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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 9380952"><p>That does seem a bit contractor to me. Checking out the original article, I am not sure as I am still digesting it and sometimes it takes a while to get what the whole of the advice for something really means. But it is an odd way to talk about not thinking of it in terms of planned events, but then have planning events be two of the steps. I am guessing this might be more about D&D's middle way approach tot things to capture the largest audience. Talking in terms of planning situations will appeal to the people who like more open structures, but there is a large contingent of D&D players who like planned encounters, satisfying conclusions etc. So maybe they are hedging here? I don't know. I can say, since I tend to plan situations rather than narrative arc, I wouldn't prepare my sessions like this. I can see 4 being a useful exercise for some GMs, even if they aren't planning an ending, considering how it may end in various ways, can help them be ready when players do things. But I find if you do that, you tend to push things in the direction you were thinking about. And planning situations, to me, is more about being open to what may unfold. But step 2 is, in my opinion at least, at odds with the advice about planning situations and not story arcs. If you are planning encounters as a sequence of events that take the characters through the adventure, that sounds like a pretty linear plot, and not a situation. Also I will say, the WOTC 3E era tendency to have everything structured around planned encounters that take players through the adventure were the very thing that sent me on a path away from linear structures (I just got sick of playing in a way that felt like I could hand my players my campaign notes at the start of play and it would really not make much of a difference and save us all hours of time)</p></blockquote><p></p>

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