You're doing what? Surprising the DM

[N'raac]

It's not an assumption. It's a presupposition of some people's preferred approach to play.

My "preferred approach", then, is not to have the full details of each ane every encounter laid out before me in advance so I may decide whether it has sufficient relevance to satisfy me that it is worthy of being played out. I don't need to know whether the fellow in front of me with a crossbow is likely to slay my character should he refuse the orders being given to him (high stakes indeed) or will inflict trivial damage, then fall to my blade (low stakes) to decide how my character will proceed. Providing that information removes all uncertainty and reduces the enjoyment of the game for me. This moves my "cards on the board" analogy away from even having information on the underside of the card - I know up front exactly what my odds are and the results of success or failure. A "choose your own adventure" book becomes more exciting.

Because once in the castle the key stakes - assassinating the duke - are in play. As @Hussar said, there is no mechanical rule here - it's a matter of taste and judgement, a bit like editing.

I agree with the latter, but the former is ludicrous. If there is, for example, a haughty guard who will seek to deny me access to the Duke, he is relevant to the assassination if he is inside the castle, but not if he strides out to challenge me before I can gain entry to the castle?

An encounter on the road to the castle with its architect, who knows of a secret way into the Duke's chamber is somehoe less relevant than encountering the same architect in the city, or in the castle itself, or even find his body where it was left in the desert (after the Duke had him killed to protect his castle's secrets), with a page or two of notes that would provide a clue as to that secret passage? Physical proximity to the Duke is the only thing that can make the situation relevant?

Under the proposed model, it can be no surprise that the prisoner of those desert nomads, or the fellow we're interacting with in the tavern, has this relevant knowledge, as we must present the stakes to the players prior to the encounter so they may judge its worth. "Guys, I think it is important that you not just skip over this section, because there'sa character in here who is very important going forward - here's all his backstory and future potential involvement. So can we please NOT skip the travel through the Gobin King's territory, as I have now shown you it has relevance" What do we end up with? Relevant characters walk up to the campfire with their resume in hand so the players can judge whether interaction will be relevant? Oh wait - now we're back to 90 minutes of interviewing NPC's aren't we?

Yes. That would be equally frustrating.

So how is it impossible to have situations outside the castle which would be equally exciting, and relevant to the assassiniation,to situations within the castle?

You are assuming here that whether or not something takes time at the table should be determined by whether or not it is hard in the gameworld. That is one way to RPG, but not the only one. Hussar and I are articulating a different approach - as Hussar said upthread, it is non-simulationist.

So who decides which of:
- travel to the Duke's city
- determining the lay of the land with its people
- finding a way to gain access to the castle;
- once inside, finding a means of confronting the Duke at a time and place where we can pull off the assassination;
- the actual assassination
- the escape from the location where he was assassinated
- the escape from the castle itself
- the escape from the city
- subsequent efforts to capture the PC's and/or avenge the Duke?

It seems like your/Hussar's vision is one of either unanimous group consensus, or one player's preference (depending on whether the single player or the group as a whole decides how we will proceed). So, once we have agreed on which of these aspects should or should not be played out, I'd think the GM now has to break so he can write the adventure, as it seems likely at least one item the group included would lack any relevance, and/or at least one item the group removes would have had something relevant, if the GM had simply prepared the adventure himself after the players ended last week's session with their announcement that "we must assassinate the Duke". Hopefully, no one gets bored with the concept in the intervening period, or we'll want to skip past all this borning Duke stuff and move on, and all that preparation will be for naught.

If there are no salient stakes, then the player does know its trivial (by the sort of measure that Hussar and I are putting forward).

When the players arrive at City B, they find an inn at which to eat and rest, and there are half a dozen patrons in the tavern. Trivial day to day maintenance, or could one of those people in the tavern be:

- a Duke loyalist who may pass information on these new arrivals up the chain?

- a builder who knows about a secret passage into the Duke's chambers?

- ordinary townsfolk who can tip the PC's off as to the level of resistance or support the locals may have for the Duke and, by implication, his assassination?

The simple fact that the GM plays out the tavern encounter is, frankly, a tip off to the players that "something relevant this way comes", unless your group plays out every stay at a tavern (which would become trivial and boring very quickly). To me, the game is not enhanced by the GM spelling out exactly why this scene is relevant.

No. City B, the Duke's castle, the grell, are situations - ie NPCs and PCs in some sort of confrontation over something at stake with which the players are engaged.

Semantics. By the same phrasing, the desert, the road to the Duke and the spearcarrier recruiting are also situations. The players are engaged in killing the grell, and they have decided to hire assistance to do so. They returned to the city to recruit those allies. It is the players who set the scene of choosing their recruits. I have no problem with them choosing to rush the process, and risking poor choices of allies, or of detailed interviews to get to know the people they will be trusting with their lives in the near future, but they have set the scene where they need to make that choice.

By choosing to assassinate the Duke, they have chosen a path that requires they reach the Duke's city. They have some nebulous goal requiring they get to City B, which requires they cross the desert. They have then set the "cross the desert" scene. Presuming their goal is not just "get to City B and purchase a packet of smokes", I assume there are also scenes which will occur in the city - things between them and whatever that nebulous goal in City B happens to be.

Now, I suppose we could play Improv D&D - I'll describe out the one scene I want to play, and the GM now makes that scene, and we play it out (unless one of the other players says "naw, that's boring"). Then we can brainstorm to come up with another scene, having little or nothing to do with the first. That's not the game I'd want to play. It seems very much a tale told by an idiot (in this case an idiot committee), full of sound a fury, signifying nothing.

I said simply overcoming challenges. The relevant difference is, what are the stakes of the challenge? Tomb of Horrors and White Plume Mountain involve challenges, but I have zero interest in playing or GMing either, because there are no interesting stakes.

The older modules come without stakes, or links to the campaign. One can certainly add stakes. Make one of the weapons in WPM important to the game. Change one of them to the Sword of Whoever that was in Player #3's background. I agree that the GM has a role to play in taking disparate modular adventures and making them relevant. That doesn't mean the players (much less one single player - and your posts still indicate a hive mind player team) decide "oh, we have to get past a Grell to get to the Sword? Not really feeling it. Can't we just cut scene past the Grell - tactical combat bores me!"

Disregarding the "useless", that's what colour is - description that adds flavour and vibe to the game. (I don't know why you'd think it's useless - description and flavour are part of being immersed in play.)

I don't find "so scratch off eight potions of heat resistance" provides for that immersive experience you are describing. By reducing the impact of the desert to such a trivial level, you have removed the flavour it could have added to the game. And how much crap are we carrying around to turn every issue into a "scratch something off your character sheet" moment? Sounds more like a board game than an RPG, and not even a good board game at that.

First, why will the game play out identically? To cross the desert, for instance, the PCs might cross off their "heat resistance" potions, whereas going through a forest wouldn't have the same impact on resources.

The game will play out identically because you have decided the travel is trivial and should be ignored. "Cross off X" is not gameplay to me. Do you find excitement in the GM asking you each day you have travelled whether you wish to cross off some food and water? I don't think Hussar does - in fact, tracking that minutia seems to be a key aspect he wants to avoid - and in that, I agree with him. If obtaining food and water is trivial, then we don't need to play it out. However, if the GM stops and asks "how much food and water are you carrying", my guess is that how much food and water we have is about to become a matter of concern, and no longer trivial.

Second, why is description and immesion not an end in itself? Apart from anything else, it plays a role in setting the fictional stakes.

Oh look - the setting just became relevant.

In 4e, for instance, a thief in leather armour and a paladin in full plate have much the same AC, but the difference in colour is hardly irrelevant - it gives the two characters very different fictional positions.

There are also some pretty material mechanical differences. Let's deny both their DEX modifiers. Oh, here comes an enemy that attacks touch AC. That one has electrical powers and is unaffected by metal armor. Which one is easier to drag out if incapacitated (HINT: all that plate adds considerable weight!)? Which one can swim better? Which one has issues trying to creep past a sleeping guard? Those differences seeem like a lot more than colour and description to me, and took no time at all to come up with.

I'm not sure how that would be. How would it come about that a player-created goal would be simply a plot device for propelling the action along? Can you give an example?

Let's take that Sword of Whoever. Pop it in to replace one of the White Plume Mountain weapons. Suddenly, the player is interested in playing out that scenario, and will try to persuade the rest of the players. Or maybe he'll just moan that he finds dungeon crawling dull and boring - can't we just cut scene to his character gloriously holding the sword aloft? No sense playing out his trials and sacrifices to find the sword (which have finally culminated in his determining its last known location), just relegate it all to backstory and the sword is just as worthwhile. "We cut scene through searching the libraries, questioning the sages, travelling the world to find small clues and battling past hordes of bizarre enemies - and lo, we have found the Holy Grail
Lost Sword of Whatsisname!!" Hey, that only took 15 minutes (14 of dismissing scenes we couldn't be bothered to play out, 30 seconds of triumphant high fiving and that wasted 30 seconds of the GM describing the room the sword was in - BAD GM! So, should we play another campaign? We've got an hours, so we should have time for at least three more!"

Then I think you may be mishearing.

I don't. Can't we just cut scene to the conclusion that I am right?

To go back to the grell example, for instance: there's a pretty big difference between turning up to a rematch with the grell and finding it's recruited a gauth ally (a complication within the context of the grell situation), and spending 90 minutes of play recruiting hirelings to fight the grell (which is not a complication with the context of the grell situation, but a completely different, and also in context rather low stakes, situation).

I see...so the Grell recruiting an ally to fight the PC's is an exciting and relevant complication, but the PC's recruiting an ally to fight the Grell is a low stakes, boring, irrellevant waste of time. So why did the players choose to recruit allies? Did they want to make the game dull and boring? Hussar tells me these spearmen were very important to their rematch with the Grell - it seems that would provide their recruitment with some stakes. So, if you and I are both at the same table, how do we resolve the fact that I see the recruitment as high stakes, exciting and relevant, and you dismiss it as low stakes, trival and boring? Note that, to me, a rematch with the Grell is low stakes (we have to get past to move on - will the GM just end the campaign here?) and boring (played that combat once - rematches bore me out of my skull - it's not a videogame where we just beat our head against the exact same challenge over and over until we finally slip through), so I want to play out the recruiting process, then just cut scene to us reveling in our victory over the Grell. Describe the perfect game session we build out of these two perceptions and priorities for me.

No one has said that. There are any number of ways to introduce consequences of failure or less than full success without framing things into tedious and low-stakes scenes.

Then why is it assumed that the desert travel will just be a bunch of tedious and low-stakes scenes, but once we get to City B, the game will turn from grainy B&W to high def 3d glorious technicolour?

I've already indicated with the grell example, for instance: a hireling shows his/her cowardice, or tendency towards aberration-worship, when the group confronts the grell.

You just made the recruitment high stakes and relevant, contrary to how you classified it above. [ASIDE: As an internet posting ettiquette note, it is customary to place self contradictions at least two posts apart, and three or more is generally preferred - at a minimum, they should not follow in immediately sequential paragraphs; although insertion of a second quote between mutually contradictory statements is felt by some to reduce the faux pas, this is not the case by the standard rules of ettiquette.]

That's a caricatured framing of things

Well, we can't have topped 125 of those in only 366 posts, can we?

but take out the caricature and yes, you are a bad GM for me or Hussar.

I'm so tempted to ask whether you're referring to Hussar or youself, or whether that should have been plural. Sadly, I can resist pretty much anything but temptation. I hope, and like to believe, that the caricature arises from the manner in which the viewpoint has been presented (internet posting is not a full suite of communication tools full of subtle nuances), but the fact is I don't think I'm the one who draws the same conclusion from the information we have been given. But I doubt a detailed analysis of my own posts would reveal much more than another caricature.

 

[N'raac]

Again, let's not forget, this is a nuclear option. Not something that is done just because a player feels like it. The player in question should HATE what's going on. I've maintained that all the way along. And it always gets ignored.

It gets contrasted with "It is appropriate for me to get shirty with the DM if he does not immediately accept my rather hare brained approach to crossing the desert must immediately cut scene us to the city beyond" and "I can't be bothered to interact with the hireling applicants I chose to recruit." We can only see the examples you gave, not that they are the only two examples of a request to skip a scene that you have made since you started gaming the day after the OD&D rules were published.

No, the Duke is not setting. The Duke is plot. Setting is where the plot happens and nothing more. Setting isn't even really required. Look at something like Keep on the Borderlands which has virtually no setting beyond the most bare bones, generic fantasy elements. Yet it's considered one of the best modules of all time. IMO, it's considered that because it doesn't screw around with all this setting stuff and gets right into the action - ie. plot.

You seem to be confusing "action" with "plot". Keep on the Borderlands has three settings. It has the Keep itself ("the bartender loves honey mead and hates small beer"), which is largely ignored by most newbies (and it is a newbie module - that's why it was in the box!). It has the area surrounding the Keep (in your search for the Caves, you may locate the giant spiders and lizardmen - there was a third encounter, IIRC), which you can wilderness explore through, hex by hex. And there are the Caves. A rather disparate assortment of various monster tribes, that generally get more powerful as we rise higher in the geography, are presented as not getting along that well, yet live in some precarious balance. And, if you kill off half the goblins, that shift in the balance of power will have had no impact whatsoever when you return a week later to finish off the rest.

There is no plot ("Also called storyline. the plan, scheme, or main story of a literary or dramatic work, as a play, novel, or short story."; dictionary.com). There is no story. There is a setting (including a few sub-settings, occupants both friend and foe, etc.) with which the PC's interact (generally meaning "kill and loot", but sometimes "spend loot"). Any plot is added by the GM, but is not inherent in the module.

Yeah, I know that's what you keep hearing, but that's because you only hear what you want to hear.

Maybe someone will provide some evidence to the contrary some day. Actually, there is evidence to the contrary in that you are still gaming, which leads me to believe the snippets we get here do not tell the whole story - and they rarely, if ever, do. I have still seen no examples of what you would consider a great, well run session.

Jeez, again for the umpteenth time, I'm talking about skipping one scene. One. Not a series of scenes, not a campaign, just one scene.

To date, I believe you have described a sum total of four scenes:

- the desert scene ("skip it")
- the hireling interviews ("skip it")
- killing the Grell ("worthy of playing")
- interrogating the hobgoblin ("worthy of playing" or "should have been skipped"?)

The two you have focused us on seem like pretty bog standard scenes to me. The desert scene was described as you presenting a means of skipping it without considering whether it had any merit, then getting "shirty" when it was suggested there might be challenges to your solution, and it may not have the desired effect of an immediate cut scene to the other side of the desert. The second was presented as you deciding on an out of the box approach, the PC's recruiting additional combatants, then being displeased when the GM insisted these hirelings have some back story beyond being "spearcarrier #1 - #6". 90 minutes seems like an extended period, but I can attribute that to everyone else having a blast interacting with the applicants as easily as to a scene dragging on. 30 seconds seems like, again, dismissing the scene out of hand, not skipping only a single scene when it has dragged.

It seems like the scene cut became a lot less frequent at some point between your first comment on the desert scene and the 100th or 200th post, but I'm not sure how that evolved.

Seriously, would this be the only time in the campaign you would ever have engaged the services of one or more hirelings? And every other time, you would be good with playing out the hireling interview process, provided the NPC's were fleshed out, but only this one time you're not interested? How likely does that sound when read objectively? I suspect that there may have been an exchange suggesting it may take some work and time to find the half dozen spearmen you want to recruit, you probably got shirty and snapped something about how there must be dozens or hundreds of capable warriors in the city, so your approach was accepted and more than the precise number you wanted had the gall to show up and apply, forcing a decisionmaking process be implemented.

I'm curious how the scene played out. Did you suggest just taking the first six in line and moving on? Who insistent you could not do so, the GM or one or more other players, or both? Was it a 90 minute GM monologue as each NPC read out his/her/its CV, or was one or more player an active participant in dialogue with the potential hirelings? How many actually showed up (am I misrecalling that you said ten?) to be interviewed? Did you actually say "guys, I find this really boring - all I wanted were some no-name extras to give us some extra combat punch for this one battle. Can we wrap this up and move on?" or did you just withdraw, yawn occasionally and expect the rest of the players to notice that you were disengaged?

Finally, you've described a couple of scenes where you wanted to move on. I have heard no examples where you noticed the rest of the players seemed less than engaged and said "Hey, are you guys not enjoying this? I'm having a great time, but if you'renot finding this engaging, let's move on!" I mean as a player, not a GM looking from player to player.

 

[pemerton]

This is heavily dependent on setting; the stakes are set by the fiction, which resides within the setting. Right?

Well, yes and no. The fiction includes a setting. But the action at the table may or may not emphasise that setting. It can be an obejct of exploration and manipulation in its own right, but it can also be a simple backdrop, providing colour to the real action which is focused on (say) character and situation.

For instance, to start with a movie example, compare Star Wars (original) to Phantom Menace. I would say that in Star Wars setting is a mere backdrop. There are planets, and cantinas, and an evil empire, and rebels. But we (the audience) are not expected to engage with the minutiae of any of these. How is life on Tatooine economically viable? Where did all those cantina aliens come from? How exactly does the Empire govern? What is a Princess doing as a defender of an Old Republic? These aren't the questions with which the movie is concerned.

The Phantom Menace is quite different, at least in my view. It puts forward setting - geography, landscape, minutiae of government and economics, etc, as themselves objects of interest. There are scenes, like the travel underwater and the creatures eating one another - that play no narrative role but showing off setting. I would say quite a bit of the plot exposition at various places in the movie (eg on the Trade Federation ship; in the Senate) are similarly doing nothing but showing off setting.

I thnk this helps explain the diffrent feel of the two movies.

To turn now to another tried and true example, let's imagine LotR from an RPG perspective. Aragorn's player has a goal for Aragorn as a PC, namely, becomeing king. This sets up some other goals - reforge Anduril, travel to Minas Tirith, tread the Paths of the Dead. It also sets up some likely confilcts - with Boromir, with Denethor, perhaps with Faramir, with the King of the Dead, etc. But at this point we can't tell whether or not setting matters, or will be important to play.

For instance, will the geography of the Paths of the Dead matter? Or will that particular episode of play be resolved essentially as a social conflict between Aragorn and the King of the Dead? Different tables will probably have different preferences. And, perhaps, look to different systems.

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is an RPG that prioritises situation over setting, and it has this to say on the matter (Operations Manual, pp 54, 69):

A lot of things in the story don’t have [mechanical traits] associated with them because they’re a part of the fiction that everyone at the table just agrees on. Lampposts, sidewalks, plate windows, random passersby, bouquets of flowers, newspapers, and other items that aren’t immediately important are just context and color. You can make them important by using your effect dice to make them assets, or use them as part of your description for stunts . . .

Heroes and villains aren’t alone in having Distinctions [a form of mechanically significant keyword]. The Scene (or the location the Scene takes place in) may also be described using Distinctions. These are defining qualities of the Scene that could help or hinder the characters in it. Examples of Scene Distinctions include Cluttered, Flooded, Noisy, Pitch Black, Quiet, and Unstable.​

So setting is not an object of exploration, so much as a shared and presupposed background. It becomes of significance to play either because the players leverage it by deploying their resources and creating "assets" or performing "stunts"; or the GM leverages it by establishing Scene Distinctions (and there are various mechanical guidelines associated with this).

In this sort of game, how is a secret door going to resolve? It won't be like in classic D&D. Rather, it will be a contest between the heroes' Perception and some ability of the villain that lets him/her escape (say, Superhuman Speed), with the secret door being a Scene Distinction that acts as a buff on the villain's escape check. If the villain wins the contest, the secret door may or may not figure in the GM's narration of the escape, depending on what the overall context suggests, what the actual die rolls suggest (if anything), and what seems most likely, in context, to propel the game forward.

Crossing the desert might be resolved similarly: the contest would be between the PCs' endurance and travel skills, and the environmental difficulty (in MHRP, this is represented by the Doom Pool). Relevant Scene Distinctions might include "Hot" and "Blinding Sand". The centipede would be an asset granting a buff to the players' side of the contest. This might either be a brief stand-alone scene, or - if it is the context of tracking someone down in City B - it might be simply one contest in that overall challenge. You could even frame the contest identically to the secret door example, with the contest being one of the PCs' travel attribute vs that of the NPC they are chasing, with the desert simply adding in some colour plus a Scene Distinction that the GM can draw on to buff the NPC's roll.

Now D&D prior to 4e doesn't have any sort of generic scene resolution mechanic, and even in 4e it can't be done via a single roll (the smallest skill challenge is 4 successes before 3 failures). But there are a range of informal tehcniques that can be used to achieve outcomes similar to what I've just described, where the setting itself figures as a backdrop that colours and informs situations and the conflicts within them, but is not itself an object of exploration or focus for play.

Is there something that answers to what I asked him, or is this basically a "here's my preference, and here's why it's valid" post?

An answer was intended. I've tried to elaborate it above.

TL;DR - you can call all of the fiction other than the PCs "setting" if you like, and that won't as such do any harm, but you'll still probably need to find some terminology to capture the difference between how classic D&D handles the secret door case, and how MHRP handles it. And also to explain why some players like one way and others the other.

 

[Hussar]

I agree with the latter, but the former is ludicrous. If there is, for example, a haughty guard who will seek to deny me access to the Duke, he is relevant to the assassination if he is inside the castle, but not if he strides out to challenge me before I can gain entry to the castle?

If you are going to assassinate the Duke, what would be fairly reasonable to expect? Guards? Yup. Castle or some sort of stronghold where the Duke is? I'd think so. Various traps and possible secret entrances? I could see that.

So, how is your guard irrelevant?

An encounter on the road to the castle with its architect, who knows of a secret way into the Duke's chamber is somehoe less relevant than encountering the same architect in the city, or in the castle itself, or even find his body where it was left in the desert (after the Duke had him killed to protect his castle's secrets), with a page or two of notes that would provide a clue as to that secret passage? Physical proximity to the Duke is the only thing that can make the situation relevant?

As a player, you wouldn't find that terribly contrived? We just happened to meet the architect on the road to the Duke's castle? We weren't looking for him. We didn't even know he existed until the DM parachuted him in. That, to me, is far, far worse for the game than any amount of scene skipping. Deus Ex Machina at its finest. Earlier I called this railroading and that was a mistake. It's not really railroading. But it is terribly contrived.

I mean, why bother actually making anything like a plan? The DM is just going to give us the keys to the castle anyway, so long as we follow his bread crumb trail of encounters. Any deviation from that trail will result in complications and bad feelings, so, might as well just go along for the ride.

Under the proposed model, it can be no surprise that the prisoner of those desert nomads, or the fellow we're interacting with in the tavern, has this relevant knowledge, as we must present the stakes to the players prior to the encounter so they may judge its worth. "Guys, I think it is important that you not just skip over this section, because there'sa character in here who is very important going forward - here's all his backstory and future potential involvement. So can we please NOT skip the travel through the Gobin King's territory, as I have now shown you it has relevance" What do we end up with? Relevant characters walk up to the campfire with their resume in hand so the players can judge whether interaction will be relevant? Oh wait - now we're back to 90 minutes of interviewing NPC's aren't we?

No, you are missing the point. Why did we engage those desert nomads? We had no interest in engaging them. We engaged them because the DM put them there and had them attack us. Again, totally contrived. And the prisoner just happens to have the plot keys that we need?

If you wanted us to have that information, why not just give it to us? Or, better yet, let us know before hand that there is someone that would possibly be very helpful for us to get to know and then let us decide whether or not we think it's important?

I get that you want a strongly DM presented and driven game. That's groovy. But, for some of us, we'd rather that the players drive the game to a much larger degree. The players decide whether it's worth it to rescue that guy from the desert nomads, not the DM.

 

[Hussar]

It gets contrasted with "It is appropriate for me to get shirty with the DM if he does not immediately accept my rather hare brained approach to crossing the desert must immediately cut scene us to the city beyond" and "I can't be bothered to interact with the hireling applicants I chose to recruit." We can only see the examples you gave, not that they are the only two examples of a request to skip a scene that you have made since you started gaming the day after the OD&D rules were published.

Sigh. You might actually want to go back and read what was said. My point was never that the DM must immediately accept an idea. It was that it's better to not bother with a bunch of pointless crap that the players have no investment in, just to make the DM happy.

Again, why am I interacting with these hirelings? They are there for a single purpose. When you hire some workmen to paint your house, do you spend half an hour interviewing each one and getting their life story? Or do you call up House Painters Inc. and tell them what you want and that's about the long and the short of your interaction?

You seem to be confusing "action" with "plot". Keep on the Borderlands has three settings. It has the Keep itself ("the bartender loves honey mead and hates small beer"), which is largely ignored by most newbies (and it is a newbie module - that's why it was in the box!). It has the area surrounding the Keep (in your search for the Caves, you may locate the giant spiders and lizardmen - there was a third encounter, IIRC), which you can wilderness explore through, hex by hex. And there are the Caves. A rather disparate assortment of various monster tribes, that generally get more powerful as we rise higher in the geography, are presented as not getting along that well, yet live in some precarious balance. And, if you kill off half the goblins, that shift in the balance of power will have had no impact whatsoever when you return a week later to finish off the rest.

I'd point out that there are no hexes on the Keep maps. But that's a quibble. And, with the ruleset you would would with KotB, you have virtually no rules for outdoor exploration. You might want to go back to the Moldvay Basic rules and take a look at what play actually consisted of.

There is no plot ("Also called storyline. the plan, scheme, or main story of a literary or dramatic work, as a play, novel, or short story."; dictionary.com). There is no story. There is a setting (including a few sub-settings, occupants both friend and foe, etc.) with which the PC's interact (generally meaning "kill and loot", but sometimes "spend loot"). Any plot is added by the GM, but is not inherent in the module.



Maybe someone will provide some evidence to the contrary some day. Actually, there is evidence to the contrary in that you are still gaming, which leads me to believe the snippets we get here do not tell the whole story - and they rarely, if ever, do. I have still seen no examples of what you would consider a great, well run session.

Actually, I have. A well run session would be one where everyone in the group is engaged in what is going on.

To date, I believe you have described a sum total of four scenes:

- the desert scene ("skip it")
- the hireling interviews ("skip it")
- killing the Grell ("worthy of playing")
- interrogating the hobgoblin ("worthy of playing" or "should have been skipped"?)

The two you have focused us on seem like pretty bog standard scenes to me. The desert scene was described as you presenting a means of skipping it without considering whether it had any merit, then getting "shirty" when it was suggested there might be challenges to your solution, and it may not have the desired effect of an immediate cut scene to the other side of the desert. The second was presented as you deciding on an out of the box approach, the PC's recruiting additional combatants, then being displeased when the GM insisted these hirelings have some back story beyond being "spearcarrier #1 - #6". 90 minutes seems like an extended period, but I can attribute that to everyone else having a blast interacting with the applicants as easily as to a scene dragging on. 30 seconds seems like, again, dismissing the scene out of hand, not skipping only a single scene when it has dragged.

The getting shirty comment, if you go back and read, was in response to Celebrim's comments that he would add in a bunch of skill checks and whatnot to, in my view, roadblock the PC's and force them to interact with the desert.

It seems like the scene cut became a lot less frequent at some point between your first comment on the desert scene and the 100th or 200th post, but I'm not sure how that evolved.

Seriously, would this be the only time in the campaign you would ever have engaged the services of one or more hirelings? And every other time, you would be good with playing out the hireling interview process, provided the NPC's were fleshed out, but only this one time you're not interested? How likely does that sound when read objectively? I suspect that there may have been an exchange suggesting it may take some work and time to find the half dozen spearmen you want to recruit, you probably got shirty and snapped something about how there must be dozens or hundreds of capable warriors in the city, so your approach was accepted and more than the precise number you wanted had the gall to show up and apply, forcing a decisionmaking process be implemented.

Yup, after this one time, I never, ever tried to hire hirelings with this DM again. Because, after this one time, having it drag out over an hour, I couldn't be bothered ever again.

I'm curious how the scene played out. Did you suggest just taking the first six in line and moving on? Who insistent you could not do so, the GM or one or more other players, or both? Was it a 90 minute GM monologue as each NPC read out his/her/its CV, or was one or more player an active participant in dialogue with the potential hirelings? How many actually showed up (am I misrecalling that you said ten?) to be interviewed? Did you actually say "guys, I find this really boring - all I wanted were some no-name extras to give us some extra combat punch for this one battle. Can we wrap this up and move on?" or did you just withdraw, yawn occasionally and expect the rest of the players to notice that you were disengaged?

Again, I was the one doing the interviewing, because I was the one who came up with the plan. And, as I recall, the DM had an old man and his young grandson show up first, which were rejected, a dwarf and a couple of others came later. After the old man and the dwarf, I just threw up my hands and took them all.

Finally, you've described a couple of scenes where you wanted to move on. I have heard no examples where you noticed the rest of the players seemed less than engaged and said "Hey, are you guys not enjoying this? I'm having a great time, but if you'renot finding this engaging, let's move on!" I mean as a player, not a GM looking from player to player.

You missed the hobgoblin being killed? Go back in the thread a bit. I was interogating the hobgoblin and the other player ganked it in mid sentence. His reason was exactly the same as mine. The DM was road blocking and he wanted to move things along. But, that's not quite what you're asking for.

Hrm... Why would I cut a scene I was enjoying short? That's on you. If you're not having fun, why wouldn't you cut it short? And, to be honest, again, this is a pretty nuclear option. Not something you do lightly.

Thinking about it though, in our current Dark Sun game, my character is playing a very central role. Mostly because I was the only one to give the DM a really clear goal when asked. Everyone else was content to kinda sorta just go along but, my character was a noble who, in the early stages of the campaign, was dispossessed and his family mostly killed. Regrouping my family, getting revenge and a few other things have been central themes for this character and have really driven the campaign.

Noticing this, I've, on more than one occasion, asked the group if I was hogging the spotlight and could we please focus on someone else for a while. I remember one scene where I was finally reunited with my mother that took considerable time to play out. I did ask the group if I should cut things short.

So, no, I know you want to keep painting me with this brush of spotlight hog and bad player, but that's not it at all. It's just that, once in a while, when the DM has misjudged what would engage the group, I don't mind if a player or players pipe up and ask to move things along. It does not bother me in the least.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

Again, why am I interacting with these hirelings? They are there for a single purpose. When you hire some workmen to paint your house, do you spend half an hour interviewing each one and getting their life story? Or do you call up House Painters Inc. and tell them what you want and that's about the long and the short of your interaction?

Going with this point specifically, (and I don't have an opinion of what I would do, so don't shoot me) one of the rebuttals to that is that you're hiring people who could very well be risking their lives in combat. There is no guarantee of safety like with the painters, thus most would probably think of them as quite different situations.

Perhaps a better comparison would be if one were to hire a bunch of bodyguards. And in thinking about that, I guess I'll swallow my previous words and say I'd be inclined not to do an in-depth interview for any of them to get to know them. Interview them enough to make sure they are adequate for what's needed, both in physical and mental abilities, as well as get a good enough indicator to say that they won't backstab anyone, and that's all that really needed for a single gig. Maybe even two. If these people think their personalities and quirks are really going to be interesting to the hirer for one or two gigs, they've got another thing coming since most gigs are simply about getting something done and then moving on. Having to get to know them can very well detract from the point in wanting to hire them in the first place.

So yeah, there might be some interesting stuff to find out about them, but it is up to the players to initiate that and say "I'm interested in getting to know these people" instead of the DM saying "you need to get to know these people because I think there might be some interesting things going on." Now that I'm thinking critically on it, it's nauseating to think that the DM would forcibly add stuff on like that. Yes, there's certainly some DM interaction because the DM, not the players, placed the people, but they should get the option of going above and beyond to get to know them instead of being told to get to know them. There's a reason there are achievements for talknig to the chick in the new Prince of Persia: Because it's a fun side thing. If you actually had to talk to her that much to progress the game, then it really makes one question what the game's focus.

Now, if it was specifically called out as more of an RP heavy kind of campaign throughout, maybe making the player interact on that level with an NPC would work, but it still leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth because it's still a force. Maybe if it was done such that the story led up to that interaction being quite obvious and that meant the player wanted to do that in the first place, but that requires quite a different framing than "We just got our butts handed to us by a monster. Let's hire some muscle to kill it!" which is the vibe I certainly get from the situation as has been described in this thread.

 

[pemerton]

On the interview thing - why can't we assume that the PCs are doing adequate interviews, background checks etc but have it all be handled quickly and mechanically? Eg the player of the hiring PC rolls a Sense Motive check: success means no problems, excellent success means you've really found your way into the hearts of these hirelings (+1 morale), failure means the GM has license to introduce some treasury/cowardice-style complication at a key point in the Grell battle.

Some of the posts in this thread seem to be working under the assumption that if it didn't get played out at the table, it didn't happen in the fiction. But as the above illustration, as well as other more mundane examples (I have never once seen a PC's urination played out, for instance), show, that assumption is not in general warranted.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Again, let's not forget, this is a nuclear option. Not something that is done just because a player feels like it. The player in question should HATE what's going on. I've maintained that all the way along. And it always gets ignored.

It's not a case of me feeling a bit put out by the scene. Hell, I have lots of patience. I'll sit back and let scenes unfold all the time. But, I also don't mind the players having the option of cutting to the chase when they feel like things are dragging too much.

I trust that the players are honest enough and have the best interests of the game at heart. I realize that others want to place all that power in the hands of the DM. Fair enough. I don't.

Well, that's fine. Honestly. But I still feel like you sidestepped my question; if you have the power to skip a scene, and other players will now have less fun if you skip it (they've been waiting for this scene; it's their favorite part of game; they think it's integral to the place you'll be skipping to; etc.), aren't you explicitly putting your fun ahead of theirs?

And, this is why we should never game at the same table.

No, the Duke is not setting. The Duke is plot. Setting is where the plot happens and nothing more. Setting isn't even really required.

I know people hate bringing in definitions, but since that's how language works, and I'm trying to clarify, not argue, I won't bring it in, but I'll note that what I looked up doesn't fit what you're describing, as far as I can tell.

Look at something like Keep on the Borderlands which has virtually no setting beyond the most bare bones, generic fantasy elements. Yet it's considered one of the best modules of all time. IMO, it's considered that because it doesn't screw around with all this setting stuff and gets right into the action - ie. plot.

Again, I have to disagree with it based on the definition I looked up. But, setting (in the sense I'm using it) has no bearing on the action -something can have a lot of setting and be incredibly relevant to the action. Deciding action and pacing seems like a side issue to the actual "setting" bit.

But, again, that's just how I like to play. All that scenery stuff that DM's seem to love to paper their campaign with? Pretty much of zero interest to me. Yes, I realize you need some setting. Of course. You cannot have a story without ANY setting. But, again, setting and setting consistency is the lowest priority AFAIC. If it has not been established in play, it is not a fact, only an opinion and subject to change at any time. Again, this is totally my opinion.

Right, I get that you're discussing play style, and I'm not even advocating against it. I'm just questioning the two statements you made. As far as I can tell, you've defined "setting" in a way that I might describe setting as "setting that isn't interesting to me or the current story arch", or something along those lines. Even if I don't agree with your definition, I can still try to understand your meaning.

So, while I think I'm a little more clear on the "setting" part, I still have the question about you putting your fun ahead of others.

Ok, fair enough.

Now, the guy sitting next to you has 100% tuned out and is playing with his cell phone. It is very, very obvious that he has no interest in what's going on in the game right now, despite being engaged most of the time.

Do you continue to explore the desert or do you move on? As a fellow player, is exploring the desert more important to you than the guy sitting next to you engaging in the game?

I probably ask him to stop playing on his cell phone; this is a no-no at the table I run. If I'm playing (and not running) with people who aren't my friends, I probably don't comment on it, but I'd question whether I want to continue to play when this is going on.

But, to answer the spirit of the question (I'm I okay if someone is bored and is obviously expressing it), I can only repeat what I've already said; I'll feel for them. I have a lot of empathy for people in general, and especially my friends. I'd try to hurry through the scene, but, yes, I'd want to play it out, if I consider it important. I regret that he doesn't find it interesting, but if it's important (in ways I've expressed in this post and my past two, I believe), then I'd just do my best to hurry through, while getting what I can out of it.

For me, the answer is no. It's not. Questioning the bugbear was not more important than the other player's enjoyment of the game. In that case, the player could easily cut the scene short (rather literally) but, the approach is the same.

Hobgoblin, I think.

But anyways, yeah, this leads back to "aren't you rather explicitly putting your fun ahead of mine?" You say you aren't, but I still feel like you are. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do that, I'm just questioning whether or not what you're trying to express is actually the case. As always, play what you like

 

[JamesonCourage]

An answer was intended. I've tried to elaborate it above.

I'll try to summarize; I basically agree with you on "setting", I think.

I disagree with why the movie feels different, at least for me (love A New Hope, dislike Phantom Menace); I love Game of Thrones, and it's quite involved with the internal setting. But, the way it deals with setting is what I like seeing done; the setting is conceived in such a way that being entangled in most any part of it produces interesting scenes. So, I can see the argument being made for "blurring the lines" between "setting" and "story", or something.

I know it's impolite, but I skipped the Marvel indentation; it's not just you, I skip almost every indentation people use. I don't know why; I can obviously stomach examples. The following paragraph seems to relate back to your first about "setting mattering" or "setting as mostly background", which I think I broadly agree with, though.

The next couple paragraphs about how Marvel would handle it seems like it's just producing what I said it could be in D&D (or really most any game system); the scene could be rather trivial, or it might be important. I was just saying that I like exploring it (even with random rolls to determine if it's important) to see if it's relevant, but I don't begrudge others who want to "make it relevant" or mostly skip it. I just didn't see how that answered my questions to Hussar.

The last paragraph of the main section seems self evident; though, again, not what I was asking about.

TL;DR - you can call all of the fiction other than the PCs "setting" if you like, and that won't as such do any harm, but you'll still probably need to find some terminology to capture the difference between how classic D&D handles the secret door case, and how MHRP handles it. And also to explain why some players like one way and others the other.

This isn't what I was questioning, but okay; I don't have a problem with you looking for that terminology. I'll I can say is that I don't think what's been used so far has been sufficient (at least from, say, Hussar). Again, that's okay, though. I was mainly trying to get a clarified answer, not set up terminology. Thanks for the thorough and thoughtful reply. As always, play what you like

 

[Celebrim]

On the interview thing - why can't we assume that the PCs are doing adequate interviews, background checks etc but have it all be handled quickly and mechanically? Eg the player of the hiring PC rolls a Sense Motive check: success means no problems, excellent success means you've really found your way into the hearts of these hirelings (+1 morale), failure means the GM has license to introduce some treasury/cowardice-style complication at a key point in the Grell battle.

There is no reason why we can't do that, and in many cases that is a very good way to do things (far better than skipping). In BW terms, that's "Roll with it". In 4e terms, thats a "Skill Challenge". But whatever you call it, that methodology of resolving an extended scene with one quick roll (or if warranted a small number) has been around a while.

However, if the DM has some more complicated ideas, then he has every right to frame the scene without that sort of summation. If the DM doesn't have solid ideas, then I'd fault him for playing it out rather than running it that way because without solid ideas and solid NPCs what's the point? What I don't accept is that the player gets to choose that framing or override it, party because the player isn't in a position to make that judgment and partly because as I said, the power to frame scene is almost unlimited mechanical power. If the DM's framing didn't pan out as well as hoped, well it happens. Every DM has had that situation.

Anyway, I've been prepping for the game and don't have time to do my post on scene framing technique.

Some of the posts in this thread seem to be working under the assumption that if it didn't get played out at the table, it didn't happen in the fiction.

I don't know where you are seeing that. However, things that have important present or future implications for the character if they are skipped basically didn't happen - and this can lead to future problems and logical inconsistancies if you aren't careful. Most importantly, in most games, if the DM introduces complications that involve the outcome of player choice without actually ever having allowed for that choice in some manner, the player is going to be upset. I dare say Hussar would fall in that category.