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Agreed. I'm dropping out of howandwhy's derail, as its going nowhere. You don't get to redefine the terms as everyone on earth uses them.
I do consider pacing very important in a game, and one of the biggest determinants to how much fun the players have. I really don't care for simulationist style, where the PCs enter a dungeon, explore around in the time allotted, and then stop to pick up wherever they were at. If they'd just finished room 14, next week they'd enter room 15.
What's wrong with this? It pays no attention to the pace of the story. All game sessions have a beginning, middle, and end. Events happen within that time frame. You don't have to pay attention to them, you can just have things happen flatly as howandwhy seems to suggest. But then your enjoyment of the evening's adventure is up to chance. It might turn out a cool story everyone enjoys, or it might be uninteresting. In my misspent youth I didn't might wading through subpar games, but as I get older and my time for gaming lessens, I need to get the fun going.
So pay attention to that structure. At the beginning of the night, you need to introduce, review, or emphasize the main conflict. As the game progresses, they get more information and learn more about the conflict. Finally it is brought to an emotionally satisfying conclusion. That doesn't mean victory of course, but it feels like something was completed, one way or the other.
So how can you do this? Well, the two basic approaches are to speed things up or slow things down. To speed up, you bring conflict a head. Have the villain reveal himself. Or cut out some window dressing. Sure, you might have planned for the PCs to battle the Duke's guards on the balcony before they caught up with him, but if things are dragging you can just cut that scene. Or have them surrender or flee. Or handwave the fight.
To slow things down can be trickier IME. The best way is to throw in subplots or distrations. Extra villains that try to stand in the PCs' way. Requiring more in the way of checks and such to find clues or traverse an area.
In either case, the goal is to have the game not be too short and not be too long, but rather be just right.
If things go wrong, you can always fix them. If a game goes short, you can always explore more subplots or just sandbox it for awhile. If it goes long, you can get to an exciting part and exclaim "To Be Continued! Next Week" (and possibly duck thrown dice if your players are hot to get it resolved).
Another tool in my workshop is scene framing. I tend to use strong scene framing, especially in games that are more about investigation or story development than exploration. The best analogy IMO is Law and Order. The cops find a body and do some research - they have a business card of a laundry mat in their pocket.
DOINK DOINK!
The detectives are already at the laundrymat the next day, showing the clerk a picture of the deceased. He says he knows her, her and her boyfriend got in a fight yesterday. He looks up his customer list and gives them a name and address. They thank the clerk and call it in.
DOINK DOINK!
THey're knocking on his door but he's not answering...
In no case does the show worry about what route the detectives take from one scene to another, or how long it takes, or if there's enough gas in the car. They simply go.
This can work the same way in an RPG. Just DOINK DOINK your players right to wherever they are going. Make sure they know you're going to do this, and if anyone wants to do something else, be sure to go along with it.
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This gets debated a lot in what some people might call "story games" circles. Not in terms of "how much power should I allow the players to have, because too much might wreck the game", but "how much power should (players and GM) have over the game, in what areas, because deciding this ahead of time helps accomplish the game's design goals".
So how you apportion scene framing power can often depend on what exactly you're trying to accomplish. Sometimes you might go mostly GM-framed, with player suggestions being considered. (One argument I like is that even when the rules say "GM decides", that doesn't mean "GM decides based solely on their own thoughts" -- you can always ask for player input and decide if it's 'doable' at the moment.
Some systems go with GM framing the scenes, and players spending a Hero Point or Fate Point or somesuch resource to introduce an additional element into the scene. (e.g., "I use Streetwise, I remember something about my mentor's old fence living in these slums", which might be entirely new content suggested at that moment.)
Sometimes it's as simple as alternating GM framing and player framing depending on the constraints of the situation. In town? Feel free to head wherever you want, to explore. Chased by a lynch mob? GM is gonna frame each scene with those guys on your heels until you deal with the problem.
This is all hopelessly vague, I know. It fits into some bigger topics in terms of player agency, and stuff like "What's real in the game world", which is I think the tangent howandwhy is interested in talking about. It also depends on how the group is structured -- do you run with a single party, or having PCs off doing their own thing? Does the table prefer people to not hear OOC info, or are they fine with the players being involved in scenes their characters aren't in?
