Which are you, The plan everything out GM, or the Ad lib?

[Celebrim]

So I looked it up on BGG and it reminds me of a game I played a couple of times where one player is Dracula and the others are Hunters trying to find him. It's called Fury Of Dracula, if you want to check it out.

Played it. Yes, FoD is similar but less elegant. And I feel FoD suffers from the same problem many complex cooperative games suffer from of not giving individual players enough agency to make their own decisions, as you inevitably will have the more dominate players in the group trying to control all of play.

So, I do understand the idea you are going for, but I think that it only applies in specific situations.

It doesn't. I'm just using one situation to have a concrete thing to talk about, but this applies to everything that isn't trivial.

Looking at the map for Scotland Yard makes me wonder; why is MrX only able to move on roads? Why can't he sneak through an alley? Why can't he take some kind of shortcut between various locations? I think I understand what you are getting at with this game as an example of why you think prep is needed, but I don't think that level of artificial restriction is needed.

It's not but everything still applies. Taking a short cut between various locations just corresponds to an increasingly detailed map, and while at the highest granularity no one can make every location at that map, that doesn't mean that having the most detail map wouldn't be a great thing. It just means as I already alluded to, there is a limit that a human creator has to giving players agency.

Honestly, I wouldn't run a Scotland Yard/Fury Of Dracula scenario as a chase, but instead as an investigation.

That's a difference without distinction. The chase is just the time sensitive fast-moving portion of an investigation. Investigations tend to have maps too, with nodes linked by clues, we just rarely draw that out because it's not generally needed unless you are very carefully plotting something.

Well, what I meant was the fact that any sort of investigation or chase or conflict in a TTRPG can be resolved mechanically. Most of the chase/investigation mechanics I have encountered in TTRPGs are either extended conflict mechanics (multiple opposed rolls) or countdown mechanics (score X number of successful rolls before Y amount of time elapses). The particular details of the conflict/clock do not need to be decided ahead of time, they can be decided on the spot, and the resolution system will still work as intended.

The thing you have to understand is I knew and know exactly what you meant, but you don't have a clue what I mean. You don't seem to realize that you are describing conflict resolution mechanics that are indifferent to the fiction and don't involve any meaningful choice by the players (similar to for example a 4e D&D skill challenge), and where 90% of the mechanic as it pertains to the fiction is just DM fiat. You're making my point for me and you don't even know it.

The example you give in the your later example has a bike that MrX is going to use to escape, so that would be the end result if the PCs lose the conflict. The bike doesn't need to be preplanned. It could simply be improvised into existence once the conflict is concluded as a loss for the PCs.

sigh The PC's in your game could be replaced by random number generators for all the agency you've just outlined. The lack of preexisting fiction means that all they can do is engage with the mechanics in trivial ways, and everything is just color like I said - change the drapes on the stage. You really need to read rule sets more broadly.

In a way, all things are Schrodinger's Dungeon, even if someone wrote it down on a piece of paper, until the players have knowledge of it. Nothing in your notes is "real" until it is introduced into the shared narrative, simply due to the fact that your players have no knowledge of it, so it effectively doesn't exist. It's just as not real as an idea I make up on the spot right before I add it to the shared narrative. As for deciding what it true in the fiction, the metric is simple, it must be a part of the shared narrative. If it is only something the GM knows, then it is not true.

There is not in the general case perfect symmetry been a player and a GM. The GM has powers and responsibilities the player doesn't have. For example, the player is well a player not a referee (not every sport is Ultimate) and there are things you can say about referees that aren't true about players. The most important way something that is written down differs from something that isn't, is if you have something written down and you alter it in the course of play, then you know you are railroading. You are conscious of that fact. But if you have nothing written down, you can't know if you are railroading and in fact must always presume you are running a railroad. Indeed, the games you prefer to play seem to be the railroad-y sort were the GM is not only endowed with all power but actively encouraged to use it.

an example, I will ask a simple question; if a player decides a fact about their PC, but doesn't tell you or any of the other players about it, is it real?

It depends. Does the player have narrative authority over that thing he imagines? So long as the player is only imagining things that only impact the player character themselves, then they are real. If the player for example images that his player prefers porter to stout, then even if that hasn't yet come up in the game, then that's still a real fact about the character. Or if the player decides, that his favorite color is green, then even if he hasn't said anything that's still a real fact about his character. Who could dispute that it is? It's his character. But again, perfect symmetry doesn't apply here. Unlike the GM, the player has no duty as the secret keeper. It's cool if he is one and exploring his character is exciting, but he's not really got that as a duty. The player is trusting the GM to have some cool secret he's hidden and that that secret is real from the beginning of the story. If it's not, then it can only be found when the GM decides it can or should be found. If on the other hand, I have everything written down the players can wreck my plans by finding short cuts or back doors I didn't expect, or triumphing too easily, or otherwise exploiting the limited ability of the NPCs to resist their actions. In my case I'm actually trying to simulating a reality, and in your case you are making it up as you go and it does in fact make a difference.

I'll be honest, I can't imagine a way to "play out" a chase without engaging mechanics unless the result of the chase is totally decided by GM fiat. I mean, I guess you could preplan the "correct way" to succeed at the chase, but that is definitely something I don't like doing as I think preplanned solutions to problems the GM presents is railroading-adjacent game play. I simply present situations for players to deal with, the solutions they devise are entirely up to them as no problem I create has a "correct" solution.

You don't know a lot about this subject. I would suggest you read "Hot Pursuit: The Definitive D20 Guide to Chases" or the 1e WEG Star Wars rule book. Those are some of the best chase rules I'm aware of. The way you are handling chases is almost entirely backwards of the way I handle chases, and your notion of "correct way to succeed at the chase" is just... well, it just shows that there is a ton of gaming you haven't been exposed to and your notion of what a prepared game is like is well, not very helpful to your understanding. From my perspective you aren't handling chases at all, as your generic rules for skill challenge resolution are just generic rules for handling anything regardless of its particulars and are typical of the railroad-y games that prioritize GM fiat that I tend to avoid.

One of those products is a copy of Masks Of Nyarlathotep, the "greatest CoC sandbox adventure of all time" or so the interwebs informed me. So, I started reading it. I will admit that it is chock full of interesting things, and is well presented. However, it is very contingent on the players doing very specific things in order to work properly.

I'm familiar with it. I'm not a fan of it but for very different reasons than you are, and your perception of it is I think wholly false as I think most people who have actually run it will affirm. Games of Masks of Nyarlathotep will have similarities, but no two of them will have the same transcript. And there is plenty of agency, including the ability to fail spectacularly which is one of the most important proofs that the players do have agency. (If they can't fail spectacularly, then it's just a different sort of railroad.)

So yeah, I don't think you will be able to change my mind...

As soon as you said, "But I have mechanics for that..." I didn't think I could. For most people who game, the outcome of a proposition is determined by the combination of the fiction and the mechanics. The fact that you didn't understand that I was saying "the fiction matters" clued me in to just how you thought of play. As you put it later "It could simply be improvised into existence once the conflict is concluded as a loss for the PCs".

If player choices have actual consequences, whether the choices made are based on prepared decision points, or ad libbed ones, the effect is the same, players have real agency and can make meaningful choices.

Nope. Just hard "no". All player choices have "actual consequences". But if the GM can make up the consequences because the GM isn't limiting themselves to the fiction, or if the mechanics don't connect to the fiction in any meaningful way (and in your case both are true) then while there are actual consequences those consequences are not under any meaningful control by the player and their choices are not meaningfully connected except through the transcript which is more or less entirely generated by the GM in your case. And players that are experienced with both approaches can in fact tell the difference.

