Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Waibel's Rule of Interpretation (aka "How to Interpret the Rules")
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7656722" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>First we have to establish that there is a huge variance in GMing agenda. I can see that there are conceivable variations, but at least among the group present here, I don't see as much actual variation in agenda as in differences in the tools and talents applied to obtaining that agenda.</p><p></p><p>You suggest that you have a low enjoyment of world simulation, and that you have no favored setting you are carefully constructing as a toy in your mind. And that's probably some variation from me as a GM, because I do have such a 'setting as mental toy', but if in fact 'setting as mental toy' was my agenda, I wouldn't bother to nor need to GM, because setting as my own mental toy to develop is just as enjoyable and if not more enjoyable by world building for its own sake. If I really had this as my agenda, I would build the world but not waste time running the game. Instead, I find that I do very little world building except where I think it intersects my game needs. For example, despite the fact that this setting is now 30 years old, I'd never in that time even given much thought to a sun deity until I had a player say, "I want to worship the sun deity." Only after I had an in game reason for a sun deity, did I begin fleshing out what that sun deity was like.</p><p></p><p>This suggests to me that are real agendas aren't as dissimilar as you might think. I think it is fair to say that once I find an in game need for setting information, I'll pour myself into imagining that setting information and that I prefer to spend a lot of time brainstorming for ideas I think I'll need prior to play rather than hoping my first instincts during a game are the best. From what you've said, I'd guess you prefer to improvise on the fly in response to needs as they come up. But neither of these things is actually an agenda of play, but rather a GMing technique for bringing about the desired play. It isn't clear to me that the sort of play we both desire has divergent features, or that the experience of being a GM in play we both desire is all that divergent. All I hear is you hate to prep and don't think you need it to obtain the desired play experience where as I feel I need to prep in order to obtain the desired play experience because I don't trust improvisation.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes, but the things you list aren't agendas. When you say you enjoy: "Ruminating upon and then devising the most interesting and open-ended ways to hook into the dramatic premises that emerge (either at the PC build stage or in the early stages of play) in each player's character.", I can fully agree with that, but first its not at all clear we are using divergent techniques ("Ruminating...and then devising...hooks into the dramatic premises...in each player's character."). Secondly, the agenda of play here is implied, rather than explicitly stated.</p><p></p><p>If I may suggest, the actual agenda of play here is nothing less than, "Watching a player play his character in dramatic situations.", and everything else you talk about is a tool or technique toward achieving that end goal. Tools and techniques however are not agendas of play.</p><p></p><p>The only other agendas of play I see you mention in your seven techniques is: "Challenging my players themselves" and "challenging myself in the process"</p><p></p><p>Again, if your actual GMing agendas are:</p><p>1) Watching my players play in dramatic situations.</p><p>2) Challenging my players (to play skillfully, whatever that means)</p><p>3) And, challenging myself (to play skillfully, whatever that means)</p><p></p><p>Then its highly unlikely that your agenda differs all that much from mine. Instead, you've basically described only one difference in technique between myself and you - relatively high prep versus relatively low prep. But both of us are engaged in those techniques I would argue to achieve the same basic ends, and as such I would argue that a lot of the material that I create prior to play is the very sort of material you find yourself improvising in play. For whatever reason, I find I need or prefer to review and refine those ideas between sessions based on 'what was learned' from the prior session. For example, I may find that I need a new event or location that I didn't anticipate. I may need to improvise this event or location in play off the cuff, but if I can foresee it from further off, I prefer to prep that element before hand (even if it turns out half the time I find I don't need it, or that it doesn't happen like I expected, but becomes something I can pivot to many sessions after I first created it).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>All of those things have a certain charm for me in and of themselves, but they really aren't part of play and can be entirely divorced from the task of being a GM. In fact, many good GMs are poor world builders either by inclination or talent and so 'out source' world building entirely to some professional or content provider.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This sort of statement strikes me as a misunderstanding, as neither high meta-plot nor high preparation actually requires any of the things you abhor. When you state this as a reason for avoiding the technique, it just suggests to me that part of your problem is that you understand a lot better how to improvise effectively than you understand how to prepare effectively. One reason I say that is I engage in high prep precisely to avoid high reliance on fudging, abridgement of the action/resolution mechanics, and reliance on metagaming that I find is the inevitable result (consciously or unconsciously) of high reliance on improvisation. (See for example my essay on <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?298368-Techniques-for-Railroading" target="_blank">how to railroad</a>, where I assert that all low prep games are unavoidably railroads.)