I'd say that those help, but aren't essential. If the world is ready-detailed, it helps in that you don't have to make up details as you go along. You and the players already have a common background that can be assumed.
The detail can also help inspiration when you run out of it. You're going from X to Y - what's in between? Look at a map.
For the sort of play that's very into relationships, then you're right about needing the strong NPCs and ties.
But, improvisational play doesn't *have* to be like that. It can also be very light-hearted. And alternating the two can be good.
Here's another example for you, from my Marshedge campaign. Sort of improvisational rail-roading...
We were due to have a game that night. I had a few ideas. Then I got a phone call mid-afternoon - it was Pete's birthday, Chris had been and bought a Cake in lunchtime, but all he could find was one shaped like a sheep. Could I please run the game such that at the end of the evening, Pete's character got handed a sheep?
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.
How they went about it, and to a large extent the problems they faced, were almost entirely generated by the players and their followers (and I've forgotten most of the details). I had other things to throw at them if it flagged (the other clan across whose borders the sheep had strayed, frex), but they weren't needed. The trollkin follower was great at climbing cliffs, but had to be persuaded to rescue the poor trapped sheep, not eat it. And so on... And yes, with a bit of help from the other players, it was indeed Pete's PC in whose arms the final sheep landed, lowered by rope from a nasty ledge. Cake was produced according to plan.
Details? One background myth.
NPCs? A flock of sheep.
I made up the terrain as I went along, in patches. We didn't need to
know *where* the cliff was. In fact they didn't know, they'd got lost by
that point.
What you do need, for this, is some detailed PCs and followers, who already know how the group interacts. And who can be relied upon to argue :)
Powered by hypermail