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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8082010" data-attributes="member: 16814">I'm reading this as a statement that no game can avoid a scripted A-B-C structure?&nbsp; That even &quot;sandbox&quot; games just scatter A's around, but that they'll lead to B's planned by the GM?If so, you might want to stretch to some other systems that don't do prep and even will fight you if you try to push a specific plot, even generally.&nbsp; PbtA games are great for this -- less heavy than Burning Wheel, but still focus on that 'play to find out' structure.&nbsp; My Blades in the Dark game, for instance, is currently in a place I would never have predicted, and surprises me every session with what happens and where the characters go.&nbsp; So, it can be done.&nbsp; I would agree that this is very hard to do in a game like D&amp;D, which have requisite prep due to the game structure and that lack the kinds of player authorities that other games do, but you can do it there as well.&nbsp; My current 5e campaign, for instance, had no grand plan to start, just a quick starting fetch quest, and now is revolving around the different motivations of the PCs almost exclusively.&nbsp; I don't have an end point (or even a middle point) for any of those arcs, instead leveraging what the PCs do and how successful they are at it to introduce the next bit.&nbsp; It's a lot more my prep than my Blades game (which is no prep at all), but it's also very driven by what the PCs do rather than anything I've imagined ahead of time.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 8082010, member: 16814"] I'm reading this as a statement that no game can avoid a scripted A-B-C structure? That even "sandbox" games just scatter A's around, but that they'll lead to B's planned by the GM? If so, you might want to stretch to some other systems that don't do prep and even will fight you if you try to push a specific plot, even generally. PbtA games are great for this -- less heavy than Burning Wheel, but still focus on that 'play to find out' structure. My Blades in the Dark game, for instance, is currently in a place I would never have predicted, and surprises me every session with what happens and where the characters go. So, it can be done. I would agree that this is very hard to do in a game like D&D, which have requisite prep due to the game structure and that lack the kinds of player authorities that other games do, but you can do it there as well. My current 5e campaign, for instance, had no grand plan to start, just a quick starting fetch quest, and now is revolving around the different motivations of the PCs almost exclusively. I don't have an end point (or even a middle point) for any of those arcs, instead leveraging what the PCs do and how successful they are at it to introduce the next bit. It's a lot more my prep than my Blades game (which is no prep at all), but it's also very driven by what the PCs do rather than anything I've imagined ahead of time. [/QUOTE]

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