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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 5157187" data-attributes="member: 3820">Valid question. And yes, there are one-on-one sessions and moments where individuals scout ahead, and the like. Generally I think that those are held to a different standard by the players, though. They're like "taking turns" in their own right -- one player talks about the next assignment with the marshal, another goes diving for information in taverns, a third is hunting in the woods -- those are turns. Scouting ahead is a little different, but that's one of the reasons I'm intrigued by skill challenges; they can move scouting as "a turn" in its own right, while everyone else is doing other things to contribute to overall success. (And also, scouting ahead is always something that the players themselves agree upon, never my call or the result of a die roll. It's very much a voluntary ceding of attention, in order to get information that the entire group is interested in.) With a group that contains a fair amount of social roleplay, to some extent there's an acceptance that there will be longer "turns' before the group is collected and in encounter mode. This works up to a certain point, mind; the lesson of the Netrunner/decker going off into cyberspace for 45 minutes to do his thing while everyone waits for that to resolve is notable, particularly if you've only got time for a three-hour session in the night. Mechanics that force you to miss your turn (instead of limiting what you can effectively do with your turn) are somewhat different, in my perception. It takes away a turn instead of having that turn be freely offered. Players can certainly choose to do nothing, and may gain quite a bit from it, but mechanics that push them into the spectator role, whether that's what they want to do or not, remove the choice to participate. I absolutely think that such mechanics probably work very well for some groups. They may serve not only as an acceptable risk, but as a demanded risk. But with a wealth of acceptable risks to choose from, I pretty strongly disagree that anyone who'd rather have their character kicked prone into a firepit than miss a turn should leave the hobby. If the players would rather be playing as much of the game as possible, there are plenty of things left to do to them to make sure they're still working for their victories.I don't believe that going over choices that you might or might not be able to make and actually being empowered to make those choices are quite the same level of participation, but I freely admit that "doing things" is a very subjective matter.</blockquote>

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