You're doing what? Surprising the DM

[nijineko]

well, i think i can clearly see both sides now. and i see valid and invalid points have been made on both sides of this disagreement by various parties. i think the simplest way to say it all is this: the play styles and expectations are different. so long as groups and players who agree with said styles and expectations can be found, it would work out well for each.

and best to keep apart for each other, meanwhile.

agree to disagree and why don't we move on to other things?

 

[TwoSix]

Yep. And as soon as a GM says the 'e word', I'm pretty sure his approach as a GM won't appeal to me as a player. That is a much more universal marker to me than pretty much anything else. Theory, system, ideas about player vs. game master roles, they don't really distinguish tables to me. The most fundamental difference in tables in my experience is how the GM prepares to play.

How much time do you spend between sessions preparing, out of curiosity? Feel free to average over a campaign if you front-load a lot of the preparation.

 

[Celebrim]

How much time do you spend between sessions preparing, out of curiosity? Feel free to average over a campaign if you front-load a lot of the preparation.

As a general rule I try to spend two hours for each hour of play. That tends to achieve 'desirable' results. More can at times achieve better results, but really that's something adults can't expect to do consistantly. I think you can, if you are experienced enough, most of the time get by doing one hour of prep for each hour of play. However, in my experience this is generally risky and a lot of times I regret being so lazy.

In general, I've probably sit in at the tables of two dozen DMs. There is IMO a purely linear relationship between the quality of play and the effort the DM expends out of play. I'm sure that this isn't a hard rule and different DMs get different value out of their prep, and there are exceptions out there of DMs that are polymath phenoms that could appear on 'Whose Line is it Anyway' and be perfectly comfortable, but the average player who says, "I'm a great extemporaneous DM." is in my experience absolutely kidding himself.

I have in 30 years of play had zero enjoyable purely extemporaneous sessions. The is an inverse return on investment in the length of time something goes extemporaneous. An hour, or two, maybe four can work. A one off certainly. Sooner or later though you are in a work debt. The longer the campaign goes, the more it needs the blood and sweat put in much the same way that the bigger the building, the more you have to architect it and engineer it. There are maybe nine or ten agendas that a player can bring to the table. All but about three of them (fellowship, self-expression, fantasy) fall apart in the long run to extemporaneous play.

If I had to give one bit of advice to a new DM on how to improve his game, it would be prep more. Prep more, and that doesn't work then prep more efficiently. It's possible to prep the wrong stuff, but that's not usually the DMs problem. Do not set out with this fantasy that you are going to be this great improv DM. Chances are your table will fall as flat as improv plays, comedy, and movie scripts usually do in the hands of amateurs. Yes, RPGs are a different artistic/narrative medium, but the same general rule applies. You really try to improv and it can start great, but you'll soon end up as lost and muddled as the writer's of Lost or any other work where the writer made up crap but hadn't really done in world building. Your only saving grace will end up being in a work as emphermal as an RPG, the players will probably forget everything that happened a few sessions back anyway. A true genius can manage pulling things off the top of his head, but even a genius is probably going to produce better work improvising a head of time and recording his most interesting ideas. You want to have a great game, there is little subsitution for sweat. Don't as a starting writer go off imagining that your true stream of consciousness novel is going to beloved and widely regarded or will reflect what you are really capable of. If you want your improvisation to seem effortless and natural, practice it for hours ahead of time.

Anway, rant off. I'm passionate about this topic because I see the craft of GMing dying out there because no one wants to put in any work, and as a result the experience of play ends up suffering compared to other mediums - like CRPGs - where someone did put in work. It's the greatest threat to our hobby, and one that in all likelihood is going to all but kill it short term.

 

[TwoSix]

As a general rule I try to spend two hours for each hour of play. That tends to achieve 'desirable' results. More can at times achieve better results, but really that's something adults can't expect to do consistantly. I think you can, if you are experienced enough, most of the time get by doing one hour of prep for each hour of play. However, in my experience this is generally risky and a lot of times I regret being so lazy.
<snip>
Anway, rant off. I'm passionate about this topic because I see the craft of GMing dying out there because no one wants to put in any work, and as a result the experience of play ends up suffering compared to other mediums - like CRPGs - where someone did put in work. It's the greatest threat to our hobby, and one that in all likelihood is going to all but kill it short term.

