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So I've been running a game of ASSH for the past month and a half or so. We started off with the module Rats in the Walls but since that I've completely improvised it. Using a combination of tables and strategic pulling of things out of my ass and thus far it's been the best game I've seen in ages. I've pulled a location or two from a module but that's about it.

Historically I've been a low prep GM anyway, but this time I've just thrown caution to the wind. Whatever comes up goes down in the campaign notes and I may try to connect the dots in between sessions. We have had an absolute blast and I've found the lack of worrying about prep between sessions has been very freeing for me. Now I think this sort of thing is much more feasible in a pre-established setting but could be done in a homebrew with a little prep work. Seriously my between session prep time has come down to about 30 minutes or so.

So far my players seem not to notice nor care, they are having fun so no one gives a damn that the layout of the hidden cultist temple makes less than no sense.

I've also come to enjoy using the random tables as oracles and trying to suss out what it is the dice gods are trying to tell me.

I'm sure this isn't news to any of the old hands around here but I thought I'd share. Feel free to share experiences GMing this way, or tips to facilitate it.

Yeah, low prep snadbox games is a craft I am inspired to thrive to. I consider myself still beginner on this, so I still stick to running published adventures.

But some of books I like that inspire this kind of gaming are:
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/108572/The-Lazy-Dungeon-Master

And also a game called Muntant: Year Zero

Yeah, that's my thing. Now that I'm running Godbound, a game in which faction/domain management is a thing, I stat up the factions and communities, and grow the sandbox fractal-like, between sessions.

I still wish I was one of these disciplined GMs that showed up for the first session with a solid, fully functional sandbox map keyed in advance. But my players sure aren't complaining.

Ive always been an over prepper but after reading so much about Zero Prep/Sandbox type gaming Ive given it a try a few times. Ive been mildly successful, afterall its not a whole lot harder to make stuff up on whim at the table than it is at your GM prep desk by yourself. However, I havent been all that happy with the results. Nobody complained but I always felt rushed, that my on the spot ideas werent as original or detailed as they could have been if I had put some tiime and thought into them. Then there is the massive task of recording everything we generated at the table. Trying to keep detailed notes while playing and then sorting through them all was a major headache. I recorded the last couple of sessions to facilitate this but sitting there listening to 4 hours of banter is as bad as prepping for the next game!

Anyway, good luck to you. Ill probably try it again as I can definitely see the advantages but Im not ready to give up my prep yet!

I'm running Dungeon World and Freebooters on the Frontier. I prep the dungeons and discoveries for for drop-in, and DL'ed a bunch of one page dungeons just in case (at the very least, I have the maps). Lots of on the spot stuff, still, even with some prep. I do not know the monster creation well enough for my comfort level to run it completely on the fly (but I'm close!).

I'll take a shot at giving a little advice.

Strive to define the world as you go and then adhere to the way that you've defined it.

Let's say the party goes into a tavern and you decide there are 2 big bouncers. Then the party gets in a fight and makes short work of the bouncers.

The temptation might be to say, "4 more bouncers come rushing in from the back!" because you want a better fight. Don't do that. Treat what you decided earlier as the facts, even if no one else knows what you decided.

Take notes. Have a rough map of the city or countryside or whatever. Fill in the blanks as you go.

Pull elements out of character backstories and insert them into events. Let the game be about who the characters are and the choices they make.

Quote from: Arkansan;920308So I've been running a game of ASSH for the past month and a half or so. We started off with the module Rats in the Walls but since that I've completely improvised it. Using a combination of tables and strategic pulling of things out of my ass and thus far it's been the best game I've seen in ages. I've pulled a location or two from a module but that's about it.

Historically I've been a low prep GM anyway, but this time I've just thrown caution to the wind. Whatever comes up goes down in the campaign notes and I may try to connect the dots in between sessions. We have had an absolute blast and I've found the lack of worrying about prep between sessions has been very freeing for me. Now I think this sort of thing is much more feasible in a pre-established setting but could be done in a homebrew with a little prep work. Seriously my between session prep time has come down to about 30 minutes or so.

So far my players seem not to notice nor care, they are having fun so no one gives a damn that the layout of the hidden cultist temple makes less than no sense.

I've also come to enjoy using the random tables as oracles and trying to suss out what it is the dice gods are trying to tell me.

I'm sure this isn't news to any of the old hands around here but I thought I'd share. Feel free to share experiences GMing this way, or tips to facilitate it.

That reminds me of my first steps in running sandboxes, before I knew that's what they were called, so I'd say you're on the right track:).

As it happens I've just started up a Patreon writing mini adventures to minimise prep for sandbox style GMs: $1 Adventure Frameworks.

https://www.patreon.com/user?u=645444 (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=645444)

Basically drop in rumour/adventures, with enough meat for the GM to improvise the gaps confidently, at about 4-6 pages (excluding credits). There's a free example adventure, the Tomb of Horutep, at the link.

