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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5494370" data-attributes="member: 42582">This post was made on a <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/5490916-post252.html" target="_blank">long thread in the industry forum</a>, but seemed interesting enough to pull out into a more general environment:This actually relates back to a long thread that took place a month or two ago <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/300674-reason-why-d-d-4th-edition-not-popular-could-have-been.html" target="_blank">on the General forums</a>.As I argued in that thread, I think that 4e - with its emphasis on responsive scene framing by the GM, rather than exploration, as the way to drive the game forward - in some ways is better suited to an improv/"just in time style" of GMing.So rather than (1) or (2) above, there is an option (3): WotC produces books that give GMs more support and guidance in running this sort of game. The PoL backstory in the 4e books is a good start (I don't mean the Nentir Vale, which in my view is nothing very special, but rather the myth and history about the Dawn War, fallen empires, King Elidyr and the gnolls, etc); there is a lot of material here that a GM can pick up and incorporate.There are also the suggested encounters in the first two MMs.But a lot more could be done (both HeroQuest 2nd ed and The Dying Earth are examples of the sort of advice that can be given along these lines).I think the following <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html" target="_blank">quote from Ron Edwards</a> is also applicable:From Over the Edge (Atlas Games, 1994; author is Jonathan Tweet): When I first played OTE, it was on about ten minutes' notice. I had some notes on major background conspiracies, a few images of various scenes, and a primitive version of the current mechanics. No map, no descriptions of businesses, people, places, or any of the other useful tidbits that are crammed into the previous two chapters. . . Now, however, you have a background explaining who, what, where, and when. You're in a completely different situation from where I was back on that first manic evening. . . Not having anything written as a guide (or crutch), I let my imagination loose. You have the mixed blessing of having many pages of background prepared for you. If you use the information in this book as a springboard for your own wild dreams, then it is a blessing. If you limit yourself to what I've dreamed up, it's a curse. All I see, I'm afraid, is the curse. . .  I'm not saying that improvisation is better or more Narrativist than non-improvisational play. I am saying, however, that if playing this particular game worked so wonderfully to free the participants into wildly successful brainstorming during play ... and since the players were a core source during this event, as evident in the game's Dedication and in various examples of play ... then why present the results of the play-experience as the material for another person's experience?I think that D&D has had a bit too much of a habit of presenting other people's play experiences as the material for play. The discussions in Worlds and Monsters about the core conceits of the D&D world suggested that WotC was actually looking at taking D&D in a different direction, and a lot of the way that PoL has been handled (including in sourcebooks like The Plane Above and The Underdark) is consistent with that (not all - some of it, like the Outer Isles discussed in the Plane Above, do come across more as classic setting material for exploration-focused play).But WotC seems to have trouble writing play advice to support that play style best suited to the game it has designed. At least in my view.</blockquote>

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