Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 6809526" data-attributes="member: 85870">I'm very sympathetic to your view, @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=48965" target="_blank">Imaro</a>, and I like your most recent post, @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=6778044" target="_blank">Ilbranteloth</a>. There's absolutely a level of degree involved with how far on the sliding scale of pre-authoring / "just in time" GM-ing I go. And to a point, I think @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=42582" target="_blank">pemerton</a> is purposefully trying to describe the far end of the "just in time" spectrum to highlight how different it is compared to what we might call a "classic" pre-authored story of the kind prevalent in the 2e era. I haven't played Burning Wheel (yet), but much of what @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=42582" target="_blank">pemerton</a> is describing is very much tied to Burning Wheel's ethos, where it goes out of its way to tell GM's not to impose some pre-defined set of encounters, or plot, or whatever on the players. Character progression is tied to a very, very different set of action resolution constraints than D&D is. Characters literally cannot progress unless they forced to encounter things that intersect with their stated goals and beliefs. A GM trying to send characters through a mostly linear "pre-authored" story in Burning Wheel is a recipe for disaster.Some of the difference is related to the "scale" of the pre-authoring. At the "30,000 foot view of world building" level, it's likely going to be heavily pre-authored, but even now I'm more open to getting player input at that level. At the "10,000 foot view" of "What are my players likely to care about and interact with in a general goal sense?" view, the GM should be getting regular input. It wouldn't be unusual for my players to suggest NPCs they know, and I would incorporate them into the fiction. They might suggest a place they've visited, or an organization they align with, and I would incorporate that into the fiction. If they meet one goal or objective and need a new one, I would definitely be taking input from them, and trying to frame scenes around what they give me. At the "500 foot view" of, "I'm trying to frame a set of 4-5 scenes for this session and next," it should all be very tightly wound around what the players have been doing, saying, and asking. GM's should keep things very fluid from a pre-authoring standpoint. Anything a player suggests that relates to their goals and intent should be seriously considered. As an aside, I will say that I could never have GM'd this way with Pathfinder. No way. It was an impossibility. I was prepping 3+ hours a week for my Pathfinder sessions. Only after I switched to Savage Worlds was I even willing to try this style. Now I prep maybe 90 minutes, total, in an entire month.Now, at some point in my games, the "30,000 foot view" pre-authored stuff may come into view. There's definitely things going on in the background that may have far-reaching impacts on the world at large, or regionally / locally on the PCs. But almost never would I allow a "30,000 foot view" pre-authored state of fiction to interrupt or contradict the 10,000 foot, or 500 foot views. And if I did allow the "30,000 foot view" to creep in to the lower "elevations," it would be transparent to the players, would have been widely foreshadowed and framed to the characters, and the resulting consequences would be obvious and consistent. And even then, I would seriously consider changing it if I felt that it was going to cause problems with the player's goals. Now, to @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=42582" target="_blank">pemerton</a>, he might think what I've described still gives too much pre-authorship control to the GM. And for his group it may be true. For my group, this seems to create a very healthy balance. By the same token, at some point there is a line that shouldn't be crossed where the players are fully setting up the scene frames. It's a pretty well accepted maxim that letting players set up both the challenge AND the solution is pretty dissatisfying in play.</blockquote>

Verification