Quote from: Old One Eye;736422How do you effectively manage all of this at the table?  When I used to detail a lot of things out, and then at the actual game PCs go to Podunkville where I have several paragraphs written months before, the game ground to a halt as I had to stop and read my scrawl.

Well, for one thing, why is it a "scrawl?"  I put my Podunkvilles onto my computer, and the printouts are in nice, large 12-pt Times New Roman.

I'm looking at a small village my group went through on a mountain trek last year.  It's got the village hall, the roadhouse, the hedge-wizard, the schoolhouse, the cobbler, the thatcher, the smith, three trappers, two hunters, a goatherder and a pigherder.  The whole thing runs only three pages, and the roadhouse is the only entry that runs more than two paragraphs.  Just having timed myself with a stopwatch, reading that entry -- which includes the NPC description for the innkeeper -- took me 34 seconds.

If reading a description for half a minute brings your gaming sessions to a screeching, fatal halt, that's a whole different problem!

Quote from: Ravenswing;736601Well, for one thing, why is it a "scrawl?"  I put my Podunkvilles onto my computer, and the printouts are in nice, large 12-pt Times New Roman.

I'm looking at a small village my group went through on a mountain trek last year.  It's got the village hall, the roadhouse, the hedge-wizard, the schoolhouse, the cobbler, the thatcher, the smith, three trappers, two hunters, a goatherder and a pigherder.  The whole thing runs only three pages, and the roadhouse is the only entry that runs more than two paragraphs.  Just having timed myself with a stopwatch, reading that entry -- which includes the NPC description for the innkeeper -- took me 34 seconds.

If reading a description for half a minute brings your gaming sessions to a screeching, fatal halt, that's a whole different problem!

Part and parcel with why I am asking, my organizational methods have historically been crap.  Getting some good ideas to digest.  Probably doesn't help that I am significantly slower reader.  

Having it printed out beforehand?  So you know where the PCs are going before game night, are printing things in the middle of gaming, or have a massive binder already?

I'm slowly coming about to utilizing technology rather than the old 3 ring binder.  Don't own a laptop and will never game in the same room as the tower, so the kindle is the only practical method for me.  Unfortunately all the DM apps I've looked at are either very buggy or too limited on utility.  If anyone knows of a good app, all ears.

Considering setting up a facebook page, pintrest, or learning how to make a wiki for my campaigns, just have not yet made that jump.

Quote from: Adric;736238Are you saying a game is only good if it lasts longer than 15 sessions? That seems like a weird value judgement to make about all games, players, and GMs.

Sorry, been traveling.
No, what I was saying is that the complexity is different.  We're talking like all games are roughly equal; but if you are worrying about one plotline vs 10, or relationships with 30 groups in 3 cities vs a shorter set up with the party knowing a few people in a single locale.

There is a complexity differential, not a enjoyment differential or any value judgment.  But since prep and complexity have a relationship, the more complex a game, the more prep will affect the quality of the game.

Quote from: LordVreeg;736628There is a complexity differential, not a enjoyment differential or any value judgment.  But since prep and complexity have a relationship, the more complex a game, the more prep will affect the quality of the game.

This sounds more like a record-keeping issue than a prep one.  I can end up with a thick folder full of notes after running a long-term campaign that I never spent a minute of prep on.  I ran an ~20 session game once that I didn't even know I was running until I showed up at the table.  I was unaware I had been invited to GM rather than play, I wasn't super happy about it, but I jumped right in nonetheless and we had fun.

Quote from: Brander;736675This sounds more like a record-keeping issue than a prep one.  I can end up with a thick folder full of notes after running a long-term campaign that I never spent a minute of prep on.  I ran an ~20 session game once that I didn't even know I was running until I showed up at the table.  I was unaware I had been invited to GM rather than play, I wasn't super happy about it, but I jumped right in nonetheless and we had fun.

I usually end up with alot of notes after a while as the area builds itself. Where towns are, names, terrain, etc if I am letting the place develop totally on the fly.

As for DMing unannounced. I feel your pain. This is a common thing for me.

"Hey Omega! We have visitors over we NEVER mentioned were coming over and we want you to run a 8-12 hour session tonight!" ooog. But Im awesome and can do that.

