Is the DM the most important person at the table

[Ovinomancer]

You talk about a pre-written plotline, and that sounds to me as though I know (or think I know) what will happen. I'm more trying to work out what has happened, what is happening before the PCs insert themselves; the only "will happen" stuff I bother with is stuff that will happen in the absence of interference. I don't set out to prep more than the next session when I sit down to prep; as an example, I have a session tomorrow evening that I'm hoping to get at least some prep done today, and I'm not planning to prep anything for the session after that (though stuff might carry over, of course).

Not at all. I'm talking about the plot you've set up to frame play. I'm not sure what you'd call the story behind the prep but plot. The example of the Prince being set up by an Illusionist is a plot, yes? Even if you leave open how that plot resolves, you've still created a plot that will constrain that play.

We could continue to take what others say in the worst light, as if they are criticizing our play, or we could try to understand how what they say could work -- what things must be true to make it work. And, then, maybe we could accept that there are multiple ways and that one is not better but that they are different.

And, there are multiple ways to appriach this example of play. The one you're using, which is the GM preparing a plot for the players to resolve in play, is the default way D&D us played. It's perfectly fine, I use it myself for 5e even if I may be a bit looser about it. But, it does put most of tge wirk on the GM's shoulders. If that's not a probkem, cool beand. If it is, then there's no way to both continue to prepare plots and reduce the workload. Something must change. The suggestions offered require that you don't prep the plot first, ir have the udea if what will feature in play, but instead build iff of player input a plot around that input. You cannot have an idea that the Prince is franed and then get input -- this causes weirdness, as you note. Instead, ask for input regarding the Court and then build a story based on that input. The input should have all the hooks you'd need, you should just be able to start play from one of them by framing a situation and then bring in others as play progresses. Maybe that's the Prince being framed, maybe it's something else. That's the point -- you can't have established plots (even if still unrevealed in the notes) and expect new naive input to align.

What has been said a number of times in response to this is that for some of us, getting the content from the players and integrating it with the content in our heads is more work than generating it ourselves. It could be about the players (not all players are good at generating content this way), it could be that the DM literally finds generating content easier than integrating someone else's, it could be both of those, it could be something else. And none of those needs to be bad, exactly, or anyone's fault.

I 100% agree, you should not expect getting NPCs from players to be less work if you have to align them to your prepped plotlines. That's more work, don't do this. If you solicit material from playerd, you need to do this before you prep a plotline.

An example. I started a 5e Sigil campaign a year ago. The constraints on PC gen were that they already lived in Sigil and they could work as a group. Backgrounds could be anything so long as they ended in Sigil. I told players to select an uncommon magic item to start (5th level start), but that we would resolve getting it in the 1st session.

1st session, I went around the table, starting with a random PC, and put tgem in a situation regarding their desired item and one if the Sigil factions. After the player engaged the situation, I complicated it abd then asked which other PC showed up. That PC's player was then asked how the situation resolved with their help. This made the PCs have an immediate conflict between a faction and their item, but also forged a stiry with another PC to jumpstart the party interactions.

After that, we ran an adventure I'd prepped that had nithing to do with the player inputs because I needed to introduce the campaign themes. But, since then, I've incorporated player input, either by keaving blanks that I can ask to be filled in or building play on orevious inputs. I'm still prepping plotlines, if loosely, because 5e lacks robust mechanics to drive play in the moment and because we, as a group, like the tactical combat game and so I need maos and encounters, both hard to do on the fly.

Still, a great deal of my prep is offloaded by getting input from players, and my Sigil game is much richer for it. It also helps that my campaign plotline is very vague so I'm not tied to it. Heck, through play a minor fetch quest item has now assumed a huge place in the game because my players have decided it's important. It wasn't, I had no plans for it, but now it is. Why? Because my players kept earning failures so were doublecrossed, had to work extra hard to get it again (making a few unwise bargains), and then it ended up enmeshed with a player backgrounf. 2 sessions of planned play ended up being 4m3 months if weekly games through play, so darned right tgat thing better be important. How is it important? No idea, yet.

Sure. It just feels sometimes as though we're being told we should have used screws from the start, so we could now use this nice screwdriver.

Yes, if you want to use screwdrivers you have to start with screws. If you used nails, stick with the hammer. The suggestions were how to reduce prep, but not how to do so if you want to keep the same level of prep you have now. These tools to reduce prep require approaching play a different way -- if you keep to your (perfectly good, perfectly workable) current play, then they don't work.

