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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6095919" data-attributes="member: 4937">I can sympathize with that.  I've had issues with pacing problems in the past and in particular, dealing with the pacing in the aftermath or midst of PC failure is always problimatic.  I still disagree with you on several counts.  First, and foremost, this isn't a movie and movie tropes don't really apply.  In fact, the scenario you describe doesn't happen in way movies are constructed.  It violates the standard heroic narrative, and your solution to it violates the standard heroic narrative.In general, in movie logic if the PC can't overcome an obstacle, then the PC plus additional help from nameless NPCs certainly can't overcome an obstacle.  The fewer ninjas there are, the more dangerous they are.  Adding nameless NPC's to a party dilutes the awesome, resulting in a situation where you know that the nameless NPC's are going to die and the protagonists are going to be captured or otherwise defeated.  However, the same protagonists returning without help will be able to defeat the obstacle.  Secondly, in movie logic the protagonist is never thwarted by a mook or henchmen, such as the Grell, except under direct guidance by the villain.  Protagonists aren't overcome by nameless NPC's.  If the protagonist is overcome by the NPC near the beginning of the movie, you can bet that the thing that overcame the hero is the main antagonist and whole movie is about the set up for the vengeance that the protagonist works on the antagonist for the wrongs that occurred (such as the death of the minor NPC's).  That is the way movies work.  They work that way because the writer predetermines the story.Following your movie logic, the only way recruiting NPC's is going to work is if they aren't nameless NPC's.  If recruiting NPC's actually helps, it's because the NPC's are actually co-protagonists and by convention each is given an establishing scene that communicates exactly how the NPC is awesome and helpful and therefore won't dilute the awesome.   This is the 'Magnificent Seven' type scene where the party is recruited and we spend 5 minutes or so getting to know each character.  This is the recruitment missions in Mass Effect II.  You can't recruit nameless NPCs to help you win.   You can only recruit party members.   If things work like the movies, I'm obligated to 'name' establish the awesomeness of the henchmen.   Spear carriers #1-#6 never exist in the movies to overcome an obstacle that the protagonist wasn't able to overcome alone.Fundamentally though, it isn't adherence to any sort of movie trope that makes me want to play this scene out.  It's your insistance on treating the characters as disposable game peices.   It's your very disinterest in anyone's life story, background, motivations, and so forth that makes playing the scene out attractive to me.    See I don't think it is likely that you will interact with these characters through play.  You don't want a reason to interact with them.   Frankly, I don't care about the scene with the Grell.  Chances are, when I put the Grell in, it never was with the intention of making the Grell important.  It was there as a reasonable combat with a foe I felt suited the environment that I never expected to survive more than a half-dozen rounds and then to be forgotten.  If events cause the party to convey importance on the Grell great, but that doesn't necessarily work out the way you think either.  It could be that when you go back to kill the Grell, I've decided to give the Grell a name, a personality, goals and motivations because you've vested importance on the NPC and now the Grell has picked up shoppe and has left the dungeon entirely so that I can make the Grell a reoccuring villain.  Or maybe the Grell has decided to preemptively strike the PC's, and so attacks the town.  Or maybe the Grell would decide to hide in a different spot, or seek an alliance with another dungeon inhabitant?  Why should the Grell stand still and wait to be killed?  It's got human level intelligence afterall.  In any event, I don't see defeating the Grell with the help of some nameless NPCs as being particularly awesome.I've actually played this out recently.  The players recruited a bunch of nameless NPC's to assault the lair of the evil necromancer Tarkus.   I didn't play out the recruitments because they were recruited through a named NPC with an existing relationship, and the mook NPC's reported to that named NPC - they weren't hirelings.  Tarkus made mince meat of the NPC's (fire ball, conjured horde of fiendish bison, stinking cloud, etc.), then managed (just barely) to flee the PC's.   Later, the PC's faced Tarkus alone and defeated him.  I'm not saying I would force that on to the story, but generally if you try to defeat NPC's with overwhelming numbers intelligent ones refuse the gambit.  They take one look at the approaching army and say effectively, "You may have one this time, but I'll be back."Maybe you can explain to me why you were wanting to rush back to the Grell encounter as fast as possible?  What was the payoff and why did it not need to be delayed and if delayed then it was diminished?  Why did you stop caring?</blockquote>

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