If you're running with a traditional party, and particularly if the current issue is slow pacing, it may make the most sense for the GM to aggressively frame forward to new events when that's what's going on, and for them to more relaxedly frame, with lots of player input as to the where and when, during downtime or investigation periods.
It may also work out well to tie players getting to frame scenes in with their resources, either metagame resources (Fate points, hero points) or in-character resources (skills, contacts). Again, if pacing is an issue, it may work best for the GM to offer some suggestions or sort of treat these resources as a reward that lets the player 'cut to the chase'. I've done things like "Okay, with your contacts and Streetwise skill, you find the guy you're looking for in an hour or two. Where do you approach him?" so that we're kind of in a negotiating position in terms of deciding how the scene's set up. You want to approach the guy in a bar and schmooze him, catch him in a back alley and threaten him Batman-style from the roof above? This can be a way for players to express their character while quickly moving forward.
Again, I know this is scattershot kind of stuff, sorry about that. I find it a fascinating topic, though.
One last thing I'll say: I've not found that I needed to do much at all to rein in things like "Dude, don't frame ahead to you already having beat the villain", or players wanting to frame to scenes that can't happen, or stuff like that. Everyone at the table has a vested interest in keeping up suspension of disbelief and making the game interesting. I go with full metagame knowledge to players, including stuff like "Oh, if you want to spend a Fate point to show up during this scene, feel free", and letting players decide for themselves if it's plausible and how.
You'd think it'd be a big angle for the players to break the game, but it's really not -- it's largely self-correcting. For instance, I played in a freeform-ish game once where one of the players was your traditional stereotypical badass rogue sneak, a hot elven PC played by a dude, the whole nine yards. Said PC set things up such that they achieved their personal goal, a mission from their thief's guild, so sneakily that the other PCs didn't even know about it. Victory! Well, I guess. He played it so safe and sneaky that essentially he was barely involved in the game, as far as the rest of the players were concerned. He got what he wanted out of the experience, I guess, but it didn't affect or take away from the rest of the group's satisfaction at acheiving their own goals at all. It's like, if you give players some of the Power of Plot, and they "abuse" it, setting up easy obstacles they can overcome with little effort -- they've only really cheated themselves.
I'm reminded of a quote from Almost Famous where one band member says "just make us look cool, man". That may be what many people want, but I prefer games were the challenges are real.
I am still unsure as to how DM improvising does not create challenges that are real. In my experience RPGs have always been about improvisation.
Here's a question that the first part of this thread made me think of: how much time is too much? I must admit that as I've gotten older, I enjoy the interplay between characters, even minor ones, a lot more. As a result, when some of my players get into it, I can tend to dally with minor events and NPCs longer than I should. My question to the floor is: how long is too long? How much time should you spend roleplaying just for the fun of the interaction before it becomes boring?
I doubt there's one answer to this...how long would you feel comfortable in a pure interactive roleplay situation with no plot advancement?
--Steve
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I play 4E, and it's every bit as much Dungeons and Dragons as any other edition, including the one(s) you play. No more, and no less.
Here's a question that the first part of this thread made me think of: how much time is too much? I must admit that as I've gotten older, I enjoy the interplay between characters, even minor ones, a lot more. As a result, when some of my players get into it, I can tend to dally with minor events and NPCs longer than I should. My question to the floor is: how long is too long? How much time should you spend roleplaying just for the fun of the interaction before it becomes boring?
I doubt there's one answer to this...how long would you feel comfortable in a pure interactive roleplay situation with no plot advancement?
--Steve
If your players are engaged and interested and the game isn't flagging then I probably would just leave it to run its course. If you as GM find what is going on dull and tedious then I may be tempted to chivvy them along a bit.
I personally have no real interest in playing out my players buying a new wardrobe for an hour of our limited game time.
I doubt there's one answer to this...how long would you feel comfortable in a pure interactive roleplay situation with no plot advancement?
