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You're doing what? Surprising the DM
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6104056" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I just read the BW rulebook, and it's not one of them (indeed, I don't know where it has gone lately, but the original reads like a 3e D&D fantasy heartbreaker right down to its agenda of 'accuracy' stated in the preface). Neither is 4e D&D. I know that there are systems that allow for that - Dogs in the Vineyard comes to mind - but DitV uses fortune at the beginning and has actual mechanics built around stakes and bidding limited resources for narrative control. This codifies how scene framing is done and what is staked on a scene in a very formal way that facilitates player driven scene framing by making it just another limited resource controlled by fortune mechanics. D&D in no edition has anything like that and instead relies on DM interpretation of what you are calling 'player cues' most of which seem to come out of the player's backstory authority and the rest built up through normal player engagement, which isn't any different than what I do in play nor really outside of my normal experience with many DMs in 30 years of play. At a fundamental level, what you are saying isn't really anything more than, "The players can to a fork in the road with two signs. One led to Scary Woods and the other to Frostbite Mountains. The players chose mountains, and so my campaign has mostly been about what happened in the mountains." Granted, like almost every other campaign, that gets infinitely bifurcated by players more and more refined choices.</p><p></p><p>Your making a big deal about my perference for prep over extemp, and while that is important, its not important because of GNS. What might change as I swung between different GNS agendas is the sort of prep I'd advocate for, but don't imagine - and I certainly don't ever imagine - that any prep can be so complete that improv shouldn't be in the GM's toolbag. Yes, you must invent things during play and go with the PC's direction. I never know everything that is going to happen in a session, and what I'm always prepping for is expected player action. Last night I prepped a house and a stat block that before the previous session I wouldn't have expected to need. Now I know based on the surprising turns of last session its likely to be needed. Hopefully I'll get some more clues about the player's future actions in order to be more ready for them tonight, and I'll prep based on that. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Maybe not, but it tells me a whole lot more about how your table actually functions than saying 'G','N', or 'S' does.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6104056, member: 4937"] I just read the BW rulebook, and it's not one of them (indeed, I don't know where it has gone lately, but the original reads like a 3e D&D fantasy heartbreaker right down to its agenda of 'accuracy' stated in the preface). Neither is 4e D&D. I know that there are systems that allow for that - Dogs in the Vineyard comes to mind - but DitV uses fortune at the beginning and has actual mechanics built around stakes and bidding limited resources for narrative control. This codifies how scene framing is done and what is staked on a scene in a very formal way that facilitates player driven scene framing by making it just another limited resource controlled by fortune mechanics. D&D in no edition has anything like that and instead relies on DM interpretation of what you are calling 'player cues' most of which seem to come out of the player's backstory authority and the rest built up through normal player engagement, which isn't any different than what I do in play nor really outside of my normal experience with many DMs in 30 years of play. At a fundamental level, what you are saying isn't really anything more than, "The players can to a fork in the road with two signs. One led to Scary Woods and the other to Frostbite Mountains. The players chose mountains, and so my campaign has mostly been about what happened in the mountains." Granted, like almost every other campaign, that gets infinitely bifurcated by players more and more refined choices. Your making a big deal about my perference for prep over extemp, and while that is important, its not important because of GNS. What might change as I swung between different GNS agendas is the sort of prep I'd advocate for, but don't imagine - and I certainly don't ever imagine - that any prep can be so complete that improv shouldn't be in the GM's toolbag. Yes, you must invent things during play and go with the PC's direction. I never know everything that is going to happen in a session, and what I'm always prepping for is expected player action. Last night I prepped a house and a stat block that before the previous session I wouldn't have expected to need. Now I know based on the surprising turns of last session its likely to be needed. Hopefully I'll get some more clues about the player's future actions in order to be more ready for them tonight, and I'll prep based on that. Maybe not, but it tells me a whole lot more about how your table actually functions than saying 'G','N', or 'S' does. [/QUOTE]
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