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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7757466" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think I've conveyed something different by my phrase "pressure to prep" than I meant to.But moving on from that! - I think it's hard to come into a session of D&D and run it cold. Even if one takes advantage of all the material in the Monster Manual (which is someone else doing prep on our behalf), there is still the need for maps. Combat maps can of course be drawn up reasonably quickly in "real time"; but D&D as typically played also relies fairly heavily on maps (of dungeons, buildings, towns, wildernesses, etc) to support the exploration aspect of play. Drawing all those up in "real time" is not easy; but doing without them is also - in D&D - not easy. Just to give one reason as to why: in D&D it is meant to matter how long it takes to get from A to B (otherwise the rules for buying rations, etc make no sense; and the rules for random encounters can't be applied) but the system has no way of answering this question other than by looking at a map, taking a measure of the distance, and then dividing by the movement rate (which is the only character-sheet measure of ability to journey effectively from A to B).A system that uses a different mechanic to determine travel wouldn't need prep in the same way: eg suppose that each character had a "Safe Travel" bonus comparable to the to hit number in D&D, and this was rolled to determine what happens when that character goes on a journey (success: you get there unscathed; fail by a bit: you have an encounter on the way but, if you survive that, you get there; fail by a lot: you find yourself somehwere else and have an encounter you didn't want to have, and after that you check again). That system would still need the Monster Manual-type prep (to handle the encounters), but wouldn't need the maps to resolve travel from A to B.The point can be generalised across other aspects of play: how is it worked out what stuff is in/at what place? how is it worked out whether or not a PC beats a non-player opponent in a fight? etc. This is what I mean when I say that some systems generate pressure to prep (or rely on someone else's prep) whereas others generate less such pressure, or even none at all.But another theme about prep I'm seeing in this thread is about prepping to give the players a good experience not from the point of view of organisation (have I read the module?) but from the point of view of "curated experience" (am I telling them a fun story?). This is where I think that other aspects of system - less to do with action resolution and more around framing, how content gets introduced, how signals are sent between various participants about what content they want to see in the game, etc - make a difference.Sure, there are plenty of modules out there. But the idea of "GMing as work" was mentioned in the OP, which also cited (with approval) Gygax saying that refereeing includes being "Moving Force, Creator, Designer" and Spencer Crittenden talked about managing maps, which are an aspect of prep.My post was saying that, if this is part of the perceived obstacle to GMing, there are systems out there which overcome it. (Those other systems have consequences for play, obviously. If most RPGers only enjoy high-prep play then that is what it is; but I haven't seen that position advocated yet in the thread.)Well, I'll let you take that up with the OP. I was (and am) making a different point.I think this is key. What are people RPGing for? If they're playing RPGs to be told good stories, then it seems to me that they're going to the wrong place - in our society (given how it works) the best stories are being told in books, in cinema and perhaps on TV (and similar serial televisual media).The comparison to me is playing an instrument. I play a little bit of guitar. If I auditioned for rhythm guitar in a very ordinary garage band there is a small chance that no one else better would turn up and so I'd get the gig. But I'm never going to be talent-scouted by a serious band (eg that is playing in pubs) let alone by a record label: I'm not a good enough player and have never put enough effort into it. But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy playing my guitar, enjoy playing songs for my family and (sometimes) friends, enjoy pulling out the guitar at parties where others want to sing along, etc. The pleasure that I (and sometimes others) get isn't because my music is good - it's because it's my music.RPGing, in my view, is the same. It's fun because it's us - me and my friends - sitting around making up this stuff together and finding out what happens. The fact that the stories are rather trite and perhaps occasionally silly doesn't stop it being fun.I don't think GMs - new or otherwise - or players, for that matter, need false assurances that their RPGing will create literary masterpieces. But I think that they might benefit from systems, and advice on how to use those systems, that facilitate creative interplay, keeping things moving, having a good ratio of exciting bits to bookkeeping bits, etc.I don't think that improvised comedy performed at a professional level - or even a serious amateur level - is a useful comparison. Who has that sort of time and effort available to devote to a leisuretime hobby? I certainly don't. Which goes back to my comparison to musical performance above.I also don't think that prep is going to improve anyone's stories. Most people are no better at writing than they are at improv.This is why my focus is on how prep relates to system and technique, rather than how it relates to quality of the story. And as far as that issue, of running with prep vs without, is concerned in my own case: when I started refereeing D&D I built dungeons something like what Moldvay Basic told me to, and I ran the PCs through them, and I used the occasional module (U3, G1-3 and WG5 are the ones I remember). Those were essentially wargames. To the extent that they had any sort of story element, that arose spontaneously out of the play. What I learned, in something of an epiphany in 1986, after two years of what I've just described, was that the wargame element could largely be dropped and the spontaneous story element brought front and central. No doubt there were many elements to that ephiphany, but perhaps the biggest single one was learning to ignore Gygax's advice to not let the monkeys take over the circus - I discovered that following the players' leads can make for a better game with more of those spontaneous story elements.Because, back in those days, I was still running D&D and then Rolemaster, prep in the form of maps and NPC/creature stats continued to matter. But I think that was an artefact of system, not of my development as a GM. If I'd had systems back then that adopted different approaches to action resolution I don't think I would have suffered from a lack of prep. (Traveller was such a system that was available to me, but I had not understood it when I first read it and had never come back to it in a serious way until fairly recently.)There are all sorts of reasons why millions of people don't play Princ Valiant. Maybe they wnat mechanical complexity and a wargaming sytle - and Prince Valiant doesn't deliver that. And maybe, therefore, the demand on GMs to prep (or draw on others' prep) is inevitable. But I think that if Prince Valiant was the dominant RPG system then, whatever we saw by way of posts about the demands of GMing, prep wouldn't be something that figured very prominently.</blockquote>

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