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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8070977" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Look, I don't know you as anyone but an EN World poster. Maybe you have a host of writing credits I'm not aware of.</p><p></p><p>But all of us are posting our own sincere, and reasoned, views about what makes for good GMing. In your OP you seem to equate good GMing to fiction writing. Some of us don't agree. The next new system I want to GM is Apocalypse World. Why would I read novels to get better at GMing AW? I'd be better of watching Mad Max!</p><p></p><p>And on the issue of Pulitzer-prize winning books: I'm guessing a good number of GMs have read To Kill A Mockingbird, given its status as a school text, but I wouldn't trust 1 GM in 100 to handle that sort of material in a RPG. Reading isn't writing; and writing isn't GMing.</p><p></p><p>I recently GMed <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/played-some-wuthering-heights-today.672161/" target="_blank">a Wuthering Heights session</a>. If someone wanted to GM Wuthering Heights and wasn't sure where to start, I'd probably suggest the recent TV version of Vanity Fair over any nineteenth century novel - the TV show clearly has contemporary sensibilities in mind. The session I ran included "social"/"political" themes. I think I managed to pull it off. I was helped by the fact that (i) I know my players well (as in, we've been friends for many many years) and (ii) I am an academic whose fields of teaching and research include theoretical sociology. If someone wanted to incorporate this sort of material into their campaign and wasn't sure where to start I'd recommend an introductory modern history textbook.</p><p></p><p>As I said, you seem to be equating GMing to fiction writing, with references in your OP to <em>world building</em>, <em>updating NPCs who survived previous encounters</em>, <em>moving the timeline forward</em>, <em>figuring out what scheming villains have accomplished</em>, <em>organising an adventure</em>, <em>configuring encounters with maps and notes</em>, etc. That's one way to approach GMing. But it's not the only way. Almost none of it is relevant to GMing Wuthering Heights. It has little relevance to GMing Burning Wheel or Apocalypse World or Prince Valiant or Cortex+ Heroic. I don't use many of those techniques when I GM Classic Traveller.</p><p></p><p>It's fine for you to set out your own approaches, but it seems odd to get surprised when people express different views, that are clearly anchored in some pretty well-known RPGs and well-known approaches to GMing that just happen to differ from your own.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8070977, member: 42582"] Look, I don't know you as anyone but an EN World poster. Maybe you have a host of writing credits I'm not aware of. But all of us are posting our own sincere, and reasoned, views about what makes for good GMing. In your OP you seem to equate good GMing to fiction writing. Some of us don't agree. The next new system I want to GM is Apocalypse World. Why would I read novels to get better at GMing AW? I'd be better of watching Mad Max! And on the issue of Pulitzer-prize winning books: I'm guessing a good number of GMs have read To Kill A Mockingbird, given its status as a school text, but I wouldn't trust 1 GM in 100 to handle that sort of material in a RPG. Reading isn't writing; and writing isn't GMing. I recently GMed [url=https://www.enworld.org/threads/played-some-wuthering-heights-today.672161/]a Wuthering Heights session[/url]. If someone wanted to GM Wuthering Heights and wasn't sure where to start, I'd probably suggest the recent TV version of Vanity Fair over any nineteenth century novel - the TV show clearly has contemporary sensibilities in mind. The session I ran included "social"/"political" themes. I think I managed to pull it off. I was helped by the fact that (i) I know my players well (as in, we've been friends for many many years) and (ii) I am an academic whose fields of teaching and research include theoretical sociology. If someone wanted to incorporate this sort of material into their campaign and wasn't sure where to start I'd recommend an introductory modern history textbook. As I said, you seem to be equating GMing to fiction writing, with references in your OP to [I]world building[/I], [I]updating NPCs who survived previous encounters[/I], [I]moving the timeline forward[/I], [I]figuring out what scheming villains have accomplished[/I], [I]organising an adventure[/I], [I]configuring encounters with maps and notes[/I], etc. That's one way to approach GMing. But it's not the only way. Almost none of it is relevant to GMing Wuthering Heights. It has little relevance to GMing Burning Wheel or Apocalypse World or Prince Valiant or Cortex+ Heroic. I don't use many of those techniques when I GM Classic Traveller. It's fine for you to set out your own approaches, but it seems odd to get surprised when people express different views, that are clearly anchored in some pretty well-known RPGs and well-known approaches to GMing that just happen to differ from your own. [/QUOTE]
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