From: Rannou@info.polymtl.ca (Patrick Rannou)
Subject: Re: Improvisation!
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada
	<RANNOU.92Aug22093702@zuse.info.polymtl.ca> <4847@balrog.ctron.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 13:11:09 GMT


In article <4847@balrog.ctron.com> smith@ctron.com (Larry Smith) writes:



   >A GameMaster _accepts_ the responsibility that he or she is there specifically
   >and for no other purpose than to _entertain_ the others.

   >*sigh*, yes oh too much very true. How I wish for once that my players
   >would think like that too! Notice, I add "and himself, too, of course" in
   >your sentence. There really is NO point in Gming to a group of players and
   >being quite successful at making all the players have great fun if you
   >yourself DON'T have fun.

   In a way I agree - and I have seldom had trouble having fun as GM, but in
   another way, I must disagree.  In a sense, the GM is the host of the game,
   and like the host of a party, it may be fun but it is a different sort of
   fun than that which the guests have, and a good host, and a good GM, will
   accept the fact that his or her fun is secondary to that of the players.
   In this sense, gaming is a form of entertaining, it's a bad host who ignores
   a guest who is not having fun, and it's a poor GM who ignores a hapless
   player not having fun.

Well, I agree. But I had a player once who haved his fun at the expanse of
MY fun. That I couldn't tolerate. Well, I didn't kick him out anyway, he
left all by himself a few weeks after when he made himself a girlfriend.
That's what I mean by "The GM's fun is important too". Sure a host is
responsible for the fun of his invitees, but in a way it works both way:
when you go visit someone, who takes care to prepare you a meal and try his
very best to entertain you, you should also try to entertain him asnd not
profit from him. Otherwise the guy'll just start thinking that playing host
isn't as gratyfying anymore, and not invite you back. It's just a matter of
respect for the other and respect for oneself.


   >                           You say they worked so hard to solve the mystery,
   >and 'succeeded'? Only because you decided to let them.

   Hmmmmmmm.  In a sense, yes.  In a sense, no.  In most improv games with which
   I am familiar, even the GM does not know at the start what the final result
   will be.  I may not even know this is going to be a "mystery" scenario, these
   types of labels come at the end of a session, not at the begining.  Generally,
   characters have their own agenda, and players issue directives for there
   characters without much prompting from me about what "I" want to do as
   architect of the scenario.  In return, I run "the world", its background,
   autonomous functions and its reactions to the players.

So you have something defined.

   Occasionally, I
   throw in details that are, at least at the start, meaningless to me.  To me,
   they are just detail in a description.  To the players, they are part of a
   puzzle they are working on.  I sometimes do not know what they are making out
   of what they are given, sometimes I do know, and can guide it to some extent.
   As the game progresses, these details firm up into the actual scenario.  When
   it is "finished", it is usually obvious to everyone what we had, what we did,
   and so on.  If it turns out to be a mystery, the culprit, whether caught or
   not, can be inescapably identified, by me and the players.  I may or may not
   have "decided" to "let them" win.  In the most successful games, the issue
   never even comes up.

That's exactly what I meant by saying "pure improv gming can be a
pleasurable gaming experience if everybody involved concentrate only on
short terms events, or only the actual "present" events happening. You say
you don't know at all how the game will develop. OK, I'm like that too, but
I have some ideas prepared.

You gave the analogy to a puzzle. The more I read about pure improv gaming,
the more I feel like it happens like this: "OK, you've got these pieces.
Now, while you deal with them I'm cutting the other pieces. At the end of
the game, it's no wonder everything falls in place!"

It may be just an impression. It's something my group has lived through
too, because I'm half-prep half-impro. Well, I prepare more hours than I
play, but that's mostly because I LIKE writing scenarios, maps, and
creating NPCs. The fraction I really use for my games an create for that
use is about 3 times the gaming time, so you could say I'm 25% impro only,
but I take all thisd time mostly because I feel "words fly, letters stay",
i.e. I want to be able to remember everything, so I write my scenerios
down, then after the game I add whatever I changed (because I change stuff)
of added, like in the imrpo style. I'd be arrogant to think I can cover
every possibility, like some comments from anti-prep guys suggested. But I
feel that saying that having a prep game makes it a problem-solving
exercice and thus "shallow" roleplaying is completely out of the picture.
This asusmes that prep guys are 100% preparation, which is completely
wrong. I improvise all the time. My players go places I never designed.
Heck, what do you do when they arrive in a village of which the only think
you prepared is the village's name, it's ressources, for what it is noted
and the population, and what you know about the state (political, economic)
of things in the area is? You improv. The first place they go is the inn.
Needs an interesting name, a special NPC or ten to make the place
interesting and memorable. These things can't all be preps, that would be
mental suicide!

