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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8135797" data-attributes="member: 16814">Teaching has a concrete and expected outcome.  If the goal is to reach that outcome, then, yes, preparation helps a good deal.  If this isn't your goal -- if the goal isn't to reach an expected outcome but merely have an exciting and engaging game -- then prep may or may not help.  I have concrete personal evidence, and general data in that games that are structured such that prep is impossible if you're playing according to the rule systems, that this kind of game generates quite deep and interconnected games.  Heck, the interlocking systems that drive Blades in the Dark are a thing of absolutely beauty in how they effectively force interconnections and depth in play.   In my game, there's so many pressing demands on the Crew that there's never a moment.  Last session (granted two weeks ago, timing has been bad lately), ended up with the Crew being approached by a member of the Red Sashes who demanded a service from the Crew because the Crew had tangled with the Sashes and earlier and it had come out.  So the Sashes demanded payment in the form of help with their turf war against the Lampblacks, who absolutely didn't like the Crew due to some impolite words and a refusal to pay tithe to the Lampblacks (the Crew was using the turf war between the Lampblacks and the Sashes to refuse to pay either).  This wasn't good timing for the Crew, because they had just caused a major supernatural event in Lord Scurlock's old manor house, earning enmity from a cult they have been tangling with for awhile now (a Demon has charged the Crew to not let the cult complete their plans -- and Demons in Blades are seriously bad news).  And, because of that, the Spirit Wardens are hot to trot after the Crew, although that heat has subsided when one of the Crew intentionally got nicked, took the blame, and is currently doing a stint in prison.  So, they were really hoping to put paid to the Demon's demands and that cult is seriously gunning for them, making normal activity difficult (gang wars are unpleasant).  But, they were caught dead to rights, and are back in the middle of the turf war between the Lampblacks and the Red Sashes, trying to plant false orders so the Red Sashes can ambush some important members of the Lampblacks and get a leg up (the Sashes are currently losing the turf war).  In the meantime, the Crew's Whisper has blackmailed a supernatural tinkerer and has a ready supply of critical parts to build the next part of his Hull so he can get his faithful dead dog (who haunts him) back.  The Leech is plotting ways to get back at a priestess of the Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh who did her grandmother wrong and is who caused an entire score to go sidewise when the Leech decided that she needed stabbing during a conversation with a lead they desperately needed.  The Whisper is also looking for his ghost friend, who's gone missing -- likely due to the cult's activities.  The Hound got cut off from his gambling vice, and is has decided that it's time to try to quit gambling -- it already cost him his career with the University.  So, he's undertaking the effort to do the hard work to get back into the Universities good graces by recovering interesting artifacts and history, even if it, so far, has almost cost him his soul.  Yeah, that's a thumbnail of the things that have happened in my Blades game -- a lot of it stretching back to the start of the game.  We get through about two scores a evening, so a huge amount happens -- this game moves insanely fast at times -- but they're still dealing with things that happened in the first session.  And none of it, not a single bit, was planned except for the very first job offer of the game being from the Lampblacks to help kick off their turf war against the Red Sashes -- which they declined and instead did something else.  And that was only to get the ball rolling and consisted of nothing more than the offer -- the actual job wasn't set.</blockquote>

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