or c) prep. I think a is obviously a problem, and c is obviously prepping. b is a less obvious problem. You can actually observe it at the table, when (even half jokingly) a player takes prudent action to account for something that might happen or might be, for which there is presently no evidence, but it can't be ruled out and if true would spell disaster, is met with a player who says, "Ssshhh! Don't give the GM any ideas!" Action and choice are just as futile under B as they are under A.

However, just like you can drive from one place to another at night without being able to see the whole path, all you need is an idea of where you're going and 80 feet of light, you can also prep just far enough ahead while the current scene is playing out. This may give the appearance of no prep, but it really is prepping ahead.

So does this give you a helpful line on a mindset for going essentially zero prep?

Incidentally, these days, I spend the vast majority of my "prep" time programming tables and stats into the inspiration pad, that way when I actually sit down to prep an actual session, I don't have to look a bunch of stuff up. And one of the most helpful (to me) benefits I get out of prepping individual sessions at all is to produce stat sheets with space to track monster hit points and such, so it saves me time and keeps everything more organized during actual play.

The key to prepping I think is remembering that the GMs job is "Playing the World".  Wherever the PCs are, if there are monsters, NPCs, whatever around that they may encounter, you need to either know in advance what those things are and what their motivations are, or be able to wing it.  The more detail you can lay out ahead of time, or the better you are at improv is going to make all the difference when the PCs run into the encounter.  Also, for any given area, if you have in your mind or laid out in detail what the NPCs/monsters do when the PCs aren't there, then it makes it a lot easier to prep for the next session.

Ill catch some shit for this but I cant resist the temptation.

I find it weird that the same people that crucify someone for 'railroading' their players by moving a planned encounter in front of them no matter the choices they make are perfectly fine with waiting till they actually make a choice then plopping down an instantly created encounter. It amounts to the same thing. There is no way to discern if said encounter was actually created without bias to their decision or not. The only truly Non Railroad way to game would be to have a completely made up encounter located on the map and only using it if the players actually went there. Making up the world 10 seconds in the future is a fun, albeit lazy, way to GM and certainly has its place in the hobby. (Ive done it too!) But those who use this method should be careful about condemning other seemingly unconventional approaches (Story gaming or whatever) as its just as far from how RPGs were meant to be played initially.

You can break this down in many ways based on your starting point.

There is zero prep based on bona-fide zero prep games like 3:16 and Inspecters. That is genuine no prep.

There is zero prep based on running games in established, ongoing campaign.  That's a bit of a cheat calling it zero prep because the GM has hours and hours of actual play that acts as prep. It's not an option if you just planning a one-shot or fancy trying something new.

There is zero prep which isn't really zero prep at all because the GM is actually thinking about the game all the time, in shower, on the way to work, while he should be working, while watching a movie. It is just called zero prep because the GM isn't technically spending a lot of time writing up notes.

I fail on all three counts. I don't enjoy running the genuine no prep game (I have tried), my gaming is more focused on one shots and short campaigns and it doesn't help they tend to be more investigative than exploration based. And I natural multi-tasker. The only way for me to prep is to focus on prep.

Kind of sucks.

My most succesful "zero prep" games have been with rules and settings that I have a lot of familiarity with. This familiarity comes, of course, from hours of play and study. They also tend to be for games that I spent quite a bit of time thinking about what might be going on in the world, even if I don't write it all down and am not specifically relating it to a campaign.

Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures has almost zero prep adventures that are meant to be prepped during character creation. They consist of a series of tables, some of which are filled in with results that spring from the characters being generated. These tables then give the who, what, where, and why of the adventure. Extreme low prep, but not zero prep.

I find that if I try to run a game with literally zero prep it never goes well. Even five minutes to quickly think of an idea is better than just starting cold.

Quote from: DavetheLost;924209My most succesful "zero prep" games have been with rules and settings that I have a lot of familiarity with. This familiarity comes, of course, from hours of play and study. They also tend to be for games that I spent quite a bit of time thinking about what might be going on in the world, even if I don't write it all down and am not specifically relating it to a campaign.

Yeah, that's 'zero prep' to me.  Other than character creation, it's a game I can sit down and crack open a book (or two) and just go.

Someone called it the 'cold and stupid' method, which ignoring that I usually am (right guys?), and I think it's perfectly describes it.

Quote from: Headless;924139You have a couple of short cuts and cheats that (from the sounds of it) vastly shorten you prep time (just not down to zero).

My #1 suggestion is to learn how to quickly reskin stuff.

There is a fuckton of free stuff online. You can scavenge endlessly and reskin for your campaign.


How much campaign prep do you do?  

A fuckton.


How much time?  

Weeks, easily 40+ hours.


How many dungeons do you have prepped?  

I love random generators and reskinning. I usually do 3-4 "location breakdowns" during campaign prep.


How many NPCs? ( do you recycle NPCs?) world map?  

26 NPCs - with A-Z names, motivations and conflicting goals.


How much of a plot do you have?  

My campaign has a main theme (alien invasion, civil war, rescue the widget, stop the lich, etc).

Then I focus on the NPC's personal goals and how their plots will interweave and create conflicts.


If you are working it out as you go along who takes the notes?  When do you take them, during or after?  How long does it take?

I take secret notes and I ask the players to email me their notes. I usually spend 30mins on post-game stuff as prep for the next session.


Do you have a source for pre generated ones?  How long does it take you to build one from scratch?  Renovate one?  

There are several online generators and there are some software options. You may want to start a thread just about online RPG resources and have people contribute. That would make a good sticky.

I will spend hours building a dungeon from scratch if I have the time (but I love prep).

I only have 15 minutes, I will grab one something I know and quickly tailor it. AKA, I will take a premade dungeon, decide I only want certain sections, alter the encounters to fit the adventure, quickly write up some custom descriptions of the atmosphere and go.

But I mostly run rules light stuff.

For "dungeons" for modern games or CoC, I usually just google floor plans of actual places.

Quote from: Headless;924139When I was younger I wanted to world build.  Now I just want to play.

There are LOTS of great freebies on DriveThruRPG and many GREAT PDFs for low price.

Quote from: Headless;924139On the other thread there are a bunch of people that say they do 15 minuets or less of prep.   Then they say they do a bunch of campaign prep so the don't have to do session prep.  Then they say they have pre generated dungeons rdy to go.  

I can give you fairly concrete numbers because I kept a work log while I was doing the campaign prep for my OD&D hexcrawl. I stocked 256 hexes over the course of 10 days, spending a total of 40-45 hours of actual time working on it. This prep work consisted almost entirely of prepping adventure locations (although I also built some random encounter tables), which included adapting existing material and also creating original material. (I talk about stocking hexes (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17442/roleplaying-games/hexcrawl-part-10-stocking-the-hexes) extensively on my blog.)

I then used this material to run approximately 50 sessions, never spending more than 10-15 minutes prepping for any given session. (And, in fact, frequently not doing any prep at all.) The actual session prep consisted of:

1. Creating a "key update" for any locations which had been changed by PC actions in the previous session. This takes very little time because I would keep notes of what was happening during each session, which meant that this was mostly just a matter of quickly compiling those notes into an easier-to-reference format for future sessions.

2. Checking to see if dungeons which had been cleared out by the PCs in previous sessions had been reoccupied (and, if they were, restocking them). This also takes very little time because I use adversary rosters (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/38547/roleplaying-games/the-art-of-the-key-part-4-adversary-rosters).

The common denominator here is that most of the time I wasn't needing to completely redo content: I could go in and very precisely refresh and repurpose it.

This also meant that I could frequently do this work at the beginning of the session while the players were leveling up their characters, buying new equipment, or the like. (Which is why I often had no session prep whatsoever. It was all happening at the table.)

That's one method.

Another low prep game I have a lot of experience with is Technoir (http://technoirrpg.com). Technoir uses plot mapping mechanics in combination with a minimalist setting document it refers to as a "transmission" to create noir cyberpunk scenarios during play. Much like my OD&D hexcrawl, the initial process of creating a scenario seed happens at the table while the players are taking care of their bookkeeping (and is, in fact, integrated into that bookkeeping). During actual play, the combination of the PCs' actions and the plot mapping mechanics will inform how their investigation will lead them towards understanding/revealing/destroying/whatever the scenario seed.

It's a very clever system. And if you're looking for an out-of-the-box experience with a low prep game, I highly recommend it.

Also: The Three Secrets of Prep (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/38792/roleplaying-games/thought-of-the-day-three-secrets-of-prep).

EDIT: Third example would be a Numenera campaign I ran where roughly half of the scenarios basically consisted of me flipping through the Bestiary, picking one of the sundry awesome creatures Cook, et al. had designed for the game, and quickly jotting down an adventure structure based around it. Unfortunately, there was no real technique at play here: It mostly relied on me having 25+ years of experiencing running games. When you can sketch a dungeon map as a simple relationship diagram and trust your improv skills to make that dungeon into a real place, that's a big advantage when it comes to running low/no-prep games. Although having fallback structures like the 5 Room Dungeon (http://roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=156) and 5 Node Mystery (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/37903/roleplaying-games/5-node-mystery) certainly helps.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924206...as its just as far from how RPGs were meant to be played initially.

... did you just try to claim that random encounters weren't part of how D&D was played initially?

You might consider $1 Adventure Frameworks (in my sig). They're designed as mini adventures to drop into a sandbox, to minimise GM prep, and support improvisation. Arm yourself with a these, your fav online NPC name generator, and you should be good to go with 15 mins prep. Best of luck!

I don't see any need to split hairs, so let's say low-prep.  I'm particularly interested in Sine Nomine games, but I wonder how you could deliver the same level of quality for some kinds of games with lots of improvisations.  I've been playing a lot of official DCC adventures lately, and I've come to appreciate how certain encounters and adventure elements have been designed with great care.  If I can't achieve anything like this with sandbox play, then what am I getting in its place?  And how do I get the players to engage with that level of freedom?  Because I'd love to be doing this sort of stuff.

Quote from: Edgewise;924299I've been playing a lot of official DCC adventures lately, and I've come to appreciate how certain encounters and adventure elements have been designed with great care.  If I can't achieve anything like this with sandbox play, then what am I getting in its place?

This is clearly where the style of play and the intent of the adventure have to be both taken into account. I can zero-prep a basic dungeon crawl, but if every adventure was like that then gaming would get stale in a hurry. I have to mix those sessions in with large-prep sessions, such as professional modules or adventures created by myself. Your choice of DCC adventures is a great one, by the way, as I think that the newer ones (the DCC RPG adventures, not those written for d20) are particularly creative and innovative.

Quote from: Headless;924139Not to call bull shit, but I'm going to call bull shit.

And in turn, I'm going to call BS on that.

QuoteOn the other thread there are a bunch of people that say they do 15 minuets or less of prep.   Then they say they do a bunch of campaign prep so the don't have to do session prep.  Then they say they have pre generated dungeons rdy to go.  

I use "zero prep" to mean "no necessity to prepare anything over and above reading the setting and system". Warning: that means exactly what it means.
I can do more prep than that, if I feel like it! I just don't need to. And I can decide not to do any prep.

Like, for my UY game, I prepared the Charlie's Angels, Charlie, and the butler...the way they would be in the Usagi Yojimbo's setting. I didn't need to do that, and there was no way in hell the players could catch the reference unless I told them. Only translating the names took me an hour or so - more prep than I'd done for whole campaigns.
But I didn't need to do that. I did it because I wanted to.
I've also started campaigns by reading the system, period (admittedly, the setting was 17th century China, and I was the most knowledgeable about it at the table).

QuoteSo first of all bull shit you aren't doing zero prep.

Yes I am. If you're misunderstanding what "zero prep" means, that's another matter;).

QuoteSecond of all and more importantly.  Can you teach me your ways?  You have a couple of short cuts and cheats that (from the sounds of it) vastly shorten you prep time (just not down to zero).

Of course I can. In fact, I'm literally writing a book(let) about it, because I'm tired of explaining:D!

QuoteSpecifically. How much campagin prep do you do?

Read the setting, unless you know it already.
Read the system, unless using one that you know already.
Prepare a list of names unless you have one in the book.
You're done with the mandatory parts.
You can detail NPCs and organisations and stuff...you just don't need to.

QuoteHow much time?

Do we include reading the setting and system (as all players should do, too)? I don't include it (because I might well use a system that I know and a setting that I know - after all, it's me who decides).
And to me, that means the answer is "as much as I feel like, minimum zero".

QuoteHow many dungeons do you have preped?

Zero.

QuoteHow many NPCs?

As much as I feel like, minimum zero.

Quote( do you recycle NPCs?)

No. There are archetypes that appear in many of my games, usually because I've met them IRL, but that's not what you're asking about, I believe.

Quoteworld map?

The setting has one, right?

QuoteHow much of a plot do you have?

None apart from what's obvious in the setting, and thus appeared in my head while reading it. Other than that, I only decide what's the starting situation of the PCs.

QuoteIf you are working it out as you go along who takes the notes?  When do you take them, during or after?

Me, after.

QuoteHow long does it take?

As long as it takes me to scribble a page in a pad I've bought for the campaign.

QuoteDungeons.  Do you have a source for pre generated ones?  How long does it take you to build one from scratch?  Renovate one?  

I build them from scratch if I need them. Typically circa 5 minutes/level.

QuotePlease add any other other tricks that can help cut down prep time.  When I was younger I wanted to world build.  Now I just want to play.

Read the booklet:p!

Quote from: Headless;924139Not to call bull shit, but I'm going to call bull shit.  

On the other thread there are a bunch of people that say they do 15 minuets or less of prep.   Then they say they do a bunch of campaign prep so the don't have to do session prep.  Then they say they have pre generated dungeons rdy to go.  

So first of all bull shit you aren't doing zero prep.

You are right and wrong. There is prep just not in the weeks and months before the actual session. What happening in my view is that people who run sessions or even campaigns with zero prep are relying on what I call their Bag of Stuff.

Either one of two things are happening.

1) Their knowledge of the setting and genre is such that prior to running any tabletop RPG they know the material cold. And the chosen rule system resonates with their way of thinking in such a way that they can see how to take that genre knowledge base and translate it into a pen & paper virtual reality for their players to experience.

And/Or

2) Through years of running tabletop campaigns, they have internalized the tropes to such a point that they can recall most of what they need at a moment's notice. That their years experience allows them to run a campaign with little to no preparation.

Note in both cases it is prior experience that is the decisive factor. With experience with what the campaign is about or experience with tabletop roleplaying. Nobody is able to run a tabletop roleplaying with a unfamiliar set of rules, with little knowledge of the genre or setting without preparation.

Quote from: Headless;924139Second of all and more importantly.  Can you teach me your ways?  You have a couple of short cuts and cheats that (from the sounds of it) vastly shorten you prep time (just not down to zero).

There is a technique called Palace of Memory, there are various books out there that teaches you various technique so that you can learn to use it to improve your recall. Now my point is NOT, I repeat NOT that you need to learn Palace of Memory specifically, only that there are technique you can learn to improve how you remember stuff. Which set ACTUALLY works for YOU is variable. I will only say that is that there is something out there that will help and it is different for everybody.

Whatever it is, you use it to internalize and memorize what you need to run a campaign off the cuff.

For example think of a orc camp, how many orcs are living in there, what are they doing at any point in the day, what resources they have, who are their resident allies, and so forth and son. Then think of the range of variation in the above. Once you have satisfied yourself that got a grip on what a orc camp is for you, then you can use that to run a orc camp on the fly. You knowledge of the variation means you can make each orc camp different enough so that they are not carbon copies of each.

Often you will find that your internal stereotype are your best friend. If I ask you think of a suave secret agent, what is the first thing that leaps into your mind. Rely on that intuition.

Do this for each element of the campaign are important. And practice inbetween session by asking what would X look like and coming up with answer. Do this often enough and it will become second nature to you.

Make sure you read everything on the genre or setting you want to run. As yourself a lot of what ifs and what does it look like questions over and over again. Again once you have internalized that information by whatever means works for you, you will be able to run those things with little or to no prep.

Objective of this to build up your mental Bag of Stuff to the point where you pull out what you need when you need it.

But..... which lead the answer for this.

Quote from: Headless;924139Specifically. How much campagin prep do you do?  How much time?  How many dungeons do you have preped?  How many NPCs? ( do you recycle NPCs?) world map?  How much of a plot do you have?

First a story, back in 2010 after running a number of convention games to play Scourge of the Demon Wolf and some other things I was developing, I was looking at a unkeyed map I made a decade ago. The idea grew in my head "What if I just walked in a convention slot with the just the map, the name of the adventure, and my Swords & Wizardry books?". After looking at a couple of random generators, I decided to call it Night Bride's Coven. And the description in the convention booklet read something like. "A OD&D adventure using the Swords & Wizardry rules exploring a dungeon that is home to a evil group of warlocks."

I ran this successfully twice. Making up everything as I went along. Obviously after the first session, I was prepared for the second session. However I did tweak some things that didn't go as smooth as I liked. Namely a magical device with buttons and levers that controlled a magical danger room the warlocks used for training. I am not good at coming up with puzzles like that and often need to do several passes before arriving at something interesting.

My thoughts on the experience? Well it was nice that I was able to do that and felt proud of being able to do it without it being a disaster. The players did not knew I was just making the whole thing up step by step. In fact the first group had two regulars from my game store campaign and they specifically commented that this was one of the better adventures I had prepared (looking sheepish).

However it something I don't want to do on a regular basis. It was really hard to remain consistent and in hindsight there wasn't as much variety.

My conclusion is this, you need both if you want to master the art of refereeing. That referee that do some level of preparation will run better campaign on average than referee who don't.  And referee that do preparation are better off if they can learn how to ad-lib entire adventures. That the exact mix is dependent on how the individual referee processes information and the way they handle things during a session. But keep in mind given the flexibility of RPGs individual sessions within a campaign may require different levels of preparation. When it comes to actual play it varies by a lot. It best to learn to be flexible and handle both situation rather than to do assume it all going to be one thing or the other. The goal to adopt the best approach for the upcoming and prepare only what you need no more and no less.

Quote from: Headless;924139If you are working it out as you go along who takes the notes?  When do you take them, during or after?  How long does it take?

If you ad-lib and want to remain consistent you will need to take notes. The exact form of the notes depends on how you think. For me I can remember things easily when they are ordered in a timeline. So that I how I write my notes as series of events. That servers a master key into my memory for what I was thinking at various points.

Quote from: Headless;924139Dungeons.  Do you have a source for pre generated ones?  How long does it take you to build one from scratch?  Renovate one?

I working on this, I have my how to make a fantasy sandbox (http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html) series for setting prep. And I developing something similar to serve as an aide for the mass production of dungeon levels. Think of it as not only covering what the donjon's random dungeon generator (http://donjon.bin.sh/adnd/dungeon/) does but tells you how to translate the results into something original to your campaign.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;924268... did you just try to claim that random encounters weren't part of how D&D was played initially?

Not at all. Random encounters have always been a sideline in RPGs as long as I can remember. Let me be clear, there is NO RIGHT WAY to play a roleplaying game, despite what some where will claim. Everyone is free to find what style and approach works best for them and its really very closed minded to criticize anyone for using a method that they enjoy.

 I was merely saying that generally speaking the assumption in the earliest RPG days was that the GM would "prepare" an adventure. Most of the early books (heck most books even to this day!) make some sort of statement to that effect. Its absolutely fine if a GM decides not to and his players don't mind a bit of improve but its deviating from convention, just as other variations of roleplaying do. (Storygaming, "Railroading approaches to plot management" etc.)

There are no good or bads ways to play, just different ways to play.

In addition I would have to add that some of these arguments are heavily influenced by what is not being said as much as what is. I see a lot of comments regarding Dungeons for example. Much of what is being stated here seems to be centered around the idea that most if not all sessions take place in a dungeon crawl. I for one, and I assume many others, only rarely exercise this time honored tradition. I don't think I've run an actual dungeon crawl in the last, oh, 5 years or so despite playing dozens of games.

Zero prep for a contained, focused adventure in a dungeon is one thing. Zero prep for a world spanning, intricately plotted, multi-setting adventure with dozens of different locales, NPCs, cultures, historical background, diplomatic intrigue, sub plots and interlaced mini adventures, and so on is another thing entirely.

I think most of us could print out a random map off the internet and run a hack through it without any prep at all. Zero Prepping something like "Game of Thrones" would be a bit more challenging. Not saying it couldn't be done, only that it would be tough.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924206Ill catch some shit for this but I cant resist the temptation.

You're right. Glad you knew it in advance and it was a conscious decision:).
*cracks knuckles*

QuoteI find it weird that the same people that crucify someone for 'railroading' their players by moving a planned encounter in front of them no matter the choices they make are perfectly fine with waiting till they actually make a choice then plopping down an instantly created encounter. It amounts to the same thing.

Which are those people? Do you mean...oh, people like me, for example;)?
Because no, I'm not "fine with that". You just prove you weren't paying attention last time I tried to explain it. I have decided what the encounters are going to be before they made a choice. It might be 10 seconds after I presented them with the choice...but it is before, not after, they'd made the decision.

QuoteThere is no way to discern if said encounter was actually created without bias to their decision or not.

Bullshit. I can, and so can my wife.
"Reading people" isn't some obscure skillset, it's the basis of day-to-day interaction. And it gets easier if you've been in that guy's shoes. I've done that, so it's not exactly hard to spot what you're doing if you try

The rest of this post is thus not worth addressing, since it rests on an erroneous understanding of what other people do.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924333Not at all. Random encounters have always been a sideline in RPGs as long as I can remember. Let me be clear, there is NO RIGHT WAY to play a roleplaying game, despite what some where will claim. Everyone is free to find what style and approach works best for them and its really very closed minded to criticize anyone for using a method that they enjoy.

True, that. That's about the only thing in that post I agree with, though.
Also, it does not follow that we can't have preferences regarding what the GMs do or don't do.

QuoteI was merely saying that generally speaking the assumption in the earliest RPG days was that the GM would "prepare" an adventure. Most of the early books (heck most books even to this day!) make some sort of statement to that effect.

As we noticed last time you mentioned it, "most books" don't do that. "Most books that rgrove reads" do that, but that's a subset of the first.

QuoteIn addition I would have to add that some of these arguments are heavily influenced by what is not being said as much as what is. I see a lot of comments regarding Dungeons for example. Much of what is being stated here seems to be centered around the idea that most if not all sessions take place in a dungeon crawl. I for one, and I assume many others, only rarely exercise this time honored tradition. I don't think I've run an actual dungeon crawl in the last, oh, 5 years or so despite playing dozens of games.

Not really. I haven't run a dungeon in years, too.

QuoteZero prep for a contained, focused adventure in a dungeon is one thing. Zero prep for a world spanning, intricately plotted, multi-setting adventure with dozens of different locales, NPCs, cultures, historical background, diplomatic intrigue, sub plots and interlaced mini adventures, and so on is another thing entirely.

That's my default style, complete with zero-prep. No, I'm not that special;).

QuoteI think most of us could print out a random map off the internet and run a hack through it without any prep at all. Zero Prepping something like "Game of Thrones" would be a bit more challenging. Not saying it couldn't be done, only that it would be tough.

If I made the plots as shallow as those in Game of Thrones, I suspect my players would lynch me:D!

Estar has a good point, Headless.  For example, I ran so much Shadowrun in Seattle, give me a set of PCs, and I can come with a run on the fly because I've completely internalized the Setting, System, NPCs over years of play.  That's not Zero Prep, it's "Bag O' Stuff", "Setting Mastery", "Prep via Play" whatever you want to call it.

That's not what Asen claims he does.  He claims he can basically freeball an entire campaign.  I know of only one other person who claims that, JibbaJibba.  As a side gig, Jibba runs professional Murder Mystery weekends, so he obviously has some acting chops, can think on his feet, a great memory, and can be creative in the very short term.  If Asen is similarly skilled, then I doubt learning techniques are going to get you 100% there, I think some natural ability is involved.

The one thing that I suspect aids Jibba, Asen or anyone who is low or zero prep is that they can be very entertaining as a GM.  I've noticed the more fun players are having interacting with everything, the less likely they are to notice any inconsistencies or small details.  The arrive in a city, get caught up in something, move through the city focused on a goal, and then move on, they might not even notice there was no map, and they visited two places in a city of a hundred thousand people.  Sometimes GMs are so worried about the Macro-setting, that they forget most of the time, the players are dealing with the Micro-setting.

How many NPCs do you absolutely NEED to prepare? As many as the PCs talk to.  When you look at it that way, it becomes easier to see how Asen and Jibba might be doing it.

I don't do zero prep games. If people can do it, or have figured it out, I certainly envy them, because that does free up a lot of time. I will say that my prep time has steadily minimized as it became more efficient and a lot of my prep can be done quickly the deeper I get into a campaign. I tend to cycle things though. Some weeks I may prep quite a bit if I am developing something extensive and developments in the game clearly call for it, some sessions I may only need to prep 30 minutes to an hour for.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924333Zero prep for a contained, focused adventure in a dungeon is one thing. Zero prep for a world spanning, intricately plotted, multi-setting adventure with dozens of different locales, NPCs, cultures, historical background, diplomatic intrigue, sub plots and interlaced mini adventures, and so on is another thing entirely.

I think most of us could print out a random map off the internet and run a hack through it without any prep at all. Zero Prepping something like "Game of Thrones" would be a bit more challenging. Not saying it couldn't be done, only that it would be tough.

Actually I could do it the other way.  I could run a massive geopolitical Game of thrones type game with no prep other than my collection of names. I am terrible with names so I have started keeping a list of ones that sound good to me.  First session I would jot down a family tree and go.  Take notes as I go along.  I would have been thinking about it for weeks a head of time and I can remember stories so that lines up in my mind.   It would be better if I did more prep of course.

I wouldn't be satisfied with a random dungeon crawl.  If there is a random locked door in room 9 where is the key, it can't be in rooms 1-8 they already looked and it want there yet because the door and the need for it didn't exist.  Why does the beholder in room 13 tolerate the goblins?  What is the secret path the Drugar in room 3 use to get through the traps in room 18 does that leave clues?  Why don't the kobolds steel the treasure?  

These things bother me.  I don't put a Micky Dee's in so I worry about what they eat.

Quote from: CRKrueger;924343Estar has a good point, Headless.  For example, I ran so much Shadowrun in Seattle, give me a set of PCs, and I can come with a run on the fly because I've completely internalized the Setting, System, NPCs over years of play.  That's not Zero Prep, it's "Bag O' Stuff", "Setting Mastery", "Prep via Play" whatever you want to call it.

That's not what Asen claims he does.  He claims he can basically freeball an entire campaign.

Right.
One of my latest campaigns exemplifies that like no other: a friend calls me on Skype and pulls me in a group conversation almost before I went to sleep.
"We're all new players here, (except for said friend, and he's not really an old hand either) who want to try RPGs. Can you run a game for them?"'(Round of introductions skipped).
"Sure. When do you want to play?"
"Can we meet tomorrow after noon?"
"Yes. What genre do you want to play?"
A discussion followed. They settled on pirates. I was reading Legend of the Wulin.
"How about...kung-fu pirates?"
"Like (anime I'd never heard of, and didn't watch)? Deal!"
"OK. Just keep in mind I've never head of this until today, so you get my option. Now, here's a free system you'd better read, if you want to..."
I hadn't read the system until then, either. Then I went to sleep.
The campaign continued over two years with weekly 6+ hours sessions (and 12 hours wasn't an exception, either). They went from pirates to kingmakers.

QuoteI know of only one other person who claims that, JibbaJibba.  As a side gig, Jibba runs professional Murder Mystery weekends, so he obviously has some acting chops, can think on his feet, a great memory, and can be creative in the very short term.  If Asen is similarly skilled, then I doubt learning techniques are going to get you 100% there, I think some natural ability is involved.

"I have the feeling people who don't train as hard as me say I'm talented in order to have an excuse why they aren't training like me" - Musashi Myamoto, from the "Musashi" novel of Yoshikawa Eiji (double translation and quoting by memory, so this might not be the exact words - but I've kept the point).

I have no acting training, apart from less than a couple months of improv theatre (which I only had after said campaign concluded). And I strongly doubt I'm a natural - I couldn't do that when I started. I analyzed the task and trained in order to learn it.
Then again, I've seen even people that seemed totally devoid of any gift to improvise learning to do it with exercises. So no, you can learn it. If you try to learn it, that is.

QuoteThe one thing that I suspect aids Jibba, Asen or anyone who is low or zero prep is that they can be very entertaining as a GM.  I've noticed the more fun players are having interacting with everything, the less likely they are to notice any inconsistencies or small details.  The arrive in a city, get caught up in something, move through the city focused on a goal, and then move on, they might not even notice there was no map, and they visited two places in a city of a hundred thousand people.  Sometimes GMs are so worried about the Macro-setting, that they forget most of the time, the players are dealing with the Micro-setting.

How many NPCs do you absolutely NEED to prepare? As many as the PCs talk to.  When you look at it that way, it becomes easier to see how Asen and Jibba might be doing it.

Do you mind me quoting you in the book I mentioned;)? Because that's how you do it, except you (most likely) don't prepare those NPCs - you ad-lib them.
Or maybe you don't, if you had an idea and devoted it some thought...the players are unlikely to know. And that's a way to surprise them.

No, that's not an incredible skill. I witnessed how people in the improv class went from unable to think of a character to able to play a character on order in less than a month. There's like three simple exercises you need to do. Not that much to ask for, isn't it?

Quote from: AsenRG;924348No, that's not an incredible skill. I witnessed how people in the improv class went from unable to think of a character to able to play a character on order in less than a month. There's like three simple exercises you need to do. Not that much to ask for, isn't it?

I found it to be a combination of practice, practice, practice and the willingness to be honest with yourself about how well the players responded to your technique.

Quote from: Headless;924346These things bother me.  I don't put a Micky Dee's in so I worry about what they eat.

Which is why you use the randomly generated dungeon as starting point. What I do is that if I don't like a result I reroll it until I find something that works. Most of the time what happens is that I will see a couple of things that inspire me and it will set the tone of the level or area. I will then jettison the other random results and supply my own details. It doesn't take as long because I am hanging everything off of what inspired me.

The problem I find is that people think the result of random generation is the end result. When I started thinking of it as a first step it became much more useful.

In all honesty and with no ill intent whatsoever I need to ask how you Zero Preppers contend with ideas on how to improve something that you already blurted out to the players during play?

I know that when working on a game Ill come up with an idea, flesh it out and write it down then perhaps a few minutes, hours or even days later have one of those "Oh wow, yeah that's way better!" moments and go back and change it.

Im trying to imagine dropping a town in front of the players or something then a few minutes later or the next day or whatever realizing "Oh crap, it would have been so much better had I done this instead!" It doesn't bother you guys? You don't feel like you short changed the players because you didn't give yourself the time to consider options, repercussions, alternatives etc?

I know while prepping a recent game I came up with an idea for a race of Giants. I worked them all up and was pretty happy with the result and then while reading something totally unrelated the next day an different idea for them just popped into my head. I went back and made the change and frankly it was a huge improvement over the original. So much so Im really glad I didn't spring the first version of Giants on my players.

If you zero prep you don't have that luxury and are forced to contend with whatever just happened to pop up. Sometimes good, maybe sometimes great, but certainly sometimes not as good and worthy of a little more time and effort, if you had it.

Im just curious, don't want to pick a fight. How do you contend with this potentiality?

Quote from: rgrove0172;924386If you zero prep you don't have that luxury and are forced to contend with whatever just happened to pop up.

I'm no zero-prepper, so I can only commiserate, but the issue here is chasing perfection. I struggle with this, too, but sometimes you just gotta let go.

These zero-prep guys understand that what happens at the table is 20% ideas/80% energy. If you bring the right energy, and the players reciprocate, everyone will be having too much fun to fret about the details.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924386In all honesty and with no ill intent whatsoever I need to ask how you Zero Preppers contend with ideas on how to improve something that you already blurted out to the players during play?

Im trying to imagine dropping a town in front of the players or something then a few minutes later or the next day or whatever realizing "Oh crap, it would have been so much better had I done this instead!" It doesn't bother you guys? You don't feel like you short changed the players because you didn't give yourself the time to consider options, repercussions, alternatives etc?

If you zero prep you don't have that luxury and are forced to contend with whatever just happened to pop up. Sometimes good, maybe sometimes great, but certainly sometimes not as good and worthy of a little more time and effort, if you had it.

Im just curious, don't want to pick a fight. How do you contend with this potentiality?

1: By adding on to later, if possible.

2: No. It doesnt bother me at all. Not one iota. Nada. Zip. If I get a neeto idea based on whats gone before then I can jot it down and use it later. Pre-prep in absolutely no way gets rid of that. You can prep for months and then after a session think "wow! I could have used X right there!" and the answer is... "And? So what? Why are you agonizing over an after the fact idea? Jot it down. Use it elsewhere later."
That and things like. Golly It sure would have been cewl if the end boss had been riding a dragon instead of a horse... sigh" are not necessarily things that would have improved the encounter. And after the fact are sometimes just needless fretting.

3 & 4: Every encounter and action does not, and SHOULD NOT be concentrated awesome every breath the PCs take. Im not "forced to contend" with anything because I dont worry about every little thing being perfectly fine tuned.

Asen, go ahead and quote me if you want. :D
You may have trained yourself specifically for Improv, which would surely point to where a lot of your Improv skill came from.  But, it's also true that people who do have a level of natural talent find it hard to imagine not having it.  There's a whole lot of guys who train as hard or harder than Michael Phelps and don't have 22 gold medals, or spend their whole lives doing an art, and never get to the highest level.

Quote from: Omega;9244091: By adding on to later, if possible.

2: No. It doesnt bother me at all. Not one iota. Nada. Zip. If I get a neeto idea based on whats gone before then I can jot it down and use it later. Pre-prep in absolutely no way gets rid of that. You can prep for months and then after a session think "wow! I could have used X right there!" and the answer is... "And? So what? Why are you agonizing over an after the fact idea? Jot it down. Use it elsewhere later."
That and things like. Golly It sure would have been cewl if the end boss had been riding a dragon instead of a horse... sigh" are not necessarily things that would have improved the encounter. And after the fact are sometimes just needless fretting.

3 & 4: Every encounter and action does not, and SHOULD NOT be concentrated awesome every breath the PCs take. Im not "forced to contend" with anything because I dont worry about every little thing being perfectly fine tuned.

Yeah, you can prep for 3 months and then 2 seconds in, get hit with a new idea.  The "D'oh!" moment can hit you no matter how much or little prep you put in.  Now sure, you could argue you mitigate that risk through more prep, and I would agree, but you're never immune.

Training, experience and perhaps some natural talent. That does seem to be the answer.

I can run several RPGs on the fly (especially horror) because I've devoured Lovecraft & Horror media for decades, run and played in dozens of RPGs campaigns, many LARPS and probably over five hundred one-shots, and I have devoted years to studying plots, character and writing techniques for film and novels. And I've designed and directed a half-dozen haunted houses.

But with all that, I still enjoy prepping. For me, I really enjoy walking through my creation in my mind before sharing it with players.

Quote from: Headless;924346If there is a random locked door in room 9 where is the key, it can't be in rooms 1-8 they already looked and it want there yet because the door and the need for it didn't exist.  Why does the beholder in room 13 tolerate the goblins?  What is the secret path the Drugar in room 3 use to get through the traps in room 18 does that leave clues?  Why don't the kobolds steel the treasure?

THIS is exactly why I love random dungeons.

For me, I get excited about answering those questions and figuring out the relationships and plots existing, aka weaving a pattern in the chaos. Where is that damn key? Did the Beholder eat it? What is the deal between the goblins? Are they the food? Are the kobolds here to steal the treasure? Or did they bring it here for safe keeping? And what's the secret behind the Drugar's ability to avoid the traps?

As Estar said, the random dungeon results are the starting point for creativity.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924386In all honesty and with no ill intent whatsoever I need to ask how you Zero Preppers contend with ideas on how to improve something that you already blurted out to the players during play?

If possible, weave it into the game.

Here's something that happened a few years ago:

A few years ago, a convention CoC GM no-showed and I offered to run something on the fly. It was a "standard haunted house", but I put it on a boat instead, and of course, the boat was sinking. Thus, I declared the PCs were Somali pirates. I had no character sheets and half the players never played CoC. I told everyone to grab some food and be back in 10 mins while I whipped up my adventure...and created a chargen system based on Traveller ('cuz faster than CoC) and away we went.

I had the PCs attacked by a swarm of rats. One player freaked out because he doesn't know how the rats found them because he had specifically told me his PC was looking for evidence of rats, let alone a hundred of them...

I had totally forgot that!!

So I said, what rats? They looked at me confused. Then I said, there's no rats here. You are all bitten and bloody, but there's no rats here.

With that, I flipped a switch on the entire adventure, adding a whole dream component, making the PCs wonder what was real or not, and my "haunted boat" took on several surreal aspects.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924386You don't feel like you short changed the players because you didn't give yourself the time to consider options, repercussions, alternatives etc?

I don't worry if I know everyone had fun. In my post-game thoughts, I can always make notes for future adventures.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924386Im just curious, don't want to pick a fight.

Wimp!

Quote from: Harg of the City Afar;924399These zero-prep guys understand that what happens at the table is 20% ideas/80% energy. If you bring the right energy, and the players reciprocate, everyone will be having too much fun to fret about the details.

Agreed, and that goes for high prep too.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924386In all honesty and with no ill intent whatsoever I need to ask how you Zero Preppers contend with ideas on how to improve something that you already blurted out to the players during play?

It depends. Does it contradict what I said, or does it clarify it? I usually tend to give information in small parcels, and the players might have to chase for the next one, so I do have the option to clarify and expand.
If it would contradict it, then no. My first idea is what it is, even if it would seem more logical. Remember the part that "things don't change because of players' decisions, unless the players take actions to change them"? Well, things don't change because I changed my mind, either!

Regarding logic - it would be much more logical if the streets of some cities had logical ways of numbering, but as it is, they're numbered in the order that they were built. Deal with it, if you visit one of those. It ain't going to change because you arrived there and ranted about it.

Also, that's chasing the imaginary "better". What if you come up with an even better idea?
Me, I remember the statement that "the better is the enemy of the good", and go with the good.

QuoteIm just curious, don't want to pick a fight. How do you contend with this potentiality?

By remembering that the real world isn't optimised to be the most interesting version of itself that it could, and it's exactly those "flaws" that make it so much more interesting than fiction.

Quote from: CRKrueger;924414Asen, go ahead and quote me if you want. :D
You may have trained yourself specifically for Improv, which would surely point to where a lot of your Improv skill came from.  But, it's also true that people who do have a level of natural talent find it hard to imagine not having it.  There's a whole lot of guys who train as hard or harder than Michael Phelps and don't have 22 gold medals, or spend their whole lives doing an art, and never get to the highest level.

So I shall:).

I didn't train myself for Improv, because I didn't know Improv exists back when I was devising exercises for improving my GMing. I found out my exercises had prepared me somewhat for Improv, too, but that was just to the level of "somewhat talented beginner". Believe me, the guy who had passed a newbie course already and wanted to refresh was head and shoulders better.
Of course, GMing=/=improv, they do share some useful skills, but then some GMing skills are an impediment to improv (the habit of critically evaluating the feedback of other players was the biggest offender).

And I know quite well what "not having the talent" is. My first sessions as a GM are something I still remember and draw conclusions from. Mostly in the way of "that's something I should no longer do":D!
So no, I wasn't a "natural" in any of my hobbies, except reading. And I don't know about reading, either, since I simply got very early instruction;).

For me, the art of zero prep is all about mastering the charade.

Many GMs think too much from their perspective, always forgetting that players have a very limited amount of information compared to them. Therefore, if you just manage to make the adventure feel prepped, it will make no difference if it really is.

Yes, zero prep is a lot about the energy you bring to the table. Zero prep is about using clichés efficiently and subverting them when too obvious. Zero prep is also about ad-hoc descriptions that have just the right amount of detail to make the world seem lived in. It's avoiding the pitfall of having a world being built around the adventurers.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;924431For me, the art of zero prep is all about mastering the charade.

Many GMs think too much from their perspective, always forgetting that players have a very limited amount of information compared to them. Therefore, if you just manage to make the adventure feel prepped, it will make no difference if it really is.

Yes, zero prep is a lot about the energy you bring to the table. Zero prep is about using clichés efficiently and subverting them when too obvious. Zero prep is also about ad-hoc descriptions that have just the right amount of detail to make the world seem lived in. It's avoiding the pitfall of having a world being built around the adventurers.

Bingo - especially the last sentence:)!
Well, I'm not partial of cliches, but they're being repeated because they work. And you can always put a spin on them if you know the matter in more detail;).

Quote from: Edgewise;924299I'm particularly interested in Sine Nomine games, but I wonder how you could deliver the same level of quality for some kinds of games with lots of improvisations.

Basically, you can't. Proper prep is always going to add quality. Because proper prep, by definition, is adding elements that can't be improvised at the table.

What low-prep experimentation reveals to many people, however, is that they AREN'T getting a quality boost from the type of prep they've been doing. That can be a really valuable lesson, if for no other reason than because it will let you spend your normal prep time on the stuff that DOES increase value.

QuoteIf I can't achieve anything like this with sandbox play, then what am I getting in its place?

For me it was more frequent gaming. Low-prep games allowed me to run an open table (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/38643/roleplaying-games/open-table-manifesto) that let me basically play an RPG whenever I wanted to while vastly expanding the circle of people I game with. They also allowed me to run a second ongoing campaign (which I would normally not have been able to support with my normal prep load).

Quote from: rgrove0172;924333Zero prep for a contained, focused adventure in a dungeon is one thing. Zero prep for a world spanning, intricately plotted, multi-setting adventure with dozens of different locales, NPCs, cultures, historical background, diplomatic intrigue, sub plots and interlaced mini adventures, and so on is another thing entirely.

Yeah. I find dungeons a lot more difficult to run on the fly than other sorts of scenarios. I mean, they need literally everything other types of scenarios need, but then they also need an effective map.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924386Im trying to imagine dropping a town in front of the players or something then a few minutes later or the next day or whatever realizing "Oh crap, it would have been so much better had I done this instead!" It doesn't bother you guys?

Sure. I know that moment. But prep doesn't actually eliminate those moments. It just moves you to the next set of such moments. No matter how much effort you put into something, there's always some new layer or improvement or interconnection or theme that could have been done better.

For example, one of the largest and most ambitious campaigns I have ever run was Eternal Lies (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/37078/roleplaying-games/eternal-lies-the-alexandrian-remix) for Trail of Cthulhu. In addition to the 400 pages of the published campaign, I prepped 130,000 words of additional content, 300+ props, and 150+ diorama elements. At the end of the campaign -- which was a huge, amazing success -- I ended up with a list of two dozen things I'd like to have improved (and that doesn't count stuff that arose during play that, after the fact, I realized could have been handled more effectively). Stuff like, "It would have been more effective to incorporate the mechanics used for explosives in the final act of the campaign into the earlier sequences so that the players would be familiar with those mechanics for the finale." and "I think there would be a lot of value in having three hotels prepped for each locale." and "I think there's more and subtler foreshadowing that can happen in the insane asylum."

And if I'd taken a little longer the first time and done all of those things? (Even assuming that I would have recognized it before play began.) There would probably be another set of revelations to be discovered.

Quote from: Spinachcat;924418THIS is exactly why I love random dungeons.

For me, I get excited about answering those questions and figuring out the relationships and plots existing, aka weaving a pattern in the chaos. Where is that damn key? Did the Beholder eat it? What is the deal between the goblins? Are they the food? Are the kobolds here to steal the treasure? Or did they bring it here for safe keeping? And what's the secret behind the Drugar's ability to avoid the traps?

Here's something that happened a few years ago:

A few years ago, a convention CoC GM no-showed and I offered to run something on the fly. It was a "standard haunted house", but I put it on a boat instead, and of course, the boat was sinking. Thus, I declared the PCs were Somali pirates.......

I had the PCs attacked by a swarm of rats. One player freaked out because he doesn't know how the rats found them because he had specifically told me his PC was looking for evidence of rats, let alone a hundred of them...

I had totally forgot that!!

So I said, what rats? They looked at me confused. Then I said, there's no rats here. You are all bitten and bloody, but there's no rats here.

With that, I flipped a switch on the entire adventure, adding a whole dream component, making the PCs wonder what was real or not, and my "haunted boat" took on several surreal

So cool adventure glad it ran well and good job for 15 minuets or less of prep.  But here's my issue.  Player action is negated.  In the above example it didn't matter that one player had been on the look out for rats, the random chart the DMwas consulting (in this case subconscious inspiration) said rats so here they are, only they are spooky rats.  

In the further above example, the players can't find the secret of the Drugars ability to avoid the traps because they don't find the Durgar until after they have navigated the traps.  It doesn't matter how they look they won't find it, it's not there.  
Maybe I  getting hung up on small stuff but random seems to have to same problem as rail road.

Quote from: CRKrueger;924343Estar has a good point, Headless.  For example, I ran so much Shadowrun in Seattle, give me a set of PCs, and I can come with a run on the fly because I've completely internalized the Setting, System, NPCs over years of play.  That's not Zero Prep, it's "Bag O' Stuff", "Setting Mastery", "Prep via Play" whatever you want to call it.

I think the majority falls into this category.

Quote from: Headless;924452So cool adventure glad it ran well and good job for 15 minuets or less of prep.  But here's my issue.  Player action is negated.  In the above example it didn't matter that one player had been on the look out for rats, the random chart the DM was consulting (in this case subconscious inspiration) said rats so here they are, only they are spooky rats.  

In the further above example, the players can't find the secret of the Drugars ability to avoid the traps because they don't find the Durgar until after they have navigated the traps.  It doesn't matter how they look they won't find it, it's not there.  
Maybe I  getting hung up on small stuff but random seems to have to same problem as rail road.

This is what I know about the Zero Preppers, their games are not nearly as good as they think they are.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;924433Proper prep is always going to add quality. Because proper prep, by definition, is adding elements that can't be improvised at the table.

What low-prep experimentation reveals to many people, however, is that they AREN'T getting a quality boost from the type of prep they've been doing. That can be a really valuable lesson, if for no other reason than because it will let you spend your normal prep time on the stuff that DOES increase value.

That's an interesting statement.  Do you have a short list or examples of things that you think would fall into each category - "Prep that adds value"/"Prep you could easily improv"?

Quote from: finarvyn;924314This is clearly where the style of play and the intent of the adventure have to be both taken into account. I can zero-prep a basic dungeon crawl, but if every adventure was like that then gaming would get stale in a hurry. I have to mix those sessions in with large-prep sessions, such as professional modules or adventures created by myself. Your choice of DCC adventures is a great one, by the way, as I think that the newer ones (the DCC RPG adventures, not those written for d20) are particularly creative and innovative.

Agree, a mix of adventure approaches works best over the long term, i find.

Quote from: Sommerjon;924467I think the majority falls into this category.


This is what I know about the Zero Preppers, their games are not nearly as good as they think they are.

1: You thought wrong.

2: They are better than you "know"... Because you are a moron.

Quote from: Sommerjon;924467I think the majority falls into this category.

Quote from: Omega;9244881: You thought wrong.

Zero-preppers aren't in the minority? I'd put money on that one.  
Or do you mean that people who aren't really zero-prepping but are relying on decades of experience and internalized goodies don't refer to themselves as zero-preppers, so someone who self-identifies as a zero-prepper actually is one?  That I can see.  I certainly don't refer to myself as that.

Quote from: Sommerjon;924467This is what I know about the Zero Preppers, their games are not nearly as good as they think they are.

Quote from: Omega;9244882: They are better than you "know"... Because you are a moron.

Hmm, he may be overstating the case, I'd probably put it as "despite being wildly successful, and loved by their players, their games are not as good as they would have been with prep."

Most experienced GMs I know are harder on their own performance and game then the players are, so hard to get any objective metrics, of course, someone would have to shift styles without letting the players know and see what feedback they get.

Re-read what he was claiming and answering to... Then remember this is Sommerjon we are talking about here...

Quote from: Omega;924500Re-read what he was claiming and answering to... Then remember this is Sommerjon we are talking about here...

Well, particularly the last one, about the games not being as good as they think they are, there's a few people in this thread you can assume feel the same way from what they've posted, even if they didn't say as much.  

My knee-jerk reaction would be to agree, but then when I stop to think about it, then I think the truth is closer to what I said.  30 years of happy players doesn't mean you couldn't have been better with some prep, just like for myself, 30 years of happy players doesn't mean I essentially wasted a decent amount of time on prep that didn't really get applied, even years later.

Quote from: CRKrueger;92450230 years of happy players doesn't mean you couldn't have been better with some prep

Yep.

Quote30 years of happy players doesn't mean I essentially wasted a decent amount of time on prep that didn't really get applied, even years later.

I might not call unused prep wasted since I tend to enjoy the process*, but I'd agree that I prep lots of stuff that never shows up in a session and that the ratio of used to unused ideas is way higher for predominantly improvisational play than it is for things I have prepared ahead of time.


*  If I didn't enjoy prep I'd do far, far less of it.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;924268... did you just try to claim that random encounters weren't part of how D&D was played initially?

I think he was criticizing illusionism, not random generation.

Quote from: Headless;924346I wouldn't be satisfied with a random dungeon crawl.  If there is a random locked door in room 9 where is the key, it can't be in rooms 1-8 they already looked and it want there yet because the door and the need for it didn't exist.  Why does the beholder in room 13 tolerate the goblins?  What is the secret path the Drugar in room 3 use to get through the traps in room 18 does that leave clues?  Why don't the kobolds steel the treasure?  

These things bother me.  I don't put a Micky Dee's in so I worry about what they eat.

My lower prep solution for one campaign was to treat the dungeon as some weird eruption of chaotic primordial magic, so that the things that appeared there were copies of things that exist, existed or might have existed, more or less frozen in a short time loop until adventurers stumble across them. So any random encounter anywhere (although sometimes several related rooms placed at once, if the encounter seemed like one that would follow a routine of visiting several rooms, like your Drugar in rooms 3 and 18), without regard to purpose, food, water, ventilation or whether they get along with their neighbors. The player characters rescued a sage who discoursed at length about the philosophical implications, mostly in the course of being terrified that he might cease to exist if he left the dungeon. (For game purposes, treasure and magic items continued to exist when removed from the dungeon; so did the sage, as it happened, and other NPCs that I decided on a whim would be significant later.)

When I designed dungeons that made sense, they tended to turn into monster suburbia (all the same kind of monsters and not fun for me) or took a lot of time explaining the weirdness and worrying about whether they really did make sense. So I reduced the useless "prep" time of second guessing my design by embracing the randomness and illogic as a feature. That left more prep time for creating the non-dungeon world.

Lest we forget that zero prepping is a two-way street. Some DMs are insanely good at it. That style plays into the sensibilities of certain types of players. But there's also GMs that suck at it and players that are content with anything presented to them as long as Joe Fighting-Man can hack his way through Underground Locale #14B.

Let's assume you just played an amazing adventure. Afterwards, the GM tells you that he didn't do any prep, even though you assumed it.
What defines a prepped adventure for you on the player side?

I had a  player who was convinced that I used modules for adventures. (I do. Just not as much as he thought or in the ways he thought even when was) He hated modules. Even when other players pointed out I wasnt using modules he still thought I still was.

As a player I really dont care as long as the adventure is interesting and its not some sort of zero-choice thing where no matter what path you take, the same event will happen.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;924528Lest we forget that zero prepping is a two-way street. Some DMs are insanely good at it. That style plays into the sensibilities of certain types of players. But there's also GMs that suck at it and players that are content with anything presented to them as long as Joe Fighting-Man can hack his way through Underground Locale #14B.

Thats a given for any style. One DM will be great running modules, the next cant seem to parse one out to save their lives. Ones good with NPCs and towns, the other fails brutally to run NPCs. Same with low prep and on the fly DMing. And of course same with high prep and plotted out DMing.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;924528Let's assume you just played an amazing adventure. Afterwards, the GM tells you that he didn't do any prep, even though you assumed it.
What defines a prepped adventure for you on the player side?

Preparation defines a prepped adventure. Which side of the screen I'm on is irrelevant.

Now if your question is, can a player tell if the GM prepped...that's an entirely different question. Which depends. On the player. And the GM. And the adventure. But to reiterate, Can a player? tell is different than the question: Did the GM prepare? And both of those questions are different than: Does the player care whether pr not the GM prepared?

Quote from: Justin Alexander;924433Basically, you can't. Proper prep is always going to add quality. Because proper prep, by definition, is adding elements that can't be improvised at the table.

What low-prep experimentation reveals to many people, however, is that they AREN'T getting a quality boost from the type of prep they've been doing. That can be a really valuable lesson, if for no other reason than because it will let you spend your normal prep time on the stuff that DOES increase value.

Word.
But "right-kind-of-prep-only" ain't nearly as punchy as saying "zero-prep", so I don't plan of changing the term:D!

Quote from: Headless;924452So cool adventure glad it ran well and good job for 15 minuets or less of prep.  But here's my issue.  Player action is negated.  In the above example it didn't matter that one player had been on the look out for rats, the random chart the DMwas consulting (in this case subconscious inspiration) said rats so here they are, only they are spooky rats.

But then, not all zero-prep GMs use randomizers to that extent.

QuoteIn the further above example, the players can't find the secret of the Drugars ability to avoid the traps because they don't find the Durgar until after they have navigated the traps.  It doesn't matter how they look they won't find it, it's not there.  

If you look for something in a place where it is not, you ain't going to find it. Not in my games, at least.
Granted, I could almost always tell you why it's not there, too. The reason is almost never "I didn't roll it at a random table".
Different styles and all that.

Quote from: Sommerjon;924467I think the majority falls into this category.

Try thinking again, it didn't work the first time.

QuoteThis is what I know about the Zero Preppers, their games are not nearly as good as they think they are.

Says who? You, the unknown Internet guy I don't know and who has never seen my game?
Should I believe you, or my players, I wonder:p?
Oh wait, that one is easy;). Of course I should believe my players!

Quote from: CRKrueger;924496Or do you mean that people who aren't really zero-prepping but are relying on decades of experience and internalized goodies don't refer to themselves as zero-preppers, so someone who self-identifies as a zero-prepper actually is one?  That I can see.  I certainly don't refer to myself as that.

Actually, I'd consider betting that very few groups use the same setting and system for multiple campaigns in a row...if there was a way to verify it, that is. No, Internet polls don't count.

QuoteHmm, he may be overstating the case, I'd probably put it as "despite being wildly successful, and loved by their players, their games are not as good as they would have been with prep."

I've tried more prep, and less prep. Reducing the prep always improved the reactions of the players.
I've even double-checked it, by running pre-prepared adventures and zero-prep sessions in the same campaign. Again: less prep meant better reactions.
Other GMs that I know have had similar results (when I persuaded, bribed, cajoled, threatened or cheated them into doing the same experiment). Not only that, I could almost always tell them in the session de-briefing whether they had been using pre-fabricated material.
I only told them "how" after they confirmed or denied it. For the record, they always confirmed my conclusions.
(My secret way? If it was below the average session for said GM, I concluded he or she has been using an adventure. And I was right every time.
My logic was that there's two parts in developing any skill, not just GMing. The first is acquiring all sorts of tools, tricks and sub-skills. The other is discarding what's useless, because it drags you down, and too much prep essentially doesn't let you do that.
Maybe it would work better for some GMs, but I've never seen those).

Based on the above, and with all due respect, I posit Sommerjon's statement is simply a load of bullshit.

QuoteMost experienced GMs I know are harder on their own performance and game then the players are, so hard to get any objective metrics, of course, someone would have to shift styles without letting the players know and see what feedback they get.

Which is exactly what I do when I want to get feedback on a new GMing trick or technique:). Because I know that double blind control tests exist for a reason.

Quote from: CRKrueger;924502Well, particularly the last one, about the games not being as good as they think they are, there's a few people in this thread you can assume feel the same way from what they've posted, even if they didn't say as much.

I'm sure there are. But I feel, and my experience shows, that they're wrong.

QuoteMy knee-jerk reaction would be to agree, but then when I stop to think about it, then I think the truth is closer to what I said.  30 years of happy players doesn't mean you couldn't have been better with some prep, just like for myself, 30 years of happy players doesn't mean I essentially wasted a decent amount of time on prep that didn't really get applied, even years later.

There's always some prep. It's just that most of it is prep you can do while sitting on a toilet (and no, you don't need a book to accompany you there), traveling in public transport, and the like.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;924528Lest we forget that zero prepping is a two-way street.

Yes it is, but the "no-prep" version on the players side is Develop In Play as opposed to Develop At Start;).

QuoteLet's assume you just played an amazing adventure. Afterwards, the GM tells you that he didn't do any prep, even though you assumed it.
What defines a prepped adventure for you on the player side?

I congratulate him, or her, even more, of course - why would I do anything differently?
I mean, if it was amazing, and he didn't achieve it by cheating me somehow*, why would I care how much time he spent preparing? It's not something that matters to me.
For that matter, given the above part of my post, if he or she said he's been doing a load of prep to achieve that, I'd really like to know what said prep was. And I'd want to persuade said GM to try and run a zero-prep adventure at some point, without telling us, in order to observe how his results changed;).

And yes, I realize how much prep was involved is something that might matter for some people.
In that case, I'd like to know why, though. I know I'm not going to persuade them otherwise, but I am curious about their reasoning!

*Let's just skip that debate - I see illusionism as cheating, that's not subject to change. To me, the point of being a player (unless the system assumes we've got narrative rights, and that's a different kind of game) is to explore what is there and see what my PC can do about it.
And yes, I used to see illusionism as cheating even when I was using it, and I was good at it. It just wasn't nearly as fun for me as sandboxing.

Quote from: Bren;924533Preparation defines a prepped adventure. Which side of the screen I'm on is irrelevant.

Now if your question is, can a player tell if the GM prepped...that's an entirely different question. Which depends. On the player. And the GM. And the adventure. But to reiterate, Can a player? tell is different than the question: Did the GM prepare? And both of those questions are different than: Does the player care whether pr not the GM prepared?

The question takes Justin's thesis as a baseline, that any prep you do will improve the adventure. If I'm sitting on the player side, how do I know and if I don't know, should I care?

Additional parameters for my question are a naturalistic game and no cheating (=zero prep railroad). Everything the players encounter is not there because they are, but because it can be assumed that they are there because the world is built that way.

Quote from: CRKrueger;924468That's an interesting statement.  Do you have a short list or examples of things that you think would fall into each category - "Prep that adds value"/"Prep you could easily improv"?

This can vary a lot from one GM to the next.

For example, I know that I have a tendency to make questioning NPCs ineffective in mystery scenarios. Due to some bad experiences in my early days as a GM, I'm paranoid about about ruining a campaign by revealing too much of the mystery early on. So I end up defaulting to NPCs who know nothing or bite down on cyanide capsules or whatever. So one thing I make a point of prepping in detail is a breakdown of what various NPCs know. I get a ton of value out of that. Another GM who doesn't have this particular weakness when improvising could easily find that sort of prep completely useless.

This can also change over time: Stuff that you needed to prep 3 years ago could easily be a waste of time today because it's a skill that you've mastered and internalized. For example, I used to get a significant value add from prepping specific boxed text describing locations. I virtually never do that any more, usually just jotting down a few bullet points instead.

Props are a good example of something that's always a value add. (Improvising anything more than a rudimentary prop is obviously impossible to do on-the-fly.)

Something that I think is almost universally a waste of time is prepping a lot of specific contingencies based on hypothetical choices the PCs will make (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/37422/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots-tools-not-contingencies). Unless you're railroading, you're basically guaranteed to end up prepping contingencies that will never be used. You'll gain a much higher quality-to-prep-time ratio from virtually anything else you choose to prep.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;924541The question takes Justin's thesis as a baseline, that any prep you do will improve the adventure.

To be clear: That is not my thesis.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;924541The question takes Justin's thesis as a baseline, that any prep you do will improve the adventure. If I'm sitting on the player side, how do I know and if I don't know, should I care?

Preparation defines a prepped adventure. Which side of the screen you are on is irrelevant. As a player, you should care, if the GM's lack of prep is making the game less fun for you.

QuoteAdditional parameters for my question are a naturalistic game and no cheating (=zero prep railroad). Everything the players encounter is not there because they are, but because it can be assumed that they are there because the world is built that way.

You lost me here. I'm not understanding what you are trying to communicate.

Can some one tell me what illusionism is?

Quote from: Headless;924582Can some one tell me what illusionism is?

You have 3 doors and one bad choice to make.  No matter which door you open it is the bad choice.

Quote from: Omega;9244881: You thought wrong.

Strange, why didn't you tell Krueg he was wrong then?  I was merely agreeing with his post.

Here let me draw you a picture.

Quote from: Sommerjon;924467

Quote from: CRKrueger;924343Estar has a good point, Headless.  For example, I ran so much Shadowrun in Seattle, give me a set of PCs, and I can come with a run on the fly because I've completely internalized the Setting, System, NPCs over years of play.  That's not Zero Prep, it's "Bag O' Stuff", "Setting Mastery", "Prep via Play" whatever you want to call it.

I think the majority falls into this category.

tada.
See, this is me agreeing with Krueg's comment that it is more System Mastery than Zero Prep.  I even went so far as to leave the corner cases in.

Quote from: Omega;9244882: They are better than you "know"... Because you are a moron.

You hurt me.  Wait a second, you're mad bro cuz I easily deflate your pet theories.

Quote from: AsenRG;924536Says who? You, the unknown Internet guy I don't know and who has never seen my game?
Should I believe you, or my players, I wonder:p?
Oh wait, that one is easy;). Of course I should believe my players!

Says who? You, the unknown Internet guy we don't know and never seen game?
Should I believe you, or my own experiences, I wonder:p?
Oh wait, that one is easy;). Of course I should believe my own experiences and you know reality!

I got into low prep because the games I was running didn't offer modules and I didn't have crazy unlimitted time for prep. Also I didn't have a lot of access to modules for games like CoC, they existed but I didn't have them.

After almost four decades of gaming I find I need less prep anyway. That is a lot of practice. I prep the world more (because I love world building) and the adventure less (because the players are going to mangle it anyway).

As for thinking my games are better than they are, the reverse is more likely the case. I have run games that I thought were terrible and had players tell me how much fun they had far more often than thinking I ran a great game and had players not really enjoy it.  Really player enjoyment is the only metric of game quality that matters.

Quote from: Sommerjon;924590See, this is me agreeing with Krueg's comment that it is more System Mastery than Zero Prep.  I even went so far as to leave the corner cases in.

What I am talking about is not the same as System Mastery. It not enough to have mastered the rules of a game, you have to internalize the setting and/or the genre as well. Where system mastery matters the most is in developing a sense of what NPCs and monsters can do. Even that is unimportant if the system is well designed for the setting and genre.

A well designed system in this context means it reflects the reality of the genre or setting a way that a person who know the genre or setting but never has played the game can use the stuff 'as is' and it works as expected.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;924547For example, I know that I have a tendency to make questioning NPCs ineffective in mystery scenarios. Due to some bad experiences in my early days as a GM, I'm paranoid about about ruining a campaign by revealing too much of the mystery early on. So I end up defaulting to NPCs who know nothing or bite down on cyanide capsules or whatever. So one thing I make a point of prepping in detail is a breakdown of what various NPCs know. I get a ton of value out of that. Another GM who doesn't have this particular weakness when improvising could easily find that sort of prep completely useless.

A technique I recommend is to start using random tables. However it not quite as simplistic as that. You need a specific random table that reflect your sense of the odds of the NPCs reacting. However once developed it very useful in breaking you out of any bias you have in that element. And once you get a sense of the odds and along with whatever tweaks you discovered, you will find that you no longer need the table and just vary it yourself. Thus what you used to have to write down in prep you can now adlib. And note this won't be a total replacement as there will be things that are just that intricate or detail that it pays to write it all down first. However it will make you more flexible to handle the unexpected and that the key value.

