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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JamesonCourage" data-source="post: 5746858" data-attributes="member: 6668292">Of course, I also quoted drama as emotional or forceful in effect.The difference between a play and an RPG, of course, is that most RPG sessions are longer than a play, and most are not one-shots. That is, my group plays for 10-hour sessions, once a week. We're sinking in 40 or more hours a month into our game, which is significantly more than a play.A play can afford to be fairly dramatic all the way throughout without getting repetitive or old, because it's a couple hours long. One of my sessions, however, is several plays in length, and then, of course, there will be many sessions. I still hold that if every session was dramatic in the way I have quoted, it was lose its meaning over time.Well, you said this:I was saying that I think this is baseless. As in, you have no basis for which to make this claim, at least not without qualifying it, which you did to some degree, when you mentioned a "play-into-story" style of player play style. Then you mentioned simulationist play and "playing-to-win".In my reply to Balesir, I was saying that I think "playing-to-win" is decidedly not-unique to PF, and especially not compared to 4e. I would guess both games would have many players who engage in that style. So, now we're just saying some PF players prefer simulationist mechanics. So... okay?I don't see RPing as being at odds with combat, but I did address the most likely scenario of "playing-to-win" as combat. I went on to state the proportion of combat to engaging the setting, which would be engaging the fiction, which usually leads to more dramatic events then combat. Not that combat doesn't lead there, but often times it leads to less dramatic areas (because my PCs tend to win or successfully retreat).Yeah.Constant or forced drama is less dramatic, in my opinion. The show 24 stops being dramatic to me after the first few hours, especially when some complication happens at the end of each and every hour. To others, of course, they like the drama and each and every show, even if I find it so forced and overdone that I can't see it.And that's the difference in our approach to drama, I think. The PCs in my game will pursue whatever issue they want, and the world will revolve and throw whatever's appropriate at them. To this end, they will not be able to engage in a single topic or theme consistently, but that's good for drama. When a topic they are emotionally invested in does crop up, it is dramatic. The players also have their PCs engaged and invested in a number of different topics.I understand my view on this is different from yours, but I'd find constant and consistent dramatic engagement in a topic to kill the drama of that topic. Perhaps that's where we strongly differ.Perhaps it's an immersion issue, but obviously forced story or pacing makes things less dramatic to me. I'll look from the outside, and I'll lose a lot of my investment. I'll think, "this was a cool setup. I like it." I won't experience it, though. I won't think, "wow... I have to do something" because of an emotional investment. The deliberate pacing and focus setting up the dramatic moment will lessen the drama.Maybe it's because it's like fudging to me. Fudging does the same thing. I'll realize what's going on, and I'll be consistently pulled out of the fiction, wondering what's been fudged, if I was forced into this situation, or the like. If the story focus is being manipulated to the point where this happens, and I notice, it definitely dampens drama for me. It's not natural, and it's not as dramatic.Maybe it differs from TV shows or movies in that I'm playing the game. I don't know. In a film, I have no control over the movie, so I tend to still feel the drama. In an RPG, however, that isn't the case. My focus as a player will be drawn to the forced focus in-game, or the forced engagement of purposefully chosen dramatic elements within the game. That hurts my emotional connection to the game, and, as I've said, dampens the drama.I think the disconnect is between what we find dramatic, and why we find it dramatic. I don't find 24 or a soap opera dramatic, even though that's definitely where the focus is. At least 24 touches on a few different points of drama each episode, making it more tolerable. However, I just can't find those shows to be dramatic in a "emotionally forceful" sense.Maybe our mileage has just wildly varied. I find drama to be "drama-less" if it does not carry force or emotional impact. I find consistent engaging of drama to blunt to force of drama, and potentially the emotional impact of it. You might disagree, or maybe you just reject my inclusion of that part of the dictionary (sorry?). But, I spoke to multiple definitions, not just one. As always, play what you like <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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