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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5406717" data-attributes="member: 80487">YOU made the claim that it is "often" a problem. How confusing!No; I am stating the fact of the matter.That is hardly the only alternative to the dysfunction ("megalomania") you described!Also, you can detail very LITTLE, and that is why you "railroad" when people reach the border of the adventure. "You can't do that" means the GM doesn't have to consider the consequences.It is not in dispute that one CAN itemize the hairs on each flea on a rat and map the veins of mold in a crumb of cheese, if that is how one chooses to spend one's energies. There are diminishing returns, though, in such fastidiousness.The degree of detail in published works that I have found most useful is to my mind quite adequate. Writing for myself, I will write less because the writing is merely a reminder of information that came in the first place from my own brain!The players have "only so much time and invention" in a game session as well. It is in the unscripted nature of the game that a great deal -- in my experience, the majority -- of time and attention goes to unanticipated matters.If the players and the dice were not continually producing surprises, I would hardly see a point in the affair!So, it is in general not really a matter of either producing a very straitened scenario in great detail or a more expansive one in little detail. It is really a linear matter of taking T times as long to sketch T times as many elements.The exceptions come in terms of things that absolutely require preparation ahead of time, and these things are chiefly media. For a grand example, a scale model of the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief and a complete collection of appropriately painted figurines is not something one can whip up on the spur of the moment!As I mentioned earlier, in a free campaign one ought to invest in reusable elements. In the course of more interaction, they naturally acquire richer -- and more personal -- detail. The quirks of imaginary people and places can become almost as well explored as those in the real world.Simply put, one cannot "often" be a GM without taking the step of actually running a game that first time. Nor is one likely long to remain a GM by offering a boring game. These selection pressures help explain why the state of affairs I have encountered is what it is.If your experience is really so different, then of course there must be a different mix of factors at work in it. The "game culture" long familiar to me is rather obviously different from the fashion of the day, so that is not too hard to contemplate.</blockquote>

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