Quote from: Brander;736675This sounds more like a record-keeping issue than a prep one.  I can end up with a thick folder full of notes after running a long-term campaign that I never spent a minute of prep on.  I ran an ~20 session game once that I didn't even know I was running until I showed up at the table.  I was unaware I had been invited to GM rather than play, I wasn't super happy about it, but I jumped right in nonetheless and we had fun.

see, that's where i think the difference lies.  I'm glad you had fun, and made the right cost/benefit for yourself, but there is zero chance it was anywhere near as good a game as it could have been with some work put into it.  Record keeping is an important component, but it is an ingredient to a good game.

Please feel free to tell me that I'm not at your table and all the other usual things.  But I feel like games are like writing; short ones are part of a chapter, or a whole chapter, then a whole book, or even a series.  And prep is perfectly analogous to editing.  

Personal opinion.

Also sounds like record keeping to me. Complexity and prep do relate, but with good enough notes I've seen people simulate it right close.

For me the difference would be between a finished oil painting and a painting being sketched and finished in as you go. Considering players experience the setting a bit at a time, versus seeing it all at once, it's like then seeing either of those paintings through an uncovered index card sized piece at a time. If you sketch fast enough, and your paints dry fast enough, you *can* create an amazingly similar experience.

That said prep matters in campaign longevity, because that is where there is greater scrutiny. When you stare at the two long enough you can notice that detail and luminosity will differ. A piece layered in detail and imbued with NPC history and attitude, like a heavily glazed oil painting, will be noticeably more vibrant than those without as much prep attention.

It's an issue of time staring at the product looking for differences.

Quote from: Old One Eye;736617Having it printed out beforehand?  So you know where the PCs are going before game night, are printing things in the middle of gaming, or have a massive binder already?

I'm slowly coming about to utilizing technology rather than the old 3 ring binder.  Don't own a laptop and will never game in the same room as the tower, so the kindle is the only practical method for me.  Unfortunately all the DM apps I've looked at are either very buggy or too limited on utility.  If anyone knows of a good app, all ears.

Considering setting up a facebook page, pintrest, or learning how to make a wiki for my campaigns, just have not yet made that jump.

I have several massive binders already, two for the kingdom in which my lead party is based: one with the capital city (I've sketched out 1100 businesses), and the other with the kingdom itself.  Since I've got every significant city and town within a week's ride of the capital in the second binder, I'm pretty much covered.  I won't claim that didn't take a lot of prep work.

Beyond that, I've got several sheets to cover me: a document full of simple, generic information: the name of a business owner, his/her appearance if noteworthy, a handful of pertinent personality traits, how high the price/quality of the goods ... all without reference to what that business produces.  If the PCs just happen to pop in a weird direction and pop into a hamlet looking (say) for a farrier to fix a horseshoe?  Terrific: I pick the first one on the list and improv from there.  And now I know something about the farrier in Village X, for the next time a group comes through -- in that goes in the next update.  Move on down to the next name, if the party decides to pop into the hamlet's teensy tavern while they're waiting for the farrier to get done.

I do own an ancient laptop (it's about a dozen years old), but the configuration of my living room doesn't allow it without it getting in my way.  I'd use it otherwise, simply to handle WIP documents that I wasn't yet ready to print out, clipart, and having Wikipedia on speed dial.  :pundit:  

(That being said, perhaps you could pick up a used, ancient laptop for cheap on Craigslist or somesuch.  It's not that you need it to run high-end gaming software -- it's that you need it to run a word processor and a web browser.)

I do have a Yahoo group set up for my game, and it does allow me to do one gimmick.  All my players bring laptops (which, happily, they really do use solely for gaming aids), and I've had occasion to tell them that the key NPC's portrait, or the cliff face they're planning on scaling, is up in a certain spot in the photos section: just surf on over.

ravenswing, i ported everything over to the wiki a while back, it build on itself nicely.  And as you mentioned, it does not need a lot of power, just web access.   And w have 100% laptop/tablet compliance as well.