Cheers

This is how I have GMed for years. I will sometimes design little set piece encounters or adventure hooks, but have given up doing heavy prep because my players always go off in some unexpected direction anyways.

What does prep mean?

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;920565What does prep mean?

Good point, I mean different people of course prepare to run a game different ways.

I've found that keeping a list of random ideas and short scenarios to spring on players when the opportunity presents itself is better than a written adventure, but that is still sort of preparing.

Quote from: Arkansan;920308So I've been running a game of ASSH for the past month and a half or so. We started off with the module Rats in the Walls but since that I've completely improvised it. Using a combination of tables and strategic pulling of things out of my ass and thus far it's been the best game I've seen in ages. I've pulled a location or two from a module but that's about it.

Historically I've been a low prep GM anyway, but this time I've just thrown caution to the wind. Whatever comes up goes down in the campaign notes and I may try to connect the dots in between sessions. We have had an absolute blast and I've found the lack of worrying about prep between sessions has been very freeing for me. Now I think this sort of thing is much more feasible in a pre-established setting but could be done in a homebrew with a little prep work. Seriously my between session prep time has come down to about 30 minutes or so.

So far my players seem not to notice nor care, they are having fun so no one gives a damn that the layout of the hidden cultist temple makes less than no sense.

I've also come to enjoy using the random tables as oracles and trying to suss out what it is the dice gods are trying to tell me.

I'm sure this isn't news to any of the old hands around here but I thought I'd share. Feel free to share experiences GMing this way, or tips to facilitate it.

I'm quite the opposite.  Doesn't make me right, but I am quite on the other end of the spectrum.  
Now, truth be told, I run everything in the same setting I've used for years...ok, over three decades....and my games tend to go very long, possibly partially due to the large amount of prep.  One of my two online games, the Collegium Arcana game, hits session 100 this week. So I believe in 3 sorts of prep.

• Accretive Prep- Years of work adding to a setting, layering and putting things together.  This is often not listed as separate, but this kind of prep goes a long way to making a game come alive. A wiki works really well for this.

• Campaign Prep- Making plots for the way you think things will come to gether, NPCs, relationships, deeper area dynamics and politics.

• Game Prep- plot and planning based on the recent games and how that means the new edges of the game need to get filled in.  Fleshing out and listing NPCs met, deepening the areas of interest the PCs have shown, redrawing in the effects of what the players have done to the setting itself.

Again, this is me.  And if you and yours are having a grand time, have at it.  But I though that I'd present a contrary view that seems to work, at least for me.

I couldn't have explained it better myself.

I easily spend 70% of my prep time working on the setting. I flesh out far more than is needed for any given session but the extended details make the world feel more like a real place and allow the players to deviate more without having to conjure up setting specifics on the fly.

Campaign prep is about another 10%, essentially a rough and loose outline of how the general plotline 'should' play out.

the final 15% is Game or Session prep. Statting NPCs, writing up some cool dialogue for some, generating a few random encounters in case things get dull, etc.

Im an over prepper but I don't mind, I love it. I easily spend oh, 3-4 hours of prep for every hour of actual game time. Running a session once every other week is about as fast as Ive ever been able to pace a campaign. If the adventure is caught up in one town, one dungeon, one area etc. its easier but once the group starts moving again into new areas that require background detail etc. It slows way down again.

I run everything from incredibly prep-heavy campaigns to completely improvised sessions based on nothing more than my ability to flip through a monster manual.

Here's the thing about prep: It will always, always, always add value to your game and make for a better session IF (and this is a very important if) you focus your prep on the stuff you can't improvise at the table.

Second secret of prep: What you can improvise effectively will depend on your own strengths as a GM, it will change over time, and it will vary based on the system you're running. I talked about one facet of this in The Hierarchy of Reference (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/38497/roleplaying-games/the-art-of-the-key-part-3-hierarchy-of-reference), but it applies across the board. Maybe you struggle with having dynamic battles featuring clever tactics, so you spend a little effort prepping Tucker's Kobolds. Maybe you find it easier to run Pathfinder monsters if you make a point of highlighting feats you're unfamiliar with and jotting down a note about what they do. Personally, I know that I get too tight-lipped with NPCs revealing the deep secrets of a campaign (because I ruined a campaign once by getting too loose-lipped with those secrets and it's a Pandora's Box you can't close -- if the PCs don't know something they can always learn it later; if they learn too much they can't forget it), so personally I focus a certain amount of effort on prepping exactly what NPCs know.

Third secret of prep: Some stuff you find hard to improvise can be made easy to improvise if you prep the right tools. Procedural content generators are an obvious example of this. But it can also include stuff like "if you're bad at coming up with names on the fly, prep a list of names".