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Not really. I suspect that you take great joy in watching players engage dramatic situations in clever ways, and you take more joy in watching someone else come up with a cool idea than you do yourself. If you don't, you probably shouldn't be a GM. For example, many stereotypical bad GMs are actually just frustrated players (or novelists), who wish to play out characters engaged in dramatic play but were frustrated at that as players and are so trying to achieve that agenda of play from the wrong side of the screen. One big flashing warning sign that you are GMing wrong is you spend a lot of time imagining in great detail the one way players are going to respond to a scene instead of prepping for the 20 different ways they might respond and being happy with all of them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7656722, member: 4937"] First we have to establish that there is a huge variance in GMing agenda. I can see that there are conceivable variations, but at least among the group present here, I don't see as much actual variation in agenda as in differences in the tools and talents applied to obtaining that agenda. You suggest that you have a low enjoyment of world simulation, and that you have no favored setting you are carefully constructing as a toy in your mind. And that's probably some variation from me as a GM, because I do have such a 'setting as mental toy', but if in fact 'setting as mental toy' was my agenda, I wouldn't bother to nor need to GM, because setting as my own mental toy to develop is just as enjoyable and if not more enjoyable by world building for its own sake. If I really had this as my agenda, I would build the world but not waste time running the game. Instead, I find that I do very little world building except where I think it intersects my game needs. For example, despite the fact that this setting is now 30 years old, I'd never in that time even given much thought to a sun deity until I had a player say, "I want to worship the sun deity." Only after I had an in game reason for a sun deity, did I begin fleshing out what that sun deity was like. This suggests to me that are real agendas aren't as dissimilar as you might think. I think it is fair to say that once I find an in game need for setting information, I'll pour myself into imagining that setting information and that I prefer to spend a lot of time brainstorming for ideas I think I'll need prior to play rather than hoping my first instincts during a game are the best. From what you've said, I'd guess you prefer to improvise on the fly in response to needs as they come up. But neither of these things is actually an agenda of play, but rather a GMing technique for bringing about the desired play. It isn't clear to me that the sort of play we both desire has divergent features, or that the experience of being a GM in play we both desire is all that divergent. All I hear is you hate to prep and don't think you need it to obtain the desired play experience where as I feel I need to prep in order to obtain the desired play experience because I don't trust improvisation. Yes, but the things you list aren't agendas. When you say you enjoy: "Ruminating upon and then devising the most interesting and open-ended ways to hook into the dramatic premises that emerge (either at the PC build stage or in the early stages of play) in each player's character.", I can fully agree with that, but first its not at all clear we are using divergent techniques ("Ruminating...and then devising...hooks into the dramatic premises...in each player's character."). Secondly, the agenda of play here is implied, rather than explicitly stated. If I may suggest, the actual agenda of play here is nothing less than, "Watching a player play his character in dramatic situations.", and everything else you talk about is a tool or technique toward achieving that end goal. Tools and techniques however are not agendas of play. The only other agendas of play I see you mention in your seven techniques is: "Challenging my players themselves" and "challenging myself in the process" Again, if your actual GMing agendas are: 1) Watching my players play in dramatic situations. 2) Challenging my players (to play skillfully, whatever that means) 3) And, challenging myself (to play skillfully, whatever that means) Then its highly unlikely that your agenda differs all that much from mine. Instead, you've basically described only one difference in technique between myself and you - relatively high prep versus relatively low prep. But both of us are engaged in those techniques I would argue to achieve the same basic ends, and as such I would argue that a lot of the material that I create prior to play is the very sort of material you find yourself improvising in play. For whatever reason, I find I need or prefer to review and refine those ideas between sessions based on 'what was learned' from the prior session. For example, I may find that I need a new event or location that I didn't anticipate. I may need to improvise this event or location in play off the cuff, but if I can foresee it from further off, I prefer to prep that element before hand (even if it turns out half the time I find I don't need it, or that it doesn't happen like I expected, but becomes something I can pivot to many sessions after I first created it). All of those things have a certain charm for me in and of themselves, but they really aren't part of play and can be entirely divorced from the task of being a GM. In fact, many good GMs are poor world builders either by inclination or talent and so 'out source' world building entirely to some professional or content provider. This sort of statement strikes me as a misunderstanding, as neither high meta-plot nor high preparation actually requires any of the things you abhor. When you state this as a reason for avoiding the technique, it just suggests to me that part of your problem is that you understand a lot better how to improvise effectively than you understand how to prepare effectively. One reason I say that is I engage in high prep precisely to avoid high reliance on fudging, abridgement of the action/resolution mechanics, and reliance on metagaming that I find is the inevitable result (consciously or unconsciously) of high reliance on improvisation. (See for example my essay on [URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?298368-Techniques-for-Railroading"]how to railroad[/URL], where I assert that all low prep games are unavoidably railroads.) Not really. I suspect that you take great joy in watching players engage dramatic situations in clever ways, and you take more joy in watching someone else come up with a cool idea than you do yourself. If you don't, you probably shouldn't be a GM. For example, many stereotypical bad GMs are actually just frustrated players (or novelists), who wish to play out characters engaged in dramatic play but were frustrated at that as players and are so trying to achieve that agenda of play from the wrong side of the screen. One big flashing warning sign that you are GMing wrong is you spend a lot of time imagining in great detail the one way players are going to respond to a scene instead of prepping for the 20 different ways they might respond and being happy with all of them. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Waibel's Rule of Interpretation (aka "How to Interpret the Rules")
Top