Approaches to prep in RPGing - GMs, players, and what play is *about*

[pemerton]

There is prep in many Narrative games, so an actual interesting question is what purpose does it serve, why do some games rely on it and other ones don't (within the general sphere of games usually labeled as Narrative or similar). Is it analogous to the kind of prep that is done in classic trad D&D, most Traveller games, and presumably other more modern trad games like Numenera/Cypher, PF1, PF2, etc. I'm genuinely interested!

Interesting question.

Not too far upthread I said, as a tip, "let go of setting prep - really let it go."

Why that tip? Because - based on my experience - I think the biggest technical obstacle, which can also be a type of conceptual obstacle, to character=> situation => setting RPGing is the idea that situation and also action resolution outcomes are read off the GM's setting prep. So if you don't have setting prep then you can't read situation and outcomes off it, and so you'll have no option but to overcome that obstacle!

We could then ask, OK, if we let some setting prep back in, but we're still committed to character => situation => setting and so we're still going to avoid deriving situation and outcomes from setting, what is the setting prep for?

Here's one answer: it can help play a type of "coordination" or "indexing" role, in respect of the shared fiction. Eg I often use the World of Greyhawk for this purpose: the maps, and some fairly generic backstory. So when a player wants to have an isolated wizard's tower in the hills as part of their backstory, we can say "OK, that's in the Abor-Alz" - and that means the Elf PC probably comes from Celene.

The index will over time generate some of its own logic - eg if the PCs are at the tower in the Abor-Alz, and want to get back to Hardby, we can look at the map and see that some time is going to pass on that journey. The game system itself will then give us ideas about how to handle that - eg via sheer narration, or taking the opportunity to frame a check or two, etc.

For this to work, the index - ie the map and backstory - needs to be shared at the table.

In my own play, as well as GH I've done this using Middle Earth (in a fantasy adaptation of Marvel Heroic RP), using Washington DC and the east coast of the US (in MHRP), using early mediaeval Britain and Europe more generally (in Prince Valiant), using Soho in London (in Wuthering Heights), and using the emergent star map in Classic Traveller.

While there is a resemblance, here, to the role of maps in (say) classic D&D play, when we're talking about techniques I think it's more helpful to emphasise the difference from that sort of play: to reiterate, that the map is not a device used by the GM to regulate outcomes to somewhat blind action declarations; rather, it is a shared resource used to coordinate narrations of PC backstories, framings of situations, narration of consequences, etc into a coherent whole.

An RPG I know that combines the two different uses of maps is Torchbearer (at least as my group plays it): the dungeon maps work in the classic D&D fashion, whereas the overland/world map plays the indexing/coordination function.

Here's another answer answer about setting prep: it can provide resources for the GM to draw on in framing and narrating consequences - a source of "truths". To reconcile this with character => situation => setting we need framing methods that will get us from character to situation without the GM's prep being an obstacle, and that will get us from situation to setting as part of resolution without the prepared setting and its "truths" being a constraint on how situation unfolds. I think when it's spelled out like this, we can see that it's quite demanding. Burning Wheel doesn't completely satisfy this demand - the GM advice in the Adventure Burner/Codex, for instance, says that sometimes the GM simply has to say 'No, that action <typically a knowledge-type check> can't work because the answer is cordoned off as part of my 'GM's big picture'." The RPG I know that does meet this demanding spec is Apocalypse World.

 

[niklinna]

I think when it's spelled out like this, we can see that it's quite demanding. Burning Wheel doesn't completely satisfy this demand - the GM advice in the Adventure Burner/Codex, for instance, says that sometimes the GM simply has to say 'No, that action <typically a knowledge-type check> can't work because the answer is cordoned off as part of my 'GM's big picture'."

That sounds perilously like negativity! But, I guess that will allow people to understand Burning Wheel, now.

 

[pemerton]

That sounds perilously like negativity! But, I guess that will allow people to understand Burning Wheel, now.

For me, the lesson is that BW can't use prepared fronts in quite the same way that AW does!

Or that in places it can drift towards "writers' room", if the GM collaborates with the players around the content of, and hence limits that flow from, the "big picture".

