The two major styles that jump out to me are similar. Some refs (GS included, from what I've heard) act very much as the writer of the story. If you show up at your Pavis game and the ref announces "having heard rumor of a great treasure to be found in the Slave Cities of Fonrit, you have taken ship across the Homeward Ocean. On the 23rd day at sea you...." then you have a ref who's intent on telling his story. (Yes that was an extreme example.)
The other style of ref presents a world for the characters to entangle themselves in. This is what I try to do. I've described it to my players thus: You stand on an rolling field. The field is covered with holes; some large, some small, some obvious, some hidden, some quiet, some roaring or smoking. Some collapse in on themselves, others grow every day. If you just stand still, one of those holes will swallow you. If you move, you may fall into a hole you don't see. But you can at least TRY to pick the hole that you want to stick your head into.
The holes are situations in the world.
Thus, at the start of the game, the players were all presented with problems to overcome, but I had no idea if they would address them, or decide to skip town and escape them. Thereby running into another hole.
(snip)
>IME, if i can make the players feel that the PCs partake in a world that exists independent of them and their ambitions, then i usually have a successful campaign.
Hear hear! My upcoming Rass family caravan to the war-torn Dundealos tribe in Earth Season 1618 will drive that point home, I hope. (That's a hole they saw from a distance and decided to travel to.)
Mike Dawson
http://herowars.onestop.net
Powered by hypermail