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View Full Version : Tailoring/Planning vs Minimalism



Pleh
2018-04-09, 05:39 AM
Branching off from a tangential line of reasoning from this other thread here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?555391-OPINION-Every-party-needs-a-healer) (don't worry, it's not too long of a read and most of this topic comes up on page 2).

The conversation seems to be boiling down to, "how much planning is too much planning?"

But much more than that, it's been circling around the practice of actually Tailoring games to the PCs (e.g. setting skill checks to be intentionally on the range of DCs the PCs are known to be capable of with reasonable checks).

I don't know much of a way of summing it up better, since I'm not wanting to unintentionally misrepresent other peoples' arguments, so go ahead and read the other thread real quick if you're up for it.

Without any further ado, I'll pick up right where I left off.

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Create flexible content, achieve better results.

Irrelevant to the question of tailoring. You can tailor flexible content or create untailored flexible content.

Also irrelevant to the discussion of how much effort goes into the making of content. You can do a lot of work to create flexible content, or shoot from the hip at every turn (I'm not implying a binary set of choices, but two ends of a spectrum).

I've done it both ways. Shooting from the hip works just fine, but (over the course of several hours of gameplay in a single session) it can get pretty tiring constantly creating content while running a game.

Your assertion that creating a large amount of content doesn't prevent the plans from all turning out to be totally irrelevant to the actual play experience. That's the point where you either A) start shooting from the hip anyway, B) request a recess to plan for the new plot direction, or C) request participationism to get back into the prepared content. None of these choices are intrinsically better or worse than the other, just different flavors that different groups of individuals might prefer over the others.


I agree that not-tailored doesn't mean minimalist and flexible. Doesn't mean not-tailored, minimalist and flexible doesn't provide better result for less work.

You are correct that my argument doesn't preclude that possibility, but you have yet to establish beyond fiat claims that "not-tailored, minimalist and flexible [plans] provide better result for less work."

Claims made without evidence may be dismissed without evidence.


The book takes the fun of creation into account. Might be fun, but certainly not cost-effective and maybe detrimental.

Minimalism can also be detrimental. Choosing to shoot from the hip and create all content on the fly is the optimal minimalist route and the ultimate in flexible expression, but it may be TOO LITTLE preparation for some games. I've found that games where I shoot from the hip are fine for one-offs and short lived campaigns, but ultimately fail to satisfy players after about 4 or so months of an ongoing campaign.

We can't simply jump from "might be detrimental" to "best not to employ this practice" because most DMing tools can be described that way. But if you don't start using the tools, nothing ever really gets done.

With ANY of the Tools of DMing, you'll gradually build up experience at using the tools and learn how to dodge the common pitfalls each tool presents.

You're trying to argue that too much work is itself a pitfall.

My counterargument is, "if my table is satisfied and we don't want what you're peddling, why should we care if we like what the pitfall provides for us?"


Exactly! And by tailoring stuff, you need to create it adapted to your players. Which means efforts. Which means attachment.

Stop here. Attachment is something that can be controlled through self discipline. I agree that it's necessary for DMs that want to prepare their games by tailoring, but it's not great to then suggest that we should therefore NEVER tailor games. It's just a pitfall to avoid while tailoring, not a reason to abandon tailoring.


Of course, some people (maybe even you) might be able to jettison parts of their creation that could be considered jewels for the sake of the game, but that still results in time spent on stuff even less useful than arguing over it on this forum!

Most hobbies aren't useful (playing TTRPGs certainly isn't any kind of truly productive activity).


I'll leave Quertus out of this exchange, but yeah, Tailoring means planning. And my point is less planning is better, so leaving behind something whose prerequisite is planning is an improvement.

A claim which you still haven't adequately defended.

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I've run out of time and have to go to work. I'll finish my responses as soon as I can.

Pelle
2018-04-09, 06:11 AM
Tailoring can be different things.

For a group of players/characters that prefers combat and looting, it is much more worthwhile to spend your time preparing content on dungeons and monsters than on political factions. That is also tailoring, without necessarily making sure the DCs are low enough for your specific PCs or taking care not to include fire resistance creatures if the party has a pyromancer.

Darth Ultron
2018-04-09, 07:16 AM
Tailoring/planning is allays better then minimalism/doing nothing. This is sort of universal.


Though there is a separation between Tailoring and Planning. Assuming you have a game with a plot and a story, you do need planning for that. If your game is just a random activity, then you don't need a plan, at least at first. Though you can only have so much randomness, and after a couple hours a plan will need to be formed, assuming the gameplay will go anywhere.

Tailoring is making the gameplay fit the characters and or players. And this is a good thing. The focus and spotlight is on the characters, and tailoring is part of that. And the players want to do things in the game play, so a good DM will do those things.

Making generic stuff really does not make any sense, as assuming you want the players to have a good time and have fun, you will need to add tailored things anyway or just have a dull, boring game.

Like say DM Doug makes a minimalist Watch Tower, so it's a square and a note that says 10 guards and nothing else. When the characters approach the tower Sally wants to have her sneaky character check out the tower. Doug has two choices:

1.Improv Ogre like crazy and make the area around the tower and make it possible for a character to sneak around, and make a pale imitation of what it could have been with even a couple minutes of planning.

OR

2.Do nothing. "Sorry you can't sneak over around the tower" .

But if your just going to end up improving something, why not just make it before you need it?

Koo Rehtorb
2018-04-09, 08:37 AM
I don't like tailoring content. I generally do what I feel like would be cool and then work backwards from there to figure out the stats/difficulty/etc. But then I generally play games where failing a roll or ten isn't the end of the world.

Quertus
2018-04-09, 09:58 AM
Irrelevant to the question of tailoring. You can tailor flexible content or create untailored flexible content.

I find this a very confusing - and, perhaps, confused - statement. If you tailor something to be, say, the correct level of challenge, either a) it is not flexible as to what level of challenge it is, or b) it is flexible as to what level of challenge it is. If a, then your assertion is false; if b, then the effort spent tailoring it was wasted.


Stop here. Attachment is something that can be controlled through self discipline. I agree that it's necessary for DMs that want to prepare their games by tailoring, but it's not great to then suggest that we should therefore NEVER tailor games. It's just a pitfall to avoid while tailoring, not a reason to abandon tailoring.

Again, conservation of effort. It is clearly more efficient to not have to spend the self discipline; the question is, what does tailoring give you to make that effort worthwhile, and is it worth it in this particular instance?

I'm personally not trying to describe tailoring as Badwrongfun; rather, a) to make people aware that it isn't the One True Way; b) to emphasize that fact by expressing my personal disdain for and observed disadvantages of the practice.


Tailoring can be different things.

For a group of players/characters that prefers combat and looting, it is much more worthwhile to spend your time preparing content on dungeons and monsters than on political factions. That is also tailoring, without necessarily making sure the DCs are low enough for your specific PCs or taking care not to include fire resistance creatures if the party has a pyromancer.

This is generally a valuable form of tailoring.

As is preparing details that you know the party will care about.

I don't think anyone is objecting to or attempting to discuss these forms of tailoring.

kyoryu
2018-04-09, 11:03 AM
The amount of tailoring that the GM should do is inversely proportional to the amount of choice the players have in what encounters they go up against.

Frozen_Feet
2018-04-09, 03:47 PM
I haven't tailored my scenarios for characters ever, as it would be practically impossible for convention gaming. (I don't know beforehand how many players show up and what kind of characters they pick.) I sometimes tailor characters to fit my scenarios when making or half-making characters for new players who don't want to go through the whole character creation process.

Minimalism in games is something completely unrelated and I don't really grok why it's involved in this discussion. Minimalism would make both planning and tailoring easier due to there being less factors to consider.

Ditto for planning. You can tailor things to a character beforehand or adjucate things on the fly so that the odds are on their side. The former is significantly harder than the latter, as it requires predicting player behaviour much farther into the future.

Pleh
2018-04-10, 09:10 AM
I was detained by an unexpected extra shift at work, so I haven't had the time to follow up that I expected when I started the thread.


I find this a very confusing - and, perhaps, confused - statement. If you tailor something to be, say, the correct level of challenge, either a) it is not flexible as to what level of challenge it is, or b) it is flexible as to what level of challenge it is. If a, then your assertion is false; if b, then the effort spent tailoring it was wasted.

I take the metaphor back to its original context: is it pointless to tailor a piece of clothing to be flexible? Are our only options restrictive clothes or "one size fits most"?

Surely, anything that can be tailored can be tailored to be flexible. In fact, lack of flexibility is more a sign of bad tailoring.

Tailoring isn't about restricting the product, but *fitting* it to the user so it maximizes comfort and "feeling right."

