Re: The book says many things

From: parental_unit_2 <parental_unit_2_at_...>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 21:41:30 -0000

> So, I did 10 min prep. I found Nick's story about "Yinkin the
Shepherd". I decided that the background premise tonight was that someone else in the clan had been trying this myth as a practice HQ. Result - sheep all over the hills! You guys get to go and find them.

A couple of things:

  1. Your player characters are in a clan.
  2. They have some kind of relationship to the clan that would obligate to do some kind of annoying task like collecting sheep from the hills.
  3. The setting includes hills, cliffs, and ledges which the characters could plausibly have to climb.

This is what I meant by a "detailed" setting. Not all NPCS have to be individually detailed, but you had to have at least a collective NPC (the clan) and relationships to it that would set the agenda for the player characters.

You didn't have to pre-map out all the terrain, either, but you had to have decided approximately what it looked like so that you could plausibly generate terrain as you went -- the mental equivalent of the old random terrain generator in the D&D _Dungeon Master's Guide_. Also, if the characters are ever going to visit this area again, you might need to do some record-keeping work during the session and after to map out what they visited, and note at least the major features that might be a factor in future sessions (e.g. the big cliff).

I'm not saying that any of this is bad, but it represents additional work that you did before and after the session. There seems to be a trade-off between this kind of setting/character work and plot work. More detailed setting and characters means that each plot can be more sketchy, but conversely a more tightly-written (railroaded) plat enables you to avoid developing setting and character details that might never be used.

I think railroading has worked well for my group so far because:

(a) A couple of them are kids new to roleplaying, who so far have been reluctant even to suggest plot hooks or pursue their characters' goals, despite prompting on my part.

(b) Those kids also like to generate (and draw) new characters, which in turn can trigger a complete change of setting. They went from elves in the forest to pseudomedieval urbanites after about three sessions, so it's nice that I hadn't lovingly detailed that forest and its denizens.

However, I am curious to see how they'd respond to a less-railroaded plot, which is why I wanted some idea of what I'd be getting into.

Rob

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