thread: 2011-09-08 : Trad vs Indie: FIGHT! pt2
On 2011-10-11, stefoid wrote:
Hi. Ill throw in some personal experience from someone who is a recent convert.
I converted to 'dont plan' because I have a shit list a mile long of things I hated as a player about a lot of the games I have played in and the GM 'not planning' seemed to address most of them.
CC, I totally get the 'and then magic happens' part of 'dont plan and play to see what happens'. My analogy is advice that says 'to make great wine, select good grapes and process them well'. yeah, OK, thanks, but how?!?!
Im designing my own game with a strong structure to support a noob 'dont plan' GM like myself, and also support noob 'dont get planned' players. (which amounts to having characters that are strongly self-motivated, and a game structure that encourages and supports their right to be self-motivated.
So the main part of my design that supports that is that players set explicit long term and short term goals for their characters, and no formal conflict res mechanics kick in unless a character(s) is close to achieving a goal. In between those times, the GMs focus is purely on what complications and consequences follow on from character decisions. So the players have a fair bit of control over the pace and direction of the story by what goals they set, and how hard they go for them.