I think a large part of the confusion here is that the above is obvious to many proposing the different tools, but it really isn't. It's not obvious because it requires a fundamentally different approach to play. Making that leap isn't easy if you want to, it's harder if you don't even see the point. And, that's fine. No one is less for not "getting it." It's kinda like a videogame with different characters that require very different playstyle approaches. Most players are going to end up liking thise characters the "get" and not liking thise they don't, and will still have fun playing and can even be excellent players eithin their grokked stable of characters. Other players may be able to understand more than one approach and have a wider stable of characters, but that doesn't mean they have more fun or are better players. They just have more options, which is entirely unecessary to enjoy playing.

But, techniques that one player uses will be if limited use to another player using a different character. What's obvious here us that you can easily identify this and say 'that doesn't work for my character.' This isn't as clear in this conversation, though, and people who are recommending a play tool are doing so with the unspoken assumption that a reader will understand that you have to change playstyles as well because it's obvious to them. It's not, so let me say that you will, indeed, have to change characters to use these play tools. They don't work with your current character. If you like your current play, then don't worry about it, you're doing it the only right way -- that being the way you have fun. There us no way to prep games for less work and keep the things you want to keep, thoug. You have to change something.

 

[prabe]

Not at all. I'm talking about the plot you've set up to frame play. I'm not sure what you'd call the story behind the prep but plot. The example of the Prince being set up by an Illusionist is a plot, yes? Even if you leave open how that plot resolves, you've still created a plot that will constrain that play.

I guess it doesn't even feel like a plot to me, if all I have is maybe the instigating event and some backstory, but that's probably a holdover from my various attempts to write fiction.

We could continue to take what others say in the worst light, as if they are criticizing our play, or we could try to understand how what they say could work -- what things must be true to make it work. And, then, maybe we could accept that there are multiple ways and that one is not better but that they are different.

I'm trying to read you in a positive light, but it sometimes feels as though there is some failure of communication (two-way failure, to be clear) happening. I understand how the kind of GMing you're talking about works--I've done it, using the Our City stuff from Dresden Files to make a campaign setting. It took like two sessions (about eight hours at the table) to get it together, and we didn't so much finish as just decide we had enough and stop. And I did more than half the work, with three others at the table, and I had to figure out how to fit it together. It really felt like more front-loaded work than I think it was supposed to.

And, there are multiple ways to appriach this example of play. The one you're using, which is the GM preparing a plot for the players to resolve in play, is the default way D&D us played. It's perfectly fine, I use it myself for 5e even if I may be a bit looser about it. But, it does put most of tge wirk on the GM's shoulders. If that's not a probkem, cool beand. If it is, then there's no way to both continue to prepare plots and reduce the workload. Something must change. The suggestions offered require that you don't prep the plot first, ir have the udea if what will feature in play, but instead build iff of player input a plot around that input. You cannot have an idea that the Prince is franed and then get input -- this causes weirdness, as you note. Instead, ask for input regarding the Court and then build a story based on that input. The input should have all the hooks you'd need, you should just be able to start play from one of them by framing a situation and then bring in others as play progresses. Maybe that's the Prince being framed, maybe it's something else. That's the point -- you can't have established plots (even if still unrevealed in the notes) and expect new naive input to align.

So, to give an idea of what my prep is like, I'm going to expand on the cabal from my campaign, because I've actually run it (this past Saturday, in fact).

The party ended up at the city because they'd heard there was some sort of unpredictable thing nearby spitting Fire Elementals into the world, and a member of the party had a Ring of Fire Elemental Command he wanted to get fully powered-up.

I thought about it, and I decided maybe there should be more to it than that, so I decided that the portal to the Plane of Fire was overlaid onto a portal to Stygia (one of the Nine Hells). And that the portal to Fire was intended as protection, with something like a kamikaze mode if intruded on severely, so the party might accidentally set off the portal to Stygia in the process of turning off the portal to the Plane of Fire.

The party fought their way to the portal/s, closed them both without incident, and found some stuff the cabal had stashed there as something like a bug-out cache.

So I had to figure out who was in the cabal, and why. That wasn't too hard. The consequences of the party dealing with the cabal were also pretty straightforward, as well.

