Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479270Yes, but that point applies far beyond just unpopular viewpoints like Marxism...

I guess you don't work in academia, then?  

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479270Yes, but that point applies far beyond just unpopular viewpoints like Marxism. The romanticisation of medieval society is as much an expression of it as "Lenin of Kalamar".

That is true... very true actually. The romantic distortion of any period... the wild west, medieval Europe, the Roman Empire, medieval China, ancient Greece, etc are all expressions of it. I don't mind some of this distorting, IMO it makes these trappings more fun to game with, but otherwise I'm with Pundit. Like beejazz was saying in the evil orcs thread, and in this I agree with him, the game becomes more believable for me most of the time if some effort is made to either conform to what most of us understand about how humans behave, or reasonable justifications are given for why the behavior differs. Blue Rose is a Utopian caricature that completely ignores human nature in favor of a completely unrealistic ideal. I still like the setting, but only modified towards dark fantasy, which it actually is surprisingly well suited to run. I can buy Star Trek's utopian leanings, but for me Blue Rose went just a bit too far with it.

Huh, I wonder how Aldis would play using LotFP? Ditch the magic deer and touchy-feely crap from the Kingdom, make it a "normal" kingdom, and keep the Sorceror King and his society just the way it is. Make the religion more like how I've seen ya'all describe the church in 40k, but at the same time almost all that stands between the undead lords and the helpless common folk... nice. All that would be left is to get wierd with it The darker sides of Blue Rose would make some great dark fantasy gaming practically as is.

Quote from: S'mon;479276Yeah, I agree - and I know I personally should use more description at-table.

Me too brother. I am still learning as GM, and I know I could definitely practice more of this as well. I also know that too much get's silly , luckily I've had some great GMs run games for me over the years, even here on our pbp forum, and that has provided me some great examples to aspire to and learn from. Benny's pretty great at it in fact.

Quote from: Sigmund;479305That is true... very true actually. The romantic distortion of any period... the wild west, medieval Europe, the Roman Empire, medieval China, ancient Greece, etc are all expressions of it. I don't mind some of this distorting, IMO it makes these trappings more fun to game with, but otherwise I'm with Pundit. Like beejazz was saying in the evil orcs thread, and in this I agree with him, the game becomes more believable for me most of the time if some effort is made to either conform to what most of us understand about how humans behave, or reasonable justifications are given for why the behavior differs. Blue Rose is a Utopian caricature that completely ignores human nature in favor of a completely unrealistic ideal. I still like the setting, but only modified towards dark fantasy, which it actually is surprisingly well suited to run. I can buy Star Trek's utopian leanings, but for me Blue Rose went just a bit too far with it.

Huh, I wonder how Aldis would play using LotFP? Ditch the magic deer and touchy-feely crap from the Kingdom, make it a "normal" kingdom, and keep the Sorceror King and his society just the way it is. Make the religion more like how I've seen ya'all describe the church in 40k, but at the same time almost all that stands between the undead lords and the helpless common folk... nice. All that would be left is to get wierd with it The darker sides of Blue Rose would make some great dark fantasy gaming practically as is.

Keep the deer. Make it stern and unbending, willing to kill any "noble" it sees as transgressing its divine law. Make it choose nobles not just from humans, but from the animals as well, declaring them sacred beasts that frightened humans must placate.

Quote from: Sigmund;479305That is true... very true actually. The romantic distortion of any period... the wild west, medieval Europe, the Roman Empire, medieval China, ancient Greece, etc are all expressions of it. I don't mind some of this distorting, IMO it makes these trappings more fun to game with, but otherwise I'm with Pundit. Like beejazz was saying in the evil orcs thread, and in this I agree with him, the game becomes more believable for me most of the time if some effort is made to either conform to what most of us understand about how humans behave, or reasonable justifications are given for why the behavior differs.

The real meaning of "ideology" should help mediate that, IMHO. "Ideology" is not actually a stand-in for "philosophy" or "worldview" or "belief system" but specifically describes that part of a worldview that is value-laden and ideal but that its adherents treat as being factual or real. Understanding characters in fantasy settings as unconscious adherents of a worldview that ideological components allows one to maintain a dual consciousness of both the factual content of the world and how the PCs perceive and interact with it.