But I must tell that my group particularly like "dungeon" adventures (NOT
hack-n-slash adventures. I take a great care to put interesting storylines
in my scenarios). So I tell you: take the 90% imrpo GM. There is a corridor
branching left and right. Does it matter if the party go left or right? Of
course yes, be it impro or prepared, because in both case the GM knows
whats going to happen next. But what the GM didn't improv yet, say not the
next set of events for the next half hour, but the set after that, will
happen the same way wether they turn left or right. That's what I don't
like, it makes the world less real because the world starts conforming to
the PCs. I agree that the PCs should make a difference and that their
action should count, and what can happen is like a spider web: you start
from the middle and can go anywhere outside. But The world itself
shouldn't revolve around the PCs. Anyway, that can be questionnable simply
because you don't like the same style of gaming. I can see the many things
to be gained from improv gaming, I do it all the time. More than half of my
ideas come from impro. Why I use so much time for preparation is editing
tasks, much like putting the scenario in a clean state on wordperfect.
So I'm against the anti-improv. What I can't understand is how the
anti-preps can't see all the adventages that can be gained from a little
preparation. Or course, if you have a photographic memory, maybe you don't
need it... ;-) But I forget a lot. And creating an NPC on the fly is always
more awkward than thinking a little before hand about his motivations,
skills, etc. If not, then of course the PC will be "defined" according not
to what he is or should be but to what the GM needs to make the story
continue or according to what the PCs did just before the GM created the
NPC. Maybe that isn;t important, but to me it feels like every body you
meet is there not because he's there but because YOU'RE there. Big
difference. Anyway... It's just that a little prepration can offer so much
a SOLID basis on which to work on. Of course, I noticed that some GMs
pro-impro had 10+ years of Gming. That explains a lot. When a campaign has
gone that long, usually the GM knows his world by heart. Not in the
details, but in the "feel" it should have. He's also, at this stage, pretty
used to many NPC roles and quick to think and glib of tongue. Then UI can
understand why preparations are LESS important, but still I feel they ahave
their place nonetheless. ESPECIALLY in a dungeon adventure. But then again,
at that stage they don't do any dungeon anymore, do they? ;-) I just want
to make you feel that they pure sessions of roleplaying fun can just as
well occur in a game with preparation, not despite of it!



   >At least you realize the loss of options.

   To the contrary, I believe I have far more options than you ever will.

I think not. When I prepared something, I have the option of improvising
too. And I can also take out conclusions out of the itneraction between
correlating or diffrent effects from my preparation and my improvisation.
This means that istead of getting to choose the "most
entertaining/best/whatever" choice from only one set of thoughts, I get to
choose from three. Tha'ts why I say I have far more diversity than pure
impro. With pure impro, we face the risk of becoming PREDICTABLE, because
it's a true scientific fact that the human brain, when confronted with
having to cmake fast decisions, will always tend to make the same kind of
decisions in the same set of circumstances (read it in a science article
somewhere way back, and seen it on TV too). Now, it's also a fact that
we think very differently when we have time to ponder all "evident"
solutions, AND it's a fact that we think differently wethere or not we are
alone or with others. When you use only impro, you cut yourself away from
this source of ideas. This may not feel relevant, tough. Maybe you feel
conformatable with the choices you have. The limiting problem with
preparred games is that often the GM feels he must railroad or give "hints"
to the players. That's when we lose the improv source of ideas, which is
worse than losing the prep source of ideas because improv, while being
maybe more predictable for a single ijdividual, is dine when the whole
party is around the table. This eans the GM has access to player's ideas to
supplement his own. Thus more ideas.

I don`t condemn retroactive universe modification. But I don't recommend it
either. I think it should be possible to keep at the same time the
spontaneity of improv ("That was our best gaming session ever!") with the
sense of accomplishement and tangibility or preparation ("We really did
it!").