That was two sessions worth of material (broke after party closed the portals), and what story there was mostly emerged in play. I just took what seemed like the next logical step, repeatedly. All of this was stuff that the party was interpolating itself into, so much of my DMing at the table was asking myself repeatedly "What does this change?"

I 100% agree, you should not expect getting NPCs from players to be less work if you have to align them to your prepped plotlines. That's more work, don't do this. If you solicit material from playerd, you need to do this before you prep a plotline.

I understand how the kind of GMing you're talking about works--I've done it, using the Our City stuff from Dresden Files to make a campaign setting. It took like two sessions (about eight hours at the table) to get it together, and we didn't so much finish as just decide we had enough and stop. And I did more than half the work, with three others at the table, and I had to figure out how to fit it together. It really felt like more front-loaded work than I think it was supposed to. I GMed that campaign closer to what I think you're talking about, by letting the players tell me what's going on. That's how I ended up in a Fate game with a wedding reception that had the Aspect on it "All God's chillun got guns." Frankly, I found running that way more mental load, more work, than preparing all the stuff myself.

1st session, I went around the table, starting with a random PC, and put tgem in a situation regarding their desired item and one if the Sigil factions. After the player engaged the situation, I complicated it abd then asked which other PC showed up. That PC's player was then asked how the situation resolved with their help. This made the PCs have an immediate conflict between a faction and their item, but also forged a stiry with another PC to jumpstart the party interactions.

This isn't really all that different from how I start campaigns in D&D. Take the characters, put them in the same time and place, throw [stuff] at the fan.

But, since then, I've incorporated player input, either by keaving blanks that I can ask to be filled in or building play on orevious inputs. I'm still prepping plotlines, if loosely, because 5e lacks robust mechanics to drive play in the moment and because we, as a group, like the tactical combat game and so I need maos and encounters, both hard to do on the fly.

Heh. I find maps easy to do on the fly. Markers and a battlemat. If the party is still in roughly the same environment, turn the battlemat around, maybe add a couple things.

It also helps that my campaign plotline is very vague so I'm not tied to it. Heck, through play a minor fetch quest item has now assumed a huge place in the game because my players have decided it's important. It wasn't, I had no plans for it, but now it is. Why? Because my players kept earning failures so were doublecrossed, had to work extra hard to get it again (making a few unwise bargains), and then it ended up enmeshed with a player backgrounf. 2 sessions of planned play ended up being 4m3 months if weekly games through play, so darned right tgat thing better be important. How is it important? No idea, yet.

Funny thing is, my players have managed to surprise me. Something tossed in as a side event became important. They made friends and allies, and have been in contact with some important beings (though they may not know how important yet). All emergent from play, though clearly different from the play at your table.

Yes, if you want to use screwdrivers you have to start with screws. If you used nails, stick with the hammer. The suggestions were how to reduce prep, but not how to do so if you want to keep the same level of prep you have now. These tools to reduce prep require approaching play a different way -- if you keep to your (perfectly good, perfectly workable) current play, then they don't work.

In my experience, the suggestions that have come up don't reduce prep so much as change it. Even if you don't have an idea of where things are going to go next, if you get a bunch of naive input (to use your term) you're still going to have to work to fit it together into something. It might be easy, if your players are all more or less on the same page; if your players are in different books, it might be a challenge.

I think a large part of the confusion here is that the above is obvious to many proposing the different tools, but it really isn't. It's not obvious because it requires a fundamentally different approach to play. Making that leap isn't easy if you want to, it's harder if you don't even see the point. And, that's fine. No one is less for not "getting it."

Actually, it's pretty obvious, at least to me. Remember, I've tried it that way. It requires a different approach not just from the GM, but from the players, and the GM can only control one part of that.

If you like your current play, then don't worry about it, you're doing it the only right way -- that being the way you have fun. There us no way to prep games for less work and keep the things you want to keep, thoug. You have to change something.

I think there might have been some hope, lo these many pages ago, that there might be suggestions for how to prep more efficiently, within more or less the same paradigm. I have a sneaking suspicion that hope has been thoroughly extinguished. It might be possible to prep more efficiently without changing the kind of prep you do, but yes, it almost certainly involves changing something (and that something might not be something you want to change).

 

[Ovinomancer]

I guess it doesn't even feel like a plot to me, if all I have is maybe the instigating event and some backstory, but that's probably a holdover from my various attempts to write fiction.

Fair enough. Do you have a better term for "tge story do far, which the players will investigate to find out about so they can make decision?" I'd be glad to use it.

