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

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

Interesting, so one thing I would note is that the series starts with a fairly heavy setting presence. Geography and history are front and center. If a character goes to the east, or from the capitol to the north it's a journey and that matters. Later on the interpersonal action looms bigger, and things like travel tend to fall away unless they have some plot significance.

I'd doubt you could generate Westeros et al in detail as an outcome of zero myth play. I would imagine it more like BitD where the setting is substantially established, and it creates a milieu in which the game's themes play out.

 

[hawkeyefan]

To run a game based on character => situation => setting, rather than the more mainstream setting => situation, let go of setting prep.

Really let it go.

This can be a really tough thing to do for many people.

From the time I really started to GM, the predominant mode of play for many RPGs (certainly the ones I was familiar with) was that the GM would prepare or select a setting and then set up a situation. The players would then respond to that situation via their characters.

I look back at how many times I would take action of some kind to preserve what I’d prepared… to keep the villain in play or to preserve some secret that I’d decided shouldn’t be known by the players yet… and my game was riddled with that stuff. And I’ll add that even then, I absolutely did incorporate elements of the players’ characters into what I’d prepared. But that wasn’t really enough to achieve what you’re describing in the OP.

The setting was more than just indexing or scaffolding for the characters… it was my input to the game. It was how I exercised my creativity toward the game. It was something I’d do in between games on my own.

The idea of taking that away would have scared my younger self in two ways. First, and most practically, how would play even work if I didn’t come up with stuff for the characters to do? Second, what would I do in between sessions? This second concern also carries a bunch of implications. Are all those hours necessary? Do they add to the game? Can equally satisfying play be had without that prep? Those can be some tough thoughts to face.

These concerns can be big obstacles to people letting go.

 

[Imaro]

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.

I don't think it's orthogonal at all... I mean prep is all well and good but IMO, actual play is the thing. I'm interested in why you assume that these AP's (I'm not familiar with Dimension 20) are clearly setting first creations, I'm not saying you're wrong just trying to get a sense of what you are measuring this upon if not with what happens in actual play.

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.

I'm not arguing that there are no tradeoffs to mixing... in fact I specifically said I believe gradients can exist on the 2 spectrums of character driven vs. GM driven. But I think it's quite possible and for some/many preferable to attain both in their games even if it's not a perfect version (for whatever that may be) of one or the other. That said, I also don't believe what you state must necessarily be true. Why can't character growth and exploration both take place, what inherently makes this at odds, especially if the themes, tropes, etc. facilitate exploration?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Interesting, so one thing I would note is that the series starts with a fairly heavy setting presence. Geography and history are front and center. If a character goes to the east, or from the capitol to the north it's a journey and that matters. Later on the interpersonal action looms bigger, and things like travel tend to fall away unless they have some plot significance.

I'd doubt you could generate Westeros et al in detail as an outcome of zero myth play. I would imagine it more like BitD where the setting is substantially established, and it creates a milieu in which the game's themes play out.

I think for something like Game of Thrones its interesting because you probably need a good foundation to build on, but I agree, once you have that, you could go in very different directions in terms of prep (especially if the focus is on something like drama). Also the nature of game of thrones, whether it is high prep, low prep or no prep, you definitely need that element of surprise, and I think even the GM needs to be surprised by things (because it feels like it is building towards something and then, seemingly at random, it flows in a different direction (it is a bit messy like history). It also does strike me as a very 'let the dice fall where they may' type of setting (but it isn't strictly about who rolls best and who has the best stats, often its people with overlooked abilities that rise).

 

[Imaro]

Interesting, so one thing I would note is that the series starts with a fairly heavy setting presence. Geography and history are front and center. If a character goes to the east, or from the capitol to the north it's a journey and that matters. Later on the interpersonal action looms bigger, and things like travel tend to fall away unless they have some plot significance.

I agree... but even in the beginning we also have interpersonal. Jaime and Cersei, Ned and the tension with his wife around his "bastard son" Jon Snow. Jon's relationship in the Stark family and choice to take the black. The interplay between Arya's personality in contrast to Sansa's and so on.

I'd doubt you could generate Westeros et al in detail as an outcome of zero myth play. I would imagine it more like BitD where the setting is substantially established, and it creates a milieu in which the game's themes play out.

But I guess my question and lack of understanding around this is... does this make the game inherently PC driven, GM driven or something in-between. Is the only reason BitD is considered player driven because it comes with a pre-packaged setting?

 

[Imaro]

This can be a really tough thing to do for many people.

From the time I really started to GM, the predominant mode of play for many RPGs (certainly the ones I was familiar with) was that the GM would prepare or select a setting and then set up a situation. The players would then respond to that situation via their characters.

I look back at how many times I would take action of some kind to preserve what I’d prepared… to keep the villain in play or to preserve some secret that I’d decided shouldn’t be known by the players yet… and my game was riddled with that stuff. And I’ll add that even then, I absolutely did incorporate elements of the players’ characters into what I’d prepared. But that wasn’t really enough to achieve what you’re describing in the OP.

The setting was more than just indexing or scaffolding for the characters… it was my input to the game. It was how I exercised my creativity toward the game. It was something I’d do in between games on my own.

The idea of taking that away would have scared my younger self in two ways. First, and most practically, how would play even work if I didn’t come up with stuff for the characters to do? Second, what would I do in between sessions? This second concern also carries a bunch of implications. Are all those hours necessary? Do they add to the game? Can equally satisfying play be had without that prep? Those can be some tough thoughts to face.

These concerns can be big obstacles to people letting go.