I could be wrong, but I think this might also help explain why the coop GM approach my friend and I have adopted in BW is pretty workable, whereas I find it hard to imagine doing the same in Apocalypse World. (Though maybe that just shows the limits of my imagination!)

 

[niklinna]

Interesting question.

Not too far upthread I said, as a tip, "let go of setting prep - really let it go."

Why that tip? Because - based on my experience - I think the biggest technical obstacle, which can also be a type of conceptual obstacle, to character=> situation => setting RPGing is the idea that situation and also action resolution outcomes are read off the GM's setting prep. So if you don't have setting prep then you can't read situation and outcomes off it, and so you'll have no option but to overcome that obstacle!

We could then ask, OK, if we let some setting prep back in, but we're still committed to character => situation => setting and so we're still going to avoid deriving situation and outcomes from setting, what is the setting prep for?

Here's one answer: it can help play a type of "coordination" or "indexing" role, in respect of the shared fiction. Eg I often use the World of Greyhawk for this purpose: the maps, and some fairly generic backstory. So when a player wants to have an isolated wizard's tower in the hills as part of their backstory, we can say "OK, that's in the Abor-Alz" - and that means the Elf PC probably comes from Celene.

The index will over time generate some of its own logic - eg if the PCs are at the tower in the Abor-Alz, and want to get back to Hardby, we can look at the map and see that some time is going to pass on that journey. The game system itself will then give us ideas about how to handle that - eg via sheer narration, or taking the opportunity to frame a check or two, etc.

For this to work, the index - ie the map and backstory - needs to be shared at the table.

In my own play, as well as GH I've done this using Middle Earth (in a fantasy adaptation of Marvel Heroic RP), using Washington DC and the east coast of the US (in MHRP), using early mediaeval Britain and Europe more generally (in Prince Valiant), using Soho in London (in Wuthering Heights), and using the emergent star map in Classic Traveller.

While there is a resemblance, here, to the role of maps in (say) classic D&D play, when we're talking about techniques I think it's more helpful to emphasise the difference from that sort of play: to reiterate, that the map is not a device used by the GM to regulate outcomes to somewhat blind action declarations; rather, it is a shared resource used to coordinate narrations of PC backstories, framings of situations, narration of consequences, etc into a coherent whole.

An RPG I know that combines the two different uses of maps is Torchbearer (at least as my group plays it): the dungeon maps work in the classic D&D fashion, whereas the overland/world map plays the indexing/coordination function.

Here's another answer answer about setting prep: it can provide resources for the GM to draw on in framing and narrating consequences - a source of "truths". To reconcile this with character => situation => setting we need framing methods that will get us from character to situation without the GM's prep being an obstacle, and that will get us from situation to setting as part of resolution without the prepared setting and its "truths" being a constraint on how situation unfolds. I think when it's spelled out like this, we can see that it's quite demanding. Burning Wheel doesn't completely satisfy this demand - the GM advice in the Adventure Burner/Codex, for instance, says that sometimes the GM simply has to say 'No, that action <typically a knowledge-type check> can't work because the answer is cordoned off as part of my 'GM's big picture'." The RPG I know that does meet this demanding spec is Apocalypse World.

This is interesting! I'd like to apply this lens (whoop! whoop!) to Blades in the Dark, with its setting of Doskvol: A city with a sketched-out political geography and predefined factions and NPCs, all of it optional and provisional and not necessary for the players to know before beginning play. Some see it as a direct contradiction to Story Now-type play, but really it's just a prime for the story pump, material to grab off a shelf so you don't have to spend lots of time coming up with bespoke (whoop! whoop!) parts. Factions and NPCs have suggested goals, but there's no plot going on, and detail truly is minimal so you can grab a resource and drop it onto whatever the player characters have going on, and proceed with the action.

One potential trap is that players used to needing to be "up on the lore" might read all that material and expect it to be canon, but that's pretty easily headed off at the pass. Even if players have already read the book, the group can work out in the beginning how much they want to treat the material as established vs. a well of potential that can accrete around the seed crystals of the PCs.

