Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8142077" data-attributes="member: 29398">Deciding/determining what the options are doesn't usually take long.  Deciding which of those options to pursue can sometimes take ages, depending often on the particular mix of players and-or characters at the time.In which case we're probably talking about different things.  I'm talking about what you refer to as extended solo scenes that may or may not have anything at all to do with adventuring.An adventure driven by the goals of a single character can be fine; though I've learned the hard way to avoid these as DM because inevitably the key character will die at the first opportunity, leaving the rest of the party doing something (or worse, stuck somewhere*) not of their choosing.* - the only TPK I've ever DMed was one of these: the adventure was a quest put on one character, the rest of the party came along to help.  They got sent to a demi-plane (I was using a 3e-era module whose name I forget at the moment), and once there the quested character perma-died in the very first combat!  The rest of the crew said screw the mission and just tried to find a way home, but got wiped out in the process.Cumulatively, I think it's more work: each time you introduce something you have to vet it against all that has gone before to make sure it fits.  When doing it ahead of time all that vetting can be done in one fell swoop.Probably worth noting that when I'm doing all this I'm designing with intent of a campaign lasting five or ten or fifteen years and trying to come up with something that'll hold up that long.  Were I just designing for a single AP or a short campaign I wouldn't be nearly as fussy with it.It's not formalized here anything like it is in, say, BitD; but it happens regardless for a number of reasons:--- treasury valuation and division.  Party treasuries are identified, valued and divided in town, and this process can take several days in-game and sometimes two sessions at the table particularly if a player misses a session and can't do their claiming.--- training.  This doesn't take long at the table but often takes 7-15 in-game days, plus any travel required.--- other stuff.  This can include personal matters for a PC e.g. family stuff; catching up on news and developments here and elsewhere; interacting with other parties or characters (in a multi-party game) and maybe switching characters in and out; looking for the next mission if one hasn't already presented itself; characters playing practical jokes on each other, etc.; all on top of the usual wine, (wo)men and song that adventurers seek out during downtime.  Amount of both table time and in-game time these things take is highly variable; sometimes near zero, other times quite a lot.</blockquote>

Verification