In game, this means that the only times I correct PC statements about the world - even if they are totally false - is if it is an obvious lapse in memory, or a misinterpretation based on a failure to hear or process some obvious, relevant piece of information. I've said before that I don't really care about the alignments of things, but I don't tell the PCs that, so they'll say things like
"They're a bunch of cannibal toadmen, of course they're evil as shit" and I just shrug my shoulders and list off that yes, the Bleeding Finger People are toadmen, and they do eat humans who wander into their territory.

Quote from: Benoist;478669I would get behind those two.

Generally, I'm annoyed when I get a feeling that the game world only exists in the PCs' immediate vicinity. A feel that it's a narrative device rather than a 'real' world that exists beyond the PCs' reach.

I like to not know everything about the world. I like to be surprised. I like to have NPCs tell me stories that turn out to be completely wrong or slanted. I like to have a feel of a "used universe" where people do stuff, places aren't pristine all the time, buildings and people have histories of their own you can find out if you want to, that kind of thing.

I find that a good GM can get away with a lot of on-the-fly stuff with new or newer PCs...But you;ve done this for a while, Ben.

Something rarely mentioned is that advanced or expert player, especially expert roleplayers, need a GM adept at not only running a game, but they need a deeper and more realized setting.  
All players are not created equal.  When running a quick one of a beer-and pretzels, I can create a lot on the fly.  When running a game with good players, I only use my main, well developed settings.

I'm typing on a cell right now. Got my perspective on that but I need a real keyboard to get into it. Will come back to your point Norm.

Quote from: LordVreeg;479363I find that a good GM can get away with a lot of on-the-fly stuff with new or newer PCs...But you;ve done this for a while, Ben.

Something rarely mentioned is that advanced or expert player, especially expert roleplayers, need a GM adept at not only running a game, but they need a deeper and more realized setting.  
All players are not created equal.  When running a quick one of a beer-and pretzels, I can create a lot on the fly.  When running a game with good players, I only use my main, well developed settings.

There's another dimension to this I alluded to somewhere else, but I can't find the original post. Anyway, I think there's a point when you describe your setting, addind elements and NPCs and drawing maps and sketches and all, after which the setting basically takes a life of its own in your imagination.

Ever notice how Tolkien describes Middle-earth as a real place, or when he talks about some point of lore talking about, not "I didn't design that" but "I haven't found out that this means yet", like the truth isn't dependant on him, but exists "out there" for him to find out like he is a visitor, not a demiurge. Or Monte Cook describing Ptolus as a place he just "knows" intimately as if he'd lived there in his introduction of the book? Same thing.

For some people, that'll come down really far down the rabbit hole, and they'll have to have an encyclopedic description of the world before that happens. Others will see that happen very early own, possibly with just a few broad strokes put down on paper. I guess there might be different types of settings that work differently for the very same people as well.

The point is, there's that critical tipping point when the setting exists in your imagination beyond the page's boundaries. Call it the "motion" point if you will where it starts "spinning on its own" if you will.

From there, in the game, when the PCs get off the trails and do something unexpected, you don't even need to actively "improvise" in the strictest sense of the term. You just "see" what's going on. It comes to you almost instinctively, as if you were seeing the PCs turn off the trail and through the bushes and you just see that there are three hills there. You GM didn't know that before, but they seemed to be there all along.

That's a point where improvisation and preparation, what's written on the page and what isn't, sort of blend into each other. It's cool.

Quote from: Benoist;479564There's another dimension to this I alluded to somewhere else, but I can't find the original post. Anyway, I think there's a point when you describe your setting, addind elements and NPCs and drawing maps and sketches and all, after which the setting basically takes a life of its own in your imagination.

Ever notice how Tolkien describes Middle-earth as a real place, or when he talks about some point of lore talking about, not "I didn't design that" but "I haven't found out that this means yet", like the truth isn't dependant on him, but exists "out there" for him to find out like he is a visitor, not a demiurge. Or Monte Cook describing Ptolus as a place he just "knows" intimately as if he'd lived there in his introduction of the book? Same thing.

