A GM asks for help

[Serpreme]

(Oct 5th is our next game session)
Question is past the Background Info.
Skip if you don’t have a high Will Save. Its kinda dull.

Background (<--------)

I’m running the Night of the Walking Dead, an old TSR mod I brought up to D20. I’m enjoying myself, My pc’s are enjoying themselves. Heck, the crocodile in the swamp is enjoying himself. (Full Tummy)
Then we hit the town, Marais d’ Tarascon. I switch it up, I say it is a swampy town located at the end of a delta. I treat the town like a Cajon community. Makes the Catacomb searches that more interesting. (Yea… you are bellow sea level… don’t hit the walls, ok?) As a Typical TSR product I am given a list of locations and a town map.
This is my 5th time bringing a group of PC’s through this town. This time the PC’s run to the chapel with their now one legged henchman in tow, hoping to get some decent healing out of that priest.... When we start on Wednesday, it will be time to explore the town.
Now I have shortened the timeline of the mod to just over 2 days. Got some plot going down, got between 0-3 PC’s that are infected with licranthopy (The end fight with the full moon you ask? Yea, it becomes a much cooler an encounter.) Everyone just hit level 2 (Ding!). They keep asking me to GM twice a week. (There hooked, they love Ravenloft)

Problem (<--------)

Question, there is some valuable information in this town. Heck, You can solve the whole thing and have a mound damning of evidence just by talking to a Sweets Shopkeeper, a worried mother and walking down the road to have dinner with some ghouls.
The first 3 times I ran this I kept up the crazy dictator look. I handled each encounter and towns person and role-played them all. Its harsh, something like 14 personalities. (14 accents, 14 voices, 14 histories, 14 role-playing quarks) Many have nothing to say. PC movements where controlled and precise.

It got old.
Fast

The fourth time I ran the mod I gave up and said “Point and Talk!!!” They point at the map and I run about 60 seconds of dialogue and another 30sec-ish of role-play. Instead of a whole night of hunting for obscure clues, my PC’s moved on with plot and still had great time. Literally a fraction of the interaction and the PC’s never knew the difference. Why should I throw out the effort? What is the trade off?

I hate towns.
I am learning to hate PCs.

Question (<--------)

How do you guys handle normal towns and role playing towns in your games? My PC’s always spend so much time fooling around…. and how do you handle the game mechanics? Do you throw them a PHB and say buy what you need, or do you go a little more in depth with item lists? How do you handle the old TSR mod towns if you even bother? Do you turn them into a giant description or do you handle it building by building like a crazy dungeon crawl?

I really want to know what other GM’s do with this necessary element of the AD&D game! Tell me how you handle it! I am almost at a breaking point!

 

[ForceUser]

Unless it serves to move the story forward, there is no good reason to roleplay buying gear. Just hand them the PHB and let them pick what they need.

As for role-playing communities full of NPCs, it's the most challenging aspect of DMing. There's no way one can ever be completely prepared for every direction the PCs might decide to go, so a DM who allows lots of in-town roleplaying needs to be extremely good at improvisation. I don't know what to tell you if you're getting tired of roleplaying lots of in-town NPCs, other than "stop letting them go to town." I feel, however, that if the players meander, take their time, fail to follow up on clues or move the adventure along, that's okay. Let them. It takes the burden of pacing the game off of you and onto them, and I guarantee that if they dither too long, they'll get bored and try to do something meaningful. But for every hour they delay, it makes it easier for you to DM--you've got your prepared notes and you know what needs to happen next should they choose to move the adventure along, so just let them do what they want to do. If your players just enjoy interacting with NPCs, let them. Some of the most fun roleplaying encounters I've been part of had nothing to do at all with the plot of an adventure.

 

[IronWolf]

Towns can be a lot of fun. You don't have to play every NPC along the way or describe every shop they walk past. A lot is seeing where they want to go, hand waving the trip there if appropriate (or mentioning highlights they should know about as they walk) and then playing out the encounter. If they are just out to buy some gear then it really depends on the group I think. Our group tends to handle most of the buying and selling of goods on a message board between games. It works out really well for us as we only play every other week, so the less time buying stuff during the session is more time for parts of the game that mean a little more.

Of course some groups have little desire to interact with NPCs in which case you have even less to do, just make sure along the way they get the info they need and on to what the group considers more fun. Then there will be groups that live for the town part of the session. Seeing it as a time to get to know the locals and such. Just get a feel for the current group and try to find a medium that makes everyone happy.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Problem (<--------)
, something like 14 personalities. (14 accents, 14 voices, 14 histories, 14 role-playing quarks) Many have nothing to say. PC movements where controlled and precise.

It got old.
Fast

The fourth time I ran the mod I gave up and said “Point and Talk!!!” They point at the map and I run about 60 seconds of dialogue and another 30sec-ish of role-play. Instead of a whole night of hunting for obscure clues, my PC’s moved on with plot and still had great time. Literally a fraction of the interaction and the PC’s never knew the difference. Why should I throw out the effort? What is the trade off?

I hate towns.
I am learning to hate PCs.

Question (<--------)

How do you guys handle normal towns and role playing towns in your games? My PC’s always spend so much time fooling around…. and how do you handle the game mechanics? Do you throw them a PHB and say buy what you need, or do you go a little more in depth with item lists? How do you handle the old TSR mod towns if you even bother? Do you turn them into a giant description or do you handle it building by building like a crazy dungeon crawl?

I really want to know what other GM’s do with this necessary element of the AD&D game! Tell me how you handle it! I am almost at a breaking point!

Well, Marais D'Tarascon I would mention Gather Information checks to speed things up...or use a "point and talk" method or something. Anything bigger and I would gloss over the details...except for L2 Assassin's Knot. The town is full of red herrings and fakeout NPCs that it just wouldn't be the same.

And um, since this is a town in the middle of the swamp, wouldn't there be like, two accents? The outsiders and the natives?
And you don't need 14 histories and 14 quirks and 14 voices. Just the innkeeper or the dward or the priest would do for special NPCs.

 

[MadMaxim]

Just like VirgilCaine, I would advice you to make the players use the Gather Information skill. It basically sums up your "point-'n'-talk" policy, except the amount of information they get depends on how successful the skill check is. I'd say that 14 NPCs are way too many to roleplay thoroughly in one session, but perhaps that's just because I'm lazy. I got the important NPCs' reactions and motivations put on notes so I don't forget what they're up to, but I don't work very hard to do different voices and stuff. It's not worth the effort with my group, but I'm full of sound effects during combat encounters! *CLANG! THUNK! WHACK! AAARGH!* (sound of dying orc falling to the ground in a bloody heap)