   >                                          That's what's I find important in
   >prepared games: they add diversity of events. Remember that if they managed
   >to make you change the culprit,

   They _don't_ _make_ me do anything, that's the bloody point, blast it all.
   There may not even _be_ a culprit - there may not even _be_ a mystery, for
   crying out loud.

So, you thhen agree that when you play, it's only the present moment's
events that counts. Nothing else. Well,  Of course long-term goals will
exist and players will try to achieve them. But long-term goals are
different from long-term events. In a full improv game, long term goals are
the same as in a preprared game. But a player trying to think of long term
events is pretty much wasting his time, since these far future events will
be directly defined by what he does now. That's not bad in itself. Tha'ts
what makes life interesting after all. But there is a fine line that, IHMO,
and for no valid reason, shouldn't be reached, when saying that the world
revolves around the PC. Of course they interact with th world and in a way
transform it, and even define it, but there are limits...

   Look, this point needs to be addressed or this argument will never _ever_
   come to rest.  This is a shared fantasy, one person operates the basic
   machinery of the universe, the others control characters within.  Of course
   they interact, but this is not a boardgame, first you move HERE, then you
   move THERE, pick up THIS, put down THAT.  This is not Zork.

Of course. For us, it's not only interactive storytelling tough. It's both.
Some games we do are more imrpov than others, and while the fun isn;t the
same type it's the same amount of fun still, sometime good sometime (when
I'm timred) less good. But we feel there's no need to let out the
problem-solving and other parts of the game when they can coesxist with the
actual roleplaying. And I don't believe that when you put a problem to your
players and have absolutely no idea what possible solutions (or evne one
solution) are/is avaliable, that you are doing any problem soving there.
It's like giving out a puxxle to someone without any existing piece. That's
not problem-solving, it's challenged storytelling and shared fantasy. This
is goos, but why drop the first part if you can have both?

   >                                 it's only because when they were working
   >hard to solve the mystery, they were making wrong assumptions and instead

   The assumptions were not necessarily wrong.  As GM I have the power to
   _decide_ they are wrong, but I may not choose to exercise that.  The
   assumptions _are_ the theme of the adventure, they _are_ the thrust of
   the game.

Huh, maybe you think (like other anti-prep guys said) that since I do more
hours of prepration than actual gaming I'm a 100% prep guy and thus if it's
not written in the scneario it doesn't exist. WRONG! I can still do full
impro like you, and change any assumption I want. I can still do 100% +
whatever say 50% preparation I had, and choose the best among both. I have
the same power than you. The difference is that I have power over two
viewpoints, and can compare these two viewpoints, and thus make my game
better, while you cannot. I'm not saying you should go out running and
start doing as much prep as impro! Not at all. I'm just saying that it's
not because someone is better at impro that he should compeltely forget
about preparation. I think both complement each other to provide a superior
gaming. Heck, this whole thread have made me realize that lately I've
pretty much left out my impro side... Must get back in practice... ;-)



   >of proving those wrong a soon as the opportunity presented itself, thus

   There is no proof where reality is not yet fixed.

Thus, without proof, there can't be a problem. I've done three valued logic
long enough to know that when a value is unknown, then a problem related to
that value can neither be true or false, and and action related to that
value can neitheir succeed nor fail: both are also unknown until the value
is set to true or false. So, at the time when the problem weas set and the
action was done, the actual choice of doing this or that can never be wrong
or false, only unknown. Sure, when the value is then set the universe
retroactively change, and THEN we discover if the action was "it was the
good thing to do" or "it wasn't". This means that at the time of the action
itself, doing A or not A can't be differencid, since the action is related
to an unknown value. In short: whatever you do, it doesn't make a
difference as long as you act appropriately and do a good roleplay. Maybe
that's the effect you want to have. Me, I find it doesn't give me the feel
of realism I expect from rolelplaying.

Sure, even with the best prep there will still be unknowns. The skill is in
determining the important unknowns. Or at least a reasonnable subset of
them. That's where prep comes in. If you can improv in such a way that
there is no unknown for anything the PCs do, or a minimal quantity of
unknown, then all is fine and OK: you're just doing you're prep "in advance
but not by much". EVen then, I still get to choose from a wider array of
solutions.

   >making them realize they had been following a wrong track, you instead

   If they are following the wrong track the logic of the game will eventually
   make it manifest.