Quote from: Sommerjon;924590See, this is me agreeing with Krueg's comment that it is more System Mastery than Zero Prep.

That can't be right (or Wright); CRKrueger hates System Mastery as much as he hates the Space Shuttle (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?35232-Were-the-good-ole-games-as-good-as-we-remember&p=924520&viewfull=1#post924520) and so I'm sure he would never admit to using it.

Quote from: rawma;924598That can't be right (or Wright); CRKrueger hates System Mastery as much as he hates the Space Shuttle (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?35232-Were-the-good-ole-games-as-good-as-we-remember&p=924520&viewfull=1#post924520) and so I'm sure he would never admit to using it.

Ooo, cross-thread drama, whose "emotional hot button" got pushed, really? ;)

Seriously though, Shadowrun (even going as far back as 2nd) is definitely a system that can reward "System Mastery" this got to modern levels as we know them today with 3rd Edition (kinda like some other game).

But, in this case, it's not just "System Mastery", but like Estar said "Setting Mastery" (of Shadowrun Seattle), and "Genre Mastery" (of Shadowrun) and "GM Mastery" (of how to run a Shadowrun adventure) all combined together.

System Mastery = "Setting Mastery" + "Genre Mastery" + "GM Mastery" + "Rules Mastery"

Quote from: CRKrueger;924602Ooo, cross-thread drama, whose "emotional hot button" got pushed, really? ;)

Not mine; I just thought it was amusing.

Quote from: Headless;924582Can some one tell me what illusionism is?

It's the forced choice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation_(magic)) of the stage magician; you think you have a choice but you don't really. As Sommerjon said, it's three doors where you always get the one that the GM chose for you to get, although I wouldn't say that it always involves giving the players the bad choice of the three.

Quote from: Sommerjon;924587

Quote from: Headless;924582Can some one tell me what illusionism is?

You have 3 doors and one bad choice to make.  No matter which door you open it is the bad choice.

See also:

• There are three doors and one good choice. No matter which door you open it is the good choice.
• The GM has prepared Ye Olde Wizards Tower. When you leave town, it doesn't matter what direction you take or where you go, because the next tower you see is Ye Olde Wizard's Tower.
• The GM has prepared an ambush by the infamous bandit known as the Ghost and his gang of highwaymen. No matter which road you take you are ambushed by the Ghost and his gang.

Quote from: Sommerjon;924467This is what I know about the Zero Preppers, their games are not nearly as good as they think they are.

'As good as we think they are' is overstating it.  As long as my table comes back, I believe that my zero prepping (which in reality takes about 5 minutes usually) is good enough.  At the end of the day, when it comes to having fun with friends, isn't that all we need?

And frankly, your assumption that our egos are that big or fragile makes me wonder if you're not projecting a sense of insecurity on all of us.

Quote from: Bren;924618See also:

• There are three doors and one good choice. No matter which door you open it is the good choice.
• The GM has prepared Ye Olde Wizards Tower. When you leave town, it doesn't matter what direction you take or where you go, because the next tower you see is Ye Olde Wizard's Tower.
• The GM has prepared an ambush by the infamous bandit known as the Ghost and his gang of highwaymen. No matter which road you take you are ambushed by the Ghost and his gang.

I've never done this, I usually have three or four separate ideas, and I always end up tossing or changing, assuming the players go back and explore another thread, the rest.

Quote from: CRKrueger;924602Seriously though, Shadowrun (even going as far back as 2nd) is definitely a system that can reward "System Mastery" this got to modern levels as we know them today with 3rd Edition (kinda like some other game).

I cant quite say SR rewards system mastery so much as you need to know at least the basics of how all the gears work to make a competent character since the system was too damn narrow in character gen and which put defined caps on how far you could go once in the game. The system didnt reward mastery. It rewarded being aware of the limitations.

Quote from: estar;924596A technique I recommend is to start using random tables. However it not quite as simplistic as that. You need a specific random table that reflect your sense of the odds of the NPCs reacting. However once developed it very useful in breaking you out of any bias you have in that element. And once you get a sense of the odds and along with whatever tweaks you discovered, you will find that you no longer need the table and just vary it yourself. Thus what you used to have to write down in prep you can now adlib.

The root of the problem isn't the NPC reaction -- that's a symptom. The root of the problem is determining what information will spoil a campaign. There's really no way to randomize that process, because it requires intelligent analysis. (Although creating a random table of "information known by henchmen" is one technique I've used to efficiently prep this material.)

Quote from: Bren;924618See also:

• There are three doors and one good choice. No matter which door you open it is the good choice.
• The GM has prepared Ye Olde Wizards Tower. When you leave town, it doesn't matter what direction you take or where you go, because the next tower you see is Ye Olde Wizard's Tower.
• The GM has prepared an ambush by the infamous bandit known as the Ghost and his gang of highwaymen. No matter which road you take you are ambushed by the Ghost and his gang.

Ill take another stab at this and see if it rings true with anyone.

Zero Prep GM - "hmm, ok the party is leaving town and heading north along the old road. Oh! I know what would be cool! Maybe Ye Olde Wizard's Tower, perfect. Ok, gang you see an old tower up ahead."

Railroading GM - "hmm, ok the party is leaving town and heading north along the old road. What do I have in this area? Oh yeah, Ye Olde Wizard's Tower, that would work but wait, its on the south road. What does it matter? They don't know where it is, Ill just move it. Ok gang, you see an old tower up ahead."

Seriously, some of you guys really see the two as all that different? The first approach is fine, even considered innovative and superior while the latter is a crime?

From a player's stand point they are identical and frankly, the reason each is used is the same as well. TO SAVE TIME on prep. The only real difference is that Ill lay my money on the railroaded pre-planned encounter being more thorough, detailed and well thought out.

Honestly, if you have no trouble whipping up the world in front of the players at a moments notice, you shouldn't have any trouble modifying the world in same way.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924667Ill take another stab at this and see if it rings true with anyone.

Zero Prep GM - "hmm, ok the party is leaving town and heading north along the old road. Oh! I know what would be cool! Maybe Ye Olde Wizard's Tower, perfect. Ok, gang you see an old tower up ahead."

That's not how I tend to improvise. We've been down this road before, but you don't seem to be heeding what some of us are saying.

QuoteRailroading GM - "hmm, ok the party is leaving town and heading north along the old road. What do I have in this area? Oh yeah, Ye Olde Wizard's Tower, that would work but wait, its on the south road. What does it matter? They don't know where it is, Ill just move it. Ok gang, you see an old tower up ahead."

I really don't do that. As a GM I find illusionism aesthetically displeasing and a bit lazy. As a player I abhor it, since it makes my decision as to which road to take completely irrelevant and a total waste of time. Which means my paying attention to your setting was a complete waste of time. Because I don't get (and thus can't anticipate) a wizards tower because that makes sense for the location, I get a wizards tower because the GM is a lazy fuck who can't be assed to create something appropriate for the actual choice I did make and just goes with his lazy-ass plan to meet Mr. Wizard.

QuoteSeriously, some of you guys really see the two as all that different? The first approach is fine, even considered innovative and superior while the latter is a crime?

Yeah they are different. Contrast the following.

• GM: So the players are going north. What makes sense for them to encounter on the north road? I might roll on a custom norther wilderlands encounter table or I might reason as follows. Well north of the city is wild terrain. No law there or existing barons. Hey a wizards tower sounds reasonable and it might be interesting. "You see a spooky old tower ahead..."

• I have prepared an encounter at a wizards tower. What the players want or chose is irrelevant because a wizards tower is what the players get next come hell or high water. Their choice is irrelevant. Their knowledge of the setting is irrelevant. The author wants a wizards tower and by god they are getting a wizards tower whether they want it or not.

QuoteFrom a player's stand point they are identical...

They aren't identical though they may look identical to the naive or the clueless. And some players won't complain or comment on the difference because they just don't care that they are on an amusement park roller-coaster where all the ups, downs, and turns are preordained by the GM.

But some players do care.

Quote from: Bren;924680Yeah they are different. Contrast the following.

• GM: So the players are going north. What makes sense for them to encounter on the north road? I might roll on a custom norther wilderlands encounter table or I might reason as follows. Well north of the city is wild terrain. No law there or existing barons. Hey a wizards tower sounds reasonable and it might be interesting. "You see a spooky old tower ahead..."

• I have prepared an encounter at a wizards tower. What the players want or chose is irrelevant because a wizards tower is what the players get next come hell or high water. Their choice is irrelevant. Their knowledge of the setting is irrelevant. The author wants a wizards tower and by god they are getting a wizards tower whether they want it or not.

You're two choices aren't identical. But none of those details existed in the example. Just that they were going North and the GM changed the world. Not that the players chose to go North due to some knowledge of the setting, or to avoid anything in particular. Yes, once you change the situation, the situation is different. Without all the stuff you added to the example to make the GM's decision undermine the player's decision, it isn't an amusement park roller-coaster where the ups, down and turns are preordained by the GM. It's just a moment where the GM had put a thing here, but decided to move it to there. The GM should be free to change details that the players haven't encountered yet. Why not? Maybe the GM had written that his NPC king had red hair and a lisp, but then decides that he wants him to have dark hair and one-eye. Unless he's undermining some choice I made, why should I care?

Quote from: Noclue;924699You're two choices aren't identical. But none of those details existed in the example. Just that they were going North and the GM changed the world. Not that the players chose to go North due to some knowledge of the setting, or to avoid anything in particular.

You are correct that I presumed the players had some reason for choosing to go north instead of east, south, or west. And that possibly that choice might be invalidated by the moving Tower of Wizardry. I presumed the player had a reason because usually as a player I have a reason, which may be unstated, for picking a direction. While as a GM, I've observed that players frequently have a reason for their choice. If on the other hand, the players are just randomly wandering about with no rhyme or reason and no connection between their choice and information previously available in the setting then you are correct that it doesn't much matter what they choose and the GM can teleport towers about at whim. But if the players choice doesn't matter, why even ask what direction they want to go? Just tell them, "you travel for several days until you reach a spooky looking tower."

QuoteThe GM should be free to change details that the players haven't encountered yet. Why not?

As I said, I assumed the players had some reason other than rolling a 1 on the D8 for deciding to head north. If, on the other hand, you assume they have no reason at all for their choice, then it probably doesn't much matter whether the GM moves the Ye Olde Wizard Tower any place they choose to travel.

QuoteMaybe the GM had written that his NPC king had red hair and a lisp, but then decides that he wants him to have dark hair and one-eye. Unless he's undermining some choice I made, why should I care?

In this example, I don't have any particular problem with the GM changing his preparation for the NPC. But as you have outlined it, it seems like a pointless change. Once the change has some point, then it might matter whether or not the GM is playing a shell game with the players.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924667Seriously, some of you guys really see the two as all that different? The first approach is fine, even considered innovative and superior while the latter is a crime?

From a player's stand point they are identical and frankly, the reason each is used is the same as well. TO SAVE TIME on prep. The only real difference is that Ill lay my money on the railroaded pre-planned encounter being more thorough, detailed and well thought out.

1: Because they are different.
A: The first is just setting an element on the fly. The wizard tower did not exist till then. Possibly the players choice of direction inspired the DM and if they'd gone east instead then maybe that would have inspired the DM differently.  
B:The other one the tower existed and was placed elsewhere. But now the DM has picked it up and dropped it in the players path. This robs the players of choice and replaces it with an illusion of choice. It actually does not matter if the players ever know. Its a bad practice and once of the few that is hard to ever justify.
C: This one also exists and is different from the other two. The DM has prepped some encounters for placement from random rolls or player request. These get dripped in as needed. Such as the players want to go hunting bandits. You have a band of robbers prepped and they fit the locale even. Or you have some encounters prepped for random wilderness encounters. In this case the event has not been placed anywhere. Its just pending a need.

2: You might bet wrong then. But placing your encounter and then moving it is not the way to go.

I'll play this game.

If I throw in the wizard's tower to the north, what happens if you have a wizardly player who suddenly asks, "Well, whose tower is it?  I would know of them, right?"  At which point, and I'm literally riffing off the top of my head here, "Well, yes, this is the home of Samanthia Firehawk, a former adventuring wizard who retired 5 years ago after losing the rest of her friends to a floor in Undermountain where there were three Iron Golems."  A pause, "Thing is, she's a friendly sort, always coming into town and chatting with the people, flirting with anyone she considered attractive in some fashion, she's a devotee of Sune, after all, but for the past month, she hasn't been seen and people are worried about her."

I lean back, because my back suddenly hurts and I ask my players, "What do you want to do?"

Quote from: Christopher Brady;924717If I throw in the wizard's tower to the north, what happens if you have a wizardly player who suddenly asks, "Well, whose tower is it?  I would know of them, right?"  At which point, and I'm literally riffing off the top of my head here, "Well, yes, this is the home of Samanthia Firehawk, a former adventuring wizard who retired 5 years ago after losing the rest of her friends to a floor in Undermountain where there were three Iron Golems."  A pause, "Thing is, she's a friendly sort, always coming into town and chatting with the people, flirting with anyone she considered attractive in some fashion, she's a devotee of Sune, after all, but for the past month, she hasn't been seen and people are worried about her."

Yes. If you know genre conventions, it's pretty easy to come up with elaborate backstories on the fly.

Hell, I'd like to enter that tower now.

Quote from: Bren;924680GM: So the players are going north. What makes sense for them to encounter on the north road? I might roll on a custom norther wilderlands encounter table or I might reason as follows. Well north of the city is wild terrain. No law there or existing barons. Hey a wizards tower sounds reasonable and it might be interesting. "You see a spooky old tower ahead..."

This. That's what I meant earlier with taking a naturalistic approach, as opposed to zero prep railroading.

I am asking myself "Does XYZ make sense in this environment? Is it reasonable that XYZ exists here?" rather than thinking "No matter what, XYZ happens."

The rest is just coming up with things that make the players curious enough to check them out. It's an adventure after all.

Also, if you take the railroaded Wizard Tower example, the location of that tower might at some point make no sense to the players. I would find that iffy as a player:
"You walk the southern road and see a wizard's tower in the distance."
"But we came from the south, how could we miss it?"

"You walk the western road and see a wizard's tower in the distance."
"Wasn't this the domain of Duke Ruderich von Henn, aka 'Witch Burner'?"

Quote from: Bren;924704You are correct that I presumed the players had some reason for choosing to go north instead of east, south, or west. And that possibly that choice might be invalidated by the moving Tower of Wizardry. I presumed the player had a reason because usually as a player I have a reason, which may be unstated, for picking a direction. While as a GM, I've observed that players frequently have a reason for their choice. If on the other hand, the players are just randomly wandering about with no rhyme or reason and no connection between their choice and information previously available in the setting then you are correct that it doesn't much matter what they choose and the GM can teleport towers about at whim. But if the players choice doesn't matter, why even ask what direction they want to go? Just tell them, "you travel for several days until you reach a spooky looking tower."

So, it's either GM railroad, or completely random wandering? Seems like there's a huge middle case where the player's head north for a reason, without any knowledge of the hazards they will face, but a general acknowledgement that there will probably be hazards (they're in an adventure game after all). In that case, why does it matter if the GM arbitrarily uses a tower he originally arbitrarily located to the south?

Quote from: rgrove0172;924667Ill take another stab at this and see if it rings true with anyone.

Illusionist GM WANTIING TO PASS FOR ZERO-PREP GM- "hmm, ok the party is leaving town and heading north along the old road. Oh! I know what would be cool! Maybe Ye Olde Wizard's Tower, perfect. Ok, gang you see an old tower up ahead."

Railroading GM - "hmm, ok the party is leaving town and heading north along the old road. What do I have in this area? Oh yeah, Ye Olde Wizard's Tower, that would work but wait, its on the south road. What does it matter? They don't know where it is, Ill just move it. Ok gang, you see an old tower up ahead."

Seriously, some of you guys really see the two as all that different? The first approach is fine, even considered innovative and superior while the latter is a crime?

From a player's stand point they are identical and frankly, the reason each is used is the same as well. TO SAVE TIME on prep. The only real difference is that Ill lay my money on the railroaded pre-planned encounter being more thorough, detailed and well thought out.

Honestly, if you have no trouble whipping up the world in front of the players at a moments notice, you shouldn't have any trouble modifying the world in same way.

That's BS, and we told you it is already. But it's fine, nobody expects you to read what we're saying by now, not after you repeatedly proved that you don't;).

I'm explaining for the people that actually read:
Real Zero Prep GM - "hmm, ok the party is leaving town...hold on a second, guys - by which road?"
Party: "Don't tell us...there's four of them?"
RZP GM: "Only three. Nobody bothers to go in the swamps, and you'd need a guide to do that...unless you feel like drowning."
(Proceeds to describe the general outlines of the 3 roads leading out of the city. Decides that if they leave by the North door, they meet a Wizard Tower, the East door it's bandits trying to waylay a wizard who might or might not try to have a shot at them, and if they leave by the river, it's a roll on a table from a pirate RPG.
Party: "we are heading north along the old road".
RZP GM: (Thinks) "Oh! That's Ye Olde Wizard's Tower, perfect... (Says) Ok, gang you see an old tower up ahead. The road leading to it is kinda covered with growth, though at some spots nothing grows, and the ground is black as soot*, yet hard as stone. The door guardian, which all doors in this region have, is a demon-like figure. Anyone wants to give me an "Occult"** roll? You have a +2 bonus if your character is from that region."

*I have already decided that this is the result of summoned demons traveling from and to the tower while dripping acid. If they check, they might get some idea.
**This is to see if they remember any details. I know that this is a demon nobody in their sane mind would put as a guardian figure: it might attract its attention! On a success with a raise, they know that this is indeed a demon of things that separate places: frontiers, doors, castle walls, so it's really likely to sense transgressors.
However, the wizard in the tower has a pact with it, so he doesn't care about attracting its attention - the pact means the demon would send one of his minions to investigate, actually. However, the wizard will be pissed off if that happens, and there is a fight! He owes him a sacrifice - in gold or innocent lives - whenever one of the minions gets hurt as a result of protecting his property.

I came up with the above while typing it, BTW. In fact, I was ready with the details before I had typed out the first footnote. So by now, I have the wizard's personality as well...but I'm not going to type that out in detail, just say that he's a type who started out as trying to do good, and got entangled in outwordly pacts - or else, I'll keep typing for the next few hours, and write you an adventure you can add to an existing campaign:p!
But since I have other stuff to do in the meantime, and it's more work than I'd do just for a forum post...maybe next time:D.

Grove, what Asen is saying is that the order of events is the same, whether High, Low, or Zero prep.
1. Players are presented with the choice of North, East, or South
2. Wizard's Tower has been predetermined to be along the North road.
3. Player's choose the road, either seeing or missing the Wizard's Tower based on choice.

"Predetermined" could be 3 weeks earlier, or three seconds earlier, but it is determined before the choice.

Quote from: Noclue;924728So, it's either GM railroad, or completely random wandering? Seems like there's a huge middle case where the player's head north for a reason, without any knowledge of the hazards they will face, or any idea of who or what they might encounter and who or what would be unreasonable to encounter to the north, but a general acknowledgement that there will probably be hazards (they're in an adventure game after all). In that case, why does it matter if the GM arbitrarily uses a tower he originally arbitrarily located to the south?

I added in a caveat you neglected.

PCs who live in the world, but have no idea, not even a rumor, of what lies to the north and still they choose to go north, seems a lot like random wandering to me. And as the GM it matters to me whether or not my decisions are reasonable or simply arbitrary, but I tend towards a lot less arbitrary whim and a lot more “what makes sense to have here” when deciding what happens next.

Also see comments by others here (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?35346-Seriously-how-much-time-goes-into-these-quot-zero-prep-quot-games&p=924712&viewfull=1#post924712), here (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?35346-Seriously-how-much-time-goes-into-these-quot-zero-prep-quot-games&p=924724&viewfull=1#post924724), here (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?35346-Seriously-how-much-time-goes-into-these-quot-zero-prep-quot-games&p=924731&viewfull=1#post924731), and most succinctly, here (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?35346-Seriously-how-much-time-goes-into-these-quot-zero-prep-quot-games&p=924732&viewfull=1#post924732).

If one is so concerned about wasted prep to the point that the wizard's tower must have a chance to appear no matter the direction, than I find it is better practice to create a random special encounter table that includes Ye Olde Wizards Tower (along with other special encounters) with instructions on the type of terrain or situation where the tower is an appropriate result on the table along with some reason why its location is unexpected.

This is one of the pitfalls of high to medium prep and I've heard it as an excuse way too often. "Well I worked on the wizards tower and it would be a waste if the players choice made them miss it. So I'll just move it over here in their path and they'll never know."

Quote from: Noclue;924699You're two choices aren't identical. But none of those details existed in the example. Just that they were going North and the GM changed the world. Not that the players chose to go North due to some knowledge of the setting, or to avoid anything in particular. Yes, once you change the situation, the situation is different. Without all the stuff you added to the example to make the GM's decision undermine the player's decision, it isn't an amusement park roller-coaster where the ups, down and turns are preordained by the GM. It's just a moment where the GM had put a thing here, but decided to move it to there. The GM should be free to change details that the players haven't encountered yet. Why not? Maybe the GM had written that his NPC king had red hair and a lisp, but then decides that he wants him to have dark hair and one-eye. Unless he's undermining some choice I made, why should I care?

Exactly my point. There is no difference whatsoever, I decide now or I decided a week ago and change my mind now. Same dang thing. People can call it whatever they want. Its GM improv and its a well used and perfectly effective way to run a game.

Quote from: Omega;924741This is one of the pitfalls of high to medium prep and I've heard it as an excuse way too often. "Well I worked on the wizards tower and it would be a waste if the players choice made them miss it. So I'll just move it over here in their path and they'll never know."

When I contemplate a game world, I tend to presume the existence of a map of some kind.

A situation where the tower's location is unfixed or irrelevant reminds me of of the node method of mapping wilderness or megadungeons. But now, instead of the node corresponding to some fixed geographical element, it corresponds to a fixed encounter. Moving the wizard's tower changes the map of the game world into a nodal map of encounters that occur in a nebulous geographical space. Encounters that are created by the GM and then arbitrarily (whatever that means in this context) placed by the GM as the players move along from one node to the next.

Another thing this sort of nodal encounter map resembles is an adventure path. It also resembles a story. Which is why it is of great appeal to would be auteurs.

Quote from: Bren;924704You are correct that I presumed the players had some reason for choosing to go north instead of east, south, or west. And that possibly that choice might be invalidated by the moving Tower of Wizardry. I presumed the player had a reason because usually as a player I have a reason, which may be unstated, for picking a direction. While as a GM, I've observed that players frequently have a reason for their choice. If on the other hand, the players are just randomly wandering about with no rhyme or reason and no connection between their choice and information previously available in the setting then you are correct that it doesn't much matter what they choose and the GM can teleport towers about at whim. But if the players choice doesn't matter, why even ask what direction they want to go? Just tell them, "you travel for several days until you reach a spooky looking tower."

Because as you said, players do make choices, like to look and interact with maps and other cool gamey stuff. Of course if there was some decision made to "Got south to avoid the Damned Wizards Towers popping up everywhere." Only an asshole would move it in front of them. Obviously that's not the case, nor is it a situation I have ever seen in the most hands on GM'd games Ive ever witnessed. Nobody is arguing the GM should spit in the face of a player decision.

As I said, I assumed the players had some reason other than rolling a 1 on the D8 for deciding to head north. If, on the other hand, you assume they have no reason at all for their choice, then it probably doesn't much matter whether the GM moves the Ye Olde Wizard Tower any place they choose to travel.

In this example, I don't have any particular problem with the GM changing his preparation for the NPC. But as you have outlined it, it seems like a pointless change. Once the change has some point, then it might matter whether or not the GM is playing a shell game with the players.

GM fiat in the way of plot elements and narrative is not a shell game. There is no 'fooling' being done. No more fooling than telling a player they are headed for a kingdom that wont actually exist until they get there.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924747GM fiat in the way of plot elements and narrative is not a shell game. There is no 'fooling' being done. No more fooling than telling a player they are headed for a kingdom that wont actually exist until they get there.

Of course it is a shell game. It's not the usual shell game where there is no pea under any of the cups. Its the variant where the pea is always under whatever cup the rube chooses.

• They ran into Ye Olde Wizard's tower because they went north.

• They ran into Ye Olde Wizard's tower because the GM wanted the next thing they encountered to be Ye Olde Wizard's tower.

Are you really saying you see no difference between the two different types of causation? Seriously?

Quote from: Omega;9247121: Because they are different.
A: The first is just setting an element on the fly. The wizard tower did not exist till then. Possibly the players choice of direction inspired the DM and if they'd gone east instead then maybe that would have inspired the DM differently.  
B:The other one the tower existed and was placed elsewhere. But now the DM has picked it up and dropped it in the players path. This robs the players of choice and replaces it with an illusion of choice. It actually does not matter if the players ever know. Its a bad practice and once of the few that is hard to ever justify.

There is no difference whatsoever between what doesn't exist yet and what the players don't know yet, from the game perspective. No justification needed.

C: This one also exists and is different from the other two. The DM has prepped some encounters for placement from random rolls or player request. These get dripped in as needed. Such as the players want to go hunting bandits. You have a band of robbers prepped and they fit the locale even. Or you have some encounters prepped for random wilderness encounters. In this case the event has not been placed anywhere. Its just pending a need.

2: You might bet wrong then. But placing your encounter and then moving it is not the way to go.

Not according to who? I cant tell you the number of GMs over the years have laughed about transplanting their favorite Inn, or changing the name of an NPC, turning their Mermaids into Dryads when the players went to the woods instead of the coast, and so on and so on. There are a few here and elsewhere that for whatever reason have developed an issue with it and that's fine but there is no denying its a method used consistently across the hobby, and always has been.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;924724Yes. If you know genre conventions, it's pretty easy to come up with elaborate backstories on the fly.

Hell, I'd like to enter that tower now.



This. That's what I meant earlier with taking a naturalistic approach, as opposed to zero prep railroading.

I am asking myself "Does XYZ make sense in this environment? Is it reasonable that XYZ exists here?" rather than thinking "No matter what, XYZ happens."

The rest is just coming up with things that make the players curious enough to check them out. It's an adventure after all.

Also, if you take the railroaded Wizard Tower example, the location of that tower might at some point make no sense to the players. I would find that iffy as a player:
"You walk the southern road and see a wizard's tower in the distance."
"But we came from the south, how could we miss it?"

"You walk the western road and see a wizard's tower in the distance."
"Wasn't this the domain of Duke Ruderich von Henn, aka 'Witch Burner'?"

Any GM that wouldn't consider such things is an idiot.

Quote from: CRKrueger;924732Grove, what Asen is saying is that the order of events is the same, whether High, Low, or Zero prep.
1. Players are presented with the choice of North, East, or South
2. Wizard's Tower has been predetermined to be along the North road.
3. Player's choose the road, either seeing or missing the Wizard's Tower based on choice.

"Predetermined" could be 3 weeks earlier, or three seconds earlier, but it is determined before the choice.

OK, Ill bite... and if the GM already has the location of the towers locked away in his zero prep head somehow then sure, gotcha. But typically he doesn't, its the very nature of improv GMing. You wait until information is needed before you make it up. So in this case the tower probably wouldn't exist until the players went north and asked, "What do we see?" at which point the GM makes up the tower. To the players, the encounter is exactly the same.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924749Not according to who? I cant tell you the number of GMs over the years have laughed about transplanting their favorite Inn, or changing the name of an NPC, turning their Mermaids into Dryads when the players went to the woods instead of the coast, and so on and so on. There are a few here and elsewhere that for whatever reason have developed an issue with it and that's fine but there is no denying its a method used consistently across the hobby, and always has been.

Of course it is used a lot. It even has a name...

Quote from: AsenRG;924731That's BS, and we told you it is already. But it's fine, nobody expects you to read what we're saying by now, not after you repeatedly proved that you don't;).

I'm explaining for the people that actually read:
Real Zero Prep GM - "hmm, ok the party is leaving town...hold on a second, guys - by which road?"
Party: "Don't tell us...there's four of them?"
RZP GM: "Only three. Nobody bothers to go in the swamps, and you'd need a guide to do that...unless you feel like drowning."
(Proceeds to describe the general outlines of the 3 roads leading out of the city. Decides that if they leave by the North door, they meet a Wizard Tower, the East door it's bandits trying to waylay a wizard who might or might not try to have a shot at them, and if they leave by the river, it's a roll on a table from a pirate RPG.
Party: "we are heading north along the old road".
RZP GM: (Thinks) "Oh! That's Ye Olde Wizard's Tower, perfect... (Says) Ok, gang you see an old tower up ahead. The road leading to it is kinda covered with growth, though at some spots nothing grows, and the ground is black as soot*, yet hard as stone. The door guardian, which all doors in this region have, is a demon-like figure. Anyone wants to give me an "Occult"** roll? You have a +2 bonus if your character is from that region."

*I have already decided that this is the result of summoned demons traveling from and to the tower while dripping acid. If they check, they might get some idea.
**This is to see if they remember any details. I know that this is a demon nobody in their sane mind would put as a guardian figure: it might attract its attention! On a success with a raise, they know that this is indeed a demon of things that separate places: frontiers, doors, castle walls, so it's really likely to sense transgressors.
However, the wizard in the tower has a pact with it, so he doesn't care about attracting its attention - the pact means the demon would send one of his minions to investigate, actually. However, the wizard will be pissed off if that happens, and there is a fight! He owes him a sacrifice - in gold or innocent lives - whenever one of the minions gets hurt as a result of protecting his property.

I came up with the above while typing it, BTW. In fact, I was ready with the details before I had typed out the first footnote. So by now, I have the wizard's personality as well...but I'm not going to type that out in detail, just say that he's a type who started out as trying to do good, and got entangled in outwordly pacts - or else, I'll keep typing for the next few hours, and write you an adventure you can add to an existing campaign:p!
But since I have other stuff to do in the meantime, and it's more work than I'd do just for a forum post...maybe next time:D.

Nice little story, and yes I do read. Nothing there you wrote precludes moving the entire damned scene to the east road or south or whatever. You just described the roads to the players when they asked. You could have described them in any other order, they wouldn't have known or cared and still picked the one towards the tower. Again, no diff.

Quote from: Bren;924755Of course it is used a lot. It even has a name...

Zero Prepping has one too, its called "Making Shit up as you GO"....Both are negative reflection on a suitable method to play a game.

Hey, Ive to throw in here that Im not as dedicated to the whole damn Railroading thing as some might think. I play different ways at different times for different games with different players. It just pisses me off a bit when some high-brow gamers slam one style or another as "Wrong" or "Substandard" or "Ill advised". Its a crock. Im fairly certain everybody uses different methods from time to time, even briefly when it lends itself to the situation at hand.

Ive Zero Prepped when caught off guard before, for an entire session so as not to delay the game. I don't prefer it but its doable. Just because someone games that way doesn't mean they are a genius or gifted in some way as opposed to the unwashed masses that use pre-gen stuff or even published adventures. That elitist snarky crap is just infuriating.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924757Zero Prepping has one too, its called "Making Shit up as you GO"....Both are negative reflection on a suitable method to play a game.

For people who like Zero Prepping, "Making Shit up as you GO" is not a negative reflection on how they play the game. It is a description. They make stuff up. As they go. I don't usually GM this way. But I don't need to GM this way to recognize the description.

Other people move Ye Olde's Wizard's Tower in front of the players no matter which way they go. For reasons.* Moving the tower, like changing what's behind door number 2 is called Illusionism. I don't' GM this way . But I recognize the description. Illusionism is a kind of shell game. Some people like shell games, but for some reason, they often get upset when it is pointed out that a shell game is, in fact, what is going on.


* Some of the reasons GMs have for playing a shell game include;

• The GM just can't stand the thought of his players NOT encountering the kewl wizard's tower he created. Because it's kewl. Really, really kewl. This is a qualitative argument that the design of the tower mandates it's appearance.
• The GM feels entitled to move the tower because of all the work they've done. He doesn't want his work "wasted." This is really the same as 1. but it side steps any question of the quality of the creation by appealing to the "hard work" as a way of entitling the GM to display his creation, no matter what and without regard to any question of quality.
• The GM has envisioned a scene that can only occur at the wizard's tower and so the players must encounter the tower so the GM's scene will occur. This is different than 1 and 2 where the tower's appearance, i.e. displaying the GM's work or effort is an end in itself. Here the tower's appearance is the means to the end of trying to enable or force a certain scene to occur. This one gets used a lot in adventure paths where the designer may even include boxed dialog for the GM to read during the scene.
  
• Similar to 3. is the predetermined encounter as part of some elaborate balancing of threat levels. This also gets used a lot in adventure path, especially in D&D 3E, 4E, and Pathfinder where there is an expectation of x number of encounters, and a need for encounters to ablate certain buff spells so that the final (and often scripted) confrontation with the Big Bad is sufficiently (but not overly) challenging.
• A possible 5th reason would be the GM just can't think of anything except the tower for the players to encounter. That seems like a weird reason to me since creativity is effectively infinite, random encounter tables are a dime a dozen, and every GM I've ever seen can generate more than one idea at a time. So I don't think this one get's used a lot, but it is at least theoretically possible.

Quote from: Bren;924680They aren't identical though they may look identical to the naive or the clueless. And some players won't complain or comment on the difference because they just don't care that they are on an amusement park roller-coaster where all the ups, downs, and turns are preordained by the GM.

But some players do care.

Also, some players spot it easily. I tried it couple of days ago with my most regular group, and decided to see how long it would be before anyone spots it.
My wife spotted it in less than 30 minutes. As she puts it, "I've been using illusionism myself, it's easy to spot in others".
I've been using it too long myself.

Quote from: Omega;9247122: You might bet wrong then. But placing your encounter and then moving it is not the way to go.

Except according to rgrove, there's no difference:). I suspect he can't spot it when others do that, or simply doesn't care. Or maybe he doesn't play often.

Quote from: CRKrueger;924732Grove, what Asen is saying is that the order of events is the same, whether High, Low, or Zero prep.
1. Players are presented with the choice of North, East, or South
2. Wizard's Tower has been predetermined to be along the North road.
3. Player's choose the road, either seeing or missing the Wizard's Tower based on choice.

"Predetermined" could be 3 weeks earlier, or three seconds earlier, but it is determined before the choice.

That is what I was saying, indeed. Thank you, green one...not that it stood a chance to work, and we can see already that it didn't work, but thanks nonetheless:D!

Quote from: Omega;924741This is one of the pitfalls of high to medium prep and I've heard it as an excuse way too often. "Well I worked on the wizards tower and it would be a waste if the players choice made them miss it. So I'll just move it over here in their path and they'll never know."

I've heard it myself. And it's still an excuse.
In a way, I respect rgrove's "it makes no difference to me" position more, because he doesn't make excuses. That's how he's running his game, take it or leave it:).

Quote from: rgrove0172;924745Exactly my point. There is no difference whatsoever, I decide now or I decided a week ago and change my mind now. Same dang thing. People can call it whatever they want. Its GM improv and its a well used and perfectly effective way to run a game.

No, Bren's examples are far from identical.
The difference is whether you change your mind before or after the information becomes relevant, whether the players' choice where to go would matter, and so on.
If you can't see a difference between "GMing improvisation" and "GM imposing what's going to happen"...well, I don't think there's any point in continuing that debate with you.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924747GM fiat in the way of plot elements and narrative is not a shell game. There is no 'fooling' being done. No more fooling than telling a player they are headed for a kingdom that wont actually exist until they get there.

It is a shell game, of course. You present an option, and you know the player always gets X, no matter what he chooses.


The kingdom existed the moment I told him it did. What was in the kingdom would be the way it is the moment I tell him it's there. They can't head to it without me confirming it exists, so it clearly does.
And that's if we're not using a detailed setting to begin with.

Quote from: Bren;924748Of course it is a shell game. It's not the usual shell game where there is no pea under any of the cups. Its the variant where the pea is always under whatever cup the rube chooses.

• They ran into Ye Olde Wizard's tower because they went north.

• They ran into Ye Olde Wizard's tower because the GM wanted the next thing they encountered to be Ye Olde Wizard's tower.

Are you really saying you see no difference between the two different types of causation? Seriously?

You know how shell games go? First, the crook makes sure you win, possibly raising the bets.
Then you start losing, and before long, you've lost much more than you gained:).

Hmm, the similarities are striking, now that I think of it:p!

Quote from: rgrove0172;924756Nice little story, and yes I do read. Nothing there you wrote precludes moving the entire damned scene to the east road or south or whatever. You just described the roads to the players when they asked. You could have described them in any other order, they wouldn't have known or cared and still picked the one towards the tower. Again, no diff.

Of course something I wrote precludes it. You just didn't pay attention, as usual.
Do I need to quote it and bold the part? Well, obviously I do...here you go.

Quote from: AsenRG;924731That's BS, and we told you it is already. But it's fine, nobody expects you to read what we're saying by now, not after you repeatedly proved that you don't;).

I'm explaining for the people that actually read:
Real Zero Prep GM - "hmm, ok the party is leaving town...hold on a second, guys - by which road?"
Party: "Don't tell us...there's four of them?"
RZP GM: "Only three. Nobody bothers to go in the swamps, and you'd need a guide to do that...unless you feel like drowning."
(Proceeds to describe the general outlines of the 3 roads leading out of the city. Decides that if they leave by the North door, they meet a Wizard Tower, the East door it's bandits trying to waylay a wizard who might or might not try to have a shot at them, and if they leave by the river, it's a roll on a table from a pirate RPG.)[/B]
Party: "we are heading north along the old road".
RZP GM: (Thinks) "Oh! That's Ye Olde Wizard's Tower, perfect... (Says) Ok, gang you see an old tower up ahead. The road leading to it is kinda covered with growth, though at some spots nothing grows, and the ground is black as soot*, yet hard as stone. The door guardian, which all doors in this region have, is a demon-like figure. Anyone wants to give me an "Occult"** roll? You have a +2 bonus if your character is from that region."

*I have already decided that this is the result of summoned demons traveling from and to the tower while dripping acid. If they check, they might get some idea.
**This is to see if they remember any details. I know that this is a demon nobody in their sane mind would put as a guardian figure: it might attract its attention! On a success with a raise, they know that this is indeed a demon of things that separate places: frontiers, doors, castle walls, so it's really likely to sense transgressors.
However, the wizard in the tower has a pact with it, so he doesn't care about attracting its attention - the pact means the demon would send one of his minions to investigate, actually. However, the wizard will be pissed off if that happens, and there is a fight! He owes him a sacrifice - in gold or innocent lives - whenever one of the minions gets hurt as a result of protecting his property.

I came up with the above while typing it, BTW. In fact, I was ready with the details before I had typed out the first footnote. So by now, I have the wizard's personality as well...but I'm not going to type that out in detail, just say that he's a type who started out as trying to do good, and got entangled in outwordly pacts - or else, I'll keep typing for the next few hours, and write you an adventure you can add to an existing campaign:p!
But since I have other stuff to do in the meantime, and it's more work than I'd do just for a forum post...maybe next time:D.

There. Hope that helps your comprehension.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924757Zero Prepping has one too, its called "Making Shit up as you GO"....Both are negative reflection on a suitable method to play a game.

Illusionism is, almost by definition, not a suitable method to play the game. (The sane option where the players know and don't care is called "participationism", FYI).
"Making shit up as you go" is not a negative name in my book. It's exactly what I'm doing. I also call it "Lazy GMing", because I don't need to spend out-of-game time to do it.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924758Hey, Ive to throw in here that Im not as dedicated to the whole damn Railroading thing as some might think. I play different ways at different times for different games with different players. It just pisses me off a bit when some high-brow gamers slam one style or another as "Wrong" or "Substandard" or "Ill advised". Its a crock. Im fairly certain everybody uses different methods from time to time, even briefly when it lends itself to the situation at hand.

In my case, no, except to test a theory.

QuoteIve Zero Prepped when caught off guard before, for an entire session so as not to delay the game. I don't prefer it but its doable.

Given that you don't make a difference between illusionism and zero prep, we don't really know what you were doing.

QuoteJust because someone games that way doesn't mean they are a genius or gifted in some way as opposed to the unwashed masses that use pre-gen stuff or even published adventures. That elitist snarky crap is just infuriating.

That, however, is totally true! I'm not a genius or gifted in any way, or at least not because I can improvise faster:D!
Seriously, I can do it simply because I know how to do it. Then it's easily doable, and teachable.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924758Hey, Ive to throw in here that Im not as dedicated to the whole damn Railroading thing as some might think. I play different ways at different times for different games with different players. It just pisses me off a bit when some high-brow gamers slam one style or another as "Wrong" or "Substandard" or "Ill advised". Its a crock. Im fairly certain everybody uses different methods from time to time, even briefly when it lends itself to the situation at hand.

Ive Zero Prepped when caught off guard before, for an entire session so as not to delay the game. I don't prefer it but its doable. Just because someone games that way doesn't mean they are a genius or gifted in some way as opposed to the unwashed masses that use pre-gen stuff or even published adventures. That elitist snarky crap is just infuriating.

You will use any and every method to keep the players engaged and the session moving?

Is that what you are saying?


Silly of you to think this has anything to do with keeping players engaged and the session moving, this is all about ideals.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924667Ill take another stab at this and see if it rings true with anyone.

Zero Prep GM - "hmm, ok the party is leaving town and heading north along the old road. Oh! I know what would be cool! Maybe Ye Olde Wizard's Tower, perfect. Ok, gang you see an old tower up ahead."

Railroading GM - "hmm, ok the party is leaving town and heading north along the old road. What do I have in this area? Oh yeah, Ye Olde Wizard's Tower, that would work but wait, its on the south road. What does it matter? They don't know where it is, Ill just move it. Ok gang, you see an old tower up ahead."

Seriously, some of you guys really see the two as all that different? The first approach is fine, even considered innovative and superior while the latter is a crime?

From a player's stand point they are identical and frankly, the reason each is used is the same as well. TO SAVE TIME on prep. The only real difference is that Ill lay my money on the railroaded pre-planned encounter being more thorough, detailed and well thought out.

Honestly, if you have no trouble whipping up the world in front of the players at a moments notice, you shouldn't have any trouble modifying the world in same way.

For a certain level of apathy and thoughtlessness, you have a valid point.

And as you say, the GM who teleports a prepared tower will have a more prepped tower than the tower that was just invented a second ago. The prepped GM's tower has the advantage of the prep. However some GM's may do better with the unprepped tower just because of how their creativity works.

But both options omit major things that I like both as GM and player. I would prefer to have the location of a major wizard's tower, one which affects and is affected by local conditions, to have an established location. I prefer there to also be an established map around it and for as much distance as feasible in all directions, including terrain, habitations, populations, armies, and as many other details as may be interesting to the GM and players. That way, things in the world actually make some sense geographically, and so exploring the world and noticing what is where and what's going on, also makes sense and behaves according to fairly logical cause and effect, so paying attention to details and working with situations in creative and intelligent ways is supported by a consistent world that includes a consistent map where everything has to travel, eat, sleep, etc like the players do. As opposed to an improv or illusion world where it's more like being in a dream or nightmare or JJ Abrams TV/movie where the GM makes up or changes the world for convenience without caring about many things that could be interesting to work with if they weren't arbitrary and being forcibly reshuffled by a GM who doesn't care about consistency or scale or rationality as much as some of the players might.

I'd rather that the wizard's tower actually teleport and be steered by someone using a crystal ball tracking the players, if it's going to pop around, so it has an in-world reason for doing that.

Quote from: Skarg;924777I would prefer to have the location of a major wizard's tower, one which affects and is affected by local conditions, to have an established location. I prefer there to also be an established map around it and for as much distance as feasible in all directions, including terrain, habitations, populations, armies, and as many other details as may be interesting to the GM and players. That way, things in the world actually make some sense geographically, and so exploring the world and noticing what is where and what's going on, also makes sense and behaves according to fairly logical cause and effect, so paying attention to details and working with situations in creative and intelligent ways is supported by a consistent world that includes a consistent map where everything has to travel, eat, sleep, etc like the players do.

Apart from the map, which of these do you think wouldn't be there when I'm improvising it;)?

Quote from: AsenRG;924779Apart from the map, which of these do you think wouldn't be there when I'm improvising it;)?

At a minimum, the tower "which affects ... local conditions." Since the tower is created after the local conditions that the players have already experienced in the game, the tower logically cannot have affected those prior conditions while they were experienced. However it may affect subsequent conditions.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924752OK, Ill bite... and if the GM already has the location of the towers locked away in his zero prep head somehow then sure, gotcha. But typically he doesn't, its the very nature of improv GMing. You wait until information is needed before you make it up. So in this case the tower probably wouldn't exist until the players went north and asked, "What do we see?" at which point the GM makes up the tower. To the players, the encounter is exactly the same.

The difference is in the zero prep game the tower appears because of a choice the players made, even something as trivial as "going north."

In a heavy scripted pre gen game the DM decides what they are going to meet before they even show up.

I think the Zero prep guys have some stuff going on in the back ground they aren't saying.  For instance and unwritten random encounter table.  A living world which they inhabit and their players do as well.  So the players don't wander blindly out the North Gate.  They players (& charcters) have a sense of what's out there, they have some insight into the unwritten random encounter table.  They went north cause they want to meet something that they thought might be up that way.  Or maybe they didn't have time to fuck with the bandits they suspect are in the east woods.  

For me it comes down to player agency.  Pure randomness and pure rail road both destroy it.

As for me if I prep a wizard tower and I want the to go there, I send them to the wisards tower.  They don't get a choice.  If they don't want to, ok.  Now you guys need to bring the adventure.  You don't want what I made for dinner, you fuckin' cook then.

Quote from: Bren;924748Of course it is a shell game. It's not the usual shell game where there is no pea under any of the cups. Its the variant where the pea is always under whatever cup the rube chooses.

• They ran into Ye Olde Wizard's tower because they went north.

• They ran into Ye Olde Wizard's tower because the GM wanted the next thing they encountered to be Ye Olde Wizard's tower.

Are you really saying you see no difference between the two different types of causation? Seriously?

Functionally, pretty much the same. The GM decided to put the Tower in the North, or the GM decided now would be a good time for a wizards tower. Who cares? As long as the GM is operating in good faith, I trust their ability to factor in rumors the PCs may have heard, what makes sense in the setting, what decisions the players are making and their motivations, pacing concerns, difficulty concerns, all of it. Not only do I trust the GM to make those decisions inn the fly, in a game that supports no prep or low prep GMing, I prefer that the GM excercise the power to alter their creation when they think it would result in the best experience, rather than rigidly sticking to their own arbitrary prep which was based on decisions made in the absence of player decisions. I trust them not to undermine my decisions as a player while revising their decisions as a GM, and I want them doing just that. It's their stuff. If they don't like it, they should change it before making me wade through it. I find just as much enjoyment exploring the things the GM comes up with on the fly as I do things they came up with before. In fact, I enjoy it more if it's done well, because it's hard.

Quote from: Bren;924783At a minimum, the tower "which affects ... local conditions." Since the tower is created after the local conditions that the players have already experienced in the game, the tower logically cannot have affected those prior conditions while they were experienced. However it may affect subsequent conditions.

The example assumed there would be some travel before they reached the tower. At some point, they have entered the area influenced by the tower.
Go back and see my example: the road is described differently because of it...because that's the only difference they're likely to immediately spot.
They might have found others, were they looking. (But since these were "virtual players" - no, I've never used that specific encounter in a game - they did the thing that involved the least writing from me:p).
Conversely, if I haven't described its influence so far, that's because its influence doesn't extend back to where they were. If it looks like the wizard is too powerful not to have any...well, rest assured that there's a reason for that, too. Care to find it out;)?

Quote from: Headless;924784The difference is in the zero prep game the tower appears because of a choice the players made, even something as trivial as "going north."

In a heavy scripted pre gen game the DM decides what they are going to meet before they even show up.

I think the Zero prep guys have some stuff going on in the back ground they aren't saying.  For instance and unwritten random encounter table.  A living world which they inhabit and their players do as well. So the players don't wander blindly out the North Gate.  They players (& charcters) have a sense of what's out there, they have some insight into the unwritten random encounter table.  They went north cause they want to meet something that they thought might be up that way.  Or maybe they didn't have time to fuck with the bandits they suspect are in the east woods.  

Yes, the "living world" part is spot-on. I thought it was clear without saying?

Quote from: Headless;924784As for me if I prep a wizard tower and I want the to go there, I send them to the wisards tower.  They don't get a choice.  If they don't want to, ok.  Now you guys need to bring the adventure.  You don't want what I made for dinner, you fuckin' cook then.

Choo choo, Mr. Conductor. Do your players eat this up, or do they often gag when you force-feed them this swill?

Quote from: AsenRG;924779Apart from the map, which of these do you think wouldn't be there when I'm improvising it;)?

The map is hugely important as it gives consistent established spatial relevance to things. If the GM's creation isn't tied to a map, then eventually it can break down spatially, and it's much easier (and necessary, for me to deal with my players' interests, memories and techniques - including but not limited to making and buying and hoarding maps, as well as interviewing NPCs about their world knowledge) because it provides a structure that doesn't require my memory and can store so much more consistent detail than I could ever remember or write down without such a map.

But to answer your specific question, what wouldn't be there would be things you haven't thought of, that you might have thought of much sooner if you had had a map which you had thought about possibly for years. Detailed consistent maps provide a structure which allows much more reach not only spatially but in terms of time, which as was described is the difference between improv and shell. You sound like a great improv GM who is sensitive to thinking up the details before asking for choices, which sounds great. But if you had known the crossroads led to a wizards tower before the players got to it, or even for months and many miles in the past, there would have been various chances for its existence to have had some sort of impact or at least information effect on the players for a long time. If there's a significant wizard there, they could have heard of them in passing at various times before. The wizard's tower might have a significant effect on road traffic or information passing through that area, on the locals or the wildlife. There would have been a reason why the wizard chose to place their tower in that spot as opposed to various other places on the map, so it would be woven into the geography. The local lords would have some sort of relationships and (dis)agreements with the wizard.

Or even just very specifically and short-range, you would have had opportunities for days before the party got to the cross-roads, if you knew the tower were there, for them to take actions, or for random events which should have had some chance to happen, which would be different if you knew the tower were there. For example, if they had climbed to some high place to get a perspective on the surrounding terrain, if you had a map, you could afford them some geographically appropriate view that could include seeing what might be a tower far in the distance, before they even made it to the crossroads. Or, if there is any kind of road traffic that does or doesn't make sense to add or remove based on the tower, you would have been doing that before the crossroads. If the players decided to interview locals along the way and travellers on the road, asking what they know is nearby of any interest, and what they saw on the road, then they could have known about the tower sooner. Etc.

My players (in detailed mapped campaigns) almost never just wander around the world without having one or more maps and accounts or even local guides who know things about the region they are in. There's a whole major level of play where they are getting as good maps as they can and discovering what's where and what's going on and choosing where to go weeks or months in advance, which would be quite impossible without having a detailed world map.

Moreover, when making up details, if it's done during play, it's much easier to create contradictions, paradoxes, details the players remember but the GM doesn't, and just masses of detail which would have locations and connecting road networks and so on, that is much easier to track with a map than not, and if you try to just invent a whole kingdom during play... it's going to potentially be very different than if you had taken the time to lay it out spatially and consider the effects on other places and so on.

"Oh we're in a port town - let's walk along the docks and look at the ships there and ask where they're from and where they're going..." What goods are they shipping? I don't want to have to make that up during play, and be responsible for figuring it out where it all is and how it makes any consistent sense later.

A couple of examples.

My very first campaign world actually had the tower of a powerful wizard on the map from the very start. He was well-known to be possibly the most powerful wizard in the area. His tower appeared on some maps. The players talked about going there from time to time, and never did. They thought it wisest to avoid the attention of this wizard, and I don't think they ever got within 100km of the tower, perhaps further.

One time when the PC party were not sure where they were in the world, they deployed themselves with scouts and explored until they found a road. They traveled up the road to a crossroads, scouting ahead, looking for landmarks and vantage points and road tracks and litter, and looked at maps they had to guess where they might be based on what they could see. They had their naturalist check for edible plants and hunting chances, and decided to set up a concealed camp near the crossroads and hunt/forage and wait there, keeping a lookout watching the crossroads. When someone was spotted on the road, they sent out an appropriately unintimidating set of people to talk to them, and ask them questions like where they've come from, where they're going, how long it takes to go two/fro where they're going, and if they know what's up the other road, or if there is anything to watch out for, or of interest, where the nearest town is, who/where the local lord is, etc. They stayed there for a few days lying low and interviewing until they had a quite good idea of the local area, what current events were like, what was up each road and how safe they were, what they were liable to find in each direction, and how it related to their other maps and places they knew about.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924752OK, Ill bite... and if the GM already has the location of the towers locked away in his zero prep head somehow then sure, gotcha. But typically he doesn't, its the very nature of improv GMing. You wait until information is needed before you make it up. So in this case the tower probably wouldn't exist until the players went north and asked, "What do we see?" at which point the GM makes up the tower. To the players, the encounter is exactly the same.

???

You've very clearly articulated a problem with waiting 'til the last possible instant to make shit up. So you well know that in order to avoid those problems "information is needed" sooner rather than later. Thus if I'm improv GMing, then I do indeed have the location of the towers locked in before players make their choice of roads, because that's when I need that information, or else bad stuff. Or at least that's the ideal.

Now it may be true that no improv GM is ever a quarter as good as they pretend to be. You've got no way of verifying their claims. But it's not valid argument to blast the idea just because of a bunch of fallible GMs. In terms of the idea itself, you've essentially assumed a problem into existence by not being more consistent with your definition of "need."

Quote from: Lunamancer;924806Now it may be true that no improv GM is ever a quarter as good as they pretend to be. You've got no way of verifying their claims. But it's not valid argument to blast the idea just because of a bunch of fallible GMs. In terms of the idea itself, you've essentially assumed a problem into existence by not being more consistent with your definition of "need."

That's the crux of the whole thing.
Illusionism vs Zero Prep comes down to Zero Preppers claiming to have thought of everything before the choice.

Quote from: Skarg;924792The map is hugely important as it gives consistent established spatial relevance to things. If the GM's creation isn't tied to a map, then eventually it can break down spatially, and it's much easier (and necessary, for me to deal with my players' interests, memories and techniques - including but not limited to making and buying and hoarding maps, as well as interviewing NPCs about their world knowledge) because it provides a structure that doesn't require my memory and can store so much more consistent detail than I could ever remember or write down without such a map.

OTOH, I find the presence of exact maps limiting and suspension-of-disbelief breaking in a fantasy campaign emulating the Middle Ages;).

Here's the Columbus Map, drawn circa 1490.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/ColombusMap.jpg)

No comments required, I hope?

QuoteBut to answer your specific question, what wouldn't be there would be things you haven't thought of,

They wouldn't be there even if I had extensive notes, but forgot to check that specific chapter, or missed it. In fact, the latter is more likely.

Quotethat you might have thought of much sooner if you had had a map which you had thought about possibly for years.

Maybe. No way to prove or disprove that...because even when I prepare, I don't use a map!
I use a web of relationships between power actors in the setting.

QuoteDetailed consistent maps provide a structure which allows much more reach not only spatially but in terms of time, which as was described is the difference between improv and shell.

So do relationship/power web maps. And they are easier to reference.

QuoteYou sound like a great improv GM who is sensitive to thinking up the details before asking for choices, which sounds great.

Thanks, but I consider myself merely adequate:).

QuoteBut if you had known the crossroads led to a wizards tower before the players got to it, or even for months and many miles in the past, there would have been various chances for its existence to have had some sort of impact or at least information effect on the players for a long time.

See, that begs a question:
What wizard would be powerful enough to have an influence extending for so many kilometers (scores, given the time they traveled from the city to this place, and typical medieval speed of walking for a day)?
Answer: the kind of wizard that I've thought of already and that has also been there for a while and that hasn't reached an agreement to limit the impact of his power to not include the city. All three are important: newcomers might not have had the time to have an impact, and people that have been there usually do have agreements with local communities...

And see, there are never many that fit all three criteria in the settings I'm running.
So, if you don't see it for many kilometers? It's either a wizard who doesn't have that much power (and maybe was invented on the spot), a newcomer, or one who is neither, but has reached an agreement with some Powers-That-Be to not wave his magic around as a banner.

QuoteIf there's a significant wizard there, they could have heard of them in passing at various times before.

Or they might not. Depends on skill rolls.

QuoteThe wizard's tower might have a significant effect on road traffic

See the description of the road again. You think there would be outgrowth if there was heavy traffic?

Quoteinformation passing through that area,

Not sure what you mean.

Quoteon the locals

There weren't any...which is an effect, granted.

Quoteor the wildlife.

Nobody asked for a check for the wildlife.

QuoteThere would have been a reason why the wizard chose to place their tower in that spot as opposed to various other places on the map, so it would be woven into the geography.

The reason might have nothing to do with the geography. It might be occult.
Or it might be the least desirable place nobody but a wizard and PCs running from a city need...OK, that's geography, but not anything I can't come up with on the spot.
Or it might be that he's owned it for a century already, having gained it on a dice game.

QuoteThe local lords would have some sort of relationships and (dis)agreements with the wizard.

Like "don't impact the city, we gain a lot by people going there to trade"? See above;).
Also, I'm assuming here a typical adventuring party that's just heading in a random direction (possibly because they had to leave). Those seldom mesh much with local lords.

QuoteOr even just very specifically and short-range, you would have had opportunities for days before the party got to the cross-roads, if you knew the tower were there, for them to take actions, or for random events which should have had some chance to happen, which would be different if you knew the tower were there.

Maybe. But it seems you're assuming it's a tower with obvious signs of magical activity. I don't like that in general, so it's seldom part of the settings I run.

QuoteFor example, if they had climbed to some high place to get a perspective on the surrounding terrain, if you had a map, you could afford them some geographically appropriate view that could include seeing what might be a tower far in the distance, before they even made it to the crossroads.

Maybe, but I can still do that. The map is in my head - see above why the PCs don't have access.

QuoteOr, if there is any kind of road traffic that does or doesn't make sense to add or remove based on the tower, you would have been doing that before the crossroads.

I think there's a misunderstanding here: the "crossroad" was the city itself. No sense in removing anything: a city needs everything.

QuoteIf the players decided to interview locals along the way and travellers on the road, asking what they know is nearby of any interest, and what they saw on the road, then they could have known about the tower sooner. Etc.

If they decided to do that, I would have known about the tower earlier. If I hadn't decided on it being there...there wouldn't be a tower. Or it would be a damn good sign that the wizard is a newcomer.

QuoteMy players (in detailed mapped campaigns) almost never just wander around the world without having one or more maps and accounts or even local guides who know things about the region they are in. There's a whole major level of play where they are getting as good maps as they can and discovering what's where and what's going on and choosing where to go weeks or months in advance, which would be quite impossible without having a detailed world map.

Again, the map is in my head. But the best map they're going to get is going to be worse than the Columbus Map, above.

QuoteMoreover, when making up details, if it's done during play, it's much easier to create contradictions, paradoxes, details the players remember but the GM doesn't, and just masses of detail which would have locations and connecting road networks and so on, that is much easier to track with a map than not, and if you try to just invent a whole kingdom during play... it's going to potentially be very different than if you had taken the time to lay it out spatially and consider the effects on other places and so on.

Maybe it would be, and maybe it wouldn't vary significantly. Again, no way to check.

Quote"Oh we're in a port town - let's walk along the docks and look at the ships there and ask where they're from and where they're going..." What goods are they shipping? I don't want to have to make that up during play, and be responsible for figuring it out where it all is and how it makes any consistent sense later.

Then don't.
I don't see much of an issue. In fact, I came up with a list for one of the Tsolei Isles last month. The players asked me to stop and just tell them which ships are going in the needed direction.

Quote from: Skarg;924795A couple of examples.

My very first campaign world actually had the tower of a powerful wizard on the map from the very start. He was well-known to be possibly the most powerful wizard in the area. His tower appeared on some maps. The players talked about going there from time to time, and never did. They thought it wisest to avoid the attention of this wizard, and I don't think they ever got within 100km of the tower, perhaps further.

One time when the PC party were not sure where they were in the world, they deployed themselves with scouts and explored until they found a road. They traveled up the road to a crossroads, scouting ahead, looking for landmarks and vantage points and road tracks and litter, and looked at maps they had to guess where they might be based on what they could see. They had their naturalist check for edible plants and hunting chances, and decided to set up a concealed camp near the crossroads and hunt/forage and wait there, keeping a lookout watching the crossroads. When someone was spotted on the road, they sent out an appropriately unintimidating set of people to talk to them, and ask them questions like where they've come from, where they're going, how long it takes to go two/fro where they're going, and if they know what's up the other road, or if there is anything to watch out for, or of interest, where the nearest town is, who/where the local lord is, etc. They stayed there for a few days lying low and interviewing until they had a quite good idea of the local area, what current events were like, what was up each road and how safe they were, what they were liable to find in each direction, and how it related to their other maps and places they knew about.

Great about your players, but again, you seem to allow much, much more exact information in your campaigns than I do in mine. I start from the idea that most people, steppe people and similar excluded, don't travel a whole lot. There are also places where they avoid going, and they're afraid - with good reason - of foreigners and outsiders.
Now apply that to the interactions in your campaign. Oh, and don't forget, the people on the crossroads should have seen the non-threatening people as probable witches and wizards looking for necromantic victims - executions are often performed at crossroads, so the wizards and witches go there to look for parts of the accused. And people that don't live in a community are always suspicious of being in league with outworldly powers...even coal-makers were:D!

Were the NPCs reacting according to the above? If so, congratulations! I still suspect they should have hired a guide, though;).

Quote from: Sommerjon;924811That's the crux of the whole thing.
Illusionism vs Zero Prep comes down to Zero Preppers claiming to have thought of everything before the choice.

You just love to make definite statements.  Especially those that are wrong.

Quote from: Lunamancer;924806???

You've very clearly articulated a problem with waiting 'til the last possible instant to make shit up. So you well know that in order to avoid those problems "information is needed" sooner rather than later. Thus if I'm improv GMing, then I do indeed have the location of the towers locked in before players make their choice of roads, because that's when I need that information, or else bad stuff. Or at least that's the ideal.

Now it may be true that no improv GM is ever a quarter as good as they pretend to be. You've got no way of verifying their claims. But it's not valid argument to blast the idea just because of a bunch of fallible GMs. In terms of the idea itself, you've essentially assumed a problem into existence by not being more consistent with your definition of "need."

I actually answered that for him. And I just mentioned the explanation again.
Let's see whether he's going to ignore it, you can suggest bets as well;).

Quote from: Sommerjon;924811That's the crux of the whole thing.
Illusionism vs Zero Prep comes down to Zero Preppers claiming to have thought of everything before the choice.

No, it doesn't, unless you're reading some Zero Preppers elsewhere. Which I'm starting to suspect to be the case.

Now go find the quote that explains otherwise by yourself, there are a couple in my posts:D!

Quote from: Noclue;924788Functionally, pretty much the same. The GM decided to put the Tower in the North, or the GM decided now would be a good time for a wizards tower. Who cares?

Me. And some other people who aren't you.

There is a fundamental difference (pun intended) between

1. There is no difference.

and

2. There is a difference, but I don't care about the difference.

I get that RGrove and Noclue don't care about the difference. I just find it hard to believe you two really don't understand logic and causality.

Quote from: AsenRG;924789The example assumed there would be some travel before they reached the tower. At some point, they have entered the area influenced by the tower.

