I do quite a bunch of prep for my games, not because I cant wing the action when I need to but honestly, I like doing it! Still, even with hours of prep for a session a good bit of what a GM relates to the players is spur of the moment, pull it out of your backside, fluff.

I've had players though that seem to catch hold of some of this immaterial color and sink their teeth in. Then I am forced to actually provide details, statistics and so on in the middle of the game and its pretty nerve racking. It makes me wonder if you shouldn't just provide every detail to begin with, even if it takes you a month to prepare.

Recently the PCs walked into a hotel lobby and immediately the droid behind the counter took off. (warned to look for them and inform the owner at their appearance)

I described the droid very briefly, something like a tall gangly droid with multiple arms (dusting, sweeping and arranging key cards) balanced on a small quad-wheeled drive platform that whirled when he made a swift exit. One of the players asked what kind of droid was it? I answered just a servant droid, somebody to tend the desk, clean up etc. But what kind, he keeps asking "a protocol type?" Then another guy chimed in and suddenly they were making plans that might well force me to dig this droid out of a book somewhere. Very annoying, it had no part in the story so I never made it up... or so I thought.

Should I have? Before hand I mean?

Just say it's a NIGOWI-series droid.*

*Not Important, Get On With It

Make an Intellect versus a 3 difficulty check, 1 success its an obsolete model possibly from a space liner series that went belly up during the Clone Wars.

2 successes quite a few of those liners were repurposed as Separatist stealth transports designed to look okay but intended to release substantial Separatist droids upon landing to help establish beachheads on unsuspecting Republic worlds.

3 or more successes oh they're just repurposed cleaner bots superficially modified by one of the Hutt Cartels to look better than they are to not just sell but for far more than they're worth...

Well someone had to be spreading those rumours and what do you expect a Hutt to do?!!!

I find the more you downplay something the more likely the players are to glom onto it. That's fine, I just let 'em run with it for a short bit.

...and there's a painting on the wall.

What's the painting of? A mass-produced landscape like you find in cheap motels. Who painted it? You can't make out the name, the signature is too stylised. Okay, one of the staff wants to know why you've taken the painting down. Your answer sounds like the response of a child caught drawing on the walls with permanent markers, and she asks you to leave. What's her name? Rose. No, she won't go get a supervisor, but she does tell you if you don't put that painting back she'll call security? You'll wait? Fine, security arrives and asks you to leave. You won't? They'll forcibly remove you from the premises. You attack them? Okay, you throw down and get arrested? Of course I'm not rolling dice; the current narrative has you acting like vandals and you want to add murder to the pile, so I'd rather narrate than waste time on an unnecessary combat engagement. Oh, you only wanted to stun them? Well you were in the process of chasing them throughout the building doing just that, and while you were Rose notified the police, the showed up with overwhelming force, and now you in front of a judge who's throwing the book at you. Or, we can go back to its a painting because describing a sterile room is how you pick up the clue this guy you're looking for isn't really as well off as you'd been led to believe. That is what is important about it, and I indicated as much when I said mass-produced painting like you'd find in cheap motels.

Okay, so after the near-apocalyptic painting episode you finally get to meet Mr. Cheap. What's his first name? He never said. What's he hiding? I assume you mean about not telling you his first name? He's hiding nothing. Oh, you go ask the staff lady his name? Well, her name is rose, and because you seem the sort who would take paintings down for no reason she tells you his first name and presses a button on her intercom. What did she just do? You have no idea, you a mechanic, not an admin assistant. You warn your friends that trouble might be coming? Yeah, Rose says it's already here, and it's you.

Ten minutes game time out the window.

Explain to your players only some things are important, not everything, and when you say something is not important

A they need to leave it at that

B you can't make it into something important layer.

Also, establish with your players the understanding that just because they may be the "heroes" of the game does not mean they are the heroes of the setting, that there will be "real" consequences for asshattery, and ask them how curious they've ever been about an exit sign, a tile floor, or a stack of magazines. If they say not very, point out they may have been disenterested in the magazines but read one anyway to pass the time, but they like never pulled tile or took down signs to do the same...

Good stuff, helpful and pretty funny. Players: they never fail to amaze me.

I introduced a plant as color once, just some vines running along the floor and clinging up the wall here and there. With no more than that they decided it was dangerous, avoiding it like it was poison ivy or something for the rest of the adventure. Nobody made a knowledge roll or really even tried to identify it, it was "Death Ivy' sure enough.

Ill admit I had some fun bringing it in now and then during my descriptions just to jack with them.

"The way leads forward, through a open doorway and down a short hall. Outside the door are some tools lying about, like someone was working there recently and a few potted plants. Theres some of that vine you saw before, clinging to one side of the doorframe and running along the wall above."

"Oh crap, ok... we slip by the vine quickly as we go through the door, careful not to touch it!"

Geeze

Given that the GM can't describe everything, players often assume that what's described is significant. Sometimes the more dismissive I am, the more they're sure that's the key. But then sometimes (more often than I like to admit), they'll make a "connection" that is better than my original design.

If it can work in the story, to avoid a total derailment I'll change the story on the fly so that their suspicions are correct, and it was part of the set of clues all along. That cheap painting? There's a keypad on the wall behind it. And that ain't "Rose" behind the counter, the real Rose is tied up in a storage closet down the hall...

edit: **** iPad auto- in correct...

