Quote from: jibbajibba;736965Generally to the heavy prep GMs.

So where specifically do you spend the bulk of your prep time? What areas of the game do you think benefit most from good preparation? If say you had a 20 session game to plan out and you had 10 hours to prep it how would you spend that time (numbers picked deliberately due to ease of expression as % )?

I'm a prep-heavy GM, most of the time.

Here's what I spend time on:

1) Creating tactical maps, especially if there's likely to be a battle. I can sketch a map on the fly, of course (or google one up), but having a clear attractive map, IME helps everyone engage directly with what's going on, and for games with a lot of dynamic action (e.g. super heroes), having a map really makes tactical choices come to life.

2) Creating materials for the players to look at. In some games, this is just a sheet telling them general facts their characters would know about the world, but in a few games I've run recently, the player-artifacts were critical and meant to be useful and entertaining, as well as evocative of the setting (Insurance Claims forms)

Same with PC maps -- I want something that's both utilitarian and attractive, even if the map isn't tactical.

In my post-apocalypse game, I created some (ultra-simple) 3d-drawings of the robots they were fighting. I don't know exactly what the return on that investment was, but everyone seemed to enjoy them.

3) Stocking dungeons. In the last dungeon crawl game I ran, I randomized both the dungeon layouts and the incidents of monsters and treasure, but I spent a lot of time coming up with amusing traps, interesting scenarios, etc.

4) Generally fleshing out situations and conflicts the characters are getting engaged in. I recently ran a game where the PC's were teenaged ghost chasers working over one summer for a massive insurance company, investigating paranormal claims.

I gave them, at the start, a file of about 8 or 9 1-page claims believed to have a paranormal aspects to them (ghosts did it!).

Creating the summaries took a bit of time, but creating interesting ghost stories that meddling kids could meaningfully interact with required some thought. I came up with a list of about 30-40 "adventure seeds," many from classic ghost stories and then discarded about half and fleshed about about half of the remainder.

The result was a short list of scenarios that I felt were both interesting to play and didn't require a personal background with the ghost. It also let me develop the mystery aspect of the game -- something that required a certain degree of precision and consistency and would have been hard to do well if I was inventing things on the fly.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.;737415I'm a prep-heavy GM, most of the time.

Here's what I spend time on:

1) Creating tactical maps, especially if there's likely to be a battle. I can sketch a map on the fly, of course (or google one up), but having a clear attractive map, IME helps everyone engage directly with what's going on, and for games with a lot of dynamic action (e.g. super heroes), having a map really makes tactical choices come to life.

2) Creating materials for the players to look at. In some games, this is just a sheet telling them general facts their characters would know about the world, but in a few games I've run recently, the player-artifacts were critical and meant to be useful and entertaining, as well as evocative of the setting (Insurance Claims forms)

Same with PC maps -- I want something that's both utilitarian and attractive, even if the map isn't tactical.

In my post-apocalypse game, I created some (ultra-simple) 3d-drawings of the robots they were fighting. I don't know exactly what the return on that investment was, but everyone seemed to enjoy them.

3) Stocking dungeons. In the last dungeon crawl game I ran, I randomized both the dungeon layouts and the incidents of monsters and treasure, but I spent a lot of time coming up with amusing traps, interesting scenarios, etc.

4) Generally fleshing out situations and conflicts the characters are getting engaged in. I recently ran a game where the PC's were teenaged ghost chasers working over one summer for a massive insurance company, investigating paranormal claims.

I gave them, at the start, a file of about 8 or 9 1-page claims believed to have a paranormal aspects to them (ghosts did it!).

Creating the summaries took a bit of time, but creating interesting ghost stories that meddling kids could meaningfully interact with required some thought. I came up with a list of about 30-40 "adventure seeds," many from classic ghost stories and then discarded about half and fleshed about about half of the remainder.

