Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="ST" data-source="post: 4842521" data-attributes="member: 14053">That's a really good question. I have to unfortunately cop out and say it depends on your group, but that's interesting, because stuff like "How long should a scene go on" isn't something that often gets discussed around the table.  When I'm GMing I push pretty hard to 'get to the point', at most being willing to have one of those scenes per PC per session that's a 'just because/slice of life' type of scene. If there's a supporting character in the scene, or if I'm playing and my PC is there, I'll typically angle to get a conflict or decision point to come up, one that's relevant to whatever the theme was of that pure dialogue scene.On the other far end of the scale, one time one of my players' PC owned a coffee bar. It was a really nice one, his home base and set up to be a center of social interaction in the town for the PCs and NPCs. He gave us a five-minute walkthrough of the place, and I'm all "Okay, that could lead to..." and he's all "Oh wait, I haven't described the upper floors yet" and then I bite my lip and then later its "Oh, I need to tell you guys about my personal office with the naval-themed decor" and mercifully he eventually got the hint that we wanted to continue playing. It was like forty-five minutes or more, and it was one of the most excruciating things I've ever sat through.As far as face-to-face in character dialog, I'm totally biased. I don't really like it, seriously. (Maybe one of the reasons I set things up in game to have most of the conflicts -- and arguments -- between PCs). The last time I *enjoyed* a pure RP dialog session for it's own sake, I was like fourteen. Now, that doesn't mean I can't do dialog scenes if it's something that matters either to me or my character -- those I can get inspired in, and that includes playing a NPC as a foil to a particularly wound-up PC -- but for their own sake, just sort of sitting around the campfire talking about stuff, I take those as a player-initiated request to slow the pace for a bit, and then let them do their thing until they are ready to move on.I should also bring up that my baseline pacing is way faster than it used to be. Whether we're talking about heavy dialog scenes or more third-person narration/discussion of actions, I'm usually looking at 2 1/2 - 3 hour sessions, so we move quick. Maybe fifteen minutes in an opening scene where player(s) are pushing forward their own goals and generally setting the stage for the night's activities, five-ten minutes on a number of scenes as we build action, maybe another 10-15 minute one as a breather (that's where a 'slice of life' scene often comes up), then some more fast ones, and inevitably the last bit's going to be a scene that takes 20-30 minutes to play out either because there's some heavier than usual resolution mechanics being used, or to have time to wind down and wrap up the situation.  In contrast, the last PNP D&D 3.x game I was in would routinely have fifteen minutes just talking to the bartender (with the GM doing his dialect and acting, and the rest of us awkardly trying to go with his flow), intermediate scenes where little but travel or simple obstacles were overcome that took 10-15 minutes, and big battles that took 1-2 hours. (Interestingly enough, I was in a totally freeform game a while back that had almost exactly the same pacing as that D&D game did, with system handling time replaced with more dialog.)</blockquote>

Verification