In case my English was unclear, if it is a big wizard in the tower, then even several days travel from the tower they are already in the influence. You asked for a difference. That is a difference. Playign the “no true Scotsman” schtick because you don’t want to hear a difference is lame. If you don’t want to hear a difference then don’t ask for one in the first place.

QuoteGo back and see my example

I don't need to. I understood it the first time. Your unprepped tower has to ignore any prior notice or information of the tower – since you just invented it. You probably understood why your creating the tower on the fly gives a result that is different than a setting where the tower's existence is foreshadowed by rumors, spooky stories, maps purchased from a reputable cartographer in a city or just from some crazy old miner in the countryside, or whatever. There are more than enough people pretending that things that are different are actually the same because they don’t care that they are different. You don’t need to add to the stupid.

QuoteConversely, if I haven't described its influence so far, that's because its influence doesn't extend back to where they were. If it looks like the wizard is too powerful not to have any...well, rest assured that there's a reason for that, too. Care to find it out;)?

Not especially. I’m well aware how a GM can rationalize new facts into an existing setting. I choose not to run a low prep game because I don’t want to run a low prep game and I have the time to do research and various other types of prep. Not because I don’t know how to run a low prep game.

Quote from: K Peterson;924791Choo choo, Mr. Conductor. Do your players eat this up, or do they often gag when you force-feed them this swill?

I read Headless more charitably. I assumed what they meant was shorthand for....

   Headless GM: Well guys I thought it would be exciting if you explored Ye Olde Wizard's Tower tonight. I've got everything prepared.

Player(s): No we don't want to go to some old wizard's tower. He'll probably turn us into frogs or geas us onto some lame quest to get the toenail clippings of a green dragon or something.

Headless GM: OK. So what do you want your characters to do in this session? Depending on what you pick, I might need to take a quick break to prepare something or if what you want really stumps me, then we might to do something other than have me run stuff tonight and save stuff until next Saturday. Or you could go after the Wizard's Tower and hope Mr. Wizard doesn't turn you all into frogs.

So what is it going to be?

Quote from: Bren;924822Me. And some other people who aren't you.

There is a fundamental difference (pun intended) between

1. There is no difference.

and

2. There is a difference, but I don't care about the difference.

I get that RGrove and Noclue don't care about the difference. I just find it hard to believe you two really don't understand logic and causality.

Well, in the case of Noclue, the worst-case scenario would fit the screen name...;)
But I also don't believe it.
What I believe is that they choose not to understand it:).

QuoteIn case my English was unclear, if it is a big wizard in the tower, then even several days travel from the tower they are already in the influence.

I think that should be "a huge wizard". I mean, let's say he's 5th level in D&D terms, like Gandalf - what would they notice?

QuoteYou asked for a difference. That is a difference. Playign the “no true Scotsman” schtick because you don’t want to hear a difference is lame. If you don’t want to hear a difference then don’t ask for one in the first place.

My point was that this is a possible difference, not necessarily something that wouldn't happen if I was thinking it. I like putting concealing details anyway...:)

(Also, I have a rule about improvising details - no setting-changing details on the fly! The 15 minutes alotted for the session are enough to think of a couple of those).
But a possible difference it is, I concede that much. What I wanted to point out (not entirely clearly on that account) was that a) it might have ended up the same way, so the players wouldn't know it's something I've thought of in advance and b) different doesn't mean worse.

QuoteI don't need to. I understood it the first time. Your unprepped tower has to ignore any prior notice or information of the tower – since you just invented it.

Yes, apart from some knowledge skill rolls (say, he might have heard about the general description of the tower - but didn't know where it was).

QuoteYou probably understood why your creating the tower on the fly gives a result that is different than a setting where the tower's existence is foreshadowed by rumors, spooky stories, maps purchased from a reputable cartographer in a city or just from some crazy old miner in the countryside, or whatever.

Admittedly, yes. But that's why I try to think more than 5 seconds in advance, during slow times in the session.
The example was about the worst-case scenario with the least time for improvisation.

QuoteThere are more than enough people pretending that things that are different are actually the same because they don’t care that they are different. You don’t need to add to the stupid.

Now, that point is fully conceded:D!

QuoteNot especially. I’m well aware how a GM can rationalize new facts into an existing setting. I choose not to run a low prep game because I don’t want to run a low prep game and I have the time to do research and various other types of prep. Not because I don’t know how to run a low prep game.

Yes, I know. I'm pretty sure this thread isn't about your GMing style, so I've never mentioned it.
And we all need to add new facts to existing settings, unless we only run adventures written by the authors. Which, frankly, I find boring (but I'm still planning to give the GPC a chance at some point in the future;)).

The players' version of my current campaign map shows some regional points of interest, but not all of them, in general directions and distances of near, medium or far away. All, some or none of the information the players have about these locations could be accurate or inaccurate.

Many of these points of interest are not developed beyond being a name on the map until the players express an interest in them or I decide to have them become relevant to play. Thus the Golden Oak Wood might become the location of a druid's grove when a PC druid joins the group and I decide she recieved her training there, until then it was just a name on the map. The undeveloped wood could as easilly have become the hideout of a group of bandits, the location of an owlbear's den, or just a forest of oak trees.

Occasionally zero prep GMing will catch me out, as when my players decide to seek the Golden Mask of King Nezrach based on a bit of talk they overheard in a tavern. I had no idea what the mask was, where it was, or anything about it. It was supposed to be just background tavern talk. It became the centerpiece of the campaign. I had to think very fast when they asked a Demon of Knowledge where it was...

Quote from: AsenRG;924825I think that should be "a huge wizard". I mean, let's say he's 5th level in D&D terms, like Gandalf - what would they notice?

5th level in old D&D terms was a Thaumaturgist. You didn’t get to be a wizard until you reached 11th level. :p

QuoteBut a possible difference it is, I concede that much.

Yea, for not stupid!

QuoteWhat I wanted to point out (not entirely clearly on that account) was that a) it might have ended up the same way, so the players wouldn't know it's something I've thought of in advance

Sure. It might not matter.

Or than again it might. Since everyone is fallible, players and GM may even be wrong in their belief that it would or would not have mattered. I’ve seen players forget really obvious stuff that their characters would probably easily remember and that I as the GM easily remember. But just because they can’t remember it later, that doesn’t mean that its presence didn’t have any influence on some prior decision like whether to go north, south, east, or west.*

I’ve also seen players make amazingly crazy leaps of intuition based on very little information. So I tend not to discount the ability of what seem like minor details to me to have an unexpected effect on player decisions and choices.

Quoteb) different doesn't mean worse.

Never said it did. But different often has consequences and repercussions. The in universe reasons that you the GM use to justify why the players never heard of Ye Olde Wizard’s Tower even though it is only a relatively short distance north of them will probably tell me a lot about what the setting is like even if that is simply that the setting is gonzo and chaotic.

QuoteYes, apart from some knowledge skill rolls (say, he might have heard about the general description of the tower - but didn't know where it was).

But the knowledge skill is going to give the player information that their character already had – though nobody knew they knew it. And that you the GM didn’t previously make available to the player because you the GM didn’t know that information existed until you decided that “to the north thare be a Wizard’s Tower.” Even the lack of knowledge is knowledge.

QuoteAnd we all need to add new facts to existing settings, unless we only run adventures written by the authors. Which, frankly, I find boring (but I'm still planning to give the GPC a chance at some point in the future;)).

Sure. Even in a really, really well written and thorough adventure or campaign setting the GM will still need to add details.

But different experiences, all other things being equal, tend to be different. So a game where the GM invented stuff 5 seconds or minutes before it was encountered is going to be different than one where they invented stuff 5 days before it was encountered, and that in turn is going to be different still from one where they invented the information more than 5 years before it was encountered.

* I know there were only 3 ways. But sometimes players are contrary and they decide to go to the swamps because no one goes in the swamps.

Quote from: DavetheLost;924827The players' version of my current campaign map shows some regional points of interest, but not all of them, in general directions and distances of near, medium or far away. All, some or none of the information the players have about these locations could be accurate or inaccurate.

Which fact, in itself, tells me something about the campaign setting. The limits of travel, the accuracy of available maps, and the general knowledge of the world possessed by people in the world are different than what we have available in the modern world. So if this is a fantasy setting, cartomancer wizards who scry their suroundings at great distances and make accurate and detailed maps of same are either nonexistent in this world or are so rare as to make even copies of their maps unavailable to the PCs.

The one thing I hate worse than having a giant wizards tower sneak up on me.  Is having the DM whip out an ill conceived "reason" why I didn't see it coming. It all falls apart at that point.

[quote/]
I read Headless more charitably. I assumed what they meant was shorthand for....

   Headless GM: Well guys I thought it would be exciting if you explored Ye Olde Wizard's Tower tonight. I've got everything prepared.

Player(s): No we don't want to go to some old wizard's tower. He'll probably turn us into frogs or geas us onto some lame quest to get the toenail clippings of a green dragon or something.

Headless GM: OK. So what do you want your characters to do in this session? Depending on what you pick, I might need to take a quick break to prepare something or if what you want really stumps me, then we might to do something other than have me run stuff tonight and save stuff until next Saturday. Or you could go after the Wizard's Tower and hope Mr. Wizard doesn't turn you all into frogs.

So what is it going to be?[/QUOTE]

More like.  Are you ready for the wizard tower adventure we talked about next week?

No we don't want to go to the wizards tower any more.  

Me:  .... Tosses book.  Ok what are you doing then.

I don't know.  I just don't think my character would want to go to the tower, too dangerous.  

Me:  too dangerous?  You are playing an adventurer.  

.....


Any way if that conversation keeps going that way I don't play with that person any more.  

Most of the people I play with are new, so they don't know enough to make meaningful choices.  So I don't give them choices.  At least to start.  Course this is all worked out and part of the deal when we agree to play.   After a short intro, 3 sessions?  One completed adventure, the rails come off and they can choose their own path.  

This is wandering off topic a bit.  Never mind.

Quote from: Bren;924838Which fact, in itself, tells me something about the campaign setting. The limits of travel, the accuracy of available maps, and the general knowledge of the world possessed by people in the world are different than what we have available in the modern world. So if this is a fantasy setting, cartomancer wizards who scry their suroundings at great distances and make accurate and detailed maps of same are either nonexistent in this world or are so rare as to make even copies of their maps unavailable to the PCs.

Yes, the setting is quite different to what we have available in the modern world. It is a fantasy setting with few high level mages, most of whom have better things to do with their time than make and sell detailed maps.

The characters are from a small backwater village, where much like rural villages today many people live there whole lives without travelling much farther than the next town over. This is why information available to them becomes rapidly unreliable more than a few days journey away. The places on the map are the ones the PCs have been to, learned about from others, or heard of in legends and old tales. As they travel or talk to travellers they get to update their map with better information.

The places initially on the map give them some possible adventure hooks. Travelling to the place usually allows me to toss in an encounter or two along the way that slows play down enough for me to have a solid idea of what they find when they get there.

Low prep, but not zero prep. And much better than trying to detail every hex on the map before play...  Yes, I tried that when I was young and foolish. Along with detailing every building in a city.

Note that this method would not work for every GM, nor do I use it for every campaign I run. Some by their nature need more advanced prep. A planet hopping Sci-Fi game like Traveller for example I would generate the map and world profiles for at least a subsector, even if I didn't further detail the systems until the players announced where they were going next session. In that sort of setting it makes little sense for there not to be a fairly accurate starchart and basic star system information available to anyone who asks for it.

Quote from: AsenRG;924812OTOH, I find the presence of exact maps limiting and suspension-of-disbelief breaking in a fantasy campaign emulating the Middle Ages;).

Here's the Columbus Map, drawn circa 1490.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/ColombusMap.jpg)

No comments required, I hope?

I guess you mean that old maps were rough, and you're thinking I mean I show the players the real world maps? Yes, and medieval maps were usually much more crude and not spatially accurate, even when someone was literate and any map was actually had by anyone. Often people were lucky to even have a list of what towns and landmarks were along the route from A to B, and people would just ask all along the way which way to go, and/or remember from having gone before.

I (and my friends with a TFT background, where we got the first notions of how to do this) map out a world generally on hex paper with all terrain listed, accurately, but never show the actual world maps to the players. The players, if/when they have a map and a PC who can understand it, get what we call a "special effect" - a map that represents an actual map in the world, which is often a bit stylized rather than trying to really match the item, more or less depending on the time the GM wanted to put into it. The players' maps will not be complete or accurate by a long shot, often are not on hex paper and may be abstract or were made for certain purposes. The players can try to make their own maps from information and experience they gain during play, or as part of their PCs' backgrounds. And/or they can try to find or commission maps from NPCs.

To me, maps seem only limiting in the way actual space is limiting (the GM can't just warp in stuff at whim if they already established something else should be there), and to me they make a world seem much more real and believable than worlds without actual maps being used.

QuoteThey wouldn't be there even if I had extensive notes, but forgot to check that specific chapter, or missed it. In fact, the latter is more likely.

It seems to me that's just a GM style and/or thinking/familiarity difference.  You're used to improv and it works for you. I'm used to maps and notes.

QuoteMaybe. No way to prove or disprove that...because even when I prepare, I don't use a map!
I use a web of relationships between power actors in the setting.

 
So do relationship/power web maps. And they are easier to reference.

Again, ya that's what you're used to and have chosen to use and practice, while I am used to and prefer to have maps. The way I play came from TFT/ITL (which describes a geographical basis for campaigns) and playing it with friends for years, and we developed playing styles and GM styles along such lines, so that a consistent established map is an assumed part of play. From that perspective, there are ways to prove that, because if players grill the GM with investigations and request for maps and techniques that use the geography, then the GM either needs to tell them that's out of scope, or if he's a mapless improv GM, have to provide or refuse the level of consistency they expect. If the players are mapping what their PCs see and get told, the GM had better be able to keep up with their notes or else they will prove that the GM isn't doing so. The only way it would be "unprovable" would be to not tell them you're improv-ing everything, and also be able to not get caught improv-ing or refusing to supply such details.

Our style and interest of play developed largely in response to players developing more intelligent ways of using the world's consistency and details. It became clear that as GMs this was interesting and challenging and fun/rewarding to supply, and that it worked for us to make nice maps and think about what was going on on them, etc. Some of it too was noticing what happens when a smart curious PC asks detailed questions and the GM tries to improvise answers - it some situations it really helps the more the GM has pre-thought about things.

QuoteThanks, but I consider myself merely adequate:).


See, that begs a question:
What wizard would be powerful enough to have an influence extending for so many kilometers (scores, given the time they traveled from the city to this place, and typical medieval speed of walking for a day)?
Answer: the kind of wizard that I've thought of already and that has also been there for a while and that hasn't reached an agreement to limit the impact of his power to not include the city. All three are important: newcomers might not have had the time to have an impact, and people that have been there usually do have agreements with local communities...

And see, there are never many that fit all three criteria in the settings I'm running.
So, if you don't see it for many kilometers? It's either a wizard who doesn't have that much power (and maybe was invented on the spot), a newcomer, or one who is neither, but has reached an agreement with some Powers-That-Be to not wave his magic around as a banner.

Again, I think this just points to differences in our styles and players. You've found an improv mention that is nicely thoughtful and is able to consider to your satisfaction (and your players') things so that they are consistent and detailed and don't cause problems. Cool. You probably have refined that well enough, and effectively end up with a similar ability that matches your players habits, so that no weird incongruous things are noticed (except when they are, as in the experiment you mentioned). Your method is sort of backwards from mine in one sense, but it has similar respect for cause & effect and avoiding railroads and shell games and meaninglessness, and providing a world where players can work with descriptions and make meaningful informed choices. Cool. By backwards, I mean that you realize your established concept or chart of the world has you limit what you improvise. I basically do the same thing except I establish a mapped geography and bunches of details sooner than you do. But I still also work minor details in where needed in the same direction you do. Just for me, if the map doesn't show it, new stuff will almost always be a detail consistent with what is shown. So I too might blink up a _small_ low-impact wizard, always in a place I haven't detailed without one already, and outside the range that players might've had some clue about it.

QuoteOr they might not. Depends on skill rolls.

Yes.

QuoteSee the description of the road again. You think there would be outgrowth if there was heavy traffic?

I wasn't meaning your exact description. Although looking now, I'd quibble that you didn't mention the growth on the road before they already clumsily chose to take it. I was imagining a similar situation in a mapped game - if the tower road is overgrown and presumably eating most travellers, then I would expect that the PC's would notice the growth well before they got to the tower, and I would think there would be chances before they got to the crossroads someone might've warned them about it, and of course a cautious observant party asking for directions and info all along the way would have been either told of it, or only told of other places along the other roads, so they'd be thinking "Hmm, no one mentioned that overgrown road leading north here...". And of course yes, since roads lead into one another, any time a road is deadly, stopping or unused, that means no traffic there so it affects whom you do and don't meet all along it. Which is a kind of detail that it seems to me is much more easy and natural to be something that automatically has an effect at longer distance and further ahead in time and more subtly, for a GM using a map and thinking in terms of a map, compared to a GM making up the geography as they go. Having an established geography creates a context that allows for all sorts of subtle details and bits of info that are just a natural part of the water rather than having to think of them in terms of clues to significant stuff, too.

Quote

Quoteinformation passing through that area,

Not sure what you mean.

Information travels along with travelers. Your wizard's tower with the overgrown road implies information isn't going up or down that road - probably the locals are scared and may even have forgotten the road. A different wizard's tower might instead be a source of information, because of added traffic from more worldly and traveled types, and/or because the wizard himself gets and shares more info than would otherwise be in the area. In that case in particular, the info in the area may be quite different, as the locals and travelers may know various things they would not if there were not a wizard there. That can have important effects, not just for when the PCs learn there's a wizard there, but also just for its own sake. Backwater A may have almost no interesting info, while backwater B near the chatty wizard has various gossip and news from far away.

QuoteThere weren't any...which is an effect, granted.


Nobody asked for a check for the wildlife.

Again a player/playstyle difference, but your guarded travel-intercepting tower would affect the odds of certain travel encounters for days around, even if the party are oblivious.

QuoteThe reason might have nothing to do with the geography. It might be occult.
Or it might be the least desirable place nobody but a wizard and PCs running from a city need...OK, that's geography, but not anything I can't come up with on the spot.
Or it might be that he's owned it for a century already, having gained it on a dice game.

Yes. You can improv those, unless there's an established reason not to. I enjoy using a map because it's a naturally appropriate way to store and to generate reasons for what is where and why. To me it's enjoyable and interesting and easier for the copious amount I prefer to pepare, to base it off an actual map, which builds up consistent context. Occult reasons can be located too. Reasons why locations are desirable are naturally geographic from my perspective. If a wizard owned it by luck 100 years ago, he's been affecting the region for 100 years... cool, more interrelated stuff to affect what's on the map... :)

QuoteLike "don't impact the city, we gain a lot by people going there to trade"? See above;).
Also, I'm assuming here a typical adventuring party that's just heading in a random direction (possibly because they had to leave). Those seldom mesh much with local lords.

Could be all sorts of things, which might or might not (in)directly impact or be observable by the PCs. That's why I like to have thought of them and have them on the map in advance. I love having a mapped world where I've thought of various levels of things going on, so I can have signs of them without having them be part of something directly about the PCs or their current concerns. Typically though, I like to think about all the major wizards and what their relationships are with the other powers, because it just makes for all sorts of various interesting stuff that leaves traces all around. Maps help all that.

QuoteMaybe. But it seems you're assuming it's a tower with obvious signs of magical activity. I don't like that in general, so it's seldom part of the settings I run.

Well sure. I was just going with the example on the table, and explaining ways in which mapped prep can have effects at long range, largely for rgrove, and to point out that mapped prep is a different category and what I enjoy about it.

QuoteMaybe, but I can still do that. The map is in my head - see above why the PCs don't have access.

Sure. It's really just a different way of PCs exploring your world, that requires you to improv further ahead. It just seems to me that having an actual GM map (not player map) helps mean you don't need to do improv nor manage its consistency, and it seems to me (for me anyway) it helps automatically suggest details about what PCs experience at longer range than if I didn't have a map. I feel more adrift and more likely to have weird nonsense if I have no map and/or haven't done some prep.

QuoteI think there's a misunderstanding here: the "crossroad" was the city itself. No sense in removing anything: a city needs everything.

Yeah I imagined your map differently. In a city, they could ask what's down each road. Unless they're fleeing or thoughtless.

QuoteIf they decided to do that, I would have known about the tower earlier. If I hadn't decided on it being there...there wouldn't be a tower. Or it would be a damn good sign that the wizard is a newcomer.

Sure. Again, the difference between smart logical improv, and mapped prep.

QuoteAgain, the map is in my head. But the best map they're going to get is going to be worse than the Columbus Map, above.

Ya. One of the maps I gave my players once had a warning scrawled on it that said, "Use this map and you will surely die...". One may also want to consider why the map one finds is damaged and/or covered in blood stains and/or scorch marks.

QuoteMaybe it would be, and maybe it wouldn't vary significantly. Again, no way to check.

Well what I do is largely a reaction to my own experiences trying to GM without enough prep and/or well thought out maps. If you enjoy mapless improv, great. I just have had various regrets and issues when I've done less than I like, and I've appreciated what I get from having maps.

QuoteThen don't.
I don't see much of an issue. In fact, I came up with a list for one of the Tsolei Isles last month. The players asked me to stop and just tell them which ships are going in the needed direction.

Well the issue is that I really like consistency and to be able to describe things I actually know something about from having already thought it through and hopefully mapped and detailed it out so that I like what I have to say and know it makes some sense. I don't want to commit to my world having or not having certain details or even entire nations or cultures that I haven't considered before. And I don't want to have my world change as I add up new stuff I hadn't thought of. It makes for a surreal experience and one that isn't as interesting or as satisfying to me. I also don't like the players to be easily able to find glaring edges to what I know about the world, unless we've agreed to limit the scope of play. I do sometimes play limited (even very limited) scope games, but my preferred mode in general is the lavishly detailed homebrew campaign.

QuoteGreat about your players, but again, you seem to allow much, much more exact information in your campaigns than I do in mine. I start from the idea that most people, steppe people and similar excluded, don't travel a whole lot. There are also places where they avoid going, and they're afraid - with good reason - of foreigners and outsiders.
Now apply that to the interactions in your campaign. Oh, and don't forget, the people on the crossroads should have seen the non-threatening people as probable witches and wizards looking for necromantic victims - executions are often performed at crossroads, so the wizards and witches go there to look for parts of the accused. And people that don't live in a community are always suspicious of being in league with outworldly powers...even coal-makers were:D!

If that had been true of the location, then ya they might have only seen some locals who might've fled. You're right that in many places it can be tricky to get information and not get into trouble especially as unprepared foreigners.

QuoteWere the NPCs reacting according to the above? If so, congratulations! I still suspect they should have hired a guide, though;).

Well they were reacting according to what the people were like there, which was not so guarded. It was a fairly well-traveled road where it was not uncustomary to talk to people met along the road, so they were in luck and being more cautious than it turned out they needed to be. But they were wise to do so, as they had no idea where they were, having come through a magic gate with no indication where it had taken them.

Quote from: Sommerjon;924811That's the crux of the whole thing.
Illusionism vs Zero Prep comes down to Zero Preppers claiming to have thought of everything before the choice.

That's not at all verifiable either. There is at least conceptually a difference.

What Asen is describing is not exactly what I would call zero prep.  It's just initial prep is just enough to get started, and prep continues simultaneous to play, so you don't ever have to log a bunch of prep time in your lonely writers garret between sessions. And so there is practically zero observable prep time.

Emphasis on observable because there is a difference between observation and perception. The latter may include the benefits of insight. This is key because a common theme I'm seeing with the "ain't no difference" crowd is to demonstrate that there is no difference in terms of what the players can observe. And then, without even articulating such, it makes a leap in logic by implying that therefore the players cannot perceive any difference. Asen mentioned a player in his group who uses illusionism and thus has the insight to easily perceive when its used despite a lack of observable evidence. That's one example, and it only takes once example to prove there is in fact a difference.

Of course, Asen could be lying about this fictitious player. It goes back to we have no way of verifying shit people say on the internet. So you can also call me a liar if I said my profession is one whose very nature calls upon me to constantly getting to the bottom of peoples true motivations, even though it's not something directly observable.

And Knights of the Dinner Table is a work of fiction, so you can deny that as well, but it certainly speaks to the culture, and is a strong indicator that Asen and myself are not alone in the gaming community believing that players are quite capable of reading between the lines.

So the story goes, BA is preparing an adventure. And he's paying especially attention to dungeon ecology. After all, if that's off, someone might be blind-sided by a large wizard's tower or something that they feel they should have detected due its obvious need for waste disposal. In fact, BA comes up with a solution for waste disposal. A sphere of annihilation does the trick. But he doesn't want to kill off the party. So he locates it down a deep shaft. And just to make sure they don't wander right into it, he even looks up their character sheets, adds up all their rope, 240 feet total, and places it out of reach, 250 feet down. So there's no way this will kill them.

Well, actual play comes, and the group comes upon the shaft, and they wish to explore it. They tie their rope together and lower the first one down (I think it was Bob), he goes down 240 feet and sees the shaft still continues. At this point, the players become suspicious. Their insight tells them that the GM doesn't want them finding out what's down there. There's nothing observable about that in a 250 foot shaft. But it happens to be true, and the players know it. Where they go wrong is to assume the GM is trying to screw them out of treasure by deliberately placing it further down than he knows he has rope. Brian does some rules lawyering and figures a way to extend their rope. Then one by one they climb down into the sphere of annihilation. And of course, this is all the GM's fault. He's accused of some sort of clever railroading to their doom.

So the story hits on most of the major themes in this thread. But I hope the take away from reading the comic is clear. Yes, players can commonly infer things beyond observable evidence. So yes, there is a difference. Players will know it. But another moral is, having a dickish attitude in assuming the GM is trying to put one over on you will always lead to the annihilation of your fun, possibly the character, and maybe even the group.

Quote from: Lunamancer;924892That's not at all verifiable either. There is at least conceptually a difference.

Zero Preppers needed a villain so we get; Illusionism (another usurpation of a term btw), and a villain is born.

Quote from: Bren;924822Me. And some other people who aren't you.

It's a figure of speech used to convey...oh, never mind.

QuoteThere is a fundamental difference (pun intended) between

1. There is no difference.

and

2. There is a difference, but I don't care about the difference.

I did say they were functionally the same, I think. Is this thing on? Meaning, in the example given, where the Wizards Tower is no big deal, moving it is no big deal. In your subsequent examples where the wizard tower takes on a greater role in the imaginary world, with a huge sphere of influence and the players have decided to go North to avoid it and the GM is a dickwad, sure, moving it is problematic. But, I think GMs, at least some of them, are able to discriminate between things that they move without much effect and things that are already established. And they're able to place both kinds of things in their world.

You seem to see GMing to be either fully mapped out with everything firmly defined, or completely random and whimsical. It's just not the case. Sometimes, a wizards tower is just a wizards tower.

QuoteIn case my English was unclear, if it is a big wizard in the tower, then even several days travel from the tower they are already in the influence. You asked for a difference. That is a difference.

Sure, the GM probably shouldn't move a massive piece of their world if it will disturb everything else they've built. OK. But, can we go back to the case I was commenting on.

QuoteI don't need to. I understood it the first time. Your unprepped tower has to ignore any prior notice or information of the tower – since you just invented it.

Actually, it wasn't just invented in the example. It was on the map and then moved from north to south. There's a difference. Sheesh!

If you put the tower in the south and then the players heard a bunch of rumors and information during play, it's not a great candidate for moving, I'll grant you.

I bought a chunk of FFG Star Wars stuff last spring and set up one, that's ONE session of Edge of the Empire. The scenario was a sort of Star Wars dungeon crawl through an abandoned and critter infested mining complex, dozens of kilometers across, hundreds of meters deep etc. Huge Place.

There was no way I was going to map all that after some consideration decided, as they goal was more or less a hunt for a specific item, to run it as a set of linked encounters. There was a chance of getting lost, random stuff too of course, but essentially there were 20 or so scenes that they players would wander through, it really didn't matter where they chose to go (up the ladder, down the vent shaft or through the busted security door for example) they would end up in one of those 20 scenes to be dealt with or avoided then move on. The players had a 'map' but not a physical one, instead it gave directions toward parts of the mine (maintenance section, control room, conveyor control hub, droid storage etc.) which correlated with the scenes they might encounter if they chose to go that general way.

I thought it was an efficient way to run the game and it turned out great. We had a ball, 8 hours of steady play through the endless corridors and maintenance shutes before facing the big nasty critter at the end with a gaggle of Stormtroopers thrown in as their presence at the off limits site was discovered.

After the game though, during the typical post game debrief, one of our new players asked about the map to the place. "It must be huge!" I told him it didn't exist. The game was a series of scenes I had established and walked them through. The guy came unhinged! "What? You mean there is no mine, its just a bunch of bullshit encounters you put us through?" I mean he was really upset. The other players kind of stared in wonder, like what was this guys problem. A few minutes before he had been swearing it was one of the best games he had ever taken part in. To make a long story short he left pissed and has never come back. He used the same 'illusionist' term I hear in this forum regularly several times in is ranting. My other players and I were sort of speechless, good riddance I guess. We had a great time.

That's the thing about this whole debate. Its perceived so differently by each individual, or each camp I suppose. My players were aware of how the game was structured 30 minutes in. They know how I operate and could see the sort of linked encounter mechanic readily, but didn't care... no more than that they supported it. They saw it as an effective way to present this huge sprawling complex and as long as there was an 'illusion' of free choice and navigation, they were fine. "Get one with the story!"  The new player though believed he had been fooled somehow, that somehow what he had been enjoying for nearly 8 hours had been a lie, like finding out your rollercoaster ride was a simulator instead of the real thing when its over. My response would be.."So what! Was it a fun ride?" while it was a deal killer for him.

Its a pointless argument. Neither side is ever going to be swayed and in the end, I guess it really doesn't matter. Many of us will never subject ourselves to a "pull it out of arse" GM and others cant stand the thought of a "Railroading" GM so we aren't likely to be playing in each others games anyway, at least not more than once. Enjoy your hobby in the way that fits you best, but try to refrain from raining shit down on others that feel differently. That's all I would ask.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924962Its a pointless argument. Neither side is ever going to be swayed and in the end, I guess it really doesn't matter. Many of us will never subject ourselves to a "pull it out of arse" GM and others cant stand the thought of a "Railroading" GM so we aren't likely to be playing in each others games anyway, at least not more than once. Enjoy your hobby in the way that fits you best, but try to refrain from raining shit down on others that feel differently. That's all I would ask.

The point your missing is that you've created, as you frequently do, a false dichotomy.  I prefer a prepped campaign and a railroad-free environment because as a player I want to live or die, succeed or fail, by the choices of my character.  (No offense to Asen, Jibba or any of the other "Lighting Round Preppers" but my experience with GMs who think they got it covered with little prep, usually don't, but I just let it slide.)

In that EotE game, you said you had a gigantic complex with 20 scenes...  
1. Did you run all those 20 scenes?  
2. Were there any scenes the group could have missed in their exploration?
3. Was the order of the scenes set, random, or random with a few key scenes?

See, that player thought his choices mattered.  He thought that they played well, they didn't get randomly lost, they didn't fail to figure out how the transportation system worked or how to get places, he thought that his character, succeeded despite a chance of failure.  Now obviously, he could have died in combat, etc... so the fights were real (or knowing you maybe not), but the rest was not.  So, to his mind, you took that accomplishment from him.

Once, you do that, once you break that trust that the characters are accomplishing things on their own, then their choices don't matter.  Left, Right, Up, Down - who cares, Grove will get us there.
Reactivate the Reactor first or see if there's anything we need to check - Nah, if something else needed to be done we would have encountered that before now.

The players retain their agency on a micro-level, in combat (maybe) but they completely lose their agency on a larger level because...
No matter what they do, the overall story remains the same.

Some people like that.  Personally, I don't want a "GM as Storyteller".  Yes, a GM is an MC, worldbuilder, storyteller, all of the above, but what I want is a referee.  Someone to interpret the rules that need interpreting, to Roleplay the World and keep his thumbs off the scales.

Now personally, I've never seen ANYONE play a Star Wars game without some genre conventions in the system, so to me any SW game is going to be too narrative for IC-POV Roleplaying, so I might have fun in your game.  I'm sure there would be a hiccup now and then, but if I know going in what the deal is, then there's no problem.  It's the Big Reveal that leads to the feel of being cheated.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924962...
Its a pointless argument. Neither side is ever going to be swayed and in the end, I guess it really doesn't matter. Many of us will never subject ourselves to a "pull it out of arse" GM and others cant stand the thought of a "Railroading" GM so we aren't likely to be playing in each others games anyway, at least not more than once. Enjoy your hobby in the way that fits you best, but try to refrain from raining shit down on others that feel differently. That's all I would ask.

Seems to me people are trying to explain what they find interesting about non-improv non-railroad, and what the differences are, because the players who don't mind improv and railroads so often seem to not understand.

Seems to me that railroad is a bit like thinking you're playing Poker or Blackjack, and the dealer is actually playing magic tricks.

Improv is not like that, unless the GM doesn't know/care or doesn't detect the way he's rigging events.

If you want to play a game about actually exploring an existing world and being able to interact with it, then railroad is not that, and improv can have some issues and limitations, or at least differences from a prepped/mapped play mode.

Quote from: Noclue;924958It's a figure of speech used to convey...that I don't understand other people have different points of view.

Fixed that for you.

QuoteI did say they were functionally the same, I think. Is this thing on?

You did. They aren’t. The thing that isn’t on…that’s your brain. A class in logic might help. Or maybe coffee and at least 10th Grade Reading level?

QuoteMeaning, in the example given, where the Wizards Tower is no big deal, moving it is no big deal.

It is no big deal to you. We’ve agreed on that. Not being a big deal does not make it functionally the same. I don’t know why you and a couple of others seem unable to differentiate between the two.The lack of functional similarity is obvious to the GM. (That it is also sometimes obvious to the players and sometimes not obvious is irrelevant to the method and function being different.) Your understanding of logic and that way cause and effect work in our universe are both sadly lacking.

QuoteIn your subsequent examples where the wizard tower takes on a greater role in the imaginary world, with a huge sphere of influence and the players have decided to go North to avoid it and the GM is a dickwad

I didn’t have an example quite like that. And really I don’t need one.

QuoteBut, I think GMs, at least some of them, are able to discriminate between things that they move without much effect and things that are already established. And they're able to place both kinds of things in their world.

Which is why I said, YOU don’t care about the difference. You just agreed there IS a difference. Despite all your earlier nonsense about not seeing a difference.

QuoteYou seem to see GMing to be either fully mapped out with everything firmly defined, or completely random and whimsical.

No. I just understand and admit that there is a difference between

   1)   The players encounter Ye Olde Wizard’s Tower because they chose to go in a direction that leads to Ye Olde Wizard’s Tower;

and

2)   The players encounter Ye Olde Wizard’s Tower regardless of their choice and based solely on the GM wanting them to encounter Ye Olde Wizard’s Tower.


That you seem unable to admit that there is a difference when you clearly recognize that there is a difference is bizarre.

Quote from: Noclue;924958Sure, the GM probably shouldn't move a massive piece of their world if it will disturb everything else they've built. OK. But, can we go back to the case I was commenting on.

Quote from: Noclue;924958Actually, it wasn't just invented in the example. It was on the map and then moved from north to south. There's a difference. Sheesh!

Actually no in Asen’s example the tower was not on a GM’s map.

In his example of how he GM’s, Asen created the tower more or less contemporaneous (oh sorry I forgot < 10th grade)…In Asen’s example, he created the tower to the north and the bandits and the swamp and whatever the fourth thing was outside of town just before he spoke aloud to the players to tell them there were three ways (and the swamps) that they could take out of town. Asen doesn’t use actual maps much. The maps-a-lot guy is Skarg.

Let me try an analogy strawberry ice cream and chocolate ice-cream are different flavors of ice cream. (They taste different, they have different ingredients e.g. strawberries or cocoa, etc. We can all agree that they are different…right?

Now some people like strawberry and chocolate ice-cream equally. So for some of those people, they would be just as happy, i.e. they wouldn’t care, if you gave them a dish of strawberry ice-cream or a dish of chocolate ice-cream. But the two flavors are still different. They just don’t mind if you [strike]move the damn tower around[/strike] give them one flavor instead of the other flavor.

You might even find a person who has some odd mutation that makes strawberry and chocolate ice-cream taste the same to that person. Kind of like how some people are red-green colorblind and cannot differentiate between some reds and greens. (I don’t know if such a mutation for tasting exists, but this is an analogy anyway. So pretend.) So for that person, strawberry and chocolate taste the same.

That still doesn’t make strawberry and chocolate ice-cream the same. Because they are different and that is easily shown by (a) feeding them to a person who is able to differentiate the taste of the two flavors, (b) reading the ingredients list on the package of ice-cream, or (c) a chemical analysis of the ice-cream.

Quote from: Bren;924967No. I just understand and admit that there is a difference between
1) The players encounter Ye Olde Wizard’s Tower because they chose to go in a direction that leads to Ye Olde Wizard’s Tower;
and
2) The players encounter Ye Olde Wizard’s Tower regardless of their choice and based solely on the GM wanting them to encounter Ye Olde Wizard’s Tower.

Not trying to jump in the middle of this one, but...to be fair, he did say that there was a difference, just not necessarily an effective difference.
Anyway, here's my interpretation of his posts giving him the benefit of the doubt...

• If the tower was established somewhere...it shouldn't be moved.
• If its placement will affect the campaign in a broader context...it shouldn't be moved.
• If the characters specifically are trying to avoid it...it shouldn't be moved.
• If it really doesn't matter one way or the other, and the characters don't even know about it...why not?

Phrased this way, I can't really argue with it too much.

Although, the original idea was not moving it, but placing it to begin with, but I think the same criteria apply, namely "effect on the existing campaign".  If it doesn't really affect anything else outside of itself, then messing with it isn't a value judgement.  Not my thing, but I can see the argument.

Quote from: CRKrueger;924965So, to his mind, you took that accomplishment from him.

Clearly this type of a sense of accomplishment is not what RGrove and Co. play for and he seems to really not be able to grasp that some people want the chance for that sense of accomplishment in addition to (and even at times instead of) a feeling of "fun session," "cool adventure," "nice story," or "wow, that was exciting."

Another Analogy: When I catch the ball in a game of catch I don't have the same sense of accomplishment I get when I catch a fly ball in a softball game for an out. Saying "but both times you caught the ball" displays a fundamental misunderstanding of catch, softball, and human motivation. And the fact that a game of catch and a game of softball are different, doesn't somehow make playing catch not fun.

Quote from: CRKrueger;924970Not trying to jump in the middle of this one, but...to be fair, he did say that there was a difference, just not necessarily an effective difference.
Anyway, here's my interpretation of his posts giving him the benefit of the doubt...

• If the tower was established somewhere...it shouldn't be moved.
• If its placement will affect the campaign in a broader context...it shouldn't be moved.
• If the characters specifically are trying to avoid it...it shouldn't be moved.
• [1]If it really doesn't matter one way or the other, and the characters don't even know about it...why not?
  

[2] Phrased this way, I can't really argue with it too much.

Although, the original idea was not moving it, but placing it to begin with, but I think the same criteria apply, namely "effect on the existing campaign".  If it doesn't really affect anything else outside of itself, then messing with it isn't a value judgement.  Not my thing, but I can see the argument.

It is possible that I am reading NoClue uncharitably. It might have helped to include the caveats in their first claim of "no difference."

Regarding your reasonable attempt at being reasonable, I added bracket numbers to make it easier to see exactly what I was responding to.

[1] "why not?"

Because the GM may be mistaken in his assessment and because there is a better way of running such things if the GM is not mistaken.


[2] "I can't really argue with it too much."

Can't argue with it in what sense?

• That they are different?
• That you as a player wouldn't mind the change in tower location?
• That you as a player wouldn't notice the change in tower location?

They clearly are different. The degree to which people care about the difference varies a lot. The degree to which people notice the difference varies a lot.

In regards to the "why not?", if the tower's location is completely irrelevant to play then I have to ask the GM, why did you put the damn thing on a map in the first place? Earlier in this thread I mentioned that one could turn the tower into what is in effect almost a wandering encounter by not placing the tower on the map in the first place. If the location doesn't matter you should be able to do that. If there is some reason that you can't do that, then I bet the tower's location does matter.

Why not make it a special encounter instead of a map item?

Possible Answers:
1)   Gosh I never thought of not putting it on the map.
Hey you learned something new today and now you have a new GM tool you can use. Also welcome to 1981.

2)   Well I wanted the Wizard's Tower on the map...for reasons.
Then maybe those reasons may have an effect you are not considering in the moment when you decide to move the tower. Or maybe your reasons for putting a tower on the map were lame. In either case, you might want to think more about your reasons the next time you are thinking of placing something on your GM map and consider whether that thing belongs on a map or on an encounter table.

Quote from: Headless;924851The one thing I hate worse than having a giant wizards tower sneak up on me.  Is having the DM whip out an ill conceived "reason" why I didn't see it coming. It all falls apart at that point.

Never seen a tower in a naturally lower part of the ground? I have.

Less seriously, now I want to make a Helloween one-shot where the murderer is a sneaky tower;).

Quote from: Headless;924853Most of the people I play with are new, so they don't know enough to make meaningful choices.  So I don't give them choices.  At least to start.  Course this is all worked out and part of the deal when we agree to play.   After a short intro, 3 sessions?  One completed adventure, the rails come off and they can choose their own path.  

This is wandering off topic a bit.  Never mind.

Well, a more "guided" (or sometimes, outright railroaded) beginning of a campaign is a time-honoured tradition. It helps to avoid dithering until the players get used to the characters and are able to formulate goals.
I prefer just mixing the new players with older ones, though. It achieves the same with more choice.

Quote from: DavetheLost;924855Yes, the setting is quite different to what we have available in the modern world. It is a fantasy setting with few high level mages, most of whom have better things to do with their time than make and sell detailed maps.

The characters are from a small backwater village, where much like rural villages today many people live there whole lives without travelling much farther than the next town over. This is why information available to them becomes rapidly unreliable more than a few days journey away. The places on the map are the ones the PCs have been to, learned about from others, or heard of in legends and old tales. As they travel or talk to travellers they get to update their map with better information.

The places initially on the map give them some possible adventure hooks. Travelling to the place usually allows me to toss in an encounter or two along the way that slows play down enough for me to have a solid idea of what they find when they get there.

Low prep, but not zero prep.

Excellent summary!

QuoteAnd much better than trying to detail every hex on the map before play...  Yes, I tried that when I was young and foolish. Along with detailing every building in a city.

Wow, man...you deserve some kind of prize. I don't know what it would be, but I'm sure you do!

QuoteNote that this method would not work for every GM, nor do I use it for every campaign I run. Some by their nature need more advanced prep. A planet hopping Sci-Fi game like Traveller for example I would generate the map and world profiles for at least a subsector, even if I didn't further detail the systems until the players announced where they were going next session. In that sort of setting it makes little sense for there not to be a fairly accurate starchart and basic star system information available to anyone who asks for it.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned "a fantasy setting". Traveller is space opera. It would be different in the modern world, too...but even as far back as 19th century, there might be quite a bit of wilderness.

Quote from: Skarg;924858I guess you mean that old maps were rough, and you're thinking I mean I show the players the real world maps?

That's my understanding of your post. Apologies if I've misunderstood you, but you spoke about players making accurate assumptions from the maps - not a word about misleading maps...:D

QuoteYes, and medieval maps were usually much more crude and not spatially accurate, even when someone was literate and any map was actually had by anyone. Often people were lucky to even have a list of what towns and landmarks were along the route from A to B, and people would just ask all along the way which way to go, and/or remember from having gone before.

Indeed.

QuoteI (and my friends with a TFT background, where we got the first notions of how to do this) map out a world generally on hex paper with all terrain listed, accurately, but never show the actual world maps to the players.

Well, that part is what I do, too.
Once again - it's about exploring a place that is there. It could have a map. You just don't have a cartographer that could get you anything resembling a decent map.

QuoteThe players, if/when they have a map and a PC who can understand it, get what we call a "special effect" - a map that represents an actual map in the world, which is often a bit stylized rather than trying to really match the item, more or less depending on the time the GM wanted to put into it. The players' maps will not be complete or accurate by a long shot, often are not on hex paper and may be abstract or were made for certain purposes. The players can try to make their own maps from information and experience they gain during play, or as part of their PCs' backgrounds. And/or they can try to find or commission maps from NPCs.

Oh, really? Never played TFT, but I've done that, too.
(I stopped by player request. My players like exact maps, so they threatened to tear the next inexact one in my head. I felt outnumbered - and given that one of them is my Most Important Player, I didn't want to escalate:p).

QuoteTo me, maps seem only limiting in the way actual space is limiting (the GM can't just warp in stuff at whim if they already established something else should be there), and to me they make a world seem much more real and believable than worlds without actual maps being used.

There's a difference between not having a map, and not having a map in your head. Did you think I can't visualize the setting?
I can, in exacting detail (according to some players: with too much fucking details). I just can't draw, so it remains in my head. Sometimes, I use random generators until I get something that's close, and then show it to the players as "the map".
And yes, I know it's a substitute at best - luckily, I haven't had to do that in a while.

QuoteIt seems to me that's just a GM style and/or thinking/familiarity difference.  You're used to improv and it works for you. I'm used to maps and notes.

Again, I improvise on the basis of a setting. It can have maps, but drawing them would totally defeat the "no-prep" idea.
(That's, of course, assuming we're not playing in a setting that has maps. If I use a published setting, which I often do, there's probably a map, everyone has seen it, we can carry on. Add to it that I often play in historical settings, and the lack of map becomes more of a "gentlemen agreement": we don't look at the map, and the GM describes to the best of his ability;)).

QuoteAgain, ya that's what you're used to and have chosen to use and practice, while I am used to and prefer to have maps.

Indeed.
But how will we live unless we explain to each other how wrong the other party is:D?

QuoteFrom that perspective, there are ways to prove that, because if players grill the GM with investigations and request for maps and techniques that use the geography, then the GM either needs to tell them that's out of scope, or if he's a mapless improv GM, have to provide or refuse the level of consistency they expect. If the players are mapping what their PCs see and get told, the GM had better be able to keep up with their notes or else they will prove that the GM isn't doing so. The only way it would be "unprovable" would be to not tell them you're improv-ing everything, and also be able to not get caught improv-ing or refusing to supply such details.

No problem with providing them, actually. I just don't provide them readily. The Great Geographic Discoveries were great for a reason: it was damned hard to achieve them.
And well, I've never played with a group that was interested in mapping out an unmapped part of the setting. So that's never come up.

QuoteOur style and interest of play developed largely in response to players developing more intelligent ways of using the world's consistency and details. It became clear that as GMs this was interesting and challenging and fun/rewarding to supply, and that it worked for us to make nice maps and think about what was going on on them, etc. Some of it too was noticing what happens when a smart curious PC asks detailed questions and the GM tries to improvise answers - it some situations it really helps the more the GM has pre-thought about things.

It all depends on the group, doesn't it? My players prefer to follow the money trails, or similar, and not the trails in a forest.

QuoteAgain, I think this just points to differences in our styles and players. You've found an improv mention that is nicely thoughtful and is able to consider to your satisfaction (and your players') things so that they are consistent and detailed and don't cause problems. Cool. You probably have refined that well enough, and effectively end up with a similar ability that matches your players habits, so that no weird incongruous things are noticed (except when they are, as in the experiment you mentioned).

Sorry-which experiment? The illusionist example? That had nothing to do with a physical map.
The wizard tower? All details fit with how I imagined it.

QuoteYour method is sort of backwards from mine in one sense, but it has similar respect for cause & effect and avoiding railroads and shell games and meaninglessness, and providing a world where players can work with descriptions and make meaningful informed choices. Cool.

Yeah, that's the whole idea - meaning, stuff doesn't pop up because you went there, but because it was where it should have been. Backwards or forwards, who cares?
(Or rather - well, if enough people cared, I might try to switch to a sixth style of using games. But as it happens, I don't need to).

QuoteBy backwards, I mean that you realize your established concept or chart of the world has you limit what you improvise. I basically do the same thing except I establish a mapped geography and bunches of details sooner than you do. But I still also work minor details in where needed in the same direction you do. Just for me, if the map doesn't show it, new stuff will almost always be a detail consistent with what is shown. So I too might blink up a _small_ low-impact wizard, always in a place I haven't detailed without one already, and outside the range that players might've had some clue about it.

Same here. It will always be consistent with what was shown...or it's a good idea to check why it's not. Such discrepancies have been known for getting deadly.

QuoteI wasn't meaning your exact description. Although looking now, I'd quibble that you didn't mention the growth on the road before they already clumsily chose to take it.

That's a difference in how I was explaining it - but what I was imagining was that the growth doesn't start until a few kilometers on the road.
(Until then, I imagined people from nearby villages are using it, the way we use a highway now - but then they swerve right or left, and go on small tropes).
Tracking checks would have revealed that, BTW.

QuoteI was imagining a similar situation in a mapped game - if the tower road is overgrown and presumably eating most travellers,

Bwahaha. It's not. It's just an acid-sprinkling demon that works for the wizard!
(No, I'm not thinking this up now - I had thought about it when describing the spots).
Again, suitable tests would have shown that much. My players are nice, kind souls, with quite a bit of OOC knowledge of chemistry for reasons of education - so they would have thought of something, I'm sure.

Quotethen I would expect that the PC's would notice the growth well before they got to the tower, and I would think there would be chances before they got to the crossroads someone might've warned them about it,

Again, the crossroad is a city.
Now remember, this was a hypothethical example - but there's a good reason to assume they didn't bother to ask what's near the city and/or that they had to leave in a hurry. (PCs needing to leave in a hurry? When has that happened?)
Why? Because if they had asked, I would have come up with the "bandits, wizard tower, or roll on the table" that much sooner, possibly in a previous session (their question would shift the time when it becomes relevant).
Details wouldn't have changed, either (unless they have changed or were wrong for IC reasons) - I'd have taken a note afterwards about what was revealed, and what wasn't revealed, but I had decided it. Because here Apocalypse World is right in instructing the GM to "say what honesty demands".

Since they didn't have such info, we can safely conclude that they neither bothered to ask, nor have they mentioned planning to leave in front of a friendly local NPC.
(Maybe they had plans for the city and having to leave was a nasty surprise? Maybe it was simply halfway through the first session?
Frankly, I don't know. I haven't thought up the whole campaign just for the sake of an example in the forum, so either one is possible! I suspect it was simply one of the first sessions, and they were doing relatively well, or thought they were doing well, until an enemy stopped smiling at them and started a PC-hunt!)

Quoteand of course a cautious observant party asking for directions and info all along the way would have been either told of it, or only told of other places along the other roads, so they'd be thinking "Hmm, no one mentioned that overgrown road leading north here...".

Yes. See above: they hadn't done that.

QuoteAnd of course yes, since roads lead into one another, any time a road is deadly, stopping or unused, that means no traffic there so it affects whom you do and don't meet all along it. Which is a kind of detail that it seems to me is much more easy and natural to be something that automatically has an effect at longer distance and further ahead in time and more subtly, for a GM using a map and thinking in terms of a map, compared to a GM making up the geography as they go.

Here's the thing: when I make up the local geography, I'd know almost anything from the start of the road to the tower. While I was describing the outgrowth, I came up with 1) how far from the city it starts (about a league), the description of the dark spots, and their explanation (the two always go together - I never throw a detail without knowing what caused it).
While describing those, I came up with the idea for 1) the personality and powers of the wizard, 2) the description of the tower.
While describing that, I came up with 1) the wizard's enemies he's guarding against and 2) his allies.

QuoteHaving an established geography creates a context that allows for all sorts of subtle details and bits of info that are just a natural part of the water rather than having to think of them in terms of clues to significant stuff, too.

Yes, I agree. If you have been talking about geography, I would have agreed - but you started about maps, and I explained my reasons for not allowing them.
The difference is, Earth had a geography long before there were maps.

QuoteInformation travels along with travelers. Your wizard's tower with the overgrown road implies information isn't going up or down that road - probably the locals are scared and may even have forgotten the road. A different wizard's tower might instead be a source of information, because of added traffic from more worldly and traveled types, and/or because the wizard himself gets and shares more info than would otherwise be in the area.

See above why neither of these is the case, though.

QuoteIn that case in particular, the info in the area may be quite different, as the locals and travelers may know various things they would not if there were not a wizard there. That can have important effects, not just for when the PCs learn there's a wizard there, but also just for its own sake. Backwater A may have almost no interesting info, while backwater B near the chatty wizard has various gossip and news from far away.

But I didn't imagine him or her as chatty, just a bookish type that wants to be left alone. That wasn't in order to limit information, either. If I'd imagined the wizard differently, some details would have been different. Like, if he or she wanted non-demonic company, there could be people going to and from the tower.

QuoteAgain a player/playstyle difference, but your guarded travel-intercepting tower would affect the odds of certain travel encounters for days around, even if the party are oblivious.

It did. No brigands, for once, I didn't even consider those.

QuoteYes. You can improv those, unless there's an established reason not to. I enjoy using a map because it's a naturally appropriate way to store and to generate reasons for what is where and why. To me it's enjoyable and interesting and easier for the copious amount I prefer to pepare, to base it off an actual map, which builds up consistent context. Occult reasons can be located too. Reasons why locations are desirable are naturally geographic from my perspective. If a wizard owned it by luck 100 years ago, he's been affecting the region for 100 years... cool, more interrelated stuff to affect what's on the map...

Yes, that's possible, and I try to account for it. But I choose to do it more "theatre of the mind".
My wife would still get me if I tried to abuse that by replacing the setting's reality with the illusion of such, so I have a constant check to keep me honest:D!

QuoteCould be all sorts of things, which might or might not (in)directly impact or be observable by the PCs. That's why I like to have thought of them and have them on the map in advance. I love having a mapped world where I've thought of various levels of things going on, so I can have signs of them without having them be part of something directly about the PCs or their current concerns. Typically though, I like to think about all the major wizards and what their relationships are with the other powers, because it just makes for all sorts of various interesting stuff that leaves traces all around. Maps help all that.

If the major wizards are that powerful, they would be on my power relationship lists.
Since this one isn't there, the reverse also applies - that's not such a powerful wizard.

QuoteWell sure. I was just going with the example on the table, and explaining ways in which mapped prep can have effects at long range, largely for rgrove, and to point out that mapped prep is a different category and what I enjoy about it.

It is, but I just want to point out (also for rgrove) that the lack of a physical map doesn't mean the setting doesn't have a geography, and a map in the GM's head.

QuoteSure. It's really just a different way of PCs exploring your world, that requires you to improv further ahead. It just seems to me that having an actual GM map (not player map) helps mean you don't need to do improv nor manage its consistency, and it seems to me (for me anyway) it helps automatically suggest details about what PCs experience at longer range than if I didn't have a map. I feel more adrift and more likely to have weird nonsense if I have no map and/or haven't done some prep.

Depends on the scale. I almost definitely have a world map, maybe random generated, or scribbled on a sheet of paper - for no other reason than to keep me honest (old habits die hard, and all that). But are all wizards on it? They aren't.
Do I have a smaller-scale map of just the local area? Of course I do, but it's probably just in my head.

QuoteYeah I imagined your map differently. In a city, they could ask what's down each road. Unless they're fleeing or thoughtless.

Again, it was a made-up party in a made-up city. If they didn't ask, they were either careless, or in a hurry. (Though, to be honest, the reason they didn't have such information is simply that I wanted an example with maximum freedom to improvise. Besides, I would have to write out their info for you...and I didn't feel like it).

QuoteSure. Again, the difference between smart logical improv, and mapped prep.

What I call "smart logical improv" is the same I do while "setting building". I just do it in bite-sized chunks, while the PCs are walking around.

QuoteYa. One of the maps I gave my players once had a warning scrawled on it that said, "Use this map and you will surely die...". One may also want to consider why the map one finds is damaged and/or covered in blood stains and/or scorch marks.

Now you're talking about my kind of maps!

QuoteWell the issue is that I really like consistency and to be able to describe things I actually know something about from having already thought it through and hopefully mapped and detailed it out so that I like what I have to say and know it makes some sense. I don't want to commit to my world having or not having certain details or even entire nations or cultures that I haven't considered before.

And, while they're near the tower, I have the time to think about the nearest region and culture...

QuoteAnd I don't want to have my world change as I add up new stuff I hadn't thought of. It makes for a surreal experience and one that isn't as interesting or as satisfying to me. I also don't like the players to be easily able to find glaring edges to what I know about the world, unless we've agreed to limit the scope of play.

That's definitely not happening. And for the exact same reasons.

QuoteIf that had been true of the location, then ya they might have only seen some locals who might've fled. You're right that in many places it can be tricky to get information and not get into trouble especially as unprepared foreigners.

Well they were reacting according to what the people were like there, which was not so guarded. It was a fairly well-traveled road where it was not uncustomary to talk to people met along the road, so they were in luck and being more cautious than it turned out they needed to be. But they were wise to do so, as they had no idea where they were, having come through a magic gate with no indication where it had taken them.

Indeed.
Wait, magic gate? That answers my further questions! (Also, sorry if you'd mentioned it and I didn't notice. It happens, alas!)

Quote from: Lunamancer;924892That's not at all verifiable either. There is at least conceptually a difference.

What Asen is describing is not exactly what I would call zero prep.  It's just initial prep is just enough to get started, and prep continues simultaneous to play, so you don't ever have to log a bunch of prep time in your lonely writers garret between sessions. And so there is practically zero observable prep time.

You've got it;).
I avoid describing it that way, because it makes it sound needlessly complicated...but that's what it amounts to, yes.

QuoteEmphasis on observable because there is a difference between observation and perception. The latter may include the benefits of insight. This is key because a common theme I'm seeing with the "ain't no difference" crowd is to demonstrate that there is no difference in terms of what the players can observe. And then, without even articulating such, it makes a leap in logic by implying that therefore the players cannot perceive any difference. Asen mentioned a player in his group who uses illusionism and thus has the insight to easily perceive when its used despite a lack of observable evidence. That's one example, and it only takes once example to prove there is in fact a difference.

Indeed.

QuoteOf course, Asen could be lying about this fictitious player.

Lying about my wife? Man, I've got better self-preservation instincts than that;)!
Besides, I can do the same, and for much the same reason. She just catches up faster than me. Both of us would know it before the middle of the session, though.

QuoteIt goes back to we have no way of verifying shit people say on the internet. So you can also call me a liar if I said my profession is one whose very nature calls upon me to constantly getting to the bottom of peoples true motivations, even though it's not something directly observable.

Or we can call Headless a liar by claiming to be human. After all, he could conceivably be a headless ET from Alpha Centauri.
Or we could claim Rgrove is a liar by claiming to be a successful GM, and that he has never run a session since 1980, because nobody in his home city wants to play with him.
...or you know - we could just assume that most of us simply don't have the time to fabricate elaborate lies about what happens in their sessions, and agree that yes, human beings are quite capable of reading between the lines. It's a survival trait, after all!

QuoteSo the story hits on most of the major themes in this thread. But I hope the take away from reading the comic is clear. Yes, players can commonly infer things beyond observable evidence. So yes, there is a difference. Players will know it.

It's not "beyond observable evidence" - it's just something that most of us don't do consciously. But you know, claiming that we can only observe what we can directly see is...easily disproven.
A hunter knows there was a deer around without seeing it, because things leave traces simply by passing. A boxer knows you're going to punch him, and where, because what you're thinking about reflects in your body language.
If anyone's ancestors couldn't do that, they'd be dead, and that person wouldn't have been born. Today, we play with much lower stakes - it's a game to us. But we're using the same skills.

QuoteBut another moral is, having a dickish attitude in assuming the GM is trying to put one over on you will always lead to the annihilation of your fun, possibly the character, and maybe even the group.

Also true. But the problem is, to some of us illusionism leads, merely by being present, to the annihilation of the fun.

Quote from: rgrove0172;924962That's the thing about this whole debate. Its perceived so differently by each individual, or each camp I suppose. My players were aware of how the game was structured 30 minutes in. They know how I operate and could see the sort of linked encounter mechanic readily, but didn't care... no more than that they supported it. They saw it as an effective way to present this huge sprawling complex and as long as there was an 'illusion' of free choice and navigation, they were fine. "Get one with the story!"  The new player though believed he had been fooled somehow, that somehow what he had been enjoying for nearly 8 hours had been a lie, like finding out your rollercoaster ride was a simulator instead of the real thing when its over. My response would be.."So what! Was it a fun ride?" while it was a deal killer for him.

Its a pointless argument. Neither side is ever going to be swayed and in the end, I guess it really doesn't matter. Many of us will never subject ourselves to a "pull it out of arse" GM and others cant stand the thought of a "Railroading" GM so we aren't likely to be playing in each others games anyway, at least not more than once. Enjoy your hobby in the way that fits you best, but try to refrain from raining shit down on others that feel differently. That's all I would ask.

See, I wholeheartedly agree with the second paragraph I quoted.
The first quoted paragraph, however, proves something I've been advocating: it pays to explain to players your playstyle, before play begins. Then the only players that would join would be those that are fine with it. And if they join, it means at least tacit approval.
I do the same, because I want people to know what to expect. It helps limiting freakouts when a character dies to a stupid decision.

That's much like my example with the tower, now that I think of it - the made-up characters don't have info they could possibly have, because I didn't make them up with having it. And if they didn't have it, it means they haven't thought of actions actual human players might have taken, which would have revealed some info in advance.

Quote from: CRKrueger;924965The point your missing is that you've created, as you frequently do, a false dichotomy.  I prefer a prepped campaign and a railroad-free environment because as a player I want to live or die, succeed or fail, by the choices of my character.  (No offense to Asen, Jibba or any of the other "Lighting Round Preppers" but my experience with GMs who think they got it covered with little prep, usually don't, but I just let it slide.)

None taken - it's your preference, just like I don't care whether you have prepped or not.
I might invite you to a session if you pass by Sofia, but that would be a one-shot so we could have what to report on the forum;).

QuoteSee, that player thought his choices mattered.  He thought that they played well, they didn't get randomly lost, they didn't fail to figure out how the transportation system worked or how to get places, he thought that his character, succeeded despite a chance of failure.  Now obviously, he could have died in combat, etc... so the fights were real (or knowing you maybe not), but the rest was not.  So, to his mind, you took that accomplishment from him.

Once, you do that, once you break that trust that the characters are accomplishing things on their own, then their choices don't matter.  Left, Right, Up, Down - who cares, Grove will get us there.
Reactivate the Reactor first or see if there's anything we need to check - Nah, if something else needed to be done we would have encountered that before now.

The players retain their agency on a micro-level, in combat (maybe) but they completely lose their agency on a larger level because...
No matter what they do, the overall story remains the same.

Some people like that.  Personally, I don't want a "GM as Storyteller".  Yes, a GM is an MC, worldbuilder, storyteller, all of the above, but what I want is a referee.  Someone to interpret the rules that need interpreting, to Roleplay the World and keep his thumbs off the scales.

That, however, matters to me as well. And I believe I'm covering it adequately with my style.
If I come to believe I'm not, I'd have to start taking more time in preparation.

Quote from: Skarg;924966Seems to me people are trying to explain what they find interesting about non-improv non-railroad, and what the differences are, because the players who don't mind improv and railroads so often seem to not understand.

Seems to me that railroad is a bit like thinking you're playing Poker or Blackjack, and the dealer is actually playing magic tricks.

Improv is not like that, unless the GM doesn't know/care or doesn't detect the way he's rigging events.