That's only if you previously decided it was the worng track. If you just
thought "well, I don't know were it will lead but it sure seems
interesting", then there can be no such thing as a wrong track or a right
track: only unknowns.

   >rolled with it in an "interactive" way, and went along with their ideas,

   It is _their_ ideas, combined with my own, that make it a shared fantasy.
   In a sense, everyone has some degree of GM-like abilities, though it all
   remains subordinate to my own, for someone must coordinate.

What makes you think this doesn't happen in my games? Do yo really think
that all gms who prep are such "if it's not in the module it doesn't exist"
bastards? No wonder, if youy had such gaming experiences, you found that
this "prep 100%" kind of roleplaying is shallow indeed!

I have access to the same thing you say, PLUS my preparation. AND that
means I have less things on my head when gaming, and thus can concentrate
on other things I wouldn't normally be able to do (there is only so many
things a brain can process in parallel). Also, the fact that I have
encounters ready enables me to NOT do the dreary "OK, here's a fight...
give me 45 seconds..." in order to write down the necessery things just
before the fight. Result: 1) The tension and excitement doesn't get broken
up, and 2) the fight goes WAY smoother and faster, and I can make special
moves happen and other interesting stuff because I'm NOT hooked up by all
these details.

Of course, you're going to say that you don't do that much fighting
anywmore. Well, we happen to like keeping ALL the aspects of roleplaying,
eb it problem solving, fighting, NPC or PC interaction, character
development, or whatever. Others of course have the right to play just a
subset of it.

   >until they were so convinced that what they came up with was "THE" truth
   >that telling them otherwise would have ruined the game. In short, you gmed
   >it so that it was GOUNG to be changed anyway.

   Closer.  Until they were so convinced that what they came up with was "THE"
   truth that telling them otherwise would have compromised the history as
   established in the game.

And that's supposed to be good? I can do the same thing if I want in my
preprared games, too. How can the fact that I use prep + impro prevents me
from doing the same thing as you i.e. intensive retroactive world
modification even up to the point of changing the whole scenario.

Try to concentrate on why a impro only game is better than a prep+impro game.

   >                                               You LET them make you change
   >it, and whatever they would have come up with, as long as it was "good",
   >good enough to make you "go along with it", would eventually have become
   >"the" truth.

   So long as you are not forgetting my input, and so long as you realize that
   incorporation of player material is by no means guaranteed or unaltered,
   yes.

Agreed. I think retroactive world modification is good. But INTENSIVE 
retroaction up to that point? Doubtful. Even then, I can and did sometime
do it with my prep+impro games. So I don't see how prep can be the "such a
bad thing" all those anti-prep guys say it is.

   >I prefer to separate good roleplaying from the events in the story. If two
   >PCs do the same actions, one unsing good roleplaying and the other bad
   >roleplaying, the next set of events should, IMHO, be the same. The only

   Here, we differ.  Poor role-playing causes inconsistancies in the game, and
   what comes next should reflect that.  "Beware the stranger, Haltrimar, with
   his babble of hit points and other such meaningless stuff..."  Since this
   is the point where taste inevitably rules, we should keep this thread on
   the subject of strategy and use within certain criteria.

MMm, you didn't understand. I mean that by poor roleplaying and good
roleplaying that both PC #1 and PC #2 do the SAME actions, just that one PC
does it more in character while the other babbles about rules, min/maxing,
whatever. In essence, the roleplaying is the PLAYER'S part, and I boost XPs
accordingly. The actions undertaken is the PC's part, and this should
produce at least somewhat consistent result and "next set of events" for
the same action in each case!!! Of course, I don't hold this to an absolute
value, that it should ALWAYS have the exact same effect (sometime actions
must be taken to make the player have a better roleplay, or simply to
reward good roleplay), but I will surely not hold that the sole "scale" of
quantifying the success of an action is the quality and "appropriateness"
of it's roleplaying! If you hold that, then you MUST agree that any feel of
realism isn't a strong point in your games.

There is a difference between roleplaying the personnality of a character,
abnd making the character doing things. There is some overlap, but tboth
are different. You seem to imply that both are the same.

   >difference should be in the amount of XPs. Of course, that's impossible. A
   >GM always prefer good roleplayers and thus tend to favor them
   >instinctively. Having good preparations is no garantees against that, but
   >it can help a little.

