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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6593603" data-attributes="member: 42582">I can't speak for you as an individual, but as a generalisation I don't think this is true. For instance, movies whose writers and directors set out to make interesting often end up being more interesting than those where this is not the case. (Avant garde stuff like Andy Warhol's movies are deliberate attempts to upend this, but I don't think they're very applicable models for mainstream RPGing.)Neither of these things has been true in my RPGing experience (which obviously hasn't included you!).For instance, as a GM I've been guilty of running boring sessions (moreso in the past, I hope, than these days). And I've certainly played in some.And I've found that players want interesting stuff. For instance, when the player of the samurai declares that his PC goes swaggering through the village, he is generally quite happy to face a challenge from the local tough. Or when the players in the all-thieves campaign have their PCs attempt a bit of second-story work, they are happy for me, as GM, to introduce some interesting stuff like perhaps a guard to sneak past, or treasure in a cunningly hidden and trapped safe. They generally don't want me just to declares "You check out a few houses but find nothing of interest. It's morning. What do you do?"This goes right back to issues of authorship and the Spartan world. The gameworld is a fiction. It has to be written, by some one, at some time. The sacrifice, or the local tough, or the guard, or the safe "being what is there" is simply a case of that fictional element being written into the gameworld by the GM. As a GM I can either roll on a random table and give the player a 1-in-whatever chance of his/her action declaration resulting in something more interesting than a dead-end corridor; or I can pull out my best stuff.In my case, I think the game is more fun for all concerned if I pull out my best stuff. The majority of action declarations resulting in dead end corridors, pointless swaggering, houses with nothing worth stealing, etc tends to make for boring play.See upthread, where I explained what I mean by "using a module". The short answer, though, is "somewhat". As a GM I read the whole module, find the interesting stuff, make a few notes about it, and then drop it into my game when it seems relevant/interesting.I don't need "alternate routes" planned out, because the sequence of events will take care of itself in play. A system which is relatively robust in terms of challenge levels and in terms of adjusting challenge levels is helpful (eg to allow for changes in PC level) but 4e ticks that box on both counts.For instance, in my 4e game I had notes on a slaad encounter written up for quite a while - when the PCs ended up in the Elemental Chaos, I used it.</blockquote>

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