If you want to watch an example of a game where the players have nearly zero agency at all, and at best only have "mother may I" agency, go watch Wil Wheaton play FATE Core run by Ryan Macklin. If you can't tell that the players have zero agency, then the problem is you've never had agency.

The quality of a game, IMHO, has almost nothing to do with whether or not the GM prepares stuff beforehand or ad libs everything on the fly. The methods differ, but ultimately, the result, good or bad, is dependent on far more than whether or not the GM preps a bunch of stuff. If a GM ad libs a bunch of crap, the game will be bad. If the GM prepares a bunch of crap, the game will be bad. If the GM ad libs a bunch of awesome, the game will be good. If the GM prepares a bunch of awesome, the game will be good.

If you mean by "quality" how fun the game is, then in a sense I can agree with you. But if you mean by "quality" the experience of play, like what it is like to be in the game as a quality different from just whether it is fun (the aesthetic, if you will), then now, the two games have a very different quality to them. If you are playing an ad lib game, one of the things that you have to be comfortable with is that you don't really have any agency. And that can be fine as long as you go into the game with that understanding and lean into the Thespian aspects of RP, and maybe even Expression and Narrative aspects, but agency in the sense I mean it just won't exist. (OK, it can. I can imagine the rule and procedures of play for giving players agency in an ad lib game, but they are yet a whole other way of playing that you aren't describing.)

 

[zarionofarabel]

I think perhaps we have very different ideas about what player agency is and how it applies to the narrative. I will have to think on it and perhaps look into the 1e SW rules. I did play 2e alot, but that was a long time ago and I don't remember the rules anymore, or if it even had chase rules. I mean, I tend to run games that are very PC/player focused, and the emerging story is driven almost exclusively by players. Not exactly sure how that could possibly be seen as a railroad as I never force players to follow a predetermined series of events, or interact with specific scenes or encounters, but...okay. Maybe our definitions of what a railroad is are different?

If you want to watch an example of a game where the players have nearly zero agency at all, and at best only have "mother may I" agency, go watch Wil Wheaton play FATE Core run by Ryan Macklin. If you can't tell that the players have zero agency, then the problem is you've never had agency.

I think I remember watching that! If it is in fact the one I remember, all I can say is I kept thinking "wow this is a bad way to run a game" and "I wouldn't do it that way at all" a lot...like...a LOT.

(OK, it can. I can imagine the rule and procedures of play for giving players agency in an ad lib game, but they are yet a whole other way of playing that you aren't describing.)

I'm definitely curious about this, as the preceding paragraph leads me to believe that we have very different definitions of what player agency is and how it applies to the game. Perhaps I am not articulating myself well enough, so perhaps an explanation of this would help. Cheers!

 

[hawkeyefan]

So this will vary from game to game because I think different games need different levels of prep… but generally, this is what I do.

• My players and I discuss what game we want to play. I usually suggest a few games I’m interested in running. Then we discuss and pick one from those.
• Once the game is selected, I think about it a lot… just when I have free time or what have you. I think about ideas that might be interesting… NPCs, factions, world elements, whatever. I may jot these ideas down or I may not. Either way, I consider them only ideas at this point.
• We have a session zero where we collectively make characters for the players. We do this as a group because I’ve found it leads to very satisfying play, and characters and situations that feel like they’ve already existed. During this session I take a stupid amount of notes. The histories of the characters, NPCs they’ve encountered or have relationships with, organizations that they may have interacted with, and so on. We come up with the necessary details and I take notes on all of it.
• I then do a lot more thinking about the game, but this time with the characters in mind. I likely will make notes at this point, focused on each PC. I try to have a few relevant things in play for each PC. I then consider the ideas I had before session zero and see if any fit nicely with what’s now been created during session zero. I may or may not use my ideas to expand on the session zero stuff or to fill any gaps I see.
• Then I prep session one. This will be some kind of inciting event. A call to action, so to speak. I’m going to put the characters in a situation that demands action, demands decision. This prep will mostly consist of bullet points that I’ll reference during play.
• Ongoing prep- after session one, I generally think about what has happened in play, and what seems likely to come up next. I ask the players about this at the end of the session. I jot down their ideas. I consider all that before the next session and I may come up with some ideas of my own. I then make a new bullet point list for the next session, which I’ll use as a reference.
• Sometimes, it’s very obvious what will happen next, other times it may not be clear at all. Either way, I try to come up with a bullet point list as a starting point. If there are no obvious next steps, then I’ll draw on what’s happened and the character’s pasts, or their relationships with NPCs as starting points.

