Should the DM accommodate characters, or characters accommodate DMs?

[Ariosto]

I think the DM should build his adventures to take into account the PCs and their goals ...

Emphasis mine. If everyone is on the same page about this business of "the DM building his adventures", then I reckon it makes sense to talk about how he ought to do so -- but whether comes first!

The mystery masked man was smart
He got himself a Tonto
'Cause Tonto did the dirty work for free
But Tonto he was smarter
And one day said kemo sabe
Kiss my ass I bought a boat
I'm going out to sea

And if I had a boat
I'd go out on the ocean
And if I had a pony
I'd ride him on my boat
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean
Me upon my pony on my boat

 

[Ariosto]

A knight might present problems a lot more significant than his desire to be in the saddle as often as possible, unless he has a real fetish that way. There's the whole social class thing, too.

 

[The Shaman]

If everyone is on the same page about this business of "the DM building his adventures", then I reckon it makes sense to talk about how he ought to do so -- but whether comes first!

If the adventurers have goals and pursue them, in my experience the referee does't need to build much of anything, only react with logical consequences to their actions.

 

[KidSnide]

If the adventurers have goals and pursue them, in my experience the referee does't need to build much of anything, only react with logical consequences to their actions.

I think there is a terminology issue here. If a GM were to write his own Keep on the Borderlands, I could consider that an example of "building an adventure."

Writing up a well detailed situation for the PCs to explore and interact with can still require a good deal of building. (Unless, I suppose, you come up with maps, monsters and NPCs a lot faster than I do...)

-KS

 

[The Shaman]

I think there is a terminology issue here. If a GM were to write his own Keep on the Borderlands, I could consider that an example of "building an adventure."

Whereas I would consider that building a setting, or part of one, rather than an adventure per se.

In fact, most of my favorite TSR 'adventures' are really small settings: Keep on the Borderlands, Village of Hommlet, and Vault of the Drow.

 

[Ariosto]

Vault of the Drow is actually the culmination of an "adventure" insomuch as Gygax apparently (to my eye) used the term, in just the way more commonly meant today, in those very modules. The relatively linear large-scale structure would of course have been more blatantly expressed in the presentation of the scenarios as successive tournament rounds.

Quite a bit is assumed, and rather more necessarily as events proceed along the subterranean channels. Even in the Giants modules, Gygax wrote (IIRC) about the presence of a "script" -- in the process of urging DMs not to imagine that they had merely to follow it.

In part because they so often originated to meet the needs of tournaments (following which, the published versions moved like free beer at the conventions), TSR's modules tended to assume a fairly linear default structure.

Obviously, that could not so much inform the play of groups that lacked much exposure to the things in the first place. Gradually, though, it became almost officially normative as "the way to play" -- pretty much pushed in rulebooks that today are designed around that paradigm.

There are many reasons for that, including ones of convenience and preference as very well informed choices. That level of information may be less common now, the mode more often simply taken for granted and the old campaign dismissed without even grasping it. Still, I think it likely to prevail only a little less with wider understanding of the alternatives.

Lack of understanding, though, is seldom an asset in solving problems. Even if, in a general sense, "it must be so" reflects a preference that is not about to change, being able to see how it can be otherwise may open up previously unseen particular possibilities that "don't throw out the baby with the bath water".

 

[KidSnide]

In fact, most of my favorite TSR 'adventures' are really small settings: Keep on the Borderlands, Village of Hommlet, and Vault of the Drow.

Right... and TSR called them "adventures" for a reason -- they identified obstacles and rewards that the PCs could overcome and achieve. That's the meat of an adventure (at least from the perspective of GM prep) whether it's presented as a setting or a sequence of events.

And I'll ask a question of The Shaman and Ariosto, purely out of curiosity, when you build what let's call an "adventure-setting" (i.e. a homebrew equivalent of Vault or Borderlands) do you take the PCs and their goals into account?

-KS

 

[The Shaman]

And I'll ask a question of The Shaman and Ariosto, purely out of curiosity, when you build what let's call an "adventure-setting" (i.e. a homebrew equivalent of Vault or Borderlands) do you take the PCs and their goals into account?

Fulfilling the adventurers' goals is the players' business, not mine. They set their goals, and it's up to them to find the means of achieving them.

 

[KidSnide]

And I'll ask a question of The Shaman and Ariosto, purely out of curiosity, when you build what let's call an "adventure-setting" (i.e. a homebrew equivalent of Vault or Borderlands) do you take the PCs and their goals into account?

Fulfilling the adventurers' goals is the players' business, not mine. They set their goals, and it's up to them to find the means of achieving them.

Am I correct in conjecturing that this sort of happens in a second order way? To explain:

I imagine that, when your PCs decide to go to a new location, you do some work to fill out what is there in more detail. I also imagine that your PCs decide which location to go to based, at least partially, on their goals.

So, provided your PCs are acting on good information, am I correct in concluding that you create/build/detail "adventure settings" that take the PC's goals into account, in as much as those adventure settings were chosen by the PCs because the PCs think it will provide a means to fulfill their goals?

Again, just curious...

-KS

 

[The Shaman]

Am I correct in conjecturing that this sort of happens in a second order way? To explain:

I imagine that, when your PCs decide to go to a new location, you do some work to fill out what is there in more detail. I also imagine that your PCs decide which location to go to based, at least partially, on their goals.

So, provided your PCs are acting on good information, am I correct in concluding that you create/build/detail "adventure settings" that take the PC's goals into account, in as much as those adventure settings were chosen by the PCs because the PCs think it will provide a means to fulfill their goals?

Again, just curious...

I'm sorry, I'm not following the question. Perhaps you could give me an example?