Particularly valuable prep targets, of course, are the things that can never be improvised on the fly. Props and handouts are perhaps the most obvious example of this.

Quote from: Octiron;920599Good point, I mean different people of course prepare to run a game different ways.

I've found that keeping a list of random ideas and short scenarios to spring on players when the opportunity presents itself is better than a written adventure, but that is still sort of preparing.

It's sort of preparing, but it's prep that can be done fast. When I say "no prep", I don't mean "no prep whatsoever", because it would make it impossible to run any game that's not based purely on cliches and using a system you already know - at the very least, you have to read the setting and system, and that's preparing.
When I say "no prep", I mean "virtually no prep", or to put it in more detail, "little prep other than reading the setting and system".

Quote from: LordVreeg;920678I'm quite the opposite.  Doesn't make me right, but I am quite on the other end of the spectrum.  
Now, truth be told, I run everything in the same setting I've used for years...ok, over three decades....and my games tend to go very long, possibly partially due to the large amount of prep.  One of my two online games, the Collegium Arcana game, hits session 100 this week. So I believe in 3 sorts of prep.

• Accretive Prep- Years of work adding to a setting, layering and putting things together.  This is often not listed as separate, but this kind of prep goes a long way to making a game come alive. A wiki works really well for this.

• Campaign Prep- Making plots for the way you think things will come together, NPCs, relationships, deeper area dynamics and politics.

• Game Prep- plot and planning based on the recent games and how that means the new edges of the game need to get filled in.  Fleshing out and listing NPCs met, deepening the areas of interest the PCs have shown, redrawing in the effects of what the players have done to the setting itself.

Again, this is me.  And if you and yours are having a grand time, have at it.  But I though that I'd present a contrary view that seems to work, at least for me.

Accretive prep happens anyway in no-prep games. It's just called "game continuity", and doesn't take much time.
Campaign prep is kinda mandatory in order to get to the "no prep" stage, but it can be done almost blindingly fast, I'm talking at most a couple hours here. Of course, there are some tricks for it, but they're simple and easy, and have been in use for decades now. They also help with the "accretive" part.
"Game prep", for me, follows from the "accretive prep", and the same tricks from the previous two stages keep it down to around 15 minutes before every session.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;920710I run everything from incredibly prep-heavy campaigns to completely improvised sessions based on nothing more than my ability to flip through a monster manual.

Here's the thing about prep: It will always, always, always add value to your game and make for a better session IF (and this is a very important if) you focus your prep on the stuff you can't improvise at the table.

Second secret of prep: What you can improvise effectively will depend on your own strengths as a GM, it will change over time, and it will vary based on the system you're running. I talked about one facet of this in The Hierarchy of Reference (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/38497/roleplaying-games/the-art-of-the-key-part-3-hierarchy-of-reference), but it applies across the board. Maybe you struggle with having dynamic battles featuring clever tactics, so you spend a little effort prepping Tucker's Kobolds. Maybe you find it easier to run Pathfinder monsters if you make a point of highlighting feats you're unfamiliar with and jotting down a note about what they do. Personally, I know that I get too tight-lipped with NPCs revealing the deep secrets of a campaign (because I ruined a campaign once by getting too loose-lipped with those secrets and it's a Pandora's Box you can't close -- if the PCs don't know something they can always learn it later; if they learn too much they can't forget it), so personally I focus a certain amount of effort on prepping exactly what NPCs know.

Third secret of prep: Some stuff you find hard to improvise can be made easy to improvise if you prep the right tools. Procedural content generators are an obvious example of this. But it can also include stuff like "if you're bad at coming up with names on the fly, prep a list of names".

Particularly valuable prep targets, of course, are the things that can never be improvised on the fly. Props and handouts are perhaps the most obvious example of this.

Listen to that advice, too.

There are two kinds of prep: One of them is only needed in small amounts but more is always better; the second is survivable in small amount, but always harmful, and more is always worse. The first kind involves developing a good feeling for what and who is in your setting, understanding that a lot of it might never see the light of day at the gaming table. The second kind involves preparing specific encounters, 'hooks' or even whole plots that you expect to unfold in a certain way, which always involves you implicitly or explicitly making decisions for the players.

People sometimes argue that you need to prepare plots and story lines and encounters because - I am translating here - we live in a degraded age of brass where most players are flabby, disinterested goons who can't be bothered to make a single decision or develop a single interest for themselves. Perhaps, but I don't think you are even playing a roleplaying game at that point - the activity has devolved into something more like a B-grade fantasy movie that you are asked to picture in your own head, and that has a (very) small chance of getting stopped before the big reveal at the end, through some unforeseen technical difficulties.  Unfortunately, this is what lots of people think rpg's are because that's what commercial modules give them. So that is what they think they are supposed to create when they sit down to prepare for a gaming session.