So my prep is relatively light, all in all. Again, it may vary on many factors… how detailed the setting may be, how NPCs are created and how complex they need to be mechanically, and so on. But generally speaking, it’s light, but also involves the players. I don’t detail anything beyond a vague notion of what the world is before I involve the players and get their ideas. This way, whatever we do, it will revolve around the characters. That’s what I want the focus of play to be.

 

[zarionofarabel]

1e WEG Star Wars rule book. Those are some of the best chase rules I'm aware of.

So, just for the heck of it I did the Google thing on first edition WEG Star Wars, and it found a website where you can read a digital copy of the rulebook! So then I went and found the chase rules. Funny enough, they turned out to be an extended conflict system. I mean, it's a cool way to do chases, and I think I have encountered similar systems in other games, but one thing it definitely isn't is all that different from the system I used in my chase example. It's just "PCs who are nothing but random number generators" as you so eloquently put it. So I'm really not sure how having the place where the actual chase happens be detailed beforehand has anything to do with player agency in regard to how the chase plays out. Heck, the rules even encourage the GM to make up obstacles as needed (ad lib them). So yeah...I really don't follow...

 

[Neonchameleon]

So I looked it up on BGG and it reminds me of a game I played a couple of times where one player is Dracula and the others are Hunters trying to find him. It's called Fury Of Dracula, if you want to check it out.

I would point out here that both Scotland Yard and Fury of Dracula are boardgames. And part of the game is that the Hunters and Mr X alike are restricted to a hard coded number of predetermined moves that are especially selected to be balanced.

Meanwhile one of the key drivers of RPGs is that the PCs can break out of the rules straightjacket. A group of PCs hitting boardgame-like restrictions of limited movement should immediately buy oyster cards, install the Uber app on their phones (or setting appropriate equivalents) and get used to running down back alleys.

I'm not calling boardgames bad (anything but) but arbitrary boardgame-like restrictions deep planners want to use are part of the difference between boardgames and ttrpgs. And I know that even if I am the most creative player at the table if I'm trying to out think my entire table I'm in a 1v5. They will do things I haven't prepared for. And if I could prepare for it all I'd want a less boring group.

 

[cranberry]

I plan as much as I can with the expectation that my players will think of things that I didn't...resulting in the necessity to ad lib in parts of the session.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The reason I prep and strongly prefer games run by people who prep is that when you invent something at the table, you have very limited amount of time to come up with that invention, and so that invention is necessarily shallow. You simply don't have the time to come up with all the ideas, links and flavor that you would have if you prepped. You come up with one of the first things that enters your mind.

As an example, next Monday I'll run a section of The Grail Quest as part of The Great Pendragon Campaign. I'll need to test whether characters are truly chivalric, pagan or christian (each having 6 different but overlapping sets of characteristics associated with them). I have 4 players and each has different types of knight, so to come up with a good test on the fly, I'd have to remember each knight's 'types' and the skills needed to be tested, compare that to already tested skills and come up with a scenario to test that. And then I'd repeat that several times for the evening. Very little chance anyone would be successful doing that without planning.

Now to me this is a good illustration of why neither extreme is good.

• The "pure prepper" would have prepared these tests entirely in advance and they would have no resonance with the specific PCs, just being some generic tests to move numbers on an abstract line
• The "pure improviser" would as you say probably forget important points
• I'd go in with basic plans as to what the tests should be - but each is going to reference how the previous one would go; I'd have the basics but be able to adapt on the fly

Light prep isn't zero prep.

