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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7656974" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Few more minutes so an answer for something I missed.First a quick interlude example from a present game.  I like to give my players a glimpse of offscreen things now and again (and a fair bit of the time, I'll request that they assist me in carving out the backstory/offscreen establishing vignette).  This is the sort of off the cuff thing that I'll do:This offscreen interlude was all off the cuff.  Who are all of these people?  What is their story?  They start out extremely malleable with a few fixed components and lets of questions.  As those questions are answered, the NPCs slowly take shape and are discovered (by myself and the players) as the game progresses.  Of note, and very different than how another agenda would handle NPC creation, their cultivation is based on immediate dramatic and/or thematic need and, as such, emerges as play progresses rather than before play.So now, we know a bit more about this guy (at least we think we do...they still haven't met this guy nor these refugees):Part of the reason for the in-situ cultivation of this NPC, and his potential relationship with the refugees, is to give both the PCs in this game an opportunity to flex thematic muscles of their character.  Those include:Alignment (Chaotic):  Break an unjust law to benefit another.Bonds:  * The layfolk of this world are brave souls.  I have much to learn from them.* I will protect the weak against the tyranny of evil men.PC moves:* Throw Down the Guantlet and The Riddle of Steel:  These abilities are about challenging humanoids to duels.  In the face of immediate combat, you learn about their inner workings and thus can gain future leverage over them.  Further, these abilities also stipulate the prospect of potential, immediate negative fallout to those in power, with respect to the infrastructure of said power and their underlings, whether or not they accept the duel.  What unjust law (and how)?  What bravery of what NPC and what does it engender within the PC (and what physically transpires from it)?  What tyranny, how potent, and is it legitimately evil?  Is there any potential justification?  Whose power, what infrastructure, and who are the underlings (and why are they subordinate?)?  What is the backstory?Through play, we'll (meaning myself and my players) find out more about the NPCs and the PCs.  Much of it is low resolution or formless.  I treat NPCs just like maps; "Draw maps, leave blanks."  Most of their workings emerge in actual play.  Contrast that with Agenda, Principles, and Techniques that promote/require an objective world, with objective NPCs that are significantly fleshed out before play and, accordingly, bring with them prescriptive qualities into the arena of play.I enjoy this discovery for its own sake (I find myself pleasantly surprised...by myself...but also my players) but I also enjoy it because it allows me mobility and incentive (because I have only a modicum of prep to fall back on) to insert components into the shared imaginary space, right now, based on immediate thematic and dramatic need (which will evolve as play evolves). I can predict some of a play session's dramatic/thematic needs in advance so some level of prescribing the nature of the people and places of the world before play will be helpful.  However, because I can't predict nearly all dramatic/thematic needs in advance (nor predict their intra-session evolution), thus assuring that those conflicts and their momentum will be front and center, heavy prescription will have a failure rate that I'm not particularly comfortable with (and don't have the free time to lose!).  As such, I need to go about play prep (very broad considerations for setting, antagonists, with honed focus on theme/dramatic momentum and a variety of relevant scene openers) and play itself (heavy improv guided by familiarity with my agenda, principles, techniques and robust conflict resolution mechanics) a different way.   I've found that this approach inclines my game toward that constant, streaming introduction of, and escalation or snowballing of, situations that the PCs intimately care about.</blockquote>

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