On the other hand, if you don't put some thought into your setting, you are also selling the whole thing short. It's fun to dream up cool places and critters, whether the players interact with them or not. Yesterday I wrote up a group of dragoons who are the elite troops in city I run, along with the rules of a kind of gladiatorial contest you have to go through to join them. I don't have any idea whether anyone in the play group has any interest in joining this troop; in fact, they probably aren't even aware that they are who they are, just based on the casual encounters they've had. But, I liked creating it, and it is there if the players ever wander that direction. On the other hand, if I want to take control of and generally fuck up my game I'll railroad them into having to join this troop for some stupid made up reason, and thus force the group to spend an evening playing through my little conceit about the gladiatorial fights.

I love prepping games.

For me, its about immersing myself in my world, or the published setting. When reading settings, I build out my own notes, to learn it, to personalize it, and to emphasize what I enjoy most about.

Fortunately, I avoid heavy crunch games (or even mid-crunch really), so my prep is mostly about the Who? / What? / Where? / When? / Why? / How? of the adventure.

In fact, when I have had to run zero prep games, AKA, the GM didn't show at a convention event, I relied upon sending everyone to grab snacks and I spent my 5 minutes jotting down answers to the above questions and I easily can run a 4 hour session off my head as long as I had pregen PCs or the players brought their own.

But the caveat is I don't play crunchy stuff with lots of rules, detailed NPC stats, etc. Most of my GMing is OD&D, Gamma World, Traveller, Warhammer Fantasy, etc. My 4e D&D may be the most prep, but I mostly cut and paste stat blocks...or build out my own shorthand. When I play Palladium stuff, but I've homebrewed it down to the basics. And more and more, I've just been using the Mechanoids system for my Rifts/Phase World games.

I don't know how you easy prep for crunchy games. In the past, those games ate lots of my prep time with mechanical issues. I didn't enjoy that.

Quote from: Octiron;920599I've found that keeping a list of random ideas and short scenarios to spring on players when the opportunity presents itself is better than a written adventure, but that is still sort of preparing.

Agreed and Welcome to theRPGsite!!

We've been getting some fresh blood in the past few weeks. That's awesome. Looking forward to hearing more about what RPGs you enjoy.

But of course, your favorite game suxxors, unless it is my favorite game, but in that case, you are playing it wrong!!

Quote from: Spinachcat;920928I don't know how you easy prep for crunchy games. In the past, those games ate lots of my prep time with mechanical issues. I didn't enjoy that.

Having a set of Poor, Average, Good, Excellent stats for typical NPCs that you can then slightly customize (or use as is) allows fast prep for more detailed systems. Runequest 3 made good use of that technique. I've done something similar for NPCs in Honor+Intrigue.

Quote from: Bren;920943Having a set of Poor, Average, Good, Excellent stats for typical NPCs that you can then slightly customize (or use as is) allows fast prep for more detailed systems. Runequest 3 made good use of that technique. I've done something similar for NPCs in Honor+Intrigue.

Yes. Also, having made and played enough characters for a system, the appropriate stats can be familiar and not require going through the steps & math.

I've done zero prep games.  Sit down with one or two players and they tell me the setting and situation.  For instance, High Fantesy fetch quest etc.  and I go from there.  

There was no system, their was no setting until we started playing.  The first one didn't work great, she wanted to go to an Ice world, and she didn't quite know what to make of the glacier, but then neither did I.

After that they worked great, easier settings and more practice on my part.

They were prep for an Amber Game I never got off the Ground.  I wanted to get my players enthused and introduce some characters and themes.

Most of my session-by-session prep is minuscule. Often no more than a quick line of notation on a scrap of paper.

If I were to take a que from some that have commented on my posts I would say something like - "playing with zero prep doesn't sound like roleplaying, its more like a practice in improvisational and cooperative story telling. Fun but not the same thing." I wont say that though as I know how aggravating such comments can be.

I will say however that the idea of a GM making up the world, locations, characters, encounters, plot hooks, interactions and so on, off the cuff and out of the nether regions at the moment they are needed would not fill me with confidence as a player. Some people here have accused my approach to GMins as 'story telling'. Im afraid I would have to use that same description for a complete game emerging randomly from the mind of the GM at the table. I find the idea of a prepared and fleshed out world waiting my decisions as a player much more attractive.

Please, Im not trying to offend anyone, just voicing my opinion. No need to pull out the pitchforks and torches.

Prep is indeed a deeply personal decision, some enjoy it as much or more than the game (me) others consider it a necessary evil and still others have devised ways to play without it. Like everything else in this weird ass hobby, to each their own.

Quote from: rgrove0172;922147If I were to take a que from some that have commented on my posts I would say something like - "playing with zero prep doesn't sound like roleplaying, its more like a practice in improvisational and cooperative story telling. Fun but not the same thing." I wont say that though as I know how aggravating such comments can be.

