Quote from: Necrozius;935014My last D&D campaign went very well because I ended each session with a full discussion about what the PCs/Players wanted to do next. What was their next move? Where did they want to explore?

Same here, especially considering how many options are on the table in the latest campaign. Of course, they SAY they want to go check out the tower in the swamp, but then, in session, there they are, having brunch with a local cloth merchant and discussing ancient curses with a Mage's guild member.:-)

QuoteWhy is ok to generate a Wizard's Tower from one's imagination on the fly, to plop it right down in front of the players when they inquire what is on the road north of town...

And Yet is isn't ok to take the tower from its originally planned location south of town and move it north when the unaware players ask the same question?

Per your own disclaimers, this isn't a thread about whether that's ok or not, so to answer for myself:

It is fine if your game setting is so far so undefined in the details you invent that inventing a tower really has no effect on what's been established in play yet. If the location of a pre-planned tower has really had no effect at all, and the new location also really has no effect, it's also ok to move it.

However, when I GM a long-term campaign, I tend to have most major landmarks already mapped long ago, and I've been thinking about and developing the world with the map very much in mind, and influencing what exists and who did/does what and where things are and aren't and so on, for a long time. So if it's a significant wizard's tower which would have effects (not just some hedge wizard's house), then it will have already had various effects on my thinking about the world and map and events and stuff, so it would probably be pretty weird to move it.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;934971That's definitely a major factor in the way I run things. The players don't always know what's behind the curtain, but I think that presenting them with decisions that matter  makes the game world seem more real to them. It gives them a sense of agency. In my games, I think they mostly sense this through decisions that don't work out.

I agree. You can see it when a character dies. It sucks to lose a character, but it also reinforces that the choices are relevant.
Failure must be an option, even if it's little failures all the way up to world destroying failures. Commensurate with stakes, of course.

Another thing to consider...we are talking about a Wizard's Tower.  Sheelba's Hut appears where and when Sheelba wants it to.

If you want the freedom to have players run into the Red Mask Bandits whenever you feel like it, make the Red Mask Bandits a large enough organization that they could cover all the entrances/exits of a city.
If you want the freedom to move the Wizard's Tower, make the Wizard's Tower actually movable.

Give your cheating narrative fuckery a legitimate in-setting explanation, then it ceases to be cheating narrative fuckery.

Yes but I expressly stated this comparison is to 0 prep gms, who don't approach their game the way you describe.

Oops replying to Skarg above.

1. I never discuss where something was planned or improvised.
2. I act (outside of GMing) like a passive observer when asked questions about the adventure. Like "I know right? That Ankeg was horrible!".
3. My players will never know they are on a railroad or an improv, except that I explicitly state that my world reacts to the character's choices. I could be lying. But I don't admit it. (I'm not lying).
4. I improv all plots, random encounters, locales, NPCs and the like. My prep consists of reading, creating snippets that I can draw from when needed, and outlining outcomes from the world as I imagine it spins outside the character's perceptions.
5. I can invent things whole-cloth at a moments notice. I learned this from practicing.

Personally, when I'm playing, I hate railroads. I loathe pre-made adventures. I find them boring and predictable. I hate it when NPCs take the cake. I hate it when the GM inserts give-me's to lessen the effects of any hardships or bad choices I made.

Therefore, I do not run my games that way. I'm perfectly happy when someone doesn't dig my game. Just like when I worked at Red Robin, I didn't get miffed at someone who preferred Skippers for Fish & Chips.

I pick up adventures to STEAL from. I add the snippets to my repository for handy on-the-fly needs.

I am firmly in the Improv camp and think railroaders suck. I would never think of forcing anyone to play a way they don't want to, but If I had to "pick a team" I would want to be the captain of the Improvers.

Basically it depends on if your world runs on an attempt to model physics or an attempt to model narrative logic. If you want to run a game that runs on narrative logic use some game like FATE or a hundred other games in that vein in which the narrative logic is built into the rules. Having rules that aren't really built for narrative logic and then trying ti run a game that us based on dramatic logic by shoehorning it in with a bunch of DM fiat just seems like a miss-match to me.

If I was running D&D then I wouldn't lift a hand to make sure that the PCs faced the vampire at night. If I was running FATE I'd be tagging aspects left and right to make sure there was a climactic confrontation ar night.

As a genera rule if you find yourself tweaking stuff and overruling the rules a lot then you're probably using the wrong rules.

Quote from: rgrove0172;934923Now, another GM does the exact same thing...BUT...BUT...BUT - he originally had something else in mind and based on the players actions and his own perceptions etc.... decided something else would be more fun, cool, entertaining, fair or whatever. So he changed it.

To my style of DMing, the problem largely lies on the DM making in-game decisions on the basis of "fun", regardless of whether improv or preplanning.  

I do lots of improv DMing, and I may very well create a wizard's tower on the fly.  But it is never because I am trying to bring the "fun".  Improv works for me by placing a wizard's tower in that location because it makes sense in the milieu for one to be there.  A player in my game could be thinking to themselves that it flows from what they have discovered about how the milieu works.

We're I to try to be "fun", then logical extrapolations could not be used by my players in their in-game decisions to as great an extent.  Because they would have come across plenty of things that didn't really make sense, those things were there simply to be "fun".

Biggest mistake in DMing, I say, is to think that the DM's role is to make the players have a "fun" time.  No.  The DM's role is to set up a milieu where the players themselves can create the "fun".  Somewhat subtle of a distinction, but crucial distinctions often are.

I think your point is made but, and no offense meant, how is it relative to my question? The difference between 0 prep and railroading us you like one and not the other?

Well said. That last observation and declaration is profound.

Quote from: Old One Eye;935116To my style of DMing, the problem largely lies on the DM making in-game decisions on the basis of "fun", regardless of whether improv or preplanning.  

I do lots of improv DMing, and I may very well create a wizard's tower on the fly.  But it is never because I am trying to bring the "fun".  Improv works for me by placing a wizard's tower in that location because it makes sense in the milieu for one to be there.  A player in my game could be thinking to themselves that it flows from what they have discovered about how the milieu works.

We're I to try to be "fun", then logical extrapolations could not be used by my players in their in-game decisions to as great an extent.  Because they would have come across plenty of things that didn't really make sense, those things were there simply to be "fun".

Biggest mistake in DMing, I say, is to think that the DM's role is to make the players have a "fun" time.  No.  The DM's role is to set up a milieu where the players themselves can create the "fun".  Somewhat subtle of a distinction, but crucial distinctions often are.

Subtle? The line is invisible. I mean, if you're providing them the vehicle for fun, you're sort of, you know, bringing the fun in there a little bit. I mean 6 of one...

Quote from: cranebump;935120Subtle? The line is invisible. I mean, if you're providing them the vehicle for fun, you're sort of, you know, bringing the fun in there a little bit. I mean 6 of one...

You do not see a distinction between a DM thinking, "Hmmm...players went north...I think a wizard tower would be fun."

And

"Hmmm...players went north...what makes sense to be there...I have already established that wizard's are outcasts who do not live in town in this milieu...road north goes toward barren wilderness...makes sense a wizard would have built a tower in the general area."

Now repeat that process for every single decision the DM makes over the course of a campaign.  

The former rewards players for guessing from the basis of "what does my DM find fun".

The latter rewards players for guessing from the basis of "what do I know about the milieu".

In the singular instance, I agree to there being virtually no distinction.  Over the course of a campaign is where fruits are born.  (I only run open-ended campaigns, never one shots or closed-ended.)

Quote from: rgrove0172;935117I think your point is made but, and no offense meant, how is it relative to my question? The difference between 0 prep and railroading us you like one and not the other?

An improv DM who makes a decision in their milieu because it would be "fun" leads to a very similar place to a heavily prepped railroading DM who moves the tower because it would be "fun".

Quote from: rgrove0172;934923Why is ok to generate a Wizard's Tower from one's imagination on the fly, to plop it right down in front of the players when they inquire what is on the road north of town...

And Yet is isn't ok to take the tower from its originally planned location south of town and move it north when the unaware players ask the same question?

We've bounced this around our group in almost comical fashion for a couple months, it comes up during play now (which is really annoying... did you make that up just now or alter it?)

Im curious to hear some of your opinions.

I think that approach is perfectly fine - and indeed how I expect many sandbox/improv GMs would run their games. Until the "adventure site" is in play, it doesnt exist.

Quote from: Necrozius;935014My last D&D campaign went very well because I ended each session with a full discussion about what the PCs/Players wanted to do next. What was their next move? Where did they want to explore?

Once a unanimous decision had been made, the understand at the table was that I would prepare the next session based on the players' intentions.

Other than that, I typically just used random tables when I had to make something up on the spot or fed off the players' expectations and imaginations. Sometimes it is hard to dodge a few curve balls (I'm looking at you, Flight spell guy or the dude who routinely murdered key NPCs out of nowhere).

I think this is a really great and pragmatic approach, that should keep everyone happy