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<blockquote data-quote="roguerouge" data-source="post: 4591302" data-attributes="member: 13855">I really don't get this whole &quot;Only the DM can generate plot hooks&quot; thing people are going on about. As the Japanese say, &quot;None of us is as smart as all of us.&quot; Let the players talk long enough and they'll generate plot for you. Take notes and you'll have weeks of local color encounters to work into your campaign.Having been on both sides of the DM screen, what's the big deal here? Isn't this what random encounter charts are for? You let the players role play for a while. You ad-lib a little bit yourself (which shouldn't be that hard: after all, that's all the players do.) And, when you're out of ideas, or need time to think, you roll on the wandering monster table and praise Gary's foresight.As far as station squatting goes, one of the intents is to create fully rounded characters. I don't know about the rest of you, but I like to try to work things so that my character will end the campaign happy. I want to feel like he'll have a place in the world he'll save. I want to feel like he'll go into a happy retirement. Station squatting is about setting that up. And I get very unhappy as a player if the DM doesn't allow us to do that. Plus, station squatting leads to team cohesion. Sharing downtime is an excellent way to generate the good feeling that will blunt the impact of inevitable party melodrama later. If you don't set aside time for station squatting, you end up like Varsuvius.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="roguerouge, post: 4591302, member: 13855"] I really don't get this whole "Only the DM can generate plot hooks" thing people are going on about. As the Japanese say, "None of us is as smart as all of us." Let the players talk long enough and they'll generate plot for you. Take notes and you'll have weeks of local color encounters to work into your campaign. Having been on both sides of the DM screen, what's the big deal here? Isn't this what random encounter charts are for? You let the players role play for a while. You ad-lib a little bit yourself (which shouldn't be that hard: after all, that's all the players [I]do[/I].) And, when you're out of ideas, or need time to think, you roll on the wandering monster table and praise Gary's foresight. As far as station squatting goes, one of the intents is to create fully rounded characters. I don't know about the rest of you, but I like to try to work things so that my character will end the campaign [B]happy[/B]. I want to feel like he'll have a place in the world he'll save. I want to feel like he'll go into a happy retirement. Station squatting is about setting that up. And I get very unhappy as a player if the DM doesn't allow us to do that. Plus, station squatting leads to team cohesion. Sharing downtime is an excellent way to generate the good feeling that will blunt the impact of inevitable party melodrama later. If you don't set aside time for station squatting, you end up like Varsuvius. [/QUOTE]

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