Another approach, one that has worked at my table and in some live plays I listen to, is to ask the player.

Player: "Is it a protocol droid?"
GM: "I don't know, is it?"

If the player starts describing something that would ultimately be useful to the group, a Destiny point can be flipped. Of course the GM has the final say.

Given that the GM can't describe everything, players often assume that what's described is significant.

Checkov's Gun is a pain in the neck sometimes!

My general rule of thumb is tertiary details that don't inform about characters, location, or plot are irrelevant and can be handwaved off. Tertiary details that give insight into a specific character (Choice of art), a place (More detailed descriptions if players ask), or an event are good as long as they don't distract from the larger picture--nobody cares what kind of leather someone uses as a grip for their lightsaber unless it's some exotic animal only from their homeworld, or an endangered species, or whatever.

Given that the GM can't describe everything, players often assume that what's described is significant.

Checkov's Gun is a pain in the neck sometimes!

Amen. I hate that thing.

It's a "rule" that works for the sparceness of a traditional script for a play, or a literary short story.

When one is creating an entire new "reality", not every detail is about something that's going to be critical in "act 3" (and to hell with the idea that everything has to have 3 acts, too).

It's a "rule" that works for the sparceness of a traditional script for a play, or a literary short story.

When one is creating an entire new "reality", not every detail is about something that's going to be critical in "act 3" (and to hell with the idea that everything has to have 3 acts, too).

And yet, it's what many of our brains expect, so pandering to it is an easy win as a GM. It's a skill to describe a scene that paints a good picture, for sure. But is it wrong to run with a detail that the players glom onto? I know it can be off-putting to abandon all plans and roll with it, but sometimes those little side plots are very rewarding.

The Three Act structure never worked really well for us either; episodic style play has been our mainstay, even if we're playing through a module.

I was running an L5R game and was using this village that AEG produced as the focus of the campaign (It was sort of like the old Village of Hommlet module). Well in the village there was an old abandoned building that the locals thought was haunted (it was not) and had placed wards to fend off the evil spirits. Well the PCs being PCs assumed that that was the source of the evil that they encountered and tried to break into it 3 times (each time having a Scooby-Doo run out of the building scared moments).

Needless to say, that this was derailing what I had intended for the campaign, so I had to deal with it. So I had the local village headman (head-woman actually) get up a work crew and start demolishing the building. The PCs were indignant about this and confronted her and demanded that they stop "In the Name of the Emperor" (as they were imperial magistrates). The head woman politely, but sternly replied:

"Honorable Magistrates, I am honored that you wish to preserve this old building. However, it has been abandoned for more years then I have been alive and it is in danger of falling down. It also poses a big fire threat, which would be disastrous to the village should it happen to catch fire as it is so close to many buildings (including the one you are staying in). Just imagine what would have happened if the bandits that attacked a few days ago had been using fire arrows.

I am sure that the Emperor would rather have this old decaying, fire trap of a building torn down so we can reuse this land parcel for something productive that would generate taxes. Would you not agree?"

With that all of the player's jaws dropped and they shook their heads in agreement....

I"m brand new here and coming in late to this discussion but it caught my attention as I have found myself wondering about this very thing during my first read of the rulebooks.

There is so very much in them in the way of detail, vehicles, droids, equipment, armor, species etc. not to mention information on industry, organizations, government, the military and so on. I thought I was a fair scholar of Star Wars - HARDY LAUGH!! I found something called Wookieepedia which seems incredibly useful but makes that LAUGH EVEN HARDIER!

I'm trying to imagine running a game where I have to look up the name and description of every species I introduce, or the designation of the speeder parked at the corner or the manufacturer of the blaster just pulled from a mook's cold hands. I don't suppose that level of detail is necessary as filler but as soon as the Players want to interact with it, well now its required!

I haven't even played my first session yet and I'm already overwhelmed!

I'm suddenly reminded of an old Knights of the Dinner Table strip where the group encounters a gazeebo.

In this system you do not need much detail to run the game. You don`t even need npc stats to run combat scenarios, just a few skill checks with the narrative dice. This is a great system for improvising.
The ship stats, gear and adversary stats are great, but not needed, they are extra, a great bonus. Use the Force of the narrative dice!

And in universe, the Galaxy is so enormous and ancient that there will be lots and lots of species and droids the characters have never heard of or seen, so just make up a name for the droid on the fly or even let the player do it for you if he or she finds it interesting. Improvise and let players do some of the job too, if it`s just fluff(or even more if you want).

Best GM lines: "You tell me", "your character has no idea" or "what does your character think?"

We managed to establish at our table that players are free to describe the scene as well, if it's fun and works for me we roll with it. Sometimes players simply want to poke at the GM, and see how far they can get you to go with such a description, not out of malevolence, simple social dynamics. Sometimes you just have to end it with: "just some standard service droid, with thin arms and a big round head."

I started with describing several senses when building a scene and it works pretty well. The hotel lobby smells of the fresh flowers placed on the table in the waiting area, in the background an automatic luggage trolly squeaks past, the light from the chanelier flickers to emulate candle light...and so on. For me, this has helped the players with immersing themselves into the scene and they start asking less questions and add to the scene with minor details, like looking inconspicuously at the menu for the day that hangs on the wall (and nobody mentioned before).

Also, it has greatly helped to immerse myself into the scene more easily.