That's a really good question. I have to unfortunately cop out and say it depends on your group, but that's interesting, because stuff like "How long should a scene go on" isn't something that often gets discussed around the table.
When I'm GMing I push pretty hard to 'get to the point', at most being willing to have one of those scenes per PC per session that's a 'just because/slice of life' type of scene. If there's a supporting character in the scene, or if I'm playing and my PC is there, I'll typically angle to get a conflict or decision point to come up, one that's relevant to whatever the theme was of that pure dialogue scene.
On the other far end of the scale, one time one of my players' PC owned a coffee bar. It was a really nice one, his home base and set up to be a center of social interaction in the town for the PCs and NPCs. He gave us a five-minute walkthrough of the place, and I'm all "Okay, that could lead to..." and he's all "Oh wait, I haven't described the upper floors yet" and then I bite my lip and then later its "Oh, I need to tell you guys about my personal office with the naval-themed decor" and mercifully he eventually got the hint that we wanted to continue playing. It was like forty-five minutes or more, and it was one of the most excruciating things I've ever sat through.
As far as face-to-face in character dialog, I'm totally biased. I don't really like it, seriously. (Maybe one of the reasons I set things up in game to have most of the conflicts -- and arguments -- between PCs). The last time I *enjoyed* a pure RP dialog session for it's own sake, I was like fourteen. Now, that doesn't mean I can't do dialog scenes if it's something that matters either to me or my character -- those I can get inspired in, and that includes playing a NPC as a foil to a particularly wound-up PC -- but for their own sake, just sort of sitting around the campfire talking about stuff, I take those as a player-initiated request to slow the pace for a bit, and then let them do their thing until they are ready to move on.
I should also bring up that my baseline pacing is way faster than it used to be. Whether we're talking about heavy dialog scenes or more third-person narration/discussion of actions, I'm usually looking at 2 1/2 - 3 hour sessions, so we move quick. Maybe fifteen minutes in an opening scene where player(s) are pushing forward their own goals and generally setting the stage for the night's activities, five-ten minutes on a number of scenes as we build action, maybe another 10-15 minute one as a breather (that's where a 'slice of life' scene often comes up), then some more fast ones, and inevitably the last bit's going to be a scene that takes 20-30 minutes to play out either because there's some heavier than usual resolution mechanics being used, or to have time to wind down and wrap up the situation.
In contrast, the last PNP D&D 3.x game I was in would routinely have fifteen minutes just talking to the bartender (with the GM doing his dialect and acting, and the rest of us awkardly trying to go with his flow), intermediate scenes where little but travel or simple obstacles were overcome that took 10-15 minutes, and big battles that took 1-2 hours. (Interestingly enough, I was in a totally freeform game a while back that had almost exactly the same pacing as that D&D game did, with system handling time replaced with more dialog.)
I agree with previous posters who say that howandwhy99's definition of roleplaying game is actually a lot closer to more conventional games such as boardgames or videogames. In particular it closely resembles crpgs such as World of Warcraft.
1) Impartial referee. The only truly impartial referee is a computer.
2) Runs a set module without deviation from what has been laid down. The referee is governed by strict rules, like a computer program.
3) Purely gamist, all about challenging the player. No roleplaying in the sense of acting in character.
4) Attaining levels is a marker of genuine achievement. This is far more true of WoW where one knows that, with a level 80 toon, at least someone put in the hours (though maybe not the current owner). One has no such certainty in a ttrpg though, a character might have levelled up under a Monty Haul DM.
It's like howandwhy99 has taken Gygaxian D&D, which is already strongly gamist, and distilled it, purified it until every last shred of non-gamism is removed. I'm not sure what he's ended up with is actually a roleplaying game any more.
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The flow of information from GM to Player and thus the brevity of action is what, IMO controls the pacing.
That's a pretty solid definition of the GM's primary agency. I agree with that, with the caveat that it mostly applies to games in which the GM is presenting situations and the players are responding to them. Not all games get run like that, it's sort of a continuum between "next room in the dungeon" and "you can do anything, what now?" and often individual campaigns will see the breadth of possible action on the part of the players narrowing and widening as play goes on.