 

[pemerton]

@niklinna

I've not read BitD or its setting, but as you describe it, it sounds like it serves both an AW-style "fronts" purpose - that is, a source of material for framing and consequences - and also what I called the indexing/coordination purpose (like, we need a factory that is a dark harvester of souls, and our primer to Duskvol tells us its probably in such-and-such a district operated by such-and-such a faction).

 

[Arilyn]

What would you categorize Game of Thrones as? There is a ton of conflict and drama from the characters and their drives... but on the other hand alot of the setting creates and drives conflict and drama both dependently and independently of the individuals.

There can be tons of drama and conflict in both. I was just looking at using Last Unicorn as an example of a way to have character prep over setting prep in a rpg context and have it work. I'm definitely not claiming character prep is the best and only way to get tons of conflict and drama!

As far as Martin's books, I'd say setting. He wanted to create a solid Medieval world. There are detailed maps. Within this world, with a rich detailed history, he unleashed the characters. In Beagle's works, setting and history are blurred and undefined. Equally rich writing but very very different. If a GM wants to try character over setting prep, Last Unicorn is a good literature example. This is the only point I'm trying to make.

 

[niklinna]

@niklinna

I've not read BitD or its setting, but as you describe it, it sounds like it serves both an AW-style "fronts" purpose - that is, a source of material for framing and consequences - and also what I called the indexing/coordination purpose (like, we need a factory that is a dark harvester of souls, and our primer to Duskvol tells us its probably in such-and-such a district operated by such-and-such a faction).

You got it. In fact, @Manbearcat has spoken words very much like your parenthetical in establishing things about our campaign!

 

[Imaro]

There can be tons of drama and conflict in both. I was just looking at using Last Unicorn as an example of a way to have character prep over setting prep in a rpg context and have it work. I'm definitely not claiming character prep is the best and only way to get tons of conflict and drama!

If I came off as if I was challenging your assessment, I wasn't. I asked because I honestly thought looking at this through the lens of different types of books was a good move and I wanted your honest opinion. Again, I see these two (player driven & GM driven) framed on these boards as polar opposites and in a way that feels like you must be running your game in one way or the other exclusively that I wondered when looking at literature that does both why can't rpg's do the same?

As far as Martin's books, I'd say setting. He wanted to create a solid Medieval world. There are detailed maps. Within this world, with a rich detailed history, he unleashed the characters. In Beagle's works, setting and history are blurred and undefined. Equally rich writing but very very different. If a GM wants to try character over setting prep, Last Unicorn is a good literature example. This is the only point I'm trying to make.

See this seems to say that setting has to supersede character, based on detail, regardless of whether the actual focus is the characters, the setting or some combination of both... but I'm not sure it does, though I'm not looking to argue so I'll just say this... GRR Martin's books (and shows) were one of the main drivers for me in thinking there has to be some middle ground or gradations to all of this. That if one can have a story that is both character driven (Jaime's ultimately failed arc of redemption) and setting driven (The Night King is coming)... why can't one run a game in such a style.

 

[nevin]

RPGing needs "stuff" - fiction. The things we are all imagining together when we play.

Some of this stuff is characters. Some of it is setting - where the characters are, the history of that place, etc. Some of it is situation - ie what is happening right here and now that will prompt the players to declare actions for their characters.

A lot of discussion of RPGing - especially when framed through ideas like "the dungeon" or "the adventure" - makes some assumptions about this stuff that aren't always brought to the surface.

It's often assumed that setting is primary - the place that the characters will be exploring and acting in. (In D&D and kindred systems this leads to very precise rule about searching for hidden things, opening doors, etc.) With setting taken as primary, it is then often assumed that situation will flow from setting - eg the players will have their PCs go somewhere, or open a door, or confront a NPC, and that will trigger/enliven the situation.

These assumptions then feed a further one: that setting needs to be prepared by the GM, so that (i) players have a relatively "concrete" thing to explore via their PCs, and so that (ii) the situations that are latent in it arise "fairly" for the players (ie based on how they go about exploring the setting) rather than in an arbitrary fashion, at the GM's whim.