Again, I don't think this is a bad thing -- I do it, too! But, it is a thing and it needs to be recignized that the choice to do it this way results in GM workload. Choosing other ways can reduce that workload, but may not result in play you want.

I'm trying to read you in a positive light, but it sometimes feels as though there is some failure of communication (two-way failure, to be clear) happening. I understand how the kind of GMing you're talking about works--I've done it, using the Our City stuff from Dresden Files to make a campaign setting. It took like two sessions (about eight hours at the table) to get it together, and we didn't so much finish as just decide we had enough and stop. And I did more than half the work, with three others at the table, and I had to figure out how to fit it together. It really felt like more front-loaded work than I think it was supposed to.

Respectfully, your experience shows that you haven't fully grasped the concept. That's okay, as it really does require abandoning quite a lot of what we learn as traditionally minded D&D GMs. While I haven't done Dresden, I did look over the rules a few years ago. I, too, saw City creation as a big effort for the GM, one that seemed like a lot of work up front to nassage player input into something I could run. Looking at it niw, I see something very different. I'd spend maybe half a session building out the city and then start playing on that. I'd probably iterate the city building step a few more times in later sessions, or leave it open for ad hoc creation by players, but I could start running almost immediately. Take a proffered threat, a proffered location, add in PC build info, grab a proffered NPC or group and it's off to the races. Frame the PCs into a situation and then follow along. My genre knowledge alongside that little bit of collaborative orep would be enough. Now, the players would need to lean in and drive through their PCs, but that's part and parcel of Fate.

The difference between me then and me know? I let go of what I knew about GMing and tried hard to do it a different way. The result is that I see that way as a possibility. My choices of approach are broader. This doesn't make me better or my games better or anything else. It's more akin to knowing how to paint in oils vs cooking a meal. Both can result in great art, but they're different things. Knowing how to do one and not the other isn't a bad thing. Learning one means you can't treat it as the other, though. This is a poor analogy, like all of them, and I hope we don't get into how this analogy breaks down but instead use the takeaway to understand I'm talking about somewhat incompatible approaches to a goal and that not grokking one of them doesn't make anyone kess aewsome.

So, to give an idea of what my prep is like, I'm going to expand on the cabal from my campaign, because I've actually run it (this past Saturday, in fact).

The party ended up at the city because they'd heard there was some sort of unpredictable thing nearby spitting Fire Elementals into the world, and a member of the party had a Ring of Fire Elemental Command he wanted to get fully powered-up.

I thought about it, and I decided maybe there should be more to it than that, so I decided that the portal to the Plane of Fire was overlaid onto a portal to Stygia (one of the Nine Hells). And that the portal to Fire was intended as protection, with something like a kamikaze mode if intruded on severely, so the party might accidentally set off the portal to Stygia in the process of turning off the portal to the Plane of Fire.

The party fought their way to the portal/s, closed them both without incident, and found some stuff the cabal had stashed there as something like a bug-out cache.

So I had to figure out who was in the cabal, and why. That wasn't too hard. The consequences of the party dealing with the cabal were also pretty straightforward, as well.

That was two sessions worth of material (broke after party closed the portals), and what story there was mostly emerged in play. I just took what seemed like the next logical step, repeatedly. All of this was stuff that the party was interpolating itself into, so much of my DMing at the table was asking myself repeatedly "What does this change?"

Cool, but I don't understand what you prepped versus what played out. At the level you present, I'd have made a few bullet points, collected a rogues gallery of foes from my files (books, etc), and made some maos of places I thought might be interesting to fight in. Of that, the first would have been 10-15 tops, the second about 30 mins (using KFC), and the last variable on if I had stuff already, but probably 2 hours if I have to make a few.

I understand how the kind of GMing you're talking about works--I've done it, using the Our City stuff from Dresden Files to make a campaign setting. It took like two sessions (about eight hours at the table) to get it together, and we didn't so much finish as just decide we had enough and stop. And I did more than half the work, with three others at the table, and I had to figure out how to fit it together. It really felt like more front-loaded work than I think it was supposed to. I GMed that campaign closer to what I think you're talking about, by letting the players tell me what's going on. That's how I ended up in a Fate game with a wedding reception that had the Aspect on it "All God's chillun got guns." Frankly, I found running that way more mental load, more work, than preparing all the stuff myself.

I think this is a c&p oops. My answer is above.

