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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8631296" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Quite a good post!Here is what I'll say on the above proposed matrix.  I think its a little more complex than what you're proposing (shocker!):* While situation prep is technically happening "before", the execution of it in play could make it skew heavily toward producing "now."  The more that is left for play to decide/govern (system's say and player's say) of the situation prep, the more it will skew toward "now."  So deftly handling the (constraining) features of the situation framing is a big pivot point in that skew. * System will also have more or less of a constraining skew via its say whether the prep is "before" or "now.  For instance, if you're running a Medium-sized Torchbearer Adventure, system already has huge constraining inputs on # of Problem Areas, Difficulty Level, Rest Areas and several other key governing principles and procedural elements.  So Torchbearer Adventures skew heavily toward "system say" whether you're prepping them "before" or you're procedurally generating them "now."  Same goes with individual situation/obstacle framing.  Same goes with dealing with a player's prospective move space.  Same goes with doling out consequences.  All of this stuff will skew more or less toward "system's say" vs "GM's say" contingent upon how much constraining say that system has over a GM's say (their possible menu of moves to be made or "things to be said to the table participants").* System will do the same thing with players.  System will do the same thing with GM/player relationships.  The more system has constraining or structuring/guiding say on the conversation that is happening at the table, the more you have to bake that into your qualitative evaluation of "system's say" vs "GM's say" or whatever. So, a simple formulation of all of this is something like, a design skews more or less toward "GM's say" contingent upon who integral and binding "system's say" is and how authority is distributed at the table.  So for instance, some observations and a conclusion of a prospective design might be:O1 (observation 1) * This game allows the GM to veto/ignore system at their discretion.O2 * This game places the GM in a powerful and privileged role in terms of determining content (setting, situation, consequences to action/inaction, possibly even input on PC generation) which includes large powers of veto over player input (whether that be an outgrowth of their prep or it be an outgrowth of their personal conception of causality/tropes or their personal conception of what makes for good play in this moment).O3 * This game features huge amounts of prep before, and intensively-resolved in all of its various parameters, in order to play at all.O4 * This game requires significant GM input into action resolution mediation and that mediation is not comparatively constrained (either principally or procedurally) and, again, see O1 and O2.O5 * The system has very broad brush strokes or rather convoluted or opaque input into all of O1 - O3.CONCLUSION * This game skews extremely heavily toward "GM's say." Prep before or now plays a role for sure.  But it might not play a significant one and there are a lot of riders to the prep that go into it as well.  For instance, its absolutely possible to have "prep before" be better suited for a Story Now game than "prep now" if that prep before is done more deftly (leaving only what is necessary to provoke action locked down AND it being principally guided by system AND player protagonism is front and center - "the situation challenges an evinced dramatic need") than prep now (eg - the person is poor at structuring their cognitive workspace in order to improvise principled, system-and-dramatic-need-constraining content).</blockquote>

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