If you want to play a game about actually exploring an existing world and being able to interact with it, then railroad is not that, and improv can have some issues and limitations, or at least differences from a prepped/mapped play mode.

Everything has issues and limitations. And everything, even rgrove's style, has some advantages.
Now, things that are an advantage for some people, would be a flaw for others...see the "agency" post, above.
But if I was going to an illusionist's game to relax after a hard day at work? I'd welcome this style! I can talk with friends, eat what I brought, pretend to be awesome, and only need to think during combat, if that.
It's just that, as it happens, that's not what I'm looking for. When I'm tired, I'd rather play backgammon.

Quote from: Bren;924967Actually no in Asen's example the tower was not on a GM's map.

In his example of how he GM's, Asen created the tower more or less contemporaneous (oh sorry I forgot < 10th grade)...In Asen's example, he created the tower to the north and the bandits and the swamp and whatever the fourth thing was outside of town just before he spoke aloud to the players to tell them there were three ways (and the swamps) that they could take out of town. Asen doesn't use actual maps much. The maps-a-lot guy is Skarg.

Yeah, that's me - though I must add, I've usually got a map. It's just hidden...because I can't draw.

Quote from: CRKrueger;924970Not trying to jump in the middle of this one, but...to be fair, he did say that there was a difference, just not necessarily an effective difference.
Anyway, here's my interpretation of his posts giving him the benefit of the doubt...

• If the tower was established somewhere...it shouldn't be moved.
• If its placement will affect the campaign in a broader context...it shouldn't be moved.
• If the characters specifically are trying to avoid it...it shouldn't be moved.
• If it really doesn't matter one way or the other, and the characters don't even know about it...why not?

Phrased this way, I can't really argue with it too much.

I'd agree with everything but the last point.

Quote from: Bren;924967Fixed that for you.

Actually, I was being dismissive of your views not oblivious to them. There's a difference.

QuoteIt is no big deal to you. We’ve agreed on that. Not being a big deal does not make it functionally the same.

Fine, let's say I regard the difference in the case I specified to be a de minimis. De minimis non curat praetor.

Quote1)   The players encounter Ye Olde Wizard’s Tower because they chose to go in a direction that leads to Ye Olde Wizard’s Tower;

and

2)   The players encounter Ye Olde Wizard’s Tower regardless of their choice and based solely on the GM wanting them to encounter Ye Olde Wizard’s Tower.


That you seem unable to admit that there is a difference when you clearly recognize that there is a difference is bizarre.

I think I've said that if the GM's decision is overriding a player choice it's problematic. If the player is just deciding to go North, without any consideration of the possibility of Towers, the GM hasn't blocked or undermined their choice by populating the world with Towers and other locales. That's the GMs role. The players knew the job was dangerous when they took it.

QuoteActually no in Asen’s example the tower was not on a GM’s map.

I apologize to Aden if I misconstrued his tower ;)

QuoteThat still doesn’t make strawberry and chocolate ice-cream the same. Because they are different and that is easily shown by (a) feeding them to a person who is able to differentiate the taste of the two flavors, (b) reading the ingredients list on the package of ice-cream, or (c) a chemical analysis of the ice-cream.

In so far as taste there's no perceived difference for that person. In that one regard, you could say there's no functional difference. In other words, the difference doesn't have much effect. However, their body will still be reacting differently to the nutrients they just ate, so there will be very significant differences on their biochemistry. The analogy works fine as to taste, but it's not a very apt one otherwise.

Quote from: Noclue;924988Actually, I was being dismissive of your views not oblivious to them. There's a difference.

Oh you flatterer.

QuoteFine, let's say I regard the difference in the case I specified to be a de minimis. De minimis non curat praetor.

Now if only you had studied logic instead of Latin we wouldn't have had to waste so many words to get to agreement that the two things are in fact different, but that you see the difference as trivial because it is not a difference that you care about.

QuoteIn so far as taste there's no perceived difference for that person. In that one regard, you could say there's no functional difference.

for that one person you could say it. But the example of the GM tower switching does not involve just one person.

When the tower is switched, one person (the GM) knows the tower was switched. The players may know. They may not. The players may care. They may not. The GM may realize the players know and care. The GM may realize neither. GMs who like to switch towers about frequently believe that their players don't know and that even if they did know they wouldn't care. But in practice, as we have seen in a number of examples, even one by the original illusionism proponent RGrove - GMs are often wrong about whether or not players know or care.

But even if we narrow the vague original example to include all the caveats you've added, at the end of the day, the outcome of switching the tower is different than the outcome where the tower isn't switched. At least one person knows the switch occurred because the GM knows they pulled Ye Olde Switcheroo. And as the GM I care even if other people don't. If for no other reason than the old switcheroo is a lazy and aesthetically displeasing way to GM that is prone to being misused.

Now I get that you don't care that I care. And really I don't care that you don't care that I care. I just get tired of listening to nitwits claim that different things are the same or that the same things are different. Even when the nitwits know some Latin.

Quote from: Bren;924978Can't argue with it in what sense?

Can't argue in the sense that...

• If the tower was established somewhere...it shouldn't be moved. AGREE
• If its placement will affect the campaign in a broader context...it shouldn't be moved. AGREE
• If the characters specifically are trying to avoid it...it shouldn't be moved. AGREE
• If it really doesn't matter one way or the other, and the characters don't even know about it...why not? Agree kinda sorta that the players have zero chance to be able to tell one way or another, so it doesn't matter.
  

Who is going to care that a Tower we hadn't heard about and weren't planning to go anyway, got moved either toward us or away from us?
Like I said, not my thing generally, I play it straight, but I see the argument.

Quote from: Bren;924978[1] “why not?”

Because the GM may be mistaken in his assessment and because there is a better way of running such things if the GM is not mistaken.

My view that circumstance is so rare it can be ignored. It is due to the fact that everything the players knows about the setting comes from what the referee communicates to the players. A dot on a map doesn't count especially if the name is changed.

Now if the locale included NPCs that the player dealt with before or have connections to other NPCs that make sense in the original location but not in the new. Then you have something that may be noticed. But again this is a rare circumstance were things are that dependent.

Quote from: Bren;924978[2] “I can't really argue with it too much.”

Can't argue with it in what sense?

• That they are different?
• That you as a player wouldn't mind the change in tower location?
• That you as a player wouldn’t notice the change in tower location?

They clearly are different. The degree to which people care about the difference varies a lot. The degree to which people notice the difference varies a lot.
.

You are overthinking the issue, actually both sides of the argument other than Kruger's response is overthinking the argument.

Yes there are circumstances where with could be a problem. But those circumstances are not common to most tables because the problem is always that you didn't give enough information. Not that you gave too much and now you have to own up to it or be viewed as inconsistent.

Quote from: estar;925000My view that circumstance is so rare it can be ignored. It is due to the fact that everything the players knows about the setting comes from what the referee communicates to the players. A dot on a map doesn't count especially if the name is changed. .

If it doesn't matter where the tower is, then putting it on a map is kind of stupid and a waste of ink. The times when it's on the map and the location really doesn't matter are pretty rare in my experience. But I'm probably closer in style to Skarg and I give the players a lot of information. And in the current campaign they could read some history books or Google up a bunch more information if they actually wanted to.

QuoteYes there are circumstances where with could be a problem. But those circumstances are not common to most tables because the problem is always that you didn't give enough information. Not that you gave too much and now you have to own up to it or be viewed as inconsistent.

I find that players forgetting information or mistakenly recalling information that they were already given is a bigger problem than not giving them enough information in the first (or second or even sometimes the third or fourth) place.

I care a lot about consistency. As a GM, fitting things together consistently is like writing poetry with meter and rhyme instead of blank verse or prose. Part of the fun is the artificial restriction that consistency places on my creativity. Moving the tower is like cheating at solitaire. Does it matter? Not in any meaningful sense, but there isn't a lot of deep meaningful sense in a leisure activity game played for fun. It's like asking if it matters if a player cheats on their die rolls. Does it matter? Not on any deep level, but it isn't playing the game we agreed to play.

Quote from: CRKrueger;924996Can't argue in the sense that...

Who is going to care that a Tower we hadn't heard about and weren't planning to go anyway, got moved either toward us or away from us?
Like I said, not my thing generally, I play it straight, but I see the argument.

Thanks for answering.

Also I didn't mention it earlier, but I don't consider your summation to be unwarranted or jumping in the middle. You often do a nice job of clearly and succinctly stating things and I think that is helpful both to the content and the tone of this and other threads.

I've been running Storm King's Thunder in Adventurers League games at a local game store, and ironically there is a wizard's tower that appears wherever it needs to be.

Spoiler

The Great Upheaval chapter is fairly railroaded to take characters from 1st to 5th level. It starts with the player characters clearing goblins out of a town that was recently bombarded by cloud giants from a flying castle, and ends with the characters traveling in a tower atop a cloud with a friendly cloud giant wizard whose divination has acquainted him with the player characters. I really expected a lot of difficulty persuading the players that climbing up (a thousand feet, by the adventure's description) was a vaguely sensible idea -- I planned for the tower to follow them at lower and lower altitude until the wizard had the opportunity to rescue them from a tough wandering monster, or just follow them around until they leveled up from the wandering monsters. But they ran right up the cloud stairs with no hesitation. Other fairly safe and obvious courses of action (well, from my point of view, at least) have been dismissed as too dangerous, so go figure.

The campaign book is an odd mix; the second chapter has the player characters defending one of three towns (chosen by DM fiat) and getting a few quests from the locals, but the third chapter is a large number of places with or without suggested encounters to explore as they choose, although one of the featured encounters there is another tower that does not have a fully specified location, all ready to be put on the north or south road as the DM likes. And there are various calls to change encounters to suit the party better; e.g., change a magic greatsword to a greataxe if the players would prefer that. Later chapters detail various major enemies to deal with, with some ordering of those given (both as to expected level and which later ones are revealed at each).

I have never spent so much prep time for each 3-4 hour session in any campaign. I think half of it is studying the book to make sure I haven't missed anything (I've still missed various minor points), but the other half is understanding what is there well enough to make up additional stuff that is consistent. And I expect it will get harder as the players gain more and more freedom of where to go, now that we've reached the third chapter.

Anybody else find published adventures harder to prep than what you make up? Or is it just me, or is it just Storm King's Thunder?

Quote from: rawma;925029I've been running Storm King's Thunder in Adventurers League games at a local game store, and ironically there is a wizard's tower that appears wherever it needs to be.

Spoiler

The Great Upheaval chapter is fairly railroaded to take characters from 1st to 5th level. It starts with the player characters clearing goblins out of a town that was recently bombarded by cloud giants from a flying castle, and ends with the characters traveling in a tower atop a cloud with a friendly cloud giant wizard whose divination has acquainted him with the player characters. I really expected a lot of difficulty persuading the players that climbing up (a thousand feet, by the adventure's description) was a vaguely sensible idea -- I planned for the tower to follow them at lower and lower altitude until the wizard had the opportunity to rescue them from a tough wandering monster, or just follow them around until they leveled up from the wandering monsters. But they ran right up the cloud stairs with no hesitation. Other fairly safe and obvious courses of action (well, from my point of view, at least) have been dismissed as too dangerous, so go figure.

The campaign book is an odd mix; the second chapter has the player characters defending one of three towns (chosen by DM fiat) and getting a few quests from the locals, but the third chapter is a large number of places with or without suggested encounters to explore as they choose, although one of the featured encounters there is another tower that does not have a fully specified location, all ready to be put on the north or south road as the DM likes. And there are various calls to change encounters to suit the party better; e.g., change a magic greatsword to a greataxe if the players would prefer that. Later chapters detail various major enemies to deal with, with some ordering of those given (both as to expected level and which later ones are revealed at each).

I have never spent so much prep time for each 3-4 hour session in any campaign. I think half of it is studying the book to make sure I haven't missed anything (I've still missed various minor points), but the other half is understanding what is there well enough to make up additional stuff that is consistent. And I expect it will get harder as the players gain more and more freedom of where to go, now that we've reached the third chapter.

Anybody else find published adventures harder to prep than what you make up? Or is it just me, or is it just Storm King's Thunder?

It varies.  If I'm just raiding it for ideas or the module is close to what I was looking for, and I just need to give it a new coat of paint, it goes very easy.  Sometimes I want to actually run the module, but not 100% as is, and altering it is like a Rubik's d20.

I think some modules due to their specific nature can be harder to retool than others, but some just seem to be hard to adapt.

Plotted stuff tends to be harder, especially when there's a lot of plots going on and the Where and When's matter, like Power Behind the Throne.  One of the best modules ever, but Oy Vey!

Quote from: Bren;924974Clearly this type of a sense of accomplishment is not what RGrove and Co. play for and he seems to really not be able to grasp that some people want the chance for that sense of accomplishment in addition to (and even at times instead of) a feeling of "fun session," "cool adventure," "nice story," or "wow, that was exciting."

The other problem being rgrove and co keep trying to validate and prove the "whatever" they are defending today is somehow common, supported, is better than other styles, and perfectly fine to do since the players dont know.

As noted. He is right that to the unaware player it can seem like there is no difference between the wizards tower that was A: created on the spot based on prior input, B: moved from where it had been into the PCs path, C: was placed beforehand and the players just happened to choose that direction, D: was randomly placed, E: the tower can move itself, F: is part of a linear story, and so on.

The problem is in the execution of B (And sometimes F) and its removal of the meaning of allowing the players to choose. The rigged shell game is an apt comparison for B.

Now if the players know the game is rigged and are really ok with that then it doesnt matter.

QuoteYou can avoid Illusionism fairly easily, even while running things on the fly. If there are two ways to go, simply decide which way leads to the evil wizard, even if you only made that decison five minutes (or five seconds) beforehand.

--Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures

This quote is from a section headed Avoid Illusionism. Illusionism being defined as what happens when a gamemaster makes sure every choice the players make is the right choice (or vice versa).

Avoid Teleporting Tower Syndrome by deciding what is down each branch of the crossroads before telling the players they have come to a crossroad. If they don't go down the road leading to the tower, they miss the tower. If you are running no or low prep this isn't a waste of time because you didn't spend hours carefully crafting a wizard's tower in the first place.

Where I worry about crossing the line into illusionism is when I advance prepare little set piece encounters to drop into play. Usually just little colour encounters. "At the coaching inn a mysterious stranger will rush angrilly out the door, physically pushing the PCs out of his way, exchange heated words with a lady in a carriage then jump on his horse and ride off in the opposite direction to the coach. Examining the inn yard will reveal that he dropped a monogrammed silk handkerchief."  If the players decide to follow up on this it could become a plot seed, if they don't they may never discover the plot against the Crown that these two are engaged in.  Is it illusionism to place this little scene at "the next coaching inn the party visits"?

Back on topic.

For me. total Zero-prep campaign DMing just comes naturally. Obviously this is in absolutely no way a style that works for others or is even learnable I suspect.

I know I must be doing something right as at least two players regularly made long drives out to our place just to play.

But some methods I like to use.

1: Ask the players for some input. Is there anything theyd like to do? Character goals and/or backstory, if any? Why are they adventuring? Are they adventuring even? EG: plot hooks the players give me instead of the other way around.

2: Do the players have any pref for a start location? Town, city, wilderness, dungeon, etc? This can help solidify a basic idea of where to start things off or spark ideas in me to roll with from there.

3: Now what are they doing at the start location? This is important as it can set the stage for everything that follows.

4: Once things start to get established then I try to think of at least three locations around the site that the PCs know of and at least one, usually more that have some rumours about but possibly not confirmed. I try to set down beforehand some things out there that the players and PCs dont know of and might never get encountered. But they are there and set. Other things have to be created on the fly as the need arises or rolled for depending on the situation.

X: And from there just see what the players do and react accordingly as ideas pop up.

Quote from: Omega;925041The other problem being rgrove and co keep trying to validate and prove the "whatever" they are defending today is somehow common, supported, is better than other styles, and perfectly fine to do since the players dont know.

As noted. He is right that to the unaware player it can seem like there is no difference between the wizards tower that was A: created on the spot based on prior input, B: moved from where it had been into the PCs path, C: was placed beforehand and the players just happened to choose that direction, D: was randomly placed, E: the tower can move itself, F: is part of a linear story, and so on.

The problem is in the execution of B (And sometimes F) and its removal of the meaning of allowing the players to choose. The rigged shell game is an apt comparison for B.

Now if the players know the game is rigged and are really ok with that then it doesnt matter.

Whats really amazing is that so many here seem to feel that the occasional 'rigging' if you want to call it that during a game somehow eliminates all the reward the players get in playing. Its not as if the whole damn game is 'rigged'. Ive said this so many times it makes me wonder what some of you guys are drinking! Its an OCCASIONAL approach when the crux of a scenario or session is obviously geared in one direction, more than likely completely understood by the players. If we sat down tonight to investigate YE FUCKING WIZARDS TOWER then it would be perfectly acceptable if the GM twisted a few facts to make sure they FUCKING GOT THERE. He, me, wouldn't run the whole game that way, would allow total freedom and randomization in any number of other aspects, wouldn't control combat etc. etc. etc. but yeah, I might, MIGHT that is, make sure they talk to the right tavern keeper and get the information they need to make the damn tower the object.

Despite some awesome arguments to the contrary I will never believe that to be a crime of some sort or even a less rewarding way to play. And as to the notion that it isn't supported, common or accepted... one only has to pick up any adventure module since 1977 to be proven wrong.

One last time, I don't have a problem with some GMs doing the ole Zero Prep thing either, Ive stated that several times and have done it myself. My only comment has been that its a deviation from the accepted norm, just as railroading is on occasion. The standard way to play a roleplaying game is to make up an adventure, draw a map and let the players wander across it and do stuff. Making it up as you go, moving shit around in front of them, or whatever is FINE, but not the norm, and both are equally deviant.

Everybody has their opinion and preference. Personally If a GM were to invite me over to play and then told me he had nothing prepared but would wing it as soon as I got there I would decline. I can sit home and make up my own stories thank you! I might even get upset if someone pulled what I have a few times and moved something around without the players notice, if it went against a choice of mine. I get that sure... but lets be honest here, part of the game is not revealing everything. We all typically have detailed maps of our worlds but we don't let the players see them, they would get too much info from them and frankly we might need to change something if we change our mind, get a better idea or whatever. Its not a crime, there is no guarantee of 100% transparency in a roleplaying game. The objective is fun. Being fooled can be fun... see my simulator analogy above.

Some fool their players into thinking they really could have gone a different way. Some fool their players into thinking there really is a world out there waiting for them already and not about to be birthed in the next moment. Its all foolery and completely fine in the context of playing a game.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925047Whats really amazing is that so many here seem to feel that the occasional 'rigging' if you want to call it that during a game somehow eliminates all the reward the players get in playing. Its not as if the whole damn game is 'rigged'. Ive said this so many times it makes me wonder what some of you guys are drinking! Its an OCCASIONAL approach when the crux of a scenario or session is obviously geared in one direction, more than likely completely understood by the players.

"It's not as if I'm pissing in EVERY glass of beer I'm serving you! Most of the beer is actually perfectly fine. I don't understand why you feel this has ruined the beer-drinking."

Quote from: CRKrueger;925037It varies.  If I'm just raiding it for ideas or the module is close to what I was looking for, and I just need to give it a new coat of paint, it goes very easy.  Sometimes I want to actually run the module, but not 100% as is, and altering it is like a Rubik's d20.

I think some modules due to their specific nature can be harder to retool than others, but some just seem to be hard to adapt.

Plotted stuff tends to be harder, especially when there's a lot of plots going on and the Where and When's matter, like Power Behind the Throne.  One of the best modules ever, but Oy Vey!

I always find using a module to be more work than coming up with it myself, no exceptions. But yes, the closer I stick to it, the higher the workload:).

Quote from: Omega;925041The rigged shell game is an apt comparison for B.

Now if the players know the game is rigged and are really ok with that then it doesnt matter.

Totally agree.

Quote from: DavetheLost;925042--Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures

This quote is from a section headed Avoid Illusionism. Illusionism being defined as what happens when a gamemaster makes sure every choice the players make is the right choice (or vice versa).

Avoid Teleporting Tower Syndrome by deciding what is down each branch of the crossroads before telling the players they have come to a crossroad. If they don't go down the road leading to the tower, they miss the tower. If you are running no or low prep this isn't a waste of time because you didn't spend hours carefully crafting a wizard's tower in the first place.

Where I worry about crossing the line into illusionism is when I advance prepare little set piece encounters to drop into play. Usually just little colour encounters. "At the coaching inn a mysterious stranger will rush angrilly out the door, physically pushing the PCs out of his way, exchange heated words with a lady in a carriage then jump on his horse and ride off in the opposite direction to the coach. Examining the inn yard will reveal that he dropped a monogrammed silk handkerchief."  If the players decide to follow up on this it could become a plot seed, if they don't they may never discover the plot against the Crown that these two are engaged in.  Is it illusionism to place this little scene at "the next coaching inn the party visits"?

Said section is one of the many reasons I like Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures:p!
There are many more, actually. But this is a major one.

Quote from: Omega;925043Back on topic.

For me. total Zero-prep campaign DMing just comes naturally. Obviously this is in absolutely no way a style that works for others or is even learnable I suspect.

I have taught it to myself, after cutting off what I disliked about other styles. I've taught it to others who had never even considered it.

QuoteI know I must be doing something right as at least two players regularly made long drives out to our place just to play.

I know it for pretty much the same reason, except with local flavour. Some of my players used to stay until late enough in the night that public transport had already stopped working...and they haven't come by car*, nor were they planning a sleepover (though I did offer the option:D).
I'd told them "the session continues until you want to stay and play". That's how the sessions in this campaign routinely surpassed the 8-hour mark, and 1 hours wasn't really an exception.
Obviously they didn't find it boring if they were spending their Saturdays in my house, playing.

*That would be unusual around here, at least when going to a session.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;925076"It's not as if I'm pissing in EVERY glass of beer I'm serving you! Most of the beer is actually perfectly fine. I don't understand why you feel this has ruined the beer-drinking."

It's more or less like that, yes;).

Quote from: Justin Alexander;925076"It's not as if I'm pissing in EVERY glass of beer I'm serving you! Most of the beer is actually perfectly fine. I don't understand why you feel this has ruined the beer-drinking."

Sorry , really stupid analogy. Point taken but ..well no...Pont not applicable at all.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925047Whats really amazing is that so many here seem to feel that the occasional 'rigging' if you want to call it that during a game somehow eliminates all the reward the players get in playing. Its not as if the whole damn game is 'rigged'.

Except that we've seen time and again that it can devolve into something more than "occasional". The temptation to "save my creation from disuse!" is strong and once you start... well...
Or evolves into just flat out railroad styles to one degree or another. Which may be a good thing, or a bad thing. WMMV totally there.

And even if its occasional its still not a good thing to do to the players and it is irrelevant to if they ever know its happened or not.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925086Sorry , really stupid analogy. Point taken but ..well no...Pont not applicable at all.

Actually, it's completely exact in my book, and a rather smart analogy.

You not understanding it, or rather you disagreeing it should matter to that degree=/=other people don't feel it matters to that degree.
And while it's your opinion that matters for your group, it's the other people's opinion that matters if you're looking for new players.

What it seems you don't understand is that for some of us, the session is evaluated as a whole, just like beer-drinking is evaluating by all the beer and talk that happened. Doesn't matter that "it only happened at one or two moments", if the thing that happened was 1) illusionism in an RPG session, with people who hate the idea, or 2) someone pissing in your beer when out to drink beer with friends. All of these do ruin the mood for us.

For some people, not even the best beer will compensate for someone pissing in it. If you doubt that, remember the Case of the Disappointed Player that you told us about in this thread;).

Quote from: Omega;925094Except that we've seen time and again that it can devolve into something more than "occasional". The temptation to "save my creation from disuse!" is strong and once you start... well...
Or evolves into just flat out railroad styles to one degree or another. Which may be a good thing, or a bad thing. WMMV totally there.

And even if its occasional its still not a good thing to do to the players and it is irrelevant to if they ever know its happened or not.

When did you see this phenomonon? You played with a GM who used it often enough to turn you against it I assume? You haven't played in my game so you are assuming I've fallen prey to this same over use. I havent.

And my regular players do know and disagree with you enturely. So it's very much and individual opinion, blanket statements dont apply.

Quote from: AsenRG;925097Actually, it's completely exact in my book, and a rather smart analogy.

You not understanding it, or rather you disagreeing it should matter to that degree=/=other people don't feel it matters to that degree.
And while it's your opinion that matters for your group, it's the other people's opinion that matters if you're looking for new players.

What it seems you don't understand is that for some of us, the session is evaluated as a whole, just like beer-drinking is evaluating by all the beer and talk that happened. Doesn't matter that "it only happened at one or two moments", if the thing that happened was 1) illusionism in an RPG session, with people who hate the idea, or 2) someone pissing in your beer when out to drink beer with friends. All of these do ruin the mood for us.

For some people, not even the best beer will compensate for someone pissing in it. If you doubt that, remember the Case of the Disappointed Player that you told us about in this thread;).

Oh I would never argue that someone wouldnt possibly object to it. There are all kinds of gamers for sure. The new guy at are table is a clear example. But his response doesn't somehow make what all the others enjoyed invalid. Still fun to some even if gated by others. Again, no blanket statements please.

That's why I said the beer analogy wasn't a good one. It's safe to say nobody wants beer with piss in it. Call it lime instead and I'm with you. Some will spit it out, others will order another.

Quote from: AsenRG;924980That's my understanding of your post. Apologies if I've misunderstood you, but you spoke about players making accurate assumptions from the maps - not a word about misleading maps...:D

Oh, no, the accurate maps are for GM eyes only, representing the actual game world. Players only have maps that represent actual maps in the game world, with all sorts of limitations, if they even have a map.

QuoteOnce again - it's about exploring a place that is there. It could have a map. You just don't have a cartographer that could get you anything resembling a decent map.

Yep. The accumulation of actual decent maps and access to actual scholars and cartographers who can add to the players' map collection has often been more valued by players than gold or magic. Many adventures and decisions on where to go in the worlds have been mainly about exploration.

QuoteOh, really? Never played TFT, but I've done that, too.

TFT's main campaign book presents detailed hex maps for regions and towns with rules for terrain, travel, getting lost, etc. My first campaign started using their sample map and extending from there. That was the last map the players had access to, and I soon realized that it was no good having players have access to the "real" map of anything because it was far more accurate/detailed info than their PCs would ever have in-character. I soon re-did the original map and the map in the book became a specific map in the game world, no longer entirely accurate.

Quote(I stopped by player request. My players like exact maps, so they threatened to tear the next inexact one in my head. I felt outnumbered - and given that one of them is my Most Important Player, I didn't want to escalate:p).

Hehe! That's too bad. Even with my map-oriented players, it took a while to wean them off of having access to hex-based maps and being able to use gamey techniques and expectations to make an accurate map. That's when I realized I had to get more detailed on my own map than 12.5km hexes, at least for the places where the players where doing detailed first-hand exploration.

QuoteThere's a difference between not having a map, and not having a map in your head. Did you think I can't visualize the setting?
I can, in exacting detail (according to some players: with too much fucking details). I just can't draw, so it remains in my head. Sometimes, I use random generators until I get something that's close, and then show it to the players as "the map".
And yes, I know it's a substitute at best - luckily, I haven't had to do that in a while.

So, I should say that I (a GM who mostly prefers heavy prep) posted here in a thread about "zero prep" to point out that there are levels of cause & effect & consistent pre-plotted detail beyond the ones being talked about. And I've elaborated because you asked about interesting details. I'm not trying to argue there's a flaw with your GM'ing, especially for your players. IIRC you asked about where the effects were on play comparing what you wrote you do with mapless improv and relation maps, versus what I do with lots of map prep.

I have often run less mapped games and I've certainly played them. And much of my mapped play was at 12.5km hex scale, which is pretty rough and sometimes called for exactly what you always do, which is make up details during play. But I know that for my own brain, even though I also have fairly good mental maps of my worlds (even the 30-year-old ones), I really need the maps to allow the type of play I run, in many ways. I'm not exactly sure where Lesser Fumdum is, or where many of the rivers flow, and when I look at the maps I'm often surprised to remember some stuff, and certainly my brain can't remember anywhere near the level of data contained even on the oldest crudest campaign maps. Also some of the old campaigns are enormous, like 100 or so sheets of hex paper full of terrain and roads and place names and so on. Which is not to say you can't have great campaigns which feel close enough without even having much of a real map. I've enjoyed playing and even sometimes running those. I just enjoy and prefer to play with detailed maps.

QuoteAgain, I improvise on the basis of a setting. It can have maps, but drawing them would totally defeat the "no-prep" idea.
(That's, of course, assuming we're not playing in a setting that has maps. If I use a published setting, which I often do, there's probably a map, everyone has seen it, we can carry on. Add to it that I often play in historical settings, and the lack of map becomes more of a "gentlemen agreement": we don't look at the map, and the GM describes to the best of his ability;)).

Sure. I'm wasn't trying to talk you out of doing no prep; I was just trying to answer what I thought the differences could be.
As for published settings, those always bother me because I don't want the players to have OOC access to accurate maps! Harn is nice but I wouldn't run it for more than a one-off because I react, "But the players could look at the actual maps of stuff nooooo!"
It's probably one of the reasons I tend to avoid historical settings in centuries when people didn't have good maps.
And even in modern and sci fi settings I would always have my own maps at least to show the real details that people don't have. Though with things like satellite images, the unknown is more a matter of filtering and interpreting information rather than having actual unknown or wrong regions.

QuoteIndeed.
But how will we live unless we explain to each other how wrong the other party is:D?

LOL ya. Though as above, not my intention. I don't really seem to disagree with you on anything.

QuoteNo problem with providing them, actually. I just don't provide them readily. The Great Geographic Discoveries were great for a reason: it was damned hard to achieve them.

Yep.

QuoteAnd well, I've never played with a group that was interested in mapping out an unmapped part of the setting. So that's never come up.

Different groups.

QuoteIt all depends on the group, doesn't it? My players prefer to follow the money trails, or similar, and not the trails in a forest.

Yep.

QuoteSorry-which experiment? The illusionist example? That had nothing to do with a physical map.
The wizard tower? All details fit with how I imagined it.

IIRC you said you experimented with adding a wizard's tower inside your invention/event-horizon and your wife noticed right away.

QuoteYeah, that's the whole idea - meaning, stuff doesn't pop up because you went there, but because it was where it should have been. Backwards or forwards, who cares?
(Or rather - well, if enough people cared, I might try to switch to a sixth style of using games. But as it happens, I don't need to).

Well that's the only point of anything that seems like minor disagreement to me. I agree though that you and your group seem not to care or notice at the level where it does make any difference, because you think it through enough in advance. I just think that I or some of my players, if we were focusing on map-relevant stuff and trying to play the way we do in our well-mapped campaigns, would at least tend to make you think farther ahead and maybe want to take more notes. But even we let go of such stuff when we see we're playing with a no/low-map GM. Again, I've been posting in this thread about what the difference is. When we play with one of our no/low-map GM's, well just use that GM's conversational interface to figure out what we need to know to get from A to B and so on, and only occasionally press them for geography and stuff. But in our own detailed-map campaigns, we're out to get good maps, and when we don't have them, we're at least logging our trip details and possibly making some of our own maps as we go. And as we travel we're doing all sorts of map-related stuff because it matters and we've experienced being bitten by not doing it. Does everyone have gear for the weather and camping? Will we be able to light a fire? How long till the next sources of food and water? Can/should we forage or hunt along the way? Who's scouting for the party? Do we have a wagon or pack animals and how well are they going to deal with the road conditions, fords, etc? Who are we meeting along the road? What do we have to eat? Who's carrying what? Who is the slowest person in the group limiting our speed? Who's getting tired out before others? Who knows how to survive in this terrain and who's clueless and needs to be watched after or they're liable to have a mishap? What threats are we going near and how shall we march to be ready for that? Should we be avoiding certain roads or areas? How screwed are we going to be if/when people get leg/foot injuries? What's our march and break schedule and how fast are we pressing it and how long before it rains or the sun goes down? Are we stocked up on medical supplies? All of that is sometimes cut down to carelessly wandering about or "shit we suddenly need to run out of town with whatever we've got on us at the moment", but we've experienced consequences to not thinking about such things and taking appropriate actions. Ya these call all happen without a map, but the terrain governs a lot of it so if you have a map you can do better at what to expect, especially considering which roads (or roadless shortcuts) to take to get to places and so on.

QuoteSame here. It will always be consistent with what was shown...or it's a good idea to check why it's not. Such discrepancies have been known for getting deadly.


That's a difference in how I was explaining it - but what I was imagining was that the growth doesn't start until a few kilometers on the road.
(Until then, I imagined people from nearby villages are using it, the way we use a highway now - but then they swerve right or left, and go on small tropes).
Tracking checks would have revealed that, BTW.

Ok. Makes sense. I realize it was an example - I was just trying to use it as written.

QuoteBwahaha. It's not. It's just an acid-sprinkling demon that works for the wizard!
(No, I'm not thinking this up now - I had thought about it when describing the spots).
Again, suitable tests would have shown that much. My players are nice, kind souls, with quite a bit of OOC knowledge of chemistry for reasons of education - so they would have thought of something, I'm sure.

Sure, sounds good. Again, I've not been trying to say you do anything wrong, or even that I haven't done such things myself in detailed mapped campaigns. I've just been trying to point out and answer questions about what I think the differences can be with established detailed maps versus not having them.

QuoteAgain, the crossroad is a city.
Now remember, this was a hypothethical example - but there's a good reason to assume they didn't bother to ask what's near the city and/or that they had to leave in a hurry. (PCs needing to leave in a hurry? When has that happened?)
Why? Because if they had asked, I would have come up with the "bandits, wizard tower, or roll on the table" that much sooner, possibly in a previous session (their question would shift the time when it becomes relevant).
Details wouldn't have changed, either (unless they have changed or were wrong for IC reasons) - I'd have taken a note afterwards about what was revealed, and what wasn't revealed, but I had decided it. Because here Apocalypse World is right in instructing the GM to "say what honesty demands".

Since they didn't have such info, we can safely conclude that they neither bothered to ask, nor have they mentioned planning to leave in front of a friendly local NPC.
(Maybe they had plans for the city and having to leave was a nasty surprise? Maybe it was simply halfway through the first session?
Frankly, I don't know. I haven't thought up the whole campaign just for the sake of an example in the forum, so either one is possible! I suspect it was simply one of the first sessions, and they were doing relatively well, or thought they were doing well, until an enemy stopped smiling at them and started a PC-hunt!)


Yes. See above: they hadn't done that.


Here's the thing: when I make up the local geography, I'd know almost anything from the start of the road to the tower. While I was describing the outgrowth, I came up with 1) how far from the city it starts (about a league), the description of the dark spots, and their explanation (the two always go together - I never throw a detail without knowing what caused it).
While describing those, I came up with the idea for 1) the personality and powers of the wizard, 2) the description of the tower.
While describing that, I came up with 1) the wizard's enemies he's guarding against and 2) his allies.

Yep that all makes sense.

QuoteYes, I agree. If you have been talking about geography, I would have agreed - but you started about maps, and I explained my reasons for not allowing them.
The difference is, Earth had a geography long before there were maps.

Again, I don't allow players to see the real maps either.  Our GM maps represent the actual real world, and seem like an invaluable thing to map out on paper. I'd rather reduce the need to hold geography in my head than reduce prep time, both practically and also because I love making maps. Also it makes me nervous that I won't be consistent if I don't have a map.

QuoteSee above why neither of these is the case, though.


But I didn't imagine him or her as chatty, just a bookish type that wants to be left alone. That wasn't in order to limit information, either. If I'd imagined the wizard differently, some details would have been different. Like, if he or she wanted non-demonic company, there could be people going to and from the tower.

Right. These are just examples to talk about potential effects. Practically all of our disagreements seem to be about example details or unclear expression and not actual disagreements.

QuoteIt did. No brigands, for once, I didn't even consider those.


Yes, that's possible, and I try to account for it. But I choose to do it more "theatre of the mind".
My wife would still get me if I tried to abuse that by replacing the setting's reality with the illusion of such, so I have a constant check to keep me honest:D!


If the major wizards are that powerful, they would be on my power relationship lists.
Since this one isn't there, the reverse also applies - that's not such a powerful wizard.


It is, but I just want to point out (also for rgrove) that the lack of a physical map doesn't mean the setting doesn't have a geography, and a map in the GM's head.


Depends on the scale. I almost definitely have a world map, maybe random generated, or scribbled on a sheet of paper - for no other reason than to keep me honest (old habits die hard, and all that). But are all wizards on it? They aren't.

Sure.

QuoteDo I have a smaller-scale map of just the local area? Of course I do, but it's probably just in my head.

Sure. Again, I'm not trying to argue about the best way and most of my mapped campaigns have most of their space not yet detailed below something like 12.5km hexes showing terrain type, rivers and large villages or greater, forts larger than small keeps, and roads larger than trails that don't help at 12.5km scale.

Quote from: Skarg;925135TFT's main campaign book presents detailed hex maps for regions and towns with rules for terrain, travel, getting lost, etc. My first campaign started using their sample map and extending from there. That was the last map the players had access to, and I soon realized that it was no good having players have access to the "real" map of anything because it was far more accurate/detailed info than their PCs would ever have in-character. I soon re-did the original map and the map in the book became a specific map in the game world, no longer entirely accurate.

The problem with that approach is that is you are limiting yourself to the bandwidth the human voice. In real life as you travel on foot (or mount) there are all kinds of things you can observe to help you place yourself within a reasonable level of accuracy. I happily slap down hex gridded regional maps of where the players because it convey a lot of information in visual form which I don't have to convey in voice.

For example is what my players would see

[ATTACH=CONFIG]461[/ATTACH]

This is what in that giant green blob of a forest

[ATTACH=CONFIG]462[/ATTACH]

The first map doesn't "give" anything away and has no more information than what somebody would know about that region. The same with this local level map

[ATTACH=CONFIG]463[/ATTACH]

Or this map of a town

[ATTACH=CONFIG]464[/ATTACH]

People in life don't sit down and sketch maps to get around. Instead they build up a mental picture of the landscape based on what they learned and what they are told. This was driven home to me after watching people explore the area around the main camp of a LARP. Slapping down a map with a scale is the most efficient way I found to translate this to when we are sitting around a table and roleplaying.

For area with restricted views (like a dungeon) I don't plan to draw or build out (when I use Dwarven Forge) the entire dungeon. Instead I use a big enough area that I feel would represent the spatial memory of the players. When the size of the layout or drawing exceeds that I will tear out or erase the oldest section and draw or build the new. In MOST cases the players don't both mapping because the place is ultimately small enough that they remember. But there are time when one players will say "Hey we need to stop and let me draw this or we will get lost."  For Roll20 I use the fog of war and lighting feature every chance I get.

I view the "ideal" of verbally describing everything and people expecting to map from that to be very gamey and not at all realistic. It is a unrealistic complication in all but a handful of situation.

I strongly recommend using maps that have "just enough" information and save your verbal bandwidth/time for the more interesting things of the campaign.

"The map is not the territory"

Because it is impossible for me to accurately describe everything in a location, or to know everything there is to know about the village where the characters have spent their whole lives, I allow my plays a high degree of authorial control over the setting. I encourage them to add NPCs, buildings, objects, etc. I retain veto power if something they suggest really doesn't fit with my plans, or is just too unlikely to be at all plausible.

I do keep notes of what has been added, whether by me or by a player. I like the world to remain consistent, unless some force acts to change it.

A dumpster to duck behind for cover in a back alley gunfight is reasonable. Reaching under that dumpster and grabbing a bundle of RPGs that "just happened" to have been left ther is not reasonable. That's Rocket Propelled Grenades, not Role Playing Games in case there is any confusion.

Quote from: DavetheLost;925151"The map is not the territory"

Because it is impossible for me to accurately describe everything in a location, or to know everything there is to know about the village where the characters have spent their whole lives, I allow my plays a high degree of authorial control over the setting. I encourage them to add NPCs, buildings, objects, etc. I retain veto power if something they suggest really doesn't fit with my plans, or is just too unlikely to be at all plausible.

I do keep notes of what has been added, whether by me or by a player. I like the world to remain consistent, unless some force acts to change it.

A dumpster to duck behind for cover in a back alley gunfight is reasonable. Reaching under that dumpster and grabbing a bundle of RPGs that "just happened" to have been left ther is not reasonable. That's Rocket Propelled Grenades, not Role Playing Games in case there is any confusion.

Well this just opened up another can of worms.

It might have...

I for one don't mind if a player sticks a dumpster in an alley, a well in a village or a fireplace in a tavern. If they start sticking businesses in towns, NPCs in the scene and seriously adding to the world Im presenting I draw a line. Their characters are theirs, the world is mine.

Quote from: Omega;924741This is one of the pitfalls of high to medium prep and I've heard it as an excuse way too often. "Well I worked on the wizards tower and it would be a waste if the players choice made them miss it. So I'll just move it over here in their path and they'll never know."

Patience is a virtue.  It's been over 35 years since a group of players last encountered the Hall of Chiming Skulls, and they decided not to enter.

The Hall waits...

Quote from: rgrove0172;925047Whats really amazing is that so many here seem to feel that the occasional 'rigging' if you want to call it that during a game somehow eliminates all the reward the players get in playing. Its not as if the whole damn game is 'rigged'. Ive said this so many times it makes me wonder what some of you guys are drinking! Its an OCCASIONAL approach when the crux of a scenario or session is obviously geared in one direction, more than likely completely understood by the players.

If it's a fantasy game, I don't WANT a scenario with a crux to it in the first damn place.  If I turn west at the crossroads and miss the Tower of the North Wizard, then SO FUCKING BE IT!

And if we're playing Superheroes and the Human Windshield Wiper is robbing Scrooge McDuck's Money Bin no. 1, then yeah, I want to know where the fucking money bin is.  Same as if we're playing a Federation Starship and we've been ordered to Rigel XII... our navigator should sure as shit know how to get to Rigel XII.

Quote from: estar;925149People in life don't sit down and sketch maps to get around. Instead they build up a mental picture of the landscape based on what they learned and what they are told. This was driven home to me after watching people explore the area around the main camp of a LARP. Slapping down a map with a scale is the most efficient way I found to translate this to when we are sitting around a table and roleplaying.

I've made maps to get around places before. Once while lost biking first time in a city. Helped figure out where I was and how to get back. Other time a convention hotel in MN. The place was a maze spread out and got lost a few times so started mapping the branches. (10 acres covered???) Wryly appropriate as the con was hosting a huge Deep Space 9 LARP. Sadly its been bought out and torn down. I've seen folk use maps at outdoor LARPs when the area covered was large. Not as often with smaller sites or places with well marked paths.

Yay for massive amounts of pregame prep.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925108Oh I would never argue that someone wouldnt possibly object to it. There are all kinds of gamers for sure. The new guy at are table is a clear example. But his response doesn't somehow make what all the others enjoyed invalid.

See, I'm trying hard to avoid value judgements (and I always decide to fail when you start making the opposite value judgement).
But no, it doesn't invalidate that your players, and others* who haven't played with you, like your style.
At the same time, them liking it doesn't invalidate the hate others, like the player in question, felt towards the same style.
You just have to be fair to both people.

What I was saying is that it pays to deliver a warning what your style entails, so as to avoid drama. Saving people's time is also polite - and that goes double when you are one of the people whose time is being saved. (As in, you don't need to deal with people who aren't going to stick around).

*I've had people refuse to join my group because the guy wanted...your style, basically. "The heroes shouldn't just die or fail like morons just because of dice or the player making a mistake, that's why they're heroes" was, I believe, the crux of his argument. I shrugged and told him he's looking for a different type of GM.
The difference? There was no drama involved. He even played a one-shot with me to give it a try, but at the end decided it's not worth it. However, since he knew he might not like the one-shot, he didn't rant. He just presented what he didn't like, and went off after I told him that what he dislikes is that way for a reason, and not really subject to change.
Compare and contrast with your result in the Star Wars game...as I'm sure you've done already - and you'll see my point.

QuoteThat's why I said the beer analogy wasn't a good one. It's safe to say nobody wants beer with piss in it. Call it lime instead and I'm with you. Some will spit it out, others will order another.

A short visit on relevant sites would disabuse you of this notion, I'm afraid...;)
Let's just leave it at that.

Quote from: Skarg;925135Oh, no, the accurate maps are for GM eyes only, representing the actual game world. Players only have maps that represent actual maps in the game world, with all sorts of limitations, if they even have a map.

OK, no differences to speak of, then.

QuoteYep. The accumulation of actual decent maps and access to actual scholars and cartographers who can add to the players' map collection has often been more valued by players than gold or magic. Many adventures and decisions on where to go in the worlds have been mainly about exploration.

Again, my players tend to resolve this by sticking to cities and building their power there.
And if they're successful, they can hire NPCs to do what your players would do. Think of the Spanish Crown financing Columbus: they generally want to play the nobles, not Columbus.

QuoteTFT's main campaign book presents detailed hex maps for regions and towns with rules for terrain, travel, getting lost, etc. My first campaign started using their sample map and extending from there. That was the last map the players had access to, and I soon realized that it was no good having players have access to the "real" map of anything because it was far more accurate/detailed info than their PCs would ever have in-character. I soon re-did the original map and the map in the book became a specific map in the game world, no longer entirely accurate.

Oh, I've seen similar rules. It just doesn't bother me that they'd have seen which hex contains what...

QuoteHehe! That's too bad. Even with my map-oriented players, it took a while to wean them off of having access to hex-based maps and being able to use gamey techniques and expectations to make an accurate map. That's when I realized I had to get more detailed on my own map than 12.5km hexes, at least for the places where the players where doing detailed first-hand exploration.

I didn't have to wean them off. Both players in my core group started in a former group of mine;).

QuoteSo, I should say that I (a GM who mostly prefers heavy prep) posted here in a thread about "zero prep" to point out that there are levels of cause & effect & consistent pre-plotted detail beyond the ones being talked about. And I've elaborated because you asked about interesting details. I'm not trying to argue there's a flaw with your GM'ing, especially for your players. IIRC you asked about where the effects were on play comparing what you wrote you do with mapless improv and relation maps, versus what I do with lots of map prep.

Right, let me make that clear:
I'm presenting it as an argument because...well, for clarity. And for the tradition of Internet arguments! And for democracy, too, can't forget the democracy! Though a hard-boiled egg wouldn't hurt, either. And maybe soup:D!

...But what I am actually doing is, I'm presenting it as an argument for the benefit of the readers/observers. Hope you're fine with that.

QuoteI have often run less mapped games and I've certainly played them. And much of my mapped play was at 12.5km hex scale, which is pretty rough and sometimes called for exactly what you always do, which is make up details during play. But I know that for my own brain, even though I also have fairly good mental maps of my worlds (even the 30-year-old ones), I really need the maps to allow the type of play I run, in many ways. I'm not exactly sure where Lesser Fumdum is, or where many of the rivers flow, and when I look at the maps I'm often surprised to remember some stuff, and certainly my brain can't remember anywhere near the level of data contained even on the oldest crudest campaign maps. Also some of the old campaigns are enormous, like 100 or so sheets of hex paper full of terrain and roads and place names and so on. Which is not to say you can't have great campaigns which feel close enough without even having much of a real map. I've enjoyed playing and even sometimes running those. I just enjoy and prefer to play with detailed maps.

OK, if you need them...
Though Lesser Fumdum is a name you can consider stolen:D!

QuoteSure. I'm wasn't trying to talk you out of doing no prep; I was just trying to answer what I thought the differences could be.

Same here - see above.

QuoteAs for published settings, those always bother me because I don't want the players to have OOC access to accurate maps! Harn is nice but I wouldn't run it for more than a one-off because I react, "But the players could look at the actual maps of stuff nooooo!"
It's probably one of the reasons I tend to avoid historical settings in centuries when people didn't have good maps.
And even in modern and sci fi settings I would always have my own maps at least to show the real details that people don't have. Though with things like satellite images, the unknown is more a matter of filtering and interpreting information rather than having actual unknown or wrong regions.

Well, I don't mind them having such maps. I just warn them that they should have good explanation if they start showing sudden IC knowledge.
And they know that metagaming leads to bad situations from my other campaigns:p.

QuoteLOL ya. Though as above, not my intention. I don't really seem to disagree with you on anything.

Neither do I.
As of now, it seems our approach to running games is about 80% similar (if we exclude the part where you are putting in more work:)).

QuoteDifferent groups.

Indeed.

QuoteIIRC you said you experimented with adding a wizard's tower inside your invention/event-horizon and your wife noticed right away.

You've mixed them up, sorry.
I said I experimented with illusionism to see whether players would catch me (so far the campaign has been an improv sandbox). The first one caught me in less than an hour, the experiment concluded.
There's no magic towers in the game I was running, though.

Adding the magic tower was something someone (I think rgrove) suggested as an example of a big change in the setting. So I wrote a made-up group of PCs approaching a made-up magic tower in a made-up campaign, just in order to show how my thinking goes in that case, and how much time it takes.

QuoteWell that's the only point of anything that seems like minor disagreement to me. I agree though that you and your group seem not to care or notice at the level where it does make any difference, because you think it through enough in advance.

I hope I do, indeed.

QuoteI just think that I or some of my players, if we were focusing on map-relevant stuff and trying to play the way we do in our well-mapped campaigns, would at least tend to make you think farther ahead and maybe want to take more notes.

Possibly, but also possibly untrue. I'd like to play with you or your players sometime, so we could test the idea.
As it stands, I can neither confirm nor deny, can I?

QuoteBut even we let go of such stuff when we see we're playing with a no/low-map GM. Again, I've been posting in this thread about what the difference is. When we play with one of our no/low-map GM's, well just use that GM's conversational interface to figure out what we need to know to get from A to B and so on, and only occasionally press them for geography and stuff.

Though that's not relevant right now, I wouldn't want you to do that if we ever get to play.

QuoteBut in our own detailed-map campaigns, we're out to get good maps, and when we don't have them, we're at least logging our trip details and possibly making some of our own maps as we go. And as we travel we're doing all sorts of map-related stuff because it matters and we've experienced being bitten by not doing it. Does everyone have gear for the weather and camping? Will we be able to light a fire? How long till the next sources of food and water? Can/should we forage or hunt along the way? Who's scouting for the party? Do we have a wagon or pack animals and how well are they going to deal with the road conditions, fords, etc? Who are we meeting along the road? What do we have to eat? Who's carrying what? Who is the slowest person in the group limiting our speed? Who's getting tired out before others? Who knows how to survive in this terrain and who's clueless and needs to be watched after or they're liable to have a mishap? What threats are we going near and how shall we march to be ready for that? Should we be avoiding certain roads or areas? How screwed are we going to be if/when people get leg/foot injuries? What's our march and break schedule and how fast are we pressing it and how long before it rains or the sun goes down? Are we stocked up on medical supplies?

All good and dandy...until you play with a group who orders the NPCs trackers to plan this for them.

QuoteAll of that is sometimes cut down to carelessly wandering about or "shit we suddenly need to run out of town with whatever we've got on us at the moment", but we've experienced consequences to not thinking about such things and taking appropriate actions. Ya these call all happen without a map, but the terrain governs a lot of it so if you have a map you can do better at what to expect, especially considering which roads (or roadless shortcuts) to take to get to places and so on.

Again, I know what the terrain is. It's just that the players off-load this part to NPCs.
Then I roll a Survival check for the NPCs, and decide, based on the level of failure, what to saddle them with on arrival;).

QuoteOk. Makes sense. I realize it was an example - I was just trying to use it as written.


Sure, sounds good. Again, I've not been trying to say you do anything wrong, or even that I haven't done such things myself in detailed mapped campaigns. I've just been trying to point out and answer questions about what I think the differences can be with established detailed maps versus not having them.


Yep that all makes sense.

Again, I'm not taking it as you arguing, either:).

QuoteAgain, I don't allow players to see the real maps either.  Our GM maps represent the actual real world, and seem like an invaluable thing to map out on paper. I'd rather reduce the need to hold geography in my head than reduce prep time, both practically and also because I love making maps. Also it makes me nervous that I won't be consistent if I don't have a map.

If you love making maps, you should, according to my GMing style;).
As it happens, I prefer making NPCs and power structures, and societies, so that's where I focus my time.

QuoteRight. These are just examples to talk about potential effects. Practically all of our disagreements seem to be about example details or unclear expression and not actual disagreements.

Indeed they are.
(Also, the mandatory "hush you and your common sense trick!")

QuoteSure. Again, I'm not trying to argue about the best way and most of my mapped campaigns have most of their space not yet detailed below something like 12.5km hexes showing terrain type, rivers and large villages or greater, forts larger than small keeps, and roads larger than trails that don't help at 12.5km scale.

Well, at a scale of 12,5 km/hex I can also be said to have a map.

Quote from: DavetheLost;925151"The map is not the territory"

Because it is impossible for me to accurately describe everything in a location, or to know everything there is to know about the village where the characters have spent their whole lives, I allow my plays a high degree of authorial control over the setting. I encourage them to add NPCs, buildings, objects, etc. I retain veto power if something they suggest really doesn't fit with my plans, or is just too unlikely to be at all plausible.

I don't allow them to add those, but I allow them to ask me if there's someone who fits some description. Oftentimes, I answer "no, but X has one third the qualities you need, Y has another, and Z has yet another third", if I feel they're just trying to avoid an obstacle.

QuoteA dumpster to duck behind for cover in a back alley gunfight is reasonable. Reaching under that dumpster and grabbing a bundle of RPGs that "just happened" to have been left ther is not reasonable. That's Rocket Propelled Grenades, not Role Playing Games in case there is any confusion.

Hmm...random question, but now I wonder. If I declared that during a firefight I reach under that dumpster and it turns out I grab a handle of RPGs, as in Role-playing game corebooks, would you let me do that:D?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;925163Patience is a virtue.  It's been over 35 years since a group of players last encountered the Hall of Chiming Skulls, and they decided not to enter.

The Hall waits...

I guess the chiming went to their nerves.
Was there a musty cinnamon smell as well?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;925164If it's a fantasy game, I don't WANT a scenario with a crux to it in the first damn place.  If I turn west at the crossroads and miss the Tower of the North Wizard, then SO FUCKING BE IT!

Sure, Glorious General, no issue! The tower will lie there, too, dormant...and only detailed in as much as I need it. At least until someone decides to explore it, or the campaign ends.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;925166Yay for massive amounts of pregame prep.

For the record, I don't think that it's a bad thing, I just can't do that very well.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;925166Yay for massive amounts of pregame prep.

To be fair. I know at least two high prep DMs who really cant DM well without the prep. They run pretty good sessions.

One of the bonuses I think of a high prep style is that you tend to have everything really hammered down and so the chance, and urge to "cheat" and move encounters is probably a-lot less since everything is plotted out and you cant do that sort of prep without knowing full well some, or several, elements are never going to see use. (unless the DM is really leading the players by the nose)

Quote from: AsenRG;925173Hmm...random question, but now I wonder. If I declared that during a firefight I reach under that dumpster and it turns out I grab a handle of RPGs, as in Role-playing game corebooks, would you let me do that:D?

Sure, in the right sort of neighborhood.

QuoteI guess the chiming went to their nerves.
Was there a musty cinnamon smell as well?

My thoughts exactly.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925047If we sat down tonight to investigate YE FUCKING WIZARDS TOWER then it would be perfectly acceptable if the GM twisted a few facts to make sure they FUCKING GOT THERE.

• Do the players know where the Tower is, other than "Follow these vague geographic markers or this ancient map?"
• Is the Wizard (or anyone else) trying to thwart them from reaching the Tower?
• How far is the Tower?

See the thing is, there could really be three very valid goals here.
1. Find the Tower
2. Make a difficult journey and survive.
3. Explore the tower.

If you let the player's make their own choices and their own goals, then they've accomplished two goals on their own without help from you before they even get to what you consider "the adventure".

For the Starship Enterprise, "Go to Rigel VII and fix the problem there" is probably focusing on the "Fix the problem there" part, unless there's a Romulan or Klingon ship cloaked over the border or some weird ST shit going on, in which case, there always was more than one goal, really, it just hadn't become apparent yet.

For a 3-man scout ship crew, "Find a way across the Great Expanse, and deliver this transmission directly and personally to the Admiral of the Fleet." - The finding part is a goal and possible mini-campaign unto itself, and delivering the transmission may be perfunctory, or it may be the "real goal" and "main adventure".

Context of the situation matters, but so does player intent.  I've had "adventures" where the characters never left the Inn, or travels on a Reikland riverboat that could have been a "So after a week, you get there" but instead turned into multiple sessions of roleplaying.  The WFRP1 module Death on the Reik, is infamous for players going their own way, and following their own goals.

What you've prepped will not vanish.  You may even find out that...*GASP*... the story that arises from the character's actions, and the world it represents might be more interesting than what you had planned.  Crazy, I know. :p

Quote from: estar;925149The problem with that approach is that is you are limiting yourself to the bandwidth the human voice. In real life as you travel on foot (or mount) there are all kinds of things you can observe to help you place yourself within a reasonable level of accuracy. I happily slap down hex gridded regional maps of where the players because it convey a lot of information in visual form which I don't have to convey in voice.

I also sketch and gesture and use physical objects when it helps.
How well one can see the surrounding terrain depends on what's blocking the view, if anything. Even when you can see a wide area, it's not the same as having an accurate top-down map let alone with a hex grid that your GM agrees defines correctly where you are. I greatly prefer your system to there being no map, as it provides tons of meaningful detail, doesn't reveal everything, and often many players may not care about including limits of knowledge, but it is giving a lot more/better info than people would really have, especially if they haven't explored the area before.

QuoteFor example is what my players would see

[ATTACH=CONFIG]461[/ATTACH]

This is what in that giant green blob of a forest

[ATTACH=CONFIG]462[/ATTACH]

The first map doesn't "give" anything away and has no more information than what somebody would know about that region.

Well, but it does give away several things, especially to someone who isn't from there and has never seen a map of the area. Even for someplace someone has lived all their lives, they may mostly know all the major places and how to get between them, but they don't have an accurate mental map of every detail, and all the shapes of the terrain and so on. A local may have effectively almost that level of information, especially if they are spatially oriented and travel it frequently, but that's an extreme and still isn't going to be perfect. It may be close enough that no player cares though, especially since the apathy scale often goes all the way to "who needs a map? are we at the dungeon yet?"

QuoteThe same with this local level map

[ATTACH=CONFIG]463[/ATTACH]

Or this map of a town

[ATTACH=CONFIG]464[/ATTACH]

People in life don't sit down and sketch maps to get around. Instead they build up a mental picture of the landscape based on what they learned and what they are told. This was driven home to me after watching people explore the area around the main camp of a LARP. Slapping down a map with a scale is the most efficient way I found to translate this to when we are sitting around a table and roleplaying.

Generally people don't sketch maps, no. They don't need to. They form mental maps and memories of paths and landmarks between places. As you write, yes, it is faster and more effective/efficient to have an accurate map, especially in a game. It just loses the part about how less can be more, if you're interested in that. That is, if you might learn stuff by exploring, and things can be unknown and hidden, including just the what's there in detail. Or one might find it interesting to play out the effect of some people knowing a region better than another does, for pursuits, treasure hunts, intrigue and/or tactical advantage. Your Phandalin map in particular looks like it has many routes that no one would know about if they were just passing through, because of all the terrain that looks like it would block vision (well, if brown is high ground and dark green is woods). Again, of course, one can choose at what level it's better to make the info available easily, and what you want to make players learn in character.

QuoteFor area with restricted views (like a dungeon) I don't plan to draw or build out (when I use Dwarven Forge) the entire dungeon. Instead I use a big enough area that I feel would represent the spatial memory of the players. When the size of the layout or drawing exceeds that I will tear out or erase the oldest section and draw or build the new. In MOST cases the players don't both mapping because the place is ultimately small enough that they remember. But there are time when one players will say "Hey we need to stop and let me draw this or we will get lost."  For Roll20 I use the fog of war and lighting feature every chance I get.

I view the "ideal" of verbally describing everything and people expecting to map from that to be very gamey and not at all realistic. It is a unrealistic complication in all but a handful of situation.

I strongly recommend using maps that have "just enough" information and save your verbal bandwidth/time for the more interesting things of the campaign.

As you suggest there at the end, I do something between making people map everything and showing them the real map. If they really don't know much about where they are and they can't see very far, then it's verbal description, but otherwise I'll give sketches or they'll have some (often very) not-entirely accurate/complete maps. Often the map details are not known or important to convey, and it would be ridiculous to try to map anyway. Then short-range maps only come out for tactical situations, the PC's seeing where they are at the moment and yes, sometimes leaving the maps up where they just were.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925157It might have...

I for one don't mind if a player sticks a dumpster in an alley, a well in a village or a fireplace in a tavern. If they start sticking businesses in towns, NPCs in the scene and seriously adding to the world Im presenting I draw a line. Their characters are theirs, the world is mine.

I allow this in the form:
Player: "Is there a dumpster nearby that would work for me to do X with?"
or
Player: "Is there a blacksmith in this town?"

If they say, "I go to the blacksmith" then I check or if I don't know, assess chances and roll, and if so, "well yes there is a blacksmith" or if not "hmm you haven't seen a blacksmith here... do you want to ask someone where the nearest one might be?"

Quote from: Skarg;925204I allow this in the form:
Player: "Is there a dumpster nearby that would work for me to do X with?"
or
Player: "Is there a blacksmith in this town?"

If they say, "I go to the blacksmith" then I check or if I don't know, assess chances and roll, and if so, "well yes there is a blacksmith" or if not "hmm you haven't seen a blacksmith here... do you want to ask someone where the nearest one might be?"

Exactly

Quote from: DavetheLost;925042Where I worry about crossing the line into illusionism is when I advance prepare little set piece encounters to drop into play. Usually just little colour encounters. "At the coaching inn a mysterious stranger will rush angrilly out the door, physically pushing the PCs out of his way, exchange heated words with a lady in a carriage then jump on his horse and ride off in the opposite direction to the coach. Examining the inn yard will reveal that he dropped a monogrammed silk handkerchief."  If the players decide to follow up on this it could become a plot seed, if they don't they may never discover the plot against the Crown that these two are engaged in.  Is it illusionism to place this little scene at "the next coaching inn the party visits"?

Good question.

Quote from: Omega;925165I've made maps to get around places before. Once while lost biking first time in a city. Helped figure out where I was and how to get back. Other time a convention hotel in MN. The place was a maze spread out and got lost a few times so started mapping the branches. (10 acres covered???) Wryly appropriate as the con was hosting a huge Deep Space 9 LARP. Sadly its been bought out and torn down. I've seen folk use maps at outdoor LARPs when the area covered was large. Not as often with smaller sites or places with well marked paths.

I amend my reply to add that making maps is not very common. Yes I seen people make maps before for various reasons. Most just learn to navigate by using landmarks and explain the lay of the land by using landmarks.

Quote from: Skarg;925202I also sketch and gesture and use physical objects when it helps.
How well one can see the surrounding terrain depends on what's blocking the view, if anything. Even when you can see a wide area, it's not the same as having an accurate top-down map let alone with a hex grid that your GM agrees defines correctly where you are. I greatly prefer your system to there being no map, as it provides tons of meaningful detail, doesn't reveal everything, and often many players may not care about including limits of knowledge, but it is giving a lot more/better info than people would really have, especially if they haven't explored the area before.

