From: Rannou@info.polymtl.ca (Patrick Rannou)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Improvisation, do I do it?, do I not?
Date: 22 Aug 92 15:51:40 GMT
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada

In article <57311@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> jacobus@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) writes:

...
   I pre-plan backgrounds.  I settle areas.  I design inhabitants and their
   actions.  The PCs then interact with my designs as they will.  My world
   then responds to them, the PCs respond to the response, the world responds
   to the PC's counter-response, et cetera.  I do not pre-write plotlines, nor
   do I have predetermined directions I want my players to take.  Instead, I
   try to make my world as detailed as I can--so much so that the players will
   nearly always have something to run into whatever they do.

   My players tend to make things very easy for me as well.  Their characters
   are rather three-dimensional, for the most part, and thus have motivations
   and goals.  This works in two directions:  First, their are the "ordinary"
   adversities they encounter on the way to their goals.  Second, there are
   those forces which actively seek to thwart their goals.  There is also a
   good-sized "shit happens" factor in my world, wherein I decide that it is 
   time for the big, bad world to intrude uninvited into the PC's lives.

   This makes my world an ongoing dynamic, temporally seamless (or as seamless
   as is possible).  I would have to say that my world does not have discrete
   "adventures", but the whole thing is one enormous serial story.  In fact,
   one player even commented upon that fact last time we played.  He said that
   the whole world felt "real"--he explained that he meant that the world 
   didn't have the jarring episodic feel that other worlds he had played in
   possessed--worlds run on a more plot-driven or "adventure" model.

   Anyway, I'm not saying that my way is better, just that my players and I
   seem to like it.

Good. I'm currently Gming an "epic" campaign. Half prep, half impro. You
may think it's plot driven, tough, since the players really don't have all
that much choices about their next actions... well, they do if they tell me
at least a few days in advance, so you cna say I'm more prep than impro.

I agree that my style of campaign has these "jarring episodic feel" on
them. I agree that I've beeng gming for *only* 5 years and so realtive to
many other guys on this thread I'm a relative newcomer.

I observed that many of the OLDER gmers used a kind of nearly only impro
gaming. Maybe I should learn from their experience. Nonetheless, I feel I
really need to take at least twice the gaming time to prepare a single
game. Guess that means preparation may NOT be all it's cracked up to be...

Anyway, preparation of cultures and the like is really a must, and I'm
ashamed to say that it's the most missing thing in my campaign world. I
have tons of maps, and yes, I'm still in the "dungeon crawling" stage,
although I try to make it look like it's not dungeon crawling... That's why
I spend so much time on designing a plot and a story. I tend to create
special events specially for my players, where I hope the tension will be
high and the fun factor high also.

I'm kind of the "logical" type, so when I design my modules and I put an
encounter, I really go trough a lot of possiblities, like "OK, if the party
attack him he'll do that, but if they talk to him he'll do that. If they
don't go swee him that will happen". Guess you could say it makes for kind
of a "Book in which you are the Hero" kind of structure, but actually I
never actually IMPLEMENT that structure in the game. I just find that
thinking/wrirting about all these possibilities (most of which will never
happen in gametime) greatly help me flesh out the NPCs and their way of
thinking. The rest I let imagination take care of...

But yes, I'm also masochist to the point where when I put a treasure, the
number of GP, PP, SP), CP, TP, BP, EP, TP and gems types, size, purity,
values, and items descriptions and powers are all preprared well in
advance. Whenever I feel like the party should have found a treasure
somewhere else in ther dungeon, I just take part of the final treasure (or
another side-treasure) and put it just right where I want it...

All in all, I'm realizing that no GM has the same style. Some may look more
similar, but each got hiw own. So if any of you took aoffense from my
earlier postings, well please don't flame too hard... I'm only trying to
offer my humbles ideas, and as you can see I can reshaoe my opinions
according to other peoples's ideas.


Now, if only I could put all my campaign world's data on my computer!
Final Fantasy II would pale in comparison...

Anyvbody ever tried to make a computer game over 8 MEGS of campaign-world
data which use a text analyser? I'm sick and tired of these Nintendo games
they call "Roleplaying games" which actually are adventures games (while
what they call adventure games are arcade games), which only neables the
PC's GROUP to answer "Yes" or "No" to preset strings... AAAGH!


===========================================================
All my opinions are my own and not covered in this warranty


Pat.

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