I will say however that the idea of a GM making up the world, locations, characters, encounters, plot hooks, interactions and so on, off the cuff and out of the nether regions at the moment they are needed would not fill me with confidence as a player. Some people here have accused my approach to GMins as 'story telling'. Im afraid I would have to use that same description for a complete game emerging randomly from the mind of the GM at the table. I find the idea of a prepared and fleshed out world waiting my decisions as a player much more attractive.

Please, Im not trying to offend anyone, just voicing my opinion. No need to pull out the pitchforks and torches.

Prep is indeed a deeply personal decision, some enjoy it as much or more than the game (me) others consider it a necessary evil and still others have devised ways to play without it. Like everything else in this weird ass hobby, to each their own.

I make no-prep games in a prepped sandbox. In a sense, yes, I am frontloading the preparation, but many a adventure has been had because I know the region so well, that I can react to anything my players throw at me. I am ridiculously lazy though, so the stuff I have prepped is about as dense on information as Judges Guild modules. "The local gangs are constantly at war with each other, they've divided the town into four underground zones of influence." This line gave me about 30 hours of gameplay and still has some open threads.

At some point, you are so good with clichés and baseline scenarios, that you can make no-prep games seem like prepped ones. The rest is merely reacting reasonably in accordance with the parameters of the established campaign setting.

I started playing RPGs in 1974 but never really ran a true module until maybe the 1990's. Most times I would start with a base world map (sometimes drawn in 5-10 minutes, sometimes a few hours) and a couple of dungeon maps (early Judges Guild or hand-drawn, now I can just Google one in seconds), and just play. I had a few resources like the City-State of the Invincible Overlord as a guide, but most of my adventures were home made and often details were  improvised on the spot.

Part of my own personal problem is that I don't have a great memory, and when I have to read a huge module to prep for a game I tend to forget a lot or have to take notes. This can require a lot of work and diminishes my own fun level. I had that problem when I ran 5E through Adventurer's League at the local game store, where I needed a lot of prep time but as the campaign progressed I started to fall behind. Toward the end I was reading each part just before we played, which I'm sure made the game a lot less fun for my players.

I think for me the key is the rules set and how familiar I am with it. I can improv OD&D with ease, but 5E is a little harder because of the number of rules. An NPC or monster in OD&D can be created in moments, to really get it right in 5E takes longer. With a decent NPC list and/or monster book, however, I can usually "wing it" with almost any RPG and I like adventures that way.

Quote from: rgrove0172;922147If I were to take a que from some that have commented on my posts I would say something like - "playing with zero prep doesn't sound like roleplaying, its more like a practice in improvisational and cooperative story telling. Fun but not the same thing." I wont say that though as I know how aggravating such comments can be.

You can, but you'd be laughed at:). So it's better not to say it, indeed, or aggravating would be a good way to describe it...

QuoteI will say however that the idea of a GM making up the world, locations, characters, encounters, plot hooks, interactions and so on, off the cuff and out of the nether regions at the moment they are needed would not fill me with confidence as a player. Some people here have accused my approach to GMins as 'story telling'. Im afraid I would have to use that same description for a complete game emerging randomly from the mind of the GM at the table. I find the idea of a prepared and fleshed out world waiting my decisions as a player much more attractive.

I play with next to zero prep.
Yet the world is always prepped before you reach it, and never shapes differently in answer to your intentions (of course, the results of your decisions have to change it). I just shape it as seems logical to me;).
Whether I shaped it that way 3 months ago, 3 days before the session, or 3 seconds before you reached it, while describing the ornaments on the door (which might or might not be pre-prepared, themselves) is of virtually zero consequence.

I think you assume that lack of content prepared between the sessions means the setting is shifting to accommodate or block the characters, while in reality, I consider this an anathema to my Refereeing style.

Quote from: AsenRG;922265I think you assume that lack of content prepared between the sessions means the setting is shifting to accommodate or block the characters, while in reality, I consider this an anathema to my Refereeing style.

While you don't do that, some people do. Another thing some people do is to use the speculation of the players in their impromtu creation. In this case, even if the GM is fair the world will be different than it would have been if it was created ahead of time and sans player input. (Which is not to say that "different than" is worse than. Only that it is different both in outcome and in ontology.

Quote from: AsenRG;922265You can, but you'd be laughed at:). So it's better not to say it, indeed, or aggravating would be a good way to describe it...


I play with next to zero prep.
Yet the world is always prepped before you reach it, and never shapes differently in answer to your intentions (of course, the results of your decisions have to change it). I just shape it as seems logical to me;).
Whether I shaped it that way 3 months ago, 3 days before the session, or 3 seconds before you reached it, while describing the ornaments on the door (which might or might not be pre-prepared, themselves) is of virtually zero consequence.

I think you assume that lack of content prepared between the sessions means the setting is shifting to accommodate or block the characters, while in reality, I consider this an anathema to my Refereeing style.

