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!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 7064699" data-attributes="member: 16586">The distinction I make is that adventures put designs on the players, whereas the other forms of GM preparation commonly used in older forms of D&D do not.One thing I will add is that for the purpose of describing the approaches in as distinct a manner as I can I tend to use the purest form of any given approach as my reference point. There is definitely room for combining approaches. Here are my frames of reference:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Scene Framing - Burning Wheel</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Storytelling - Vampire</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Refereeing - Moldvay B/X</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Master of Ceremonies - Apocalypse World</li> </ul>There are definitely ways to combine these approaches in different ways to achieve different results. Some examples from published games: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Monsterhearts and Masks utilize a combination of scene framing and MCing approaches. More active framing of scenes and a more flexible attitude toward prep are features of play. They are still less interested in intent than more pure scene framing approaches.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Later Gygax work absolutely features a strong drift towards storytelling. The Drow and Giant series absolutely have a set story path.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Blades in the Dark takes a more relaxed approach to MCing. The mechanisms are tools for all players to utilize together, as needed. It also has features inspired by war gaming and scene framing that creates a pretty unique experience. Blades utilizes city as dungeon and cutting to the action over overt planning, addresses intent in a unique way that keeps things focused on the fiction, and has a set of systems that make both heists and downtime consequential.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Typical Fate play sits somewhere between storytelling and scene framing. In Fate play we do not play to find. We play to confirm. The primary difference between most forms of Fate and Storytelling is that the players are in on it.</li> </ul>I just happen to have a particular allergy to Storytelling as a feature of the games I run and play. I will say that while I think you can combine features of the broad approaches to realize different sorts of play I don't believe you gain the benefits of both. You design a different sort of experience that is uniquely its own. I dearly love Blades in the Dark, but it does not like replace Apocalypse World as the way to GM. There are many ways to GM. This is mine, sometimes.</blockquote>

Verification