For some people, that'll come down really far down the rabbit hole, and they'll have to have an encyclopedic description of the world before that happens. Others will see that happen very early own, possibly with just a few broad strokes put down on paper. I guess there might be different types of settings that work differently for the very same people as well.

The point is, there's that critical tipping point when the setting exists in your imagination beyond the page's boundaries. Call it the "motion" point if you will where it starts "spinning on its own" if you will.

From there, in the game, when the PCs get off the trails and do something unexpected, you don't even need to actively "improvise" in the strictest sense of the term. You just "see" what's going on. It comes to you almost instinctively, as if you were seeing the PCs turn off the trail and through the bushes and you just see that there are three hills there. You GM didn't know that before, but they seemed to be there all along.

That's a point where improvisation and preparation, what's written on the page and what isn't, sort of blend into each other. It's cool.

Well, to get more technical...

the more data and information you place and the deeper you go with the setting, the more you are using that data, consiously or subconsiously, to build on top of.

Like if the culture is a certain way in an area, or if you have some far-ranging guilds that you and the players might see in an area, even the weather patterns.

I remember rolling a bulette on an outdoor encounter for the group.  Followed by a wizard later the same day.  So the wizard, for no particular reason, was insane and chasing the bulette, which he called Bill.
The group was actually going to a place called the herb lands, looking for a certain Druid-type, who was actually out to double cross them.  The Druid was an ex-member of an older adventuring group that had broken up, but that had a serious hate for that particular group.

So the group got a little interested in the weird old wizard.  And then, out of complete bullshit luck a few games later, I roll up another (1% chance, mind you) bulette in the same area.  So of course, I have to make it Bill again, followed by the mad wizard.  It only makes sense.    So now, I change my Wanderer charts near the Tiche Plains and Igtiche, to add Bill the Bulette and the Mad Mage.  Since they are obviously around there, and becasue the players got a real kick out of them.

The group decides to talk to the mage some more, and he gets a little testy, since he is falling behind Bill.  But they offer him food, and his IS hungry.  But then they start questioning him about the Druid.  
And I get one of those brainstorms.
The Mad Mage was obviously, based on his age and power level, another member of that same old adventuring group that the Druid was in.  So I can now drop in all sorts of hints and fortshadowing about him, including hints to the druid's real name, which a few players know as a historical member of that old group.

So having stuff in place makes it easier, in my book, to hit that point where things start making logical interconnections...which make it look much more deep and 'in Motion' to the players.  Which is, as you said, cool.  Great to experience and to play.

I ad lib nearly everything, but I do it in a kind of an odd way.

Because I have GMed a lot of City games and from there gone on to Gm a lot of Modern day stuff and cyberpunk maps are pretty useless. Nothing spoils a chase through the backstreets quite as much as the GM breaking the mood every 3 minutes to check the map I really moved up a level from the map when plannign the game. When I started GMing Amber in the early 90s you really have to move up another level.

So I adlib at the macro-level while the players are rolling their PCs I am thinking about the backstory They wanted a game with some courtly intrigue but there was a feeling that a there should be a black /white good evil thing going on as well.So I ad-lib a kingdom with 3 brothers and the 2 younger are plotting but 1 is just ruthless whilst the other has opened a portal to a Greater Evil. The game will start in a second city where the youngest bother is very popular so the PCs will get very +ve reports but infact its the king the elder brother who is the real good guy thought the locals will have nothing but venom. One of the PCs is a wizard so I will add 2 wizardly brotherhoods that he can aspire to join. In reality both brotherhoods are good but a third are linked the as yet undecided big bad and recruit from those that fail to enter the other two. Oh and I want to set up some recuring opposition but I don't want them to be deadly so I decide that the King has a 'police force' the Royal Rangers.

