Well, that was a headache

 Yesterday, the KakaoTalk Open Chat (Kakao is Korean WhatsApp) discussion started with a simple question: "Which do you prefer to experience, true improvisation from your DM, or a well thought out, well planned dungeon experience?" 

Very quickly, the conversation took this to extremes and began debating: "Which is better, 100% planning or 100% improv?" 

But yet most people claimed they wanted something in the middle. "Planned flexibility" was what is best (yeah, surprise surprise, the answer is somewhere in the middle of two extremes).  

And some folks claimed story-centered gaming needs to be prepared, but they're not gonna prepare two or three whole stories just in case the PCs go off track. Other folks wanted that pure improv experience, never plan anything and just go with the flow.  

And somehow, they got into discussing quantum ogres (to not waste what you'd planned), narrative vs gamed out travel, and the need to provide characters with arcs. 

It was my birthday, so I mostly stayed out of it. And honestly, I couldn't be bothered to read every post that was made, because I also had grading to do. But I read enough to see that several people's feathers were getting ruffled. 

And everyone seemed to miss the point of the original question. Not whether you should prepare or go improv, but what makes for a better or more memorable game experience? Those moments when the GM is forced to improv to react to player actions, or those games where everything is so well prepared that the game runs smoothly? 

There are too many GMs (or people looking at it as a GM) in the group chat, I think. 

The thing that really stuck out to me were the people suggesting that preparing "two stories" was too much work. Well, yeah. Preparing ONE story is hard work. That's why you shouldn't prepare stories, but prepare situations and scenarios. I can say from experience, having first done it when I was young, it's not that hard to prepare a "choose your own adventure" style adventure for a game. 

Unless your goal is to put PCs through narrative arcs and a five act structure, that is. 

Anyway, it's best I mostly stayed out of the conversation. I know people can and do have fun with the more story-centric games, and with having their protagonist go through their pre-planned arc, and I'm perfectly happy to let them have their fun. If I'd stated my preference to not do those things, those folks seem like they would have felt I was telling them they're doing it wrong (that's how they reacted to others). 

They're not wrong to play that way. But that type of game is wrong for me.