And the really dangerous part is that it's hard for the GM to tell! They are immersed in the game, they had three options, chose one and everyone had fun. Their brain is fully engaged, they're having fun and they feel like they are doing their best work. They don't see the missed opportunities, the way their instincts lead them into predictable paths, the way the tyranny of urgency is making them miss opportunities.

Right back at the hard prepper. Hard preppers always miss opportunities that are present in the moment because they are more concerned with what they prepped than what is there.

But is anyone advocating for precisely zero prep?

If you're in doubt, go find one of those few successful professional GMs. Ask them if they zero-prep their games. I'm pretty sure you already know the answer.

If I ask a full time professional GM I'm almost certain to find out that they are on the hard-prep end of the spectrum - and they are running half a dozen parties through the same pre-prepared adventure without having to worry too much about what those specific PCs did.

 

[dragoner]

The biggest difference is in setting: pre-made, vs homebrew.

 

[Celebrim]

I think perhaps we have very different ideas about what player agency is

That I don't think is true. We both see agency in some way as being about the players being able to make meaningful choices. We differ in how we approach the idea that a choice is meaningful.

and how it applies to the narrative.

You are saying well, "Their choice constructs the narrative so its obviously a meaningful choice." But I'm saying, well, their choice isn't constructing the narrative in any falsifiable manner, so really all that is happening is the GM is creating the narrative entirely based on his own feelings. I am not saying that you are the sort that takes all the player's agency away from them, but if say I was the sort that wanted to do that, playing the game the way you play it would make it a lot easier for me. GMs give up authority in one of three manners. Either they share narrative authority ("Here, create some fact that is true about this world that I can't overrule."), or else they bow to established fiction ("This is already true so I can't overturn it."), or else they submit to the outcome of fortune ("The dice are in control."). As far as I can tell, you don't do the first two at all. Your theory is that nothing is true until you say it, which means you are never really beholden to established fiction. And in particular, you seem to make no differentiation between mechanics that are tied to the fiction or mechanics that have no relation to the fiction or which create the fiction. That leaves you only submitting to the dice, but only in the sense that in this exact moment the dice say the players fail or succeed, but you as a GM have full ability to interpret what that means ("A motorcycle comes into existence!"). This is from my perspective no real check on your ability to fully control the narrative at all. With no ways to share your narrative authority, you run a GM centric game in which you are in full control. The players give you idea prompts or they act as random number generators to prompt your story, but it is essentially your story. It could be a fun one, but agency as I see exists only as minor aesthetic of play.

I mean, I tend to run games that are very PC/player focused, and the emerging story is driven almost exclusively by players. Not exactly sure how that could possibly be seen as a railroad as I never force players to follow a predetermined series of events, or interact with specific scenes or encounters, but...okay. Maybe our definitions of what a railroad is are different?

My definition of a railroad is, "Do the players have meaningful agency." Your definition of a railroad is "A preplanned series of encounters." I grant you that a preplanned series of encounters can be a railroad, but not that something isn't a railroad just because it isn't. I do think you probably are trying to give the players as much agency as they can have within your process of play, but from my perspective as a player that's not a lot. As I said, if I was inclined to railroad my players the easiest way to do that was prepare nothing and always just respond to what they do. Schrodinger's Dungeon is the most powerful railroading technique available.

Consider a case that we've already considered, picking from three chests to find the magic ring. This is a meaningful act only if the ring is already in one of the chests. If the ring doesn't come into existence until I open it, you are in the same position as a con artist who can put the shell into any cup he wants only after I choose. If I have no reason to believe the ring exists until I open the chest, it doesn't matter which chest I pick. I will always only be right because you decided at that moment if I was right. But if you at any time before I choose a chest write down where the ring is, then there is a sense in which my choice can be right or wrong. That is, there is now a sense in which my choice has meaning and your choice as the GM has been negated.

