I wonder if this "scaling to meet the needs of the group" is analagous to what you're doing with plot?
The word "plot" makes me cautious here - not meaning that you're in any way at fault in using the word, but it can have implications that are very contentious in this context of discussing play styles.
Borrowing some terminology from The Forge (as I like to do!), I distinguish
situation from
plot. By situation I mean the starting point for gameplay. This has got both a fictional/ingame aspect - where are the PCs?, who/what is confronting them?, etc - and also a metagame aspect - what is at stake?, what are the players hoping to achieve by engaging the situation via their PCs?, etc.
My goal is always to frame situations that are engaging at both levels. And of course the two levels feedback on one another in various ways, because the ingame situation is probably the result of some earlier meaningful choices made by the players (and so in certain respects at least reflects their metagame concerns), and the players achieve their metagame desires by using their PCs to affect the fictional, ingame state of affairs.
By plot I mean, roughly, what happens in the fiction once the players engage the situation via their PCs. In the sort of game I prefer this should not be predetermined, although certain outcomes might be more predictable in advance than others. Because the plot that is the result of resolving a situation establishes parameters for setting up new situations, there is an obvious limit on how predetermined I (as GM) can be in settling on interesting and relevant situations.
A minor example of plot: Twitch, the imp, turns up unexpectedly and uses his tail to stabs the sorcerer with whom he'd previously tried to bargain, while also taunting him. Does the sorcerer try to reopen negotiations? To capture Twitch to wring his secrets from him? Or to ruthlessly kill him? As it turned out, the latter. But when I set up the situation, I didn't know which way it would go. (The issue of bargaining with devils, and whether its a good or bad thing to do, has been a recurring subtheme in the game and something over which two PCs in particular have repeatedly clashed. And its complicated by the presence of a tiefling PC in the group, who is not one of the two PCs primarily involved, but who by default has some sort of interest in the matter!)
Twitch escaped - something that I didn't know would in advance would happen - and the PC in question has vowed to track him down. This is obviously highly relevant to future situations that I frame in this campaign.
In a game like 4e, which does not have a distinctive scene-opening and scene-closing mechanic, the distinction between plot (
the players are still having their PCs do stuff in order to resolve a situation) and situation (
it's now the GM's role to set up some new fictional state of affairs for the players to engage with, as part of driving the story forward) of course can sometimes be blurry. I regard it as part of my job as GM to exercise judgement in wrapping a scene up and transitioning to the next scene. Some of the "loose" aspects of time-based mechanics in 4e - skill challenges for non-tactical movement resolution, a certain flexibility in what counts as a short rest, the absence of very many long-duration magical effects, etc - make this easier than it would be in a game like Rolemaster, which is not so loose in these respects. Closing scenes, and moving to new situations, is crucial for my sort of play, however, because it stops the game becoming bogged down in what is (relative to my purposes and desires) the needless minutiae of exploration.
Some practical examples of this from recent sessions that I've GMed:
*A player describes how his PC searches some NPCs for loot. As GM, I know that their is nothing interesting to be found, but let the player roll his Perception check. The check result is OK but not wonderful. I tell him there's nothing interesting there. The PC with the stronger perception than returns from chasing a fleeing enemy. That PC's player explains that his PC will search too. I say that there's no need for a roll, and that his PC confirms that there's nothing interesting to be found. This makes it clear that the "searching the bodies" subscene is over.
*Two PCs are riding on the back of a captured behemoth chasing a fleeing NPC cleric. I am resolving this as a complexity 2 skill challenge (6 successess before 3 failures). Due to a series of bad rolls, both PCs end up being thrown from the back of the war beast when it stumbles while crossing a narrow valley. Given that this is the third failure, the skill challenge is over - the NPC has escaped (and I have plans on how to use her in the future). I don't expressly tell my players this, but I do tell them that they have lost any sight of her. I also ask them whether they want to keep heading in the direction that she was running, or return to the other PCs. If they had gone for the first option, they would have reached the path to a nearby city (thus potentially guessing where the NPC had fled to). In fact they went for the second option. I didn't call for any skill checks on the return, and simply indicated that they returned to the village where they had left the other PCs. Again, this makes it clear the the "chasing the fleeing NPC on the back of a behemoth" subscene is over.
When playing in this sort of fashion, it is bad GMing to frame a situation that doesn't grab the players, to bring the engagement with a particular situation to a close that is premature reletive to the interests of the players (because this stops them making choices that from their point of view are still meaningful), or to allow a particular situation to drag on when there is nothing more to be done that is interesting to anyone at the table. This last category is important and sometime a bit subtle - from the mere fact that a player tells me that a PC is searching a body, for example, it doesn't follow that the player regards the search as important. Typically, in fact, the player regards possible loot as important, and is going through an accepted game mechanical process for finding loot. Cutting this short - as in the first example above - doesn't stop any meaningful choices, but rather just makes it clear that there is nothing to be gained by the player going through that particular process.
