NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6813895" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I think there is a lot of nuance in where items reside on the "improvisation" continuum and why they reside there.  This makes it a bit difficult to communicate things conceptually.  I'm going to take quick shot at it.In my recent Dungeon World game, here are a few elements that are relevant to the fiction:1)  On the far end of the spectrum toward pre-authored lies the general locale and the general nature of the threat to be confronted.  This is (a) an isolated sister settlement in frozen highland country that is cut off from the lowland civilization due to harsh conditions and blocking terrain making the primary route not traversable by normal travelers.  (b) The looming threat is Far Realm in nature.  However, the framing of the two scenes that established these was authored by each player (a Bang - a player authored kicker that gets us into the action).  Their backstory scenes firmly established this prior to play.  2)  In the middle of the spectrum lies something like Schrodinger's Glacial Crevasse.  While I authored this completely off the cuff as a result of a failed Scout roll during an Undertake a Perilous Journey (group) move, failing to properly scout while traversing a glacial wasteland would naturally lead to an encounter with a topographical hazard or some other more malignant threat.  If this were a game where consequences were derived by a pre-authored table and then rolled upon, a crevasse would definitely be on that table.  Further, I think such a table would move things further toward pre-authored and away from improvised.3)  Finally we arrive at completely improvised material.  Examples of this would be a locale (Earthmaw, a hobgoblin trading outpost/kingdom) and a denizen (Averandox the Ancient White/Blizzard Dragon that claims the highlands as his territory).  Both of these were authored entirely in the moment as a result of successful (10+) player action declarations where I'm obliged (or I allow them to) to introduce something both (i) interesting and (ii) useful into the established setting/backstory/continuity.There is my first pass (totally improvised!).</blockquote>

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