I don't think the people discussing this issue are as far apart in style as they think.
After all, I agree with Elf Witch about knowing the "other" sides plots and goals etc.
But like Pemerton, I don't detail to far out
I'm not sure what counts as a big gap here, but I think there's a reasonable gap.
It's not just about looseness of prep, although that can be one point of similarity.
It's also about the thinking that guides a GM's decision-making.
Elf Witch says:
I run an organic world the PCs are not the center of the universe in my games. They maybe the ones on center stage but the world does not revolve around them.
<snip>
This is not railroading or taken players choices away from them this is having the world react in an organic fashion towards the PCs actions.
I like my fantasy world as verisimilitudinous as the next person, but I don't make decisions about what happens next based on organic extrapolation from known backstory. I make it based on dramatic/thematic extrapolation to "What would be cool here?" or "How can I turn up the pressure (which might be thematic pressure, or danger, or whatever) on the players, by putting pressure on their PCs?"
I still think that this passage from
a Forge post by Paul Czege captures it best:
I think [another poster's] "Point A to Point B" way of thinking about scene framing is pretty damn incisive.
. . .
There are two points to a scene - Point A, where the PCs start the scene, and Point B, where they end up. Most games let the players control some aspect of Point A, and then railroad the PCs to point B. Good narrativism will reverse that by letting the GM create a compelling Point A, and let the players dictate what Point B is (ie, there is no Point B prior to the scene beginning).
I think it very effectively exposes, as Ron points out above, that although roleplaying games typically feature scene transition, by "scene framing" we're talking about a subset of scene transition that features a different kind of intentionality. My personal inclination is to call the traditional method "scene extrapolation," because the details of the Point A of scenes initiated using the method are typically arrived at primarily by considering the physics of the game world, what has happened prior to the scene, and the unrevealed actions and aspirations of characters that only the GM knows about.
"Scene framing" is a very different mental process for me. Tim asked if scene transitions were delicate. They aren't. Delicacy is a trait I'd attach to "scene extrapolation," the idea being to make scene initiation seem an outgrowth of prior events, objective, unintentional, non-threatening, but not to the way I've come to frame scenes in games I've run recently.
. . .
I'm having trouble capturing in dispassionate words what it's like, so I'm going to have to dispense with dispassionate words. By god, when I'm framing scenes, and I'm in the zone, I'm turning a freakin' firehose of adversity and situation on the character. It is not an objective outgrowth of prior events. It's intentional as all get out. We've had a group character session, during which it was my job to find out what the player finds interesting about the character. And I know what I find interesting. I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this. And like Scott's "Point A to Point B" model says, the outcome of the scene is not preconceived.
I don't want to put too much weight on the "railroading to point B" part of this analysis - I've got some views on it, but they're a bit contentious.
The difference that I think Elf Witch has correctly identified is between (i) running an "organic world" - in which point A is delicately extraploated from prior events (including backstory that perhaps only the GM knows), and (ii) running a game in which the PCs are framed as the protagonists, and scenes are framed by the GM so as to deliberately push hard on those PCs in ways that will be interesting to all the participants in the game. (Of course, my game is 4e D&d, and not some hardcore avant-garde game of the sort Paul Czege would run - I'm sure he would not find my actual game to his tastes. It's his
methods that I'm interested in here.)
Even if preparation is loose, there can still be a big difference between (i) and (ii).
If you're interested in why I prefer approach (ii) to approach (i), I can say more. But I hope the contrast is tolerably clear even if it's not clear why someone might prefer one approach to the other.