It's also bad GMing to frame future situations in ways that negate or undo what the players have achieved via their resolution of previous situations. But, of course,
threatening those achievements is one way to grab the players and get them engaged. That is why this is a delicate matter. It is also a matter where it is important to keep ingame and metagame separate - because a threat to an ingame state of affairs that the players have brought about via their PCs can often affirm, rather than undermine, the metagame point that they made by achieving that state of affairs. For example, by having had their PCs succesfully treat with an exiled god in their quest to right a karmic wrong that heaven is ignoring, the players may have made a point about the priority of choice and free will to simply following the dictates of law. If constables of heaven then turn up to try and punish the PCs for what they've done, this
affirms the players' metagame point, by giving them further material with which to develop the statement they are making, via their play, about the moral inadequacy of the way heaven is approaching the issue of karma and law. (This example is taken from my last long-running Rolemaster campaign.)
My impression of many WotC adventures is that they involve the PCs aligning with NPCs only to have those NPCs suddenly turn and betray them. This is an example of framing a situation which is potentially very debilitating for my approach to play, because it runs the risk not just of undoing what the PCs have achieved in the fiction, but also rendering irrelevant or misguided what the players were trying to do at the metagame level. It is part of what makes many published scenarios not very suitable for my approach to play. (Which is not to say that I can't use betrayal by NPCs - but generally it has to be part of an ongoing dealing with that NPC, so that the players can see their own thematic concerns and interests reflected and further developed in the way the relationship with the NPC unfolds. The 4e drow module P2 Demon Queen's Enclalve looks much better to me in this respect, making negotiation and the risk of betrayal a focus of play, rather than something just to be sprung by the GM upon the players willy nilly.)
Some of the actual play examples I've mentioned above - like the demon taunting the paladin, or the angel sending the dwarven NPCs to meet the warpriest PC - are examples of framing situations in ways that will grab the player. They introduce conflict, and risk, without invalidating prior player choices and engagement with the game.
Other of those actual play examples illustrate how plot is determined
in the course of actual play - such as the paladin allowing himself to be beaten to a pulp, or the dwarf deciding to get back at his tormentors in a certain way, or a wizard PC deciding to join in the sacrifice of his companion, or another wizard PC deciding to join with that choice as part of his program for recovering from the consequences of drug addiction and losing his house.
And other of those actual play examples illustrate how, in bringing a situation to an end, and transitioning to the next situation, I try to preserve rather than undo the validity of the players' choices - by having the bored demon return to the abyss rather than destroy a nearby village, for example, and by trying to make sure that any complication I introduce in relation to the dwarven NPCs recruited by the dwarf PC doesn't punish the player for treating the theme of revenge on tormentors in a light-hearted rather than a serious fashion.
And to finish this long post - some quotes from
a recent online column by Chris Perkins which suggest that he has at least some similarities in the way he approaches GMing:
I’d be lying to you if I said I knew the full extent of Alex’s story from the very beginning, or how the various facts would come to light. As happens, a lot of Alex’s story was dreamt up along the way. But from the outset, I knew three things were true:
<snip>
The truth about Alex’s father and Lenkhor Krige (whose last name I stole from the wonderfully alluring actress Alice Krige) came much later, whenever something would happen in the game that drove home the need to give Alex’s story a forward push. The decision to make Lenkhor a sympathetic character was a spontaneous decision that happened in the middle of a session, when it occurred to me how cool it would be to give Alex two father figures, each repentant for different reasons: his conniving biological father who gave him away, and the dragonborn archmage who made him into the man he’s become. Also, I was wary of the “evil archmage” cliché and wanted the leader of the Shan Qabal to be something unique and unexpected.
The heroes stormed into Lenkhor’s tower expecting a big fight, and what they got was a withered husk of a mighty archwizard lying on his deathbed. The image of a figure who was simultaneously powerful and weak appealed to me, as did the idea that Lenkhor would do anything—magical and otherwise—to prolong his life, if only to aggravate his apprentice.
For Jeremy, who enjoys a good roleplaying challenge, it was an opportunity for Alex to confront the architect of the Wyrmworn Experiment and realize he’s not dealing with a monster but a wizard whose lifelong quest for knowledge and power matched his own. This decision to portray Lenkhor as something other than a threat also opened the door to the possibility of Alex becoming a member of the Shan Qabal, which is basically what happened at the end of the paragon tier.
To me, this seems like good stuff. Of course, others may well prefer a different sort of game!
