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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 7721894" data-attributes="member: 5142">Intent may be a difficult thing to judge, but intent is nevertheless assumed in vocabulary and in our common parlance. Using your earlier example, if one were to ask a student "Did you prepare for the exam?" that question implies intent or active preparation and not unintended preparation done outside of the contexts of the exam. If a new GM were asking me, "How do you prepare for GMing sessions and campaigns?" then the weight of the question leans heavily on active preparation. Telling them that they can pull from what they know doesn't require additional active preparation. I do think that a GM is required to be open to improvization, as no plan survives first contact with the players, but I believe that improv is a separate skill because I have seen GMs who can prepare well but not improv well, and vice versa. Yes, I only consider your actual preparation the point where you intended to incorporate a Roman-style bath house into your game. However, you required less prep work because you drew on what you knew and "improvized" accordingly. I don't regard this prior helpful knowledge as retroactive game prep work. Again, I regard improvization as a separate skill entirely that a GM should learn, and improvization takes on many forms in most campaigns. I do not regard improvization as active preparation work, and a bit of what you describe in terms of learning for the sake of the campaign, such as in your sailing campaign, comes across as simply "doing your homework." So let's be clear about you "using [my] definition" of game preparation. No, I have not presumed "that [a novice GM] could similarly improvize a similar game in mere moments," because I don't presume that a novice GM is attempting to do so. I think that my definition of game prep as requiring intent succeeds for precisely what you write here, which I have highlighted in bold. Intent does explain the difference. Assuming an equal degree of relative preparation work, there is a difference in (a) prior knowledge that helps alleviate preparation work, and (b) the respective experience of the two GMs at GMing. (In regards to point B, I would note that you indicate that the former is a novice at GMing but the latter is not indicated as such.) I would expect that a novice GM who is less familiar with the source material should engage in more active preparation for their supers campaign if they lacked sufficient grounding in that prior knowledge. I expect and presume intent to prepare. I don't necessarily presume that the latter GM had done more preparation work, nor would I say that they did. I would say that the second GM has a greater reservoir of prior knowledge that they can draw on to make preparation easier or quicker. I also think that advising GMs to "draw on what you know" for a supers campaign is not inherently preparation, as it is advice meant to alleviate preparation work. So, again, I would argue that alleviating prep by drawing on what you know is the same as game prep. As you say, "a gaming definition needs to have practical value and needs to clarify," and I don't see how obfuscating the term "game preparation" to encapsulate a large variety of separate issues and terms succeeds in that goal. I would want a novice GM to have a realistic expectation as to what is required in running a game. But I think there is a difference between running a game and preparing for a game, whether that is a one-shot, a session, or a campaign. And I think that it is more helpful IME for a novice GM to have clear terms that break down the issues, terms, and expectations into clear bites.</blockquote>

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