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It absolutely is. The first reason is just that it's fun to do. I don't agree that they matter only in so far as the pc's react to them. They're my artistic creations, a load of little imaginary people who are expressing my various points of view as expressed through character. Then the next...

I think me and you have discussed this before. It's game dependant but yeah you can just go with what's compelling in the moment. Although what that means depends on other procedures and aesthetic criteria. I think the aesthetic process of Sorcerer is in the fixed backstory, what does this NPC...

@niklinna The advantage of being able to go away and think up characters is really that you have the time and space to think and make decisions about them. So I can decide I want a crimelord and I can think about his backstory and who he is and what he values. Then in play I'm thinking about...

To go a bit deeper into how I do it, I'll flesh out the bandit situation. THE BANDIT SITUATION There's the Dukedom of Ald and the Dukedom of Creep and they're on the verge of what may be a devastating war. The rules of the land means the first born son gets the right to succession and the...

Ah that's a really excellent example of what you mean and it is really different to how I do it. I'd have established in prep how far the bandits have gone and fixed that. So in this bit... when they finally meet the bandit leader the players see all the violence the bandits commit, and the...

I think instead you get the pleasure of mashing toys together. We see how priorities and relative positions change through conflict and for that we need fairly strongly established priorities and relative positions. It's kind of a hard thing to talk about without talking about specific...

Well I just want to play my npc's like I would play my PC's. Which means giving them a fixed backstory and priorities. Then I get to find out how they interact. It's like filling out the world and then seeing how the world changes. Of course it can be hard to talk about without talking about...

Also I don't mean, are you following the rules, I don't really believe in following rules that way. There's always lots of stuff you have to invent or interpret or some stuff you just don't like and so you change it or some stuff you don't know how to use well so you change it.

Well let's say during the first session there was a gang of raiders established called 'The maximums.' There was nothing about the leader established so as prep you create him and give him a backstory. Something like, Maximum was part of the Slavers gang but was constantly getting into...

If you're playing Apocalypse World say, do you stick to the clocks and backstory prep for the threats or do you not use them? or do you follow the text on a case by case basis? or is it, if you have the option to use floating prep (I think Blades in the Dark might be in this category?), then you...

Well when I GM I mostly want to think about what my primary cast of characters are doing. Which means them taking action based on the priorities I've established for them. If I have to make stuff up, usually it's in reference to one those characters. The players go to a record executives house...

Yes. I'd say aware of prep being used rather than the specifics of the prep. Yes That's exactly right. I'd consider Earthsea a setting. A situation must have a cast of NPC's. So you could have a situation with the setting being Earthsea. Prep you must use has a different decision criteria...

I don't really like the word prep and I'll explain why: Say we're starting a Sorcerer game and the kicker I'm given is something like 'I'm an art dealer and a weird piece of art was recently stolen in transit to me.'. Then I go away and create non player characters and back story based on...

To expand on that a bit further. I want to be responsive to others contributions and having stuff I can use might lead me a bit toward the whole 'waiting for my turn to speak' thing. And, as weird as it may sound, I'd be afraid of railroading myself.

If I was doing a floating prep improv style game, this would be my concern as well. It's the type of thing I lie in bed at night worrying about.

To echo what others are saying, you could always switch up systems and in fact still use PbtA style systems if you wanted. So if you were doing it with Apocalypse World say. You'd still run the first session as is suggested in the book. Then afterwards you can go crazy with the world building...

I don’t play Apocalypse World as a Play To Find Out style game. So in my case I just prep. If you are playing that style then it does seem prep is against the improv spirit. If you really wanted a similar thing you could introduce old school style random encounter charts. That way you get the...

Yeah we’re on the same page as to where our tastes differ. I’m not keen on the episodic model but I would use it, just never for something like Monsterhearts (which yes, is ironic given the source material). If I am doing episodic stuff then it’s going to be split into pretty discrete chunks...

Ah you might be misunderstanding me. I introduce no name NPC’s if needed but they’re essentially extras. If the werewolf goes for a drink with his uncle and his uncles buddies. Then I’m not going to detail the buddies, they’re essentially background furniture. So it would be more correct to say...

I don’t really think about other media that much when I’m looking at role-playing structure. I used to reference The Wire, the Sopranos and Game of Thrones when talking about how things might shake out but even those aren’t great structural references. Although I am finding myself referencing...