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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ShinHakkaider" data-source="post: 3437312" data-attributes="member: 9213">Yeah, which is exactly the sort of thing I have an issue with when people attempt to take someone to task for NOT using some sort of pre established setting. Right now I'm running an adventure path (Age of Worms) and the players are in a place called Diamond Lake. Most of the PC's are from or around Diamond Lake and are familiar with the Free City nearby but out of the 5 of them only 1 of them has ever been there. Point being theyre all from a small town and really don't know about anything outside of thier immediate scope. For now. When the story progresses and they begin to inquire about things that ARE outside of the scope (and this either goes one out of 2 ways) you either already have an idea of what a specific PC or PC's are going to ask about gauging by the play so far, or you make a note of it and prep it for the next time. Unless it's something that's needed immediately, in which case you stop for a minute or two and quickly draft something or create an answer. Are the pro-setting people implying that it's wrong to do this? and if so on what grounds is it wrong? Am I expected to believe that the pro-setting people in general have completely memorized thier setting bible and can instantly bring to bear any bit of information to satisfy thier players need? Even if that's not the case and the pro-setting people give their players a primer before hand on the general things that are happening in the setting for them to explore, that goes to playstyle, which still leads to some winging unless the DM has detailed every last one of those setting hooks that are in said primer. In the end as someone else said upthread this has more to do with the group and how much work the DM is willing to do before hand. One playstyle isnt better than the other in general, maybe in specific, but not in general. Just because I havent prepped an entire setting doesnt automatically make me a hack and slash DM, just because you've prepped an entire campaign setting doesnt make your game the end all be all of dramatic role-playing and versimilatude(sp?). To be completely honest though, I do believe in a happy medium. It's something I used when I first started DMing when I was 13 and have gone back to recently and that's starting small and building the world around the players. I have a player who wants to obtain a magical tatoo. From the moment he mentioned it, I said to myself "that's an subplot that's going to lead to an adventure that's going to highlight just how useful that tatoo's going to be". I have another player who is a rouge who left the Free City and is laying low in Diamond Lake, it's already been decided that her actions in the Free City that resulted in her leaving will have certain ramifications elsewhere. I guess it comes down to I feel that it's a waste of time to do all of the setting work BEFORE you start playing because I like tailoring certain aspects of the game to the players. I've done the setting prep thing  and in most of (not all) the cases the hooks have been ignored and the players go off and investigate some minor detail right out of left feild anyway. That and players usually come up with better and more interesting plots (to them) out of thier own imagination anyway.</blockquote>

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