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General Tabletop Discussion
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GMs: Guiding Morals in GMing
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<blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8982962" data-attributes="member: 6785785"><p>I mention Spire a lot in these discussions. It’s got a lot in common with PbtA and FitD type games. They have published a handful of “Campaign Frames” for the game. These are 16 page books that offer a scenario for play. Half the books are pre-generated characters, so you have about 8 pages of description setting up the scenario. Each is meant to offer a few sessions of play, but they don’t do anything other than introduce the participant NPCs and organizations, and provide some kind of inciting event. There’s no sequential element to the scenario. No chapter 2. </p><p></p><p>There really can’t be because of the way Spire works as a game. It eschews heavy prep and encourages improv during play. It actively involves improv in the rules of the game.</p><p></p><p>And that’s how it must be if you’re truly letting players do whatever they want once play starts. You can’t write chapter 2 until you know how chapter 1 ends. Doing so means that you are absolutely steering things. And that’s how most adventure modules or adventure paths haven been written for the past few decades. They have little to nothing to do with character, and instead rely on the plot entirely. </p><p></p><p>This was probably one of the biggest revelations for me, and one that was hard to reconcile. Once you write down something like “Once the PCs defeat Count Evil, then…” you’re deciding what play will be about before it’s happened. </p><p></p><p>Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t pivot at the table and improv as needed, and move away from the prepared story… it can be done. But the more a given game expects you to not have to do that… the more the game expects the GM to prepare ahead of time… the harder it will be to do that. </p><p></p><p>The system absolutely matters in this regard.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="hawkeyefan, post: 8982962, member: 6785785"] I mention Spire a lot in these discussions. It’s got a lot in common with PbtA and FitD type games. They have published a handful of “Campaign Frames” for the game. These are 16 page books that offer a scenario for play. Half the books are pre-generated characters, so you have about 8 pages of description setting up the scenario. Each is meant to offer a few sessions of play, but they don’t do anything other than introduce the participant NPCs and organizations, and provide some kind of inciting event. There’s no sequential element to the scenario. No chapter 2. There really can’t be because of the way Spire works as a game. It eschews heavy prep and encourages improv during play. It actively involves improv in the rules of the game. And that’s how it must be if you’re truly letting players do whatever they want once play starts. You can’t write chapter 2 until you know how chapter 1 ends. Doing so means that you are absolutely steering things. And that’s how most adventure modules or adventure paths haven been written for the past few decades. They have little to nothing to do with character, and instead rely on the plot entirely. This was probably one of the biggest revelations for me, and one that was hard to reconcile. Once you write down something like “Once the PCs defeat Count Evil, then…” you’re deciding what play will be about before it’s happened. Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t pivot at the table and improv as needed, and move away from the prepared story… it can be done. But the more a given game expects you to not have to do that… the more the game expects the GM to prepare ahead of time… the harder it will be to do that. The system absolutely matters in this regard. [/QUOTE]
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