So are you speaking of specifically mechanical prep or story prep? I prep story all the time, although I keep most of it in my head, and I have a small written outline that I fill in with details after the session. But I try never to do mechanical prep if I can help it because it's so damn boring.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

Let's pretend for a moment that I have a desert and a player has previously acquired an item or a promise from a Djinn Lord called 'Shiek over All Deserts' that gives them a one time Wish. It's the sort of thing I would do, and I referenced the concept early on. So instead of the somewhat doubtful plan involving a giant arthropod, the players offer up the much more foolproof proposition: "Guys, I'm really not into this desert thing. Let's just sumon Shiek Over All Deserts and ask him to carry us across.", and the party all thinks this is good use of the wish, and that's the proposition that is offered. Well, after at most 5 minutes of narration to satisfy how cool and powerful this proposition was, they are now at City B, and I'm going to do nothing to stop that plan. Congradulations. You've made it to City B. Chances are you are now screwed, because though I won't stop a soundly excuted plan, all the reasons I outlined about why the desert is important still apply. Based on what you said thus far, this is going to in your case at least immediately bring up a new conflict, "Why aren't you letting me win? Where is my fun! Why are we being railroaded by all these complications in City B when what we came here for to do this. I demand we be allowed to do what we came for."

Situations like that seem a bit hard on the players to me. If the party had come across a Djinn Lord who could do all manner of things, including whisking the party across the desert quickly and safely, wouldn't you have prepared for that possibility? The first thing that came to my mind in that case would be that if the party was able to bypass the desert so quickly, then the encounters in the city might be easier because they haven't had as much time to prepare and perhaps get muscle.

If the party didn't have access to a way to get through the desert so easily, what happens if a player says that he would much rather play out the things in the city, and the party then agrees? I'm sure some of them would probably think there is stuff to do in the desert that might progress their characters and/or the story, but I don't know if most would be compelled to go for those things unless there was more information given about both the city and the desert. After all, it's far easier to make a city compelling as a place one wants to be than a desert.

Perhaps making the desert the main goal instead of the city on the other side would be a better way to get the players engaged with the idea of exploring the desert. The desert can't be an implicit goal either, since it runs the risk of the players simply not getting it and then thinking "Going across the desert sucks!" And to be fair, going across a desert usually does suck because it requires a lot of preparations. Getting by in a city usually doesn't because there is assumed to be easily found shelter, food, and water.

And then we get into magic and other D&D systems that would allow the party to laugh at the desert's harshness and plumb its dunes for all manner of things. Some players need to be reminded that they can do such things, assuming they are able to do them (and a typical party usually is).

So it comes down to defining the setting and making it interesting. It can also come down to not making the end of the road more compelling than the road itself in case there are players who will fixate on bigger goals and then want to bypass everything between where they are and where they want to be. So if we arrive in the situation where the city is the focused goal and not the desert, yet the desert must be crossed, it's possible to argue that there has been a failure in game design.

 

[Celebrim]

Situations like that seem a bit hard on the players to me. If the party had come across a Djinn Lord who could do all manner of things, including whisking the party across the desert quickly and safely, wouldn't you have prepared for that possibility?

Probably. I just hesitated to get into a discussion of how I would prepare for that possibility for fear of getting more yelling about railroads. In general, what you are dealing with here is a variation of the 'three clue' rule, where, you have prepare for the possibility that clues will be missed. Basically, you always need to prepare for more than one way to approach the problem as well as 'signposts' to get things back on track if the thread is lost completely. A simple example is that there is in City B, a map of the desert showing important locations. Combined with the clues in the city about how the 'keys' (where keys could be anything not necessarily actual keys) are to be used, this lets players opt to go back. You can also have spare 'keys' in the city. Of course, this would get into the argument of whether you do well to have 'keys' and 'doors' at all, and would raise accusations about me stopping players from having creative plans to 'break down the doors' (which isn't true). Keep in mind, some see "defining a setting" much less "having a plot outline" as the same as railroading. I suppose if you have consensus "No Myth" in play, it is, but that's a different discussion.

However, if you are interested in discussions about RPG plotting, I suggest you start a different thread and ask questions.

 

[Celebrim]

board malfunction

 

[Nagol]

<snip>

So it comes down to defining the setting and making it interesting. It can also come down to not making the end of the road more compelling than the road itself in case there are players who will fixate on bigger goals and then want to bypass everything between where they are and where they want to be. So if we arrive in the situation where the city is the focused goal and not the desert, yet the desert must be crossed, it's possible to argue that there has been a failure in game design.

Well that depends. Who set the goal? If the goals lie solely in the hands of the PCs "We must get to the city!" then crossing the desert is a step they need to do accomplish their goal. If the characters then say "Crossing a desert sucks! Let's do this instead." all is well and good.

If the players say "Crossing a desert sucks! Let's hand-wave it." that is what can lead to a conflict. Conflict is more ikely if the players don't say it, but do *something* in the game world that they think telegraphs their preferences. Conflict becomes almost certain is one player does something in game to telegraph his preference to handwave the situation, assumes the other players are on board, thinks and the only potential purpose of the desert crossing is to do things he's not interested in doing or that can have no lasting impact on the campaign.

So really, it's more a failure of communication and managing expectations than game design.

 

[Nagol]

triple post

 

[Nagol]

triple post