GMs -- Don't we all want to roll our own?

[Bending Arms]

I feel so lazy compared to most here. When I GM, get the ideal of a place and make the rest up as I play. The ideal consist adventure set in some genre and as the player like the game I move where they want. I just write down Npc names and what they are doing in game. I do let ideas from books, comics, games, life, and TV filter themselves into the game. I do admit that the private throne room is my ideal chamber.

[sgtcallistan]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

Umm, should we consider pre-gen settings a resource for GMing-with-training-wheels?

On a personal note, we are just about to achieve five GM's out of five players in my gaming group. We ALL consider the solo creative aspect of setting part of the enjoyment. THEN we get to enjoy watching our friends trash it, take it apart, kill the carefully crafted NPC etc.

A metaphor could be buying a chainstore junk food meal, as opposed to cooking for yourself and friends. I'm being judgemental, aren't I...

Pre-gens could reach the level of Japanese 'table-talk' games, where (reputedly) the game is scripted. Apparently these things exist for the 'training-wheel' reason.

These could be fun for a change, too. Tho' I don't think my group would wear it...

The risk of the players trashing your carefully-constructed world and plot is irrelavent to someone having fun, and vital to prevent for 'controllers'.

Anyway; I certainly find the consensual creations more satisfying.

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by sgtcallistan

The risk of the players trashing your carefully-constructed world and plot is irrelavent to someone having fun, and vital to prevent for 'controllers'.

For me roleplaying is a cinematic journey. IMHO, the task of GM's is to try to set up interesting circumstances, settings, and NPCs with which to interact, and to cope with the chaos which ensues when you let players lose in it all. Not deal with, just cope. If the players are having fun running an orphanage, an inn, or a brothel, rather than dealing with the Big Bad, heck that is the campaign you have, rather than the soul-less scripted sketch plan you might have come up with weeks or months earlier.

The real question is "do the players enjoy playing in the setting?" If the answer is yes, then it is mission successful. If it is enjoyable for the GM, he or she might do it again some time. Like next week...

[capnq]

Originally Posted by balzacq

This comes from a thread in the GURPS forum, about the supposed lack of fantasy settings for GURPS:
See, I still just don't get this sentiment. To me, it sounds like saying "I'm creative enough to make up characters, dialog, situations, and trivial world details, but I must slavishly follow someone else's creative vision when it comes to the big picture."

[...]

Yes, to "write or adapt [my] own" is an effort, but it's the fun kind of effort that doesn't feel like "work".

[...]

Is it really the case that most GMs prefer not to create their own settings? Are most GMs merely consumers of world product who then "resell" to their players?

You're not considering one element of the equation: available time. Some GMs would love to create their own worlds, but would have to give up actually playing the game to squeeze it into their schedules.

I have very little face-to-face contact with my friends, mainly because they are too busy with their careers, spouses, and families.

[balzacq]

Originally Posted by capnq

You're not considering one element of the equation: available time. Some GMs would love to create their own worlds, but would have to give up actually playing the game to squeeze it into their schedules.

Hm. Perhaps that's because at this point for me, "world creation" is something that's mostly going on continuously in the back of my head*. What I guess most would consider world creation -- making maps, detailing nations, etc. -- either gets done bit by bit during downtimes or takes the form of improvised elaborated versions of cocktail-napkin notes (presently kept in a wiki on my webhost), so it's not very time-consuming. Actual game prep is usually an hour or two at most of making notes for the upcoming session, done the afternoon or night before the game.


* Recent example: the History Channel show "How the Earth Was Made" had a bit on the geology of the Matterhorn. In a capsule description of the capital city of the planet Mackay in my space game, I noted there was a horn-like peak at the head of the valley which is considered semi-sacred. The show got me to thinking about what could have formed it, which got me thinking about the general geology of Mackay, and so on and so forth.

[sgtcallistan]

Originally Posted by balzacq

Hm. Perhaps that's because at this point for me, "world creation" is something that's mostly going on continuously in the back of my head*. What I guess most would consider world creation -- making maps, detailing nations, etc. -- either gets done bit by bit during downtimes or takes the form of improvised elaborated versions of cocktail-napkin notes (presently kept in a wiki on my webhost), so it's not very time-consuming. Actual game prep is usually an hour or two at most of making notes for the upcoming session, done the afternoon or night before the game.
snip

There it is. That's what happens when I write game scenarios (except without the wiki).

I find the threads that go on about how much work is needed to have a functioning world, or how to rigidly stat a Jedi mind-trick for a rules lawyer, or how to convert the monster manual, to be irrelavent.

Let the idea bubble; let events, TV, music etc. spark ideas.
Write down simple aide memoires only: who, what, when, where, why.
Mix McGuffins and unalterable world events. Relax.
Prep is to re-load this stuff jus before a game.

-and then be prepared to wing it all anyway, and to change everything.

[Parody]

Originally Posted by capnq

You're not considering one element of the equation: available time. Some GMs would love to create their own worlds, but would have to give up actually playing the game to squeeze it into their schedules.

Definitely. Back in the day I made up worlds for campaigns in my much more ample spare time. In recent years I wouldn't have GMed or even played anything without prefab settings and/or adventures. Time is a huge factor.

Also, I don't think I was ever into it as much as the OP seems to be. :)

[pawsplay]

I believe that there is no point in re-inventing the wheel. All the work I don't have to sink into world-building is energy I can be using to create characters, situations, stories, and such. If there is no world that suits my needs, I create one, but if there is, I'm happy to use it. I enjoy, also, experiencing other people's ideas.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by balzacq

Is it really the case that most GMs prefer not to create their own settings? Are most GMs merely consumers of world product who then "resell" to their players?[/SIZE]

I'm neutral on this question.

I've run campaigns in Glorantha, the interstellar world of 2300 A.D., the solar system of Space 1889, the Hong Kong of the World of Darkness, Transhuman Space, the world of In Nomine, and the Pearl Bright Ocean from GURPS Cabal—all settings created by game writers that had enough texture to strike me as worth exploring. I've run campaigns in the Uplift universe, the world of the Rick Brant YA series, the DC Universe, the world of Atlas Shrugged, Zimiamvia, Middle-Earth, the Buffyverse, and the Discworld. And I've run a dozen or so campaigns in worlds that were entirely my own invention. I have no problem with making my own, but if someone else's playground has enough rides to give my players a good time, I have no problem with using it instead.

Bill Stoddard

[ammocase]

I actually just recently quit World Of Darkness, I dont agree with how Werewolves are portrayed there, and I just dont want to play in that companies vision of their world. First thing I thought was GURPS, and making my own setting. Another thing I cant stand, if you dont buy all of the settings materials, you can contradict the whole setting, so when you do pick something else up, your like... "oh, great".

Theres always something wrong in some setting that I dont like, and to me, if I change one thing, I might as well change it all, or create my own.

Creating gameworlds is a big part of the fun of being a GM, I wouldnt want to keep paying someone to do what I would do for free and personaly enjoy.

I started with gurps 3ed, so its hard to try to play something else when I read their settings. Its like reading a competeting GMs ideas, and I tend to critize it as so.

I do buy world settings from gurps though, they usually have ideas on how to change things to your likings, and I do need some worldbooks to get ideas and learn to write my own when it comes to structure, timeline, and other important factors for creating a setting.