"brevity of action" is a great shorthand, I think I have to steal that phrase. I usually think of it in terms of scene length, but it suggests the ability to change pace during a scene, go from full first-person dialog to quick descriptions of actions, etc.
It's like howandwhy99 has taken Gygaxian D&D, which is already strongly gamist, and distilled it, purified it until every last shred of non-gamism is removed. I'm not sure what he's ended up with is actually a roleplaying game any more.
Yep. If you are no longer playing an RPG by following the advice in the 1e DMG, I think your definitions are off. (See page 110 regarding Dice and Control of the Game, wherein it's suggested to fudge the dice once in a while to make things go as you planned, and so players don't get unnecessarily screwed over.)
I doubt there's one answer to this...how long would you feel comfortable in a pure interactive roleplay situation with no plot advancement?
I don't think there's one answer to this for even a given person. It isn't like one can start a timer and you know you'll be bored by the time it goes "Ping!"
And, here's a major thought - just because it isn't advancing the plot the GM planned, doesn't mean there isn't a plot advancing. For one thing, such segments are often the basis of plot: spend a fun half an hour talking to the urchin on the docks, and you can expect the players will be interested in events in that urchin's life from that point forward.
And some plots - like politics and romance, are often largely advanced through roleplay and discussion and interaction, without any mechanics at all.
I do pacing in this way. The last session of Star Wars Saga I did is a good illustration of how I deal with time. We usually have exactly four hours to play, so I have to be aware of real-world time constraints and factor that in.
I check the time and I know my players; I generally know how long it takes us for a combat and such. The scenario for this week is so: there is a mysterious prisoner that even the Emperor and Vader have taken an interest in. He's being secretly taken to a hidden Outer Rim prison colony aboard a massive prison transport, perhaps hidden among the general populace.
General Rahm Koto thinks it might be a trap, but any prisoner so interesting to the Imperial powers that be is a potential ally for the nascent Alderaan Alliance. So the group is provided with passes and cover ID's on the transport, with instructions on finding the special prisoner in the 75,000 being transported and getting him off the ship if they can.
So, I have a goal for the evening, and four phases: intro, finding info, acting on the info, and getting free.
I'm using a module as a basis for the adventure, so I have some selected encounters, several contacts, and several choices for set-peices.
The first 30 minutes or so, we do the intro. This goes much as planned, and basic info about the situation is imparted. The group then uses their ID's to make contacts and try to find the prisoner.
This, I estimate, will take about an hour and a half and accounting for a drinks break. It begins to go long, so pacing has to come into play a bit more strongly. One planned contact gets slipped into the notebook to be used at a later point in time, while another says 'Yeah.. you know, we had to go wire an area just before we left Coruscant and like /triple/ the power leads to it. Whatever, you know?'
A more direct hint that something is down there helps move things along, and the group decides to check it out. They find that the former infirmary area have been converted into some kind of special security area, and they figure they've found their man after a few false leads.
So we're at the half-way point, but then we hit a snag. They take some time coming up with a plan to free the man. It's a good one and everyone is involved in making it, but it's taking longer than I thought and I figure we have at least two large fights before we're done with the session. By the time they've decided and begin to implement the plan, we have about 90 minutes to go.
The fight at the security station goes about as planned, but one guard is annoyingly lucky, so much so that it threatens to drag things out. So he goes down the next time he's hit. There is one fewer Imperial Marine in the mix, and one less droid, than the encounter calls for.
The prisoner freed (they still don't know who he is; he has a full helmet locked on his head and drug drip to keep him out. They don't have time to fiddle with either, so they move to part two of their plan: let everyone out of their cells and hope the confusion will cover their escape. It does, and the fight at the hanger deck as they steal a ship can go off without a hitch.
The group blasts free with their prisoner and we're ready to end the session on a high note, and prep for the conclusion next week.
I keep a pretty good eye on time and structure the pacing accordingly, keeping the action moving along. If things had gone the opposite way, say if they'd come to a snap decision about getting the prisoner in five minutes, then I had additional contact and encounters to flesh out that time so we could still end on a movie-like high note.
I agree with previous posters who say that howandwhy99's definition of roleplaying game is actually a lot closer to more conventional games such as boardgames or videogames. In particular it closely resembles crpgs such as World of Warcraft.
1) Impartial referee. The only truly impartial referee is a computer.
2) Runs a set module without deviation from what has been laid down. The referee is governed by strict rules, like a computer program.
3) Purely gamist, all about challenging the player. No roleplaying in the sense of acting in character.
4) Attaining levels is a marker of genuine achievement. This is far more true of WoW where one knows that, with a level 80 toon, at least someone put in the hours (though maybe not the current owner). One has no such certainty in a ttrpg though, a character might have levelled up under a Monty Haul DM.
It's like howandwhy99 has taken Gygaxian D&D, which is already strongly gamist, and distilled it, purified it until every last shred of non-gamism is removed. I'm not sure what he's ended up with is actually a roleplaying game any more.
This doesn't happen often, so make the most of it: I'm going to agree 100% with Mr. McCrae. And I'll leave it at that; there's such a vast disconnect between how I see the game and how haw99 sees it that until-unless we meet in person and sit down and roll some dice there's really no further point.
Lan-"wondering if howandwhy99 is going to GenCon this year"-efan
I do consider pacing very important in a game, and one of the biggest determinants to how much fun the players have. I really don't care for simulationist style, where the PCs enter a dungeon, explore around in the time allotted, and then stop to pick up wherever they were at. If they'd just finished room 14, next week they'd enter room 15.
What's wrong with this? It pays no attention to the pace of the story. All game sessions have a beginning, middle, and end.
OK, right here we already have a huge disconnect: session length does not (and in my situation anyway, cannot) equal adventure length. I can't remember if I've ever got through an entire adventure start to finish in one session, and that's including some monster-length sessions back in the day.
All adventures, chapters, and stories have a beginning, middle, and end. Sessions don't, really...not unless you're so organized and-or so tied to the railroad that you can plan exactly how long each element of the coming night's game will take (i.e. you know exactly how long your players will take to make each decision, absorb and discuss each bit of new info, etc.). As with the other discussion, I have to ask here: what happens if the players go off script?
Say for example you've planned out a session where, because of where they left off last time, they're right set up for the final battle - one more room with a few relatively minor guards and then the boss battle. But the party take extra long dealing with the guards - instead of quietly and efficiently killing them they manage to capture two and then spend a long time questioning each one individually and comparing their stories - and then spend three hours using this new info to re-plan their assault on the boss. Are you suggesting the players can't do this, that you'd somehow force the boss battle to start around 10 p.m. real time because that's what's scheduled?
Slow down, man!
If the adventure's going to take 10 sessions even though you'd prefer it take 4, let it take all 10. There's nothing at all wrong with finding a logical break point (an overnight or "extended" rest is an obvious one) and stopping there, (remembering to note what hit points etc. the characters are at) to resume next week.
Game design plays an ever-increasing part here too. Older editions didn't really bother designing for campaign length. 3e specifically went for a 1-20 run taking about 2 years. 4e, if memory serves, wants to go 1-30 in about 18 months. And hell, a good deep campaign is barely getting underway at 18 months!
I'm starting to ramble as it's late and I haven't had dinner yet, but what I'm trying to say is that unless people are getting bored, let the pace set itself and don't force it...and assume that each adventure, and by extension the whole campaign, is going to go on exactly as long and take exactly as many sessions as it needs to. And if your campaign lasts ten years, good on ya!
And some plots - like politics and romance, are often largely advanced through roleplay and discussion and interaction, without any mechanics at all.
It's worth noting that this is usually the case, not because mechanics can't be used to advance such plots, but because most RPGs don't include mechanics to resolve such things. In games like Exalted 2e or Burning Wheel that do include mechanics for resolving social interaction, such plots will typically be moved forward as much (if not moreso) by mechanics than by roleplay.
Regarding howandwhy99 - He has his own, specific definition of what a "real" role-playing game is. It seems to be a coherent and self-contained definition.
It unfortunately bears little relations to what most people that play RPGs associate with it - but even these people might not agree among themselves all the time.
