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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8133320" data-attributes="member: 6696971">This is a great point that I used to stress a lot a long time ago.Forgetting creativity, dynamism, and agency for a moment, detail-intensive cognitive load (the type a high-prep, high-resolution setting GM is continuously working under) can absolutely lead to more continuity errors, not less.Less prep (especially prep of the extraneous type - the type that never comes up in play or isn't helpful as a focus of play) offloads a significant amount of overhead (onto system, which typically means emergent content as a result of player action declaration meeting player-facing, codified resolution procedures), which can enable more creativity, more dynamism, more thematic focus, and less continuity errors.GMs have a high variance in terms of mental framework.  Some have less continuity errors with less prep/detail-oriented overhead and some have less continuity errors with more prep/detail-oriented overhead.  Some are capable of toggling deftly and handling both types of games.  The issue I see is that the D&D community is a culture that is saturated by the high prep/detail-oriented overhead GM who has little to no experience or exposure to the later so they're just working off an untested hypothesis (or at least not tested with any rigor).  If they were to actually try the opposite style, play those games and train themselves on inhabiting that cognitive space and train themselves on those play procedures and their attendant outcomes, they may very well be (pleasantly) surprised at the outcome.  They may find that they're just as good at running a high prep/detail-intensive sandbox 5e high fantasy game as they are at running a low prep/low-setting-resolution Dogs in the Vineyard game</blockquote>

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