thread: 2011-09-08 : Trad vs Indie: FIGHT! pt2
On 2011-09-20, Vincent wrote:
No spot! I'm just curious, and I think it'll help me explain myself if I actually know what you're doing, instead of just going back and forth without establishing between us what "plan" even means.
Which, here I go: the functional alternative to planning outcomes is to plan situations and challenges, same as you do, but instead of making sure there's a solution, using a ruleset that guarantees the characters' ability to discover the bounds of and act effectively in the situation. You don't have to plan a satisfying outcome because the rules you're using guarantee you one. Even failure and loss, when the players have agency and their characters are reliably effective, is satisfying, because we all know that they really did do everything they could, I as GM didn't screw them out of a single opportunity, and this is just how it turns out sometimes.
Sometimes you're playing Bruce Willis in Die Hard, sometimes in 12 Monkeys, and nobody knows which until the end.
