From: swann@acsu.buffalo.edu (Stephen Swann)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Improvisation!
Date: 20 Aug 92 17:16:16 GMT
Organization: UB

In article <1992Aug20.065737.28163@tronsbox.xei.com> dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com (Dennis Heffernan) writes:
>In article <Bt8wp8.n6@acsu.buffalo.edu> swann@acsu.buffalo.edu (Stephen Swann) writes:
>|Ok, what's the plot here?  And what exactly is it that the adventurers
>|are "supposed" to figure out?  This isn't like a book, where you're
>|ushering them towards some pre-determined destination, via a series
>
>	WHOA!  Who said anything about pre-determined endings?  Ain't got none
>o'those, round heah these parts.

Alright, fine, you don't have pre-determined endings.  And yet, you
insist on having a "proper" way for the players to confront a
scenario, while I say that the way they confront a scenario 
(including "ignore it and leave") is entirely *their business*.

>|of carefully planned critical occurances.  This is liable to get
>|messy, and there's no saying for sure that the characters should (or
>|will) get involved in it at all.  Maybe they'll run from the brigands.
>|Maybe they'll fight them, and capture one, and find out about the
>|Count's plot (most of the brigands don't know the whole story - only
>|the brigand chief knows that the person who hired them to do this was
>|one of the Count's most trusted vassals).  Maybe the adventurers will
>|find out and not give a hot damn, because they've got other things on
>|their mind.  Maybe they'll find out, and drag the bandit chief back to
>|the capitol, and leave the whole matter up to the King's justice.
>|Maybe they'll take it upon themselves to try and foil the Count
>|personally.  Maybe they'll get run off into the wilds without their
>|horses, and will be more worried about living to reach civilization
>|than about who those bandits were.
>|
>	Why are you feeding them this encounter if you don't know have a handle
>on what they're going to do with it?

Why should I have a handle on what they're going to do with it?  I
can't read their minds.  And furthermore, what do I care what they do
with it?  Figuring out what they should do about all this stuff (if
anything) is the players' job - if I wanted to do that, I'd run a
solo campaign with nothing but NPC's. :-)

>|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
>
>	I am INTIMATELY familiar with all of my PC's abilities.  If one of them
>has the ability to tunnel, you can bet your lungs that I'll know the type of
>earth anything they'd want to get into is built on.  If they've got
>divination powers, I'll have visions prepared for them.  Et cetera and so
>on.

Ok, so suppose they don't have anyone in the party who can do that, so
you didn't take that into account.  But suppose they have a lot of
money, and go back to a big city and HIRE a wizard who can do magical
tunneling?  Or do you just restrict them from being able to do
anything that would throw your planned scenarios out of whack?

Do you know the location of EVERY knothole in that whole floor, so if
a wizard tries to drop a wizard eye through it, you'll know whether he
can?  Do you know whether the floorboards are held down by nails or
dowels, in case the players want to pry them up and then later return
them to their places without anyone being able to tell?

>|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.
>
>|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.
>
>	If you don't want to run mysteries, fine, but the discussion as I
>entered it was concerned with a search for clues in a mystery.

That seems to be the real root of our difference here.  I don't run a
campaign with a "goal".  The players do as they please within the
campaign scenario that I've concocted.  If one "adventure" doesn't
strike their fancy, fine, they skip it, and do something else.  There
are an infinite number of possible adventures out there, and they've
-never- run out of things to do.

-- 
Steve Swann                 |    Speak to me in many voices; make
swann@acsu.buffalo.edu      |      them all sound like one...  -BOC
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc