Let's talk about "plot", "story", and "play to find out."

[Crimson Longinus]

To me it is perfectly clear, that what is happing in any RPG play is story creation. This goes for trad games where players merely inhabit their characters, as well as approaches where narrative beats might be more intentionally considered. Some sort of a story is being generated regardless.

All this talk about "complete stories" and stories told afterwards is just nonsense to me. The story is both created and experienced right there at the table.

And yeah, sometimes it might end up being an incoherent shaggy-dog story. That's fine. Still a story.

 

[zarionofarabel]

That said, I disagree with this. The contradictory plot elements and terrible pacing is something that happens when it's more reliant on improvisation. And that does not mean a great story isn't being created! But, as a player who hyper-focuses on those two things (and never says anything about them), I can say that a lot of prep goes a long way in eliminating the messiness.

It's funny, but I have been watching a ton of Actual Plays for weeks now, and I have yet to be able to observe any difference in the pacing issues between prepared and improvised games. In fact, some of the absolute worst games for pacing are ones that used published modules. Pacing seems to be the hardest thing to get right in TTRPG play. Personally, I think it's the fact that more than one person is involved in setting the pace of things, and GMs defer to players whenever they want to indulge. I know in my own experience pacing issues are found in equal measure in both improvised and prepared games. I know from observation alone it's impossible to tell the difference. A couple of the AP I watched that I thought for sure were improvised turned out to be prepared, and vice versa. I am now convinced that there are no actual real advantages with fully improvised games over prepared ones, or the opposite. Like many things in life, it's all down to personal preference.

 

[Reynard]

It's funny, but I have been watching a ton of Actual Plays for weeks now, and I have yet to be able to observe any difference in the pacing issues between prepared and improvised games. In fact, some of the absolute worst games for pacing are ones that used published modules. Pacing seems to be the hardest thing to get right in TTRPG play. Personally, I think it's the fact that more than one person is involved in setting the pace of things, and GMs defer to players whenever they want to indulge. I know in my own experience pacing issues are found in equal measure in both improvised and prepared games. I know from observation alone it's impossible to tell the difference. A couple of the AP I watched that I thought for sure were improvised turned out to be prepared, and vice versa. I am now convinced that there are no actual real advantages with fully improvised games over prepared ones, or the opposite. Like many things in life, it's all down to personal preference.

I was kind of forced to get better at pacing because I run a lot of convention games. Not only do you have the usual time limit (4 hours, but often a notable portion of that is spent onboarding folks) but people who sign up for con games almost always want a "complete experience". There are lots of tricks, from simply watching the clock to enforcing time limits of deliberation. I can't say that I feel like my prep level is a factor one way or the other. i run mostly improv games with a a solid outline of what i think it should look like, but giving the players lots of room to change that.

 

[zakael19]

I was kind of forced to get better at pacing because I run a lot of convention games. Not only do you have the usual time limit (4 hours, but often a notable portion of that is spent onboarding folks) but people who sign up for con games almost always want a "complete experience". There are lots of tricks, from simply watching the clock to enforcing time limits of deliberation. I can't say that I feel like my prep level is a factor one way or the other. i run mostly improv games with a a solid outline of what i think it should look like, but giving the players lots of room to change that.

Talking uses up so much time. Debating action declarations, having conversations between PCs and NPCs, sidebars, back and forth non-gameplay pushing stuff enroute to a goal, etc. Trimming that away and keeping the "people speaking" always pushing towards the goals of the session (or one-shot) would definitely accelerate "stuff done" in a lot of my games.

 

[Fenris-77]

Talking uses up so much time. Debating action declarations, having conversations between PCs and NPCs, sidebars, back and forth non-gameplay pushing stuff enroute to a goal, etc. Trimming that away and keeping the "people speaking" always pushing towards the goals of the session (or one-shot) would definitely accelerate "stuff done" in a lot of my games.

This is why the torch timer in Shadowdark is so brilliant.

 

[zarionofarabel]

This is why the torch timer in Shadowdark is so brilliant.

What's a torch timer?

 

[Reynard]

This is why the torch timer in Shadowdark is so brilliant.

I personally find it more fiddly than helpful.

 

[Campbell]

Pacing is also incredibly subjective and really dependent on the audience / play group. I am very happy with the pacing of the games my home group plays, but do to how zoomed in the social conflicts tend to be I think it would be a very slow pace for some. But likewise some of the convention games I've played have felt a little too "wham. bam. thank you <person>." to the point where the context feels like it's lost.

This is not any different from any other medium. The pacing of Breaking Bad and The Wire feel about perfect to me, but I know plenty of people who feel like they develop too slowly.