If you feel like this is not applicable to tailoring RPGs, then perhaps we need a different term.


Minimalism in games is something completely unrelated and I don't really grok why it's involved in this discussion. Minimalism would make both planning and tailoring easier due to there being less factors to consider.

Ditto for planning. You can tailor things to a character beforehand or adjucate things on the fly so that the odds are on their side. The former is significantly harder than the latter, as it requires predicting player behaviour much farther into the future.

This is actually part of my reason for pursuing the thread. I feel like the terms being used are insuffuciently clear in their definition for the purposes we're trying to use. Every person who posts seems to have a slightly different take on it and it'd be nice to figure out what's really under the hood with these definitions and their functions.


More later. Not quite free yet

Quertus
2018-04-10, 09:23 AM
I take the metaphor back to its original context: is it pointless to tailor a piece of clothing to be flexible? Are our only options restrictive clothes or "one size fits most"?

Surely, anything that can be tailored can be tailored to be flexible. In fact, lack of flexibility is more a sign of bad tailoring.

Tailoring isn't about restricting the product, but *fitting* it to the user so it maximizes comfort and "feeling right."

If you feel like this is not applicable to tailoring RPGs, then perhaps we need a different term.

Not only is that decidedly not what most people mean when they talk about tailoring an encounter, but tailored encounters have the distinct disadvantage of not "feeling right".

So it's no wonder your statement was confusing. You're not talking about tailoring an encounter to the party in any conventional sense.

Pleh
2018-04-10, 10:22 AM
Not only is that decidedly not what most people mean when they talk about tailoring an encounter, but tailored encounters have the distinct disadvantage of not "feeling right".

So it's no wonder your statement was confusing. You're not talking about tailoring an encounter to the party in any conventional sense.

In which case, I may have been mislead by a terribly inadequate phrase in the common terminology.

The way I prepare encounters feels like it decidedly resembles tailoring clothes in that sense that I'm constructing the encounters to have a difficulty within the correct scope and goals of my specific players. It enhances their sense of agency without decreasing it.

Quertus
2018-04-10, 11:54 AM
So, my participation in the "tailoring" discussion in the previous thread was caused by statements like:


"but a good GM should always tailor the campaign to the party instead of punishing the players because they didn't bring a rogue along or whatever."


"D&D 3.5/Pathfinder both feel like having a healer is a core assumption that requires some shifting if the DM is to accomodate no healer. But that involves putting more work onto the GM because players didn't build a balanced party."


"No, not every party needs a healer. They need the DM to allow/provide an effective point of access for healing (or at least take a lack of such acccess into consideration when evaluating the challenge level)."

Statements that assume that the content must be modified to match the PCs, and shore up their shortcomings rather than allow them to reap what their choices have sown.

My base level assertion is that such modification is not strictly required. The GM can - and I do - put the onus of making things work squarely on the shoulders of the players. If the players choose to bring the party of all specialist Wizards who have barred Teleport and Contingency, fine, but it's on them to make that work. They don't get to complain when they deal with overland travel, or an explosive rune results in a TPK if most parties in their position could have resolved the scenario. They need to play the "how do we make this particular group of characters work" minigame.

This is the way I run games, in opposition to tailoring content being the One True Way.

Now, because so many people (not just in these two threads) seem suck in the One True Way assumption that the GM must modify content, I don't stop there. I go on to assert that modifying content had numerous disadvantages, such as making things feel "less real", removing the value of the player making those character choices to choose how to approach the encounter, and, obviously, requiring more effort.

Now, planning vs improv is a related, but separate axis. I'm not yet certain whether the conversation would be made clearer by including or excluding this axis. Hmmm...

Personally, I strongly prefer content to be written before the party even exists, because this removes opportunity for both intentional and unintentional tailoring.

That having been said, I prefer for content to be... reviewed... in light of the players / PCs.

What do I mean by this? Well, sometimes PCs focus on something that the GM has blatantly ignored. For example, one of my faults as a GM is that I pretty much never include Rough Terrain in 3e. It just usually doesn't occur to me to include it when writing content. If a PC picks an ability to interact with Rough Terrain, I'll tend to review my content, to make sure that I've included / indicated Rough Terrain where it logically belongs.

This is a particularly silly example, because all PCs (and NPCs / monsters) can interact with Rough Terrain.

