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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 9077441" data-attributes="member: 85555"><p>This is an interesting point. I think when we came into the hobby has a large effect on us. I started in 1986, so I was gaming with a lot of people initially who came from your point of view I believe (or at least something similar to it as I recall those early sessions often feeling more like scenarios that had been set up). The only caveat here is I also remember a lot of modules being used and this could introduce wildly different approaches by the same GM because they were just trying to run the module. But I entered higschool in the 90s and that is when I did most of my gaming and when I began GMing. There was still residual elements of emphasizing things like exploration and scenarios but obviously the style of module support by then had greatly changed and there was definitely this idea of GM as storyteller that got stronger and stronger as the 90s went on (it wasn't ubiquitous like some people say but it is was a powerful trend). Within that trend though there were other things happening. And for me it was a combination of trying to realize the promise of modules like feast of goblins, being exposed to more open-sandbox style campaigns through my friend (and future business partner) Bill Butler (his style of GMing was very much just start the sessions and let the players say what it is they want to try to do, he was a very reluctant hook giver), getting very invested in some of the more structured thinking about adventures in the early 2000s then becoming extremely frustrated with that. I would say sometime in the mid-2000s I started going through a bunch of old TSR stuff, including the original DMG, material like 1000 Bushels of Rye for Harn, classic modules like Isle of Dread, and then having discussions with people online who were similarly in the wilderness with their GMing, before I started to cobble together an approach that satisfied all the different things I was looking for in a campaign (and my chief concern which grew out of the whole EL CR adventure path thing was not wanting to feel like I should just hand my players my adventure notes for the note to show what was planned-----because too often I felt like things were overly structured and too predestined to occur). I will also say a lot of that reflection I did a the time was looking back at my early experiences playing, going back to my early high school campaigns where we were still more open about exploration and spontaneity, and even taking a closer look at things like Knights of the Dinner Table and realizing if BA Felton just put aside his exasperation he had a very engaged and active group (to me they capture the destroying the scenery element you often talk about).</p></blockquote><p></p>

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