Well one thing about the maps I presented as part of my post is they are to areas that been settled a long time. If I was doing something that involved the exploration of a "new world". Then I would do something like this

The real map

[ATTACH=CONFIG]466[/ATTACH]

What the players would see
[ATTACH=CONFIG]465[/ATTACH]

Quote from: Skarg;925202Well, but it does give away several things, especially to someone who isn't from there and has never seen a map of the area. Even for someplace someone has lived all their lives, they may mostly know all the major places and how to get between them, but they don't have an accurate mental map of every detail, and all the shapes of the terrain and so on. A local may have effectively almost that level of information, especially if they are spatially oriented and travel it frequently, but that's an extreme and still isn't going to be perfect. It may be close enough that no player cares though, especially since the apathy scale often goes all the way to "who needs a map? are we at the dungeon yet?"

My view is that requiring players to map well settled areas as if it was the Amacui maps above is more gamey and unrealistic. However my method is a compromise from how it would go in life. I also presume a certain level of competency and knowledge from the character unstated life experiences. We have a bunch of folks looking for adventures, I assume during their downtime they are asking the NPCs about the region and where things are. But I only assume to a point hence my maps are a high level overview and unless something is a landmark (like the Temple of Mitra in Abberset) the players will have to roleplay to find out the details.

Quote from: Skarg;925202Generally people don't sketch maps, no. They don't need to. They form mental maps and memories of paths and landmarks between places. As you write, yes, it is faster and more effective/efficient to have an accurate map, especially in a game. It just loses the part about how less can be more, if you're interested in that. That is, if you might learn stuff by exploring, and things can be unknown and hidden, including just the what's there in detail. Or one might find it interesting to play out the effect of some people knowing a region better than another does, for pursuits, treasure hunts, intrigue and/or tactical advantage. Your Phandalin map in particular looks like it has many routes that no one would know about if they were just passing through, because of all the terrain that looks like it would block vision (well, if brown is high ground and dark green is woods). Again, of course, one can choose at what level it's better to make the info available easily, and what you want to make players learn in character.

The Dearthwood map is where there is a lot of hidden information that not known generally. People know there is a ridge of hills and where the rivers are but that about it. The Phandalin map is well settled. You can see the larger scale of the area in the upper left of the Dearthwood map. But even then with the maps it not telling you what people are doing and what they are using to get about. Even if they learn where something is (say the woods north of Salan). That still a green blog a 1/2 mile n-s and 3/4 mile e-w that they have to learn in detail. And again if the exploration of terrain is an important part of the campaign, then I use something like the Amacui map I posted above. I just disagree doing that as a general purpose technique.

Just so you know in the Phandalin map, the brown are ploughed field, the speckled dots are high ground. In my maps, color represent vegetation, and I use a transparent pattern for terrain. Dots for hills, a splotchy pattern for mountains. This allows me to represent vegetation and terrain in their natural shapes compared to Mystara style hex symbols or contours. Harn maps use this style a lot. In the Dearthwood map it hard to see the speckles because I saved it as a low res JPG. However the yellow represent regions with agriculture.

Quote from: Skarg;925202[/B]As you suggest there at the end, I do something between making people map everything and showing them the real map. If they really don't know much about where they are and they can't see very far, then it's verbal description, but otherwise I'll give sketches or they'll have some (often very) not-entirely accurate/complete maps. Often the map details are not known or important to convey, and it would be ridiculous to try to map anyway. Then short-range maps only come out for tactical situations, the PC's seeing where they are at the moment and yes, sometimes leaving the maps up where they just were.

That can work, now that you replied in more detail, I think our respective methods are closer than what the post I read suggested. Thanks.

From experience it seems what you want a map,or make one, for is usually at the start. Once you know where stuff is you stop relying on the map.

Even something as simple as Keep on the Borderlands its oddly easy to get turned around and lost in both the keep and more specifically the caves. I re-created it in Minecraft just to explore from that perspective and its surprising just how darn twisty such a seemingly simple layout is when you are actually IN said layout.

I live in a rural area, and I can find my way around pretty well. Both on and off the roads. I don't know that I could draw you anything like an accurate map for most of it. It's more like navigating from landmark to landmark. I orient my self by seeing something familiar, which can even be on the horizon, and knowing generally where I am.

A lot of old navigators piloted on dead reconing and lists of points along the way. No map.

I think we are more dependant on maps for our RPGs because we do not have the benefit of having spent lots of time walking over the physical ground of our settings. Especially in areas that the characters should be familiar with, like their hometowns. They know them better than we do.

If a character should know the way I will let the player say "I am going to the Slippery Eel for a drink," and not make them give me turn by turn directions.

In a strange city I might hide the map and just describe to them what they can see. Let them make navigation checks to help find their way, and to remember if that building is supposed to be on their right or on the left when they are going the right way.

Quote from: DavetheLost;925042Where I worry about crossing the line into illusionism is when I advance prepare little set piece encounters to drop into play. Usually just little colour encounters. "At the coaching inn a mysterious stranger will rush angrilly out the door, physically pushing the PCs out of his way, exchange heated words with a lady in a carriage then jump on his horse and ride off in the opposite direction to the coach. Examining the inn yard will reveal that he dropped a monogrammed silk handkerchief."  If the players decide to follow up on this it could become a plot seed, if they don't they may never discover the plot against the Crown that these two are engaged in.  Is it illusionism to place this little scene at "the next coaching inn the party visits"?

IMO, illusionism is any practice of invisible railroading -- i.e., it's railroading where the mechanism of the railroad can't be seen by the players. (Although often a pattern of behavior will nevertheless be detected.)

The method of "this will happen at the next coaching inn they visit" certainly qualifies as a method the players can't directly see. So the question is whether or not this is railroading.

As I discuss in The Railroading Manifesto (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/36914/roleplaying-games/the-railroading-manifesto-part-3-penumbra-of-problems), in order for a railroad to exist the GM must negate a player's choice in order to enforce a preconceived outcome. In this case there is a preconceived outcome (the encounter), but triggering the encounter does not appear to negate player choice. Ergo, not railroading. And, therefore, not illusionism.

(What would make it illusionism? Well, let's say that the PCs specifically say that they are going to try to enter the coaching inn without being noticed by anyone. You want to trigger the encounter, so you decide that their successful Stealth check is instead a failure so that they have to run into the mysterious stranger.)

Quote from: rgrove0172;925047Whats really amazing is that so many here seem to feel that the occasional 'rigging' if you want to call it that during a game somehow eliminates all the reward the players get in playing.

I don’t think we said it eliminates all reward. Just that for some it eliminates an important reward. Maybe even a crucial reward. Why look, here is me not saying that shell games eliminate all rewards.

Quote from: Bren;924974Clearly this type of a sense of accomplishment is not what RGrove and Co. play for and he seems to really not be able to grasp that some people want the chance for that sense of accomplishment in addition to (and even at times instead of) a feeling of "fun session," "cool adventure," "nice story," or "wow, that was exciting."

Quote from: rgrove0172;925047Its not as if the whole damn game is 'rigged'.

Of course not. Sometimes the PCs do what you want them to do and there is no need to rig things and rigging everything is way too obvious. Similarly, rigged gambling joints don’t rig every throw or spin. They rig the throws and spins against the player where the house has a lot of money riding on the outcome and occasionally for the player as a come on in the initial set up.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;925076"It's not as if I'm pissing in EVERY glass of beer I'm serving you! Most of the beer is actually perfectly fine. I don't understand why you feel this has ruined the beer-drinking."

This works and is much pithier than what I was going to say. (And if you say it aloud with a bit of a lisp it is pithy and a pun.)

Quote from: DavetheLost;925042Where I worry about crossing the line into illusionism is when I advance prepare little set piece encounters to drop into play. Usually just little colour encounters. "At the next coaching inn a mysterious stranger will rush angrilly out the door, physically pushing the PCs out of his way, exchange heated words with a lady in a carriage then jump on his horse and ride off in the opposite direction to the coach. Examining the inn yard will reveal that he dropped a monogrammed silk handkerchief."  If the players decide to follow up on this it could become a plot seed, if they don't they may never discover the plot against the Crown that these two are engaged in.  Is it illusionism to place this little scene at "the next coaching inn the party visits"?

I've seen others run (or have myself run) color encounters in this way. Often this occurs as the result of a random encounter on a table of special encounters. Usually there are required criteria for the encounter to occur, e.g. if the GM rolls a special encounter result AND if the players are somewhere that inns exist and are encountered, then this is the next encounter the players get. Both those things (random encounter table and requisite situational criteria) protect the GM from any urges to play ABRACADABRA Presto Chango!

QuoteIf the players decide to follow up on this it could become a plot seed, if they don't they may never discover the plot against the Crown that these two are engaged in.

Its a bit of a compromise between completely naturalistic world and we are all trying to play a game. If the players can walk away it's similar to any other plot hook or adventure seed. I wouldn't worry about the encounters at the next coaching inn part.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;925266(What would make it illusionism? Well, let's say that the PCs specifically say that they are going to try to enter the coaching inn without being noticed by anyone. You want to trigger the encounter, so you decide that their successful Stealth check is instead a failure so that they have to run into the mysterious stranger.)

Right. The PCs being able to view the encounter is another requisite situational criteria. So if the PC was unconscious when they arrived at the inn, they’d miss the encounter.

Quote from: DavetheLost;925042Where I worry about crossing the line into illusionism is when I advance prepare little set piece encounters to drop into play. Usually just little colour encounters. "At the coaching inn a mysterious stranger will rush angrilly out the door, physically pushing the PCs out of his way, exchange heated words with a lady in a carriage then jump on his horse and ride off in the opposite direction to the coach. Examining the inn yard will reveal that he dropped a monogrammed silk handkerchief."  If the players decide to follow up on this it could become a plot seed, if they don't they may never discover the plot against the Crown that these two are engaged in.  Is it illusionism to place this little scene at "the next coaching inn the party visits"?

Technically, I suppose you could call this a "Quantum Event" or "Schrodinger's Ogre".  But, most of the time when people are talking about such events, or Illusionism, they are referring to a GM's decision that robs the players of agency or choice.  But, to be honest,

• If the players don't know about the nobles.
• They're not specifically trying to avoid those nobles or going to coaching inns.
• They're in a place where they would naturally visit coaching inns.

Then I really don't see an effective difference from the players point of view than...
1. Rolling at every coaching inn to see if the people pop up.
2. Deciding at what exact coaching inn and hour this will happen and if the players miss it, then oh well.
3. Deciding it will happen here and now.

Basically what you are doing is presenting the players with a choice...that's all.  (And giving them minor loot in the form of a silk handkerchief.  One of my players would want to find out which nobleman that was in order to frame him/blackmail him by placing the handerchief in the wrong bedroom. :D)

Now if they had specifically said they were avoiding coaching inns and so you chased them out of the forest with bandits/beastmen so they would have to take the road and made a torrential downpour so they would have to shelter in the coaching inn, well then now you're railroading the hell out of them...or are Grove. :)

My problem with those is, you have to have those fairly often and a lot of time have them potentially go nowhere at all, otherwise any word that comes out of your mouth becomes "Campaign Important".

Quote from: CRKrueger;925313My problem with those is, you have to have those fairly often and a lot of time have them potentially go nowhere at all, otherwise any word that comes out of your mouth becomes "Campaign Important".

Typically, a potential hook won't have a lot of detail. I just ran a short session last night that included two of these.

A character, Le Serpent, had hitched a ride with a supply caravan heading towards an army camp. I mentioned the weather (occasional showers) and that traffic seemed normal on the road. Then I mentioned two encounters that seemed a bit unusual.

The first was a plain coach traveling rapidly north for Orléans. Inside you can just make out what looks like a female figure, but her identify is hidden both by her travel mask and by the carriage’s curtains. The player asked if the driver of the wagon he was on knew anything about the coach. The driver did not and nattered on about why some people were always in a hurry, "Afterall, why hurry? Whereever you go, there you are. And whereever you came from is where you were." The player made note of the event, but decided not to do anything else as the coach rolled on by.

The second was a gentleman on horseback in the woods to the side of the road. The gentleman was carrying a musket or other long gone which made it seem like he was probably a hunter or possibly a scout for a band of highwaymen. Le Serpent asked the driver about the man and the driver said "He's probably a hunter since folks do a lot of hunting here. We're near to the Solonge." Again the player made a note but elected not to investigate further or to ask about the Solonge - a wooded, marshy, lake dotted area south of Orleans.

These were just two random encounters from the random events tables I use. If the player had engaged with either encounter then I'd have responded with improvisation and some random die rolling to determine what the NPC was actually up to. This could have resulted in a side adventure of some kind. Since the player didn't engage we just moved on and that became some local color.

Quote from: Bren;925306I don’t think we said it eliminates all reward. Just that for some it eliminates an important reward. Maybe even a crucial reward. Why look, here is me not saying that shell games eliminate all rewards.

Of course not. Sometimes the PCs do what you want them to do and there is no need to rig things and rigging everything is way too obvious. Similarly, rigged gambling joints don’t rig every throw or spin. They rig the throws and spins against the player where the house has a lot of money riding on the outcome and occasionally for the player as a come on in the initial set up.

And even more of the time the PCs do what they want to do and the GM goes along just fine as there is no reason to interfere. This probably 90% or greater.

This works and is much pithier than what I was going to say. (And if you say it aloud with a bit of a lisp it is pithy and a pun.)


I've seen others run (or have myself run) color encounters in this way. Often this occurs as the result of a random encounter on a table of special encounters. Usually there are required criteria for the encounter to occur, e.g. if the GM rolls a special encounter result AND if the players are somewhere that inns exist and are encountered, then this is the next encounter the players get. Both those things (random encounter table and requisite situational criteria) protect the GM from any urges to play ABRACADABRA Presto Chango!

Laugh, so if a table or chart does it its fine, but if an intelligent being improvises something, its not. Gotcha.

Its a bit of a compromise between completely naturalistic world and we are all trying to play a game. If the players can walk away it's similar to any other plot hook or adventure seed. I wouldn't worry about the encounters at the next coaching inn part.

Right. The PCs being able to view the encounter is another requisite situational criteria. So if the PC was unconscious when they arrived at the inn, they’d miss the encounter.

Sometimes it sounds as if some of you would plan, oh say a Bandit encounter by exact location, time and circumstance and if the players didn't blunder exactly into those specific parameters then it wouldn't happen. If you altered those parameters even slightly however to trigger the bandit encounter anyway, youd be railroading. If so, that's ridiculous. I would almost guarantee a HUGE majority of GMs simply jot down on a notepad "Bandits on road to castle - " and make it happen.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925313Technically, I suppose you could call this a "Quantum Event" or "Schrodinger's Ogre".  But, most of the time when people are talking about such events, or Illusionism, they are referring to a GM's decision that robs the players of agency or choice.  But, to be honest,

• If the players don't know about the nobles.
• They're not specifically trying to avoid those nobles or going to coaching inns.
• They're in a place where they would naturally visit coaching inns.

Then I really don't see an effective difference from the players point of view than...
1. Rolling at every coaching inn to see if the people pop up.
2. Deciding at what exact coaching inn and hour this will happen and if the players miss it, then oh well.
3. Deciding it will happen here and now.

Basically what you are doing is presenting the players with a choice...that's all.  (And giving them minor loot in the form of a silk handkerchief.  One of my players would want to find out which nobleman that was in order to frame him/blackmail him by placing the handerchief in the wrong bedroom. :D)

Now if they had specifically said they were avoiding coaching inns and so you chased them out of the forest with bandits/beastmen so they would have to take the road and made a torrential downpour so they would have to shelter in the coaching inn, well then now you're railroading the hell out of them...or are Grove. :)

My problem with those is, you have to have those fairly often and a lot of time have them potentially go nowhere at all, otherwise any word that comes out of your mouth becomes "Campaign Important".

I truly hope the smiley face after the baseless slander was meant to indicate your joking, otherwise... well you can imagine the appropriate response. I have never pulled anything remotely as ridiculous as what you describe. Its not even in the same ball park as what Ive defended.

And once again I have to call bullshit on your position on avoiding making certain comments or descriptions obviously "campaign important". You might run a great game and be a master at storytelling but Im fairly certain most players don't want to hear all the meaningless tavern banter throughout an evening, descriptions of the behavior of every patron, recounts of every false rumor in the region etc. We only have a limited time to play afterall. You can elude to all that other 'color' sure, but then it actually SHOULD be rather obvious when something important to the game at hand comes up.

 "Through the din of the common room you hear an old timer in the corner strike up a conversation with a much younger serving wench. He seems to be bragging about his pouch full of silver and the old mine where he found it."

This is a time honored gaming tradition, glazing over the various scene elements and locking in on what matters. Its not a slip of a bad GM, its how the game has been played for decades. Sure, I suppose there are alternatives but as it stands the approach is almost procedure.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925332Sometimes it sounds as if some of you would plan, oh say a Bandit encounter by exact location, time and circumstance and if the players didn't blunder exactly into those specific parameters then it wouldn't happen. If you altered those parameters even slightly however to trigger the bandit encounter anyway, youd be railroading. If so, that's ridiculous. I would almost guarantee a HUGE majority of GMs simply jot down on a notepad "Bandits on road to castle - " and make it happen.

Yeah, I'm definitely getting the sense that too much of the analysis is taking place in a vacuum and strictly for argument's sake. If I were to plan a Bandit encounter, my focus would be the bandits themselves, not the encounter. The bandits are thinking individuals with goals. It doesn't make much sense for them to just sit around just waiting for someone to blunder into their clutches. Rather, they take action to maximize their opportunity. And thus it's only logical that they may actively be seeking to railroad the party one way or another into a trap or ambush.

There's this great adventure "hook" from the Dance of the Faerie Rings adventure module. And I put "hook" in quotes because it's not really a hook so much as a blatant railroad--a more blatant railroad than any GM railroad. PCs are traveling along and come upon a fork in the road. Do they take the high road or the low road? The low road leads to the adventure. But if the party takes the high road, they walk for a while and come back to the same fork in the road. Every time they take the high road, they end up back at the same fork until they decide to take the low road. What's happening here, which you wouldn't find out 'til the very end of the adventure (spoiler alert), is that some faerie creatures have been captured and are trying to enlist the PC's aid. They're using their magic to prevent the party from leaving the area. And in fact, if you get to rescuing them, they can use their magic to aid you, but the more times the group took the high road, the more of their magic is drained so the less they can help you.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925332And even more of the time the PCs do what they want to do and the GM goes along just fine as there is no reason to interfere. This probably 90% or greater.

If we ever meet in person, let's play some blackjack, roulette, or poker for real money. I'll cheat less than 10% of the time and you'll let me because it's not all the time and we'll find out if that is OK with you. Deal?

QuoteSometimes it sounds as if some of you would plan, oh say a Bandit encounter by exact location, time and circumstance and if the players didn't blunder exactly into those specific parameters then it wouldn't happen.

I have in fact used a timeline of events on more than one occasion for the villain's activities and when the players weren't in the right place at the right time for timed events the players never saw those events occur. Sometimes they heard about the events later e.g. when the dead bodies of the latest victims were found. One example that occurs to me is a series of ritual murders in my H+I game. There were preset locations and times where the villain planned to sacrifice a victim. The players missed several of the killings. Eventually they observed a pattern and predicted the next occurrence and were waiting to foil the witch's next sacrifice.

I thought giving them a real puzzle to solve was fun. They seemed to think actually outfoxing the witch was fun.

And if they'd never figured out the sacrifices in time then some bad stuff would happen, the witch would get stronger, the magic harder to undo, and the witch's plan would have moved on to phase 2. At which point the players would again have a chance to try and puzzle out what was going on with the next set of rituals. If I'd just engineered events so that the players automatically had a boss fight at pentagram point #5 at the appropriate time that would have made their success a bit of a sham.

QuoteIf so, that's ridiculous.

No it is just me playing the world in motion not me trying to tell a story with a specific climax or conclusion. [/quote]

QuoteI would almost guarantee a HUGE majority of GMs simply jot down on a notepad "Bandits on road to castle - " and make it happen.

I bet 20 bucks you are wrong, but you have to prove you are right to win. I only need you not to show proof for me to win.

Shall We Play A Game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecPeSmF_ikc)?

Quote from: Bren;925338If we ever meet in person, let's play some blackjack, roulette, or poker for real money. I'll cheat less than 10% of the time and you'll let me because it's not all the time and we'll find out if that is OK with you. Deal?

The point is to play an imaginary character in a setting as part of a tabletop roleplaying campaign. It not a competitive game, and it not a competition. The referee needs to be fair which doesn't always mean being a slave to the dice or mindlessly applying a set of rules written by somebody else who has never has sat at your table.

All of the stuff that the thread is talking about is bad when applied in disregard to the circumstances and good when the circumstances warrant. This includes my own suggestions as well.

Quote from: estar;925340The point is to play an imaginary character in a setting as part of a tabletop roleplaying campaign. It not a competitive game, and it not a competition.

1. I know that an RPG is not primarily a competition.

2. But some people are competitive, even when they play RPGs. You may not be. Your players may not be. But some players are.

Some compete over who gains the highest level, has most powerful magic item, builds the coolest headquarters/lair/keep on some borderland. Some compete over who figures out the puzzle or riddle first. Some compete over who creates and plays the most interesting character. Some compete for prizes at cons for the "winners" however the con defines the attendee who gets the prize in some method otehr than a lottery. And some compete over who can tell the most jokes before the GM's head explodes. In fact, competing tactically in a fairly refereed adventure against the DM's cunning was part of the hobby from day one.

So competition may be part of playing an RPG. And that's OK if that's what the people at the table want or are at least willing to tolerate.

3. None of the above is relevant to my point, which was to attempt to use a casino analogy to point out the problem with RGrove's view that if the GM only uses the heavy hand of GM fiat to make the players go left, right, sideways, or to Ye Olde Wizard's Tower 10% of the time (or more, or less) that the fact that it isn't happening all the time makes it fine and dandy for all.

As many, many people have pointed out over, and over, and over. The GM directing the players may be just fine for a group because

• all the players want the GM to run a rollercoaster to what they think of as awesome town and they are down with the fact that the rollercoaster runs on tracks like a train;

• the illusionism or railroading happens rarely enough that all the players are willing to grit their teeth and just do what the author/director storyteller tells them to do on those (hopefully) rare occasions when things get all railroad-y or stalking tower-ish;

• the players aren't interested (or at least not much interested) in playing a game at all. Instead they would rather be part of an adventure that is partially scripted by the GM and they get to play their parts kind of like an actor in a play or an improv group;

• the players want a game of mostly wish fulfillment and the GM is there to see that they get it, by hook or by crook or by teleporting stalker tower.

• players aactually want the GM to protect them from confusion, frustration, and failure and just help their PCs to look awesome and succeed at stuff.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925334I truly hope the smiley face after the baseless slander was meant to indicate your joking, otherwise... well you can imagine the appropriate response. I have never pulled anything remotely as ridiculous as what you describe. Its not even in the same ball park as what Ive defended.

Yeah, I was just ribbin' ya.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925334And once again I have to call bullshit on your position on avoiding making certain comments or descriptions obviously "campaign important". You might run a great game and be a master at storytelling but Im fairly certain most players don't want to hear all the meaningless tavern banter throughout an evening, descriptions of the behavior of every patron, recounts of every false rumor in the region etc. We only have a limited time to play afterall. You can elude to all that other 'color' sure, but then it actually SHOULD be rather obvious when something important to the game at hand comes up.

 "Through the din of the common room you hear an old timer in the corner strike up a conversation with a much younger serving wench. He seems to be bragging about his pouch full of silver and the old mine where he found it."

This is a time honored gaming tradition, glazing over the various scene elements and locking in on what matters. Its not a slip of a bad GM, its how the game has been played for decades. Sure, I suppose there are alternatives but as it stands the approach is almost procedure.

You're misreading my intention.  I wasn't talking about "hiding" the most important elements of the campaign, but if your setting is detailed enough, there are clues, things that if PCs find out, it will make things easier than not knowing them.   Or, minor aspects of the campaign that may open up adventures the PCs had no knowledge of.  If everything you say, the players know is a lead to follow, then there is no "color" and there is no mystery.  You're the proprietor of the DM's Bait Shop and players swing by when they need an Adventure Hook.

Quote from: Bren;9253422. But some people are competitive, even when they play RPGs. You may not be. Your players may not be. But some players are.

Some compete over who gains the highest level, has most powerful magic item, builds the coolest headquarters/lair/keep on some borderland. Some compete over who figures out the puzzle or riddle first. Some compete over who creates and plays the most interesting character. Some compete for prizes at cons for the "winners" however the con defines the attendee who gets the prize in some method otehr than a lottery. And some compete over who can tell the most jokes before the GM's head explodes. In fact, competing tactically in a fairly refereed adventure against the DM's cunning was part of the hobby from day one.

I realize that and they are fooling themselves if that how they play. Now there is a difference between view RPGs as a competition or a competitive game versus having a competitive goal for your character. The first is a metagame issue the second is just how the player choose to roleplay.

Quote from: Bren;925342So competition may be part of playing an RPG. And that's OK if that's what the people at the table want or are at least willing to tolerate.

And tabletop roleplaying game are piss poor at handling this. Which why the vast majority of these kind of players gravitated to computer roleplaying games and especially MMORPGS in the 90s.

Quote from: Bren;9253423. None of the above is relevant to my point, which was to attempt to use a casino analogy to point out the problem with RGrove's view that if the GM only uses the heavy hand of GM fiat to make the players go left, right, sideways, or to Ye Olde Wizard's Tower 10% of the time (or more, or less) that the fact that it isn't happening all the time makes it fine and dandy for all.

If a tree fell in a forest without anybody to hear it, did it fall? That the crux of the issue. If a referee does what RGrove described, will the players know? Executed poorly sure they will know and resent it. Executed properly then they don't know and there is no issue. The referee saved himself some prep time. You are hammering on this because you view it as cheating, unfair, and arbitrary. That doesn't matter because referees make arbitrary decisions all the time. What matters in the end is his skill and finesse in handling the execution of WHATEVER techniques he choose to employ. Does the result fit the circumstances of the campaign at that time in a way that fun for everybody.

Again you brought up earlier how some view tabletop as a competition and that the playing field should be level, fair and consistent for their campaigns. But with a human referee involved they are just kidding themselves. The referee is god for all intents and purposes of the campaign. The outcomes is based on how well the referee juggles all this. And that it will change from session to session and within a session. My counterpoint is that the referee should use the best technique to run a fun and interesting campaign for the players. That you can't rely on just one set of techniques. You need a tool chest at your disposal and pick what works best for that moment.


For example, it help to know how to run an interesting railroaded adventure even though you are running sandbox campaign. This is because often the players will accept missions from NPCs to further their own goals. These missions have limited means of successfully achieving them. Learning how to run railroaded adventures well allow you, as a referee, to make these type of adventures interesting.

However if your brain shuts down and starts substituting "badwrongfun" every time you hear railroad then you just crippled yourself as a tabletop referee. You are doing the same with RGrove defense of the shifting Wizard Tower. And RGrove is not lily white in this argument either.

We all yak away that RPGs are open ended but I wonder at times how many of you actually get that. What that really means.

Quote from: Bren;925338If we ever meet in person, let's play some blackjack, roulette, or poker for real money. I'll cheat less than 10% of the time and you'll let me because it's not all the time and we'll find out if that is OK with you. Deal?

I have in fact used a timeline of events on more than one occasion for the villain's activities and when the players weren't in the right place at the right time for timed events the players never saw those events occur. Sometimes they heard about the events later e.g. when the dead bodies of the latest victims were found. One example that occurs to me is a series of ritual murders in my H+I game. There were preset locations and times where the villain planned to sacrifice a victim. The players missed several of the killings. Eventually they observed a pattern and predicted the next occurrence and were waiting to foil the witch's next sacrifice.

I thought giving them a real puzzle to solve was fun. They seemed to think actually outfoxing the witch was fun.

And if they'd never figured out the sacrifices in time then some bad stuff would happen, the witch would get stronger, the magic harder to undo, and the witch's plan would have moved on to phase 2. At which point the players would again have a chance to try and puzzle out what was going on with the next set of rituals. If I'd just engineered events so that the players automatically had a boss fight at pentagram point #5 at the appropriate time that would have made their success a bit of a sham.

No it is just me playing the world in motion not me trying to tell a story with a specific climax or conclusion.

I bet 20 bucks you are wrong, but you have to prove you are right to win. I only need you not to show proof for me to win.

Shall We Play A Game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecPeSmF_ikc)?[/QUOTE]

Your really comparing a competitive game, for money no less, with a friendly roleplaying where the only objective is to enjoy yourself? Come on man.

What you've proven, maybe, is that you like to occasionally run your games a certain way. Good for you!

Quote from: estar;925340The point is to play an imaginary character in a setting as part of a tabletop roleplaying campaign. It not a competitive game, and it not a competition. The referee needs to be fair which doesn't always mean being a slave to the dice or mindlessly applying a set of rules written by somebody else who has never has sat at your table.

All of the stuff that the thread is talking about is bad when applied in disregard to the circumstances and good when the circumstances warrant. This includes my own suggestions as well.

Well said.

Quote from: Bren;9253421. I know that an RPG is not primarily a competition.

2. But some people are competitive, even when they play RPGs. You may not be. Your players may not be. But some players are.

Some compete over who gains the highest level, has most powerful magic item, builds the coolest headquarters/lair/keep on some borderland. Some compete over who figures out the puzzle or riddle first. Some compete over who creates and plays the most interesting character. Some compete for prizes at cons for the "winners" however the con defines the attendee who gets the prize in some method otehr than a lottery. And some compete over who can tell the most jokes before the GM's head explodes. In fact, competing tactically in a fairly refereed adventure against the DM's cunning was part of the hobby from day one.

So competition may be part of playing an RPG. And that's OK if that's what the people at the table want or are at least willing to tolerate.

3. None of the above is relevant to my point, which was to attempt to use a casino analogy to point out the problem with RGrove's view that if the GM only uses the heavy hand of GM fiat to make the players go left, right, sideways, or to Ye Olde Wizard's Tower 10% of the time (or more, or less) that the fact that it isn't happening all the time makes it fine and dandy for all.

As many, many people have pointed out over, and over, and over. The GM directing the players may be just fine for a group because

• all the players want the GM to run a rollercoaster to what they think of as awesome town and they are down with the fact that the rollercoaster runs on tracks like a train;

• the illusionism or railroading happens rarely enough that all the players are willing to grit their teeth and just do what the author/director storyteller tells them to do on those (hopefully) rare occasions when things get all railroad-y or stalking tower-ish;

• the players aren't interested (or at least not much interested) in playing a game at all. Instead they would rather be part of an adventure that is partially scripted by the GM and they get to play their parts kind of like an actor in a play or an improv group;

• the players want a game of mostly wish fulfillment and the GM is there to see that they get it, by hook or by crook or by teleporting stalker tower.

• players aactually want the GM to protect them from confusion, frustration, and failure and just help their PCs to look awesome and succeed at stuff.

By your logic then if a player made a terrible roll which would have cataclysmic results and asked the GM for a 'do over' and he agreed then the integrity of the entire game is forfeit and a total loss. All should pack up and go home because of this small deviation from what the rule book says is the way to play. Or perhaps a player forgets the have a skill until after a die roll and the GM lets them add it in. Or maybe a player forgets to mark down damage and it is discovered later and the GM doesn't make the character just drop dead once the error was discovered. Any of these are no less or more a transgression against the game than what I have defended.

Quote from: estar;925352I realize that and they are fooling themselves if that how they play. Now there is a difference between view RPGs as a competition or a competitive game versus having a competitive goal for your character. The first is a metagame issue the second is just how the player choose to roleplay.


 

And tabletop roleplaying game are piss poor at handling this. Which why the vast majority of these kind of players gravitated to computer roleplaying games and especially MMORPGS in the 90s.


 

If a tree fell in a forest without anybody to hear it, did it fall? That the crux of the issue. If a referee does what RGrove described, will the players know? Executed poorly sure they will know and resent it. Executed properly then they don't know and there is no issue. The referee saved himself some prep time. You are hammering on this because you view it as cheating, unfair, and arbitrary. That doesn't matter because referees make arbitrary decisions all the time. What matters in the end is his skill and finesse in handling the execution of WHATEVER techniques he choose to employ. Does the result fit the circumstances of the campaign at that time in a way that fun for everybody.

Again you brought up earlier how some view tabletop as a competition and that the playing field should be level, fair and consistent for their campaigns. But with a human referee involved they are just kidding themselves. The referee is god for all intents and purposes of the campaign. The outcomes is based on how well the referee juggles all this. And that it will change from session to session and within a session. My counterpoint is that the referee should use the best technique to run a fun and interesting campaign for the players. That you can't rely on just one set of techniques. You need a tool chest at your disposal and pick what works best for that moment.


For example, it help to know how to run an interesting railroaded adventure even though you are running sandbox campaign. This is because often the players will accept missions from NPCs to further their own goals. These missions have limited means of successfully achieving them. Learning how to run railroaded adventures well allow you, as a referee, to make these type of adventures interesting.

However if your brain shuts down and starts substituting "badwrongfun" every time you hear railroad then you just crippled yourself as a tabletop referee. You are doing the same with RGrove defense of the shifting Wizard Tower. And RGrove is not lily white in this argument either.

We all yak away that RPGs are open ended but I wonder at times how many of you actually get that. What that really means.

You are right of course, its very easy to drift far down the extreme of your own argument when caught up in debate. I believe I did mention that In not nearly the champion of my cause I might seem to be. Ive run MANY a game over the years without wielding the magical railroad spike at all. I just don't understand the issue so many seem to take with it.

This might start up an argument of its own but Ill risk it. I see it rather like a GM that rolls for damage on a monster's attack and rolls max damage behind his screen. The hit would therefor kill a main character very early in the evening and do to no fault of the player's other than dumb luck. Instead, as the player cant read over the screen, he drops the result a point or two and wounds the character critically. The player reacts as one might expect, going defensive, popping the limited resource of potions etc. and the game goes on. Granted, this shouldn't happen constantly but tell me you GMs have never done it. Its harmless, in favor of the players, and furthers the game. Sin?

Quote from: rgrove0172;925332Sometimes it sounds as if some of you would plan, oh say a Bandit encounter by exact location, time and circumstance and if the players didn't blunder exactly into those specific parameters then it wouldn't happen. If you altered those parameters even slightly however to trigger the bandit encounter anyway, youd be railroading. If so, that's ridiculous. I would almost guarantee a HUGE majority of GMs simply jot down on a notepad "Bandits on road to castle - " and make it happen.

I think some do plan exactly when and where the bandits will set their ambush, and if te players do not pass by at that time they do not encounter the bandits there. This style dates to the earliest days of the hobby. The map is set and keyed with what is where and changes only in predetermined ways or by player action.

Others do jot down "bandits on road to castle", but, I think, most make no special effort to the get the players to take the road to the castle. If and when the players take the road to the castle they meet the bandits. They are free to wander in another direction entry and the poor bandits will remain unencountered on the castle road forever. This is pretty close to my style of low prep.

A few will design a bandit encounter and then make sure that the players meet the bandits no matter which road they take. This is what many in this thread do not like. The idea that it doesn't matter what you do, because you are going to meet those bandits anyway.

Quote from: Bren;925342As many, many people have pointed out over, and over, and over. The GM directing the players may be just fine for a group because

• all the players want the GM to run a rollercoaster to what they think of as awesome town and they are down with the fact that the rollercoaster runs on tracks like a train;

• the players aren't interested (or at least not much interested) in playing a game at all. Instead they would rather be part of an adventure that is partially scripted by the GM and they get to play their parts kind of like an actor in a play or an improv group;

• the players want a game of mostly wish fulfillment and the GM is there to see that they get it, by hook or by crook or by teleporting stalker tower.

• players aactually want the GM to protect them from confusion, frustration, and failure and just help their PCs to look awesome and succeed at stuff.

These pretty well describe the group I have recently stopped GMing for. They had very little ability or desire to engage with any game setting or mechanics beyond combat. GMing for this group became an exercise in frustration for me because I like proactive players who go out looking for adventure and making things happen.  The sort who when confronted with a railroad rip up the tracks and reforge them into rocket ships or submarines. I like RPGs to be interactive, and I want to be surprised by things that happen too. It is hard to be surprised when you are the locomotive driver on a railroad.

Quote from: estar;925352If a tree fell in a forest without anybody to hear it, did it fall?

Yes in fact it did fall. The actual koan is "Does it make a sound?"

Unlike the tree in the forest, there is always at least one person that knows when trickery was used. Which makes it always trickery. Obviously that person is the GM. Now the GM may like GM trickery, they may see it as some sort of rarely used necessary evil, or they may dislike it and think it unnecessary.

QuoteThat the crux of the issue.

It isn't really, but I can see why those of you who like the technique keep telling yourselves that it is (a) harmless and (b) undetectable. But you are fooling yourselves that you are PT Barnum fooling all of the people some of the time.

QuoteIf a referee does what RGrove described, will the players know? Executed poorly sure they will know and resent it.

They will strongly suspect it if it is executed poorly. Usually, eventually at least one player will strongly suspect it even if it is executed well. And in any case, once a player knows they may resent it. Some don't like GM direction. RGrove gave us one example, several other people have provided examples.

Or they might not resent it. Some players like GM direction and the only fooling going on is the GM fooling himself that he has fooled his players. Often times they know, but they don't care or they even like the GM doing that. Those latter players actively consent in being fooled have And a few players like to pretend to themselves that the GM isn't directing their success and they collude in the GM deception. Unlike you, I realize that all those kinds of players exist.

QuoteYou are hammering on this because you view it as cheating, unfair, and arbitrary.

You really don't have a clue. I don't like illusionism or railroading because they are lazy and almost always unnecessary techniques that I find aesthetically displeasing on the one hand. While on the other hand, I don't like lying or being lied.

Let's look at an example of deceit that most people are comfortable with - stage magic. Stage magicians are very upfront that they are employing tricks to fool their audience. We don't need to pretend stage magic is real for it to be entertaining. If the GM is equally upfront about using tricks and deceit and the players want to sign up for that game I sure don't give a shit. I don't find it necessary to GM that way. I don't enjoy GMing that way, but unless you are one of my players I'm not too concerned about whether or not you like the way I GM. And as long as the GM, like the stage magician, is upfront that trickery is being used, then the potential player is informed and can decline to play if they so choose.

QuoteWhat matters in the end is his skill and finesse in handling the execution of WHATEVER techniques he choose to employ. Does the result fit the circumstances of the campaign at that time in a way that fun for everybody.

Dishonest, lazy, and unnecessary isn't a promising beginning for a good technique.

QuoteAgain you brought up earlier how some view tabletop as a competition and that the playing field should be level, fair and consistent for their campaigns. But with a human referee involved they are just kidding themselves.

The perfect is not the enemy of the good. A referee is supposed to be impartial. Some strive for that. Others actively do not. And everything in between. Also, I never said the playing field should be level. (Or at least I don't think I said that.) Because I think the playing field should not be level. And by fair, I mean a referee should be impartial, which has very little to do with a level field. Though impartiality may relate to consistency.

QuoteThe referee is god for all intents and purposes of the campaign.

Oh, pleeze. :rolleyes: Dig out your viking hat out of the attic while you are at it. RPGs are consensual activities. If the players think they have a tin plated dictator with delusions of godhood as their GM, they just vote with their feet to elect a new GM.

QuoteFor example, it help to know how to run an interesting railroaded adventure even though you are running sandbox campaign. This is because often the players will accept missions from NPCs to further their own goals. These missions have limited means of successfully achieving them. Learning how to run railroaded adventures well allow you, as a referee, to make these type of adventures interesting.

The level of stupid contained in your thinking a mission adventure must sometime be run like a railroad for it to be interesting is astonishing.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925360By your logic then if a player made a terrible roll which would have cataclysmic results and asked the GM for a 'do over' and he agreed then the integrity of the entire game is forfeit and a total loss. All should pack up and go home because of this small deviation from what the rule book says is the way to play. Or perhaps a player forgets the have a skill until after a die roll and the GM lets them add it in. Or maybe a player forgets to mark down damage and it is discovered later and the GM doesn't make the character just drop dead once the error was discovered. Any of these are no less or more a transgression against the game than what I have defended.

An RPG is a consensual activity. If the group wants a do over, then they get a do over.

None of that requires GM trickery.

I think the Zerp Prep works for folks who have done 100+ hours of GM-ing before. They have run their share of published modules, done their little improvising, seen what works, what does not. Know their weaknesses and how to avoid them. Understand pacing, know what to expect, how to react.

Until then, it takes more hours to prep than to actually play.

Quote from: DavetheLost;925366I think some do plan exactly when and where the bandits will set their ambush, and if te players do not pass by at that time they do not encounter the bandits there. This style dates to the earliest days of the hobby. The map is set and keyed with what is where and changes only in predetermined ways or by player action.

Others do jot down "bandits on road to castle", but, I think, most make no special effort to the get the players to take the road to the castle. If and when the players take the road to the castle they meet the bandits. They are free to wander in another direction entry and the poor bandits will remain unencountered on the castle road forever. This is pretty close to my style of low prep.

A few will design a bandit encounter and then make sure that the players meet the bandits no matter which road they take. This is what many in this thread do not like. The idea that it doesn't matter what you do, because you are going to meet those bandits anyway.

You laid out those three different cases nicely. :)

I do more of the first. I see the second option as compromise between my preferences and the limitations of time, energy, attention spans, band width, etc. So I might do that, but I don't especially like to do that and can usually find some way not to do that. And I do none of the last.


Of course everything always depends. So I might do the last thing if there was some reason for the bandits to be stalking the PCs and if there was some method for the bandits to always be ahead of  the PCs to set up an ambush. But it's not something I see happening with bandits. Now maybe if they were bounty hunters....

In the second edition D&D Dungeon Masters Guide there was a section detailing on how to create adventures and two types of sequences that determine how it may go.

One was Keys, things that happen, and will happen in a certain way unless the Players interact with them.  Kidnapping of the Princess, her getting whisked to a second kingdom, her marriage (willing or not) to that king.  All three of those steps are what would be considered Keys.

The second was called a Trigger, events that happen when the players arrive.  An Ogre sleeping in the middle of a cave, where the Giant Slayer's Axe awaits discovery.  The Ogre awakens the moment the Players arrive and then it's on.  Whether that's a fight or a negotiation, who knows.  But until the Players arrive, nothing would have happened.

The thing is, what people have been calling 'illusionism' could have also been people using the 'Trigger' idea.  An event/situation/scene/what-have-you that doesn't occur until the players encounter it.

The Wizard's Tower for example, what if it was a 'ruin' that lays dormant because it needs the players to 'activate' it.  (Again, zero prep, I just thought of that and I have at least six different things I can pull from memory to use and how it would work.)

Quote from: rgrove0172;925362You are right of course, its very easy to drift far down the extreme of your own argument when caught up in debate. I believe I did mention that In not nearly the champion of my cause I might seem to be. Ive run MANY a game over the years without wielding the magical railroad spike at all. I just don't understand the issue so many seem to take with it.

In my case, when I started running boffer LARP events I had to deal with railroaded plot all the time. People need to eat, sleep, and shit. Plus it take times to tear down, move to the another area, and setup again. All of which put severe brakes on how much of a sandbox plot could be. Some people I knew just threw up their hands and just walked away after trying to run one or two events. My attitude was, given this limitation what the best possible event I can run with the most flexibility. They kept asking me to run events, and later when I owned a LARP chapter kept coming back to my events. So I must been doing something right.

I got out of it in 2003 due to family commitments and returned to tabletop as my primary form of roleplaying. I still ran sandbox campaigns but I found it was easier to run mission and other "railroad" situations and make them more interesting because of my experience.

As a side note the boffer LARP community, NERO, had a strong competitive aspect to it because it allowed PvP combat. It wasn't dominant but it wasn't uncommon either. With 40 to 60 people attending events there were typically one or two teams of 3 to 8 people who were kind of players that Bren described. Again like the Railroad, I viewed getting them involved in plot as a challenge and I was able to do so in most cases. The trick is to remember that folks are not one-dimensional caricatures and that if you take the time to learn their interests, you can find an "in" that makes them as much of roleplayers as those who truly love to act. For example one group of competitive players had a barbarian motif, and while it was pretty much a beer and pretzel version of barbarian, I was able to effectively turn their sketchy backstory into adventures they really got involved in. Of course those adventure were combat heavy mostly revolved around the loot. But by god I got them to actually roleplay.

Quote from: Bren;925342As many, many people have pointed out over, and over, and over. The GM directing the players may be just fine for a group because

• all the players want the GM to run a rollercoaster to what they think of as awesome town and they are down with the fact that the rollercoaster runs on tracks like a train;

• the players aren't interested (or at least not much interested) in playing a game at all. Instead they would rather be part of an adventure that is partially scripted by the GM and they get to play their parts kind of like an actor in a play or an improv group;

• the players want a game of mostly wish fulfillment and the GM is there to see that they get it, by hook or by crook or by teleporting stalker tower.

• players aactually want the GM to protect them from confusion, frustration, and failure and just help their PCs to look awesome and succeed at stuff.

Right. There are groups, or at least players who really do want that sort of play.

On the last one. A year or two ago over on RPGG a DM recounted having a player who handed him a list of things that were not allowed to happen in the game. Character death, and I think theft of personal items, mind control, and forget what else.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925360By your logic then if a player made a terrible roll which would have cataclysmic results and asked the GM for a 'do over' and he agreed then the integrity of the entire game is forfeit and a total loss. All should pack up and go home because of this small deviation from what the rule book says is the way to play.

If the player made the request and the other players are ok with that. Then its not illusionism. Thats just rewinding the clock a little. Some are ok with that. Some DMs are very against it. But for very different reasons. And as noted. If the players are aware the DM moves un-used locations and such then that is not illusionism either.

If my player made a roll that ended the game, I think I would have to live with it.  

That should never happen.  I don't like movie endings where they have to disarm the bomb or the world ends, for example.  I think the world is more robust than that.  But if through a bizzar desire to flirt with disaster, combined with poor planning on my part, combined with poor decision making on the players part, we ended up in a situation where it was total party kill or worse on one die roll and they failed the roll.

Then it has to stand.  Game over.  The players lose.

Quote from: Bren;925373They will strongly suspect it if it is executed poorly. Usually, eventually at least one player will strongly suspect it even if it is executed well. And in any case, once a player knows they may resent it. Some don't like GM direction. RGrove gave us one example, several other people have provided examples.

I disagree here. Played well and/or not played often then no, the players arent likely to ever suspect. Why would they? From the outside it looks no different from the norm.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;925381The second was called a Trigger, events that happen when the players arrive.  An Ogre sleeping in the middle of a cave, where the Giant Slayer's Axe awaits discovery.  The Ogre awakens the moment the Players arrive and then it's on.  Whether that's a fight or a negotiation, who knows.  But until the Players arrive, nothing would have happened.

The thing is, what people have been calling 'illusionism' could have also been people using the 'Trigger' idea.  An event/situation/scene/what-have-you that doesn't occur until the players encounter it.

The Wizard's Tower for example, what if it was a 'ruin' that lays dormant because it needs the players to 'activate' it.  (Again, zero prep, I just thought of that and I have at least six different things I can pull from memory to use and how it would work.)

Right. But depends on the trigger too. "The Ogre wakes up no matter what the PCs do" doesnt sound like very good DMing advice. The party has no chance to sneak up at all? None? Its a failure no matter what they do?

On the other hand. "The ogre is pretending to be asleep and will leap up as the PCs enter." is a better trigger. Or "The bandits on the roadside are waiting to rob the first party to pass by." which is better than. "No matter what road the party takes they get jumped by bandits." though this you could explain that the bandits were watching the gates and followed the PCs.

Quote from: Headless;925410If my player made a roll that ended the game, I think I would have to live with it.  

That should never happen.  I don't like movie endings where they have to disarm the bomb or the world ends, for example.  I think the world is more robust than that.  But if through a bizzar desire to flirt with disaster, combined with poor planning on my part, combined with poor decision making on the players part, we ended up in a situation where it was total party kill or worse on one die roll and they failed the roll.

Then it has to stand.  Game over.  The players lose.

The entire adventure, or worse the entire campaign, hanging on a single dice roll? That is poor design and planning. But, yeah, if it came down to it and the dice went against the players, so be it.  The nice thing about RPGs is you can always roll up new characters.

I have had really bad player decisions result in the entire party being literally blown up. It sucked for all of us who had investment in the campaign, but if asshole wants to detonate the nuke with everyone standing next to it...

Quote from: Omega;925412Right. But depends on the trigger too. "The Ogre wakes up no matter what the PCs do" doesnt sound like very good DMing advice. The party has no chance to sneak up at all? None? Its a failure no matter what they do?

On the other hand. "The ogre is pretending to be asleep and will leap up as the PCs enter." is a better trigger. Or "The bandits on the roadside are waiting to rob the first party to pass by." which is better than. "No matter what road the party takes they get jumped by bandits." though this you could explain that the bandits were watching the gates and followed the PCs.

Sneak past the sleeping (or is it?) ogre, lots of dramatic tension. Write the trigger as "the ogre will wake up unless the party succed in stealth checks, which they must ask for." That way if they take steps to avoid noise they have a chance, if they aren't being quiet they get to deal with an ogre.  I have never liked gotcha encounters. Maybe too many of the old T&T solos where you could die, no save, just by choosing to open the wrong door. No warning, just a door that you could open or walk by, like every other door in the dungeon.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925332Sometimes it sounds as if some of you would plan, oh say a Bandit encounter by exact location, time and circumstance and if the players didn't blunder exactly into those specific parameters then it wouldn't happen. If you altered those parameters even slightly however to trigger the bandit encounter anyway, youd be railroading. If so, that's ridiculous. I would almost guarantee a HUGE majority of GMs simply jot down on a notepad "Bandits on road to castle - " and make it happen.

Yes, though it would most likely be a recurring activity, or a list of dates and times. So, every night of a  until the 15th muggers wait for victims outside the Crooked Bottle pub in London (they have an agreement . On the 16th they're aprehended, barring PC interference (BPCI). On the 17th they have a hearing and BPCI, they remain in custody until the 29th when they process is set.
And frankly, I'd like some proof before anyone claims that's how "the majority" is doing it. Not that I care what the majority does, anyway, but I'm curious.

Last time I ran a werewolf attacks game, I had a list of where an when the wolf would attack...which the PCs foiled by guessing correctly the first attack. They captured the werewolf during the attack.
(Of course, then they realized it's more complicated than just "werewolf attacks randomly", but it was that way from the start. I just didn't expect them to foil the first attack...:D)

Quote from: Lunamancer;925336Yeah, I'm definitely getting the sense that too much of the analysis is taking place in a vacuum and strictly for argument's sake. If I were to plan a Bandit encounter, my focus would be the bandits themselves, not the encounter. The bandits are thinking individuals with goals. It doesn't make much sense for them to just sit around just waiting for someone to blunder into their clutches. Rather, they take action to maximize their opportunity. And thus it's only logical that they may actively be seeking to railroad the party one way or another into a trap or ambush.

Luring travellers is an activity that can be spotted by said travellers and foiled or even turned against you. It's the opposite of railroading;).

Quote from: estar;925352If a tree fell in a forest without anybody to hear it, did it fall?

As Bren pointed out -yes it did, that's not the koan:D.

QuoteThat the crux of the issue. If a referee does what RGrove described, will the players know?

Yes.

QuoteExecuted poorly sure they will know and resent it.

Yes.

QuoteExecuted properly then they will know a bit later, and the issue is bigger.

Here, fixed your typo.

QuoteFor example, it help to know how to run an interesting railroaded adventure even though you are running sandbox campaign.

No, it doesn't. See Bren's answer to that.

Quote from: jux;925376I think the Zerp Prep works for folks who have done 100+ hours of GM-ing before. They have run their share of published modules, done their little improvising, seen what works, what does not. Know their weaknesses and how to avoid them. Understand pacing, know what to expect, how to react.

Until then, it takes more hours to prep than to actually play.

I'd never run a module until after I started going zero prep. I still actively don't care about pacing.
And I've taught zero prep GMing to entirely new GMs, which grasped it.
So no, I have strong doubts about that argument.

Quote from: Omega;925411I disagree here. Played well and/or not played often then no, the players arent likely to ever suspect. Why would they? From the outside it looks no different from the norm.

IME, it's the exact opposite: played well or not, the players will know. Especially if they've got GMing experience themselves.

Quote from: Bren;925373Unlike the tree in the forest, there is always at least one person that knows when trickery was used. Which makes it always trickery. Obviously that person is the GM. Now the GM may like GM trickery, they may see it as some sort of rarely used necessary evil, or they may dislike it and think it unnecessary.

It isn't really, but I can see why those of you who like the technique keep telling yourselves that it is (a) harmless and (b) undetectable. But you are fooling yourselves that you are PT Barnum fooling all of the people some of the time.

It just a technique. If overused it a problem, if it used in the right circumstance it works and say the referee some prep.

Quote from: Bren;925373They will strongly suspect it if it is executed poorly. Usually, eventually at least one player will strongly suspect it even if it is executed well. And in any case, once a player knows they may resent it. Some don't like GM direction. RGrove gave us one example, several other people have provided examples.

(rolling eyes) you are baking in a lot of assumptions in here. What the frequency you are talking, what context of the campaign at the time? There are a lot of juggling balls here and where they are make a big difference whether this or any other technique work. You obviously looking at the extreme and I have agreed before and agree now that if used often and repeatably then it will result in all the ills that you and other have repeatably warned about. What you and other are not considering is that it on a spectrum, that the extreme of the railroaded campaign is not the only possibility.

Quote from: Bren;925373You really don't have a clue. I don't like illusionism or railroading because they are lazy and almost always unnecessary techniques that I find aesthetically displeasing on the one hand. While on the other hand, I don't like lying or being lied.

Here is a clue, the referee is always lying. One of the primary reason the referee in a campaign evolved in the first place was to allow for fog of war and deception as well as unbiased arbitration. Shifting a location for a adventure can be a biased decision (I want my campaign to have this outcome regardless of what the players) which will result in a unsatisfactory outcome. Or unbiased (The players are in pursuit of a goal and they are going to miss the one vital thing they need to continue on because I didn't supply them with enough clues), which will result in a satisfactory  outcome.

And please quit insinuationing that I am advocating for railroaded campaign. It not an either-or situation.

Quote from: Bren;925373If the GM is equally upfront about using tricks and deceit and the players want to sign up for that game I sure don't give a shit. I don't find it necessary to GM that way. I don't enjoy GMing that way, but unless you are one of my players I'm not too concerned about whether or not you like the way I GM. And as long as the GM, like the stage magician, is upfront that trickery is being used, then the potential player is informed and can decline to play if they so choose.

So you can find the quote where I said "Shh don't ever tell the players that you do this." Again you are assuming a lot based on your bias and dislikes.  I am very open when asked about why I do the things I do. Hell I write a blog and books on the topic of sandbox campaigns.

Quote from: Bren;925373Oh, pleeze. :rolleyes: Dig out your viking hat out of the attic while you are at it. RPGs are consensual activities. If the players think they have a tin plated dictator with delusions of godhood as their GM, they just vote with their feet to elect a new GM.

God of the campaign doesn't mean one is the god of the group or anything else social. It just mean that that referee has the final say. And yes if the referee fucks that up that will mean players will walk.

Quote from: Bren;925373The level of stupid contained in your thinking a mission adventure must sometime be run like a railroad for it to be interesting is astonishing.

Well at least you didn't say always. I disagree that missions are never a railroad. I guess I need to make this explicit  given how you keep reading your bias into my responses. Some missions are a railroad if you want to achieve the goal of the specific mission. As far as I am concern, the players are always free the pursue some other goal at any point. Free to decide that the goal of the mission is something else. I am only observing that for some missions, you have to go from A to B to C in order for it to be completed.

Quote from: AsenRG;925446IME, it's the exact opposite: played well or not, the players will know. Especially if they've got GMing experience themselves.

People say the same thing about Zero Prep vs. Detailed Prep, they can always tell the difference.  I'm not so sure.  If I'm specifically trying to detect either, I'm sure I could tell, but if I'm just rolling with it, playing, probably not if done well.

Quote from: DavetheLost;925366I think some do plan exactly when and where the bandits will set their ambush, and if te players do not pass by at that time they do not encounter the bandits there. This style dates to the earliest days of the hobby. The map is set and keyed with what is where and changes only in predetermined ways or by player action.

Others do jot down "bandits on road to castle", but, I think, most make no special effort to the get the players to take the road to the castle. If and when the players take the road to the castle they meet the bandits. They are free to wander in another direction entry and the poor bandits will remain unencountered on the castle road forever. This is pretty close to my style of low prep.

A few will design a bandit encounter and then make sure that the players meet the bandits no matter which road they take. This is what many in this thread do not like. The idea that it doesn't matter what you do, because you are going to meet those bandits anyway.

One could argue that its precisely meeting bandits that the game is about, not wandering luckily down empty roads. Just sayin.

Quote from: Bren;925373Yes in fact it did fall. The actual koan is "Does it make a sound?"

Unlike the tree in the forest, there is always at least one person that knows when trickery was used. Which makes it always trickery. Obviously that person is the GM. Now the GM may like GM trickery, they may see it as some sort of rarely used necessary evil, or they may dislike it and think it unnecessary.

It isn't really, but I can see why those of you who like the technique keep telling yourselves that it is (a) harmless and (b) undetectable. But you are fooling yourselves that you are PT Barnum fooling all of the people some of the time.

They will strongly suspect it if it is executed poorly. Usually, eventually at least one player will strongly suspect it even if it is executed well. And in any case, once a player knows they may resent it. Some don't like GM direction. RGrove gave us one example, several other people have provided examples.

Or they might not resent it. Some players like GM direction and the only fooling going on is the GM fooling himself that he has fooled his players. Often times they know, but they don't care or they even like the GM doing that. Those latter players actively consent in being fooled have And a few players like to pretend to themselves that the GM isn't directing their success and they collude in the GM deception. Unlike you, I realize that all those kinds of players exist.

You really don't have a clue. I don't like illusionism or railroading because they are lazy and almost always unnecessary techniques that I find aesthetically displeasing on the one hand. While on the other hand, I don't like lying or being lied.

Let's look at an example of deceit that most people are comfortable with - stage magic. Stage magicians are very upfront that they are employing tricks to fool their audience. We don't need to pretend stage magic is real for it to be entertaining. If the GM is equally upfront about using tricks and deceit and the players want to sign up for that game I sure don't give a shit. I don't find it necessary to GM that way. I don't enjoy GMing that way, but unless you are one of my players I'm not too concerned about whether or not you like the way I GM. And as long as the GM, like the stage magician, is upfront that trickery is being used, then the potential player is informed and can decline to play if they so choose.

Dishonest, lazy, and unnecessary isn't a promising beginning for a good technique.

The perfect is not the enemy of the good. A referee is supposed to be impartial. Some strive for that. Others actively do not. And everything in between. Also, I never said the playing field should be level. (Or at least I don't think I said that.) Because I think the playing field should not be level. And by fair, I mean a referee should be impartial, which has very little to do with a level field. Though impartiality may relate to consistency.

Oh, pleeze. :rolleyes: Dig out your viking hat out of the attic while you are at it. RPGs are consensual activities. If the players think they have a tin plated dictator with delusions of godhood as their GM, they just vote with their feet to elect a new GM.

The level of stupid contained in your thinking a mission adventure must sometime be run like a railroad for it to be interesting is astonishing.


An RPG is a consensual activity. If the group wants a do over, then they get a do over.

None of that requires GM trickery.

Nor does employing an approach the players know about, have experienced many times before and whole heartedly enjoy. You seem to think that railroading only occurs against someones will or at least without their permission. Wrong, its an approach or method I learned from someone else I considered a great GM, and some of my players have taken it to their own games as well.

Not to mention has been suggested and mentioned in countless RPG manuals, rulebooks, adventure modules etc. Ive given examples in other threads about this topic and wont repeat them here but damn, if you've played RPGs for more than a few months and actually read some of the books they sell about them you cant have escaped those references. The ones highlighting how to save time when preparing by moving locations and NPCs around, how to keep games on track by nudging groups in a given direction and so on. Not using these methods is fine but hardly industry standard.

Quote from: Omega;925411I disagree here. Played well and/or not played often then no, the players arent likely to ever suspect. Why would they? From the outside it looks no different from the norm.

I agree. The example some have given are ludicrous. If a party picks from 3 different towns to travel to and upon arriving at one stays at an inn, there is no possible way they could know the same inn would have awaited them at either of the towns. Theres no harm in it either. Similarly with the
damned Wizards Tower or Brigands on the road.

Ill go ahead and throw in that yes... if the party expressly took time and effort to pick a direction that avoided Wizards Towers or possibly encounters with Brigands it would be a little strongarmed to throw one at them anyway. Not impossible as their efforts may not have been successful but it would certainly be a consideration. This sort of open conflict with the players decisions is not something Ive ever encountered though to be honest.

Quote from: AsenRG;925446Yes, though it would most likely be a recurring activity, or a list of dates and times. So, every night of a  until the 15th muggers wait for victims outside the Crooked Bottle pub in London (they have an agreement . On the 16th they're aprehended, barring PC interference (BPCI). On the 17th they have a hearing and BPCI, they remain in custody until the 29th when they process is set.
And frankly, I'd like some proof before anyone claims that's how "the majority" is doing it. Not that I care what the majority does, anyway, but I'm curious.

Last time I ran a werewolf attacks game, I had a list of where an when the wolf would attack...which the PCs foiled by guessing correctly the first attack. They captured the werewolf during the attack.
(Of course, then they realized it's more complicated than just "werewolf attacks randomly", but it was that way from the start. I just didn't expect them to foil the first attack...:D)


Luring travellers is an activity that can be spotted by said travellers and foiled or even turned against you. It's the opposite of railroading;).


As Bren pointed out -yes it did, that's not the koan:D.

Yes.


Yes.


Here, fixed your typo.


No, it doesn't. See Bren's answer to that.


I'd never run a module until after I started going zero prep. I still actively don't care about pacing.
And I've taught zero prep GMing to entirely new GMs, which grasped it.
So no, I have strong doubts about that argument.


IME, it's the exact opposite: played well or not, the players will know. Especially if they've got GMing experience themselves.

You create an entire timeline including apprehension, trial and due process for a bunch of no name NPC muggers? Seriously you want anyone to believe that and then have the nerve to say you want proof of how others play? Please, I gotta call bullshit on that one.

Also BS on players knowing the GM changed his mind midstream at some point. Ive heard several Zero Preppers in here claim their players never know the difference between theirs and a fully pre-planned game. If they can pull that off, no way in hell anyone is going to notice a subtle shift if presented with finesse.

Quote from: AsenRG;925446IME, it's the exact opposite: played well or not, the players will know. Especially if they've got GMing experience themselves.

How? Unless the GM is telegraphing that its a sham then the players have no way of knowing that the tower was on the east road but is now on the north road. And if the GM is telegraphing then they arent playing well are they?

Quote from: AsenRG;925446IME, it's the exact opposite: played well or not, the players will know. Especially if they've got GMing experience themselves.

Child Please:rolleyes:

Quote from: estar;925352If a tree fell in a forest without anybody to hear it, did it fall? That the crux of the issue. If a referee does what RGrove described, will the players know? Executed poorly sure they will know and resent it. Executed properly then they don't know and there is no issue. The referee saved himself some prep time.

Of course, the opposite could be true.

I subscribe to the view that railroading is always 100% perfectly fine... as long as it's an NPC doing it and not the GM. Asen later points out a pretty air-tight reason why. Because if it's a consequence of NPC activity, that activity itself may be detectable, and the players have a legitimate shot at negating or even reversing the railroad.