So I ad lib all that stuff just like I did there in 10 minutes, while the PCs are rolling hit points or picking what colour of armour to wear, and the world kind of builds itself. Now it doesn't work for Dungeon crawls,  I have tried it and I am not satisfied, the reason is really because of the element that Ben points out where the players end up int eh same place whatever they do,  but it works for everything else and I challenge any player with any degree of experience to spot the joins. You just drop links and foreshadows to the big story. it doesn't actually matter if the big story hasn't really taken shape yet. The hints you drop become the plot and the players can help that process because you want them to uncover the PLOT so let them feed you.

Recently, one of our GM's ran Forgotten Realms.

Using Palladium Fantasy.

Anyways, all that's fine, but then he's like:

"In Daggerdale, the knights ride Chocobos."

Crickets, right?

I said hell with it.  I'll ride a giant chicken/ostrich...and it won't be the first time!!  Anyone remember Joust?


All that said, I think if they ever wanted to include Wraethu in the milieu I might have to say something about it exceeding my comfort zone.

Quote from: jibbajibba;479651the reason is really because of the element that Ben points out where the players end up int eh same place whatever they do,  but it works for everything else and I challenge any player with any degree of experience to spot the joins. You just drop links and foreshadows to the big story. it doesn't actually matter if the big story hasn't really taken shape yet. The hints you drop become the plot and the players can help that process because you want them to uncover the PLOT so let them feed you.

Schrödinger GMing, you mean, where whether you turn left or right you get the encounter with the brigands the GM prepared? I notice. And I don't like that. My choices do not matter, I am subjected to the same "plot" no matter what I do, so in the end, I might as well not subject myself to this long-dragging "storytelling" exercise and enjoy a good book or watch a movie instead.

Especially since its just lazy.  Its a simple enough solution to have two potential things "On offer", or a series of them.

RPGpundit

Quote from: Benoist;479743Schrödinger GMing, you mean, where whether you turn left or right you get the encounter with the brigands the GM prepared? I notice. And I don't like that. My choices do not matter, I am subjected to the same "plot" no matter what I do, so in the end, I might as well not subject myself to this long-dragging "storytelling" exercise and enjoy a good book or watch a movie instead.

This really gets to me as well. If a GM is going to do this kind of stuff at least let my choices have some impact on the railroad.

Quote from: Benoist;479743Schrödinger GMing, you mean, where whether you turn left or right you get the encounter with the brigands the GM prepared? I notice. And I don't like that. My choices do not matter, I am subjected to the same "plot" no matter what I do, so in the end, I might as well not subject myself to this long-dragging "storytelling" exercise and enjoy a good book or watch a movie instead.

You got to read the post mate. I said it doesn't work for dungeons. The day to day adventure you get has nothing to do with that plot I noted. The plot stuff is the background the stuff that makes the world 3d.

You do not hit the party with that brigand thing because you provide 2 options each time they make a decision and you reject the one they ignore. Its not hard you just have to have done this shit for years and we ahve all done that

So the PCs arrive at city you hit them with 3 hooks, a guy wants to hire a bunch of folks to guard his store after a series of attacks, a merchant is offering a reward for anyone that can recover a chest he lost in a caravan train to the SW and a local politician is looking to end some theives that are blackmailing him. Alternatively they can do whatever they want and then you come up with 2 or three other things that can happen. You file the other stuff away as the hints they got about it will be interesting as foreshadowing later. (when they join the thieves' guild and find out that someone is hunting and killing local thieves, or when a local politician is kicked out of power for dabbling in the black arts, or when they meet a local gang that are robbing local stores). The options are literally endless.

All that Plot or "long-dragging stroytelling" shit that you refer to is in the background. It is what makes a world feel real. I do the same thing when i actually build a world. Surely all GMs populate their worlds with actual events and NPCs and plots ? I just make em up on the fly. Now you might never have anything to do with any of it, hell you might sign on to a caravan train heading down to the Old City of Hass via the jungles and have a totally different adventure, that is fine, I will make up some more stuff and when you get back that king you heard about will be dead and his brother will be in charge. Or maybe you never come back and instead you marry a vampire queen and get to be king of some desert tribe. The world will feel all the more real for that because the world is in motion and the plots of this king or that brotherhood of wizards will proceed even if you have nothing to do with them.