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Message: <blockquote data-quote="haakon1" data-source="post: 5888985" data-attributes="member: 25619">Sometimes I think we're all actually agreeing but just talking about it in different ways.I use modules, some from Paizo.  I'm a fan of SCAP (Shackled City Adventure Path), though I've only player/run a little of it.I like to string modules together, so elements, NPCs, and monster goals from one reappear in another.But I think I'm a "judge" because:1) I'm not very interested in balance.  I build the world.  You explore it.  If you do something crazy dumb, like charging off into the Underdark at 1st level, I'm not going to nerf it for you.2) I believe in "Combat as War" from both sides of the table.  Not wacky stuff like "Let's all dress up like Owlbears", but, when I'm the DM, playing the monsters like they actually want to win and kill you all, and, when I'm a player, trying to use ambushes and allies and other "non-wacky" ways to even the odds.The best thing I ever did as a DM was to have the inhabitants of the Caves of Chaos reply to the repeated pinprick sorties by adventurers from the Keep on the Borderlands by trying to overrun it, played out in detail in a 150 round fight involving all the NPC's, with the PC's in the staring role.  It was crazy, but it changes how everyone in my game thinks about the NPC's/monsters and the nature of the game.As a player, an example of CoW recently was in "Keep on the Shadowfell".  My paladin talked the ruler (Padraig) into letting him talk to the gate guards for the village about keeping a log of comings and goings, with the idea of trying to figure out who the bad guy's spy was.  The DM said, "Good idea, but it doesn't work", which was fine with me.  CoW isn't cheating or goofy, but it doesn't care about balance or whether there's a specific rule saying you can do it.3) I let the PC's generally do what they want within an adventure (there's more than one way to beat a BBEG) and outside of combat, in "down time mode", I pretty much let them do what they want.  So that's a little sandboxy. 4) I endeavour to always have motivations for NPC's and monsters.  I never want a monster to be there because the module says so -- I need to know WHY.  Whether the PC's ever find out or not.For example, in "Forge of Fury", there's a level with orcs, a level with trogs and a level with Duergar.  There was backstory on the orcs (they conquered the dwarves and didn't like the other monsters), but there wasn't a lot on the trogs and Duergar -- why are they there, and what's their relationship?So I did lots of Greyhawk research and came up with a plausible answer.  In Wolfgang Baur's "Kingdom of the Ghouls" adventure in Dungeon, he mentions the True Ghouls defeating the trogs and the duergar, and now fighting the Illithids and others.  So there was my answer -- they're refugees, and allied, and the duergar are using the Forge to make weapons for the Illithid war effort against the Ghouls.Which, not coincidentally, tied together with elements in other adventures, making it, if not an adventure path, at least a consistent world.--> Bottom Line: I'm sure other people have very different ideas about what this playstyle is, and whether or not it's judge.All I'm really going for is: a logical, consistent world in which the PC's are important, but the NPC's and monsters are more than just set dressing -- they are rational actors pursuing their own goals, that don't conflict or help the PC's because "I say so", but because it fits with whatever their backstory is, or failing that, random determination.Maybe DM as improv method actor?  But I'm not quite sure if that's accurate about what method acting is.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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