That said, I think GMing like a cat hiding its shit is going to give the appearance of impropriety if an astute player senses it. So that can be a dangerous game to play. What if instead you were to slap the players across the face with it? In my Dance of the Faerie Rings example, the module could have just had one road that led to the adventure. It intentionally gave a second road just so it was clear to the players you're being fucked with. Even though no explanation is forthcoming until the very end of the adventure, if even then, by being up-front about it, the players perceive mystery rather than fuckery. Hell, the GM could even tweak the module so the faeries magic isn't drained by their attempts to keep the PCs from leaving until they choose the low road, negating the last shred of consequence to the players for choosing the high road--and I'm not sure if that makes this railroading or illusionism, but if it's executed like this, with the faeries having their full capacity to help the party at the end, I doubt any player will complain.

I am very open about my collaborative improvisational GMing style. I don't pretend to have everything mapped and plotted out in advance. I do prepare some bits ahead, but far from everything. Most of the players I have run games for have seemed to enjoy them, so I don't see a compelling reason to change my methodology.

I have played in, and enjoyed games with high prep GMs. One goes to the extent of preparing a black box room, in which he hangs theatrical quality lighting and sound effects. Full on immersion with scrupulously detailed plots.

I don't think either of us could very well run a game in the other's style. A key to what makes it work for both of us is that we are upfront about what we are doing and how we are running the game. I know I get upset when I have an expectation for how the game is being run and it turns out that it is being run in a different way.

Quote from: DavetheLost;925415Sneak past the sleeping (or is it?) ogre, lots of dramatic tension. Write the trigger as "the ogre will wake up unless the party succed in stealth checks, which they must ask for." That way if they take steps to avoid noise they have a chance, if they aren't being quiet they get to deal with an ogre.  I have never liked gotcha encounters. Maybe too many of the old T&T solos where you could die, no save, just by choosing to open the wrong door. No warning, just a door that you could open or walk by, like every other door in the dungeon.

And that's the difference between 'Zero Prep' Trigger-based adventures, and 'Illusionism', there's a CHOICE.  The Ogre may not wake up if the players do it right, but that very same choice determines what happens.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925480Not using these methods is fine but hardly industry standard.

That's because there is no industry standard, not even really back in the day when this shit caused flame wars on Usenet.  So if you think your way is industry standard, you're as much of a fool as the people you are claiming foolish.

You like what you like - and so do your players - good for you.  Don't debase yourself by begging for internet approval or make a fool of yourself through Appeal to Authority.  Stepping into this forum, you've encountered an entirely new playstyle, one that's been around since Braunstein, that you aren't familiar with.  Ok, learn and agree to coexist or stick your head in the sand like an Ostrich Ideologue claiming the nameless masses are on your side.  No one gives a shit.

If you need validation to feel secure in your GMing, you will never get that here.  Stop trying, it's getting tiring to read.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925536That's because there is no industry standard, not even really back in the day when this shit caused flame wars on Usenet.  So if you think your way is industry standard, you're as much of a fool as the people you are claiming foolish.

But isn't that what the OSR is claiming, that there was an 'Industry Standard' and that everyone was forgetting about by chasing all the 'new school' games?  (No snark)

Quote from: Christopher Brady;925543But isn't that what the OSR is claiming, that there was an 'Industry Standard' and that everyone was forgetting about by chasing all the 'new school' games?  (No snark)

What the OSR claims is that playing classic editions of D&D is as fun today as it was back in the day. If anything more is read into that then that is on the person saying that. Because classic D&D was played in all kinds of ways in all kinds of campaigns.

Play elfgames the way you like to play elfgames. The only people whose opinion of how to properly play elfgames really matters worth a damn are the people you play elfgames with.

I don't claim that my GMing style and method are widespread, for all I know, I could be the only one running games this way. I know it works for me, and seems to make my players happy. That's good enough for me.

If a bunch of people I only know through an internet forum think my way of running games is shit, fuck them!

Quote from: estar;925548What the OSR claims is that playing classic editions of D&D is as fun today as it was back in the day. If anything more is read into that then that is on the person saying that. Because classic D&D was played in all kinds of ways in all kinds of campaigns.

Which sincerely confuses me, because a lot of the supposed OSR games change key elements that may not be considered 'good' anymore.  If the games can stand up on their own, shouldn't you just reprint them?

The argument is that there is a default mode of play implicit in the original rules and that that mode fosters a coherent game experience.

The details -- as per the original rules -- can and should be custom fitted to suit the needs of the game at hand.

Quote from: Harg of the City Afar;925564The argument is that there is a default mode of play implicit in the original rules and that that mode fosters a coherent game experience.

It's just that in my personal experience, there isn't.  Frankly, that's the beauty of this hobby, in my opinion.

Quote from: Harg of the City Afar;925564The details -- as per the original rules -- can and should be custom fitted to suit the needs of the game at hand.

Thing is, everyone already does this, sometimes even subconsciously.

That's what I don't get with this OSR labeling.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;925559Which sincerely confuses me, because a lot of the supposed OSR games change key elements that may not be considered 'good' anymore.  If the games can stand up on their own, shouldn't you just reprint them?

The Open Gaming License. There are plenty of preservationists in the OSR that produce rulesets that are very close to the original. OSRIC especially, but there is Labyrinth Lord, and White Box Swords & Wizardry as well. It just not everybody or even the majority. The Open Gaming License allows people do whatever they want with the material. Something I take advantage of as well.

Quote from: estar;925470It just a technique. If overused it a problem…

And if a person strongly dislikes it, once is overused.
   

QuoteWhat you and other are not considering is that it on a spectrum, that the extreme of the railroaded campaign is not the only possibility.

No I get that there are degrees. But if a person strongly dislikes it, one instance of shitty is too much shitty.

QuoteHere is a clue, the referee is always lying. One of the primary reason the referee in a campaign evolved in the first place was to allow for fog of war and deception as well as unbiased arbitration.

I’ve been running and playing RPGs since 1974 and I was playing wargames earlier than that. I’m aware of the role of the referee in a wargame and of the early influences on RPGs.

QuoteShifting a location for a adventure can be a biased decision (I want my campaign to have this outcome regardless of what the players) which will result in a unsatisfactory outcome. Or unbiased (The players are in pursuit of a goal and they are going to miss the one vital thing they need to continue on because I didn't supply them with enough clues), which will result in a satisfactory  outcome.

Both instances are biased. The first is biased in favor of the GM’s preferred outcome. The second is biased in favor of the players continuing on a path or with trying to solve the mystery, rescue the princess, stop the threat, get the treasure, or whatever it is they are trying continue on with.

Unbiased would mean that the GM is ambivalent between the two options. That the GM doesn’t care whether or not the players get stuck. Getting stuck, like characters dying, is a failure point in an RPG. Some people want a game with the possibility of failure. Some don’t. Taking away the possibility of failure is frustrating to anyone who wants the chance to succeed or to fail in the same way that refusing to allow a PC to die because of poor choices by the player or even the whims of the dice is frustrating to anyone who wants the risk of death to be on the table. I’m well aware that not everyone wants the risk of failure in the game. I’m well aware that not everyone wants the risk of death.

QuoteAnd please quit insinuationing that I am advocating for railroaded campaign. It not an either-or situation.

I’m not insinuating anything. I am saying that tower shifting, illusionism, GM cheating, etc. is an either or decision if someone at the table doesn’t want it to happen ever. In that sense, it is just like preferences on how to handle PC death in an RPG.

QuoteSo you can find the quote where I said "Shh don't ever tell the players that you do this." Again you are assuming a lot based on your bias and dislikes.  I am very open when asked about why I do the things I do. Hell I write a blog and books on the topic of sandbox campaigns.

Personally I have no clue what you do or don’t tell your players. But you did just say,  

Quote from: estar;925470Here is a clue, the referee is always lying.

That sounds like you are not being upfront with your players. But maybe I'm misreading you. Or maybe you think that everyone believes that all referees cheat. If you thought that, you would be wrong.

Now I don’t have a clue what you do or don’t tell your players. I’m not at your table and I’ve probably never been at your table. But I’m assuming that one of two things is the case.

   1)   You are upfront with your players, just like the stage magician, in which case they know you are going to occasionally use illusionism so the issue of how can they know you do that is moot. They know because you told them you do that.

2)   You are not upfront with your players and the only way they will know that you are tricking them is when they catch you at it.

I’m not one of your players. So which is it, #1 or #2?

QuoteWell at least you didn't say always. I disagree that missions are never a railroad. I guess I need to make this explicit  given how you keep reading your bias into my responses. Some missions are a railroad if you want to achieve the goal of the specific mission. As far as I am concern, the players are always free the pursue some other goal at any point. Free to decide that the goal of the mission is something else. I am only observing that for some missions, you have to go from A to B to C in order for it to be completed.

I’m having a bit of trouble figuring out who the pronoun “you” is supposed to be referring to is it the GM, the players, or what.

But in any case, no mission requires the players to complete the mission. Therefore no mission has to be a railroad. Now as a GM you may have set up some universe ending outcome if the players fail. I don’t like over-the-top, we-saved-the-world-again-this-week missions. I think they are silly. So I don’t create those kinds of missions. But even if I did, one option would be to let the players fail.

“Wow guys that ddn’t go that way I expected. I guess we need a new universe and new PCs. So who wants to be the GM this time?”

There is never a requirement for railroad. It is always a design and play style choice.

Now maybe instead of railroad, what you meant was to succeed the players must follow a linear path. I think that is poor scenario design, but I agree that designing that way is possible. But it's not a railroad if the players can choose to get off the train or if through their choices or the whims of the dice they end up with a derailed train.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925480You seem to think that railroading only occurs against someones will or at least without their permission.

You really need to read all the words to understand what I am saying. In the part you just quoted. Part of it was even written in bolded text to make it difficult to miss. I said, and I quote,

“Or they might not resent it. Some players like GM direction…”

I am aware that some players like it. I am aware that some GMs like it. I am aware that some published adventures mandate it. I am aware that some rule books suggest it. So fucking what? I’m not saying that no one does it nor that you, personally, invented the technique.

Quote from: Omega;925411I disagree here. Played well and/or not played often then no, the players arent likely to ever suspect. Why would they? From the outside it looks no different from the norm.

I said usually and eventually, not early and often. What I meant though was that I'm highly skeptical of any GM's ability to disguise such activity over the long haul from all possible players. It's probably a moot point though as none of us GM for all players. Presumably the GMs who use tricks like illusionism with any regularity or frequency have players who, over the years, have self-selected so as to eliminate any player who strongly dislikes illusionism and who is really good at detecting it when it happens. So in effect, GMs that use these techniques with any frequency have players who either don't care that the GM does that (possibly even actively approving of the GM doing that)  or they never know their GM does that.

Quote from: DavetheLost;925528A key to what makes it work for both of us is that we are upfront about what we are doing and how we are running the game.

Oh you with your honesty and upfrontness. What are you doing in this thread anyway?

So, Bren, are you saying you have an issue with railroading?

Quote from: Bren;925579And if a person strongly dislikes it, once is overused.
No I get that there are degrees. But if a person strongly dislikes it, one instance of shitty is too much shitty.

Now you know how I feel about OOC mechanics.  There is no acceptable amount of shit in the Rocky Road. :D

Quote from: CRKrueger;925586Now you know how I feel about OOC mechanics.  There is no acceptable amount of shit in the Rocky Road. :D

The similarity already occurred to me. I almost included it in a reply several days ago, but I didn't find a good way to word it.

Quote from: Lunamancer;925505Of course, the opposite could be true.

I subscribe to the view that railroading is always 100% perfectly fine... as long as it's an NPC doing it and not the GM. Asen later points out a pretty air-tight reason why. Because if it's a consequence of NPC activity, that activity itself may be detectable, and the players have a legitimate shot at negating or even reversing the railroad.

That said, I think GMing like a cat hiding its shit is going to give the appearance of impropriety if an astute player senses it. So that can be a dangerous game to play. What if instead you were to slap the players across the face with it? In my Dance of the Faerie Rings example, the module could have just had one road that led to the adventure. It intentionally gave a second road just so it was clear to the players you're being fucked with. Even though no explanation is forthcoming until the very end of the adventure, if even then, by being up-front about it, the players perceive mystery rather than fuckery. Hell, the GM could even tweak the module so the faeries magic isn't drained by their attempts to keep the PCs from leaving until they choose the low road, negating the last shred of consequence to the players for choosing the high road--and I'm not sure if that makes this railroading or illusionism, but if it's executed like this, with the faeries having their full capacity to help the party at the end, I doubt any player will complain.

One thing all of these opinion counter to 'railroading' have in common is that they assume the players wouldn't like it. YOU may have a negative response to it and perhaps every gamer you've ever known would but that itself would be an incredibly small percentage of those who enjoy the hobby. In over 30 years of gaming Ive had one, that's ONE, player react negatively.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;925533And that's the difference between 'Zero Prep' Trigger-based adventures, and 'Illusionism', there's a CHOICE.  The Ogre may not wake up if the players do it right, but that very same choice determines what happens.

Sneaking past waking Ogres is a matter of tactics, combat tactics to be precise... Illusionism, railroading, or whatever you want to call it rarely makes an appearance that far down. (at least in my games is doesn't)  Finding a particular ship no matter what port you choose? Sure. Having it storm the night you leave town no matter how long you wait? Maybe. Dicking around with combat tactics, not hardly.

Quote from: Harg of the City Afar;925582So, Bren, are you saying you have an issue with railroading?

Yes. I find it aesthetically displeasing and unnecessary.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925536That's because there is no industry standard, not even really back in the day when this shit caused flame wars on Usenet.  So if you think your way is industry standard, you're as much of a fool as the people you are claiming foolish.

You like what you like - and so do your players - good for you.  Don't debase yourself by begging for internet approval or make a fool of yourself through Appeal to Authority.  Stepping into this forum, you've encountered an entirely new playstyle, one that's been around since Braunstein, that you aren't familiar with.  Ok, learn and agree to coexist or stick your head in the sand like an Ostrich Ideologue claiming the nameless masses are on your side.  No one gives a shit.

If you need validation to feel secure in your GMing, you will never get that here.  Stop trying, it's getting tiring to read.

Understood, now kindly direct that same message to the others who are even MORE BLATANTLY claiming their way is the only true path to GM enlightenment.

Quote from: Bren;925592Yes. I find it aesthetically displeasing and unnecessary.

OK, just wanted to get you on record. :D

Two comments -

One - as to Stage Magicians being upfront. I have never witnessed a magician start his routine but advising everyone in the audience that he is a charlatan and fake and that there is no such thing as magic and that he will instead be taking advantage of all of them. They may assume this but it isn't said. To do so ruins the very illusion they applaud.

Two - “Wow guys that ddn’t go that way I expected. I guess we need a new universe and new PCs. So who wants to be the GM this time?”

Obviously you and perhaps others play a much more superficial and casual game than my group. TPKs and such are DEVESTATING. We place far too much time and effort in our games, especially where the setting and campaign is concerned, to cough it away and "roll up some new guys!"  
I understand groups play with different priorities, that may be at the heart of many of our disagreements here. The "GAME" is almost a work of art in our opinion, an outlet for a vast amount of creative energy and imaginative will. We are rather protective of it. The GM especially. On other nights we play games, fun little competitions or group efforts toward some abstract objective and have a great time but when we roleplay its a very different matter.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925596One - as to Stage Magicians being upfront. I have never witnessed a magician start his routine but advising everyone in the audience that he is a charlatan and fake and that there is no such thing as magic and that he will instead be taking advantage of all of them. They may assume this but it isn't said. To do so ruins the very illusion they applaud.

No it doesn't ruin the illusion. Unless you really think all the people clapping believe it was real magic?

QuoteObviously you and perhaps others play a much more superficial and casual game than my group.

And you are way wrong about that too.

I said that I don't run end of the world adventures. So the world doesn't end when the PCs fail because I am not making end of the game world the consequence of failure. But if I did run an end of the world adventure it would be bad art not to have the world end if the PCs fail.

QuoteI understand groups play with different priorities, that may be at the heart of many of our disagreements here. The "GAME" is almost a work of art in our opinion, an outlet for a vast amount of creative energy and imaginative will. We are rather protective of it. The GM especially. On other nights we play games, fun little competitions or group efforts toward some abstract objective and have a great time but when we roleplay its a very different matter.

I find your art aesthetically displeasing.

Quote from: Bren;925581Oh you with your honesty and upfrontness. What are you doing in this thread anyway?

I was lying. The referee always lies.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925596I have never witnessed a magician start his routine but advising everyone in the audience that he is a charlatan and fake and that there is no such thing as magic and that he will instead be taking advantage of all of them.

(http://i67.tinypic.com/vgke4m.jpg)

Also, numerous debunker/skeptic magicians, but I won't count those.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925593Understood, now kindly direct that same message to the others who are even MORE BLATANTLY claiming their way is the only true path to GM enlightenment.

Well, the other people full of shit are the ones who claim they can always detect illusionism/railroading.  You don't have the GM's map, you don't have the NPC's stats, you don't have the encounter tables the GM is using.  Unless you're a mind-reader, face-reader, or the guy is an idiot, you'll never know whether you just happened to be in the right place/right time, whether 358 on the open-ended encounter roll is actually Nyarlathotep, or whether there was actually supposed to be a pit trap there.

Now if you suspect he's fudging things, you can deliberately try to test some things to trip them up, same as a zero-prepper, but if you're engaged in the game and not meta-investigating what's happening, not gonna happen.  GM's are great liars. They need to be able to look you straight in the eye and tell you that you detect no trap even though they know damn well one more step is a TPK.  You're gonna tell me that you're gonna catch that GM using Quantum Tricks?

Nope.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925616Well, the other people full of shit are the ones who claim they can always detect illusionism/railroading.

Sigh. And people who say they play in character all the time are also full of shit, right?

We're all of full of shit. That's why we have colons.

OK, I'm going to define something my way:

Railroading adventures are those that have a predetermined outcome.  No matter what the players do, whatever happens, will happen.

'Zero Prep' Triggers occur if and when the Players DECIDE they do.  They have a CHOICE.

Quote from: DavetheLost;925624We're all of full of shit. That's why we have colons.

Fair point. But at least I'm up to date on my checkups.

A little anecdote, apropos of nothing...

At my last session I made a lightning-quick reversal of judgment. A PC was working over some street toughs in an effort to find their boss. Since they were right in front of one of his main hangouts -- and since there was a commotion -- I figured it was reasonable enough that the boss was there and alert to the presence of the PC.

PC: "I'm looking for your boss, punk!"
[booming voice from behind]: "You ain't gotta look far, sucka!"

Then the player described how he coolly dropped the quivering youth and slowly turned to face --

BUT THEN -- I remembered the smart-ass hustler/street contact NPC the PC had run into earlier that day...

[my best Kevin Hart voice] "Naw, man, I was just fuckin' witcha!"

Not the most brilliant moment ever, but it got some laughs and broke up the action a bit.

But for one second, it really was the crime boss standing behind the PC. And I teleported the contact there in his place. And I am unrepentant. :D

Quote from: Christopher Brady;925625OK, I'm going to define something my way:

Railroading adventures are those that have a predetermined outcome.  No matter what the players do, whatever happens, will happen.

'Zero Prep' Triggers occur if and when the Players DECIDE they do.  They have a CHOICE.

I like that definition.  Using it I can honestly say I have never railroaded...ever.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925616Well, the other people full of shit are the ones who claim they can always detect illusionism/railroading.

Always? No. But there are some really accurate gut feelings out there.

Things just get really tricky when things like railroading, illusionism, or even PC-death_enabled can be flipped on and off like a switch.

For instance, a pick-up game I played in highschool ended up turning into a long-running Greyhawk campaign. After it had run a while, it seemed like the GM might have been fudging in the players favor to avoid PC death. One of the players seemed to pick up on this and started pushing the envelope. For a while, it was pretty epic. After all, this player's character was a cleric of  Heironeous the Invincible and was thwarting and slaughtering enemies of the faith. It seemed to make sense. But the player continue pushing the envelope, so it seemed to leave the GM with a choice. Slap the player down with extreme "let the dice fall where they may"ism, or risk destroying the credibility of what had been an awesome campaign. A few sessions later, the PC died.

In reality, do any of us know for sure whether PC-death was enabled all along and it just took time for the player's luck to run out or whether the GM flipped the switch? Not really. Not at all. Before the one player had started pushing the envelope we all certainly played as if PC-death was enabled. So if the GM ever did have to fudge things for us, it was rare anyway. And maybe for that exact reason, the GM himself had not even decided how the switch was set because it's just not something that ever came up. But when the campaign started to really ramp up, maybe he just wanted to prolong it just a bit more so fudged a bit, then realized he'd let it get too far. Or maybe all along it was a Spiderman thing, "Everybody gets one."

We don't know. But the gut feeling was that at least towards the height of the campaign, safety mode was on. The player proceeded to make major decisions accordingly, and for a time anyway, it proved lucrative. There seemed to be verification that the gut feeling was right. But whether or not the GM actually flipped a switch, the bottom line is it didn't last. The experiment proved to not be repeatable. And certainty in the proposition was instantly vaporized.

I still strongly believe this sort of thing actually is easily detectable. It's just not certain. And so I feel it is always 100% of the time wrong in all cases for a player to ever call a GM out as a cheater of any sort. If you think you're playing a rigged game, play accordingly. Position yourself so the rigging works in your favor. That is, if you have the balls to do so. If you are so certain you're right. And if you can equally give the GM credit and sense when/if he's flipped the switch. Let conviction and fairness be the ultimate arbiters.

Quote from: Bren;925619Sigh. And people who say they play in character all the time are also full of shit, right?

Correct

Quote from: Bren;925619Sigh. And people who say they play in character all the time are also full of shit, right?

Actually, yes, no one can be IC all the time, it's difficult, which is why it's so important to not have a system which FORCES you OOC.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925362This might start up an argument of its own but Ill risk it. I see it rather like a GM that rolls for damage on a monster's attack and rolls max damage behind his screen. The hit would therefor kill a main character very early in the evening and do to no fault of the player's other than dumb luck. Instead, as the player cant read over the screen, he drops the result a point or two and wounds the character critically. The player reacts as one might expect, going defensive, popping the limited resource of potions etc. and the game goes on. Granted, this shouldn't happen constantly but tell me you GMs have never done it. Its harmless, in favor of the players, and furthers the game. Sin?

Not a sin per se, but I want you to understand that I prefer not to do this, and that I think that not fudging has a value and that I would prefer it to be agreed whether fudging is being done or not, rather than to conceal it.

I have cheated in the way you describe twice:

Once as the GM, in a long-standing campaign, the player would have been killed by a damage roll in a duel with a serious NPC, which I wasn't expecting. I chose to invent an in-game magic intervention from something I had not thought of before. I invented a manifestation for something I felt as the GM - that PC was now being protected by a very powerful magic sentinal that had the power to intervene at least in this one crucial point and have the foe's weapon break from a clearly magical effect that had no explanation before I invented it to keep the PC alive. I pretended as if this were something mysterious but pre-established, and gave it hints and hoped it would let the player know he'd been saved by something. In retrospect, I imagine the player could read exactly that's what I was doing and pretended not to, I imagine/project out of also not wanting his PC to die then.

The other time was as a player. My long-surviving character got hit a few times, and then a blow did enough to kill my PC, but the GM was having me track my own damage, and I paused and said it was enough to make me unconscious instead of dead (in RAW TFT, characters are very fragile and there's only a one-point margin between death and unconsciousness). Again, in retrospect I imagine the GM probably realized what I was doing and let it pass, and again I project he probably didn't want me to die.

Both of these happened 30+ years ago, and they informed my thinking since. They shook up my thinking about how to play. They bothered me, a lot, mainly in that I had cheated and lied about it. I felt how it undermined the agreement of play, even though they were desirable results. I kept thinking about what could or should be done about it. My ideas and ways of playing, and rules chosen, have changed and evolved over the decades, but I have never agreed with the idea that one should pretend to have one set of rules and then lie about changing outcomes like those. I understood that to do so is to play a different game than one says one is playing, to not really know or be able to choose what the real rules are, and to fool oneself and others about it.

If you find yourself fudging to keep characters alive, no matter what justifications you may have, I would suggest that it would be significantly better to add a house rule and explain it up front before play. Figure out the actual rules by which you play, and explain and use those, but then go by the rules. Figure out where your actual line is where you would kill or spare the players. Is it that you just reserve the choice to your sense of what's best? Or are some stages not really in you-risk-your-life mode, because you'd fudge if someone died? (If so, why are you pretending and who are you fooling and why? I'd hate to be taking the tactics seriously and find out it doesn't really matter. Maybe you should just declare narrative mode sometimes, or hey, maybe you are happy with what you do, but I would not be as a player, unless perhaps I knew up front what was going on.) Is it that it's something about how extreme the margin is? Can you quantify it?

For example, we switched to GURPS, where instead of having about 11 points of damage capacity (which you _might_ suffer in one good blow), where getting down to 3 means -3DX and half speed, and 1 means you're unconscious, and zero or below you're dead, GURPS means you have about 11 points of damage capacity (which you _might_ suffer in one good blow), you start to fall unconscious at zero or below, might die when you reach -11, and aren't utterly surely dead unless you fail a health roll to avoid death, or reach -55 or your head comes off. So there's a built-in survivability that is far more generous than we ever would have been in TFT, and I don't feel any temptation to tip dice, even though PCs can and do sometimes die unexpectedly (critical hits, bleeding rules, infection rules, damage multipliers, large axes, arrows into eye sockets, etc). I.e. it's also quite possible to die from a single 5-point injury, if so one stops the bleeding and you fail some health rolls, for example. Those rules add many ways for both the players and the NPCs to take in-gameworld actions to do something to affect who is liable to die or not, both in combat and in later first aid, rest, etc., and THAT is essentially what was suddenly felt missing in the TFT deaths I had fudged - reduced risk, much more likelihood of not just actually dead when defeated, a broader range of injury status consequences, and things to do about them.

In musing on the fudging, though, it was clear that fudging one death had changed the type of game being played, and what had happened. Where these PCs had actually survived fairly for years, beating all sorts of awful risks with actual good choices and good fortune, and had earned XP and loot for it where others had died fairly, now I was painfully unignorably aware that that was no longer true. Since a big point of play seemed to be playing out actual situations and seeing what happens, having fudged undermined all of that. I was surprised to find that I had chosen to fudge to avoid death, and that called into question what the actual risk of death was. I didn't like any answers I could find for quite a while, except that I shouldn't have done that, and I was not so happy any more with the TFT death rules. It's also part of why I like the active defense rules in GURPS, which give players under attack choices with trade-offs about what to do to reduce the risk of injury when coming under attack.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925332Sometimes it sounds as if some of you would plan, oh say a Bandit encounter by exact location, time and circumstance and if the players didn't blunder exactly into those specific parameters then it wouldn't happen. If you altered those parameters even slightly however to trigger the bandit encounter anyway, youd be railroading. If so, that's ridiculous. I would almost guarantee a HUGE majority of GMs simply jot down on a notepad "Bandits on road to castle - " and make it happen.

Yes, of course I would, sort of. But since I know this is what I am doing, I figure out what several things are near the PCs, and game it out knowing that various things can happen. Bandits aren't one possible even at one place in space/time. There's a map with bandits and others on it, and chances for other things to enter play, etc. When gaming that way, I am never in the railroad prep mode of focusing prep on only one set of things happening, and being disappointed if they don't. Instead, whether the PCs meet the bandits and in what circumstances depends on what they do, where they go, what the others do, etc. That whole level of play is very interesting to me as player or GM, and is why I do it, and why I try to avoid forced and scripted alternatives, and narrative cause & effect, etc. I have seen and tried many many different approaches, and I tend to like games that really try to be actually about the situations they say they are about, as opposed to being in a story controlled by invention and expectations.

I don't always game that way. But I really like to, and you don't seem to get what it's about or why, or to believe it exists.

Estar and rgrove and perhaps others have asserted that a good GM can fudge/invent/railroad without detection, or are bad GM's if they can't. That doesn't ring true to me at all. I agree a GM may fool all of the people some of the time, and  some people all of the time, and there are some seeds of truth in what they're saying. But overall I don't think that avoids or dissolves the issue at all. As Bren has said, I find that for me, it's far easier to detect GM manipulation than it is for me as GM to detect whether players know what I am manipulating or not.

I have played with several really good GMs who have fudged, railroaded, forced outcomes, steered things along intended plotlines, narrated prepared events, and improvised things into existence, and it was really clear that was what they were doing, even though they were doing it really well. When they were doing otherwise, the contrast was often quite evident both in what they did and just in their manner and affect and style and timing and so on.

In many cases, such GM's came up with situations that they had us arrive at, with clearly planned events that were interesting and challenging, and then at some point as the players started to respond to the situations in ways that weren't entirely planned out or involved dice and actual dynamic play, they were able to switch into a dynamic responsive mode where now things could be interacted with and caused to play out in new ways they were no longer controlling by fiat. I tend to find the dynamic parts the most interesting and game-like, and I'm glad to have played under GM's that can do that.

I've also played with GM's who can't do that very well, and those GM's I tend to stop playing with.

Moreover, playing with GM's who can support doing all sorts of things, and whose words and game situations can go all sorts of ways and make sense, and who are not attached to some particular clever series of things being done by the players, is just a different kind of gaming that I really appreciate. Many GM's are great at what they do but don't do that sort of thing much. They can still be fun to play with but it's not the same sort of game.

Just want to make sure I get this right:

Random Encounter - (Rolls Dice) - 75 - Blink Dog. You guys knew it was really supposed to be a Beholder and the GM pulled the Punch, eh? - Complete and Utter Horseshit.

Attack the Giant - Rolls dice - that's 54 HPs total, it dies.  You guys know the giant really had 64 hps and the GM is taking it easy on you, or 44 and he's being a dick? - Complete and Utter Horseshit.

Three rounds into combat, the GM starts rolling dice for some reason...three rounds later, a Woodsman Patrol comes to save your ass from Beastmen.  You can tell whether the Woodsmen were there, and he was rolling to see if they heard and how long it would take to get there, or if he decided to help out a little? - Complete and Utter Horseshit.

You make a successful perception check going through some woods - you find the tracks of orcs you're hunting.  You can tell I suppose that the GM moved the orc lair ten miles over, across the river and on the other side of a hill you just happen to be near because he wants to finish up early because he just got a Booty Call? - Complete and Utter Horseshit.

Protip: If the GM's style, delivery, timing, etc. changes when he's fudging - he sucks at it.

I'm with the play it straight and don't cheat club, and I castigate Grove mightily, but the idea that a good GM can't hide a cheat - that's just Batshit Fucking Loco.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925646Actually, yes, no one can be IC all the time, it's difficult, which is why it's so important to not have a system which FORCES you OOC.

Its just short of impossible unless the player isnt rolling dice or ever looking at a character sheet and no other player is doing anything OOC either. Not and there still be a game in there.

I can cheat all damn day, but I prefer not to. I will however do WTF it takes to make sure a 4 hour convention game gets its beginning, middle and end before that final hour chimes.

Of course, we can rail on GM styles all night long, but what I care about is this: Are you and your players having a great time? Are you happy to run again next week? Are your players happy to return? If the answer is yes, then you're doing it right EVEN if your style wouldn't work for me.

But if our GM styles are different, remember that you're just a terrible person and your lame players suck ass no matter how much fun you degenerate freaks may be having. :p

Quote from: Skarg;925650If you find yourself fudging to keep characters alive, no matter what justifications you may have, I would suggest that it would be significantly better to add a house rule and explain it up front before play. Figure out the actual rules by which you play, and explain and use those, but then go by the rules. Figure out where your actual line is where you would kill or spare the players. Is it that you just reserve the choice to your sense of what's best? Or are some stages not really in you-risk-your-life mode, because you'd fudge if someone died? (If so, why are you pretending and who are you fooling and why? I'd hate to be taking the tactics seriously and find out it doesn't really matter. Maybe you should just declare narrative mode sometimes, or hey, maybe you are happy with what you do, but I would not be as a player, unless perhaps I knew up front what was going on.) Is it that it's something about how extreme the margin is? Can you quantify it?

There are lots of RPGs that have various safeties built in to lessen the risk that characters die unexpectedly. If the table wants to mitigate PC risk I’d prefer the GM to use one of those systems or as Skarg suggests, create a house rule.

Quote from: Skarg;925652I don't always game that way. But I really like to, and you don't seem to get what it's about or why, or to believe it exists.

That is also the impression I get as well.

Quote from: Skarg;925653Estar and rgrove and perhaps others have asserted that a good GM can fudge/invent/railroad without detection, or are bad GM's if they can't. That doesn't ring true to me at all. I agree a GM may fool all of the people some of the time, and  some people all of the time, and there are some seeds of truth in what they're saying. But overall I don't think that avoids or dissolves the issue at all. As Bren has said, I find that for me, it's far easier to detect GM manipulation than it is for me as GM to detect whether players know what I am manipulating or not.

Yes. GMs who use trickery often overestimate their ability to fool all the players all of the time. And we aren’t talking about matters of certitude we are talking about what is the most likely explanation for observed phenomena.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925657Just want to make sure I get this right:

Taking your statement at face value, you are correct that sometimes GM trickery is undetectable. I don’t think I said all trickery was detectable. If I did, then I misspoke. But over time trickery tends to be found out if anyone looks for it. I strongly suspect many players collude in GM trickery by either consciously or unconsciously trying not to notice when it is likely to have occurred. This would tend to make GMs who use trickery overestimate their abilities to conceal such things.

QuoteRandom Encounter - (Rolls Dice) - 75 - Blink Dog. You guys knew it was really supposed to be a Beholder and the GM pulled the Punch, eh? - Complete and Utter Horseshit.

Not detectable.

QuoteAttack the Giant - Rolls dice - that's 54 HPs total, it dies.  You guys know the giant really had 64 hps and the GM is taking it easy on you, or 44 and he's being a dick? - Complete and Utter Horseshit.

Easily detectable that this is not a normal OD&D Hill Giant. Hill Giants have 8 hit dice for a maximum of 48 hit points, so there is something fishy about requiring 54 HPs to put him down, much less requiring 64.

Protip: The cheating GM isn’t always making things easier on the players.

QuoteThree rounds into combat, the GM starts rolling dice for some reason...three rounds later, a Woodsman Patrol comes to save your ass from Beastmen.  You can tell whether the Woodsmen were there, and he was rolling to see if they heard and how long it would take to get there, or if he decided to help out a little? - Complete and Utter Horseshit.

A single instance? No you can’t detect that. A pattern of last minute saves by the fantasy cavalry over time strongly indicates GM cheating.

QuoteYou make a successful perception check going through some woods - you find the tracks of orcs you're hunting.  You can tell I suppose that the GM moved the orc lair ten miles over, across the river and on the other side of a hill you just happen to be near because he wants to finish up early because he just got a Booty Call? - Complete and Utter Horseshit.

That depends on how familiar the area is. Orc lairs aren’t likely to appear overnight. But in an unfamiliar area, not detectable.

QuoteProtip: If the GM's style, delivery, timing, etc. changes when he's fudging - he sucks at it.

I'm with the play it straight and don't cheat club, and I castigate Grove mightily, but the idea that a good GM can't hide a cheat - that's just Batshit Fucking Loco.

Being a good GM does not require being a good cheater. And good cheaters can be lousy GMs. But if you want to entirely define the problem away by assuming cheating is always undetectable, will OK then. Nobody knows when the awesome cheater GM cheats because remaining undetectable is part of the definition of being an awesome cheating GM.

Now that we have defined that problem away we can all retire to the Perfect Island, which must exist by definition, and contemplate Decartes’ “Cogito ergo sum.”

Quote from: Bren;925696Easily detectable that this is not a normal OD&D Hill Giant. Hill Giants have 8 hit dice for a maximum of 48 hit points, so there is something fishy about requiring 54 HPs to put him down, much less requiring 64.

What the hell? Where in the chain of posts is it implied anybody is talking about a particular edition of D&D. It quite obvious that CK was thinking of AD&D in coming up with the numbers where hit dice for monster is a d8. You didn't answer his point.

As for the rest of your specifics, yes if you consistently cheat a pattern will emerge and the players will notice. What your point? We all know that, I said it and other said that. CK is right calling it horseshit that a referee deciding on an arbitrary result once in a while is automatically detectable. It could be detectable if done poorly.

Quote from: Bren;925696Being a good GM does not require being a good cheater.

True.

Quote from: Bren;925696And good cheaters can be lousy GMs.

True.

Quote from: Bren;925696But if you want to entirely define the problem away by assuming cheating is always undetectable, will OK then.

I'm doing nothing of the sort, and you know that, or should if you were thinking clearly.

Quote from: Bren;925696Nobody knows when the awesome cheater GM cheats because remaining undetectable is part of the definition of being an awesome cheating GM.

Now you're misstating my position.

BTW, where did I say OD&D or even "Hill"? I didn't, so the Giant example isn't detectable either.

You agreed with me that those were undetectable unless they become a pattern.

My actual position was:
Changing up your style when fudging makes you detectable.
Always fudging, steering, etc, makes you detectable.
Fudging/steering once in a while to get a desired result, if the GM doesn't obviously telegraph it, will be near impossible to detect.  By anyone.  Even Benoist. :D

These are things that no one should be objecting to, if they aren't laying their balls on the table and beating their chest bragging about their Uber Railroad Detection skills RAAR!!! No, I'm not targeting you, just all the people in this thread who apparently think that in their whole gaming careers, a GM's never fudged them without their detection.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925706BTW, where did I say OD&D or even "Hill"? I didn't, so the Giant example isn't detectable either.

My mistake. I don't know why I read it as a Hill Giant. It's kind of weird actually as that is how I read it. Then I thought, I wonder how many hit dice a Hill Giant has, which, unlike the D&D Troll's 6HD+3, I couldn't recall the exact number. So I looked it up in my old D&D books, saw it was 8 hit dice, and I thought - Ah Ha! Counter example. Double sigh.

But if you said Hill Giant it would have been a possible counter example. Which also goes to show how sometimes cheating gets detected by the careless cheater.

QuoteYou agreed with me that those were undetectable unless they become a pattern.

I agree there are single incidents that cannot be detected. Some of those types of incidents can be detected when they form a pattern. Detection of some types of incidents (like turning near misses into hits and vice versa) are easier or only possible if the GM is open about dice rolling rather than hiding the dice rolled behind a GM screen.

QuoteMy actual position was:
Changing up your style when fudging makes you detectable.
Always fudging, steering, etc, makes you detectable.
Fudging/steering once in a while to get a desired result, if the GM doesn't obviously telegraph it, will be near impossible to detect.  By anyone.

I quibble a little with the phrase "obviously telegraph" as the ability of people to read subtleties varies so someone who is good at that may, like a good gambler, be able to read a lot from unobvious tells.

QuoteEven Benoist. :D

Presumably this is a humorous reference towards the poster known as Benoist. Like Data through much of TNG I just do not get it.

QuoteNo, I'm not targeting you, just all the people in this thread who apparently think that in their whole gaming careers, a GM's never fudged them without their detection.

OK then. I agree it is unreasonable for someone to claim to be able to detect all trickery.

Quote from: Bren;925725Presumably this is a humorous reference towards the poster known as Benoist.

Benoist is as old school play it straight as it gets, so I meant if he can get fudged and not detect it (and I contend he has) then anyone can.

I still detect an underlying current within many of the posts that seem to indicate some sort of competitive dynamic between players and GM. I know there are some games designed this way. My group enjoys the occasional game of Descent which is absolutely a competition. Most roleplaying games however aren't. The GM is there to facilitate and challenge, provoke and entertain, judge and manage, not to beat anybody. He has absolute power in making the game what it is therefore he can kill at a whim or make the whole party Kings! I cant say in all my days gaming the idea of the GM cheating ever even came to mind. Players cheating? Sure, Ive caught a few trying to hedge rolls, add modifiers that weren't there, conveniently forget hindering conditions etc. They are after all, competing against the system and setting to accomplish something. The GM however? His only goal is to make sure everyone has a good time!

I have always made this clear when starting a new group or campaign. I am there to present the world and manage the action so that everyone has fun. I may deviate from rules on occasion, manipulate the laws of nature and averages, and whatever else I deem appropriate in order to ensure this objective is reached. Nobody has ever accused me of 'cheating', not because it was obvious or not, but because it doesn't freaking matter! I would think its assumed the GM tinkers with the action at times, manipulates the setting, maneuvers situations and dangles NPCs on his strings. So what? Unless something dreadful happens to the characters and it seems as if the GM 'cheated' to cause it, I cant imagine ever even bringing it up as a player.

If 'cheating' means to operate counter to the rules as written. Every GM that has ever breathed is guilty, no arguments please...

If 'cheating' means to take unscrupulous action counter to the rules in order to win a contest, then only a complete dickhead GM would ever do such a thing and Ill go ahead and assume none of us fit that description.

So if we are going to talk railroading, illusionism or whatever, please lets remove the 'cheating' references. They just don't fit and lend a negative aspect to the approach that just doesn't belong there.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925736I have always made this clear when starting a new group or campaign. I am there to present the world and manage the action so that everyone has fun. I may deviate from rules on occasion, manipulate the laws of nature and averages, and whatever else I deem appropriate in order to ensure this objective is reached. Nobody has ever accused me of 'cheating', not because it was obvious or not, but because it doesn't freaking matter!

I would think its assumed the GM tinkers with the action at times, manipulates the setting, maneuvers situations and dangles NPCs on his strings. So what?

If you tinker, jiggle, juggle, massage and manipulate, then you are trying to make things fun for us.  If you hang back, and keep the thumb off the scale, then we're making fun for ourselves.

You have heard of why you don't assume, right? :)

Quote from: rgrove0172;925736If 'cheating' means to operate counter to the rules as written. Every GM that has ever breathed is guilty, no arguments please...

"Operating counter to RAW" does not mean "Operating counter to RAW differently whenever I wish to generate a different result."  Not the same thing at all.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925736So if we are going to talk railroading, illusionism or whatever, please lets remove the 'cheating' references. They just don't fit and lend a negative aspect to the approach that just doesn't belong there.

Can't do it, Hoss.  If I'm trying to catch an NPC, the NPC's rolls and my rolls determine I caught that NPC and you let the NPC escape simply because you didn't want me to catch him...you just cheated me.  Plainly, simply, cheated me.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925657Just want to make sure I get this right:

Random Encounter - (Rolls Dice) - 75 - Blink Dog. You guys knew it was really supposed to be a Beholder and the GM pulled the Punch, eh? - Complete and Utter Horseshit.

I likely wouldn't notice that, unless the GM really showed it. I would hope I wouldn't even know that he was rolling for a random encounter.

QuoteAttack the Giant - Rolls dice - that's 54 HPs total, it dies.  You guys know the giant really had 64 hps and the GM is taking it easy on you, or 44 and he's being a dick? - Complete and Utter Horseshit.

First time I've heard of a GM deciding to reduce the HP of a major foe, unless he knew the Giant would almost surely kill a PC next turn, and he was such a crap GM that he didn't realize he could have the giant do all sorts of other things, instead of breaking the rules of the game.

Keep a big monster alive that way? I might not know but I have been pretty sure things like that were happening with some crap GMs, who were visibly confused and pretty transparent. With a good GM I probably wouldn't be able to pick that detail out, especially because, especially in the games I like to play, and with GM's I consider good, lots of things could be going on. The giant could have some in-world reason for having more HP or soaking damage or not even really be a giant or who knows what.

But more broadly, with many GM's, one automatically starts to get a feel for what mode they're in, especially when they think it's part of their job to have things go a certain way, and they're chugging along but then have to switch modes when facing situations that weren't as they expected, or that they have to make up instead or just doing their script, or, yes, when the combat isn't playing out the way they want or expect. You know how little kids sound when they're lying about not having pooped their pants or not having had their cookie yet, or having done their homework? Some GM's have a tinge of that when they announce some of their combat results that happen to be about delicate events, and some of those GM's think it's part of their job so they don't even try to hide it sometimes, and/or talk about it outside play.

QuoteThree rounds into combat, the GM starts rolling dice for some reason...three rounds later, a Woodsman Patrol comes to save your ass from Beastmen.  You can tell whether the Woodsmen were there, and he was rolling to see if they heard and how long it would take to get there, or if he decided to help out a little? - Complete and Utter Horseshit.

Probably not in that situation. How about rgrove's situation from the other thread where no matter how many assassins in an alley you defeat, more appear until you need to retreat, and once you really are in danger because finally your HP are really low, that is the moment that the obvious plothook NPC manages to finish picking a lock and let you in to escape? Seems to me that either the GM is making you fight a surreal bogus encounter that he thinks is cool (as he said he was doing in the thread), or it's all staged by a completely unbelievable organization who so wants this to happen this way that it's willing to sacrifice a large number of assassins for dramatic effect. Combined with the tells of many even quite good GM's I've played with who switch between story mode and real play mode and something in-between, I'd think that at least sometimes, I'd have a strong sense of it.

QuoteYou make a successful perception check going through some woods - you find the tracks of orcs you're hunting.  You can tell I suppose that the GM moved the orc lair ten miles over, across the river and on the other side of a hill you just happen to be near because he wants to finish up early because he just got a Booty Call? - Complete and Utter Horseshit.

Did the GM let me roll my own perception check, or even say that's what dice were being rolled for? Hopefully not.

Depends on the GM's tells, and on how the gameplay usually goes around doing stuff outside.

In a game where outdoor movement and events involve a landscape where the GM has a detailed terrain map and considered long-range movements of PC & NPC elements over time, considering fields of vision and so on, unless the party is deep in unknown woods and isn't doing well tracking the orcs, there would tend (or at least their could be) major effects on what clues and observations were available if the orc lair were 10 miles in one direction or another, assuming the orcs leave the lair from time to time and leave footprints and tracks and scout around and whatever.

With a GM who doesn't even really use a map, there isn't even really anything I care about in play because he's just mostly making it up or requiring us to say we do things to his satsisfaction because that feels right to him, or maybe if we're lucky he has some chances assigned which reflect our choices and character skills and it's not just a matter of finding out how long before we get to the inevitable orc encounter he planned. We might not be able to tell exactly what happened or where the point of manipulation was, but it's usually pretty clear what sorts of things matter and what sorts of things are real or fake issues in a GM especially after playing with them for a while, because of their emphasis, what details they give, what questions he asks, what seems to work or have any effect, etc etc etc. There are many GMs, some of whom are "good" by many measures, where it's really clear most such details are mostly or entirely arbitrary and just for show and subject to the GM's whim, and other GMs who are interested in more of a sandbox/simulation thing and modeling some cause & effect and various possible outcomes and developments. And yes, for GM's who do some mix, there are often many tells, especially when they don't think there's much/any reason to try especially hard to hide the difference.

QuoteProtip: If the GM's style, delivery, timing, etc. changes when he's fudging - he sucks at it.

I'm with the play it straight and don't cheat club, and I castigate Grove mightily, but the idea that a good GM can't hide a cheat - that's just Batshit Fucking Loco.

If you mean that a GM who also gets that there is an important difference and who focuses on trying to not give it away, and is good at fudging and hiding it, then yeah you're probably right.

I am (and I expect others are) speaking of experience with actual GM's (some of whom were talented as GM's if not as undetectable fudgers), where it was often clear what was going on with their GM'ing, not that we could read their minds about details, but that we could tell if it switched from prepared "plot" content to adlib, and whether encounters were pre-planned by the GM as opposed to being the results of events caused unpredictably during play. In fact, for many good GM's, I think there's a skill of communicating what mode the GM is in, which as long as the players are ok with it, is a nonverbal way of signaling what mode he is GM'ing in, for reasons of efficiency and focus. If the GM has an elaborate tactical map of the bridge you're crossing with counters pre-placed, he's not hiding that this is a pre-planned situation, and this can be fine and I've often done it even in sandbox mode, though some GMs would allow changes in plan to change or bypass that setup, and others wouldn't, and the (un)availability of those options can often be pretty clear.

Just as a GM may sometimes explicitly say he's interested in fast-forwarding time or skipping some details or not roleplaying out some things at some points (and likely ask if that works for what they players have in mind, or if they don't mind or whatever), it seems to me that many GM's communicate some style and gameplay shifts and other metagame things by clues and cues of manner and mood and language, which they're not trying to hide, and becomes a way of interacting with the GM. This also extends into GMs telegraphing cause & effect which is outside the in-character in-world details. Crude examples include when GM's start describing things in lots of details and asking exactly what PCs are doing, where they're standing, what equipment they're carrying where on their bodies etc., or when they just let in-town events be broadly described and done, versus when they describe the shopkeepers in detail. Or when they narrate a bunch of peculiar details of some NPCs doing things, such as the carriage house kerchief episode mentioned by someone. More subtly, players can learn what styles of communication and what types of things they can say and/or how they say them can result in more or less favorable, or different types of, results and attention from a GM. Some GM's respond to the most vocal or aggressive players. Other GMs respond favorably to players who take their clues and interests and play along and with them. Other GMs reward detailed explanations of caution. Others like clever ideas. Others warp their universe to accommodate rule of cool. Some will let you invent stuff to appear in their worlds with generosity, versus others who get mad at you for trying that, or for other player behavior. Sometimes it's pretty subtle. Players learn to play and interpret their GMs. Part of that is often being able to tell they are feeding you their juicy prep, or letting rolls stand no matter what versus fudging to avoid certain results, etc.

Also consider some reverse perspectives:

If your play sessions do seem to pretty clearly include having missed lots of stuff that was going on that logically you would have found if you'd gone a different way or traveled at a different pace or made different choices, then probably the GM isn't forcing that to happen.

If you try unexpected moves like going off-road and taking strange courses and pro-actively causing trouble and adventure and stuff, take initiative and drive events, and the GM allows it and it seems to have logical effects, the GM probably isn't artificially driving that.

If the GM describes stuff that it pretty clearly hooks into adventures and mysteries and detailed mapped places and so on, and the players think about it and choose to do something quite creative and different, and/or go explore someplace else instead, and the GM lets you go do that, and later those situations seem to have played out by themselves and/or been affected logically by what your group came up with by itself to do, then the GM probably isn't causing and forcing that unless he is a guru of manipulating players.

By contrast, if all the notable events and happening seem to be right when the players are there, often in seemingly coincidental ways, and not much that isn't plot-relevant happens, and all the clues end up being relevant to "the adventure" or "the plot", then that's probably the scope of the game being presented by the GM. Now, there are players as well as people in real life, who mainly react to others and situations around them. I've sometimes lived that way too, mainly when I was overwhelmed with commitments or needy friends, or when I was depressed. However if/when in the real world or some games, people start taking matters into their own hands, taking initiative, doing inventive or random/different things, then all sorts of other things are possible... unless it's a game where the GM (and not actual in-game faeries as in one example above, nor actual teleporting towers steered by a wizard hunting the PCs) is forcing certain things to happen.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925743If you tinker, jiggle, juggle, massage and manipulate, then you are trying to make things fun for us.  If you hang back, and keep the thumb off the scale, then we're making fun for ourselves.

You have heard of why you don't assume, right? :)

No "I'm not trying to make things fun for us."  I'm trying to make sure everyone is maximally engaged the maximum amount of time.
I've been witness to too many sessions/campaigns/games(however the hell you want to describe it) stall/stutter/fail/fall flat(however the hell you want to describe it) because a dipshit or three clings to some mantra about the true way to play.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925743"Operating counter to RAW" does not mean "Operating counter to RAW differently whenever I wish to generate a different result."  Not the same thing at all.

This has dick-all to do with RAW.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925743Can't do it, Hoss.  If I'm trying to catch an NPC, the NPC's rolls and my rolls determine I caught that NPC and you let the NPC escape simply because you didn't want me to catch him...you just cheated me.  Plainly, simply, cheated me.

Maybe you shouldn't consider this a competition.

Quote from: Spinachcat;925666I can cheat all damn day, but I prefer not to. I will however do WTF it takes to make sure a 4 hour convention game gets its beginning, middle and end before that final hour chimes.

In a four hour convention game I will accept, and sometimes even welcome the GM flat out saying "there is nothing else significant here, do you want to move on now?"
But, a convention game is a special case. There is no "continued next session..." In regular campaign play I will happily let the players waste as much time as like, chasing red herrings and going down rabbit holes. If nothing else it gives me time to think about what they have expressed interest in and develop some possible future hooks.
 
As far as GM tells, many players will instant alert on "the room seems/appears to be empty" much more than on "the room is empty".  Or the NPC who gets described in detail.  As a GM I have taught myself to occasionally describe insignificant details, just to keep it from being obvious that something is important because it's detailed.

Quote from: Sommerjon;925746No "I'm not trying to make things fun for us."  I'm trying to make sure everyone is maximally engaged the maximum amount of time.
I've been witness to too many sessions/campaigns/games(however the hell you want to describe it) stall/stutter/fail/fall flat(however the hell you want to describe it) because a dipshit or three clings to some mantra about the true way to play.

If they actually played according to the "mantra" you claim they are sticking to, then to them it's not "stalled", they're just not doing what you want them to do.  Or, if the game is really stalled because they claim they want freedom, but don't know what to do with it, and want to be pulled along, just as long as they have the illusion of freedom, then that's should be easy to figure out and then dump them, trick them, or change expectations.

Quote from: Sommerjon;925746This has dick-all to do with RAW.

That was Grove basically making a false equivalency between House Rules (which everyone does) and "Setting aside rules willy-nilly-at-whim-when-needed-to-achieve-the-story", which is his M.O.  One has nothing to do with the other, which is what I stated.

Quote from: Sommerjon;925746Maybe you shouldn't consider this a competition.

If you are going to overrule dice for no in-setting reason, simply for "drama", "pacing", "because you feel like it" why even bother with the sham of having them?  Just tell us a story.

I don't care if you're "GM as Entertainer" or "GM as Referee".  What I don't want is you pretending to be one, but actually being the other.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925750If they actually played according to the "mantra" you claim they are sticking to, then to them it's not "stalled", they're just not doing what you want them to do.  Or, if the game is really stalled because they claim they want freedom, but don't know what to do with it, and want to be pulled along, just as long as they have the illusion of freedom, then that's should be easy to figure out and then dump them, trick them, or change expectations.

What mantra is that?

Quote from: CRKrueger;925750That was Grove basically making a false equivalency between House Rules (which everyone does) and "Setting aside rules willy-nilly-at-whim-when-needed-to-achieve-the-story", which is his M.O.  One has nothing to do with the other, which is what I stated.

No that is you worshiping a set of standards you refuse to think can not be changed when the need arises.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925750If you are going to overrule dice for no in-setting reason, simply for "drama", "pacing", "because you feel like it" why even bother with the sham of having them?  Just tell us a story.

There's the hyperbole.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925750I don't care if you're "GM as Entertainer" or "GM as Referee".  What I don't want is you pretending to be one, but actually being the other.

Because I am both.

Quote from: Skarg;925745especially when they think it's part of their job to have things go a certain way, and they're chugging along but then have to switch modes when facing situations that weren't as they expected, or that they have to make up instead or just doing their script, or, yes, when the combat isn't playing out the way they want or expect. You know how little kids sound when they're lying about not having pooped their pants or not having had their cookie yet, or having done their homework? Some GM's have a tinge of that when they announce some of their combat results that happen to be about delicate events, and some of those GM's think it's part of their job so they don't even try to hide it sometimes, and/or talk about it outside play.

Quote from: Skarg;925745Combined with the tells of many even quite good GM's I've played with who switch between story mode and real play mode and something in-between, I'd think that at least sometimes, I'd have a strong sense of it.

Quote from: Skarg;925745And yes, for GM's who do some mix, there are often many tells, especially when they don't think there's much/any reason to try especially hard to hide the difference.

So...

• The guy who's not trying to hide anything won't have anything hidden from you.
• The guy who thinks it's his job to manipulate things and says so openly will have his manipulations detected.
• The ones who have the guile of children being potty-trained can't defeat your acumen.
• The GM's who habitually drop into Story Mode and develop a pattern will have that pattern detected.

I wasn't talking about these GM's.  Well I was when I said they "sucked at it".

Quote from: Skarg;925745If you mean that a GM who also gets that there is an important difference and who focuses on trying to not give it away, and is good at fudging and hiding it, then yeah you're probably right.

Yes, this GM is what I mean.

Quote from: Sommerjon;925752There's the hyperbole.

"Worshipping" isn't hyperbole?
Still, I'll grant it's a spectrum on one side between Grove, who fudges whatever, whenever, and his players know it and don't care, and the maniacs of The Gaming Den, who claim if a system can't be played with computers and no people then it's Mother-May-I.  Everyone else lies somewhere in the middle.

However, I contend that if you don't want to abide by the die roll, engineer it so the die roll does not happen.  In the specific example I was referring to, Grove admitted he fucked-up by telegraphing that NPC, and by setting it up so the player could catch him via the rules.  Once he did that, and he rolled lousy and the player rolled great, the only way to avoid that outcome was to cheat.  To take the exceptional performance of the PC's skill and nullify it.  Don't do that.  If you don't want to rely on the outcome of the dice, don't go to the dice.  If you do go to the dice and don't get the expected outcome, own it, eat it, and roll with it.

Quote from: Sommerjon;925752Because I am both.

Granted, but not when I roll a 20, you roll a 1 and I still miss because you want the NPC to get away because the scene later that is SO COOL will be ruined if he doesn't get away.  Then you shouldn't be the entertainer, you should be the referee and not pretend to be refereeing if you wanna storytell.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925736I still detect an underlying current within many of the posts that seem to indicate some sort of competitive dynamic between players and GM. I know there are some games designed this way. My group enjoys the occasional game of Descent which is absolutely a competition. Most roleplaying games however aren't. The GM is there to facilitate and challenge, provoke and entertain, judge and manage, not to beat anybody. He has absolute power in making the game what it is therefore he can kill at a whim or make the whole party Kings! I cant say in all my days gaming the idea of the GM cheating ever even came to mind. Players cheating? Sure, Ive caught a few trying to hedge rolls, add modifiers that weren't there, conveniently forget hindering conditions etc. They are after all, competing against the system and setting to accomplish something. The GM however? His only goal is to make sure everyone has a good time! ...

Speaking for myself, the places where in this thread I refer to cheating and deception, I don't mean for the purposes of competition. I mean for the purposes of trying to avoid an unwanted result, even if to improve how "good" a time is had. I would also add that it seems like a case of cheating oneself out of a better experience, by undermining one's own play style and not confronting and doing something about what's going on, to make for a better game.

And all that, I mean from a place of understanding that people should play as they like to, and that there is a wide range of options, and that I have and sometimes continue to use some of the methods being discussed. My goal in this thread is to communicate that I see value in consistent rules and playing out situations without bending stuff, and trying to show there can be value in that, to people who either don't seem to get that there is value there, or that not doing that is entirely equivalent to doing it. From experience, one of my main interests in gaming, and preferred styles for gaming, is about setting up situations and rules and playing them out without GM fudging or input from meta-stuff, be it player notions, GM notions, narrative notions, or whatever. I appreciate the differences, both as a player and as a GM. There are trade-offs and limits, but it seems to me there are major differences and value to playing in/with/out an actual detailed and consistent situation with fixed rules and no conceits that warp the situation or the rules or outcomes.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925736I still detect an underlying current within many of the posts that seem to indicate some sort of competitive dynamic between players and GM.

I know there are some games designed this way. My group enjoys the occasional game of Descent which is absolutely a competition.

1: Its how some players try to play RPGs. Like it was a board game you could win either by amassing the most loot, killing other PCs, or constantly one upping/screwing with the DM. Then theres the DMs who seem to be in it only to see how many characters they can kill. Hence the adversarial mindset some players have. This has been around a long long time. Neither are good play styles as its rare everyones on board for a slaughterfest and theres ample evidence if just how much players have despised it.

2: Thats because Descent and other board games like it are not RPGs.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925657Just want to make sure I get this right:

Random Encounter - (Rolls Dice) - 75 - Blink Dog. You guys knew it was really supposed to be a Beholder and the GM pulled the Punch, eh? - Complete and Utter Horseshit.

Attack the Giant - Rolls dice - that's 54 HPs total, it dies.  You guys know the giant really had 64 hps and the GM is taking it easy on you, or 44 and he's being a dick? - Complete and Utter Horseshit.

Three rounds into combat, the GM starts rolling dice for some reason...three rounds later, a Woodsman Patrol comes to save your ass from Beastmen.  You can tell whether the Woodsmen were there, and he was rolling to see if they heard and how long it would take to get there, or if he decided to help out a little? - Complete and Utter Horseshit.

You make a successful perception check going through some woods - you find the tracks of orcs you're hunting.  You can tell I suppose that the GM moved the orc lair ten miles over, across the river and on the other side of a hill you just happen to be near because he wants to finish up early because he just got a Booty Call? - Complete and Utter Horseshit.

Protip: If the GM's style, delivery, timing, etc. changes when he's fudging - he sucks at it.

I'm with the play it straight and don't cheat club, and I castigate Grove mightily, but the idea that a good GM can't hide a cheat - that's just Batshit Fucking Loco.

I'm not sure you have gotten this right.

You are correct, that if you take any one of your examples in total isolation, I doubt any player is going to detect the cheat if the GM hides it well. But to even examine things in this way entirely misses the point. When the GM has an agenda, there is a cluster of cheats in the same direction. That's when a pattern becomes discernible to a highly perceptive player.

Quote from: Skarg;925779Speaking for myself, the places where in this thread I refer to cheating and deception, I don't mean for the purposes of competition. I mean for the purposes of trying to avoid an unwanted result, even if to improve how "good" a time is had. I would also add that it seems like a case of cheating oneself out of a better experience, by undermining one's own play style and not confronting and doing something about what's going on, to make for a better game.

And all that, I mean from a place of understanding that people should play as they like to, and that there is a wide range of options, and that I have and sometimes continue to use some of the methods being discussed. My goal in this thread is to communicate that I see value in consistent rules and playing out situations without bending stuff, and trying to show there can be value in that, to people who either don't seem to get that there is value there, or that not doing that is entirely equivalent to doing it. From experience, one of my main interests in gaming, and preferred styles for gaming, is about setting up situations and rules and playing them out without GM fudging or input from meta-stuff, be it player notions, GM notions, narrative notions, or whatever. I appreciate the differences, both as a player and as a GM. There are trade-offs and limits, but it seems to me there are major differences and value to playing in/with/out an actual detailed and consistent situation with fixed rules and no conceits that warp the situation or the rules or outcomes.

I completely understand and agree there is value in every approach, completely hands off included.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925766"Worshipping" isn't hyperbole?

No it isn't hyperbole.
Worship:

• reverent honor and homage paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred.
• adoring reverence or regard
• the object of adoring reverence or regard.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925766Still, I'll grant it's a spectrum on one side between Grove, who fudges whatever, whenever, and his players know it and don't care, and the maniacs of The Gaming Den, who claim if a system can't be played with computers and no people then it's Mother-May-I.  Everyone else lies somewhere in the middle.

However, I contend that if you don't want to abide by the die roll, engineer it so the die roll does not happen.  In the specific example I was referring to, Grove admitted he fucked-up by telegraphing that NPC, and by setting it up so the player could catch him via the rules.  Once he did that, and he rolled lousy and the player rolled great, the only way to avoid that outcome was to cheat.  To take the exceptional performance of the PC's skill and nullify it.  Don't do that.  If you don't want to rely on the outcome of the dice, don't go to the dice.  If you do go to the dice and don't get the expected outcome, own it, eat it, and roll with it.

See this is you paying honor to the sacredness of the d20.
Hell you even bold, underline and italics your reverence.

Look at what you said there.   What skill was exceptional by the player, rolling well?  

Quote from: CRKrueger;925766Granted, but not when I roll a 20, you roll a 1 and I still miss because you want the NPC to get away because the scene later that is SO COOL will be ruined if he doesn't get away.  Then you shouldn't be the entertainer, you should be the referee and not pretend to be refereeing if you wanna storytell.