I find this interesting as a big part of OSR philosophy (which I think are considered trad games, but correct me if I'm wrong) is letting go and letting the dice fall as they may.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

In this vein I would revisit @Imaro and his question. That is BitD's Doskvol can supply truths for the GM or players to employ, but probably is most important in terms of what you are calling indexing. GoT as an RPG could work the same I guess. One KEY point is that setting in Narrative play is generally not hidden, no part of Doskvol is unknown to the players, and I'd assume a narrative version of GoT would be similar. One challenge there is the 'map with holes in it' thing. Doskvol leaves a LOT to figure out during play, GH is a very high level setting description, but GoT has a lot of canon. IMHO there's probably an optimum there somewhere.

 

[niklinna]

This can be a really tough thing to do for many people.

From the time I really started to GM, the predominant mode of play for many RPGs (certainly the ones I was familiar with) was that the GM would prepare or select a setting and then set up a situation. The players would then respond to that situation via their characters.

I look back at how many times I would take action of some kind to preserve what I’d prepared… to keep the villain in play or to preserve some secret that I’d decided shouldn’t be known by the players yet… and my game was riddled with that stuff. And I’ll add that even then, I absolutely did incorporate elements of the players’ characters into what I’d prepared. But that wasn’t really enough to achieve what you’re describing in the OP.

The setting was more than just indexing or scaffolding for the characters… it was my input to the game. It was how I exercised my creativity toward the game. It was something I’d do in between games on my own.

The idea of taking that away would have scared my younger self in two ways. First, and most practically, how would play even work if I didn’t come up with stuff for the characters to do? Second, what would I do in between sessions? This second concern also carries a bunch of implications. Are all those hours necessary? Do they add to the game? Can equally satisfying play be had without that prep? Those can be some tough thoughts to face.

These concerns can be big obstacles to people letting go.

It can be scary for players as well as GMs. I've definitely struggled with the idea of my character as someone I've already mapped out and know well, and want to give expression to, up to and including the outcomes of certain story arcs, vs. seeing how they develop through play, especially when they are hit with challenges to my core ideas about who they are, and in particular when those core ideas are put into conflict with one another. Say my character desperately wants political power, but also holds his family dear—what happens when I am offered power in exchange for betraying a family member? What if that family member recently did me a solid? What if they caused me some trouble?

In a sense, both of those "prep" angles are presuming a fairly heavy amount of prep, often (though not always) done independently, instead of starting small and building iteratively back and forth, to whatever degree in mutual prep, vs. play. My one-off about "seed crystals" above is starting to resonate, now. If you build up an elaborate structure, it can be hard to "hold on lightly" (as somebody has written, somewhere). If you start small, you can be more provisional and revisionist as you develop things, or allow wild surprises to change your character. Maybe my power-hungry family man finds that betraying his kin provides a heady rush, and transforms into a backstabbing conniver! Or maybe he arranges for the political downfall of whatever Mephistopheles dared tempt him into harming his own flesh & blood. Or maybe he accepts the bargain just this once, and has to live with that guilt. But we see as these deeds accrete, your character becomes something you can hold on to very tightly indeed, but in quite a different way from having a fixed idea of what they are and how their story must proceed.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

One other thing I wonder about is how substantial a difference there is in terms of what elements of character are being driven. I mean, a narrative could focus heavily on the actions a character takes, focusing on their story but only implying what goes on in their head. Other games may actually make that more explicit, even a subject of mechanics.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I find this interesting as a big part of OSR philosophy (which I think are considered trad games, but correct me if I'm wrong) is letting go and letting the dice fall as they may.

There are a couple of things about that, I'd say. I think OSR games likely do tend to fall into the trad category (though I think we're starting to see increasing blends of different approaches), but I don't think that OSR games typically eschew prep or that they focus on character. They're usually strongly site-based type adventures, generally speaking. And I think they often focus more on player skill than on character. Again, generally speaking... I'm sure there may be an OSR game that's somehow more concerned with character than setting or plot.

I think this is one of the key differences between more narrative games and OSR games. Both want to move away from the kind of storyteller angle of Vampire and 2E D&D, but they do so in different ways, and tend to focus on different things.

It can be scary for players as well as GMs. I've definitely struggled with the idea of my character as someone I've already mapped out and know well, and want to give expression to, up to and including the outcomes of certain story arcs, vs. seeing how they develop through play, especially when they are hit with challenges to my core ideas about who they are, and in particular when those core ideas are put into conflict with one another. Say my character desperately wants political power, but also holds his family dear—what happens when I am offered power in exchange for betraying a family member? What if that family member recently did me a solid? What if they caused me some trouble?

In a sense, both of those "prep" angles are presuming a fairly heavy amount of prep, often (though not always) done independently, instead of starting small and building iteratively back and forth, to whatever degree in mutual prep, vs. play. My one-off about "seed crystals" above is starting to resonate, now. If you build up an elaborate structure, it can be hard to "hold on lightly" (as somebody has written, somewhere). If you start small, you can be more provisional and revisionist as you develop things, or allow wild surprises to change your character. Maybe my power-hungry family man finds that betraying his kin provides a heady rush, and transforms into a backstabbing conniver! Or maybe he arranges for the political downfall of whatever Mephistopheles dared tempt him into harming his own flesh & blood. Or maybe he accepts the bargain just this once, and has to live with that guilt. But we see as these deeds accrete, your character becomes something you can hold on to very tightly indeed, but in quite a different way from having a fixed idea of what they are and how their story must proceed.

This is a really good point, and certainly something I've experienced with the players who I've introduced to more story-now oriented games. It can take some real shifts in thinking to get into the right mindset. When you're so used to things working one way, it can be tough to adapt to a new way.

Depending on the game, the rules and procedures may help with some of this. Most of the games that I've played that are more character focused have elements of the characters that are determined at character generation, or continually through play, that matter and are intended to be a focus for play. Some rules are explicit about this, but some are less so. Meaning some games make this easier to realize than others do.