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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6116264" data-attributes="member: 4937">Yeah, thought so.  Natural leader type?  Possibly has a real life job with some authority?A lot of times, it probably won't especially if the bully is charismatic.  And many times, it isn't actually motivated by arrogance or some other lack of virtue in the player.  It's just that people IRL have all sorts of personalities, and at RPG tables in particular you tend to be getting at least some players who aren't very socially adept (various sorts of autism spectrum issues are common in the nerd population, to say nothing of the classic discontent between pursuing social skills and pursuing intellectual skills).   If you have one player who in real life is socially gregarious, charismatic, and used to getting his way, and he's playing at a table with players that aren't like that or who - for whatever real world issues - tend to avoid conflict and argument and are prone to concession you can quickly end up with an unhappy group.   It doesn't sound like its a problem with this group yet if everyone is having a good time, but I've seen it be a problem. That's the reason I suggest IC actor stance has more utility than just encouraging Thespianism or emmersion into the story.  People are often more free to display their true feelings on a subject if they can use the pretense of acting out a character, and this is especially true of the players afflicted with shyness.  (Of course, this can be a problem to, if the player doesn't realize how much of a jerk they are coming across as.  Fortunately, it doesn't sound like you have that problem.)   In fact, as a DM I'm often better able to gauge what a player really is thinking when they are acting in character than when they are OOC, because the truth is people also act when they are OOC and they do it more naturally.I don't think all of your issues can be addressed by scene framing techniques, although I think that this example shows one of the reasons for slowing down the pace.  Often when as a DM you are focused on picking up the pace and avoiding 'dead air', you just end up making mistakes.  It's a mistake to think that only players want the game to 'go fast' and 'get to the good stuff'.   DMs are under that pressure too, but sometimes when you give in to it players don't pick up on what you are trying to say.  Players don't understand the environment they are in and have a widely wrong mental picture.   Players don't actually understand the consequences of the action they are proposing - did everyone really realize that they were proposing being gone for 'three weeks' or more at the dig site?   You forget to drop an important clue or take into account an important aspect of the environment.   You skip over an important aspect of the game rules.  You risk steam rolling a player who had input but was hesitant to add it.  Lots of bad things can happen rushing the pace.  It's not an easy trade off where you get all positives and have no risks.   If you look at the other thread, notice how long it took for me to fully grasp what was going on in the example Hussar presented and all of its implications.   One of the reasons I'd try to respond initally to Hussar's proposition with 'go slow', is Hussar is proposing something with profound impact and I really need to think about and understand what he is proposing to understand its implications.  Hense, the focus on at least initially handling the round by round and moment complications of summoning and mounting on a centipede.   One of the most profound issues with Hussar's proposition was completely missed at the table - Hussar can't communicate his desires to the centipede and the spell he's casting prevents the centipede from taking any action but attacking Hussar's enemies unless he can communicate with it.   I don't know how many times I've missed equally important aspects of the rules or environment because I'm trying to bring the excitement, and ended up going 'Doh!' later on.  I may ultimately be saying 'yes', but I don't want to rush something potentially momentus, and hense the focus on the small scale while I'm working out the big scale in my head.   And as DM and player, I have witnessed players who are consciously aware of this and who try to bully the GM into making quick decisions as a means of power gaming.  After all, 'throw the dice' is risky no matter how many pluses you have.   Most serious power gamers are also very good at getting GMs to just say 'yes', and they know all the tricks - outcome as proposition, selective rules lawyering, selective arguing from 'reality', bargaining techniques, protesting ignorance and demanding retcons, etc. - for getting a GM to do so.I'm of the inclination to ignore any OOC table discussion that appears to be ignoring in game reality, and I'd definately while listening to this conversation develop be encouraging them to play it IC.   It's one of the hardest jobs of the DM, because you don't want to be a bully either and not everyone is equally comfortable with IC play (which again, can create problems).   I try to continually remind my players that nothing that they say OOC is necessarily treated as OOC by the game.  If they start talking OOC about whether or not to kill a captured NPC, while in game the NPC is right there, he can and will overhear the discussion IC.   If they start discussing secrets OOC while in the middle of a scene with NPC's, the NPCs will probably hear them.   I try to break in to those discussions early with an NPC to remind them of this fact.   And I try to remind them that propositions like, "I introduce myself to the NPC", are invalid by saying things like, "Ok, introduce yourself to the NPC."  But intra-party discussions are really even harder to regulate without risking seeming like a jerk.  "This is an important topic.  Please try to stay IC.", is about the best you can do.   Some groups are better about this than others, and it really has nothing to do with experience, because players are trained by their DMs to have certain expectations and habits and if that DM ran a very different table (well or not) that can be an even bigger hinderance than lack of experience.Anyway, if you'd slowed down here and had them take a few in game hours or at least a day to find a ship that would give them passage, what it might have done is allowed you to frame scenes that highlighted the conflict the players were creating.   You could have had a colleague hunt down PC #1 and say in so many words, "Why haven't we seen you?  What are you doing?  Have you seen NPC #1?  No one seems to know where he is!  I think he may be in trouble." or even "Why are you abandoning your friend, you jerk!".  Try to force the OOC choice "I'm really into archeology", into an explicit IC choice, "I'm really in to archeology. The Nazi's can't be allowed to recover the dingus. NPC can take care of himself." and highlight that potential conflict using NPC #2.   Or you could have a friend in the guild come and talk to PC #3 and pass on some additional information.  You could throw some action scenes into this as well.   Maybe the problem responcible for NPC #1's disappearance also wants to make PC #1 disappear, and thwarting that plan gives the party a clue.   It's not the wrong choice to commit to the dig site, but I'm not convinced it was made IC and as such I'm not convinced that a) everyone is really happy with it and b) that it consequences are going to be engaged with IC rather than OOC and c) that it is really serving the story well and that players are being thoughtful about the issue here.   Does player #1 consciously realize he's potentially sacrificing the life of his friend NPC #1 and putting the life his friend PC #3 in danger to pursue his hobby?   That might still be a valid choice - "We can't risk the dingus falling into the hands of the Nazi's!" - but still.</blockquote>

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