Though all of them could well be things that can help generate pressure later when looking at something other than the immediate or short term.
Sure, but as I've stated, why do they then need mechanics? Its only when you reach some stage where you will 'generate pressure' (IE where there will be conflict) that you need a mechanical game system. You see this quite often in movies, where the travel, or the training, or the research, or whatever, is just basically a montage. Only when the plot actually travels forward, where there are changes in the fictional state (or as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] would call it, the fictional positioning or scene) that there is a resumption of story.
Yes, and it's a) only about two hours long and b) has a pre-set amount of story that has to be fit within that time.
RPGs are open-ended in length, thus there's no need whatsoever to cram story in (whether player or GM generated, doesn't matter for this point) in a rush to make it fit within a real-world timeframe.
This is an assumption and doesn't stand up to even casual examination. We could spend thousands of hours on RPGs or on movies, and in fact people probably overall spend at least as much time on the later (and on TV) as the former. It is drama-filled because that's what is truly entertaining in most cases. Not to say that slow pacing cannot be good, but it isn't somehow magically always the best way.
Except that when everything's dramatic, nothing is.
I would point to movies again. They are mostly pretty dramatic, and those are the most popular. People watch one after another and show no such thing as this hypothesized 'drama fatigue'.
Please define MEAT. I'm assuming that because it's all-caps here it means something other than what comes from a butchered animal, but I don't know what.
I used the term, in the sense of the phrase 'get to the meat of it'. The vital part, that which contains the essence of the thing. In terms of a story in an RPG it would mean the part in which the story is actually told, where things happen, where characters endure conflict and undergo growth and change.
This points to what I mention above: that things done now can set up pressure application later.
Of course there's (quite likely) not much risk involved in doing the library research...which might be exactly why the player/PC chose to take that angle - low risk but potentially decent reward, where the reward is useful information that might help reduce or mitigate the risks later when he puts this research to practical use and actually tries to take over the kingdom. So, low-to-no pressure now could lead to reduced pressure later.
But where is the conflict in library research? There's no pressure happening in a scenario where I am just going to the library to 'learn stuff' even if it is with a certain goal in mind. It can be simply summarized in a sentence and requires no dice or other mechanics. If it is going to 'mitigate risks later' that's fine, but again there's nothing to dwell on. Going on about the library, the details of the various books, etc. is just color. Its OK, where that color has some narrative function. Its fine if there's real information obtained, plans made, and resources expended in preparations. These are all still basically non-dramatic and don't need to take up useful table time to any great degree.
Why take great risks until and unless you have to? And why not do whatever you can to turn those great risks into moderate risks?
Sure it might be less dramatic, but - wait for it! - it's what a rational character would do.
OK, so the rational character goes to the library, the GM says "you go to the library and X, Y, Z" and then you go on to the next scene. Guess what? Something dramatic will happen in that next scene. Sure, the character may trot out X and use it to overcome some problem, but if you are following any sort of narrative driven game then X will have been somehow keyed to something the player signaled before. So X might be a revelation that your great grandfather really was a vampire, on to the crypt scene! Guess who you meet? Lucky you brought that holy symbol along! Now how do you resolve your pride in your ancestry with the fact that your ancestor is an undead monster? THAT IS MEAT!