This isn't really all that different from how I start campaigns in D&D. Take the characters, put them in the same time and place, throw [stuff] at the fan.
How much prep is the discussion, not similarity of the result. I maybe spent 3 hours in prep for this campaign, most on that start adventure, and the majority of that on the map. I have a thing for maps.

Heh. I find maps easy to do on the fly. Markers and a battlemat. If the party is still in roughly the same environment, turn the battlemat around, maybe add a couple things.

I run on Roll20 (even though my group gets together regularly for boardgames, we've all decided we like playing RPGs digitally). I have a thing for pretty maps, and the Roll20 platform allows me to indulge in a way that I couldn't non-digitally (or, more accurately, looking at my box of papercraft terrain, couldn't afford the time). So, I fully recognize my choice on maps is mine.

Funny thing is, my players have managed to surprise me. Something tossed in as a side event became important. They made friends and allies, and have been in contact with some important beings (though they may not know how important yet). All emergent from play, though clearly different from the play at your table.

No, I get this. I would, frankly, be shocked at a statement by a GM that their players don't. I didn't mean to suggest that surprises were an artifact on only one way of playing. I'm sorry if it came across that way.

What I trued to get at was the idea of "playing to find out what hapoens." On first blush, this also appears to be what happens in all games -- after all, we play to see what happens to the OCs, right? But, this turn of phrase actually means that all players, including the GM, are playing with no prep. That there isn't a dungeon, or Prince's framing, or portal to Stygia blocked by a portal to Elemental Fire until it's established in play through adjudication of player actions. This is a tough concept, and I see it dismissed as improv play or unable to build consustent stories, but that's usually because the constraints are poorly grasped. The players must risk their PCs, not just in safety, but in beliefs. The GM must follow the players -- scene framing must be in relation to the PCs, it can't be neutral. Everyone must accept resolutions, they are binding even on the GM. These (and others) make the resolution mechanics the arbiters not just of actions, but what's true in setting. You can end up with the same results -- the same kinds if things happen in both games -- but the methods are very different. A GM cannot prep in a "play to see" game orecisely because the first player action may go in a different direction and obviate the prep.

While 5e's system will fight you if you try to use this method (the resolution system in 5e is tuned to task resolution rather than goal resolution) you can borrow some in places without much pain. But, even borrowing a little means that your prep has to be lighter, both in quantity and detail, and you have to hold onto it more lightly. This saves time and effort on prep, but also means you, as GM, have less control. This trade isn't everyone's cuppa, which is great! I'd be sad if everone actually played the same way. It is, however, a choice we make (to tie back to my common theme).

 

[prabe]

Fair enough. Do you have a better term for "tge story do far, which the players will investigate to find out about so they can make decision?" I'd be glad to use it.

Backstory? Setting?

Respectfully, your experience shows that you haven't fully grasped the concept. That's okay, as it really does require abandoning quite a lot of what we learn as traditionally minded D&D GMs. While I haven't done Dresden, I did look over the rules a few years ago. I, too, saw City creation as a big effort for the GM, one that seemed like a lot of work up front to nassage player input into something I could run.

Respectfully, you don't seem to have understood my experience, which may be because I didn't explain it clearly. The reason it took eight hours of table time, and the reason I ended up doing more than half the work, even though there were three others at the table, is because ...well ... it didn't feel as though anyone else at the table was coming up with much, if anything, and what they did come up with was ... not especially coherent. Even with some amount of work, the setting was kinda disjointed, and my willing suspension of disbelief was strained from the get-go.

Telling me I didn't understand something because I didn't enjoy it is ... not a way to get me to read you in a positive light. If you can point out something specific you think I misunderstood, that works a bit better.

It's more akin to knowing how to paint in oils vs cooking a meal. Both can result in great art, but they're different things. Knowing how to do one and not the other isn't a bad thing. Learning one means you can't treat it as the other, though. This is a poor analogy, like all of them, and I hope we don't get into how this analogy breaks down but instead use the takeaway to understand I'm talking about somewhat incompatible approaches to a goal and that not grokking one of them doesn't make anyone kess aewsome.

Eh. The analogy works as well as any others, I might expect, though I don't think different approaches to running a TRPG are quite as different as oil-painting and cooking. There seems to be more cross-pollination than that, so maybe more like the difference between cooking two different cuisines? I've said elsewhere (and I mean it) that while I genuinely don't expect to run Fate again, I'm a better DM for having run it.

