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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7388741" data-attributes="member: 42582">This is like  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] saying that the passage of time in real life isn't, or oughtn't to be, a factor in game design. Ie it seems completely untenable.What "huge portion" is skipped in my imaginary novel which contains the episode about the fire giants? (And for the sake of argument, let's suppose that it's already at 1,500 pages.) are you really saying the novel would be even more awesome if it contained an extra 50-page section describing the trip from the dwarfhold to the giants' cavern, noting all the intersections that the protagonists passed by and through, wondering whether they should proceed down them but eventually choosing to continue on to the cavern?All published fiction involves editing. Choices about pacing. About when the protagonists fail, and when they succeed. A "story now" game (I emphasise that word deliberately) does not involve choices about failure - that is dictated by mechanics. It only involves choices about success when the stakes are low (such as the trip from the dwarves to the giants' cavern); when the stakes are high, success is also dictated by mechanics.It does involve choices about pacing. By choosing to "say 'yes'" a referee can signal that the stakes are low, and thereby affect pacing. By narrating the consequences of failure as "hard" or "soft" moves (to use the DW terminology), the GM can affect pacing. Decisions about framing and the introduction of complications affect pacing. Because RPGing doesn't involve any editing, these pacing choices made in real time become all the more important.Because the fire giant example is MADE UP (by his own testimony,  [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] spent whole seconds on it; I spent a couple of minutes), NO ONE knows anything about the pacing of that session, the pacing conventions at that (imaginary) table, etc. It's therefore obviously impossible to assert that there is anything objectionable about the GM's decision to "say 'yes'" to the desire to arrive at the cavern.To assert, therefore, that it skips "a huge portion" of what might be interesting is just silly. Do you really lie in bed at night wondering what fascinating things happened to the Fellowship on their trek across Eregion, that JRRT didn't bother to tell you?How do the players know there are no secret doors? Did the GM just "railroad them through" without letting them check? Heresy!Did the GM roll for wandering monsters? Every 3 turns? That's 16 checks - even if none of them came up 6 (a 1 in 20 chance, or thereabouts), that would take more than a minute to do.And how wide is the corridor? Without having been told that, how were the players meant to make sensible choices about marching order?I don't see how you can possibly think that the JRRT-style narration would be OK, yet object to the fire giant example. Suppose a player asks, "Did we pass any intersections?" the Gm can simply answer "No, you didn't - it was just a gradually descending tunnel the whole time."EDIT: I wrote the above before reading the following post from Maxperson:So your game plays just like JRRT wrote it provided that you rewrite what actually happened to cut out the 1999 hours and 59 minutes of detail. That's my point: your style of play does not give the Moria sequence. It doesn't give "story now", and it only gives "story later" with editing and rewriting.That's fine if you like it: but when I say "story now" I mean what I say. I play RPGs in a way that can actually yield the Moria sequence, or something like it, in play.</blockquote>

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