In a way it's like a mathematicl definition might be- elegant, precise, and unfortunatelly describing something that has no relevance to the real world. And trust me, there exists such definitions. Peoples have written thesises on a particular mathematical properties for an object - say a set - and in their research found that the objects properties can never be satisfied - so it's effectively an empty set. At least howandhwy99 discussion doesn't describe an empty set of RPGs, since he seems to play his game that way.
Any discussion regarding his definition or a "general" discussion is most of the time off-topic, and at other times often fruitless, since it just doesn't cover enough of what most people want to see covered.
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It's worth noting that this is usually the case, not because mechanics can't be used to advance such plots, but because most RPGs don't include mechanics to resolve such things. In games like Exalted 2e or Burning Wheel that do include mechanics for resolving social interaction, such plots will typically be moved forward as much (if not moreso) by mechanics than by roleplay.
To build on that, I just wanted to add that mixing roleplay and mechanics in a social scene is not only possible, but really to be expected if you're using social conflict mechanics. By that, I mean that "I convince him (clatter dice)" is every bit as Totally Lameas "I swing at him (clatter dice)". If we're playing along and people are just rolling without really getting into what they're doing and why, I take it as a sign that I dropped a dud of a scene on the players and try to quickly wrap it up and move on to something that does interest them.
I recognize a lot of folks feel that roleplaying scenes should be pure dialog with no mechanics invoked, especially those folks that label themselves Immersionists. That's a totally cool preference for people who like it, but it's definately a preference and not something innate to roleplaying. Maybe it's because our group is variously mostly-female or all-female but me, but if I didn't get to use mechanics in scenes where people were "talking it out", we'd be playing freeform.
OK, right here we already have a huge disconnect: session length does not (and in my situation anyway, cannot) equal adventure length. I can't remember if I've ever got through an entire adventure start to finish in one session, and that's including some monster-length sessions back in the day.
See, here's the disconnect - I don't think in terms of adventures. I think in terms of episodes. And no matter how long your plot arcs, that is how they are experienced by your players.
Sort of my central thesis, if you treat the session as an episode that needs to be somewhat self-contained and come to a climax, you will have a better game. Its worked for me so far .
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All adventures, chapters, and stories have a beginning, middle, and end. Sessions don't, really...not unless you're so organized and-or so tied to the railroad that you can plan exactly how long each element of the coming night's game will take (i.e. you know exactly how long your players will take to make each decision, absorb and discuss each bit of new info, etc.). As with the other discussion, I have to ask here: what happens if the players go off script?
I don't have a script. I throw a situation at them and see what they do to resolve it. If they can't get it in one night I announce that the game is To Be Continued and let them resolve it the next game.
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Say for example you've planned out a session where, because of where they left off last time, they're right set up for the final battle - one more room with a few relatively minor guards and then the boss battle. But the party take extra long dealing with the guards - instead of quietly and efficiently killing them they manage to capture two and then spend a long time questioning each one individually and comparing their stories - and then spend three hours using this new info to re-plan their assault on the boss. Are you suggesting the players can't do this, that you'd somehow force the boss battle to start around 10 p.m. real time because that's what's scheduled?
Slow down, man!
No, that would be awesome, and I'd do a To Be Continued just as they begin to move in with their new plan.
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If the adventure's going to take 10 sessions even though you'd prefer it take 4, let it take all 10. There's nothing at all wrong with finding a logical break point (an overnight or "extended" rest is an obvious one) and stopping there, (remembering to note what hit points etc. the characters are at) to resume next week.
By 'adventure' you mean plot arc, right? It takes as long as it takes. This isn't about the plot arc. The plot arc is irrelevent to what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what you do with *tonight*'s game. What is going to make it awesome, memorable, and leave the players wanting more?
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Game design plays an ever-increasing part here too. Older editions didn't really bother designing for campaign length. 3e specifically went for a 1-20 run taking about 2 years. 4e, if memory serves, wants to go 1-30 in about 18 months. And hell, a good deep campaign is barely getting underway at 18 months!