Quote from: LordVreeg;736717see, that's where i think the difference lies.  I'm glad you had fun, and made the right cost/benefit for yourself, but there is zero chance it was anywhere near as good a game as it could have been with some work put into it.  Record keeping is an important component, but it is an ingredient to a good game.

I think this would be a case of "perfect is the enemy of best", if I agreed with it.  Even if you believe that greater prep over improv can make for a better game, the fact is that most games won't even come close to their potential.  For me, the tradeoff is that all that prep time can be spent playing (or doing something else).  While I don't believe for a second that it's true, if the maximum improv can give me is say 98% of it's potential or even 90%, then it's more than enough when the vast majority of games are probably lucky to hit 80% of their potential.  I generally give my all when I run games, but even that will at times fall short or even just be a mismatch with other people's style.

Quote from: LordVreeg;736717Please feel free to tell me that I'm not at your table and all the other usual things.  But I feel like games are like writing; short ones are part of a chapter, or a whole chapter, then a whole book, or even a series.  And prep is perfectly analogous to editing.

While I think games have almost nothing to do with writing, think of improv as discovery writing.  Some authors outline, other's discovery write, most probably do a bit of both.  Under this analogy, I'm in the discovery writing side of things trying to show the outliners that what works for them doesn't work for me.

Quote from: LordVreeg;736717Personal opinion.

Ditto , until and unless we can figure out some objective way to measure aesthetics of this kind (i.e. never).  After all, I'm sure most of us have played games where some people had a blast and others hated it.

Here's an interesting question: Do you use different levels of prep for your online games than you do you in person games? How about the difference between play by post and more 'live' games like roll20, Google hangouts, or IRC?

Another thing I'm interested in is how many of you use online resources like obsidian portal and the like to not only store information but organize games?

Quote from: Opaopajr;736444I must give you props, jibbajabba, that is impressive to do at a professional level and with a far larger audience.

Reminds me of reading the how on sleight of hand tricks and listening to incredulous people trying to puzzle it out. You could explain it in all its simplicity only to have people insist it cannot be so simple and effective. But then reading up on magic tricks there's those with a lot of prep work, too.

So, what's your favorite brainstorm tactic? Your favorite content generator and or selector? And your favorite delaying tactic to mask behind? Either at table or MM will do, as I assume there'll be usable overlap.

I find brainstorming is one of those things I have to slip into the zone. Music, art, inner NPC dialogue, mimic NPC personality to get in the head, that type of stuff. I love dice equations and tables to generate % and select. Masking is hard, but I found acting out NPC bickering dialogue gives me cover with mental space to brainstorm oddly enough. Must be my inner cattiness as a second nature trait...

I don't really brainstorm like that. I think we are always absorbing stuff. the story is the thing you are after, and i don't mean in a Forgist way I mean if I watch a cartoon with my daughter I can see 3 or 4 things that I think hey that would be cool to port into a game and I just file em away. there is so much tv so many books so many comics so many stories in the news that I have more ideas in my "file" than I will ever use.
Art has always been critically important to me as well. My dad was an artist, my cousin is an artist, my sister is an artist. I just grew up surrounded by it. A picture like this -
http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110127152231/fallout/images/b/b7/NCR_Ranger_concept4.jpg
can inspire me to a campaign idea in zero time. My brain just extrapolates the culture, background, setting that this guy would come from and generates its own setting. Now I found that picture by typing ranger into google and scanning the thumbnails for one that was cool I looked at it for about 15 seconds and I could run a game about the setting this guy comes from now this moment with no prep (apparently its from fallout but I haven't played that and have no idea what its like so I doubt it would have much influence).

In an actual game all I care about really are NPCs. I really believe if you have great,living breathing NPCs you have the game nailed. For that you just project into the NPCs find their voice (quite literally as the voice gives you an insight into the character) and you are done and at that point I knwo everything about he character. reading helps with that reading gives you insight into what other people thing about character so is essential. Its liek when you area kid you read surveys in your sisters girl magazines about relationships and stuff, not because the articles are any good but because girls read them and so are conditioned to expect the proffered behaviours in certain ways. In NOC terms this gives you access to small nuances of character than people that read books think are indicative of certain personality types its like a shorthand.