Suppose, otoh, it's a character with an interest in heraldry and tapestries? Well, IMO, that's mostly a fluff change: rather than just "a knight" or "an opulent castle", I'll make sure to describe the heraldry on the knight's shield, and know what the tapestries on the castle wall depict. Now, this might lead to a whole new scene, where the PCs research something they saw in a tapestry, and I may need to make sure I've actually added in content (sage, library, something) to facilitate the "research" action.

Darth Ultron
2018-04-11, 12:37 AM
My base level assertion is that such modification is not strictly required. The GM can - and I do - put the onus of making things work squarely on the shoulders of the players.


I agree here. I take it even farther as I do not agree with the ''Everyone Ideas'' that the group MUST have a Tank and a Healer and a Lone Wolf and so forth. I tell players to make a character they want to play, but follow silly ideas.




Personally, I strongly prefer content to be written before the party even exists, because this removes opportunity for both intentional and unintentional tailoring.

Me too. But I also add tailored stuff.



That having been said, I prefer for content to be... reviewed... in light of the players / PCs.


I think a lot of this has to do with both Player and DM skills: the real life one.

Players: For at least half of the players, the DM really does need to hold their hands and lead them around. If the DM does not do so, the players will just flounder around.

There are two basic types here:

1.The Roll Players- If they don't have a specific skill or ability on their character sheet they won't even try to do something. The classic here is a player that does nothing as they don't have the skill open locks to get past a locked door.

2.The Clueless- This is the odd way that most people fail to grasp reality...or even more so fictional reality. This is not only ''thinking outside the box'', but understanding too. Basically, this is when the players ''can't'' think of something.

In both the above cases, if the DM has such players, they all most have to tailor the game so that it does not come to a halt any time there is a problem/obstacle.

DM's are just about always the Clueless type. And it is amazing to watch a DM describe a typical farm house with a fire place, and absolutely insist that the house has no chimney, hole in the roof or any other way for the smoke to escape.

And this is the problem from the other way: the DM makes a minimalist house with a trapped and locked back door...but the clever player is like ''eh, my character just climbs through the window'' and the DM goes all wacky trying to say the house has no windows(and this is possible, but not too likely..).

Florian
2018-04-11, 02:25 AM
@pleh:

I undersatand two separate use case of tailoring:

1) System with a specific inherent balance point that goes beyond "round" or "encounter", like being based on "resource management" or "adventuring day" need some tailoring on both sides of the table to conform to the system, or, if not conforming, that either alter the system or the gm has to adapt to the new balance point. For example, if we talk 3E/PF by the books, the players should know what is expected of them and the gm should know hoe to design encounters based on that, ie. not using a format that uses just one encounter per day/rest, or change how the fighter works. (This also ties in with systems that use very specific player-bought advantages/disadvantages)

2) In more character-driven systems, the wants, needs, aims and goals of the characters are what is important, not so much the rules level or the game world. Players should be pretty clear on who their character is and what that character wants and be able to directly set the things into motion that are important to develop the plot/content based on that. Ie. in a game of Ars Magicka, you should be able to say "My Magus wants to contact this and that fey and haggle for some Vis. Please prepare that scenario for the next session".

Same with planing:

3) Again, the system-centric approach already mentioned in (1). If you want to stick to the by the book approach and that forces you to do some prep-work, then you must prep at least on a minimum level.
An example here would be D&D 4E with the encounter/daily/milestone/short rest/long rest thing, that more or less pushes you towards the delve format, instead of individual non-consecutive encounters.

4) Set-Piece Battles, chained, moving or evolving encounters or high-level simulations of a game world will also need a bit of planing.

Converning (1) and (3), I'm always a bit amused when people fetishize RAW and agency, but tread the underlying system as non-existand, while said RAW is entirely based on that system, like 3E being based around the idea of chains of encounters.

For me as an oftentimes very challenge-oriented player, the minimalist approach doesn't work at all. I want to have this specific and fully fleshed-out challenge/scenario presented to me, with the gm taking a break and being the judge how we as a group handled the whole thing.

When gm“ing for highly character-centric groups, I can only really prep the broader framework of how stuff interacts in the world, same broad frameworks how scenarios could evolve from very simple seeds and must make do with the resources at hand, like NPC and location lists, nothing more. In this case, the minimalist approach works best.

Grek
2018-04-11, 11:42 AM
It's not the plan that matters, but the fact of having planned. The best way to DM is to make as much of a plan as you can be bothered to (more plans are better, but there are diminishing returns) then adjust/throw out the plans as your players invariably do something unexpected. The plan isn't a script for a play, it's a box of ready made props and stock characters to deploy whenever the players ask you for something similar.

