Explain "20 Minutes of Fun over 4 Hours" to me

[mhensley]

A worthwhile quote from the Tracy Hickman GenCon Seminars, well done!

-DM Jeff

It was also the best article in Dragon evar.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Anytime you are playing in such a boring game, it is your right, nay your duty, to take control away from the dm. Punch your "employer" in the face! Attack the town guards! Push old people into wells! Toss a dwarf through a window! Start a bar fight! DO SOMETHING!

Who cares if your pc gets killed? At least you'll have some fun dying. If another player objects, attack his character! DO SOMETHING!

Now when your pathetic dm get pissed off and throws his campaign notes away in a huff, you can start a new game or find another group to play with.

Yeah, that's just what pick up games need, more childish, prima donna behavior.

If you're not having fun, make your excuses and leave. If no one is having fun, then you need to discuss amongst yourselves and the DM why. That article aggravates the hell out of me, because it's always used as an excuse for one player to muck things up for everyone else. Thanks, I've had enough games ruined by the ADD set who think randomly attacking townspeople when someone else is doing something is 'fun'.

 

[marune]

Too much time is spent on ressources management. Also, some mechanisms built for combat (Move silently check for every 30', healing with dice-based effects, etc.) are tedious outside of it.

 

[mhensley]

Yeah, that's just what pick up games need, more childish, prima donna behavior.

If you're not having fun, make your excuses and leave. If no one is having fun, then you need to discuss amongst yourselves and the DM why. That article aggravates the hell out of me, because it's always used as an excuse for one player to muck things up for everyone else. Thanks, I've had enough games ruined by the ADD set who think randomly attacking townspeople when someone else is doing something is 'fun'.

Yep, that's me- the king of badwrong fun! If you like spending hours trying to solve mysteries or buying stuff at the inn, more power to you. That's the kind of stuff I read books for. I play to beat up and take its stuff. Of course that's one of the reasons why my characters tend not to live very long.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Yep, that's me- the king of badwrong fun! If you like spending hours trying to solve mysteries or buying stuff at the inn, more power to you. That's the kind of stuff I read books for. I play to beat up and take its stuff. Of course that's one of the reasons why my characters tend not to live very long.

That's not quite the problem with that Hickman article, though. Basically, he's encouraging players to be disruptive and annoying at the expense of other players' fun. And yes, I *would* argue that anything that mucks with other players' enjoyment is badwrongfun.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

That's not quite the problem with that Hickman article, though. Basically, he's encouraging players to be disruptive and annoying at the expense of other players' fun. And yes, I *would* argue that anything that mucks with other players' enjoyment is badwrongfun.

I'm not sure if he's actually saying that, or it's just a provocative way of saying 'if you're at a standstill, doing something to get things moving is better than sitting around looking at each other.' The problem is too many people seem to follow the words and not look at the point behind them.

I've seen a few bad DMs -- the 'you find a wandering dragon in the 10' corridor' type, the railroaders, the ones with DM NPCs, etc. But I've also seen an awful lot of players who lack the basic social skills to get along in what is at heart a collaborative effort, not just between players but between players and the DM.

I've had remarkable success at gamedays and such the past couple years (with the exception of one official game at GenCon last year). Granted it's been mostly with ENWorlders who are the cream of the gaming crop, as it were, but still. I think if more people approached their regular sessions like most seem to do with the gameday games, everyone would be a lot happier. There's remarkably little rules lawyering, people zip to the bathroom when it's not their turn and hurry back, food breaks are scheduled, things start on time, etc. People seem to be on their best behavior.

 

[Alnag]

I have very bad experience with this quote, used for bashing D&D. Fans of GNS and indie games used it to promote their games and theory as superior and degrade D&D to poorly design game. I didn't know at that time (well until today, that it was actually quote of Ryan Dancey). I felt very desperate against that kind of argumentation but now when I see the context I understand that D&D is fun all the time, just the source of fun is not in the game itself, but in its players.

Thank you for this interesting topic, it really cheered me up.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

"Everybody makes their own fun. If you don't make it yourself, it isn't fun. It's entertainment." -- Ann Black, State andMain

 

[crazy_cat]

*snip*
...In a game of Football, arguing over whether someone got a first down doesn't degenerate into a 15 minutes discussion of the rules determining first downs with most of the team off getting a coke while the ref and the quarterback argue.

Actually from this side of the Atlantic thats exactly what many games of American Football seem to consist of - if the TV coverage we get is to be believed.