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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7722012" data-attributes="member: 4937">[MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION]: I like and agree with a lot of what you said, but don't share a language with you for discussing it.There is buried in your description all sorts of different approaches to solving the problem of making your campaign not be &quot;lifeless, dead, and hollow&quot;.&nbsp; For example, someone reading a sentence like &quot;It's the difference between a group of actors standing in place on stage, holding scripts in hand and reading to the audience, and that same group of actors being in costume, moving around on stage (using blocking), and having real props and sets.&quot;, who might reasonably conclude that what is needed is better costumes, better acting, and better props.&nbsp;&nbsp; And buying or building props to use in your game is a sort of preparation for the game, albeit it a very different category of one than we usually think of when we say &quot;prep&quot;, that is going to have a big impact on how the gameplay of the game actually ends up coming across. But I think you agree with me that what is important is this thing you call a &quot;construct&quot; (and which I admit I don't fully understand what you mean), and that merely buying cool props and miniatures won't necessarily make your game not suck (any more than adding more special effects magic will make your movie not suck).&nbsp;&nbsp; I concur fully that prepping well is just one of several qualities required of a GM, and that effort alone isn't the only thing that can be missing.&nbsp; For example, there isn't necessarily anything wrong from reading from a script (at times).&nbsp; But two different readers of the same script can make the same passage moving or &quot;lifeless, dead, and hollow&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; Are you a good reader?&nbsp; If you are, then you can probably read text right from the page.&nbsp;&nbsp; If you aren't, you probably need to leverage a different technique, which might involve knowing the room well enough to improvise a description.&nbsp; On the other hand, if you stutter to improvise a description but are a fluent reader, you might want to add to the text.&nbsp;&nbsp; Different speakers make different things work for them.&nbsp; Heck, if we are going to make analogy to acting or public speaking, maybe you need to &quot;rehearse your lines&quot;.GMs earn XP and buy skills too.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7722012, member: 4937"] [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION]: I like and agree with a lot of what you said, but don't share a language with you for discussing it. There is buried in your description all sorts of different approaches to solving the problem of making your campaign not be "lifeless, dead, and hollow". For example, someone reading a sentence like "It's the difference between a group of actors standing in place on stage, holding scripts in hand and reading to the audience, and that same group of actors being in costume, moving around on stage (using blocking), and having real props and sets.", who might reasonably conclude that what is needed is better costumes, better acting, and better props. And buying or building props to use in your game is a sort of preparation for the game, albeit it a very different category of one than we usually think of when we say "prep", that is going to have a big impact on how the gameplay of the game actually ends up coming across. But I think you agree with me that what is important is this thing you call a "construct" (and which I admit I don't fully understand what you mean), and that merely buying cool props and miniatures won't necessarily make your game not suck (any more than adding more special effects magic will make your movie not suck). I concur fully that prepping well is just one of several qualities required of a GM, and that effort alone isn't the only thing that can be missing. For example, there isn't necessarily anything wrong from reading from a script (at times). But two different readers of the same script can make the same passage moving or "lifeless, dead, and hollow" Are you a good reader? If you are, then you can probably read text right from the page. If you aren't, you probably need to leverage a different technique, which might involve knowing the room well enough to improvise a description. On the other hand, if you stutter to improvise a description but are a fluent reader, you might want to add to the text. Different speakers make different things work for them. Heck, if we are going to make analogy to acting or public speaking, maybe you need to "rehearse your lines". GMs earn XP and buy skills too. [/QUOTE]

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