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.


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.

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.


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.