   >   >I mean, if you've got 3-6 people in front of you, who took one little
   >   >slip you made and turned it into the linchpin of the whole caper, and it
   >   >*makes sense* more than what you thought you were doing... Well, it's
   >   >going to make the players do a reality-check if you don't make your
   >   >decision at least as sensible as theirs, and prefer'bly more-so.

   >   Precisely.

   >Why? Life is seldom sensible. [...]

   RPG's, no less than any other form of entertainment, require a willing
   suspension of disbelief.

Exactly. Keyword here is DISBELIEF. When I play in a game that is so
improvised that reality takes a trip out the window, then my suspension of
disbelief becomes just like the solidity of the known facts in the game:
under the critical level. Suspension of disbelief, by definition, means
that ANYTHING that is too unrealistic will need more susepension of
disbelief in order to stay "believable". But the more something becomes
unrealistic, the more you get nearer the point where suspension of
disbelief simply breaks and then suddnely the game isn't fun at ALL. Pure
impro games require more, to my very humble experience, suspension of
disbelief (considering a GM prep-impro and a GM mostly-impro with equal
skills) than a mixed prep-impro style of game, simply because at the start
of any game, and at any points in it, there is always a greater number of
FACTS that are KNOWN to be either true or false, and thus making the game
world more tangble, believable, not unknown. More static, yes. But less
chaotic. The trick is to find the middle point.


   One reason I dislike games with too-complex
   mechanics is because they slow me down and take extra time, and the
   pacing is critical to maintaining that suspension.  _Anything_ that
   causes players to think "it's just a game" or something of the sort
   will damage that suspension, and without it you just don't get really
   good games.  I've run horror scenarios that scared the pee out of my
   players - no easy task in a well-lit living room filled with bright
   sunshine, coke bottles and bowls of potato chips.  I can do that
   consistantly, and I find that improv style makes it much easier than
   designing a scenario one way and winging it to try to file off the
   edges where it doesn't fit.  This is why I keep harping on the type
   and quality of the player interaction.  Questions like "but shouldn't
   there be money in this desk?" are loud and clear indications that the
   suspension of belief has broken.  When well-done, the issue never, ever
   comes up.

Huh? Why is that any different wether or not there is some prep to back me
up? When your player ask you: "Is there any chash money the guy left in the
drawer?", I can see that I didnt prep THAT detail. That's when impro comes
in, and the answer I then give is the same, or better as yours. Why should
it be different? Remember: I'm NOT one of those (hopefully inexistant, by the
way) "if it's not in the module, it doesn't exist" bastards. It takes a
REAL skill to know when to switch from prep-mode to impro-mode (and they
often overlap quite a lot).




   [...]

   >Correct. Giving the players what they want is a key to make the games more
   >interesting. The problem is that players don't realize that this should go
   >both ways. And "giving the players what they want" can be done just as
   >easily in a prepared game. It's very different to gving IN to everything
   >the players want! (or think). Very very different.

   I never said it couldn't be done in a prepared game.  I said _I_ found it 
   more difficult.  Not impossible, merely more difficult.  Remember the
   purpose of this thread.

Hmmm.... Bizarre, autres gens, autres moeurs. I've found that with
preprared scenarios tailored to a group of PCs, I can give them each not
only what they want, but offer them the chance to (don't know in english)
"faire la passe" i.e. be the star of a specific event in which they perform
an incredible deed/whatever and get a great rush out of it.

While in hte improvised games I've gmed, seen and played with, I've found
out that more often than not the GM gives away things too easily. Maybe
it's just the sample...


   >   The players should never get the feeling the universe revolves around
   >them.

   >Then why are you changing the universe according to their "flawless logic"
   >THOUGHTS?!?!? Of course, if you mean "simply don't tell them", I refer you
   >to my previous comments on "game based on a lie".

   If you haven't got some clue to this question by this post, then please
   spare any kind of followup.  I can't continue to spend this much time
   trying to communicate a whole style if it all comes down to "you do it
   your way and I'll do it mine."  This is supposed to benefit all of us
   with insights into other ways of gaming.

Then if you can't continue don't followup to this. (yeah, sure... ;-) )

Telling someone to get a clue instead of giving him one, well, that's not
gonna help, will it?


   Larry Smith (smith@ctron.com)  No, I don't speak for Cabletron.  Need you ask?
   -
   How about we all do something reasonable?  I bet that'll confuse 'em!




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