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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6097310" data-attributes="member: 42582">Hussar can answer this one himself if he cares to. But suppose it was true (which I know it's not) that he was only interested in combat, what would be wrong with that?What he's clearly not interested in is "exploration" (of deserts, of NPCs, etc) which carries in itself no story or thematic heft. Perhaps he also prefers Ernest Hemingway to Tolkien as an author. Or when he reads LotR, maybe he skips over the stuff with the Old Forest and Bombadil. I don't know. But wanting time spent RPGing to deal with stuff that matters to the players strikes me as emintently reasonable. As I said upthread, there is no inherent virtue to the exploration-oriendted play of RPGs.Subject to provisos about keeping everyone at thet able engaged, why not? That's what "say yes or roll the dice" means.In some systems, with formal flags, you can tell. In 4e, for instance, the player might ask if they can make killing the Grell a Quest, for which they would then earn XP.Even absent formal flags, a good GM can often tell by listening to the players. And if in doubt, you can always ask!Again, why not?The issue that   [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] is raising, as I read him, is not about compromise. I think everyone accepts that in a collective activity some compromise is necessary. The issue he's raising is what counts as a worthwile example of that activity. And he is saying that spending time resolving something that does not, in and via its resolution, speak meaningfully to the players, is not (for him) a worthwhile act of roleplaying. It's a waste of time. And for my part, I agree.Are you aware that there are major RPG systems, like Burning Wheel, that have mechanics for dealing with precisely this issue? For instance, in BW the GM can suggest to a player that it is time to change a Belief because the current Belief has been worked out as far as it will go; also the group as a whole can vote to add or remove traits from a PC.I'm not saying that every RPG needs such mechanics, but their is nothing particularly astonishing about their existence.In some systems there are multiple resolution mechanics that permit different degrees of precision/detail in resolution, and hence different degrees of commitment of ingame time. (In HeroWars/Quest the terminology is "simple contests" and "extended contests".)In BW, for instance, what you describe can be resovled in a single die roll. Conversely, if the table has agreed that it is to be resolved using the extended combat resolution system, the description you give would never be uttered because the rules don't take that sort of description of actiBecause it's boring. If you like, he's objecting to the methodology, and expressing a preference for "say yes or role the dice". But in fact what he's decribed - playing out the hiring via real time interviews - is not the received methodology for recruting hirelings in D&D. It depends a bit on edition, but in classic D&D at least it is completely within the text and spirit of the rules to hve the recruitment of mercenaries consist in a reaction roll followed by the deduction of the appropriate amount of gold from the character sheet.In D&D there is a clear response to this, though - if your CHA is low pay more gp!  (Just as, if your Smithing skill is low, you have to pay gp to get your weapons.)I can't get behind the idea that, because a PC has low CHA, this would be a reason to drag the player through extended recruitment scenes. Because one is exciting and the other is boring. The purpose of leisure time is leisure. The prupose of engaging in an entertaining pursuit is entertainment. In a good RPG experience, time is spent doing entertaining things (like, perhaps, wrecking havoc on the hated grell with your newly-hired muscle) and not on boring things (like, perhaps, interviewing 12 NPCs in real time for a mercenary job; or spelling out and resolving in intimate detail the crossing of a desert on a giant arthropod; or resolving in detail, down to how scrubbing takes place witout inducing blisters, the way in which the PCs keep their clothes laundered and relatively free of mites and fleas).If you find goblins boring, and I've signalled the campaign will involve fighting goblins, then by all means don't join my campaign! I would have thought that's pretty obvious.Of course that's an option (I don't know if you're familiar with the "kicker" technique from Sorcerer).In my own game the first session involved cultists working for the same god as the goblins; the goblins themselves turned up in the second session.Ultimately I'm not really sure what you're trying to show, other than that human communication is fallible and that sometimes even a well-intentioned GM can misread player signals and frame scenes that no one really cares about. If you're trying to show that it's impossible to run an RPG in which player interests drive the game, or in which action resolution mechanics are invoked only when something important is at stake ("say yes or roll the dice") then you're just wrong. Because such games exist, and there are people running them.If you're trying to show that Hussar (and, by implication, anyone who agrees with him) is a bad roleplayer because doesn't want to resolve scenes that the GM has framed in spite of clear signals from the players that they're not interested in them, then chalk me up as another bad roleplayer! Because I'm not interestsed in that either.</blockquote>

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