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Thinking versus Doing |  |
I agree with this post up to a point. I think that story fudging can be a lot of fun. I did a lot of that in my Wild Blue playtest on Saturday, in fact. There were a number of points during the story when I had one thing planned but, whether it was because the PCs came up with a better idea or because something occurred to me that something else would be more fun, I changed things. Of course, Saga and, by extension, Wild Blue is sort of intended to be played that way.
But that’s not really what I’m talking about when I infer that there are things about this post that I disagree with. I do not disagree that a simple dungeon crawl done in broad strokes can be extremely fun. It can, and I’ve had lots of fun in the past in those exact kinds of sessions. I do disagree that there’s something inherently more fun about them than more involved, intricate storylines with deep characterization and rich plots. Again, in the Wild Blue playtest, there was really only one battle (at the end), but the game was a blast because the players were really into their characters and were playing them to the hilt, and they were really into the story, too. If I had played it more like a simple point-a-to-point-b slugfest, it would have suffered considerably for it.
I think that, fundamentally, it depends on the mood of the group and their preferences. I think that a melding of both is, ultimately, my preferred style of play. And I do realize that Mearls is simply stating his preference in this post; that’s not lost on me. I just thought I’d counter with mine.
