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, here, here, and most succinctly, here.

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.