From: Rannou@info.polymtl.ca (Patrick Rannou)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Improvisation!
Date: 22 Aug 92 15:08:06 GMT
	<1992Aug18.033715.9902@tronsbox.xei.com> <Bt8wp8.n6@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada

In article <Bt8wp8.n6@acsu.buffalo.edu> swann@acsu.buffalo.edu (Stephen Swann) writes:

[very interesting scenario that for me qualifies for preparation deleted]


   >	Improvisation is a necessary evil

   In gaming, it's the spice of life.

Agreed. But a steak with too much spice, or only spice with no steak, isn;t
good at all. ;-)

...

   What if they attack your "prepared material" in ways you had never
   thought of?  Like magically tunneling under a manor house instead of
   going in through the gate?  Did you remember to write in your notes
   what kind of earth (clay, rock, soil?) the place is built on?  What
   if, in order to follow the the adventure the way you wrote it, they
   have to talk to the gate guard to get a particular hint - and they
   just kill him instead?  Or that the tunnel that leads to the "real
   adventure" is under the stables, and they set fire to the stables and
   burn it down?  In my scenario, I don't care what they do, because
   there's nothing that the players are "supposed" to do.  They're
   "supposed" to do whatever they think is appropriate under the
   circumstances, and the storyline isn't "supposed" to follow a certain
   pattern.

Well, WHENEVER I put up an adventure, if there is a guard who knows
something, then a GOOD GM will always think about "But what if they DON'T
talk to this guard???". Things like that. If a GM don't even PREPARE for
the REVERSE of planned events to occur, then he really didn't plan much,
didn't he?



   To return to your original argument:

   >	I would quit instantly if I found out that a GM was putting clues in
   >front of me as I was searching.  It means that he doesn't know the answer to
   >the whatever mystery we're investigating, and that completely destroys any
   >possible sense of accomplishment you could feel from solving it.

   The way my group plays it, there -is- no mystery to be solved, just
   a world full of events that you can partake in, struggle against, 
   observe, or ignore, whatever strikes your fancy.

OK, this can be fun. But the impression *I* get is that there is no mystery
because WHATEVER your PC do, the mystery will ALWAYS get solved!

When you set a campaign world in just a "fullness of events", then you
take away everything related to long term goals/objective, because the
world becomes just a disconnected chain of events. Well, it's still HALF
connected: everything is connected starting from the past toward the
future. But by disconnected I mean that every single moment in a given
present redefines it's future. Thus there is no connection between this
world's future and it's past (there is one between it's past and it's
future, but that's the least natural thing to do). In effect, you obtain a
world that is fully centered on the PCs.

PC have an effect on the world, but this effects shouldn't be absolute,
like full improvisation playing makes it, and it shouldn't be null, like
full preparation gaming makes it. The skill of a good GM is in making a
prepared/improvised game contain a good part of each... Not an easy thing
to do.

Of course, there are many styles of gaming. I just, personnally, don't like
the style you got. It's way too much like the "when a tre fall in the
forest with nobody to hear it, then it doesn't make a sound".

Not at all what I'd call a world that runs like clockwork and that could
exist and function without the PCs acting in it. For that to be possible,
it would need the tree to make a sound even if there is no PC to hear it.
I.E. What the GM prepared shouldn't be modified on a whim just because the
players want it. The Gm prepared his scenarios with the needs of tyhe
players in mind. That's giving the players what they want. But to change
the universe just because "the players had a better idea" is not giving the
players what they want, but it's giving IN to everything the players want.
Nuance. I'd rather suggest take a note of the idea, and use it later if you
still think it's that much of a good idea afterwards...

Well, anyway, the point os moot, since it greatly depends on the style of
campaign you got. Paranoia, where the GM must be in full control,
practically requires full improvisation gaming. Free-floating campaigns,
where the PCs go "exploring" just about anywhere, require improvisationnal
gaming also, since at any given moment the GM don't know where the party is
headed anyway. But the style of playing I play, epic gaming, where the
party's quest is divided into roughly defined "chapters", requires
preparationnal gaming. An epic quest, like all quests, must have a
beginning, and an end. To use full improvisationnal gaming in such a quest
is removing the very purpose of it, IMHO, because *whatever* the PCs do, if
they do it right they will succeed at the quest, which can be anything. I'm
trying to make people see that doing thje right or wrong thing is limiting
oneself. There are far more possiblilitiesw than that. There are also doing
the right thing wrong, or doing the wrong thing right, or doing the right
thing at the wrong time, or the wrong thing at the right time. In all these
4 cases, full improvisationnal gaming precludes the use of these except for
the most short-term of purposes. And an epic is BASED on a long term
purpose. Thus, the epic loses meaning.

Drastic enough? Yes.

Of course, I always add the "Fun Factor" in the balance, the FF being the
sum of the fun of every player divided by the nbumber of players, finally
adding to that the fun of the GM. OK, so if there are 5 players thjat mean
they each count for 10% while I count for 50%. So what? I'm the one who`s
doing the gming, they just have to sit and enjoy. I'm sure as hell not
going to gm for a bunch of players who don't let me havew fun, and the same
goes for every GM I know.

Nevertheless, I still think improvisation is really a strongly needed
skill, just like organisation (or preparation, or whathaveyou) is too.

They both can't just be separated, IMHO.

Pat.

--
/---------------------------\
| Patrick "Paradak" Rannou. |
| Rannou@info.polymtl.ca    |
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