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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9455544" data-attributes="member: 71699">Is it right to say there's an implication that for some reason it would be less desirable to use it, no matter how great the opportunity, than to make up something on the spot? So that accompanying your compulsion to use that which you've established before the current play session is a preferencing of ludic facts established within the session. That same preferencing also shields ludic facts established in preceding sessions from any worries of inappropriately "railroading".The preestablished ludic facts that are undesirable to use are, specifically, those that were established outside of the sessions of play. Seeing as they're undesirable to use, it's perforce undesirable to feel compelled to use them. While it remains desirable on both counts to use ludic facts established within sessions of play.That led me to be curious about some cases that might form exceptionsOne sort of ludic fact is a template for a thing that can appear in the game such as the Frostbound in Ironsworn. It seems likely that prepared templates have a different standing from prepared instances of that creature. Other examples of templates in Ironsworn would include assets (beneficial abilities and allies) and, in other games, archetypal character playbooks. Another sort of ludic fact is a wide area map such as the Ironlands for Ironsworn, with its labelled Havens, Veiled Mountains, etc. A closely connected sort of ludic fact is the snippet of fiction saying how to picture a specific part of that map, such as the Barrier Islands where there are Fisher-folk braving the wild sea. Another sort of ludic fact are those arranged into tables such as Oracles in Ironsworn. Their intent is to prompt participants to say things along some lines rather than some other lines, e.g. that a location be abandoned. A case in point would be a GM preparing an oracles table that they feel compelled to use as described. I've noticed TTRPG designers and play groups preparing all those sort of ludic facts without worries about railroading: they don't script what will happen in play, they preestablish a host of facts that may structure, colour, prompt and constrain the improvised play that will take place.My present thinking is that it's taken the TTRPG community time to work out how to see stories of a desired type played without providing any script for those stories. Modern games forced a tectonic reappraisal of narrative that over the last decade that has borne fruit. It's desirable to preestablish the ludic facts that influence, inform, elevate without scripting my imagining through play of stories about being a monster holding back the apocalypse (Apocalypse Keys). Elsewhere I've used the label "ludonarrative" and wrote of traversing signifiers. Although there are problems with that precise definition, there is something in curating signifiers for use in play that is essential to ludonarrative, separating structured play (TTRPG) out from unstructured improv.If that's right, then [USER=6685541]@BookTenTiger[/USER] It looks like you've landed in the right spot. And the answer to "How do you find the joy of prep in running a Play to Find Out game?" will be not that it must not be done, but that one must be sensitive to the sorts of ludic facts that are ideal to preestablish. One guideline could be to think in terms of tools for structured play - tools for imagining stories of a certain type - without pre-writing those stories.</blockquote>

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