The result was a short list of scenarios that I felt were both interesting to play and didn't require a personal background with the ghost. It also let me develop the mystery aspect of the game -- something that required a certain degree of precision and consistency and would have been hard to do well if I was inventing things on the fly.

Cheers,
-E.

Good clear examples E. Thanks

Whilst I haven't done much I count as Prep for scenarios I do sometimes have to write down rules. . So I produced a starship combat system and expalined what props we would need. My players well one of them with more cash than sense and no job build all the star ships parts based on my designs and I wrote up a set of ships for different starships and started to write out the rules. In the end I changed the rules last week when we playtested, because I had some much better ideas as we were laying out the game. I took some photos I might post them someplace on a thread. I actually think that the way we did it using galvanised steel sheets covered in felt as the base, magnets with extendable pointers, lego blocks for vector and speed, worked exceptionally well and I don't know anyone that makes a proper 3d space combat game that is nearly as 'clever' so maybe we should kickstart it
So I agree stuff is fun trouble is time to produce stuff can be consuming and the effort v benefit is tricky. I once make an astrolabe as a prop it was make from hardboard cut and painted to look like bronze. All the rings rotated and it was 3 feet across. I used it for 1 scene but it cost about 20 quid to make and took me about 40 hours all to demonstrate the Forthcoming Conjunction .... not really worth it

I really like your insurance form idea. I do newspapers as part of Murder Mystery Prep and have thought about porting that across as a start of the adventure thing, but stuff like diaries, a bundle of letters, these are great but take sooooo loong to so well I end up preferring to describe then so no need to prep.

I have covered stuff like maps and dungeon stocking etc already so no need to dwell on that.

Could someone define what constitutes as bias in this context? And perhaps why it's bad?

Quote from: Adric;737418Could someone define what constitutes as bias in this context? And perhaps why it's bad?

From my perspective its modifying my generation of ad libbed content based on what is happening in the fiction and its bad because it robs the players of agency.

So by way of an example.
The PCs get in fight with a bunch of orges.
When I envisaged the next section of the dungeon it was filled with more ogres.
Now I remove ogres and instead give the PCs somewhere to rest or even access to magical healing.

this is baised in favour of the PCs

Or

The players just mowed through the mafia gang I put in the foyer of the hotel. I wanted them weaker when they met the big bad or even to have bene captured so I insert another couple of rooms and increase the number of Mafia guys so I can get to the same end point.

this is baised agaisnt the PCs and is basically a railroad

Or

I have a really neat idea of a complex trap involving the party moving sand and warter between two large jars into order to open a door. the party don't open that door and instead head elsewhere but becuase I like the idea I just move it and drop the trap room behind the next door they open.

this is biased in favour of the GM running a scene they like. Again basically a railroad robbing players of agency.

Quote from: Adric;737418Could someone define what constitutes as bias in this context? And perhaps why it's bad?

In all honesty, it's only bad in so far as it either potentially negatively impacts play or makes the act of play one of deception.  And it would be good if it positively impacted play and people signed up for the deception.

Bias only makes sense as a negative in the context of a very particular approach to play.  One where a dangerous environment (traditionally a dungeon or wilderness locale but some times a dangerous situation in a social setting or city) is explored by the players using their characters as their point of view.

In this type of play one participant acts as a referee to adjucate the described actions.  The other participants describe what they do and the referee adjudicates the situation.

Bias becomes a problem in such a situation because it represents a departure from the agreed upon mode of play.  It makes the referee a liar.  Instead of taking the situation, taking the described actions of the players and using the system to produce results to see what happens, the referee is instead using their own desires to enforce what happens.

In terms of deception, it makes the situation itself non existent until it is engaged with.  It's like asking someone to solve a murder but who actually did the killing is determined only by looking for the killer.

There are very popular modes of play where none of this is an issue.  Where the GM is literally in charge of the story or plot or whatever.  I am not talking about those types of games.  Only about those games where a referee adjudicates the described actions of players as they explore a dangerous environment.

Improv skills are still very, very useful in that type of game, but instead of improvizing the core characteristics of the environment (the contents of a room, for example) you use improv to describe well and to respond flexibly to what the characters do.  Not by changing the environment or situation, but by improvising the results of actions, the reactions of characters and interpreting the results of the system you are using.

Quote from: Brander;737368You mention refereeing in a style close to that of wargaming but I started with this kind of thing with wargaming. We would make up our armies separately (with no limits on either side), then show up and work out a scenario that made sense of what showed up.  Once the scenario was set up, it was every bit the same as if we had done it the other way around (scenario, then army building).

And this is an excellent point of contrast to what I am talking about.  I'm talking about the branch of wargaming where a referee runs an event.  I'm talking about the branch of wargaming out of which RPGs were born.

For example, here's example of play text from Modern Warfare In Miniature by Michael Korns, 1966:

Quote from: MWIM, 1966Player: I’m picking up my sub-machine gun and my grenades and running over to the ditch beside the bridge. I want to keep looking for the Americans in the houses while I’m running.

Judge: There he is again! He just stuck his head around the corner of that white building about 30 meters in front of you. Here, he’s looking around again.

Player: Am I in the ditch now?

Judge: Yes, you’ve been here about 2 seconds now.

Player: All right, then I'm firing my Schmeisser at him in a long burst.

Judge: THERE IS A SUB-MACHINE GUN FIRING ON THE BOARD.

Judge: Your schmeisser is kicking chunks out of the edge of the building all around him... It is hard to say whether you hit him or whether he pulled his head back.

Judge: An M-1 HAS FIRED ON THE BOARD.

Judge: That rifle round hit you in the side. It knocked you a little farther into the ditch; you’re bleeding from the mouth too.

Judge: You can see who did it now. The American is on your left about 12 meters away running at you with his bayonet.

Player: Can I still move?

Judge: Yes, but you are almost unconscious.

Player: I’m turning around and firing the rest of my schmeisser’s clip into him.

Judge: THERE IS A SCHMEISSER FIRING ON THE BOARD.

Judge: He’s coming up fast. Your bullets are jerking around in an arc towards him as you turn. Seven meters, four meters, one meter. I’m afraid you’re dead.

As you can see, the ground work for RPG play was laid 8 years before the publication of D&D.  I don't think Korns new what he had in his book and I'm glad Arneson, Wesley and Gygax took their independently invented first examples of rpg-wargame hybrids where a player describes the actions of one character in a dangerous situation and ran with it :cheerleader:

I'm talking about this tradition of play.  Where a judge adjudicates the described actions of a character in a dangerous situation.

Hmm, we may have different ideas of what constitutes as player agency.

However the GM is making decisions, player agency is completely determined from the player's perspective.

I define player agency as the ability for players to make meaningful decisions based on information provided.

For this to work, the GM needs to portray a world or situation that is:

Internally consistent to everything that has been established.

Provides clues or details as to the consequences of a decision.

Reactions and consequences that follow through on the established details, clues and information.

However the GM comes to those decisions, or whatever reason the GM has for making them, if all the above conditions are met, then the players have not been robbed of agency.

Quote from: Adric;737426Hmm, we may have different ideas of what constitutes as player agency.

However the GM is making decisions, player agency is completely determined from the player's perspective.

I define player agency as the ability for players to make meaningful decisions based on information provided.

For this to work, the GM needs to portray a world or situation that is:

Internally consistent to everything that has been established.

Provides clues or details as to the consequences of a decision.

Reactions and consequences that follow through on the established details, clues and information.

However the GM comes to those decisions, or whatever reason the GM has for making them, if all the above conditions are met, then the players have not been robbed of agency.

For me its just about do their choices make a difference

I don't trust myself enough to "improv" the 'world in motion'.

It's great some here have mastered separating themselves from this concern.

I try to accomplish this by prepping much of the 'world in motion' well beforehand as I can.  Then I study it to try to erase as much of me from the 'world in motion' as I can.

Quote from: jibbajibba;737417Good clear examples E. Thanks

Whilst I haven't done much I count as Prep for scenarios I do sometimes have to write down rules. . So I produced a starship combat system and expalined what props we would need. My players well one of them with more cash than sense and no job build all the star ships parts based on my designs and I wrote up a set of ships for different starships and started to write out the rules. In the end I changed the rules last week when we playtested, because I had some much better ideas as we were laying out the game. I took some photos I might post them someplace on a thread. I actually think that the way we did it using galvanised steel sheets covered in felt as the base, magnets with extendable pointers, lego blocks for vector and speed, worked exceptionally well and I don't know anyone that makes a proper 3d space combat game that is nearly as 'clever' so maybe we should kickstart it
So I agree stuff is fun trouble is time to produce stuff can be consuming and the effort v benefit is tricky. I once make an astrolabe as a prop it was make from hardboard cut and painted to look like bronze. All the rings rotated and it was 3 feet across. I used it for 1 scene but it cost about 20 quid to make and took me about 40 hours all to demonstrate the Forthcoming Conjunction .... not really worth it

I really like your insurance form idea. I do newspapers as part of Murder Mystery Prep and have thought about porting that across as a start of the adventure thing, but stuff like diaries, a bundle of letters, these are great but take sooooo loong to so well I end up preferring to describe then so no need to prep.

I have covered stuff like maps and dungeon stocking etc already so no need to dwell on that.

I think there is a payoff in preparing material, and I think it works over a lot of dimensions

1) Creating props (like your spaceship and your astrolabe) engages the player's imaginations and interactions in ways verbal descriptions don't. It brings a different kind of energy to play.

2) Props like maps and write-ups save time during play. The insurance reports were a good way to list NPC names and roles and provide a bunch of setting information that would have been dead-air exposition in play. Same with a write-up on the world

3) I think that revision is a key element to delivering quality for most people. My second and third drafts of pretty much anything are usually much better than my first draft. They're also usually shorter and more concise.

RPG sessions don't allow for revision of what happens in play... but taking some time to think about the situation and NPCs and revising that two or three times makes -- for me -- a much more enjoyable play experience. I  can tell a big difference between a situation I've considered, re-considered, and noodled over and one I've just spitballed and thrown out there.

Obviously prep takes time, and effort and it's not for everyone -- and I don't always enjoy it -- but I find there is a noticeable payoff for me in the game, itself.

Cheers,
-E.

While I'm not actually quoting, please consider this a QFT on what Adric said.

Now on to my comments:

Quote from: jibbajibba;737435For me its just about do their choices make a difference

Of course their choices make a difference, even if I know things are going to happen A, B, C, D, Etc*, they are still choosing what characters to play, abilities to use, gear to carry, personalities to play, how they react to things, tactics to use at each point and plenty of other stuff I'm not mentioning.  At most you are moving an arbitrary line across a continuum of how much the player's decisions matter.  I've played games where I  got to build the gods of our species as well as the species and I've played games where I was lucky to decide if I was using a mace or axe, but both were my choice and had meaningful consequences.

If the players make a really cool choice (that I might not have thought of) or come up with a really cool idea, I don't have to throw out anything I've already got prepped, I can just go with that and the players get to experience a really cool result and the odds are they really don't care as long as they get to interact with cool stuff in the game.  As I see it the only difference is I didn't have to throw anything out OR not go with a cool idea because I had something else prepared.



*I almost NEVER do this, it's an example, not advice.  Ditto with my previous 3 doors one.  I'm not going to put in 3 identical doors unless something previous makes 3 identical doors a logical (and preferably cool) choice.  The players will know something that makes their choices meaningful, even if the exact details are still fuzzy (and if they are 10 sessions in, I and they might already know exactly what is behind each door).

Quote from: NathanIW;737421...
I'm talking about this tradition of play.  Where a judge adjudicates the described actions of a character in a dangerous situation.

What you are essentially describing goes back to at least Kriegsspiel (from 1812):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel_(wargame)

" Reiswitz' system also included the methods to simulate fog of war and communication difficulties, and a position of what he called a 'confidant', an impartial third party calculating and assessing the moves, analogous to the modern gamemaster."

Quote from: Brander;737519While I'm not actually quoting, please consider this a QFT on what Adric said.

Now on to my comments:



Of course their choices make a difference, even if I know things are going to happen A, B, C, D, Etc*, they are still choosing what characters to play, abilities to use, gear to carry, personalities to play, how they react to things, tactics to use at each point and plenty of other stuff I'm not mentioning.  At most you are moving an arbitrary line across a continuum of how much the player's decisions matter.  I've played games where I  got to build the gods of our species as well as the species and I've played games where I was lucky to decide if I was using a mace or axe, but both were my choice and had meaningful consequences.

If the players make a really cool choice (that I might not have thought of) or come up with a really cool idea, I don't have to throw out anything I've already got prepped, I can just go with that and the players get to experience a really cool result and the odds are they really don't care as long as they get to interact with cool stuff in the game.  As I see it the only difference is I didn't have to throw anything out OR not go with a cool idea because I had something else prepared.



*I almost NEVER do this, it's an example, not advice.  Ditto with my previous 3 doors one.  I'm not going to put in 3 identical doors unless something previous makes 3 identical doors a logical (and preferably cool) choice.  The players will know something that makes their choices meaningful, even if the exact details are still fuzzy (and if they are 10 sessions in, I and they might already know exactly what is behind each door).

Fine.

For me I found my improv games were turning into railroads becuase I wasn't making the clear mental split to provide genuine options to the PCs.

Now railroads are not always terrible despite the Sandbox is god schtick common of some fora.  I definitely think the next game I run for my current players will have a more pronounced plot arc as they have spent a year wandering freely round space with no limits besides the cost of travel.
But railroads were a thing I wanted to avoid if I could.  

So I have come up with a methodology that allows me the freedom to improvise whilst still maintaining a sandbox style environment. It works for me YEMV of course

Quote from: Brander;737530What you are essentially describing goes back to at least Kriegsspiel (from 1812):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel_(wargame)

" Reiswitz' system also included the methods to simulate fog of war and communication difficulties, and a position of what he called a 'confidant', an impartial third party calculating and assessing the moves, analogous to the modern gamemaster."

Absolutely.

I do appreciate all sorts of approaches to gaming.  I just currently really like this one.  I also think that a lot of players that show up to an RPG session actually expect it to be like this and don't think they've been invited to a secret improv night where only one person knows that.  

I think a lot of players would actually be disappointed if they found out just how improvised some games are and they actually want the straight up kriegsspiel adjudication approach.

You could try asking your players what they'd think if you had a murder mystery coming up in the game and who actually committed the crime wasn't set yet and the direction of play would determine who actually killed the victim.*  Then ask them if they'd want every fact you describe about the game world to be like that.

*I've actually ran that type of murder mystery without telling them in advance and it worked so, so well.  It ended up being the most believable and engaging who-dunnit in an RPG session ever.  When I told the players after the session that this is how I did it, well, you can guess their reaction.  I had just shit on their accomplishment.  They wanted an actual situation to explore and an actual mystery to solve.

So a private message from Sommerjon about this thread got me thinking about why exactly I held my previous position about nothing existing if it hasn't been established in play and why I had gone to pretty much 100% improv GMing.  I was totally flabbergasted at the idea that anything exists if it has not yet been established in play.  I'd say things like "How could anything exist that hasn't been established in play?"  And I ardently defended the idea that how the player's perspective can't get at this issue made how the GM does things irrelevant in play.

What was the cause of this thinking and approach?  Too much GMing and not enough playing.  When I started playing again and realized that the guy running it actually did have a situation he was running and an actually defined environment I was exploring, I had an "aha" moment about just what I was denying my players.