I don't know what Blorb stands for (if anything) but it's the name of a set of refereeing principles for roleplaying that you can read here. The essence of the thing is not to prepare a plot but just to define NPCs' stats and motivations and events that will happen unless the player-characters do something, and then let the story emerge in play. You know, the way life works.
In a nutshell:
- Blorb is a preparation-focused playstyle, and prep is central, but never prepare plot.
- Do prepare entities. Places, enemies, friends, items, rewards.
- What happens should be emergent, not prewritten. Events should be things that might happen (from mechanics, dice rolls etc), not always will happen, or, worse, that the DM could decide to have happen.
If you like concepts like act breaks, character arcs, flashbacks, plot twists, and all that Save the Cat/TV Tropes palaver then Blorb is not for you. And I would add that if you do like all that stuff then you should be writing a novel or screenplay instead of running a roleplaying game, because you're missing 90% of what makes roleplaying a unique medium.
The ever-excellent Good Friends of Jackson Elias have a inspiring episode about reactive off-the-cuff GMing right here. And come back tomorrow for a look at one way to weave stories out of games.
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