"Let's rest now"

[pemerton]

if you find the picture im painting not to you liking i am not saying you shouldnt play rpgs i simply suggested a platform more suitable.

Playing in a world that provides no real danager, where the dm cuddles you when you do somthing stupid and continually gives you the chance of a do over beyond asking "are you sure you want to do that" you might as well read your charecters a story.

if this is where youve gotten to in life you should look for a different platform and take a long look and at why you now play dungeons and dragons.

Or you could stop and think about the range of ways to play an RPG, and the range of pleasures that some get out of it. My own group doesn't play "to win", nor to be "cuddled and read a story". They play to engage the gameworld with their PCs, and have exciting adventures with unexpected outcomes. Sometimes random attacks by goblins in the night are part of that. Sometimes they are a distraction from it. In the latter case, if the players suggest that their PCs are doing something that might expose them to boring goblin attacks, I'll give them a heads up. If they keep going down that path, then at least I'll get some indication as to why, and with that additional knowledge about what my players are looking for in the game I can do my best to make it an interesting goblin attack.

if the players start doing something that to the DM (usually me) might be boneheaded, we will stop for a moment and review what the characters know. The interesting thing about doing this, though, is that is hasn't always led to, "Oh well, since you put it that way, we won't camp here." Or even, like it did at first, "Oh no, he raised an objection. Something horrible will happen to us if we camp now." Rather, since the situation is usually tough enough, having a list of the known facts doesn't always give a clear best answer. This raises the tension instead of diminishing it. "Oh now that we thought about it, it is risky to camp here, but not all that great to press on, either. We are so up the creek without a paddle."

Our group plays in a similar way, although the review of the situation tends to focus not so much on operational risks, but on factions, alliances, political trade offs of various courses of action, etc. The general dynamic of the campaign is that as it goes on, and as the players (and their PCs) get more invested in the setting, this stuff gets more and more intricate and so the choices more and more difficult - with GM hints, reminders etc serving to up the tension, as you say, not alleviate it. Ideally, if my GMing skills are up to it, the tension will peak sometime during level 30, and then the endgame will play out!

On the tactical side of things, I'm also quite happy to talk with my players. For example, if they're debating the tactical merits of various courses of action that particular PCs might take during combat, I'll be happy to throw in my opinion of the various options and what they might lead to. My players take this for granted, and I don't think my voice in these discussions is any more influential than anyone else's. Sometimes, of course, it would be impossible for me to say anything without giving away secret GM knowledge. On those occasions I say nothing. But on other occasions I say nothing too, just because I have nothing to say. I don't think my players draw many singnificant conclusions from my pattern of silence vs kibitzing.

our normal group of players consists of mostly middle-aged people that probably didn't get enough sleep last night, and are dealing with everything from toddlers to teens wandering randomly through the gaming space.

I can relate to that. (And also to the middle age - I turned 40 last week, which makes me officially middle aged according to the 1st ed DMG charts!)

Part of my deal with my partner that secures my RPGing time is that I take the kids along with me (3 and 5 years old). And often other players will bring their kids along too, or we might be playing at someone's place with their kids their (all similar ages - my 5 year old is the oldest). So our sessions can sometimes have a creche-like atmosphere to them! In those circumstances I'm very happy to help the players with their record keeping and recall. I don't see that aspect of play as a very significant element of the challenge to the players. The challenge is to do interesting stuff with that information!

 

[korjik]

See my later posts for my opinion on your attitude of "i dont have the time" if this is where youve gotten to in life you should look for a different platform and take a long look and at why you now play dungeons and dragons. You end up finding that its for the social element more than anything else and therefor you would be better of playing some kind of computer game RPG and yes it does remove immersion and any test of skill involved in the game.

Who said I dont have the time? All I said is I dont play often enough. I prefer to play the game when playing the game, as opposed to making new characters for stupid reasons.

I am pretty sure that sometime in the last 30 years (yes I have been playing D&D for that long) I figured out that I played D&D to have fun. I also am pretty sure that in the last 30 years I have figured out that 'this isnt a good spot to rest' is alot less immersion breaking than 'well, you are all dead, so make new characters'.

I am certain that you really have no clue on how I run a game, or how I play a game. I am certain that you have no clue about what makes me enjoy a game or my players enjoy a game. Guess what? My players much prefer to win than to have to try to figure out how to recover from someone doing something stupid. My players also dont like to sit around because their character is dead while everyone else is playing.

That dosent mean I havent killed them, or even that I havent killed them all at once. It dosent mean that I havent gotten my character killed either. Also dosent mean that there isnt skill involved, or skills involved.

Lastly, I dont know about anyone else, but I think that sitting around a table with real people, BSing and killing monsters, is a far more social activity than staring at a computer screen.

 

[MarkB]

See my later posts for my opinion on your attitude of "i dont have the time" if this is where youve gotten to in life you should look for a different platform and take a long look and at why you now play dungeons and dragons. You end up finding that its for the social element more than anything else and therefor you would be better of playing some kind of computer game RPG and yes it does remove immersion and any test of skill involved in the game.

Perhaps if you consider all the different ways that people play tabletop RPGs, you'll find that it's actually a far broader platform than you think it is, and fully supports a variety of play styles, very much including friendly social gatherings where the game is there to entertain the players more than challenge them.

 

[terrya]

Clearly my opinion is not widely shared which is not suprising. At the end of the day it does not matter to me how people play there games nor does it matter to them what i think and i probably put my opinions forward as if they were fact a bit to much but i stand by them. I simply can not understand why a group (to take an above example) of people in there late 30s who have been playing this game for 30 years are still playing it if they have eliminated everything that makes it a good game. I can assume that 80% of people who disagree are also supporters of 4th Edition or pathfinder and it saddens me to turn what was in 1ed an incredibly challenging game (with the right DM) with a stream of top tier modules into mindless drivel that allows people to roll dice whilst they all read the same story and gosip about the people at work. Heres a notion go to the pub and talk to the oppisite sex instead? Your find at this point your probably wouldnt notice the dice were gone

 

[terrya]

I'm not seeing a consistent answer to the question of what you do if you don't have the time or ability to do it right.

If you dont have time to do it right is not somthing i accept as an answer. Doing it right does not take more time from anyone other than the DM/GM and in our group we rotate the DM/GM each adventure because of this.

I would suggest for does limited on time to always used pre generated adventures. Downloading them of the internet for free is beyond stupidly easy in this modern day. I would suggest using mainly 1E/2E Modules as simply put they are better and most of 3.5 was just re dos of previous editions (apart from Red Hand of Doom and a few others). I would avoid anything with the tag 4E as it will lead you to want to claw your eyes out with rusty blades.

I would ensure that everyone in the group is off the same mind because conflict of intrests in the group never work out well and can ditract from others enjoyment.

If you do all of the above it is not harder to then once you sit down at the table for the 3-4 hours you get to play to do it to the letter of the law and encourage more role play and immersion and i think anyone would get more out of the game doing so.

The only down side is that this can encourage slow methodical game play that some people think their too old for, if you really believe that this kind of play is not the heart of what made DnD so succesfull then i just dont know what to say and would encourage you just for a night to go back to it properly and see what you get out of it

 

[ValhallaGH]

If you dont have time to do it right is not somthing i accept as an answer.

Then why do you give it as an answer when confronted with your own errors?

After all, http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/313896-lets-rest-now-4.html#post5732662 dyslexia means that making sure you do it right takes longer.

 

[terrya]

Because a learning disability and playing a game are the same thing all togther and should be treated exactly the same. I took the time to answer the part of your posts that had any relevance now your attacking an irrelvant subject in an attempt to look clever on the internet. Congratulations you sir are a clear moron

Mod Note: Please see my note below. ~Umbran

 

[Aberzanzorax]

[MENTION=6672005]terrya[/MENTION]

Your posts smack of onetruewayism and the attitude that everyone else is having badwrongfun.

Instead of insulting the way others play, maybe you could try to listen to what they're saying. You might find another aspect of the rping experience to appreciate that you hadn't noticed before.

 

[the Jester]

Clearly my opinion is not widely shared which is not suprising. At the end of the day it does not matter to me how people play there games nor does it matter to them what i think and i probably put my opinions forward as if they were fact a bit to much but i stand by them. I simply can not understand why a group (to take an above example) of people in there late 30s who have been playing this game for 30 years are still playing it if they have eliminated everything that makes it a good game. I can assume that 80% of people who disagree are also supporters of 4th Edition or pathfinder and it saddens me to turn what was in 1ed an incredibly challenging game (with the right DM) with a stream of top tier modules into mindless drivel that allows people to roll dice whilst they all read the same story and gosip about the people at work. Heres a notion go to the pub and talk to the oppisite sex instead? Your find at this point your probably wouldnt notice the dice were gone

Wow.

First off, let's keep the Edition Wars out of this discussion, okay? No need to get the thread shut down for something that is utterly irrelevant to the discussion.

Secondly, I'm going to echo the sentiment that you seem to have a very narrow view of what constitutes a fun game of D&D in person, at the table.

ANY group of people that have been playing the game for 30 years has certainly NOT "eliminated everything that makes it a good game" or they wouldn't have kept playing for three decades. Maybe they've eliminated everything that you like in a game of D&D, but that doesn't mean anything other than that your taste is different than theirs. It doesn't make you right or wrong, it doesn't make them right or wrong, and it certainly doesn't make their game bad just because it's not to your taste; it just makes the game one that you shouldn't play in.

You're really coming across as if you think you're the authority on all gaming, the Master of the One True Way to D&D and the Dictator of Fun. Surely you recognize that none of those things are true, and that the assumption that they are isn't constructive to real discussion.

(Please note that I say this as a hardcore mean DM with a notoriously high lethality rate, so don't think I'm a softy.)

 

[terrya]

I recently did try a group that was a bit more social inclined and relaxed to the extend where they did not even establish a marching order and i dont think ive ever seen one of them role play. I found every minuite of it dull but im probably a minority and the reaction in this thread reinforces that.