Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7656746" data-attributes="member: 4937">Cool.&nbsp; Anxious to hear from you.&nbsp; To save conversation, for me &quot;agenda&quot; is the end, and the means are the &quot;techniques&quot;.&nbsp;&nbsp; You seem to be using the words slightly differently.&nbsp;&nbsp; Also, I feel you confuse the &quot;joy&quot; with the &quot;technique&quot; at times.&nbsp;&nbsp; If you can pay special attention to defining what they mean to you and separating them out, I think I'll understand you more fully.&nbsp; In particular, you make a statement like:&quot;Observing and using the subtle cues my players give me and exploiting my low prep in order to get to know my NPCs during play and then watch the world manifest and grow as we build it and add to it.&quot;And I break that down as:Agenda (ends): Exploration of setting; Exploration of character.Technique(s) (means): Observing the players cues; ImprovisationJoy (experience): Being surprised by the things you discover in play, about the setting or the characters.Putting that back together, I'd probably say my corresponding statement would be:&quot;Observing and using the subtle cues my players give me in order give the players opportunities to play, in order to get to know my PCs during play and then watch the story manifest and grow as we build it and add to it.&quot;If I can tease out a possible difference in agenda, it's that you seem to have a more player perspective on enjoying exploring the NPCs and setting in play (which is what I enjoy as a player, so that's why I call it 'player perspective', this of course could be a bias), where as I tend to do my brainstorming on NPCs and setting out of session and so am not surprised by them in play (since I already 'know' them).&nbsp; My joy as a DM comes especially by exploring the character of the PCs and the surprising things that they do, and not the NPCs.&nbsp; The session is about lavishing my time and focus on the PCs (and through them on players), which is precisely why I spent the time between sessions lavishing detail on everything else so I'm not distracted from that mission.&nbsp; Between sessions I may be 'surprised' to learn of the existence of this or that NPC or location I never before imagined, based on my brainstorming about what 'should' exist (either to serve a narrative purpose or because the 'life' of the setting implies it).&nbsp; However, I would say that overall, this is a very small difference in agenda or joy compared to the large difference in technique.Also, if you could address then why you enjoy being surprised about your NPCs or setting, I'd find that very interesting.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7656746, member: 4937"] Cool. Anxious to hear from you. To save conversation, for me "agenda" is the end, and the means are the "techniques". You seem to be using the words slightly differently. Also, I feel you confuse the "joy" with the "technique" at times. If you can pay special attention to defining what they mean to you and separating them out, I think I'll understand you more fully. In particular, you make a statement like: "Observing and using the subtle cues my players give me and exploiting my low prep in order to get to know my NPCs during play and then watch the world manifest and grow as we build it and add to it." And I break that down as: Agenda (ends): Exploration of setting; Exploration of character. Technique(s) (means): Observing the players cues; Improvisation Joy (experience): Being surprised by the things you discover in play, about the setting or the characters. Putting that back together, I'd probably say my corresponding statement would be: "Observing and using the subtle cues my players give me in order give the players opportunities to play, in order to get to know my PCs during play and then watch the story manifest and grow as we build it and add to it." If I can tease out a possible difference in agenda, it's that you seem to have a more player perspective on enjoying exploring the NPCs and setting in play (which is what I enjoy as a player, so that's why I call it 'player perspective', this of course could be a bias), where as I tend to do my brainstorming on NPCs and setting out of session and so am not surprised by them in play (since I already 'know' them). My joy as a DM comes especially by exploring the character of the PCs and the surprising things that they do, and not the NPCs. The session is about lavishing my time and focus on the PCs (and through them on players), which is precisely why I spent the time between sessions lavishing detail on everything else so I'm not distracted from that mission. Between sessions I may be 'surprised' to learn of the existence of this or that NPC or location I never before imagined, based on my brainstorming about what 'should' exist (either to serve a narrative purpose or because the 'life' of the setting implies it). However, I would say that overall, this is a very small difference in agenda or joy compared to the large difference in technique. Also, if you could address then why you enjoy being surprised about your NPCs or setting, I'd find that very interesting. [/QUOTE]

Verification