Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jaeger" data-source="post: 8660984" data-attributes="member: 27996">I don't get that at all. Those tables are a GM aid; To be used at certain points when following the dungeon and wilderness play procedures. i.e. Wandering monster rolls and other dice tables are not rolled on without context, and the GM is to use situational judgement when interpreting their results.Using your definitions - RPG play has always been a combination of a Situational set-up, + GM Improvisation.This only holds if Improve is done in isolation. RPG play is always a combination of Situational + GM Improv.Active players is the default for RPG play.You can get away with a passive player or so in a group of otherwise active players. RPG play to be truly engaging and dynamic there must be visceral in-game consequences for the PC's.RPG's are derivative of wargames. The possibility of loss and failure are intrinsic to playing the game.Those are good things.RPGs are not Movies, novels, or comics. They are their own unique game media.In my opinion: Trying to impose the dramatic structure of those media on a gaming session is counter productive to the goals of the RPG play paradigm; which is to maximize player agency of the PC's within the game setting. When I was a much younger GM, I did my share of "storytelling" i.e. railroading PC's because of what I thought would make for a cool "game" session. To my everlasting shame.Fortunately, I was able to identify that defect in my GM skills early on, and dedicate myself to eliminating it.Making my games entirely (By the definitions given in the OP) Situational + Improv, with maximum player agency (with further situations emerging from PC actions within the game world).. My GM abilities have gotten much better; maximizing both player and GM engagement during the game session.Divesting myself of the "GM as a Storyteller" conceit is the best thing I ever did to improve as a GM.^This^ The creation of situation play + GM improv is what makes RPG's great.Unfortunately many early RPG's took this stuff as a common knowledge, and never explicitly laid it out in their rule books. This lack of practical 'how-to' for first time GM's is still a failing of most RPG's to this day!I had to learn this stuff independently myself. But Everything is all the better for it.</blockquote>

Verification