These assumptions about setting prep as a GM responsibility, how setting prep feed into situation, and how this relates to "fairness" in play, and also how it relates to play being interesting or boring, then feed into standard discussions about sandboxes, railroading, etc.

For those RPGers who are interested in player-driven RPGing - @innerdude starts threads about this from time to time, and @Yora had a recent thread on it - one approach is to drop these assumptions about prep.

Instead of the setting as the source of situation, look to the character as the source of situation. So responsibility for prep shifts from the GM (with their setting) to the player (with their character). The player needs to set up a character that has hooks - backstory, goals and commitments, relationships, etc - from which situation naturally flows. This player prep (which need not be particularly onerous) provides the content and context that the GM draws on to frame situations and consequences. On this approach, setting - rather than being primary - becomes a secondary or tertiary concern: it is a byproduct of the creation of characters and the framing of them into situations.

Play becomes unequivocally about these characters, rather than about this setting.

(I'm also tagging @hawkeyefan because of some things he posted recently about playing in The Temple of Elemental Evil.)

So what I get from all that is Setting is the foundation and the players change it as they play making it thier version of the setting.

IMHO that is pretty much what a lot of common narrative type games are doing. Blades is just a whole ton of stuff that is BOUND to relate to the type of characters and situations that arise within its specific milieu. Dungeon World requires the GM to construct fronts which are intended to generate forward motion within the setting, so that the PCs do something, consequences are produced, and it all pulls at the characters. The GM frames all the scenes in both of these games, and the players interact PURELY via fiction in Dungeon World, except to answer GM questions. Players have a bit more mechanical work in BitD as they are involved in determining position and effect (though a player could simply leave that all on the GM, you could pretty much remain in character all the way through a score).

This is where discussions here often get a bit off. While not all games are made equal, the ones I play at least DO NOT have the players making up scenes, that's the GM's purview. Torchbearer works this way as well, the GM paints each scene. That being said, the scenes are not planned out by the GM, the GM is not 'grabbing elements' and mapping out some way to weave them in. Those elements are ALL of the story, any preexisting background, or GM prep is just stirring the pot or providing a palette of elements to draw from when needed.

To relate this closely to the subject of the thread, these two extremes, an entirely GM/pre written adventure and a fully narrative low myth game ala most PbtAs use prep for very different purposes. A D&D module is an environment, fully realized, where the player's job is navigation and some degree of extrapolation/embellishment and then seeing how the specific characters will work through that. PbtAs use prep (fronts basically) as a way to just 'stir things up', and provide a bit of a sense that stuff is going on in the world beyond what the characters see. Critically, it never pushes play in a specific planned direction.

It's also the difference between running a sandbox game in a DND Setting and running a module. I think most of the arguments where people cant seem to agree on what balances out the game are people who run sandboxes vs mostly modules when it comes to DND

 

[Pedantic]

See this seems to say that setting has to supersede character, based on detail, regardless of whether the actual focus is the characters, the setting or some combination of both... but I'm not sure it does, though I'm not looking to argue so I'll just say this... GRR Martin's books (and shows) were one of the main drivers for me in thinking there has to be some middle ground or gradations to all of this. That if one can have a story that is both character driven (Jaime's ultimately failed arc of redemption) and setting driven (The Night King is coming)... why can't one run a game in such a style.

Yeah, to some degree, isn't the process of play orthogonal to this discussion? Look at something like highly produced actual play. Worlds Without Number, Dimension 20, or Critical Role (I assume from context, I've consumed very little CR directly) are very clearly setting first creations, to the point that CR has setting consultants/designers on staff and published campaign settings. All of those generally include some pretty heavily character driven stories, to the point that there's a whole meme around actual plays creating the expectations all GMs should be creating bespoke character arcs.

You can use a specific process of play to force this outcome, but you don't have to to get it, and by doing so you're constraining the number of aesthetic/ludic purposes you can serve. That's probably fine in most cases, as you're probably looking very specifically to satisfy character growth over something like exploration, for example, and losses in the second purpose don't really matter to your final goal.