Your right, that probably is my assumption. I admit it may not be the case but it seem hard to avioid.

Quote from: Bren;922268While you don't do that, some people do.

Hence me posting to signal that this isn't the only option:).
And you know that if you ask me, people that do that just create a bad name for the rest of us, low-prep GMs;).

QuoteAnother thing some people do is to use the speculation of the players in their impromtu creation. In this case, even if the GM is fair the world will be different than it would have been if it was created ahead of time and sans player input. (Which is not to say that "different than" is worse than. Only that it is different both in outcome and in ontology.

Yeah, and I don't do that, either. But I suspected rgrove assumes that the low-prep style always goes together with one of these.
And I really want to make it abundantly clear that such is not the case at least with some of us;). Besides, it's not like GMs who prepare aren't prone to pulling the same kind of tricks...quite the opposite, I've found! (Typical excuse being "how could I let my preparation go to waste?", IME).

Quote from: rgrove0172;922282Your right, that probably is my assumption. I admit it may not be the case but it seem hard to avioid.

Why, no, it's not hard to avoid...as long as you decide in advance that you don't want it. Otherwise, yes, you might not notice it happening.
In a roundabout way, the fact the people taught me to use railroading and illusionism when preparing for sessions, probably helped me to avoid at least this pitfall:D!

And I don't want it exactly because I want to present "an existing world", not "a world that bends according to your whims" (unless we're playing Amber and you're are in the Shadows, or something equivalent, like "spirit journeys"). That's why I said the world isn't going to shape itself depending on your intentions, in my earlier post. Please note: when you carry them out, the world will react to your actions, as always. But there won't be 12 guards in the room because you've found a way to slaughter 8 in the first round, and I want you to get a "challenging fight", or some such. If there were six of them, I'll roll the dice and see where they fall. If they confirm your plan, expect me to comment OOC "there's no kill like overkill", and that's going to be it.
But if you had no plan and those three guards are going to be a tough fight for you, there are still going to be three guards. In fact, depending on whether they heard you approaching, they might be in different state of readiness, including laying out an ambush for you.

Quote from: AsenRG;922440Yeah, and I don't do that, either.

If you are getting input from your players while improvising that input will have an affect. And sometimes you will a different result than you would have gotten without their input. That outcome is the reason that brainstorming is a thing.

Quote from: Bren;922527If you are getting input from your players while improvising that input will have an affect. And sometimes you will a different result than you would have gotten without their input. That outcome is the reason that brainstorming is a thing.

I'm totally serious and not even discussing your point. At least, not yet.
Now,would you define "input while improvising", because I'm honestly not sure what you mean here?

Quote from: AsenRG;922536I'm totally serious and not even discussing your point. At least, not yet.

OK. :confused:

I too am totally serious. For what that is worth.

QuoteNow,would you define "input while improvising", because I'm honestly not sure what you mean here?

You want me to define input?

Input would be the players saying stuff aloud in respect to something that might need improvisation...guesses, speculation, hopes, fears about what is behind door #1, who is behind the mystery, what might be around the bend in the river...stuff like that. Sometimes they will suggest something that fits. That you wouldn't have thought of yourself.

Quote from: AsenRG;922536I'm totally serious and not even discussing your point. At least, not yet.
Now,would you define "input while improvising", because I'm honestly not sure what you mean here?

If I've prepared everything before the session started, then that is completely without player input.  I may not even know which players exist at that point.  If you make your decisions 30 seconds in advance, live at the table, then you could be influenced by a player action or statement 33 seconds earlier, meaning that they have input into the decision-making process.  Even if you consciously try to disallow what they said to affect you, they still said it, you still heard it, and only after that, are you making decisions a few minutes ahead of time.  It's kind of impossible to say that if they hadn't said anything, or you hadn't heard anything that your decision or creation would have been 100 percent the same.  Observer effect and all that.

At least I think that's what Bren is saying. :D

Quote from: CRKrueger;922543At least I think that's what Bren is saying. :D

That's what I'm saying.

Quote from: Bren;922540OK. :confused:

I too am totally serious. For what that is worth.

You want me to define input?

Input would be the players saying stuff aloud in respect to something that might need improvisation...guesses, speculation, hopes, fears about what is behind door #1, who is behind the mystery, what might be around the bend in the river...stuff like that. Sometimes they will suggest something that fits. That you wouldn't have thought of yourself.

Yes, what is input* is obvious but I was looking for something of an example. Because that was too vague, sorry.

*Aside from designating your girlfriend in CP2020 slang;).

Quote from: CRKrueger;922543If I've prepared everything before the session started, then that is completely without player input.  I may not even know which players exist at that point.  If you make your decisions 30 seconds in advance, live at the table, then you could be influenced by a player action or statement 33 seconds earlier, meaning that they have input into the decision-making process.  Even if you consciously try to disallow what they said to affect you, they still said it, you still heard it, and only after that, are you making decisions a few minutes ahead of time.  It's kind of impossible to say that if they hadn't said anything, or you hadn't heard anything that your decision or creation would have been 100 percent the same.  Observer effect and all that.

At least I think that's what Bren is saying. :D

Quote from: Bren;922546That's what I'm saying.

Since you confirm, I'm going to reply to what CRK said, if you don't mind? That was closer to what I was looking for from you when saying "define: input":).

OK. The speculations might influence me, sure.
But then, do you** have the whole campaign prepared before the first session? (And if you do, how the hell did you avoid railroading?)
If you don't, obviously you do some preparation between sessions. How much of what players said at the table did you incorporate between sessions?
Odds are, more than I did while improvising at the table. Because I don't use players ideas as a matter of principle - see my opinion of illusionist GMs*** - and since it was said at the table, I remember who said it.
(Can I prove I don't do that? Well, it's a stupid question - of course I can't prove a negative. I can prove that I have a policy as stated above. I can remember more than one case when the players had a better idea how something would be defended - but I stuck to what I came up with. Because the NPCs don't get to be that smart unless I already came up with this).

Between sessions, however, you're more likely to forget whose ideas it was, so you're more likely to incorporate it:).
Of course, the same applies to me! But my point is, small amounts of involuntary uses of players' ideas are something I have to live with no matter how much the GM has prepared.
Even assuming you were right, that would mean I raise an already small amount with an equally small amount. Again, that's within my level of tolerance and doesn't trigger quotes from the aforementioned book;).

**Virtual "you" meaning "the Referee with lots of pre-prepared material".
***Contained in "the multi-language dictionary of Bulgarian, Russian, French, Spanish, English and Mandarin cursewords", 5th abridged edition, Cambridge:D.

So about the above very convoluted post which I think I followed.

I think you should use the players ideas to an extent.  

The players around the table have as good an understanding of the real world as the DM.  But no player ever has as good an understanding of the game world as the DM.  Unless the DM listens to the players and thinks 'yeah the world could work like that, they seem to think it does, let's go with it.'  

 NPC's should still have variable levels of stupidity.  And the world should still surprise but as a denser bandwidth for communication I think it could help.

Question for you zero prep guys?  

Do you do dungeons?  
How do you do dungeons?

I need to understand a lybrenth  before I can run my players through it.  Who lives there, what they eat, the extent of their territory (roughly). Alliances and enemies. Treasure. Traps, how they avoid the traps.  What the original purpose of the complex was.  (What happens to those people).  Some times I need to know which way the doors open.

I can't do that from "3 scribbled lines"

And I worry it won't make sense if it's procedurally generated.  

So how do you zero prep a dungeon.

Quote from: AsenRG;922628But then, do you** have the whole campaign prepared before the first session?

QuoteHow much of what players said at the table did you incorporate between sessions?
Odds are, more than I did while improvising at the table.

QuoteBetween sessions, however, you're more likely to forget whose ideas it was, so you're more likely to incorporate it:).
Of course, the same applies to me!

You seem to have the mistaken impression that I am engaged in a contest of who can use the least player input. I'm not. I merely restated what to me seems one instantiation of an obvious truism that people's thoughts, ideas, and inspirations are influenced by input from outside their own head. For some reason, you seem at pains to disagree with something that I think is obviously true, practically unavoidable, and for which there is no a priori reason to even try to avoid.

Quote from: AsenRG;922628Because I don't use players ideas as a matter of principle

Taken anywhere remotely approaching its logical conclusion leads to an absurd situation where the GM cannot use the most reasonable improvisational idea because a player said it first. That seems a tad bizarre to me and I can't see that a desire to do that has anything to do with avoiding railroading or illusionism.

Personally, if a player has an interesting idea that seems appropriate to a situation and it doesn't violate any pre-established setting information (including stuff I know and the players do not), then my typical approach would be to decide how likely that interesting idea is and roll to see if it is actually the case. For example, let's suppose a player speculates that Ulgar the innkeeper, whose description coincidentally matched that of another NPC named Kynn Blackwolf, is actually related to Kynn Blackwolf. Often that notion will be contrary to setting information that is known to me so I will just ignore it, though I might smile or nod mysteriously and say "Maybe he is."

On the other hand, if that idea sounds interesting and somewhat plausible then I might decide to use it. If it isn't at least somewhat plausible, I won't use it. If it isn't at least somewhat interesting then why bother using it? So assuming it meets those two criteria, my next step would typically entail my guestimating some probability that the idea is true. The probability is going to be my subjective estimate of likelihood based on all the factors I can think of in about 10 seconds or less. Then I roll the dice and see if Ulgar and Kynn are related. I might use some formal method like the Mythic Gamemaster Emulator or I might just roll 2d6 or percentile dice with low meaning no and high meaning yes. How low? How high? Well that's what the guesstimation is for.