Cool, but I don't understand what you prepped versus what played out.

I prepped the portals. I prepped what would come through. I prepped the cabal (seven NPCs, with motivations and where they were). I prepped what the cabal would do if left alone.

The party went places and talked to people, and I decided (with some help from dice) what the people they were talking to knew, and based how helpful they were going to be on the party's social skills (using passive scores rather than asking for rolls). The party found the cabal and (kinda to my surprise) captured them, rather than killing them.

The portals were one session, the cabal in the city the next. It probably took me something like two hours to prep for each session, pen-on-paper, writing monster stats on index cards (because they're handy), rolling up random treasures, typing up any treasure stuff that seemed to need it. Writing up the monster-cards is probably what takes the most time, but that's my own choice (and not something I think I've ever complained about). So, very little in the sense of "what's going on."

I think this is a c&p oops. My answer is above.

I when I assembled my post, this seemed more relevant as a response to soliciting material from the players.

What I trued to get at was the idea of "playing to find out what hapoens." On first blush, this also appears to be what happens in all games -- after all, we play to see what happens to the OCs, right? But, this turn of phrase actually means that all players, including the GM, are playing with no prep. That there isn't a dungeon, or Prince's framing, or portal to Stygia blocked by a portal to Elemental Fire until it's established in play through adjudication of player actions.

This doesn't strike me so much as "play to find out what happens" as "play to find out what's there." Reminds me of boardgames where you lay you the map as you go, so the map isn't ever the same. As I've said, I've GMed like this before, and it seemed like more of a mental load than having stuff prepped; the difference between inventing something and remembering it.

 

[Numidius]

@Ovinomancer, great post above, useful example.

 

[Imaro]

I think there might have been some hope, lo these many pages ago, that there might be suggestions for how to prep more efficiently, within more or less the same paradigm. I have a sneaking suspicion that hope has been thoroughly extinguished. It might be possible to prep more efficiently without changing the kind of prep you do, but yes, it almost certainly involves changing something (and that something might not be something you want to change).

Ding, ding, ding... We have a winner. However the crux of the thread never really hit there (except for a handful of posters) and instead quickly turned to... play & run this other way if you want an easier workload vs. here's how to make your workload (in the style you want to play) easier... and yeah I guess that's an answer in the same way cutting of your foot would stop a pain in your foot... shrug

 

[Ovinomancer]

Backstory? Setting?

Not setting. Backstory gets confusing between talking about open to players backstory and secret to players backstory. Clearly we haven't been talking about ooen backstory because you don't have to prep that. Secret backstory then?

Respectfully, you don't seem to have understood my experience, which may be because I didn't explain it clearly. The reason it took eight hours of table time, and the reason I ended up doing more than half the work, even though there were three others at the table, is because ...well ... it didn't feel as though anyone else at the table was coming up with much, if anything, and what they did come up with was ... not especially coherent. Even with some amount of work, the setting was kinda disjointed, and my willing suspension of disbelief was strained from the get-go.

Ah, then we have two issues here. One, your players absolutely fell down on their job and two, you felt it was up to you to salvage it. I think abandoning this was the right call, it doesn't seem like it was a good fit for your group.

Telling me I didn't understand something because I didn't enjoy it is ... not a way to get me to read you in a positive light. If you can point out something specific you think I misunderstood, that works a bit better.

Fair enough, although I didn't actually say you didn't understand something because you didn't enjoy it. If anything, the reverse. Still, good point about assuming.

Accepting you do understand this kind of play does leave me confused as to why we're discussing what we're discussing. I mean, if you already know that encouraging player input means you'll have to change how you run, what's the disagreement, again?

Eh. The analogy works as well as any others, I might expect, though I don't think different approaches to running a TRPG are quite as different as oil-painting and cooking. There seems to be more cross-pollination than that, so maybe more like the difference between cooking two different cuisines? I've said elsewhere (and I mean it) that while I genuinely don't expect to run Fate again, I'm a better DM for having run it.

I think they're about that different. I run bith kinds of games, and no myth games are really very different in execution than traditional D&D. The results, though, are both food? As I said, no analogy is perfect.

I prepped the portals. I prepped what would come through. I prepped the cabal (seven NPCs, with motivations and where they were). I prepped what the cabal would do if left alone.

