Low-Prep/No-Prep Play
gsoylent:
"Progressing the plot" might not have been the best choice of words. I'll give it another go. My point relates to adventure in which the party have a goal, a stated objective like unmask the murder or ditch the ring in Mount Doom. In as far as the parameters relating to this problem have been set in advance, the party have an opportunity to make meaningful decisions on how to approach this problem. Some decision they make will be "good" in the sense that it brings them closer to their objective, some decision will be bad and take them further away from their goal.
If the adventure is mostly improvised (and the players are aware of this) what the players do and make the decisions they make does not actually bring them any closer or further from their objective which is why I think you need something else like Threat Tokens or InSpectres Franchise points to measure this progress.
Try imagine how InSpectres might play without Franchise Points? And what point do that investigators "solve" the mystery in that instance?
Anyway, as requested is: My position is that I am drawn to low-prep/no-prep I have found in many instances it makes for a more vivid game but I have not really figured out how to make it work properly for me because of the issue I illustrate above.
Lance D. Allen:
Alright, I begin to see your point. I'd actually forgotten about Franchise Dice. Considering my own low/no-prep game attempts, ReCoil has a sort of built in pacing mechanic; Oblivion points. Mage Blade definitely does. Rats in the Walls doesn't, really, but character burn-out is built into the game. My Life with Master has endgame mechanics built into it mechanically, too. It's looking like, to resolve your contention, we could say that low/no-prep games need some sort of mechanical pacing.
But what about Dogs in the Vineyard? It is a low-prep game, but I can't think of anything like a pacing mechanic. The town ends when the players decide what needs to be done, and do it. Sometimes, that means they have an epic showdown with the "sorcerer". Sometimes, they simply pass some judgments, give some orders, and that's it. Maybe it's different, because play centers almost purely on the player decisions. They decide when they're done.
What about other games like that? Low/No-Prep games where the players decide the "pacing"? Nothing mechanical, but not based on GM whim, either.
Callan S.:
I thought that was one of the main features of conflict resolution? That it is a pacing mechanic - there are only so many conflicts you can make up, unless you've started making them up for the sake of making them up so as to 'keep the game going 4eva!', you run out of conflicts, and thus have come to an end.
Lance D. Allen:
No.. Conflict resolution is just a different form of resolution. Instead of describing what you do and rolling dice to see if you succeed at your task, you decide what the conflict is actually about, and roll dice to see whether you win or lose that.
Task resolution: The idea is to get into the cave. The tasks involved may be talking your way past the guards, fighting them whatever. So you roll social skills, or you start up a fight, and you roll the blow-by-blow.
Conflict resolution: The idea is to get into the cave. You roll to see if you get into the cave. If you do, you narrate as appropriate. If you don't, you again narrate as appropriate.
Every game has conflicts, it's just a matter of how they're addressed by the mechanics. This doesn't really have anything to do with prep one way or the other, though.
Callan S.:
Be assured I had that definition in mind - and it has ramifications I'm trying to illustrate. In regard to prep and pacing, you asked 'What about dogs in the vineyard', and said players decide when their done. I would say that's incorrect, they do not decide when they are done. They don't decide how many conflicts there are, they find out how many there are - typically the details of these conflicts reflexively boil up from within their (the players) own hearts and minds, upon contact with the material/the SIS. When no more conflicts boil up, they are done - their hearts have emptied themselves, if I may speak poetically (I can switch to technical if needed).
There are only so many conflicts, the conflict mechanics resolve/use them up. You'll get to an end, once they run out. It's a pacing mechanic.
Okay, if you don't agree, then I'll leave it there just to note a suggestion that dogs hasn't slipped out of having a pacing mechanism, and whatever ramifications that has for low prep designs. So as its just a note, cool, roll on with the other participants posts :)
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