Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
DMing Philosophy, this time from Roger Musson
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6313369" data-attributes="member: 17106"><p>It seems that he is talking about two different things. One of them is improvising content, which is still "by the book", and one is actually going off the book.</p><p></p><p>It seems an odd conceit to me, and one that must necessarily derive from earlier, highly structured styles of play. I would never have had the assumption that a DM was <em>not</em> making up some or most of the game as it was going along; the contrary would be very unusual and would almost certainly come off as railroading to me.</p><p></p><p>The way I see it, illusionism manifests more contemporaneously; the players are aware that I often make things up, but when it comes to a specific place, thing, or action, I might try to generate uncertainty as to whether I had prepared it as part of some auspicious plan or whether I had made it up on the spot. The preparation I do is explicitly designed to be amorphous and omnivalent to facilitate this type of deception. The goal is not to be deceptive about the techniques I use, only about the content within the game.</p><p></p><p>All of that process is very open to the players. They know what my prep looks like, what kind of things I'm liable to do, and after the game, I'll often tell them what the plan was, what I made up and when and why. Moreover, even during the game, sometimes they'll ask something and I'll blatantly admit that I'm making up an answer because I don't care.</p><p></p><p>On some level, I can see an impetus to keep all this process secret, but it just seems stodgy to me. And maybe it's an artifact of cultural changes. If one looks at D&D in a way that's analogous to reading a book or watching a movie, that experience has changed over the past couple of decades. Now, after a TV show, people watch the aftershow, read the recap, hit social media, watch documentaries and read blogs. People who watch Game of Thrones know the actors, listen to the creative staff talk about their goals, and visit or at least research the places where it was filmed. This was not the norm even a decade ago, really. But to me, D&D is kind of like that; I run a game that isn't just like a form of screen media in some ways, it also has the equivalent of a director's commentary or a writer's Twitter account. Like larger-scale creative figures, I think it's useful for a DM to engage players on this level.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ahnehnois, post: 6313369, member: 17106"] It seems that he is talking about two different things. One of them is improvising content, which is still "by the book", and one is actually going off the book. It seems an odd conceit to me, and one that must necessarily derive from earlier, highly structured styles of play. I would never have had the assumption that a DM was [I]not[/I] making up some or most of the game as it was going along; the contrary would be very unusual and would almost certainly come off as railroading to me. The way I see it, illusionism manifests more contemporaneously; the players are aware that I often make things up, but when it comes to a specific place, thing, or action, I might try to generate uncertainty as to whether I had prepared it as part of some auspicious plan or whether I had made it up on the spot. The preparation I do is explicitly designed to be amorphous and omnivalent to facilitate this type of deception. The goal is not to be deceptive about the techniques I use, only about the content within the game. All of that process is very open to the players. They know what my prep looks like, what kind of things I'm liable to do, and after the game, I'll often tell them what the plan was, what I made up and when and why. Moreover, even during the game, sometimes they'll ask something and I'll blatantly admit that I'm making up an answer because I don't care. On some level, I can see an impetus to keep all this process secret, but it just seems stodgy to me. And maybe it's an artifact of cultural changes. If one looks at D&D in a way that's analogous to reading a book or watching a movie, that experience has changed over the past couple of decades. Now, after a TV show, people watch the aftershow, read the recap, hit social media, watch documentaries and read blogs. People who watch Game of Thrones know the actors, listen to the creative staff talk about their goals, and visit or at least research the places where it was filmed. This was not the norm even a decade ago, really. But to me, D&D is kind of like that; I run a game that isn't just like a form of screen media in some ways, it also has the equivalent of a director's commentary or a writer's Twitter account. Like larger-scale creative figures, I think it's useful for a DM to engage players on this level. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
DMing Philosophy, this time from Roger Musson
Top