Referee; the dumbest title ever for someone in charge of running a game.

Are you the dipshit player who constantly needs to roll to validate your gaming penis?

Quote from: Skarg;925779Speaking for myself, the places where in this thread I refer to cheating and deception, I don't mean for the purposes of competition. I mean for the purposes of trying to avoid an unwanted result, even if to improve how "good" a time is had. I would also add that it seems like a case of cheating oneself out of a better experience, by undermining one's own play style and not confronting and doing something about what's going on, to make for a better game.

What would be this conjecturally better experience be?

Blimey.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]476[/ATTACH]

Quote from: One Horse Town;925898Blimey.

I thought you didn't give a fuck?

Quote from: Sommerjon;925899I thought you didn't give a fuck?

If you can tell me what that quote in your signature is in relation to i might be able to answer. Bit creepy that you've carried it around for years tbh.

Quote from: Sommerjon;925889

Quote from: SkargSpeaking for myself, ... I would also add that it seems like a case of cheating oneself out of a better experience, by undermining one's own play style and not confronting and doing something about what's going on, to make for a better game.

What would be this conjecturally better experience be?

For one thing, staying clear and truthful and keeping agreements about what a group of people is doing. For another, getting to play a game about the game situation, and not one about pretending to be playing a game about the game situation, but really having the GM force the course and results according to things that have nothing to do with the situation, thus making it no longer a game about that situation. For another, the challenge of facing dangerous, interesting, challenging, otherworldly and wild situations and make decisions that actually relate to those situations, and see what happens, as opposed to seeing what the GM forced to happen because he thinks his notions of what's cool or fun or dramatic or clever are better than the situation supposedly in play, often without even telling the players which is which. For another, not having to wonder whether what you do or how you do it actually has any particular effect on the outcome. For another, not having to figure out how to work the GM since you know that's what you're really doing.

Also there's the situation I described above, where I'd been GM'ing by the rules & dice for years, and then I once saved a player by deus ex machina fiat, and it called into question for me everything I'd done up till then. I wasn't sure what I'd've done if it happened earlier, or what I'd do in future, and that seemed to invalidate the whole idea of playing a game as opposed to playing make believe.

Of course it's subjective, but when players and GMs actively deny there's any value or difference in not fudging and deceiving about what's going on, and/or almost never play otherwise, I wonder how they'd know.

Also I wonder when people feel this way, what the motive is to conceal it and act as if there were no deception or fudging? Is it not that they too feel there would be value in there being a real detailed & consistent game world to explore that has logic that isn't just being dreamed up by the GM according to what seems cool at the moment? And/or that ideally they wouldn't have to fudge die rolls because all results were interesting and fun?

For me, both as GM and as player, when there is a consistent world and rules in play it's an entirely different kind of game that involves entirely different mindsets, versus the GM making things up and changing results. To me, it remains a game up to when the GM alters results and situations (or railroads), at which point there's an intermission and a new game situation gets presented... When the GM hides or is unclear whether the rules and situation are really being used or not, the players don't know if they're playing a game (where there choices result in consistent effects), or if the game is actually being altered by the GM. I'd rather stay in an actual game situation as much as possible. I don't want to be trying to actually understand a situation that isn't really there because the GM just has predetermined events in mind that'll happen whether I do something clever or stupid. I don't want to figure out what to do to survive a deadly tactical situation, only to realize the GM is going to let us all live and triumph even if we just say nonsense about how we do cool surreal nonsense we saw in an anime.

I usually prefer to play a game with consistent cause & effect and chances of things happening that reflect the situation as if there were no GM/gods/rule-o-cool/egotists/dramatic-sensibilities/genre-conventions/TV-show-directors/whatever altering what happens for reasons that are not about what exists in the game situation.

Personally, I'm annoyed by lazy films and TV shows where it's painfully clear that things happen and people are being killed or not based on drama and other nonsense, to the point that there is no illusion of the situation being something worth much thought or even the actors behaving like the danger isn't really there, and the way they act is based on the TV logic rather than anything that makes sense. Even comparing to what I consider much less lazy and better done films/TV/books/plays, there is often what seems to me a severe laziness, apathy, and low quality that shows the glaring symptom of seeming forced and inauthentic. In really well-done drama, I can get sucked in even though there is a script because the author, director, and actors developed things enough, take them seriously enough, that it is about the experience of being in the actual situation and facing the uncertainty and choices of those situations as if they were real and their outcomes not known nor controlled in favor of main characters or genre conventions or whatever "meta" considerations that are outside the drama and should not from character perspective exist or have any weight at all. Seems like a parallel sort of thing to me.

Quote from: One Horse Town;925898Blimey.

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No one's 100% anything, so sometimes you can have a conversation, but...yeah.

Quote from: One Horse Town;925901If you can tell me what that quote in your signature is in relation to i might be able to answer. Bit creepy that you've carried it around for years tbh.

This here.
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?21777-Why-did-4e-fail&p=721820&viewfull=1#post721820

Quote from: CRKrueger;925909No one's 100% anything, so sometimes you can have a conversation, but...yeah.

This here.
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?21777-Why-did-4e-fail&p=721820&viewfull=1#post721820

Right. I still don't give a fuck about what outsold what according to whom.

Quote from: Skarg;925906For one thing, staying clear and truthful and keeping agreements about what a group of people is doing. For another, getting to play a game about the game situation, and not one about pretending to be playing a game about the game situation, but really having the GM force the course and results according to things that have nothing to do with the situation, thus making it no longer a game about that situation. For another, the challenge of facing dangerous, interesting, challenging, otherworldly and wild situations and make decisions that actually relate to those situations, and see what happens, as opposed to seeing what the GM forced to happen because he thinks his notions of what's cool or fun or dramatic or clever are better than the situation supposedly in play, often without even telling the players which is which. For another, not having to wonder whether what you do or how you do it actually has any particular effect on the outcome. For another, not having to figure out how to work the GM since you know that's what you're really doing.

Also there's the situation I described above, where I'd been GM'ing by the rules & dice for years, and then I once saved a player by deus ex machina fiat, and it called into question for me everything I'd done up till then. I wasn't sure what I'd've done if it happened earlier, or what I'd do in future, and that seemed to invalidate the whole idea of playing a game as opposed to playing make believe.

Of course it's subjective, but when players and GMs actively deny there's any value or difference in not fudging and deceiving about what's going on, and/or almost never play otherwise, I wonder how they'd know.

Also I wonder when people feel this way, what the motive is to conceal it and act as if there were no deception or fudging? Is it not that they too feel there would be value in there being a real detailed & consistent game world to explore that has logic that isn't just being dreamed up by the GM according to what seems cool at the moment? And/or that ideally they wouldn't have to fudge die rolls because all results were interesting and fun?

For me, both as GM and as player, when there is a consistent world and rules in play it's an entirely different kind of game that involves entirely different mindsets, versus the GM making things up and changing results. To me, it remains a game up to when the GM alters results and situations (or railroads), at which point there's an intermission and a new game situation gets presented... When the GM hides or is unclear whether the rules and situation are really being used or not, the players don't know if they're playing a game (where there choices result in consistent effects), or if the game is actually being altered by the GM. I'd rather stay in an actual game situation as much as possible. I don't want to be trying to actually understand a situation that isn't really there because the GM just has predetermined events in mind that'll happen whether I do something clever or stupid. I don't want to figure out what to do to survive a deadly tactical situation, only to realize the GM is going to let us all live and triumph even if we just say nonsense about how we do cool surreal nonsense we saw in an anime.

I usually prefer to play a game with consistent cause & effect and chances of things happening that reflect the situation as if there were no GM/gods/rule-o-cool/egotists/dramatic-sensibilities/genre-conventions/TV-show-directors/whatever altering what happens for reasons that are not about what exists in the game situation.

Personally, I'm annoyed by lazy films and TV shows where it's painfully clear that things happen and people are being killed or not based on drama and other nonsense, to the point that there is no illusion of the situation being something worth much thought or even the actors behaving like the danger isn't really there, and the way they act is based on the TV logic rather than anything that makes sense. Even comparing to what I consider much less lazy and better done films/TV/books/plays, there is often what seems to me a severe laziness, apathy, and low quality that shows the glaring symptom of seeming forced and inauthentic. In really well-done drama, I can get sucked in even though there is a script because the author, director, and actors developed things enough, take them seriously enough, that it is about the experience of being in the actual situation and facing the uncertainty and choices of those situations as if they were real and their outcomes not known nor controlled in favor of main characters or genre conventions or whatever "meta" considerations that are outside the drama and should not from character perspective exist or have any weight at all. Seems like a parallel sort of thing to me.

And yet, all the while you are being sucked by or in to that drama you are watching you know there is a script, a pre determined order of scenes, a finite outcome. This doesn't ruin the show for you of course because despite knowing the above, you aren't familiar with the specifics. This character might die, this ploy may fail, the bomb might go off etc. There is a bit of difference between this and a game where you actually have input but as far as uncertainty, there is no more or no less than if a heavy handed GM is running the show. You really cant enjoy one and not the other.

Kind of funny. When Hilary gets caught with her pants down on some embarrassing political issue revealed by a wiki link, she starts screaming Russians! Around here Trolls are the goto when you're out of ideas. LOL

Quote from: rgrove0172;925916You really cant enjoy one and not the other.

Why, yes I can.

For the simple reason that *games* are interactive, while *TV* is not.

When watching a TV show, I have no expectation that I can impact what happens in any way.  When playing RPGs, I do.

(To repeat what others have said, some people enjoy railroaded games where they're more passive until combat breaks out, and good for them!  I'm not one of them.)

Quote from: robiswrong;925921Why, yes I can.

For the simple reason that *games* are interactive, while *TV* is not.

When watching a TV show, I have no expectation that I can impact what happens in any way.  When playing RPGs, I do.

(To repeat what others have said, some people enjoy railroaded games where they're more passive until combat breaks out, and good for them!  I'm not one of them.)

To the hyperbole! How can you make any reasonable choice if everything is dictated by some random chart?

Quote from: rgrove0172;925917Kind of funny. When Hilary gets caught with her pants down on some embarrassing political issue revealed by a wiki link, she starts screaming Russians! Around here Trolls are the goto when you're out of ideas. LOL

Someone also out of ideas or arguments supports anyone who even tangentially seems to be on their side, bringing them selves down to the Team Jersey level. ;)

Quote from: Sommerjon;925926To the hyperbole! How can you make any reasonable choice if everything is dictated by some random chart?

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here, unless it's some asinine claim that the only options are "railroad" or "everything from a random chart".

Quote from: robiswrong;925960I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here, unless it's some asinine claim that the only options are "railroad" or "everything from a random chart".

It's Sommerjon, that IS what he's saying.  There's no middle ground (despite, you know, there is.)

Quote from: rgrove0172;925872I completely understand and agree there is value in every approach, completely hands off included.

I really appreciate you having an open mind, rgrove. :rolleyes:

But seriously, who wants to bet on how many posts it is before he tells someone that it's impossible for them to like and dislike the things they prefer?

Quote from: rgrove0172;925916You really cant enjoy one and not the other.

Trick question, folks. The answer was one post.

Quote from: estar;925352For example, it help to know how to run an interesting railroaded adventure even though you are running sandbox campaign. This is because often the players will accept missions from NPCs to further their own goals. These missions have limited means of successfully achieving them. Learning how to run railroaded adventures well allow you, as a referee, to make these type of adventures interesting.

Your premise is flawed. I don't need to railroad my players in order to run these scenarios.

Quote from: Lunamancer;925862You are correct, that if you take any one of your examples in total isolation, I doubt any player is going to detect the cheat if the GM hides it well. But to even examine things in this way entirely misses the point. When the GM has an agenda, there is a cluster of cheats in the same direction. That's when a pattern becomes discernible to a highly perceptive player.

Exactly. People are claiming that you can never statistically detect a loaded die from a single roll. That's true. It's also largely irrelevant.

Can we imagine a GM who railroads rarely, randomly, and without any agenda? Or a GM who scrupulously only railroads each player once in their entire lives? Sure. But while we're furiously humping these spherical cows, I'm left wondering what the point of these hypotheticals are supposed to be.

Quote from: robiswrong;925960I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here, unless it's some asinine claim that the only options are "railroad" or "everything from a random chart".

Why is it asinine?  You have dipshits here trying to claim if you change a single die result it automatically goes to "Oh my fucking wad, you railroad loving muthafucker.  Why even bother rolling dice, just tell your shitty story"

Quote from: Christopher Brady;925966It's Sommerjon, that IS what he's saying.  There's no middle ground (despite, you know, there is.)

There's a middle ground?  Here?  I think not.  You should reread this whole thread there fella.  This whole place lives and breathes hyperbolic statements and OTWisms.

Quote from: Sommerjon;926115Why is it asinine?  You have dipshits here trying to claim if you change a single die result it automatically goes to "Oh my fucking wad, you railroad loving muthafucker.  Why even bother rolling dice, just tell your shitty story"

Thankfully, I'm not one of those dipshits.

So you can either take the high ground, or wallow in dipshitness.  And when someone tries to talk about the middle ground, you can either use that as an opportunity to move the conversation towards a more reasonable area, or you can use it as an excuse to make asinine arguments and polarize the conversation further.

Your choice.

Quote from: robiswrong;926122Thankfully, I'm not one of those dipshits.

So you can either take the high ground, or wallow in dipshitness.  And when someone tries to talk about the middle ground, you can either use that as an opportunity to move the conversation towards a more reasonable area, or you can use it as an excuse to make asinine arguments and polarize the conversation further.

Your choice.

Are you sure you're not one of them there dipshits?

If evrything that happens in your game is not the result of a random dice roll on a table, you are railroading. Unless you are storygaming swine. The only acceptable alternative is to prepare an extensive map and key with timetable ahead of time and not shift anything ever, or make anything up. If it's not on the key it doesn't exist.

In any case if you and your players are having fun you are doing it wrong.

Quote from: robiswrong;926122Thankfully, I'm not one of those dipshits.

So you can either take the high ground, or wallow in dipshitness.  And when someone tries to talk about the middle ground, you can either use that as an opportunity to move the conversation towards a more reasonable area, or you can use it as an excuse to make asinine arguments and polarize the conversation further.

Your choice.

That's about par for the course around here. If you concede even a little, in the interest of calming down the shit storm and move things back toward helpful discussion its viewed as weakness and you are instantly shit on. If you do read through this trainwreck thread youll see it like 20 times.

Quote from: rgrove0172;926153That's about par for the course around here. If you concede even a little, in the interest of calming down the shit storm and move things back toward helpful discussion its viewed as weakness and you are instantly shit on. If you do read through this trainwreck thread youll see it like 20 times.

So stop trying to convince everyone the way you GM things is the industry accepted standard going back to 1970 and instead post about all the cool stuff you're doing with Symbaroum. :D

People who post on TheRPGSite who are offensive: No, is take to long.

Instead.
People posting on TheRPGSite who are not offensive:

Quote from: CRKrueger;926155So stop trying to convince everyone the way you GM things is the industry accepted standard going back to 1970 and instead post about all the cool stuff you're doing with Symbaroum. :D

Sadly Symbaroum has a very small following apparently and I doubt a thread on it would get much attention here.

Im driving them crazy on Reddit and Google+ though. I really hope it takes off here in the U.S. It has its limitations but is very unique and can make a hell of a campaign.

Quote from: DavetheLost;926168People who post on TheRPGSite who are offensive: No, is take to long.

Instead.
People posting on TheRPGSite who are not offensive:

After all the politically correct hack crap on the purple site, the open warfare here is still refreshing. I really like that - at least a majority of the time - you can go head to head in a outright brawl on one thread with a member and wind up on the same side as buddies on another. Most don't seem to take this bullshoy too seriously and just have fun, even if fun means insulting the shit out of each other sometimes!

That being said it is kind of annoying when someone will drag an insult in from another thread into a new one. Bad form in my opinion.

Quote from: rgrove0172;926171Im driving them crazy on Reddit and Google+ though. I really hope it takes off here in the U.S. It has its limitations but is very unique and can make a hell of a campaign.

Bah, throw a link to it then.

Well ok, Ill start a thread with a few links.

Quote from: DavetheLost;926143If evrything that happens in your game is not the result of a random dice roll on a table, you are railroading. Unless you are storygaming swine. The only acceptable alternative is to prepare an extensive map and key with timetable ahead of time and not shift anything ever, or make anything up. If it's not on the key it doesn't exist.

In any case if you and your players are having fun you are doing it wrong.

You just won therpgsite.

Quote from: DavetheLost;926168People who post on TheRPGSite who are offensive: No, is take to long.

Instead.
People posting on TheRPGSite who are not offensive:

"Let me explain.  No, there is no time.  Let me sum up."

Quote from: rgrove0172;926172After all the politically correct hack crap on the purple site, the open warfare here is still refreshing. I really like that - at least a majority of the time - you can go head to head in a outright brawl on one thread with a member and wind up on the same side as buddies on another. Most don't seem to take this bullshoy too seriously and just have fun, even if fun means insulting the shit out of each other sometimes!

In my family, "you're full of shit" is perfectly acceptable.  Apparently some people don't feel that way.

And yes, it is possible to disagree with a person on one topic yet agree with them on another.  Inconceivable!

Quote from: Omega;925179To be fair. I know at least two high prep DMs who really cant DM well without the prep. They run pretty good sessions.

One of the bonuses I think of a high prep style is that you tend to have everything really hammered down and so the chance, and urge to "cheat" and move encounters is probably a-lot less since everything is plotted out and you cant do that sort of prep without knowing full well some, or several, elements are never going to see use. (unless the DM is really leading the players by the nose)

Not to mention that the best part for me as DM is the element of surprise.  No matter what I think of, the players will surprise me.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;926262Not to mention that the best part for me as DM is the element of surprise.  No matter what I think of, the players will surprise me.

Have you tried GMing sober? :D

Quote from: CRKrueger;926399Have you tried GMing sober? :D

GMing sober is like fishing sober.

Quote from: rgrove0172;925916And yet, all the while you are being sucked by or in to that drama you are watching you know there is a script, a pre determined order of scenes, a finite outcome. This doesn't ruin the show for you of course because despite knowing the above, you aren't familiar with the specifics.

Well in scripted drama, for me it's not about not knowing the outcome, or not knowing the specifics. It's about the specifics being as if it were actually about the human experience of being in a situation, or not.

After all, in the lazy/apathetic dramas, I also don't know how they will play out - my annoyance there is that the way things happen is blatant bullshit, as if the director decided what happened based on what he wanted, without consideration for actual risks. It's a parallel to a forced game, with a very similar feel, though not the same thing because they are different ways of involving characters, different kinds of players, etc. (For examples, when the GM lets someone's PC do "rule of cool" stunts and changes the die rolls to not have a PC die in un-dramatic fashion, or when the GM decides to narrate a "cool" wordsmithed action intro or interlude that doesn't have any dice or rules behind it, and would likely go very differently if gamed out, such as the example you gave in the "do you really roll dice?" thread you started, where you mentioned narrating a gunfire ambush that dramatically killed some NPCs but had no actual rolls or risks for the PCs.)

And, after all, I do enjoy watching drama where I do already know the specifics, multiple times and/or multiple performances, if it succeeds in conveying something interesting and genuine about the human experience of being in situations, as opposed to the experience of being trapped in a genre convention with forced artificial outcomes and/or strained/forced themes.

(I hesitated to extend what I wrote to that analogy because I thought it might be mis-taken this way, but I thought it was interesting and related.)

QuoteThis character might die, this ploy may fail, the bomb might go off etc.

In the lazy ones, not so much. The main character ain't dyin'. There is no risk their cool moves might get them killed the way it likely ought to, and it's painfully obvious. Moreover, what does happen tends to be surreal and would almost certainly have killed them and turned out very differently if the authors had cared much for logic or timing or actual risks or real human behavior.

QuoteThere is a bit of difference between this and a game where you actually have input but as far as uncertainty, there is no more or no less than if a heavy handed GM is running the show.

Again, even though I brought up drama, I was saying it was a related parallel, but it is quite different in terms of what is going on between scripting a drama and running a game. Quite the opposite of them all being practically the same thing, what I think of as "actual" games are quite distinct from writing/dictating events, even though often in RPGs there are various ways to blur the two together.

In fact, this distinction is pretty close to what I've been writing about throughout this thread, in terms of the value in prep/rules/rolls versus improv (and also versus scripting, which I see as even further from prep/rules/rolls than improv is, though the distance between script and improv is up to the GM) and also versus fudge (another type of contrast to prep/rules/rolls).

QuoteYou really cant enjoy one and not the other.

This would be false even if I were only talking about two things instead of five or six.

Quote from: Sommerjon;926115...There's a middle ground?  Here?  I think not.  You should reread this whole thread there fella.  This whole place lives and breathes hyperbolic statements and OTWisms.

Seems to me like this thread isn't much about One True Way. The parts that aren't making fun of of you in particular have been more about people trying to explain their preference for different ways of playing to people who resist getting that there's a difference.

Quote from: DavetheLost;926143If evrything that happens in your game is not the result of a random dice roll on a table, you are railroading. Unless you are storygaming swine. The only acceptable alternative is to prepare an extensive map and key with timetable ahead of time and not shift anything ever, or make anything up. If it's not on the key it doesn't exist.

In any case if you and your players are having fun you are doing it wrong.

Seems to me that I'm the one closest to advocating for extensive map/prep etc here on the deep tangent of the "quote zero prep" thread, but I've not been saying that. I've been trying to talk about the difference between the modes, and that I think there is interesting value in detailing and mapping and impartially gaming things out. But I've not been OTW'ing, I've made disclaimers to that effect, and I've mentioned that I'm not even saying that's what I do all the time.

There's been discussion about the details of the effects between people that get it, and then various levels of misunderstanding and denial by the people who don't.

Seems to me there is a defensiveness by players who don't want to hear about the difference. And some annoyance and making fun by the people who do.

But it's not hyperbolic OTW wars.

Quote from: Skarg;926467But it's not hyperbolic OTW wars.

Sure...... okay bub.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925472People say the same thing about Zero Prep vs. Detailed Prep, they can always tell the difference.  I'm not so sure.  If I'm specifically trying to detect either, I'm sure I could tell, but if I'm just rolling with it, playing, probably not if done well.

Of course people can tell the difference:). I just don't care whether you prepared or improvised. It's not like I don't know, but since it makes no difference to me, why mention it?

Quote from: rgrove0172;925485You create an entire timeline including apprehension, trial and due process for a bunch of no name NPC muggers?

Yes. You mean you don't? People just kill NPCs and that has no repercussions in your setting, because...why? Because you hadn't prepared for it?
If that's the case, I'd posit that your preparation isn't worth much:).

So, yes. Though "due process" in a fantasy setting might not be what people imagine, yes, I do create a separate line for such events. Some PCs can just power through the whole thing, most would have to deal with it.
Of course, that's for settings where the reaction to finding a dead body isn't to expose it and if nobody claims it, throw it in an unnamed grave. But if those muggers weren't just random nobodies, there will be repercussions in any setting.

Now that I think if it, there's a reason I recommend to all my players that they read "the 6 ways to avoid violence", and explain them the workings of the setting's legal system before the game...:D

QuoteSeriously you want anyone to believe that and then have the nerve to say you want proof of how others play? Please, I gotta call bullshit on that one.

Call BS on whatever you want. That's still how I run.

QuoteAlso BS on players knowing the GM changed his mind midstream at some point. Ive heard several Zero Preppers in here claim their players never know the difference between theirs and a fully pre-planned game. If they can pull that off, no way in hell anyone is going to notice a subtle shift if presented with finesse.

Some of my players don't know the difference...because they either 1) don't care, or 2) don't have experience GMing.
Same thing goes for players. If your players don't care, it doesn't maater. If they have never been GMing themselves, or never used illusionism themselves when GMing? They might not get it for quite a while.
But eventually, they would be able to tell. People who have done the same? They'll pinpoint you rather quickly.

Quote from: Omega;925487How? Unless the GM is telegraphing that its a sham then the players have no way of knowing that the tower was on the east road but is now on the north road. And if the GM is telegraphing then they arent playing well are they?

I assume you don't play just RPGs, here.
What, you've never been able to recognize it when someone pulls a trick you're familiar with? I'd find that hard to believe.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925586Now you know how I feel about OOC mechanics.  There is no acceptable amount of shit in the Rocky Road. :D

OK, I can now sympathyze;).

Quote from: Spinachcat;925666I can cheat all damn day, but I prefer not to. I will however do WTF it takes to make sure a 4 hour convention game gets its beginning, middle and end before that final hour chimes.

Of course, we can rail on GM styles all night long, but what I care about is this: Are you and your players having a great time? Are you happy to run again next week? Are your players happy to return? If the answer is yes, then you're doing it right EVEN if your style wouldn't work for me.

But if our GM styles are different, remember that you're just a terrible person and your lame players suck ass no matter how much fun you degenerate freaks may be having. :p

You're totally right. I'm sure a lot of us share the same feeling.
So there's something we agree on, after all;).

Quote from: rgrove0172;925736I still detect an underlying current within many of the posts that seem to indicate some sort of competitive dynamic between players and GM. I know there are some games designed this way. My group enjoys the occasional game of Descent which is absolutely a competition. Most roleplaying games however aren't. The GM is there to facilitate and challenge, provoke and entertain, judge and manage, not to beat anybody. He has absolute power in making the game what it is therefore he can kill at a whim or make the whole party Kings! I cant say in all my days gaming the idea of the GM cheating ever even came to mind. Players cheating? Sure, Ive caught a few trying to hedge rolls, add modifiers that weren't there, conveniently forget hindering conditions etc. They are after all, competing against the system and setting to accomplish something. The GM however? His only goal is to make sure everyone has a good time!

I have always made this clear when starting a new group or campaign. I am there to present the world and manage the action so that everyone has fun. I may deviate from rules on occasion, manipulate the laws of nature and averages, and whatever else I deem appropriate in order to ensure this objective is reached. Nobody has ever accused me of 'cheating', not because it was obvious or not, but because it doesn't freaking matter! I would think its assumed the GM tinkers with the action at times, manipulates the setting, maneuvers situations and dangles NPCs on his strings. So what? Unless something dreadful happens to the characters and it seems as if the GM 'cheated' to cause it, I cant imagine ever even bringing it up as a player.

If 'cheating' means to operate counter to the rules as written. Every GM that has ever breathed is guilty, no arguments please...

If 'cheating' means to take unscrupulous action counter to the rules in order to win a contest, then only a complete dickhead GM would ever do such a thing and Ill go ahead and assume none of us fit that description.

So if we are going to talk railroading, illusionism or whatever, please lets remove the 'cheating' references. They just don't fit and lend a negative aspect to the approach that just doesn't belong there.

Ah yes, this thread goes exactly as expected...based on previous threads.
Illusionist self-justification #2 (usually used right after #1, "you're not going to be able to tell, even if you've been able to tell...repeatedly"): It's not competitive, why does it matter? Check.
Illusionist self-justification #3: It's just breaking the rules and the GM isn't bound by any rules. Check.
Keep it on, you're progressing nicely;).

Quote from: AsenRG;926881Of course people can tell the difference:). I just don't care whether you prepared or improvised. It's not like I don't know, but since it makes no difference to me, why mention it?


Yes. You mean you don't? People just kill NPCs and that has no repercussions in your setting, because...why? Because you hadn't prepared for it?
If that's the case, I'd posit that your preparation isn't worth much:).

So, yes. Though "due process" in a fantasy setting might not be what people imagine, yes, I do create a separate line for such events. Some PCs can just power through the whole thing, most would have to deal with it.
Of course, that's for settings where the reaction to finding a dead body isn't to expose it and if nobody claims it, throw it in an unnamed grave. But if those muggers weren't just random nobodies, there will be repercussions in any setting.

Now that I think if it, there's a reason I recommend to all my players that they read "the 6 ways to avoid violence", and explain them the workings of the setting's legal system before the game...:D


Call BS on whatever you want. That's still how I run.


Some of my players don't know the difference...because they either 1) don't care, or 2) don't have experience GMing.
Same thing goes for players. If your players don't care, it doesn't maater. If they have never been GMing themselves, or never used illusionism themselves when GMing? They might not get it for quite a while.
But eventually, they would be able to tell. People who have done the same? They'll pinpoint you rather quickly.


I assume you don't play just RPGs, here.
What, you've never been able to recognize it when someone pulls a trick you're familiar with? I'd find that hard to believe.


OK, I can now sympathyze;).


You're totally right. I'm sure a lot of us share the same feeling.
So there's something we agree on, after all;).


Ah yes, this thread goes exactly as expected...based on previous threads.
Illusionist self-justification #2 (usually used right after #1, "you're not going to be able to tell, even if you've been able to tell...repeatedly"): It's not competitive, why does it matter? Check.
Illusionist self-justification #3: It's just breaking the rules and the GM isn't bound by any rules. Check.
Keep it on, you're progressing nicely;).

And despite multiple threads and dozens of posts some of you still don't get it. You still argue where no argument exists!

Hable ingles? maybe?

Sprichst du Deutsch?

Just checking, sometimes it seems like we aren't communicating at all.

Quote from: rgrove0172;926890Just checking, sometimes it seems like we aren't communicating at all.

That's what always happens when distinction deniers enter the fray.
Instead of going to the mattresses over...

• What the exact definition of the distinction should be.
• Whether a game, mechanic, or technique meets the definition of the distinction.
• Whether any facet of the distinction is better objectively or subjectively under certain circumstances.

...they go to the mattresses over whether such a distinction even exists.
IC/OOC, Narrative/Non-Narrative, etc...
When someone simply crosses their arms and denies the entire premise of a conversation, then, obviously, little communication can occur.

Protip: In this thread, you're acting as the distinction denier.

Quote from: rgrove0172;926890And despite multiple threads and dozens of posts some of you still don't get it. You still argue where no argument exists!

Hable ingles? maybe?

Sprichst du Deutsch?

Just checking, sometimes it seems like we aren't communicating at all.

Yeah, of course I'm speaking English, and so are you, despite the logic failure. Or is it entitlement? Do you really expect that anyone who disagrees with you just doesn't understand you:)?

Let me make that clear, your [STRIKE]arguments[/STRIKE] excuses are rather uncomplicated to get:). What you seem unable or unwilling to understand is that I've read them before, and never found them compelling.
BTW, other people actually presented those arguments better than you. If they didn't persuade me, you stand zero chances. It's not the presentation that sucks, it's the arguments themselves;).

T'as compris enfin, espèce d'illusioniste:D?

Quote from: AsenRG;926896T'as compris enfin, espèce d'illusioniste:D?

Do you finally understand the Illusionist species?

I know the base meaning of the words; the syntax, conjugation and grammar are completely unknown. :D

I have played with a GM who did more-or-less zero-prep for Call of Cthulhu. He was really into the setting though, so you could say he had been prepping by reading background material, but when we showed up he had no setting books, no printouts other than character sheets, and he seemed to make up the start of the story on the fly.

I also ALMOST did this a few times as a GM, but I used a game that is designed for it: Houses of the Blooded. I suppose some people would call it a story game, but it really gets rolling with minimal prep, and the rules are built around this. All I made up beforehand was basically almost cliche-ish "a Baron is inviting lots of aristocrats to a lavish party, and then someone gets murdered". I also decided that one of the guests would be a sexy aristocratic Ven woman who is described in the rules. That was it.

Quote from: CRKrueger;926893That's what always happens when distinction deniers enter the fray.
Instead of going to the mattresses over...

• What the exact definition of the distinction should be.
• Whether a game, mechanic, or technique meets the definition of the distinction.
• Whether any facet of the distinction is better objectively or subjectively under certain circumstances.

...they go to the mattresses over whether such a distinction even exists.
IC/OOC, Narrative/Non-Narrative, etc...
When someone simply crosses their arms and denies the entire premise of a conversation, then, obviously, little communication can occur.

Protip: In this thread, you're acting as the distinction denier.

Not even sort of. Wow just wow.

All I have ever argued is the lack of a good/bad, better/ worse when comparing the two styles. I don't know how else to phrase it. No matter what some of us say some of you insist in attacking the opposing approach and elevating your own. I sure as shit won't start another thread on this pointless debate buts its very hard to ignore the pompous comments posted without opposition.

I haven't denied anything, other than the one sided opinion some have expressed.

Quote from: CRKrueger;926897Do you finally understand the Illusionist species?

I know the base meaning of the words; the syntax, conjugation and grammar are completely unknown. :D

'Cause it's using a colloquial form, admittedly one that's somewhat hard to translate. "Did you finally get it, you illusionist" is a good enough translation, though depending on translator and context, you could possibly make it "you dirty illusionist" instead;).
Then again, I probably still speak French better than English, despite the lack of use. Alas, the same can't be said for my Spanish, which has also fallen on the wayside lately:).

Of course, given his hint that we don't understand him for language issues, I was tempted to just write my previous post in true AsenSpeak (TM) form. However, since it consists of passing from French to English to Russian to Bulgarian to Mandarin Chinese to Spanish at almost random points within the same sentence, I decided it wouldn't improve the communication:D!

Quote from: AsenRG;926881I assume you don't play just RPGs, here.
What, you've never been able to recognize it when someone pulls a trick you're familiar with? I'd find that hard to believe.

That wasnt the point at all. You failed totally to get it. Try again please.

There is a lot of that going around. All of us trying to communicate some admittedly pretty abstract concepts with the limitations of the medium. I haven't intended to piss anybody off, degrade anybody's choice of gaming approach, insult anyone, berate anybody's post, or sound ignorant or stubborn or anything other than an interested gamer but.... I probably succeeded in all of those anyway. Go figure.

I will stick by my statement however that there are any number of ways to run a game. All are equally acceptable, valuable and respectable. Hell, even open cheating by ignoring a die roll or something is ok under certain circumstances (players don't care for example) so there just are no absolutes here. As long we all remember that we can have a meaningful discussion. When that premise fails, its turns to a bunch of whining and bitching and slamming and is frankly just annoying as hell to read.

Quote from: Omega;926909That wasnt the point at all. You failed totally to get it. Try again please.

What's your point then? Insttuting a No True Scotsman stating that if your GM is spotted doing it, he or she wasn't playing well:)?

I told you exactly why quite a few people find it easy to spot illusionism, no matter how well you play it, so if that's your point, the explanation still applies;).

Quote from: rgrove0172;926914I will stick by my statement however that there are any number of ways to run a game. All are equally acceptable, valuable and respectable. Hell, even open cheating by ignoring a die roll or something is ok under certain circumstances (players don't care for example) so there just are no absolutes here. As long we all remember that we can have a meaningful discussion. When that premise fails, its turns to a bunch of whining and bitching and slamming and is frankly just annoying as hell to read.

The flaw in your premise is that all are not acceptable, valuable, and respectable to all on this site.  Some here absolutely despise some ways to run a game. So much so that they may very well not even accept that such ways of play may be valid for some groups. Not everyone accepts that there are no absolutes.

Quote from: DavetheLost;926922The flaw in your premise is that all are not acceptable, valuable, and respectable to all on this site.  Some here absolutely despise some ways to run a game. So much so that they may very well not even accept that such ways of play may be valid for some groups. Not everyone accepts that there are no absolutes.

Well if standing firm on the notion that nobody else can have an opinion because its in conflict with mine is something some here are guilty of... I just don't have a response honestly. I mean, its so far outside the parameters of not only typical forum protocol and common human dignity that the opinion of anyone guilty of it doesn't really deserve much consideration. You will note I said 'Much', as even a stubborn asshole's opinion has some merit and may well have a great deal. It would just be far more useful in a nicer package.

Absolutely despising something is all well and good and should certainly inspire some heated arguments. Rejecting the opposition's point completely and denying it even exists is just .. well dick.

I don't drink alcohol. Never have, never will. Its not some moral high ground or memories of an abusive alcoholic father either, I just don't see the point. It tastes like shit and makes you act like a fucking jerk, oh an occasionally causes you to hurt people. I can debate against it all day long and as a 20+ year paramedic have some particularly bloody arguments. HOWEVER - I would never claim those who do drink don't have a right to at least argue their point. I wont stand here and scream that drinking is just inherently evil and Im not going to even listen to any no good, sorry assed drunk try to tell me any different. Who the hell would I think I was?

Some here sound like they would, completely negate the opposition's right to argue I mean.

Quote from: rgrove0172;926902Not even sort of. Wow just wow.

All I have ever argued is the lack of a good/bad, better/ worse when comparing the two styles. I don't know how else to phrase it. No matter what some of us say some of you insist in attacking the opposing approach and elevating your own. I sure as shit won't start another thread on this pointless debate buts its very hard to ignore the pompous comments posted without opposition.

I haven't denied anything, other than the one sided opinion some have expressed.

Yeah, no denial that Illusionism is different from Improvising or that an Illusion that removes choice is different than random creation.  Whatever, dude.

You still think completely nullifying an opposed roll to manipulate an event the way you want it to go is not only normal and common, but endorsed through precedent from the roots of the hobby, so...yeah.

Quote from: AsenRG;926920I told you exactly why quite a few people find it easy to spot illusionism, no matter how well you play it, so if that's your point, the explanation still applies;).

You did?  Maybe reiterate.

I know I listed several examples where pretty much every one of the people who claim they'll always catch their GM said "Oh, not in that case." that you didn't reply to yet.  If you claim you would be able to spot those, then you're just wildly boasting.  You're like the guy in Vegas who claims he knows exactly how Ricky Jay does every one of his tricks.

Yeah, if the GM makes anything a Standard Operating Procedure, with an easily telegraphed agenda, anyone would eventually detect the pattern if that's how he always GMs.

The problem is saying you can "always" do anything.

Quote from: CRKrueger;926930Yeah, no denial that Illusionism is different from Improvising or that an Illusion that removes choice is different than random creation.  Whatever, dude.

You still think completely nullifying an opposed roll to manipulate an event the way you want it to go is not only normal and common, but endorsed through precedent from the roots of the hobby, so...yeah.

Yep, that's my opinion and I'm entitled to it. Just as you are yours.

Quote from: DavetheLost;926922The flaw in your premise is that all are not acceptable, valuable, and respectable to all on this site.  Some here absolutely despise some ways to run a game. So much so that they may very well not even accept that such ways of play may be valid for some groups. Not everyone accepts that there are no absolutes.

I absolutely accept that...

Quote from: rgrove0172;926948Yep, that's my opinion and I'm entitled to it. Just as you are yours.

The problem is your you arent stating an opinion, you are making direct claims and then wonder why people keep calling you out on it as not true. Therein lies the problem and why you keep getting punted around. Its the same as when Chris makes yet another hare-brained claim about D&D or rats on wizards overpower, or when Armchair makes his usual false claim that D&D is all about minis and the books tell you you MUST have them, and so on ad nausium.

Quote from: DavetheLost;926922The flaw in your premise is that all are not acceptable, valuable, and respectable to all on this site.  Some here absolutely despise some ways to run a game. So much so that they may very well not even accept that such ways of play may be valid for some groups. Not everyone accepts that there are no absolutes.

I did post that if he's having fun and his group is having fun, he's doing it right for that group...more than once, too, I think, but I'm not in the mood to search my own posts.

It's when I read the "and that's the standard way to do it since the dawn of the hobby" addendum that I reacted with "I call BS to that" (which was, might I add, a greatly censored variant of my initial reaction). I mean, there are people here who have been at the dawn of the hobby - Chirine and Gronan, for example, and probably others with close to the same experience. If they're telling me that this wasn't considered acceptable back then, I'd take their word over that of rgrove.

Quote from: CRKrueger;926931You did?  Maybe reiterate.

I know I listed several examples where pretty much every one of the people who claim they'll always catch their GM said "Oh, not in that case." that you didn't reply to yet.  If you claim you would be able to spot those, then you're just wildly boasting.  You're like the guy in Vegas who claims he knows exactly how Ricky Jay does every one of his tricks.

Yeah, if the GM makes anything a Standard Operating Procedure, with an easily telegraphed agenda, anyone would eventually detect the pattern if that's how he always GMs.

The problem is saying you can "always" do anything.

I've missed that post, obviously. Will check it and get back to you.
Also, I didn't mean I'd get all instances of using illusionism. "Always" was probably not the right word. What I should have said is "inevitably";).
And of course, stage magicians can often notice how their colleagues are doing tricks, according to the stage magicians I've spoken with.

P.S.: You mean this post? (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?35346-Seriously-how-much-time-goes-into-these-quot-zero-prep-quot-games&p=925657&viewfull=1#post925657) I have only one thing to answer.
"You can fool some people all the time, or all people some of the time, but you can't fool everybody all the time".
If you're using illusionism at all,over the course of a longer campaign, you approach "all the time" as a requirement. And if your players discuss it after the session, it won't take long before you stumble in the last sentence of the above.
Or in other words, you will slip, no if and but, the question is only when. And the result...well, it's going to depend on the group. But if the group doesn't care, they wouldn't be looking at all.

And the "protip" part?

QuoteProtip: If the GM's style, delivery, timing, etc. changes when he's fudging - he sucks at it.

Your protip is complete and utter horseshit.
The whole point of fudging and/or using illusionism is to be able to change what you're delivering, to "correct" the timing, and usually, to do so with style.
It will change. Even if your presentation doesn't change, the IC patterns that result will be different from a normal session. This will be detected, too, it's just going to take longer.
Then again, the longer it takes, the harder the revelation would be if anyone would have had objections to begin with. See: Rgrove's Star Wars player.

Quote from: Omega;927005The problem is your you arent stating an opinion, you are making direct claims and then wonder why people keep calling you out on it as not true. Therein lies the problem and why you keep getting punted around. Its the same as when Chris makes yet another hare-brained claim about D&D or rats on wizards overpower, or when Armchair makes his usual false claim that D&D is all about minis and the books tell you you MUST have them, and so on ad nausium.

Those are all obviously opinions. Any statement made is frankly. I've never claimed otherwise although others have.

Just think about it a moment. I claim that railroading or whatever is a fundamental element of roleplaying, always has been. That's obviously an opinion. Someone disagrees with me here and says Im full of shit. How is that any different? If what Im saying is a direct claim then they are guilty of the same, and some have worded their rebuttals just that way - DECLARING rather than politely disagreeing.

Where are the furious posts berating them for their stubbornness and refusal to open their minds to other approaches?

Quote from: AsenRG;927024I did post that if he's having fun and his group is having fun, he's doing it right for that group...more than once, too, I think, but I'm not in the mood to search my own posts.

It's when I read the "and that's the standard way to do it since the dawn of the hobby" addendum that I reacted with "I call BS to that" (which was, might I add, a greatly censored variant of my initial reaction). I mean, there are people here who have been at the dawn of the hobby - Chirine and Gronan, for example, and probably others with close to the same experience. If they're telling me that this wasn't considered acceptable back then, I'd take their word over that of rgrove.

I've been in the hobby since '77 or there about, have played a wide variety of games with a wide variety of GMs. To say that anything is the standard way to do it and has been since the dawn of the hobby is not my experience. Considering that Gronan and Chirine were pretty much present at the birth, and I am in regular communication with others from the very earliest days, yeah, I'll take there word for how things were. Not saying that everyone plays he way they do, or did, that is certainly not the case, but I'll trust them to bear witness to what it was like in the earliest days.

I have seen illusionism, railroading, deus ex machina endings, acting out the DM's scripted story and more. Most of it made for pretty bad gaming. I have been in games that went beyond illusionism to the degree of "The road east is blocked, the bridge to the south is washed out, there is a pack of mutant bears in the forest to the north..." literally something blocking us from doing anything but what the GM had scripted for us. That was a very frustrating campaign. As was the convention game where ultimately it didn't matter what we had spent four hours investigating because the supernatural cavalry came over the hill at the end for a big set piece battle with the bad guys to provide a happy ending that negated all player agency as we just stood and watched.

I don't think RGrove is doing anything close to that. It sounds like all but one of his Star Wars players is fine with the way he GMs, and that one was only upset when given a look behind the curtain. Some here have the same reaction to his style as that player did. I can see that Grove seems a bit baffled by the response to this style. Not really a surprise if it works for him and his group.

I'm willing to give him a bit of a pass on style. Mine is radically different to what was practiced in the early days too. I remember the days of elaborate maps and detailed keys, and nothing was ever moved to make things more "interesting" for the players. I also have a number of rulebooks that preach the opposite, advising GMs to use illusionism, move things around the map, change encounters at will, fudge dice to keep characters alive, etc. There are even mechanics like Fate Points, Take 10 and Take 20 that are free passes to step outside the rules.

Quote from: DavetheLost;927031I've been in the hobby since '77 or there about, have played a wide variety of games with a wide variety of GMs. To say that anything is the standard way to do it and has been since the dawn of the hobby is not my experience. Considering that Gronan and Chirine were pretty much present at the birth, and I am in regular communication with others from the very earliest days, yeah, I'll take there word for how things were. Not saying that everyone plays he way they do, or did, that is certainly not the case, but I'll trust them to bear witness to what it was like in the earliest days.

Well, then you're one of those guys with "close to the same experience" that I referred to:). And no, I can also point out that it was far from uniform even back then - it's just that chea...ahem, illusionism, wouldn't be seen as an worthy example.
Me? I wasn't even born at the time, so I only care how they did things back then because I think it would improve my own gaming. Experience confirms it.

QuoteI have seen illusionism, railroading, deus ex machina endings, acting out the DM's scripted story and more. Most of it made for pretty bad gaming. I have been in games that went beyond illusionism to the degree of "The road east is blocked, the bridge to the south is washed out, there is a pack of mutant bears in the forest to the north..." literally something blocking us from doing anything but what the GM had scripted for us. That was a very frustrating campaign. As was the convention game where ultimately it didn't matter what we had spent four hours investigating because the supernatural cavalry came over the hill at the end for a big set piece battle with the bad guys to provide a happy ending that negated all player agency as we just stood and watched.

Despite shorter expeirience, I can sign under every word of this.

QuoteI don't think RGrove is doing anything close to that.

Neither do I. But try suggesting to Krueger that some amount of out-of-character mechanics is fine and is the standard...see what happens.
I react to illusionism pretty much the same way, and for quite the similar reasons.
Now, if it's about "having a great story", fine! I like writing...so let's play a narrative game, and you'll have me collaborating in getting the story better, whether by illusionism, or by any other method. In fact, I might initiate it - if you warn me before the game. (If I come expecting to play more immersively, I will achieve that. It just might screw your story, and some of the mechanics might remain unused. There's a reason why they say that communiction is key!)

QuoteIt sounds like all but one of his Star Wars players is fine with the way he GMs, and that one was only upset when given a look behind the curtain. Some here have the same reaction to his style as that player did. I can see that Grove seems a bit baffled by the response to this style. Not really a surprise if it works for him and his group.

True. And more power to him and his group - I just advise him to disclose it to avoid such events. After all, I disclose my style, and it's not like it's exactly uncommon;).

QuoteI'm willing to give him a bit of a pass on style. Mine is radically different to what was practiced in the early days too. I remember the days of elaborate maps and detailed keys, and nothing was ever moved to make things more "interesting" for the players.

It still isn't:D.

QuoteI also have a number of rulebooks that preach the opposite, advising GMs to use illusionism, move things around the map, change encounters at will, fudge dice to keep characters alive, etc.

I have those, too. And I find following this part of them fucks up the game beyond any salvaging;).
I also have Scion 1e, which advises you to use mechanics that fuck up the game beyond salvaging if you follow them. Clearly, bad advice is possible not just in the GMing section:D!

QuoteThere are even mechanics like Fate Points, Take 10 and Take 20 that are free passes to step outside the rules.

Ahem, all of these are part of the rules, not "outside the rules". And I'd say that at least Take 10 isn't actually "outside the simulation", either (and the point might be made for the other two, but it would be more contentious).

Quote from: DavetheLost;927031I've been in the hobby since '77 or there about, have played a wide variety of games with a wide variety of GMs. To say that anything is the standard way to do it and has been since the dawn of the hobby is not my experience. Considering that Gronan and Chirine were pretty much present at the birth, and I am in regular communication with others from the very earliest days, yeah, I'll take there word for how things were. Not saying that everyone plays he way they do, or did, that is certainly not the case, but I'll trust them to bear witness to what it was like in the earliest days.

I have seen illusionism, railroading, deus ex machina endings, acting out the DM's scripted story and more. Most of it made for pretty bad gaming. I have been in games that went beyond illusionism to the degree of "The road east is blocked, the bridge to the south is washed out, there is a pack of mutant bears in the forest to the north..." literally something blocking us from doing anything but what the GM had scripted for us. That was a very frustrating campaign. As was the convention game where ultimately it didn't matter what we had spent four hours investigating because the supernatural cavalry came over the hill at the end for a big set piece battle with the bad guys to provide a happy ending that negated all player agency as we just stood and watched.

I don't think RGrove is doing anything close to that. It sounds like all but one of his Star Wars players is fine with the way he GMs, and that one was only upset when given a look behind the curtain. Some here have the same reaction to his style as that player did. I can see that Grove seems a bit baffled by the response to this style. Not really a surprise if it works for him and his group.

I'm willing to give him a bit of a pass on style. Mine is radically different to what was practiced in the early days too. I remember the days of elaborate maps and detailed keys, and nothing was ever moved to make things more "interesting" for the players. I also have a number of rulebooks that preach the opposite, advising GMs to use illusionism, move things around the map, change encounters at will, fudge dice to keep characters alive, etc. There are even mechanics like Fate Points, Take 10 and Take 20 that are free passes to step outside the rules.

Exactly, its those rulebooks and the GM suggestions in them that led me to make state the opinion that illusionism was alive and well and considered in the very least a viable alternative in the early days. I was there too, picked up chainmail and the little white box and was one of the first in the area to have even heard of such a thing. Now I haven't been deeply involved in the industry as some, but I have game extensively and dabbled in countless products through the years and consider myself to be well informed if nothing else.

I wont shove my approach as GM down anyone's throat, I completely get that some people hate it. Ive had similar reactions to other GMs and their preferred way of gaming. Ive also been pleasantly surprised and tried other approaches (zero prep for example) and love them. I have gone back and read through a great many of the posts and the only time Ive reacted strongly is when someone claims outright that my approach is criminal in some way, a blasphemy against the very nature of roleplaying. I find that to be a ridiculous claim when so many texts on the hobby actually go so far as to recommend it.

I just see the whole matter as similar to that of encounter balancing. Most systems recommend the GM level their encounters to provide a good challenge but not to tough a fight for the player group that they have little chance of winning. Most even include some sort of system to manage this. Its a standard across many, many games. I however, hate it. I have never balanced anything in favor of or against the players. I may swoop in with a bit of GM meddling to help them out etc. but the world is, what it is. My bad guys don't pick and choose their rivals by how good they are, they try to dominate like everyone else if given the opportunity. The hill giant guarding the pass is level 11... period. Doesn't matter if the group of adventurers are level 3, level 9 or level 38. He is what he is. Sometimes players need to know when to run.

This approach is another one of those controversial topics and can generate all kinds of hate and finger pointing but oh well, that's how I like to play. I would never think of claiming leveling encounters wasn't a time honored practice however, or that it should never be utilized. There is just too much evidence to the contrary. Instead Ill discuss it for a while if someone brings it up then say I don't like it an move on. Its really not that hard you know?

Quote from: AsenRG;927024I've missed that post, obviously. Will check it and get back to you.
Also, I didn't mean I'd get all instances of using illusionism. "Always" was probably not the right word. What I should have said is "inevitably";).
And of course, stage magicians can often notice how their colleagues are doing tricks, according to the stage magicians I've spoken with.

P.S.: You mean this post? (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?35346-Seriously-how-much-time-goes-into-these-quot-zero-prep-quot-games&p=925657&viewfull=1#post925657) I have only one thing to answer.
"You can fool some people all the time, or all people some of the time, but you can't fool everybody all the time".
If you're using illusionism at all,over the course of a longer campaign, you approach "all the time" as a requirement. And if your players discuss it after the session, it won't take long before you stumble in the last sentence of the above.
Or in other words, you will slip, no if and but, the question is only when. And the result...well, it's going to depend on the group. But if the group doesn't care, they wouldn't be looking at all.

Which is why it is amusing to watch you think your zero prepping is anywhere close to the awesomeness you think it is.

Quote from: rgrove0172;927034Exactly, its those rulebooks and the GM suggestions in them that led me to make state the opinion that illusionism was alive and well and considered in the very least a viable alternative in the early days. I was there too, picked up chainmail and the little white box and was one of the first in the area to have even heard of such a thing. Now I haven't been deeply involved in the industry as some, but I have game extensively and dabbled in countless products through the years and consider myself to be well informed if nothing else.

Well, now you're being reasonable, for a welcome change.
Which is the earlieast product you have available that advises for using illusionism? Because I have a suspicion it didn't happen before the 80ies...

QuoteI wont shove my approach as GM down anyone's throat, I completely get that some people hate it. Ive had similar reactions to other GMs and their preferred way of gaming. Ive also been pleasantly surprised and tried other approaches (zero prep for example) and love them.

Yeah, same here. Except when you start "my approach was the standard approach"...it amounts to shoving your approach down other people's throats. It actually implies that people that avoid this approach are outliers and everybody should expect your approach. It's their fault if they expected anything else!
In short, that's attempting to "raise your status" at the expense of others. I don't condone this, so you got what you got.

Had you started by "there's no one approach that everybody shares, and there's no approach that should be expected - just talk before the game"...well, I can't speak about others, but I probably wouldn't have posted at all (except to support you).

QuoteI have gone back and read through a great many of the posts and the only time Ive reacted strongly is when someone claims outright that my approach is criminal in some way, a blasphemy against the very nature of roleplaying. I find that to be a ridiculous claim when so many texts on the hobby actually go so far as to recommend it.

I've read those.
There are lots of poor games. There are games you can argue are so bad that they have done only a disservice to the hobby by existing.
Written in a rulebook=/=worthy of emulating.
I just mentioned Scion, it's an example there, too. Coincidentally, it also recommended illusionism.

QuoteI just see the whole matter as similar to that of encounter balancing. Most systems recommend the GM level their encounters to provide a good challenge but not to tough a fight for the player group that they have little chance of winning. Most even include some sort of system to manage this. Its a standard across many, many games. I however, hate it. I have never balanced anything in favor of or against the players. I may swoop in with a bit of GM meddling to help them out etc. but the world is, what it is. My bad guys don't pick and choose their rivals by how good they are, they try to dominate like everyone else if given the opportunity. The hill giant guarding the pass is level 11... period. Doesn't matter if the group of adventurers are level 3, level 9 or level 38. He is what he is. Sometimes players need to know when to run.

Fun fact: I also find encounter balancing to be an abomination against nature.
And you can bet that a lot of the older games didn't have such a practice - just look at their random encounter tables. Walking around in Jakalla, you might well meet an enemy you'd be unable to defeat for a few levels. The lesson, to me, is clear: learn to survive!

QuoteThis approach is another one of those controversial topics and can generate all kinds of hate and finger pointing but oh well, that's how I like to play. I would never think of claiming leveling encounters wasn't a time honored practice however, or that it should never be utilized. There is just too much evidence to the contrary. Instead Ill discuss it for a while if someone brings it up then say I don't like it an move on. Its really not that hard you know?

It should be utilised, if that's the kind of game the group is looking for, and if the GM doesn't mind providing it, but only in this case (which is a surprisingly popular one, though). I've had groups that expected and would have liked balanced encounters. I don't, so they never got them. They knew it would be wrong to expect it from me.
And if they didn't want them, it would be equally wrong for me to make all the encounters level appropriate.
But again, it's not like groups and GMs that are used to balanced encounters are exactly hard to come by:D!
As long as everybody knows what to expect, I don't object to balanced encounters. Of course, if we know what to expect, I'd also know to skip games I don't like;).

Quote from: Sommerjon;927039Which is why it is amusing to watch you think your zero prepping is anywhere close to the awesomeness you think it is.

I never ever pretend I've prepared extensively when I haven't, so WTF is your point?

Quote from: AsenRG;927043I never ever pretend I've prepared extensively when I haven't, so WTF is your point?

Here let me use your words.

Quote from: AsenRG;927024I have only one thing to answer.
"You can fool some people all the time, or all people some of the time, but you can't fool everybody all the time".
If you're using zero prep...er illusionism at all,over the course of a longer campaign, you approach "all the time" as a requirement. And if your players discuss it after the session, it won't take long before you stumble in the last sentence of the above.
Or in other words, you will slip, no if and but, the question is only when. And the result...well, it's going to depend on the group. But if the group doesn't care, they wouldn't be looking at all.

Quote from: Sommerjon;927051Here let me use your words.

So? Can you point to me where it says I'm fooling anyone into believing I have prepared it in advance?

Protip: improvisation isn't fooling, especially not when my pre-campaign speech makes it clear what exactly I'm doing and how.

Quote from: AsenRG;927042...
As long as everybody knows what to expect, I don't object to balanced encounters. Of course, if we know what to expect, I'd also know to skip games I don't like;).

Yep. That though is the type of thinking that leads me to write things that some may think is me being one-true-way-ist.

That is, when applied to the part about using the rules and rolls or bending and fudging them at will, if the player expects the rules to be used, but the GM is fudging, then that seems like a mistake and dishonest. I feel the same way about pretending there is a map that determines what lies in what direction and what NPCs are where, when actually the GM is going to make it up or just has a list of encounters that will happen in order - I want it to be up-front, so I don't play as if there is a mapped world to work with, and not being honest about it would tend to be frustrating and annoying because it would lead to me thinking/playing in ways that are irrelevant. Same with plot railroads and being saved by cavalry always when we are about to be defeated - I want to know before I agree to invest hours thinking I'm playing a different type of game, and even if I may fail to always detect it, it's still a deception and a violation of an agreement unless I fail to ask before playing.

Also, I feel like there's a bit of a language gap as well as an expectation gulf around these things, because of how common the different modes are, and the lack of distinct language for them. Gaming with a GM that is fudging, even when there's explicit pre-agreement it will happen, seems to me like it is a different type of activity from following the rules. The available words I know for that are mostly negative - fudging is one of the weakest.

I will level balance encounters to a certain extent. It is in my experience more fun to play a game where the majority of encounters are challenging, but neither a walk over nor an instant TPK. That said, succesful encounter resolution does not always mean combat. It could mean sneaking around, negotiating, or running away very fast. Things in my campaigns are the "levels" it makes organic sense for them to be. Low level characters take on goblins and run away from dragons, high level characters skip the goblins and go after the dragons. So the challenges scale with teh characters, but not because the goblins suddenly vanish or morph into ogres. If a high level group wants to go beat up a little band of gblins they are more than welcome to, I just don't expect it to be very exciting.

One of the more unpleasant failures of a game to live up to expectations was a Cthulhu Invictus scenario I played at a con. We discovered an evil cult creating some sort of twisted mutants beneeth the villa. After investigation we made contact with a group of Mi-Go. The let down came at the end of the scenario when the cult summoned some sort of maybe they were Byakhee, and we summoned the Mi-Go to fight them. Cue big set piece batte between two groups of NPCs with little player effect on the outcome. It made the game feel very railroaded.

In the hands of a more skilled GM it might have been more enjoyable. But the GM's delivery had been somewhat flat through the whole game, and the ending just felt contrived.  It was a published adventure, so I cut him some slack for the adventure design part.

Quote from: DavetheLost;927068... the cult summoned some sort of maybe they were Byakhee, and we summoned the Mi-Go to fight them. Cue big set piece batte between two groups of NPCs with little player effect on the outcome. It made the game feel very railroaded....

Did the GM play out the battle using rules and rolls with the PCs present and able to do things and at risk, or did he just dictate/narrate how the fight went? I think that would make a huge difference to me.

Depending on the mode of play, I tend to be very against encounter balance tuning to match the PCs... I think for me it depends on how artificial it is, as opposed to flowing from natural cause & effect, and how much the players can do anything about it or not.

That is, if the GM is smoking something like the D&D 5E rulebook where there are guidelines telling the GM to calculate the party strength and plan battles and loot based on a numeric calculation, then I hate that. Almost as much as I hate it when the GM just generates stuff in the world to match the PCs and have them attack the PCs based on his knowledge of their power levels. I want the world to be the world and the challenge level to come from cause & effect that makes sense. That is, the PCs should be able to size up threats and choose how to, or whether to, approach or avoid, fight or flee, and also to behave in ways that lead to more/stronger or fewer/weaker enemies and so on, based on in-world actions and deeds rather than the universe morphing to meta-magically provide some inevitable/unavoidable challenge sweet spot.

Quote from: Omega;927005when Armchair makes his usual false claim that D&D is all about minis and the books tell you you MUST have them.

???

From what I can tell, the only claims I've made about miniatures here are
1. One post two years ago expressing doubt that getting rid of miniatures was the key reason for D&D's explosion in the 80s--it helped, but I think the media attention had much more to do with it.

2. My contention that 4E gave the impression of needing expensive minis at launch, which hurt its reception.

I'll admit to having made numerous snarky, overly broad and probably unfair comments about old school gaming, but I don't think they involved miniatures. :)

Quote from: Skarg;927078Did the GM play out the battle using rules and rolls with the PCs present and able to do things and at risk, or did he just dictate/narrate how the fight went? I think that would make a huge difference to me.

A bit of both I think, but we were really spectators. By that point I was no longer paying close attention.

QuoteDepending on the mode of play, I tend to be very against encounter balance tuning to match the PCs... I think for me it depends on how artificial it is, as opposed to flowing from natural cause & effect, and how much the players can do anything about it or not.

That is, if the GM is smoking something like the D&D 5E rulebook where there are guidelines telling the GM to calculate the party strength and plan battles and loot based on a numeric calculation, then I hate that. Almost as much as I hate it when the GM just generates stuff in the world to match the PCs and have them attack the PCs based on his knowledge of their power levels. I want the world to be the world and the challenge level to come from cause & effect that makes sense. That is, the PCs should be able to size up threats and choose how to, or whether to, approach or avoid, fight or flee, and also to behave in ways that lead to more/stronger or fewer/weaker enemies and so on, based on in-world actions and deeds rather than the universe morphing to meta-magically provide some inevitable/unavoidable challenge sweet spot.

Yes. 5e, from what I have read, has gone way too far down the rabbit hole of making everything safe but still having the appearance of danger.  In my games if you want to fight goblins you have to go looking for goblins, otherwise who knows what you might bump into if you just wander around looking for random things to kill...the owlbears in the forest don't care what level you are, they just want to eat you.

I have had players attack and kill NPCs who were intended as potential allies. They don't wear t-shirts saying "helpful NPC". I have had players ignore warning signs like very well equipped corpses with terrible wounds. The world is the world. Be careful what you poke with your stick, it might just poke back.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;927079From what I can tell, the only claims I've made about miniatures here are
1. One post two years ago expressing doubt that getting rid of miniatures was the key reason for D&D's explosion in the 80s--it helped, but I think the media attention had much more to do with it.

Funny this. in the '80s we went for miniatures whenever we could get them. None of us had a background in miniatures wargaming, but minis are cool.  I agree that D&D exploded because of the media attention. The fact that D&D rulebooks were available in just about every bookstore and many toy stores, hobby shopes, etc didn't hurt either. I think it is harder to find D&D books at brick & mortar retail now than it was then.

Quote from: AsenRG;927024Also, I didn't mean I'd get all instances of using illusionism. "Always" was probably not the right word. What I should have said is "inevitably";).

Right, and that's pretty much what everyone said as well when pushed on it.  You admit you may not be able to detect the fudge itself, but the pattern that continual fudging will create.

Quote from: AsenRG;927024The whole point of fudging and/or using illusionism is to be able to change what you're delivering, to "correct" the timing, and usually, to do so with style.