The party went places and talked to people, and I decided (with some help from dice) what the people they were talking to knew, and based how helpful they were going to be on the party's social skills (using passive scores rather than asking for rolls). The party found the cabal and (kinda to my surprise) captured them, rather than killing them.

The portals were one session, the cabal in the city the next. It probably took me something like two hours to prep for each session, pen-on-paper, writing monster stats on index cards (because they're handy), rolling up random treasures, typing up any treasure stuff that seemed to need it. Writing up the monster-cards is probably what takes the most time, but that's my own choice (and not something I think I've ever complained about). So, very little in the sense of "what's going on."

Cool, thanks, that's helpful in understanding.

I when I assembled my post, this seemed more relevant as a response to soliciting material from the players.



This doesn't strike me so much as "play to find out what happens" as "play to find out what's there." Reminds me of boardgames where you lay you the map as you go, so the map isn't ever the same. As I've said, I've GMed like this before, and it seemed like more of a mental load than having stuff prepped; the difference between inventing something and remembering it.

Yes, I've heard that complaint before. Usually because the person is trying to replicate prepped play with improv and becomes overwhelmed with the details. That may not be your problem, but ut's what I've often seen. And, in the context of D&D, I don't think you're terribly wrong. 5e, for example, uses the4 system for task resolution. This neans that, say, getting past a locked door is going to be tested by which task the player proposes. Bash it down? A strength check is needed which requires the GM to determine how strong the door is, if it's barred, swollen shut, etc. A host of details now need to be determined, and that's just for a door! Yeah, ad libbing 5e isn't easy because the system fights you and that makes your observation true.

But, that's not always true. If you use a system that is built to do this kind if play, it's actually not that hard. You have to accept that your job as GM is tightly constrained and lean into it. The PC builds will give you everything you need to kick things off and to carry things forward. If, through play, there's a door that needs kicking down, you don't beed to know anything about it. If tge PC succeeds at the check, the door was able to he kicked open because it just was. If they fail, then the door was barred, or stuck, or magically sealed, or... whatever works in play. Because you aren't ad libbing details but following play and only providing details to explain events, it's loads easier. Fate can play like this, 5e really can't (without some kludgey hacks).

 

[Ovinomancer]

Ding, ding, ding... We have a winner. However the crux of the thread never really hit there (except for a handful of posters) and instead quickly turned to... play & run this other way if you want an easier workload vs. here's how to make your workload (in the style you want to play) easier... and yeah I guess that's an answer in the same way cutting of your foot would stop a pain in your foot... shrug

There were never any suggestions on how to reduce prep while still featuring GM prep. Honestly, if these existed, we'd already know them. And, we do, which is a discussion that, in part, can lead to Illusionism and Force. That's not a bad thing, by the way. I happen to believe it's impossible to both have heavy GM prep and not have Force (and it's cousin Illusionism).

The offered suggestion were how to do less prep. Not keep your same level pf prep but make it easier. There's a difference.

 

[Fenris-77]

The problem here is that some of the alternate prep styles directly index alternate play styles. They won't help anyone who wants to run the same plotted adventure do it any faster. There's nothing wrong with that either, plotted adventures are really cool. You can certainly use a bunch of ideas from FATE and PtbA to help reduce prep for D&D but the corollary is that you must also lean into the accompanying play style - you don't get one without the other. That's also fine, and also cool.

There is some room in the middle where you can use some elements of both styles, and with, potentially, a midrange amount of prep. This is going to be a very individualized thing though. Every DM does things does things a little differently and would have to tinker with what parts suit their needs, table, and campaign. It's tough to give advice about, and it won't help reduce prep for an existing campaign because you can't really (or maybe shouldn't) switch horses in midstream.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The problem here is that some of the alternate prep styles directly index alternate play styles. They won't help anyone who wants to run the same plotted adventure do it any faster. There's nothing wrong with that either, plotted adventures are really cool. You can certainly use a bunch of ideas from FATE and PtbA to help reduce prep for D&D but the corollary is that you must also lean into the accompanying play style - you don't get one without the other. That's also fine, and also cool.

There is some room in the middle where you can use some elements of both styles, and with, potentially, a midrange amount of prep. This is going to be a very individualized thing though. Every DM does things does things a little differently and would have to tinker with what parts suit their needs, table, and campaign. It's tough to give advice about, and it won't help reduce prep for an existing campaign because you can't really (or maybe shouldn't) switch horses in midstream.

Yup, this is what I've been saying.