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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercutio01" data-source="post: 5757669" data-attributes="member: 37277">These two approaches are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, you can incorporate the on-the-fly adjustments into your grid creation, rearrange the grid, rewrite the grid items to incorporate the on-the-fly nature of the tabletop game, etc.In fact, I think a blending of both really indicates the sort of facile GM everyone wants. S/he thinks deeply enough and far enough out to have meta-plots and big level plots, and incorporates the choices of the group during each session into the planning for the next session, all while shuffling the meta-plots around to mesh in with the creation of content during play.Think of it like a branching tree. You plan up to the first splits of the trunk, the first branches, and the first set of twigs. During play the players take a trunk you didn't plan for, but that doesn't mean all the branches and twigs after that split can't be shifted to account for the change in play. And it doesn't mean they all have to shift, either. You can take the split trunk and create entirely new branches and twigs to mesh in with the already created ones.That's how I see it, and that's how I try to GM. Does it mean I create a lot of content no one will ever see? Sure, but more often I find a way to logically tie the content together. And many times it actually seems to fit in better than the original plan.Maybe you'd be surprised, but maybe not, but this is exactly how military planning works, and I think that probably accounts for it being the way I approach my GM planning sessions, my personal writing projects, and my classroom instruction. To wit--I have specific content I'm trying to get students to understand (I teach college composition), but no two classes are ever the same, even if I start from the same base for each lesson. Some classes work better than others, and I reflect on those to see why, then alter plans to suit the new lessons.</blockquote>

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