In-character conversations

[Mahiro Satsu]

usuallly i have notes already made out. One or two for every trap, encounter, etc, plus lots that just say "nothing"

 

[Dreaddisease]

ON the player end it is nicer for the DM to be descrete when he is giving information. Notes are good but can be problematic when we, as players, vary drastically from what the DM intended. Taking players aside and telling them about situations can help but for the most part the players do get along and most of that information can be shared when you get back (unless there is a IC reason that they can't communicate).

For example. My true nuetral rogue became disenchanted with the 2 paladins in the party after they failed to avenge the death of our sorceress who was killed by a thieves guild. (Out of the campaign our DM allows us to roll a new character and decide whether to make a new one or try to get resurrected). So we found another sorceress but forgot to avenge the old one's death. Unfortunately later the DM made all my search checks public knowledge so it was hard to 'teach the paladins a leasson' by letting them fall into traps and whatnot. I did however trigger a few elemental traps and made my evasion check while the other characters had to suffer with the damage.

Anyways there are ways to make a it interesting for IC conversations but everytime someone gets up for a mountain dew and someone asks for that person to grab them one doesn't mean the DM has to stop writing his notes or explaining a situation to discuss whether the dew of the mountains would be an appropriate thing to ask for.

I guess I do not like the always ON method unless the DM is giving secret information constantly.

 

[Quickbeam]

I try to keep everything in-character during our sessions, but that happens less often than I'd prefer to admit. Our group has shown radical improvement in this area, but we're not where I'd like to be quite yet.

As for notes, I agree that they slow down play a bit, but I love the paranoia effect they create and don't discourage them to any appreciable degree.

 

[Mahiro Satsu]

yeah, there are times when i have to stop the game for a few seconds to jot a new note, but then it just freaks the players out. If my group was better formed, then maybe i could pull one aside, but then the others get impatient and start squabling. its a pain...

plus its interesting to see how much info people can get from a note. one player analyses my hand writing...

also there is only one rogue in the party and everyone else is combat oriented so notes dont take up much time.

 

[Bonedagger]

My problem is that my players sometimes continue to roleplay when I leave the room....

 

[Cloudgatherer]

Our group commonly allows a "plot download." There are instances where the DM conveys a great deal of information to one member of the party, but IC the other characters do not know it. To save time, a player can say "plot download", which means he relates what the DM said or the actions the player observed, but his character did not.

This eliminates much of the roleplaying of character-to-character explanations, but does not take away the character discussions, deciding what to do with whatever was learned in a "plot download".

 

[Weeble]

usuallly i have notes already made out. One or two for every trap, encounter, etc, plus lots that just say "nothing"

I've been thinking of doing something like this myself!