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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6673549" data-attributes="member: 42582">If the GM writes it up in advance, the players are discovering what went on in the GM's head. Either way, the players are discovering something about the GM's creation, and the GM is not discovering anything - s/he is inventing.I'm not sure why, from the point of view of exploration, it matters to the players when the GM invented the material that the players are discovering.You haven't explained why timing matters.If the GM makes it all up on the spot, rather than in advance, it is no less exploration/discovery by the players.Is this based on an actual play experience of yours?Speaking from my own experience, it doesn't look much like any RPGing experience I've had. For instance, the GM is declaring important actions for the PC (eg leaving the trail of muddy footprints); and the distribution of backstory authority between GM and player seems quite unstable. The PC (and his/her players) also seems to lack some knowledge that s/he ought to have, such as how far s/he has travelled.In my own experience, RPGing that is based on the GM making stuff up is supported by an allocation of roles between GM and player, and some structures to support that - eg the player sends various signals to the GM about the interests/inclinations/adventure desires of his/her PC (and thereby for him-/herself also); there are devices, formal or informal, for the player to introduce content into the shared fiction, etc.The GM is not exploring any bits that s/he made up.There is also the oddity that the GM reads the book, and then the player listens to the GM channel bits-and-pieces of that book. <a href="http://adept-press.com/wordpress/wp-content/media/setting_dissection.pdf" target="_blank">Ron Edwards wrote about this process</a>:Setting therefore becomes a one-step removed education and appreciation project. There’s a big book about the setting. The GM reads the book. Then, the players enjoy the setting, or rather enjoy the GM’s enjoyment of the setting, by using play as a proxy. As one text puts it, the GM is the lens through which the players see the setting. . . . This kind of play is often called setting-heavy, but as I see it, when playing in this fashion, the goal of having the players enjoy the setting as such is actually at considerable risk. It’s hard to parse the relationship between (1) the story, first as created, then as played; and (2) the setting both as a source for conflicts (“adventures”) and something which might be changed by them. . . . in a way, setting is “everything” for such play in the GM’s mind, but “nothing” for play in the players’. Perhaps this is what leads to those monstrous textual setting histories in the books, with the only people who read them (or care) being their authors and the GMs.The GM's creative choices (eg which pages of Volo's Guide catch his/her eye) make a big difference to which bits of the world the players actually get to explore via their PCs."The world" is not a self-subsisting entity. It needs to be authored. If the GM authors it, the players visit his/her creative thoughts - perhaps those of yesterday, rather than today. If the game uses FR, the group instead visits Ed Greenwood's creative thoughts. But someone had to create it. It didn't write itself!And whether that authoring happens now or already happened, it may have been motivated by an author's sense of story telling. You don't escape exploration of an author's story motivations by buying the story that Ed wrote, rather than having the GM make up the world as s/he goes along. (As you put it in relation to Gygax's city encounter table, "you might say that it is a pre-established element of the world that exciting dangers are going to be there for the PCs." That is a story motivation, and not less of one because it has already been written down in the DMG. I have seen RPG worlds largely devoid of story motivations, but not in D&D products but rather Rolemaster ones)I don't understand why, in your final paragraph of this quote, you confine yourself to two of the four possible options you carve out. The pre-authorship can be driven by story considerations (I mentioned several modules upthread that exemplify this, and will add some more: Dead Gods, most Ravenlofte adventures, etc).Or, as per the examples you gave that I quoted, spontaneous authorship need not be driven by the GM's story motivations, but by other considerations.In other words, I don't feel that you've explained why timing matters, and your actual play examples seem to show that timing doesn't matter!I know there are plenty of players who care if the GM made it up yesterday and wrote it down, or makes it up now. I am doubting, though, that the difference can be that one involves creation and the other doesn't, when in both cases the GM is clearly authoring. I am also denying that, just because the GM makes it up today rather than yesterday, that means the players aren't exploring and/or discovering.I can think of possible differences, and [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] has pointed to some. But, as I also posted, I think there is a degree of sheer legacy: because pre-authorship was important to Gygaxian play (and especially the way it rations information as part of skilled play), it has been assumed to be important to D&D in general.Another difference may be that players are more interested in Ed Greenwood's ideas than their GMs'.If it's good for the players to explore and interact with the world, then why give the roll at all? Just declare that the PCs don't recognise the holy symbol.This is the same question I asked [MENTION=22424]delericho[/MENTION] - if something is a good play experience, why are we making a random roll to skip over it?</blockquote>

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