From: swann@acsu.buffalo.edu (Stephen Swann)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Improvisation!
Date: 21 Aug 92 18:13:20 GMT
Organization: UB

In article <1992Aug21.040740.6306@tronsbox.xei.com> dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com (Dennis Heffernan) writes:
I wrote:
>|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*.
>
>	If my players started ignoring my scenarios, I'd stop playing with
>them.  If I can't tell what they'll like and how they'll react to it, then
>clearly we're too far out of sync to game together.

Well, I guess my players of 12 years must be out of sync with me,
because they choose not to get involved in every single scenario that
I throw at them.

>|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
>
>	You should be familiar with your players likes and dislikes and their
>mannerisms.  That's the GM's job.

I am very familiar with all of those things.  Nevertheless, since
these (i.e my friends) are independant beings with freewill, they do
not always do as I "expect" they will.  If they decide they'd rather
continue northward and explore the ruined city, rather than spend time
here trying to break up the Count's plot, that's FINE with me.  

Personally, I would get aggravated with a DM who insisted that we always
follow HIS cleverly designed little plotlines all the time, instead of
pursuing our own interests.

>|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. :-)
>
>	And if all I wanted to do was write adventures, I'd keep GM'ing all the
>time.  GM's are obligated to provide some kind of meaningful scenario for
>their players.

What do you mean by "meaningful"?  My players have a huge campaign, full
of interesting NPC's and situations, and they are free to partake in
any of the events that they are interested in.  Things that adventurer
groups have done in my campaigns:  fight to save their home town from
an incursion of ogres, destroy temples of the dark gods, rescue prisoners
from fortress dungeons, hunt pirates, take part in a political coup,
make friends, go boar hunting, learn to play musical intruments, get
married, return a child that was stolen by woodland fairies, start a
brewery, re-awaken the god of a dead race, capture a fortress, slay
a primal dragon, etc etc etc...

>	If a given means is available to the PC's, I'll have contingencies
>ready to cover it.  In your example, I would already know what spells were
>available to any for-hire wizards the PC's could get in the scenario's time
>frame.  (For what it's worth, the answer to this question is 'zero', since
>wizards are not for-hire in my fantasy campaigns.  IMAO, the proper role of
>the practioner of magic is 'figure of mystery', not 'hired gun'.)

IMAO?  "In Your Arrogant Opinion" I would preume?  I haven't seen you
offer any other kind yet.  At any rate, you simply refuse to admit
that the players could do anything that you didn't anticipate, which
is arrogance of colossal proportions, unless your players happen to be
clones of yourself.  So your wizards are too high and mighty to be
hired.  I can understand that.  Now a really determined adventuring
group might do something like making a bargain with him - you do this
tunneling for us, we'll give you this wand of lightning we captured
last adventure, and we'll perform a misson of your choice after we're
done with this adventure.  If that doesn't sway him, they could bloody
well kidnap his wife and force him to help them - then things would
get REAL far from your canned scenario.

>|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
>
>	Floors are solid objects where I come from; we don't have holes in them
>that go all the way through to the next floor.  It would sort of defeat the
>purpose, nicht?

My friend's cabin has a wooden floor with a few knotholes that go 
all the way through.  In a medieval campaign, I bet that a lot of
cheap buildings would have that.

But to extend the example, do you know the location of every loose
paving stone on every road in every part of the adventure, or doesn't
your world have loose paving stones?  That's one way to make sure the
players don't do anything unexpected - have every object in your
campaign be equivalent to its Platonic Ideal form.

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