Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8677670" data-attributes="member: 4937">So quite often I will make a comment on the board and someone will run off in an unexpected direction because in their sole experience what I said was a red flag and every time it has happened in their experience they got burned.&nbsp; It's entirely possible that the reverse is happening here.&nbsp; I'm speaking only from my experience.&nbsp; It could be that out there outside my experience is some GM capable of full improv on a lengthy basis who isn't running a full railroad consciously or unconsciously, and I've just never met the GM.Being generous, the only way I can imagine this to be true is if the GM knows there setting so well after years of running it, years of research, years of thinking about the culture and demographics of the setting, that they have built in their head what amounts to hundreds of pages of meta strictures that shape their creation so that that improv is no different than what they would have written down beforehand if they had time to think about it.&nbsp; This is what I'm trying to do when I improv when the players &quot;go off the map&quot; (literally or figuratively).&nbsp;&nbsp; It's possibly that some GMs are like that when they say they are &quot;improv GMs&quot;.&nbsp; They aren't really improvising so much as they are drawing from their well of understanding about how the setting has to work if it is to be consistent.&nbsp; But, the very fact that you think taking player input and rolling the dice and letting dice dictate results means the players have any real narrative control makes me highly suspicious.&nbsp; The thing about high illusionism is quite often the GM is also allowing themselves to be deceived.&nbsp; Because in my essay on How to Railroad, I covered techniques that let you take player input, roll the dice, and let the dice dictate results while still fully railroading the players.&nbsp;&nbsp; It's not enough to do those things if you don't have something in your mind other than how you want the game to go or what you think would be good for the game limiting what you rule and create and improvise.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 8677670, member: 4937"] So quite often I will make a comment on the board and someone will run off in an unexpected direction because in their sole experience what I said was a red flag and every time it has happened in their experience they got burned. It's entirely possible that the reverse is happening here. I'm speaking only from my experience. It could be that out there outside my experience is some GM capable of full improv on a lengthy basis who isn't running a full railroad consciously or unconsciously, and I've just never met the GM. Being generous, the only way I can imagine this to be true is if the GM knows there setting so well after years of running it, years of research, years of thinking about the culture and demographics of the setting, that they have built in their head what amounts to hundreds of pages of meta strictures that shape their creation so that that improv is no different than what they would have written down beforehand if they had time to think about it. This is what I'm trying to do when I improv when the players "go off the map" (literally or figuratively). It's possibly that some GMs are like that when they say they are "improv GMs". They aren't really improvising so much as they are drawing from their well of understanding about how the setting has to work if it is to be consistent. But, the very fact that you think taking player input and rolling the dice and letting dice dictate results means the players have any real narrative control makes me highly suspicious. The thing about high illusionism is quite often the GM is also allowing themselves to be deceived. Because in my essay on How to Railroad, I covered techniques that let you take player input, roll the dice, and let the dice dictate results while still fully railroading the players. It's not enough to do those things if you don't have something in your mind other than how you want the game to go or what you think would be good for the game limiting what you rule and create and improvise. [/QUOTE]

Verification