I think I remember watching that! If it is in fact the one I remember, all I can say is I kept thinking "wow this is a bad way to run a game" and "I wouldn't do it that way at all" a lot...like...a LOT.

I got so angry watching that game. I don't even like Wil Wheaton, but I felt so bad for him in that game. That constituted player abuse and was some of the worst GMing I've ever seen. I'm not sure what you picked up on because there were a lot of things wrong with that game, but one of the things I picked up on was just how random cloud cuckoo land the world they were playing in was. Any action could lead to any outcome whatsoever, at the GMs whim. I think the worst moment for me in the game was when they beat the bad guys trivially and then the GM improvised that the bad guys clothes animated and attacked them. This is straight up victory negation, where the GM feels his encounter turned out too easily and the PCs won to easily, and instead of going "good job" the GM fudges something to rob them of their victory ("More orcs arrive!", "The bad guy just got 30 more hit points!"). In effect, a roll that said "success" was turned into a roll that said "failure". That's one of the many problems with improvising things on the fly.

 

[Celebrim]

So, just for the heck of it I did the Google thing on first edition WEG Star Wars, and it found a website where you can read a digital copy of the rulebook! So then I went and found the chase rules. Funny enough, they turned out to be an extended conflict system.

They aren't really, but I do think it is interesting that you think that they are.

I mean, it's a cool way to do chases, and I think I have encountered similar systems in other games, but one thing it definitely isn't is all that different from the system I used in my chase example.

It's the exact opposite of the system you used. I'm shocked you can't see that.

The Star Wars rules tie each moment very specifically to the details of the fiction. Namely, how difficult is this terrain? Difficulty of the terrain determines how fast it can be safely navigated as well as how difficult the terrain is if you exceed that speed. And margin of failure determines exactly how your failure translates into a force fictional positioning. And that forced fictional positioning like "slip sideways a movement length" matters only if the fiction is actually specified.

What this means is that the preexisting fiction is determining the die roll and the outcome of the die roll. The system is meaningless unless we have concretely chosen the fiction before rolling the dice. Whereas, when you described running a chase scene earlier, you had die rolls that were completely disconnected from the fiction and which you used to determine what the fiction actually was. So the PCs succeed on this check, and that creates fictional positioning recording success in an abstract manner (whatever you determine that to be) and then you do more checks and that creates new fictional positioning leading to you eventually determining to create the fiat positioning of total success or failure ("A motorcycle appears and the bad guy speeds away through traffic.")

It's just "PCs who are nothing but random number generators" as you so eloquently put it. So I'm really not sure how having the place where the actual chase happens be detailed beforehand has anything to do with player agency in regard to how the chase plays out. Heck, the rules even encourage the GM to make up obstacles as needed (ad lib them). So yeah...I really don't follow...

If the fiction has been pre-created and exists in a tangible manner, that is we have some sort of course or layout that the chase is going to occur on, and you've pre-created all the terrain difficulties and concrete fiction of what that means, then at that point as a GM in the Star Wars system you've given up control of the scenario. None of your choices will be based on what the players do, just what the rules say should happen in this specific scenario. If the speeder bike slips 10 meters, then you know whether or not there is an obstacle for them to slip into you. You as a GM aren't deciding whether or not that happens. You aren't deciding who wins or loses or what that win or loss looks like. You've given all authority away before this moment, letting the dice and the preexisting fiction determine the outcome. And I as a player can see that and trust my choices are meaningful.

Now, I'm not saying that you can't improvise a chase or that you shouldn't or that improvised chase scenes are bad. Quite often chases happen in situations you didn't plan for and you do have to improvise obstacles and complication and have somewhat abstract fictional positioning. But I am saying that there is a vast difference in the experience of play between having a preexisting fiction and not having one, and that the preexisting fiction (perhaps counterintuitively) gives the players more agency than one that only comes into being based on the GM whim.