I'm starting to ramble as it's late and I haven't had dinner yet, but what I'm trying to say is that unless people are getting bored, let the pace set itself and don't force it...and assume that each adventure, and by extension the whole campaign, is going to go on exactly as long and take exactly as many sessions as it needs to. And if your campaign lasts ten years, good on ya!
Lanefan
Again, I'm not talking about how long a game runs. That's not really relevent. Its about paying attention to this particular episode. The whole point is you don't get to pick the episode points in advance. They come based on your restrictions in the real world. Deal with this and make it work for you, and your game will be better for it.
It might also clear things up to explain that I don't run a lot of D&D, and most of my games are not exploratory in nature. So exploring a lost dungeon is simply not something that would happen with any frequency. Scenarios of how many rooms away they are from the end are not something that get dealt with very often. More investigation and character conflict than environment exploration.
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Hoo boy, this thread took off on me. Yay me for starting a popular thread.
First off. ST - some fantastic thoughts there. Great advice. Definitely food for thought. I'll get back to this when I've done some reading. Also, thanks for finding my question in the scrum. Well done you sir.
Next, HowandWhy99.
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IMO most game modules must be predetermined in order to be roleplaying challenges for the players to face. Adhering to the damage output of a weapon is a guideline I cannot ignore without cheating in the exact same way I cannot change anything else that is predetermined, like the design of the map or the characterization of an NPC. Once the game has begun I don't get to change what was designed without essentially raising or lowering the pole vault bar before the jumper reaches it. It must remain the same throughout the attempt. Any aspect of an adventure may inform play throughout the challenge. Keeping it uniform for all the players means no part is subject to my whim once the game has begun. Can I set the bar beforehand? Yes, but not during the game.
This I disagree with 100%. And here's why: I cannot change the damage output of a weapon because that fact has been established. The players have access to that information at character generation, and may very well have used that particular weapon in the game. If I suddenly change that rule, I better have a damn good reason why.
However, I can "raise or lower the pole vault bar" at any point up until the players have tried to make the jump as it were. The altitude of the bar is in no way fixed until such time as the PC's have interacted with it. Either they've seen it, or are in the middle of trying to jump over it. Presumably they've investigated it first. If I tell the PC's the bar is 15 feet and then make it 20 feet when they attempt to jump, that's bad DMing.
However, if my module says 15 feet, but I announce to the players that it's 10 feet because I want to make the challenge easier, that is entirely my prerogative as the DM. If there is one thing EVERY SINGLE RPG out there agrees on its that. The DM/GM/Referee has absolute control over every "fact" in the game world until such time as it is established as canon by the players.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveC
Here's a question that the first part of this thread made me think of: how much time is too much? I must admit that as I've gotten older, I enjoy the interplay between characters, even minor ones, a lot more. As a result, when some of my players get into it, I can tend to dally with minor events and NPCs longer than I should. My question to the floor is: how long is too long? How much time should you spend roleplaying just for the fun of the interaction before it becomes boring?
I doubt there's one answer to this...how long would you feel comfortable in a pure interactive roleplay situation with no plot advancement?
--Steve
Yeah, I agree. There is no answer to this other than, what makes everyone happy. You have to build a bit of a consensus here with the group and go with that. It might even be a case of quid pro quo between different players. Maybe this session we're going to drag our heels and talk to every shop keeper, but, you turn to Bob, who's rolling his eyes, give him a nudge and a wink and let him know that next session will be guns a blazin'.
That was the problem I ran into. I was Bob. I wanted to get going because I wanted to see where the plot of the Adventure Path was going. The rest of the group wanted to saunter and explore. Basically, a failure in coming together with play styles.
Looking back at it, as a player, I should have let my frustration be known more constructively to the DM and the other players and tried to find a way to have my cookie without piddling in the pool. I'm sure we could have compromised. In fact, I have recently rejoined that group and that's precisely what has happened. The plot is advancing nicely, and we have lots of roleplay sessions as well. Everyone seems to be happy.
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I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
Not in terms of "how much power should I allow the players to have, because too much might wreck the game", but "how much power should (players and GM) have over the game, in what areas, because deciding this ahead of time helps accomplish the game's design goals". 
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