From: sl9b4@cc.usu.edu (Deep Six)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Improvisation!
Date: 14 Aug 92 01:15:54 MDT
Organization: Utah State University

In article <Bsy6nB.1LK@acsu.buffalo.edu>, 
 swann@acsu.buffalo.edu (Stephen Swann) writes:
> In article <1992Aug13.144431.58137@cc.usu.edu> 
 sl9b4@cc.usu.edu (Deep Six) writes:

> I found that [back when I did any] most of my preparation got wasted,
> because players don't work from a script, and are bound to do things
> in a way that you didn't expect.  

I can deal with the unexpected without having to improvise, I just
have to prepare carefully. I have to leave room in my preparation
for the unexpected, and if the players really surprise me, then I go
with it. Why make it a foregone conclusion that the players will do 
the unexpected? Why not try to prepare, and if they do pull something 
you didn't expect, THEN improvise.

> That's why I never get much use out
> of pre-packaged modules; the players never attack the scenario the way
> the module writers expect them to, and so most of the module's writeup
> becomes irrelevant.

Now on this, I can relate. I hate modules for the very same reason. I 
also find that I want to change and customize modules here and there, 
and then there, and then here some more, until the lousy thing turns 
into one of my own creations with a lot of nice type-setting.

> I'm sorry you don't buy it, but I really do make everything up on the
> fly.  I invented an entire Drow socio-political system, complete with
> descriptions of rebels, dissodents, fanatical cults, political
> manuevering, betrayals, power struggles and kidnappings, all because
> my players captured a library from a wizard, found a (recent) scroll
> on the subject, and decided to read it on the spot.

Well, you certainly didn't invent rebels, dissidents, cults, betrayals, 
or any of that other stuff. And playing off the cuff that way, you could
not have created the actual scroll as a prop (like I think I would have).
I would say that in a way, much of what you told the players that day was 
prepared material. It wasn't written down, but it was already in your head 
-- power struggles, maneuvering etc. are all basic tenants of socio-politics, 
and you could have done the same thing if you had to make up a dwarf system, 
a orc system or anything else. I have to do things like this too, but I don't 
consider that making up ingenious plots on the spot. It's just some jumbled 
parts that were already in my brain put together in unique way. Each detail 
is like a card, and when you have to come up with something like that, it's 
just a unique hand of cards.
 
>>I do make it up as I go along, but I do it before the players show up
>>to the game. That way you can forsee problems, make adjustments and really
>>be, well, prepared for the game.

> See, I never bother, because I never have the faintest conception of
> what my players will decide to do from one minute to the next.  

They must not have very long attention spans. The players in my games can
do what they want, of course, but they can't do every single thing they
want to do from one minute to the next, and I always have time to prepare
what the players want in between sessions.

> So flexibility is key.  I'm not going to spend hours making up NPC's that
> they'll never meet, adventures that they'll never partake in, and
> places they'll never visit.  

How do you know they'll never visit or meet your preparations if they 
haven't yet? ``Don't bother writing up anything for this part of the world,
Steve, we'll never visit it or meet the NPCs therein.'' I have plenty of 
un-used or partially used material, and I'm sure that some time, somewhere 
it'll be used. 

> I wait for them to tell me where they're
> going, and I take it from there.  It works fine.  Really.

Maybe the difference is in the players. The players I play with approach
our games in the same way they would a movie or book. I am not there to
do their bidding, to react to their every move. I start the tale, and 
they react. I show them the stage, and they write the script. They want 
to see three-color maps, props, pictures, drawings and overlays for the 
miniature map (if you tell me you can come up with stuff like props or
visual aids on the fly, I'll eat my keyboard). I have spent hours 
preparing for games, but it has never been wasted. Like I said, the 
players aren't there to test my extemporaneous ability, they're there 
to see a movie. I don't have much problem with the players moving ``off 
the map,'' and I don't have to force them into playing on the map. The 
prepared areas are naturally more interesting. Maybe their philosophy is 
``hell, as long as we are playing a game in a make-believe world, we may 
as well play in the area that is prepared.'' 

If the world was real, there might be some point to wandering around 
spontaneously, because there would be something already sitting at every
turn, waiting to be discovered or experienced. But all your players are 
getting in your games are endless variations on the same ideas right? You 
just shuffle your reams of possibilities and spew out a new variation. In 
other words, if the players go to City A (heretofore unprepared by the GM), 
you will come up with a grand socio-political description, complete with 
all those neat things like political intrigue, etc., which is basically a 
card shuffle of ideas in your head (``this city is rife with corruption, 
rebellion, and back stabbing''). But if the players had gone to City B, 
the description would probably have been the same. See, the players aren't 
freebooting around the world spontaneously, discovering what is here and 
then seeing what is there, they are just seeing your extemporous 
descriptions in an order you choose. The next card shuffle might be 
City C, which you extemporize as being very just, with a fair government, 
prosperity, etc. But that could have easily been City A or City B, 
depending on where the players went first. I hope that makes sense.

Okay,
+  Chadd  L.  VanZanten   SL9B4@CC.USU.EDU  +
+  ``You know,  I thought this was a good   +
+  idea but this is one weird mama-jama.''  +
+                    -- TV's Frank, MST3K   +
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc