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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7079594" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think you dropped a "not" - I'm guessing that you're not overly fond of the way I'm framing things!I agree with this, but I would reframe it slightly, probably bending it in the direction you're not as fond of!What I wanted to post, after reading [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] talking about "allow[ing] the PCs to engage the path or leave the path entirely if they wish", is what does allow mean here?If the GM has prepped the adventure path - or, to use Maxperson's analogy, if the GM has set up a shot for the 2nd hole - then what happens if the players want to play a different scenario (or, to use the analogy, want to play on a different course)? Are they really free to do that? As in, can the game really be run if they choose that?What are the expectations around GM prep? What are the players' expectations? If the players expect a "living, breathing" world - a GM-authored backdrop that they explore and learn about through playing the game; and if the players expect a "plot" or a mystery that their PCs will hook onto and try and (re)solve; then how is the GM expected to provide this spontaneously? It seems like it will be a crap game.Or, conversely, if it turns out that this spontaneous game is a good one, then what was going on with all that effort on prep and pre-authorship? What was it for?This is actually how I discovered, c 1986/7, how I liked to run a game. I had assumed that running a serious game was all about prep, because I'd read various things (mostly White Dwarf and Dragon articles) that told me so. But then I ended up running some session which were much more spontaneous, where the players had PCs with fairly clear hooks and motivations built into them (OA PCs on one occasion; two demihuman multi-class thieves on the other occasion) - and those turned out to be much better games!That's not to say that I don't do any prep anymore. I run systems - 4e, BW, even to some extent Cortex/MHRP - that benefit from prepping NPCs/creatures, and in 4e also from drawing maps of locations. But these provide material that I use as part of framing, or narration of consequences. Until they actually come out in play they're potential story elements, not established parts of the shared fiction.</blockquote>

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