Jay R
2018-04-12, 05:03 PM
There's too much planning if:
1. You didn't enjoy doing it.
2. It didn't help the game.
3. It interfered with other things you needed to do.

[I'm avoiding the complicated issue of whether the implicit conjunction in the above statement is "and" or "or".]

sparrow_1984
2018-04-13, 10:25 AM
Minimalism!! nothing better to allow players to come up with creative paths that sometimes the GM would not even think of.

JoeJ
2018-04-13, 04:28 PM
...or taking care not to include fire resistance creatures if the party has a pyromancer.

Hunh? Having a pyromancer in the party sounds like a very good reason to include some fire resistance creatures. It's much more fun when your primary ability occasionally doesn't work and you have to improvise something else. (Or is that just because I find supers to be the most enjoyable genre to play?)

RazorChain
2018-04-16, 10:21 PM
Tailoring can mean so many things.


Tailoring the game to the players. You ask your players what they enjoy in a game and include that. If your players enjoy exploration, mystery and combat then including some of that in your game will probably be more fun for them.

Tailoring the game to the PC's abilities. This is what most modules do in a sense that the adventure is recommended for level X or point total X. A GM can do further tailoring and balance encounters or make sure that some of the skills the group has will be useful.

Tailoring the game to the PC's. The game is about the PC's and what they are doing NOT here is a quest giver that sends you on a merry adventure. This is where you tailor the adventures to the characters and what I tend to call character driven campaign. This takes into account character backgrounds, goals, motivations and the GM uses this to tailor a much more personal experience.

A good way of tailoring an adventure to the PC's is asking them at the end of a session "what are you going to do next?" And plan accordingly...it also helps minimalists as then you know what to expect.


If minimalism is doing nothing than it's a bad philosophy. I've improvised entire campaigns but planning is always required in some degree. You have to come up with good ideas and if you can't do that on the spot then the game is going to suffer. When improvising I still have to put some work into campaigns because I have to write down NPC's, places etc. The world still has to have some kind of a structure. Let's say you have the world in place beforehand then if you don't give your campaign some thought between sessions, at least dwell on what's happening and how you are going to react or be proactive with your players then your campaign is probably not going to be as good as it could be.

RazorChain
2018-04-16, 10:28 PM
The amount of tailoring that the GM should do is inversely proportional to the amount of choice the players have in what encounters they go up against.

That depends on the tailoring the GM is doing. Who is to say that if you make an enconter without knowing my PC's and I run it for them that they have more choice? You could very well make an enconter with a bad guy they can't sneak past, can't be reasoned with, can outrun them so that they can't flee and can only be killed with fire on june the 17th. While my tailored encounterr might be a bad guy they've clashed with before and gives them myriad of choices

kyoryu
2018-04-17, 04:40 PM
That depends on the tailoring the GM is doing. Who is to say that if you make an enconter without knowing my PC's and I run it for them that they have more choice?

That's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about choosing what encounters they engage in, not what choices they get within the encounter.

If the players engage in encounters because of *their choices*, then it is reasonable to leave the encounters as-is. Because the players have the choice in what they engage (at some level), if they encounter something beyond their ability, then it's their fault (provided reasonable design, clues of what's in the area, etc.).

If the players engage in encounters because *you decide this is what they encounter*, then you bear the responsibility, as GM, for ensuring that the encounter is reasonably balanced.

As an example: If 1st level players in a more open world decide to go into an ogre cave and die, then that's their fault for taking on something beyond their capabilities. On the other hand, if you decide as a GM that you're going to run a highly linear game and the first thing the PCs encounter is an ogre and it slaughters them? They had no choice, so it was *your* mistake for throwing something at them beyond their capabilities.

RazorChain
2018-04-17, 05:49 PM
That's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about choosing what encounters they engage in, not what choices they get within the encounter.


I stand corrected, I missed the "what" in the original post.

I'm no fan of random encounters and I do a lot of tailoring as I run a character focused/character driven game. This doesn't limit choice in what the PC's encounter. I usually tailor things with the shortest possible notice. If the GM starts tailoring things many sessions ahead then he's probably going to force the encounter.

kyoryu
2018-04-17, 05:52 PM
I stand corrected, I missed the "what" in the original post.

All good, sir!