From: batemanc@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (Mad Chris)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Imp vs Prep
Date: 9 Sep 92 13:31:41 GMT

v054nn84@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Foto...Taking pictures again, and Happy for it!) moans:

>   I was directing my comments at the pompous attitude of "I prep EVERYTHING
>there is to think of'.

And don't you think you were exaggerating their claims to excess?

>You yourself certainly made it sound as if you were
>blowing your own horn, patting yourself on the back, and in general accepting
>the Academy Award for your level of preperation and *I* was asserting that NO
>ONE could cover EVERYTHING.

I was citing a case that went against the 80-20 rule, which was under discussion
just before I posted that, in which I actually did use all my prep and didn't
need to do anything beyond what I prepped. This was not due to Incredible Powers
on my part, but due to luck, circumstance, and my players. I asked if anyone
else had struck lucky like this. The point, which you don't seem to notice, is
that if you are a Prep-head you still only need to prep what you are going
to need. You took the concept of Prepping to ludicrous extremes, presumably to try and prove a point which wasn't really relevent.

>As for my killing a thread....yeah, right...

Well, it looks like you only suceeded in maiming it, after all... :-)

>and as
>for learninganything from it, what have we learned lately other than the two
>sides of the debate are steadfast in their preferance to their own styles of
>refereeing.

That is punctuated wrong, by the way, but I can't spell so who's complaining...
Just because you haven't been getting anything from the discussion doesn't 
mean everyone has been getting nothing. And if a discussion has been 
interesting (which this one was, at a time) there is always the possibility
that it will be again. No-one sticks with a dull thread for ever, and it
makes far more sense to let a thread die than to try to kill it, doesn't it?

And from my experience there is a hell of a lot of middle ground between 
Preppers and Imps. And I don't just mean people who Prep some and Imp the
rest. I, like most of the GM's I know, Imp whole games with one system,
and Prep whole games with others, and mix and match in between. The matter
isn't as polarised as you seem to suggest, and this discussion hasn't been
going on for very long, either.

>Chris, the next time you want to make an assertion about
>something that someone, anyone has said, maybe you should also take into
>Skeksis

Take into Skeksis? Methinks something went wrong with your post...

But while we are on the subject of assertions, the next time you want to make
an assertion about something that someone, anyone has said, maybe you should
also take into account their point of view, rather than try and impose your
viewpoint on the world at large. I don't enjoy wasting my time replying to 
posts that don't appear to have paid to attention to the whole thread, 
especially when the poster wasn't enjoying the thread in the first case hence
begging the question 'why don't they stop reading it?'

Let's not drag this out any further: because neither of us are achieving 
anything.

Mad Chris.