Edit : sorry picture too big so I converted it to a link

Quote from: LordVreeg;736717see, that's where I think the difference lies.  I'm glad you had fun, and made the right cost/benefit for yourself, but there is zero chance it was anywhere near as good a game as it could have been with some work put into it.  Record keeping is an important component, but it is an ingredient to a good game.

Please feel free to tell me that I'm not at your table and all the other usual things.  But I feel like games are like writing; short ones are part of a chapter, or a whole chapter, then a whole book, or even a series.  And prep is perfectly analogous to editing.  

Personal opinion.

I agree.

Quote from: jibbajibba;736774In an actual game all I care about really are NPCs. I really believe if you have great,living breathing NPCs you have the game nailed. For that you just project into the NPCs find their voice (quite literally as the voice gives you an insight into the character) and you are done and at that point I know everything about he character. reading helps with that reading gives you insight into what other people thing about character so is essential. Its like when you are a kid you read surveys in your sisters girl magazines about relationships and stuff, not because the articles are any good but because girls read them and so are conditioned to expect the proffered behaviors in certain ways. In NOC terms this gives you access to small nuances of character than people that read books think are indicative of certain personality types its like a shorthand.

I think this is where we differ.  While I love me some good NPCs not everyone I game(d) with hang their gaming orgasms on NPCs.

Quote from: Brander;736760I think this would be a case of "perfect is the enemy of best", if I agreed with it.  Even if you believe that greater prep over improv can make for a better game, the fact is that most games won't even come close to their potential.  For me, the tradeoff is that all that prep time can be spent playing (or doing something else).  While I don't believe for a second that it's true, if the maximum improv can give me is say 98% of it's potential or even 90%, then it's more than enough when the vast majority of games are probably lucky to hit 80% of their potential.  I generally give my all when I run games, but even that will at times fall short or even just be a mismatch with other people's style.


While I think games have almost nothing to do with writing, think of improv as discovery writing.  Some authors outline, other's discovery write, most probably do a bit of both.  Under this analogy, I'm in the discovery writing side of things trying to show the outliners that what works for them doesn't work for me.


Ditto , until and unless we can figure out some objective way to measure aesthetics of this kind (i.e. never).  After all, I'm sure most of us have played games where some people had a blast and others hated it.

I also see I'm doing something wrong in terms of making a better explanation.  Prep is not mutually exclusive in any way to Improv.  Your comment above, "Prep over improv', makes it clear to me that you are hearing that come out in my comments, so I am being unclear.

I assume that a normal GM does a ton of improvisation in a game, no matter how much prep they have done.  It's a skill you have to have to be a GM, a core skill.  And players never go the way you think.

So my position is that all GMs have to improvise constantly; Prep is a choice that improves the performance/product.  And depending on the type of the game and depth of the game, it can improve it a lot or a very small amount.

Quote from: LordVreeg;736823I also see I'm doing something wrong in terms of making a better explanation.  Prep is not mutually exclusive in any way to Improv.  Your comment above, "Prep over improv', makes it clear to me that you are hearing that come out in my comments, so I am being unclear.

If it helps, I'm pretty sure I understood you the first time.  Maybe it would be better to phrase it "Amount of work done on game elements before players show up."  To me at least, the majority of disagreement is whether this impacts the resulting game much, if at all.  Which leads to:

Quote from: LordVreeg;736823I assume that a normal GM does a ton of improvisation in a game, no matter how much prep they have done.  It's a skill you have to have to be a GM, a core skill.  And players never go the way you think.

Like you, I'm still expecting most GMs to improv to varying degrees once the players hit the table.  I think for the sake of this discussion we have to hold all other variables (GM quality, players, environment, equipment, etc.) constant.  I hope we agree that a problem player or a poor GM can have a greater impact than whether the GM preps the game beforehand or not.  

Quote from: LordVreeg;736823So my position is that all GMs have to improvise constantly; Prep is a choice that improves the performance/product.  And depending on the type of the game and depth of the game, it can improve it a lot or a very small amount.

And my position is that this is clearly untrue and a position of opinion and aesthetics (and mostly a non-issue at the actual table where so many other variables can swing the game one way or another).