That's because you're confusing "Illusionism" as "Illusionism used as the basis of a GMing style".  If you go into Basilisk Forest, and the GM lets you roll the encounters, but he controls the encounter table, he could easily have you encounter the Basilisk only when he wanted you to, and you would never know.

Quote from: AsenRG;927024It will change. Even if your presentation doesn't change, the IC patterns that result will be different from a normal session. This will be detected, too, it's just going to take longer.

I highly doubt it.  When I say the GM doesn't suck at it, that's exactly what I mean.  A cheat doesn't win every hand, or he gets buried in the desert. Yeah you rolled Goblins...but how many?  Yeah, you rolled 8 goblins, but are they alone, do they have a Hobgoblin leader or a Shaman?  You guys were playing smart and well, so the GM puts his thumb on the scale as a reward, you guys get sloppy, Goblin#72 takes out your leader with a crit, oh well.  You were playing really smart and well, but you still got brained by Goblin#72, and the GM didn't somehow intervene, why?  Was he playing straight, well not really, it turns out that a couple of the PCs you have, he determined he didn't want in the campaign, so he's making the encounters a hair tougher and letting the dice fall where they may, since that gets him both an increased chance of killing off the PCs he doesn't want, and gets him credibility and trust.

Of course if the GM always saves the player's bacon whenever they risk random death, or always cockblocks their attempt to jump off the railroad - that will be detected, and yeah, that's the definition of doing it wrong.

Rgrove's player is a good example - He didn't detect at all what was happening, it had to be revealed to him.  Grove found out, once you get that trust broken, you never get it back.  

That's why you don't do it.  You don't do it because you can't hide it, hiding it is easy if you are subtle, the reason you don't do it is that if detected, it's over.  

So, you decide the short term gain isn't worth it to long-term campaigning.  You decide the integrity of the world is more important than the integrity of a plot.  You decide that the satisfaction of succeeding in a game played straight for every PC is worth the life of any one PC or any PC party.  Then you take your thumb off the scale and let the players choose their actions in a World in Motion, and the world responds appropriately.

You run a roleplaying game, a much better one.

Quote from: CRKrueger;927115Right, and that's pretty much what everyone said as well when pushed on it.  You admit you may not be able to detect the fudge itself, but the pattern that continual fudging will create.

Yeah - I already apologized for using the wrong word, didn't I? I meant "always" as in "in every campaign".

QuoteThat's because you're confusing "Illusionism" as "Illusionism used as the basis of a GMing style".  If you go into Basilisk Forest, and the GM lets you roll the encounters, but he controls the encounter table, he could easily have you encounter the Basilisk only when he wanted you to, and you would never know.

I highly doubt it.  When I say the GM doesn't suck at it, that's exactly what I mean.  A cheat doesn't win every hand, or he gets buried in the desert. Yeah you rolled Goblins...but how many?  Yeah, you rolled 8 goblins, but are they alone, do they have a Hobgoblin leader or a Shaman?  You guys were playing smart and well, so the GM puts his thumb on the scale as a reward, you guys get sloppy, Goblin#72 takes out your leader with a crit, oh well.  You were playing really smart and well, but you still got brained by Goblin#72, and the GM didn't somehow intervene, why?  Was he playing straight, well not really, it turns out that a couple of the PCs you have, he determined he didn't want in the campaign, so he's making the encounters a hair tougher and letting the dice fall where they may, since that gets him both an increased chance of killing off the PCs he doesn't want, and gets him credibility and trust.

I'm sorry, it seems you mean something here, but I can't make head nor tails of your example.
Let's just say that no, it wouldn't matter if we know the random table he's using.

QuoteOf course if the GM always saves the player's bacon whenever they risk random death, or always cockblocks their attempt to jump off the railroad - that will be detected, and yeah, that's the definition of doing it wrong.

That's just a very obvious pattern. I've detected much less obvious ones.

QuoteRgrove's player is a good example - He didn't detect at all what was happening, it had to be revealed to him.  Grove found out, once you get that trust broken, you never get it back.

You're talking about something that happened in one session, man. Yes, I fully believe that Rgrove is good enough to fool a single player for a single session (everybody else knew and was on board). Over the course of a campaign? With a player who knows what illusionism is well enough to define it? Highly doubtful, even had he decided to try and hide it - which, to his credit, he didn't attempt.
And yes, Rgrove did the right thing by revealing it. (For that matter, his player's reaction was discourteous and inappropriate, though I understand the disappointment. You can vote with your feet without ranting, and he should have done that). Kudos on him for that...

Now if he had revealed it before the session, it would be better - that's my point. And if there was still a rant? I'd have fully supported him and not the player. It's his style. You can go to a GM and ask whether he'd mind to please not do X, Y and Z when it pertains to your character (I've done it myself). It's called asking a question about compatibility.
But if the GM says no, that's his style...well, that's what you get - or nothing. Up to you to decide whether X, Y and Z really are deal-breakers (to me, that was the case, so I didn't join - but the GM in question still got my respect).

QuoteThat's why you don't do it.  You don't do it because you can't hide it, hiding it is easy if you are subtle, the reason you don't do it is that if detected, it's over.

Yes, and that's most of my point. I just add "and it will be detected". I've been able to hide it over months...but nobody could hide it over a year. And, as you said, once it's detected - which always/inevitably happens - it is over.

QuoteSo, you decide the short term gain isn't worth it to long-term campaigning.  You decide the integrity of the world is more important than the integrity of a plot.  You decide that the satisfaction of succeeding in a game played straight for every PC is worth the life of any one PC or any PC party.  Then you take your thumb off the scale and let the players choose their actions in a World in Motion, and the world responds appropriately.

You run a roleplaying game, a much better one.

Yeah, that's what I'm doing. Also, it's what you are doing, AFAICT.

Quote from: AsenRG;927139Yeah, that's what I'm doing. Also, it's what you are doing, AFAICT.

It is.  I never claimed Illusionism was the way to GM, just that I believe most people who don't like Illusionism vastly overestimate their ability to detect it, and the "Silk Handkerchief" type of encounter isn't the same as "the NPC gets away anyway".

Quote from: DavetheLost;927031I have seen illusionism, railroading, deus ex machina endings, acting out the DM's scripted story and more. Most of it made for pretty bad gaming. I have been in games that went beyond illusionism to the degree of "The road east is blocked, the bridge to the south is washed out, there is a pack of mutant bears in the forest to the north..." literally something blocking us from doing anything but what the GM had scripted for us. That was a very frustrating campaign. As was the convention game where ultimately it didn't matter what we had spent four hours investigating because the supernatural cavalry came over the hill at the end for a big set piece battle with the bad guys to provide a happy ending that negated all player agency as we just stood and watched.

How did that stop anyone? Seriously, how?  No one could climb the barricade?  Swim the River?  TPK on the Mutant Bears because the players did want to go west?

I guess because I never restricted my players in that way, I just can't understand why players might feel restrained in any way...

Quote from: DavetheLost;927031I don't think RGrove is doing anything close to that. It sounds like all but one of his Star Wars players is fine with the way he GMs, and that one was only upset when given a look behind the curtain. Some here have the same reaction to his style as that player did. I can see that Grove seems a bit baffled by the response to this style. Not really a surprise if it works for him and his group.

And if it works for his people, shouldn't that just be enough?

Quote from: Sommerjon;927039Which is why it is amusing to watch you think your zero prepping is anywhere close to the awesomeness you think it is.

Try reading. It helps in all these threads you know. rgrove doesnt believe zero prep games are viable.

From rgrove's accounts of some of his sessions and the simple fact that he has players coming back AND very happy with his sessions for years says that his style IS awesome. From his own descriptions he does alot of very intense prep such as researching the era and locale.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;927079???

From what I can tell, the only claims I've made about miniatures here are
1. One post two years ago expressing doubt that getting rid of miniatures was the key reason for D&D's explosion in the 80s--it helped, but I think the media attention had much more to do with it.

2. My contention that 4E gave the impression of needing expensive minis at launch, which hurt its reception.

I'll admit to having made numerous snarky, overly broad and probably unfair comments about old school gaming, but I don't think they involved miniatures. :)

ook, sorry, got your name mixed up with someone else.

Quote from: CRKrueger;927142It is.  I never claimed Illusionism was the way to GM, just that I believe most people who don't like Illusionism vastly overestimate their ability to detect it, and the "Silk Handkerchief" type of encounter isn't the same as "the NPC gets away anyway".

My assessment of my ability to detect it is based on actually having detected it, and having done it myself. I was taught it's the way to GM, what can I say:)?

Either way, I think we've answered how much time goes into zero-prep games, or at least nobody's questioning that, anymore;).

Quote from: Skarg;926467But it's not hyperbolic OTW wars.

Are you sure?  Really sure?  Maybe you should talk to Krueg here then;

Quote from: CRKrueger;927115Of course if the GM always saves the player's bacon whenever they risk random death, or always cockblocks their attempt to jump off the railroad - that will be detected, and yeah, that's the definition of doing it wrong.

Rgrove's player is a good example - He didn't detect at all what was happening, it had to be revealed to him.  Grove found out, once you get that trust broken, you never get it back.  

That's why you don't do it.  You don't do it because you can't hide it, hiding it is easy if you are subtle, the reason you don't do it is that if detected, it's over.  

So, you decide the short term gain isn't worth it to long-term campaigning.  You decide the integrity of the world is more important than the integrity of a plot.  You decide that the satisfaction of succeeding in a game played straight for every PC is worth the life of any one PC or any PC party.  Then you take your thumb off the scale and let the players choose their actions in a World in Motion, and the world responds appropriately.

You run a roleplaying game, a much better one.

Quote from: AsenRG;927139That's just a very obvious pattern. I've detected much less obvious ones.

Of course...:rolleyes:
Just like when Illusionism was mentioned, you had used Illusionism just days previous...:rolleyes:

Just like when you pull fully realized worlds out your ass in milliseconds all the way down to the types of grass and weeds in BFE...:rolleyes:


Of course you do...:rolleyes:

We just have to trust you.....;)

Quote from: Sommerjon;927279Of course...
Just like when Illusionism was mentioned, you had used Illusionism just days previous...:rolleyes:

Years before that, take a black point for not reading:).
And when it was mentioned on this forum and on another, I tried it to see whether I'm going to get caught. Because, you know, that's what we've been discussing. Ever heard the word "experiment"?
Guess you might have, but just had to check.

QuoteJust like when you pull fully realized worlds out your ass in milliseconds all the way down to the types of grass and weeds in BFE...:rolleyes:

Exaggerating Sommerjon is exaggerating. Got it. Knew it already. Didn't expect anything more from you.

I explained again that I pull stuff out of my brain. And I explained how it's done in steps, because no, you* can't pull it out all at once.

*You, as in "you, Sommerjon";).

QuoteOf course you do...:rolleyes:

Of course I do. You can only envy me, or learn to do as I do:)!

QuoteWe just have to trust you.....;)

Why do you think I care whether you, and that's not the "generic you" here, believe me or not:D? Your opinion is, by and large, unimportant. And doubly so since you only got off my IL a couple days ago as a "second chance";).

Quote from: Christopher Brady;927187How did that stop anyone? Seriously, how?  No one could climb the barricade?  Swim the River?  TPK on the Mutant Bears because the players did want to go west?

I guess because I never restricted my players in that way, I just can't understand why players might feel restrained in any way...

Yes, we were told the barricade was unclimbable, the river was unswimmable, but somehow if we went in the direction the G wanted us to go it was smooth traveling. It felt like we were all just along for the ride with no player agency at all. There were even moments when we were simply told "no, you can't/don't do that". Iirc we put up with it for about a session. I don't play RPGs to be an actor in somebody else's movie, following someone else's script. I at least want agency over my character.

It stood out to us as really almost inconcievably bad GMing too.

Quote from: AsenRG;927288Years before that, take a black point for not reading:).
And when it was mentioned on this forum and on another, I tried it to see whether I'm going to get caught. Because, you know, that's what we've been discussing. Ever heard the word "experiment"?
Guess you might have, but just had to check.


Exaggerating Sommerjon is exaggerating. Got it. Knew it already. Didn't expect anything more from you.

I explained again that I pull stuff out of my brain. And I explained how it's done in steps, because no, you* can't pull it out all at once.

*You, as in "you, Sommerjon";).

Of course I do. You can only envy me, or learn to do as I do:)!


Why do you think I care whether you, and that's not the "generic you" here, believe me or not:D? Your opinion is, by and large, unimportant. And doubly so since you only got off my IL a couple days ago as a "second chance";).

All you've done is shown how much you play like most Storygamers.  You give just enough information to lead them, yet you refuse to acknowledge what you are doing is illusionism.

Quote from: Sommerjon;927307All you've done is shown how much you play like most Storygamers.  You give just enough information to lead them, yet you refuse to acknowledge what you are doing is illusionism.

So, the usual bullshit most people expect from you:).

Quote from: Sommerjon;927254Are you sure?  Really sure?  Maybe you should talk to Krueg here then;

I assume you're blathering about the "much better one" part.  I'm not going to embed IMO at the end of every sentence to prevent out of context mining by a self-admitted professional troll.

You can simply look at the god knows how many times I told rgrove there's nothing wrong with the way he does things, since, obviously, he still has players and they like it...so, he's doing it right...for them.  
The only reason Grove gets The Bucket is his pathological need to defend everything he does by constantly asserting his style was codified in writing as the dominant paradigm since 1974.  

Has his style existed since forever? Of course it has.
Was it the dominant paradigm for GMing as mentioned in countless modules and articles?  Of course it isn't.  But then again, neither is mine, or anyone's.

Quote from: AsenRG;927321So, the usual bullshit most people expect from you:).

And you've done nothing to disprove my point.

Quote from: DavetheLost;927302Yes, we were told the barricade was unclimbable, the river was unswimmable, but somehow if we went in the direction the G wanted us to go it was smooth traveling. It felt like we were all just along for the ride with no player agency at all. There were even moments when we were simply told "no, you can't/don't do that". Iirc we put up with it for about a session. I don't play RPGs to be an actor in somebody else's movie, following someone else's script. I at least want agency over my character.

It stood out to us as really almost inconcievably bad GMing too.

Huhn, you have my sympathies.  I've never done that to my players.  If I give them four directions I put some thing different at each, and if the players decide to keep going that one direction and forget about the rest?  I lost three encounters, but whatever.

Quote from: Sommerjon;927380And you've done nothing to disprove my point.

Because as usual, you don't have a point, except trolling.

Quote from: CRKrueger;927324I assume you're blathering about the "much better one" part.  I'm not going to embed IMO at the end of every sentence to prevent out of context mining by a self-admitted professional troll.

When you say something enough times it stops being IMO and treat it as fact.
You cry troll whenever someone challenges you, what are you a 12yr old girl?

Quote from: AsenRG;927407Because as usual, you don't have a point, except trolling.

You're real good at poking others, but when someone pokes back you deem them a troll.  How convenient for you.  

You know how you say it is so easy to spot Illusionism, same can be said for a Bullshitter.
The bullshit you have been spewing has been way too easy to see, perhaps some day you will get better(I doubt it) at it.

Quote from: CRKrueger;927115Of course if the GM always saves the player's bacon whenever they risk random death, or always cockblocks their attempt to jump off the railroad - that will be detected, and yeah, that's the definition of doing it wrong.

Rgrove's player is a good example - He didn't detect at all what was happening, it had to be revealed to him. Grove found out, once you get that trust broken, you never get it back.

That's why you don't do it. You don't do it because you can't hide it, hiding it is easy if you are subtle, the reason you don't do it is that if detected, it's over.

The reason I don't do it is both that and (more-so) because I can't hide it from myself, and because I and most of my players are clearly interested in playing with actual cause & effect in combat results and situations that make sense and are consistent and that don't warp and transform for reasons of drama or whatever.

Quote from: CRKrueger;927115So, you decide the short term gain isn't worth it to long-term campaigning.  You decide the integrity of the world is more important than the integrity of a plot.  You decide that the satisfaction of succeeding in a game played straight for every PC is worth the life of any one PC or any PC party.  Then you take your thumb off the scale and let the players choose their actions in a World in Motion, and the world responds appropriately.

You run a roleplaying game, a much better one.

This is how I feel about it too, and largely why it matters as much or more to me as a GM than it does as a player (where it also matters a lot to me). Fudging, faking and altering at whim all undermine my own interest in the game, and from comparing experiences having done those things, to me makes for a much less interesting type of thing to do with my time.

Quote from: CRKrueger;927142It is.  I never claimed Illusionism was the way to GM, just that I believe most people who don't like Illusionism vastly overestimate their ability to detect it, and the "Silk Handkerchief" type of encounter isn't the same as "the NPC gets away anyway".

Perhaps for your theoretical GM, the great illusionist concealer GM. For the actual GM's I have played with, while certainly there were many cases where I couldn't be sure of the difference in specific game situations, the style of the GM was quite learnable, because either they were more or less open about it, or they were not great at hiding it. Also, as I've tried to explain in various ways, the types of play I and people I've played to get into, tends to result in clues/signs/tells/physical-evidence etc that make it pretty clear in some situations what's going on. If there is a great illusionist concealer GM, I'd be amazed if I'd ever played in their games - it'd mean some of my friends are amazing actors/poker-players/illusionists for an opposite purpose than what their interests seem and tastes seem to be, for no apparent point.

Quote from: Sommerjon;927254Are you sure?  Really sure?  Maybe you should talk to Krueg here then;

Well not exactly. It's been messy but I don't see it as OTW wars. Yes, there have been various posts where people are expressing their opinions in a OTW sort of way, but to me I get that mostly this is intended as "my strong preference/opinion is", which is painful to always need to preface/disclaim that way, and ya we're not very good at doing that consistently on this site, or we just enjoy the freedom to write that way and not be moderated/censored as happens on other forums, but I think mostly this thread is more people explaining their positions (if sometimes overemphasized or without explaining the degree of OTW they mean or whatever), but I've found this one more interesting and relatively peaceful than not.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;927406Huhn, you have my sympathies.  I've never done that to my players.  If I give them four directions I put some thing different at each, and if the players decide to keep going that one direction and forget about the rest?  I lost three encounters, but whatever.

Thinking to GM's I have played with who were great GM's at their style, but had no map and did have a plan for what we'd do up to a point, I could tell by the way they described things what they thought the reasonable thing to do was. Also, to a greater or lesser degree, you could tell when you were trying something they hadn't thought of, and how sympathetic they were to it, by their ongoing tone and the results you'd get from pursuing such paths. So for example if you tried something that got across their roadblocks and rivers, you'd likely run into something else, and then something else, so it was pretty clear the universe was out to not have you do that.

When the GM is good enough at what they do well, I can be happy enough playing anyway, especially if they are clear enough about it that I can tell what the options are, and what is going to be gamed dynamically and what is more or less determined and not worth struggling against.

I can be plenty interested in a game as long as the areas that aren't under control are clear enough, and the "actual game" dynamic parts are interesting enough and the allowed fair gameplay around them is interesting to me. But if the GM is faking/(not)fooling about where the boundaries between those are, then that annoys me because then I may try to interact/play-with/understand things in ways that end up being wastes of time and energy.

Yes yes because everyone is watching for the evil DMs 24/7 just in case they are an evil DM. Because you NEVER KNOW if the DM is evil so better watch them all carefully to catch them in the act. Because YOU'LL KNOW!

Quote from: Skarg;927466Well not exactly. It's been messy but I don't see it as OTW wars. Yes, there have been various posts where people are expressing their opinions in a OTW sort of way, but to me I get that mostly this is intended as "my strong preference/opinion is", which is painful to always need to preface/disclaim that way, and ya we're not very good at doing that consistently on this site, or we just enjoy the freedom to write that way and not be moderated/censored as happens on other forums, but I think mostly this thread is more people explaining their positions (if sometimes overemphasized or without explaining the degree of OTW they mean or whatever), but I've found this one more interesting and relatively peaceful than not.

When you say something enough times it stops being IMO and you treat it as fact.

Quote from: Omega;927475Yes yes because everyone is watching for the evil DMs 24/7 just in case they are an evil DM. Because you NEVER KNOW if the DM is evil so better watch them all carefully to catch them in the act. Because YOU'LL KNOW!

I know you're being facetious, but isn't that what the Forge effectively taught us?

Quote from: Sommerjon;927461You're real good at poking others,

Yes:D.

Quotebut when someone pokes back you deem them a troll.  How convenient for you.

What, are you trying to tell you're NOT a troll? That would be a surprise for half the users here. The others haven't bothered to remember your handle:).

And that's why there's no point in you denying being a troll until you change what you're doing. If it quacks like a troll, and walks like a troll...it's probably Sommerjon!

QuoteYou know how you say it is so easy to spot Illusionism, same can be said for a Bullshitter.
The bullshit you have been spewing has been way too easy to see, perhaps some day you will get better(I doubt it) at it.

Getting better at spewing bullshit ain't my goal. I'll leave it to you to practice in that necessary troll skill;).

Quote from: Christopher Brady;927560I know you're being facetious, but isn't that what the Forge effectively taught us?

Yep. Thank Cuthbert that the Forge came along to save us from the evil DM and teach us that ALL DMs are evil and must be shackled to protect the pure and innocent players.

Quote from: AsenRG;927641Yes:D.

What, are you trying to tell you're NOT a troll? That would be a surprise for half the users here. The others haven't bothered to remember your handle:).

And that's why there's no point in you denying being a troll until you change what you're doing. If it quacks like a troll, and walks like a troll...it's probably Sommerjon!



Getting better at spewing bullshit ain't my goal. I'll leave it to you to practice in that necessary troll skill;).

Look at the try hard.

I realize this thread got seriously derailed but as the previous thread regarding railroading and such is already dead and buried Ill post this here instead.

I don't mean to reopen a can of worms with this post either, I completely accept what many of you have been saying. I was however a little surprised after the reception my approach was given here to read the following in two new books I just purchased.

D&D 5th Edition -DMG, p.235 "Rolling behind the screen lets you fudge the results if you want to. If two critical hits in a row would kill a character, change the second critical hit into a regular hit, or even a miss. Don't distort die rolls too often though, and don't let on that your doing it."

and on p. 237 "Remember the dice don't run your game - you do! Dice are like rules. They are tools to help keep the action moving. At any time you can decide a players action is automatically successful."

There is also a paragraph on the previous page explaining how the DM can not roll dice at all on some tasks and simply rule success or failure based on how the players describe their attempt and the conditions present.

Ill admit this came as a bit of a surprise as although I had seen such phrases in previous editions I assumed from the response here that is was outdated and frowned on.

Then, to my surprise I am reading through another new book only a day later and discovered this..

Torchbearer, corebook. p.117 "If you think the players have come up with a good idea - a smart use of their gear, spells or even bodies- then there is no need to roll the dice for the test, no need to spend a check, and it doesn't cost a turn. Simply say to them "That's a good idea," then describe the effect of the action."

This sort of permitted, even suggested deviation from game rules is exactly what Ive been defending. Yes, yes I know, I totally get that many hate it - and that's fine. It really is a personal preference in GMin approach. There is however no denying its a major part of the hobby, has been for years and evidently still is as two very new and highly popular publications endorse it.

Im beginning to wonder if the direction of these arguments is related more to the circumstancial makeup of the membership here rather than some statement on the leanings of the industry. I can see where in a different demographic of gamers the majority might be siding with me and the anti-railroaders finding themselves in the minority.

At any rate, that doesn't change a thing in our debate here. It is what it is and Ive accepted and appreciate the opinions Ive heard all round.

Quote from: rgrove0172;927708There is however no denying its a major part of the hobby, has been for years and evidently still is as two very new and highly popular publications endorse it.

Im beginning to wonder if the direction of these arguments is related more to the circumstancial makeup of the membership here rather than some statement on the leanings of the industry. I can see where in a different demographic of gamers the majority might be siding with me and the anti-railroaders finding themselves in the minority.

At any rate, that doesn't change a thing in our debate here. It is what it is and Ive accepted and appreciate the opinions Ive heard all round.

"Fudging" to correct mistakes, for example, in an even-handed way, has been advocated by Gygax himself.  However,  it's done so as a corrective measure, not how you evaluate every roll, or ensure that your plot is followed.

Doing what you do, which basically makes sure that X will occur no matter what the players do, and no matter what they roll, has always been an outlier.

I'll give you that this place skews very heavily anti-fudging, but go look at several polls on Enworld, read the Paizo forums, and you'll find the non-fudgers outnumber the fudgers by a good margin.  Why?  To be perfectly frank, GMs like you, albeit probably with less skill and more abuse.

Quote from: rgrove0172;927708Ill admit this came as a bit of a surprise as although I had seen such phrases in previous editions I assumed from the response here that is was outdated and frowned on.

Yeah several us frown on one or more of those recommendations. I've been aware of recommendations like that since at least the early 1980s. I’m not surprised some designers still recommend stuff like that. But that recommendation has nothing to do with games being "outdated" which frankly is a goofy concept to apply to games.

Some things that RPGs aren't.

• Perishables like milk, eggs, bread, fruit, or vegetables that need a sell-by-date so you know when they start to go bad.
• Pharmaceuticals that have an expiry date after which the product looses efficacy.
• Runway designer fashions that become so "last season" once a new season rolls around.
• Certain kinds of technology e.g cars without headlights, electric starters, windshield wipers, heaters, power steering, air conditioning, sound systems, power brakes, adjustable seats are outdated compared with cars with those things.

A few questions to ponder.

• Is checkers a better game than chess if more people play it?
• Is Monopoly a better game than chess because it is newer than chess?
• Is soccer a better game than badminton because more people play it?
• Does the fact that more people play soccer mean that people who like badminton should stop wacking their birdies with a racket and run around kicking a soccer ball instead?

QuoteI can see where in a different demographic of gamers the majority might be siding with me and the anti-railroaders finding themselves in the minority.

The true popularity of any particular style of gaming is not known. No one has that data. Practically speaking, it is unknowable, since there isn’t sufficient value in table tope RPGs for anyone to spend the effort needed to get even half-way good estimates. Sales data, wouldn’t tell you that even if companies made their sales data publicly available – which they mostly don’t.

Why does it matter to you if more people like the way you run games than like the way I run games...or vice versa?

One of my all time favorite RPGs, with an active online community, active publishing support of new content, and a just launched official miniatures range is the vintage 1976 1e Metamorphosis Alpha.No need for a retroclone when the original is still going strong. And it certainly hasn't expired. I have even taught it to kids whose parents weren't born in 1976!

As for opinions of game mastering style, there is exactly one group of people whose opinions of my GMing style I care about, my players. Likewise the only GMs whose style I care about are the ones running games I'm playing in.  Anyone outside those groups don't really affect my enjoyment of my hobby. Unless I choose to let them.

Quote from: Bren;927721Why does it matter to you if more people like the way you run games than like the way I run games...or vice versa?

No idea why it matters to him, but it oh so obviously does.

Quote from: Sommerjon;927705Look at the try hard.

Look at the troll at a loss for words.

(You're still funny. When you stop being so, I'll come after you...with either my IL, or hired Adventurers. Depending on my mood).

Quote from: rgrove0172;927708I realize this thread got seriously derailed but as the previous thread regarding railroading and such is already dead and buried Ill post this here instead.

I don't mean to reopen a can of worms with this post either,

I don't trust that statement, either. But let's roll along...

QuoteI completely accept what many of you have been saying. I was however a little surprised after the reception my approach was given here to read the following in two new books I just purchased. (...)
Ill admit this came as a bit of a surprise as although I had seen such phrases in previous editions I assumed from the response here that is was outdated and frowned on.

Then, to my surprise I am reading through another new book only a day later and discovered this.

(...)

Yeah, right;).

QuoteThis sort of permitted, even suggested deviation from game rules is exactly what Ive been defending.

No, it's not what you've been defending. It's not what people have been talking about with you, either - except briefly. Fudging wasn't an important matter at all in this discussion (I don't even remember writing any arguments pro and contra...of course, no need to add that it would have been contra, but I probably just nodded along with what other people said, and moved along).
So, why are you bringing up examples of "rules bending"? Trying to move goalposts or what?
Fudging=/=Illusionism. It's not even required in order to have an illusionist GMing style.

QuoteYes, yes I know, I totally get that many hate it - and that's fine. It really is a personal preference in GMin approach. There is however no denying its a major part of the hobby, has been for years and evidently still is as two very new and highly popular publications endorse it.

Im beginning to wonder if the direction of these arguments is related more to the circumstancial makeup of the membership here rather than some statement on the leanings of the industry. I can see where in a different demographic of gamers the majority might be siding with me and the anti-railroaders finding themselves in the minority.

Still trying to position yourself as "the silent majority", I see;)?

"Highly popular" publications "endorsing" it means nothing other than the authors thinking it's a good idea to put such rules in. It doesn't even tell you the opinion of the players that buy said games.
Want some proof for that statement?
Good. Open your Torchbearer PDF (it will be easier with the PDF). Search for my first name, same as my handle here.
...Did you find it? Right in the list of "Kickstarter backers":D?
Yeah, I purchased Torchbearer sight unseen. (And I'm kinda sorry for doing so, but not because of the statement you quoted. No, what I dislike about the game is the division of "Player turns" and "GM turns").
So, that's how much the statement in the book means: it means it's the author's opinion. No less, but certainly, no more.
People that write D&D 5e don't speak for all D&D 5e players, either.

Attempt at positioning yourself as "having the backing of the majority": FAILED.

(And the rule you quoted from Torchbearer also doesn't say anything about fudging. Deciding a solution is good enough to not need a roll is one thing, and something that's fully within a GM's prerogatives. Deciding to call for a roll and then ignore the result is another.
Funny you're giving that example, though. Luke Crane's attitude towards fudging makes me look quite temperate in comparison. I just don't accept the idea, he thinks it's a dangerous practice full of fail, paraphrasing it:p).

QuoteAt any rate, that doesn't change a thing in our debate here. It is what it is and Ive accepted and appreciate the opinions Ive heard all round.

Wonderful, then you shall not be disappointed;)!

Quote from: Omega;927649Yep. Thank Cuthbert that the Forge came along to save us from the evil DM and teach us that ALL DMs are evil and must be shackled to protect the pure and innocent players.

You say that, and yet, there are several game lines out there that took that to heart, like FATE.  The Forge really fucked us over, and we're still feeling the after effects.

This thread is so full of fail.

Quote from: rgrove0172;927708D&D 5th Edition -DMG, p.235 "Rolling behind the screen lets you fudge the results if you want to. If two critical hits in a row would kill a character, change the second critical hit into a regular hit, or even a miss. Don't distort die rolls too often though, and don't let on that your doing it."

The more I learn about D&D 5e, the less I like it. Pros seem to be it isn't D&D 4e and it isn't D&D 3e, which seem worse but in different ways. If I were to be forced to play D&D, I'd run 0D&D because it has the fewest rules, and they're simpler to dismiss and replace than later editions' rules. Even when I was 11 years old, D&D seemed like it was full of ridiculous rules that were best as inspiration to make up better rules because they clearly made little if any sense, and/or an excuse to make fun of people who took them seriously and adhered to them literally. The advice in the 5e line you quoted is up there for me with 5e not letting anyone ever die in a single blow (IIUC), or having the opponents the party meets, and the treasure they have, be determined by a statistical formula based on the player party's power levels. It makes my brain hurt and I want anyone running or programming such a game to give me early warnings that's how it goes, so I can get as far away from it as I can.

Quoteand on p. 237 "Remember the dice don't run your game - you do! Dice are like rules. They are tools to help keep the action moving. At any time you can decide a players action is automatically successful."

There is also a paragraph on the previous page explaining how the DM can not roll dice at all on some tasks and simply rule success or failure based on how the players describe their attempt and the conditions present.

These on the other hand, depend entirely on the context. If a player describes what they do in a way that just makes sense (according to logic & in-game circumstances, not according to some retarded Hollywood film they saw), then I may not think there is any reason to roll (i.e. if I did, the odds would be really low and/or they could just try again and the odds would again be really low and nothing is going on where it matters so ya let it work, or mention they try a couple times and it works soon enough).

But if the context is serious combat, or other important events that are in the scope of the gameplay where there is a social contract to make the game be about what the outcome is and to play by certain rules, then the "GM can decide" should never be invoked also because the GM under such a contract should never want to. If the GM finds they want to fake the important game results and run forced action for some reason, they should tell a player like me and the folks I tend to like playing with, or else we're going to feel cheated of the chance to play the kind of game that interests us.

So writing this in a D&D core book in advice for new GMs seems like it's irresponsibly falling on the opposite side of the fence/neighborhood where I like to play. Apparently it is way far out of bounds in many other dimensions as well.

QuoteIll admit this came as a bit of a surprise as although I had seen such phrases in previous editions I assumed from the response here that is was outdated and frowned on.

No, it's apparently the current D&D 5e way, and frowned on by those many of us here who hate that way of playing, and are annoyed when it is presented as a way to play that many players might have a very natural and justified dislike for, especially when people are pretending that's not what they're doing. It'd get more of a pass if they also mentioned that other play styles were another option, and that it'd be good to be up-front about it.

QuoteThen, to my surprise I am reading through another new book only a day later and discovered this..

Torchbearer, corebook. p.117 "If you think the players have come up with a good idea - a smart use of their gear, spells or even bodies- then there is no need to roll the dice for the test, no need to spend a check, and it doesn't cost a turn. Simply say to them "That's a good idea," then describe the effect of the action."

Oh joy. I don't know anything else about Torchbearer, and it sounds like I likely don't want to. Again, I agree that good ideas should tend to work, and may not need rolls. But that's assuming my usual context of wanting my games to make sense. So a "good idea" would be something that would be so likely to work or so little reason to game out it that it makes sense to let it happen. And where a "good idea" based on it seeming cool but unrealistic, or a movie cliche that's not really certain to work, or a good idea that might not work, or it's important to know how long it takes before a good idea works out because of other circumstances where there's something important at stake, then I want to assess the odds and roll. Why Torchbearer says a good idea means it would not take a turn or would always work, I don't know, but I suspect it's meta-reasoning, whereas I tend to prefer more simulationist gaming, and not want it tainted by rule-of-cool. When I'm trying to play in a game and figure out the situation and strategies that will actually work, and another player decides to do some wild-ass stunt that would likely not work out, if the GM decides to let their BS work because of rule of cool, that's not cool in my book, and makes me want to find another game.

QuoteThis sort of permitted, even suggested deviation from game rules is exactly what Ive been defending. Yes, yes I know, I totally get that many hate it - and that's fine. It really is a personal preference in GMin approach. There is however no denying its a major part of the hobby, has been for years and evidently still is as two very new and highly popular publications endorse it.

Well D&D and characters with levels, classes, piles of hitpoints, armor that makes them harder to hit but doesn't reduce damage, XP for finding gold not for doing things, severe power curves, 30' infravision until a creature joins the party, have all been in some highly popular since RPGs were created, yet I have always disliked all those things. The taint continues and mutates into new forms of ludicrous non-simulationist forms, and encourages pretending to play by complex rules yet deceive players about when they're actually being used or not. To me that's always felt like a big dysfunctional pile or taint that I'm at least grateful has a familiar stench, so that I can easily notice and avoid the games and players I don't want to play with.

QuoteIm beginning to wonder if the direction of these arguments is related more to the circumstancial makeup of the membership here rather than some statement on the leanings of the industry. I can see where in a different demographic of gamers the majority might be siding with me and the anti-railroaders finding themselves in the minority.

You're beginning to wonder? Hehe! People have already mentioned it is a real circumstance. Yes there is a circumstance that there are several people here who share dislikes, and who don't look for guidance from "the leanings of the industry" nor the majority of gamer demographics, whatever that unknown complex data might look like if it even existed. There are also reasons and causes for these circumstances...

Quote from: Skarg;927758Oh joy. I don't know anything else about Torchbearer, and it sounds like I likely don't want to. Again, I agree that good ideas should tend to work, and may not need rolls. But that's assuming my usual context of wanting my games to make sense. So a "good idea" would be something that would be so likely to work or so little reason to game out it that it makes sense to let it happen. And where a "good idea" based on it seeming cool but unrealistic, or a movie cliche that's not really certain to work, or a good idea that might not work, or it's important to know how long it takes before a good idea works out because of other circumstances where there's something important at stake, then I want to assess the odds and roll. Why Torchbearer says a good idea means it would not take a turn or would always work, I don't know, but I suspect it's meta-reasoning, whereas I tend to prefer more simulationist gaming, and not want it tainted by rule-of-cool. When I'm trying to play in a game and figure out the situation and strategies that will actually work, and another player decides to do some wild-ass stunt that would likely not work out, if the GM decides to let their BS work because of rule of cool, that's not cool in my book, and makes me want to find another game.

Just take it from me as a backer of Torchbearer: from all I know about your preferences, you do want to find another game:p. I mean, the game separates GM turn and players turn, and players' turn lasts the clearly measurable time "until they roll a check", need I say more?

Just as I'd be looking for another game instead of 5e, based on Rgrove's presentation...well, I'd be loking,if I didn't already have a library with hundreds of titles to pick from, that is.

QuoteWell D&D and characters with levels, classes, piles of hitpoints, armor that makes them harder to hit but doesn't reduce damage, XP for finding gold not for doing things, severe power curves, 30' infravision until a creature joins the party, have all been in some highly popular since RPGs were created, yet I have always disliked all those things. The taint continues and mutates into new forms of ludicrous non-simulationist forms, and encourages pretending to play by complex rules yet deceive players about when they're actually being used or not. To me that's always felt like a big dysfunctional pile or taint that I'm at least grateful has a familiar stench, so that I can easily notice and avoid the games and players I don't want to play with.

Word:D!

QuoteYou're beginning to wonder? Hehe! People have already mentioned it is a real circumstance. Yes there is a circumstance that there are several people here who share dislikes, and who don't look for guidance from "the leanings of the industry" nor the majority of gamer demographics, whatever that unknown complex data might look like if it even existed. There are also reasons and causes for these circumstances...

In order to even consider looking for guidance from "the leanings of the industry", I'd need to know what said leanings are.
Based on Paizo gaining a not insignificant share of the RPG market of WotC a few years back, I'd say not even the market leader fully understands those leanings, not even in things as basic as rules systems.
If that's the case, anyone who pretends to know what Refereeing advice* is the most popular to follow, is either mistaken, or just trying to position his own GMing style as being "the most popular". I'd bet on the latter in this case;).


*At best a detail in most RPG books, and one that's usually easily discarded and replaced.

Wait, people actually read the Referee's advice in RPGs? I thought most GMs just skipped over that section.

As for Torch Bearer, I bought it because I was told it was a fantasy game based on Mouse Guard. It isn't. At least not the things that to my mind make Mouse Guard brilliant. Instead it takes the bits of Mouse Guard that don't work well for other settings, the more restrictive bits of D&D, and the bits of Burning Wheel that make my head hurt and mixes them together in a blender.

Thankfully I was able to borrow Burning Wheel from a friend before buying it. Warmed over Tolkienesque fantasy. Yawn!  The system might have provided interesting role playing if only it had not been tied to such a cliched setting and world style.

It's not that I object to elves and dwarves and such, so much as that I get bored of them always being Tolkien, Shanara, D&D style. If you are going to use them go back to folklore and myth. Do something even slightly different with them.

Quote from: AsenRG;927765Just take it from me as a backer of Torchbearer: from all I know about your preferences, you do want to find another game:p. I mean, the game separates GM turn and players turn, and players' turn lasts the clearly measurable time "until they roll a check", need I say more?
...

Say no more, and thanks.

Though it does make it more clear where the "skip a turn for a good idea" thing makes more sense. Out of context, I was thinking the turns represented time, and so it was like "yeah, it makes sense to load with armor-piercing bullets, good-idea, so that takes no time". But of course, while that makes more sense in context, yes, that sounds like a context I don't want to know more about.

Quote from: Skarg;927771Say no more, and thanks.

Though it does make it more clear where the "skip a turn for a good idea" thing makes more sense. Out of context, I was thinking the turns represented time, and so it was like "yeah, it makes sense to load with armor-piercing bullets, good-idea, so that takes no time". But of course, while that makes more sense in context, yes, that sounds like a context I don't want to know more about.

You're welcome:).
Though I must note that the turns do indeed represent time, including your torches going out after a set number of turns and you getting tired. So yes, finding a sneaky way to bypass a chasm saves you the time you'd need otherwise to, say, prepare a rope bridge over it;).

Quote from: DavetheLost;927766Wait, people actually read the Referee's advice in RPGs? I thought most GMs just skipped over that section.

As for Torch Bearer, I bought it because I was told it was a fantasy game based on Mouse Guard. It isn't. At least not the things that to my mind make Mouse Guard brilliant. Instead it takes the bits of Mouse Guard that don't work well for other settings, the more restrictive bits of D&D, and the bits of Burning Wheel that make my head hurt and mixes them together in a blender.

Thankfully I was able to borrow Burning Wheel from a friend before buying it. Warmed over Tolkienesque fantasy. Yawn!  The system might have provided interesting role playing if only it had not been tied to such a cliched setting and world style.

It's not that I object to elves and dwarves and such, so much as that I get bored of them always being Tolkien, Shanara, D&D style. If you are going to use them go back to folklore and myth. Do something even slightly different with them.

Not a bad description of Torchbearer, I'm sorry to say:D!
Though some people enjoy it, so it clearly has its own market. Then again, there are people that like the restrictive bits in D&D, too, so that's hardly a surprise!

Your opinions are respected dude, really. There's no need to be an ass.

Sorry, responding to AsenRG

Quote from: rgrove0172;927794Your opinions are respected dude, really. There's no need to be an ass.

Sorry, responding to AsenRG

Funny you say that, but I'd rather send you the rest of this on PM;).

Quote from: DavetheLost;927766Wait, people actually read the Referee's advice in RPGs? I thought most GMs just skipped over that section...

I read them, because sometimes they are good or at least interesting, and they tend to give some info about the designers, which if it's a game that's new to me, helps me figure out how much more time I want to spend with it.

I tend to really like the advice in the games I like, and they greatly influenced by GM style when I was starting out. But I was lucky enough to start out with a system I really liked. The advice in In The Labyrinth, and just the thinking pattern of the whole thing, is mainly about how to run a pretty logical sandboxy game and have rules that make sense and are pretty realistic yet playable for all sorts of stuff, which fits me really well.

I appreciate the GM advice in GURPS too. Even the advice in GURPS about play modes I don't like is generally clearly marked as being for GMs of types not like me, so that's fine.

It's when some advice is written as everyone should do something I can't stand, that pushes my red buttons.

I was being somewhat facetious.  I do recomend the GM advice in the d20 version of CoC, it is excellent not only on how to run a horror game but on how to run a game in general.
One of the first sections I read when considering a new game is the Designer's Notes if any, failing that the GM's advice, it gives a good insight into what the game is trying to do and why.

The first thing I look at is the character sheet. You can tell an awful lot about a game by looking at the character sheet.

I even glance at the "what is an RPG" sometimes they sneak little bits in there too. And it can be a good place to see what style the designers are aiming for.

As an RPG nut I read those sections on games Ill never play - just cuz its entertaining. You're all right though, there are jems in there sometimes and sometimes quite a bit of crap.

Here are some examples from In The Labyrinth, to contrast to the examples rgrove posted:

A  GM,  wherever  possible,  should  determine  the reactions of
his men and monsters according to logic. Faced with a party of
six,  a  wolf  will  flee  —  unless  it's  starved,  sick,  or  defending
pups.  A  party  of  stupid  orcs  will  probably  fight  - but  if they
have  a  smart  leader, they may try to dicker, negotiate, or trick
the  players  into  a  bad  position.  The GM  can then play the orc
leader,  talking   to   the  party.   If  the   players  give  the  right
answers,  they  may  be  able  to  walk  right  by!  Otherwise,  it's a
fight.

and

 A low roll produces a very good
result  for  the  character.  A  very  HIGH  roll  produces  disaster.
For  instance, a  thief once  tried  to  use  his  Spying  talent  to  peek
through   a   doorway  without   being   seen.  He   rolled  3  dice
against  DX  -  and  got  18.  This is the WORST  possible result  -
it  means  disaster.  In  this  case,  he  tripped  and  fell through the
door!   Since  there  were  a  dozen  Green  Slimes  on  the  other
side,  he  was  immediately  eaten.  Tough  luck.  Roll  better  next
time.

and

random   creatures   should   be
confined  to   those  that  would  logically  be  found  wandering
aimlessly  in  the  area.  It  is  NOT  logical  to  pull  trolls,  groups
of  orcs,  or  similar  menaces  out  of  thin  air  in  an  otherwise
well-worked-out labyrinth.

And how are those in anyway contrasted with those I posted? Im not being snarky, but honestly I don't see the correlation at all. My posts referred to GMs deviating from the rules a bit. Your are addressing logic and dice interpretation. Did I miss something?

Quote from: DavetheLost;927893One of the first sections I read when considering a new game is the Designer's Notes if any, failing that the GM's advice, it gives a good insight into what the game is trying to do and why.

The first thing I look at is the character sheet. You can tell an awful lot about a game by looking at the character sheet.

I even glance at the "what is an RPG" sometimes they sneak little bits in there too. And it can be a good place to see what style the designers are aiming for.

Great stuff. I do exactly the same. ;)

Quote from: rgrove0172;927912And how are those in anyway contrasted with those I posted? Im not being snarky, but honestly I don't see the correlation at all. My posts referred to GMs deviating from the rules a bit. Your are addressing logic and dice interpretation. Did I miss something?

Because you are again cherry picking quotes to try and make your style of play a valid majority. When it is not. And never has been. And so this tired dance goes round and round and round... again...

Lets repeat this again because why the hell not...

Just because someone puts advice in a game IN NO WAY makes it good advice.
RuinsWorld tells the players its ok to lie on a trade and STEAL cards. Fantasy Wargaming(the RPG, not the wargaming book) Tells the GM to take over the players characters and make them fight and squabble amongst themselves and other horrible advice. A couple of RPGs tell the GM that it is perfectly fine to tweak rolls for whatever reason. And so on.

Quote from: rgrove0172;927912And how are those in anyway contrasted with those I posted? Im not being snarky, but honestly I don't see the correlation at all. My posts referred to GMs deviating from the rules a bit. Your are addressing logic and dice interpretation. Did I miss something?

Oh sorry rgrove, I overstated how directly they all applied to your examples. I mainly meant I think the general GM style presented in ITL is about logic and in-game-world cause & effect, which to me contrasts with the GM style in the parts I disagree with in your examples.

My first ITL quote actually agrees with the part of your second D&D 5e quote where good ideas should just work without rolling, but as I wrote in my earlier reply to your 5e quotes, only if "good idea" relates to logic and the situation (not, say, rule of cool, or because the GM likes that it helps his pre-determined plot).

My second ITL quote seems to me opposed to your first 5e quote, which advocated fudging to protect PCs from bad luck. I also find it relevant opposition to the idea suggested earlier in this thread that there is no difference if the GM changes the game world in ways the players have no information about yet. If your GM determines what is there and plays faithfully to that situation, then it's fair bad fortune that the thief died that way. If the GM changes/invents stuff at will and you flub a roll and he says you fall and are eaten by slime, then it's more like he just chose to kill you. The first death is like when someone accidentally causes a severe penalty in football - a fluke but part of the game you need to be ready to handle. It seems to me the second death is more like one team gets a really dubious penalty because the ref is biased or crooked.

My third ITL quote isn't really about your 5e quotes except that again to me it relfects the general approach of prep/maps/logic/rules/rolls as opposed to improv/maplessness/meta/apathy, and actually that other old forum topic about (il)logical wandering monsters. But to me, though a stretch (makes more sense if you see the rest of ITL, where it shows detailed multi-level labyrinth maps and suggests using counters to track NPC positions, and has rules for how far noise from different activities carries, taking into account intervening terrain) it could also be relevant to your other post here about the Star Wars game which seemed mapped but was really a string of encounters.

Quote from: CRKrueger;927738No idea why it matters to him, but it oh so obviously does.

This is one of those things that "does not matter" until someone finds a way to come up with some actual data. Then suddenly everyone cares.

Quote from: Trond;927975This is one of those things that "does not matter" until someone finds a way to come up with some actual data. Then suddenly everyone cares.

Eh, Grove's been seeking validation by claiming that his GMing style is the majority since the beginning of the hobby ever since his first thread.  So far his "actual data" amounts to a quote from 2014 that references fudging not illusionism and a quote from a Forgie author who is even more anti-fudging than most anti-fudgers here.  "Say Yes or Roll the Dice" does not mean "Roll the Dice then do whatever you want".  Even cursory reading of anything Luke Crane's written shows him to be a firm believer in restricting GM power and coding into mechanics way to prevent GM abuse.  Grove's self-described style combines very strong GM Storytelling, Illusionism, Fudging and Railroading.  Crane is the anti-Grove for most of Grove's style.

You might find a single source that advocates a single technique that Grove says he uses, especially when you take it out of context and claim it means whatever you want it to.  Now find me a quote from any source, any game, any language on the planet that supports all of those at the same time.  Get to fucking work, I'll send you the address of the old folk's home I check into so you can send me your "actual data" results in 40 years.  Oh yeah, you won't find any, nevermind.

Laugh. You guys win. This is hilarious. You keep doing what you do and I'll do the same. This Cracks Me up.

Quote from: Skarg;927892I read them, because sometimes they are good or at least interesting, and they tend to give some info about the designers, which if it's a game that's new to me, helps me figure out how much more time I want to spend with it.

I tend to really like the advice in the games I like, and they greatly influenced by GM style when I was starting out. But I was lucky enough to start out with a system I really liked. The advice in In The Labyrinth, and just the thinking pattern of the whole thing, is mainly about how to run a pretty logical sandboxy game and have rules that make sense and are pretty realistic yet playable for all sorts of stuff, which fits me really well.

I appreciate the GM advice in GURPS too. Even the advice in GURPS about play modes I don't like is generally clearly marked as being for GMs of types not like me, so that's fine.

It's when some advice is written as everyone should do something I can't stand, that pushes my red buttons.

Quote from: DavetheLost;927893I was being somewhat facetious.  I do recomend the GM advice in the d20 version of CoC, it is excellent not only on how to run a horror game but on how to run a game in general.
One of the first sections I read when considering a new game is the Designer's Notes if any, failing that the GM's advice, it gives a good insight into what the game is trying to do and why.

The first thing I look at is the character sheet. You can tell an awful lot about a game by looking at the character sheet.

I even glance at the "what is an RPG" sometimes they sneak little bits in there too. And it can be a good place to see what style the designers are aiming for.

Basically, I agree with both of these, but there's a caveat:).

Quote from: Omega;927920Because you are again cherry picking quotes to try and make your style of play a valid majority. When it is not. And never has been. And so this tired dance goes round and round and round... again...

Lets repeat this again because why the hell not...

Just because someone puts advice in a game IN NO WAY makes it good advice.
RuinsWorld tells the players its ok to lie on a trade and STEAL cards. Fantasy Wargaming(the RPG, not the wargaming book) Tells the GM to take over the players characters and make them fight and squabble amongst themselves and other horrible advice. A couple of RPGs tell the GM that it is perfectly fine to tweak rolls for whatever reason. And so on.

And here's the caveat;).

advice in the game is just that, advice. You have to decide whether it's a good idea for you and your group. If it doesn't work, it's your fault, not the designer's.
Even rules in a game are advice, BTW.

Quote from: Trond;927975This is one of those things that "does not matter" until someone finds a way to come up with some actual data. Then suddenly everyone cares.

More like "until someone comes up with false data(or cherry picked data)" and then everyone cares because its misinformation.

Quote from: rgrove0172;927985You keep doing what you do and I'll do the same.

I don't think anyone said you shouldn't.  They said they would not want to be one of your players, but that's not the same thing.  Most of the people, including me, said that if it's working for you, and your players like it, good to go.  

But, that's not enough.  You seem to actually think the majority of GMs out there run games like you, and have since Gary first met Dave...and you keep claiming your style is the norm and your critics are outliers...again...and again...and again...and again.  Well, no. :p

Quote from: Bren;927721...
Why does it matter to you if more people like the way you run games than like the way I run games...or vice versa?

Quote from: CRKrueger;927738No idea why it matters to him, but it oh so obviously does.

Quote from: Trond;927975This is one of those things that "does not matter" until someone finds a way to come up with some actual data. Then suddenly everyone cares.

Quote from: Omega;928040More like "until someone comes up with false data(or cherry picked data)" and then everyone cares because its misinformation.

Um, I still won't particularly care.

I've been pretty clear since I started with RPG's in 1980 (in lower school) that there were many people who played in styles I didn't like, including blatant lying that goes way way beyond constant fudge railroad, and all sorts of flavors of people playing various rulesets that are mainly interesting to me because I can't believe people actually think they're not preposterous, and them made for the butts of jokes between like-minded friends.

Of course RPG's aren't the only thing like that. There always seems to be a majority of people who seem like fools doing random tasteless things. So the research project to determine how many people are playing in ways I think are dumb is really not going to do any more than give me a statistic to add to my jokes about how retarded they all seem.

Quote from: Bren;927721...
Why does it matter to you if more people like the way you run games than like the way I run games...or vice versa?

Quote from: CRKrueger;927738No idea why it matters to him, but it oh so obviously does.

Quote from: Trond;927975This is one of those things that "does not matter" until someone finds a way to come up with some actual data. Then suddenly everyone cares.

Quote from: Omega;928040More like "until someone comes up with false data(or cherry picked data)" and then everyone cares because its misinformation.

Um, I still won't particularly care.

I've been pretty clear since I started with RPG's in 1980 (in lower school) that there were many people who played in styles I didn't like, including blatant lying that goes way way beyond constant fudge railroad, and all sorts of flavors of people playing various rulesets that are mainly interesting to me because I can't believe people actually think they're not preposterous. They mainly made for the butts of jokes between like-minded friends.

Of course RPG's aren't the only thing like that. There always seems to be a majority of people who seem like fools doing random tasteless things. So the research project to determine how many people are playing in ways I think are dumb is really not going to do any more than give me a statistic to add to my jokes about how retarded they all seem.

Quote from: Skarg;928047Um, I still won't particularly care.

Nor should you.

Quote from: Bren;928065Nor should you.

You seem to care, a lot.
35+ posts extolling the virtues of your One True Way.

Sommerjon, why are you here if all you want to do is shitpost?

Quote from: CRKrueger;928045I don't think anyone said you shouldn't.  They said they would not want to be one of your players, but that's not the same thing.  Most of the people, including me, said that if it's working for you, and your players like it, good to go.  

But, that's not enough.  You seem to actually think the majority of GMs out there run games like you, and have since Gary first met Dave...and you keep claiming your style is the norm and your critics are outliers...again...and again...and again...and again.  Well, no. :p

What theGreen One said;).

Quote from: Skarg;928047Um, I still won't particularly care.

I've been pretty clear since I started with RPG's in 1980 (in lower school) that there were many people who played in styles I didn't like, including blatant lying that goes way way beyond constant fudge railroad, and all sorts of flavors of people playing various rulesets that are mainly interesting to me because I can't believe people actually think they're not preposterous. They mainly made for the butts of jokes between like-minded friends.

Of course RPG's aren't the only thing like that. There always seems to be a majority of people who seem like fools doing random tasteless things. So the research project to determine how many people are playing in ways I think are dumb is really not going to do any more than give me a statistic to add to my jokes about how retarded they all seem.

Likewise, only with slightly less snark:D!
But most people somehow think the majority has to be right, so it would be an argument, at least.

Quote from: jeff37923;928083Sommerjon, why are you here if all you want to do is shitpost?

I think that's exactly his goal.
That, or he has an opinion the majority of us would disagree with and laugh at, and doesn't dare speak it aloud. But my bet is on "shitposting".

Quote from: Sommerjon;928081You seem to care, a lot.
35+ posts extolling the virtues of your One True Way.

I think that's one post in this thread on the topic of playstyle popularity, with four quoted posts explaining the context, and Sommerjon still posts a one-liner  about a different context?

Most of my posts here haven't even been arguments for or against - they've been attempts to talk about the differences between, and the interest I see in the way I play.

I get the impression that Sommerjon just likes flamewars and is trying to get me to join the ranks of people who immediately call him a troll whenever he appears.

Quote from: Skarg;928090I get the impression that Sommerjon just likes flamewars and is trying to get me to join the ranks of people who immediately call him a troll whenever he appears.

Your impression is correct;).

Quote from: Skarg;928090I think that's one post in this thread on the topic of playstyle popularity, with four quoted posts explaining the context, and Sommerjon still posts a one-liner  about a different context?

Most of my posts here haven't even been arguments for or against - they've been attempts to talk about the differences between, and the interest I see in the way I play.

I get the impression that Sommerjon just likes flamewars and is trying to get me to join the ranks of people who immediately call him a troll whenever he appears.

Not every post here is about you.

Quote from: Sommerjon;928194Not every post here is about you.

Liar! Of course it's all about him, Pundit keeps posting how all games needs "skargs", and even games that don't have "skargs" only work when the players keep them in their heads:D!

Granted, Pundit calls those "classes", for some reason;).

Quote from: AsenRG;928225Liar! Of course it's all about him, Pundit keeps posting how all games needs "skargs", and even games that don't have "skargs" only work when the players keep them in their heads:D!

Granted, Pundit calls those "classes", for some reason;).

It's because I'm so classy...

Quote from: Skarg;928330It's because I'm so classy...

No doubt that's the most logical explanation!

Quote from: rgrove0172;924962I bought a chunk of FFG Star Wars stuff last spring and set up one, that's ONE session of Edge of the Empire. The scenario was a sort of Star Wars dungeon crawl through an abandoned and critter infested mining complex, dozens of kilometers across, hundreds of meters deep etc. Huge Place.

There was no way I was going to map all that after some consideration decided, as they goal was more or less a hunt for a specific item, to run it as a set of linked encounters. There was a chance of getting lost, random stuff too of course, but essentially there were 20 or so scenes that they players would wander through, it really didn't matter where they chose to go (up the ladder, down the vent shaft or through the busted security door for example) they would end up in one of those 20 scenes to be dealt with or avoided then move on. The players had a 'map' but not a physical one, instead it gave directions toward parts of the mine (maintenance section, control room, conveyor control hub, droid storage etc.) which correlated with the scenes they might encounter if they chose to go that general way.

I thought it was an efficient way to run the game and it turned out great. We had a ball, 8 hours of steady play through the endless corridors and maintenance shutes before facing the big nasty critter at the end with a gaggle of Stormtroopers thrown in as their presence at the off limits site was discovered.

After the game though, during the typical post game debrief, one of our new players asked about the map to the place. "It must be huge!" I told him it didn't exist. The game was a series of scenes I had established and walked them through. The guy came unhinged! "What? You mean there is no mine, its just a bunch of bullshit encounters you put us through?" I mean he was really upset. The other players kind of stared in wonder, like what was this guys problem. A few minutes before he had been swearing it was one of the best games he had ever taken part in. To make a long story short he left pissed and has never come back. He used the same 'illusionist' term I hear in this forum regularly several times in is ranting. My other players and I were sort of speechless, good riddance I guess. We had a great time.

That's the thing about this whole debate. Its perceived so differently by each individual, or each camp I suppose. My players were aware of how the game was structured 30 minutes in. They know how I operate and could see the sort of linked encounter mechanic readily, but didn't care... no more than that they supported it. They saw it as an effective way to present this huge sprawling complex and as long as there was an 'illusion' of free choice and navigation, they were fine. "Get one with the story!"  The new player though believed he had been fooled somehow, that somehow what he had been enjoying for nearly 8 hours had been a lie, like finding out your rollercoaster ride was a simulator instead of the real thing when its over. My response would be.."So what! Was it a fun ride?" while it was a deal killer for him.

Some people like Open World Games, some people like structured even Linear games with cutscenes. Not much you can do about it except try to clarify up front how you do things but even that isn't fool proof. Everyone doesn't fit into one neat pigeonhole or another, for one thing. Either party going ballistic is a little much. It is just a game. If your tastes don't match up, they don't match up.

Quote from: Headless;924139Not to call bull shit, but I'm going to call bull shit.  

On the other thread there are a bunch of people that say they do 15 minuets or less of prep.   Then they say they do a bunch of campaign prep so the don't have to do session prep.  Then they say they have pre generated dungeons rdy to go.  

I truly suspect there are people who do this.  Especially if you are running a streamlined commercial system, you let it do the work.

QuoteSecond of all and more importantly.  Can you teach me your ways?  You have a couple of short cuts and cheats that (from the sounds of it) vastly shorten you prep time (just not down to zero).

(1) choose a system where you don't need to stat out creatures or NPCs in advance, and if you do it takes 15 minutes tops to do so; (2) save everything you do so you can reuse if needed

QuoteSpecifically. How much campagin prep do you do?  How much time?  

None specific.  Although I've poured many, many hours over the decades into my primary game world.  Little is used but I do it for me.  But a campaign, as in a new group of players getting ready to begin; just whatever time it takes to print out character sheets, a set of rules, etc.

QuoteHow many dungeons do you have preped?  

I don't know exactly, maybe a 100.   I've made it a point over the years of downloading all the free dungeons I can find and have a good couple dozen I've bought.  Then another dozen that are my own. That's just dungeons, I have worlds, cities and villages, etc.

QuoteHow many NPCs? ( do you recycle NPCs?)

A couple dozen, they take about 5 minutes to make at level 1, up to maybe an hour at level 20; so not a problem.  

Quoteworld map?  

world maps

QuoteHow much of a plot do you have?  

None. Zero. Nada.  NPCs, nations regions have agendas and what they are up to, no plot.  If I need details on what NPC conflicts I can retread current events, history, or a movie.  Generally I choose history, truth is strange than fiction.  Now an adventure path type plot.  Sure, I have about two dozen favorite go to modules/dungeons that I string together to form an overarching NPC plot.   However long it takes me to print out a copy for the game.

QuoteIf you are working it out as you go along who takes the notes?  When do you take them, during or after?  How long does it take?

Not sure what you mean by notes.  I have stats or names I come up with I might jot down, but overall it's easy to remember.  It if is critical it's but a sentence and I have a special notebook for notes like that, and names, I'm notorious for not remember NPC names, and any rule rulings.  I leave it up to the players to take their own notes otherwise.  

QuoteDungeons.  Do you have a source for pre generated ones?  How long does it take you to build one from scratch?  Renovate one?

I do like to rewrite them, don't have to but I like it, also have dreams of one day commercializing my homebrew.  Rewriting takes a long time.  From scratch spend more time doing the map.  My notes for each room are literally 2-3 lines.  I might type up half a page or make a flow diagram, I love diagram, representing dungeon inhabitant relations/interactions/goals.

QuotePlease add any other other tricks that can help cut down prep time.  When I was younger I wanted to world build.  Now I just want to play.

World build for yourself.  A simple evocative description that ties into something players are familiar with is worth more than pages of text.

Quote from: rgrove0172;927985... The new player though believed he had been fooled somehow, that somehow what he had been enjoying for nearly 8 hours had been a lie, like finding out your rollercoaster ride was a simulator instead of the real thing when its over. My response would be.."So what! Was it a fun ride?" while it was a deal killer for him..

I think a better analogy is someone faking an orgasm, some mind, others could care less.

Quote from: Xanther;935812I think a better analogy is someone faking an orgasm, some mind, others could care less.

That seems like an uncharitable analogy. Who's the faker in this case?

Quote from: Nexus;935815That seems like an uncharitable analogy. Who's the faker in this case?

This is a tangent, so I'm going to go answer it in the thread where we are specifically covering this example (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?35740-A-Calm-Converstation-(hopefully)-on-GM-Improv/page17).

Quote from: Nexus;935815That seems like an uncharitable analogy. Who's the faker in this case?

It is a stronger one, and kinda twisted; who knows who the faker is but there was fakery involved.  Was it all good,...or not?