Personally I find these things come up a lot as players speculate or ask questions like:

• Does this stable rent horses?
• Does this bar sell gin?
• Are there any mercenaries for hire in this town?

Deciding that rentable horses, saleable gin, and hirable mercenaries do not exist because a players mentioned them before I made a decision about their existence (or lack thereof), just seems weird to me. Now maybe that's not what you were suggesting, but it's what your comments seemed to be suggesting to me.

I tend to do very very little adventure prep, but this is balanced out by the fact that I do a ton of "setting prep" when I'm first establishing the campaign.  Clearly detail the world, and the adventures take care of themselves.

Quote from: RPGPundit;923035I tend to do very very little adventure prep, but this is balanced out by the fact that I do a ton of "setting prep" when I'm first establishing the campaign.  Clearly detail the world, and the adventures take care of themselves.

THIS!  A huge portion of my admittedly over extensive prep is setting. I flesh out areas my players probably have little to no chance of ever visiting. The actual adventure planning doesn't even compare.

A stockpile of one page dungeon maps

A list of NPCs I can drop in (sometimes just names, sometimes names and a trait)

Lots of notes on campaign progression, with an eye toward  what the players are doing.

 Sometimes I'll pop in the detail without any real idea exactly where it's going to go. For example:

 Player playing a fighter paid large amount of money, hiring an assassin to go after a major NPC with prominent holdings and power (though a second tier lord, all things considered). Considering who the fighter hired, and the amount he paid, not to mention the personality of the assassin (honor bound to fulfill a contract), I figured the assassination was going to succeed, eventually. But, as a plot twist,  i'm going to have the assassin show back up in their base town, toss the bag of coins back to the guy who hired him and say "I can't take your money. Someone else beat me to it. Here is what you paid me minus a few expenses."  In addition the assassin will appear disguised as one of the local lords guards ,  indicating he is on some other sort of mission. What that current mission as I have no idea yet.

I am not entirely sure who did the deed yet, but, as their major concern right now is trying to unseat the local Lord and take over the town, the death of the rival,  at the hands of someone unknown, deepens the intrigue. The dead NPCs holdings are now open, and having just recently married, and not producing an heir, The Lord in their base town now has his sights set on marrying the window which would give him claim to the dead Lords holdings, and clear his debt ( his major Achilles' heel).

The PCs major advantage in taking on the local board is that he is in debt and owed a great deal of that debt  to the assassinated Lord. Now, it looks on the surface like he might've orchestrated the assassination. But I have determined that he didn't. What I haven't decided is who is actually behind the deed.  I figure I'll get a few ideas based on what the players do in response.  Considering one of them is about to get thrown in jail for threatening the local Lord in his Keep, I doubt they'll be thinking too much about pursuing the whole assassination thing immediately. But if they do, I'll be developing that as we go (or rather we all will, depending on what everyone does).

 With all of that, I'm still not entirely sure which direction the campaign is going to go. We have several plot threads dangling at the moment.

Quote from: RPGPundit;923035I tend to do very very little adventure prep, but this is balanced out by the fact that I do a ton of "setting prep" when I'm first establishing the campaign.  Clearly detail the world, and the adventures take care of themselves.

 I'd say I do something very similar. It is mainly scenario prep. I'll also sketch out some independent dungeons that I can just throw in if needed.

I'm so lazy I usually just radically remodel some published dungeon.

Quote from: RPGPundit;924004I'm so lazy I usually just radically remodel some published dungeon.

How long does the remodel take?  In my experience renovations always take longer than you expect and go way over budget.

Do the remodels count as prep?

Quote from: Headless;924013How long does the remodel take?  In my experience renovations always take longer than you expect and go way over budget.

Do the remodels count as prep?

I consider it prep.  In the end, you're creating something new.  Whether that something new is something out of whole cloth (which again, really isn't whole cloth, it's inspired by everything you've ever seen) or simply changing the name of a bartender, giving him a son instead of a daughter and making him a closet satanist, you are creating your world, so yeah, it's prep I think.

Quote from: Headless;924013How long does the remodel take?  In my experience renovations always take longer than you expect and go way over budget.

It's such a pain in the ass.  Crooked dungeon contractors try to take you for every gold piece, the granite altar you wanted is back-ordered for six to eight weeks, and the damn Dungeon Zoning Board shows up with C&D orders because you don't have the right permits.

Quote from: Headless;924013How long does the remodel take?  In my experience renovations always take longer than you expect and go way over budget.

Do the remodels count as prep?

For me, not counting whatever time it takes to initially read through the adventure, very little time at all. I make a couple of notes, and then (like with most everything else) proceed to make it up as I go along. This works out because I can experience the virtual world of it in my head, which is something I sometimes suspect some other GMs are just not as good at...