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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6105939" data-attributes="member: 6681948">My litmus test is what would happen if I pulled it or changed it. If we removed it entirely, the dwarf backstory gets pulled. So it's used in that regard. If I change it from Minotaur to Ettins, would anything of substance change? If so, it is unimportant that these are minotaurs.Would you expect that water is cheap and easy to come by, and not an issue to consider if travelling through the area? I would expect that this will not be the case, because this is a desert. In game ramification of the setting is what makes the setting real.Then the party is interacting with the setting - it is not simply a backdrop.I don't think Hussar is asserting the grell was a major campaign issue. I think he is advocating that the PC's invested importance in vengeance against the Grell. The two are not the same thing. With that player-invested importance, I think the GM can reasonably play on that importance (link the grell to the overall plot; make the grell a recurring villain; and yes, invest importance and game time in the tools used to bring the grell down). I think he could also decide that the grell isn't really all that important, so let's just provide faceless cardboard mercs and get on with it.Now, could he reasonably go one step further, and indicate that this GrellQuest just isn't working for him, so can we just cut scene vengeance against the grell? Maybe he's the one that's bored to tears. Does he get equal rights with the players to decide he doesn't want to play out a specific scene?If it is minutia, that is how it should be handled. If it is not minutia, and numerous examples of why it may not be minutia have been presented, then this is not how it should be handled. If taking 10 on ride checks gets everyone through the desert, then the skill checks are minutia. If the worst case result is "you fell down and have sand in your boots and we have to stop so you can dust yourself off and get back on the centipede", this is also minutia. If three huge trapdoor spiders snap up from concealed locations to assault the centipede, then needing a 9+Ride check to avoid falling off, and being tied to the centipede means you can't join the attack, it is no longer minutia. I can write that off as minutia just as easily.  12 extra hobgoblins vs 6 NPC followers can be resolved as easily as “each round, 2 hobgoblins and 1 NPC are laid low.  They are not the story focus, so scene cut them and move on”. So place one player of each stripe at the table.  Do we skip all setting exploration and all PC planning sessions, because each will be boring for one player?  Should one of the two leave so we don’t have this conflict?  Or does each player compromise for the other’s enjoyment, and we have both kinds of scene in the game?  Like “your Plane Shift left you 500 miles out – that complicates matters” or “your hiring is complicated by a large number of applicants, some of whom may be more or less suitable”.  Like evaluating their plan to mitigate the difficulties of desert travel with a giant centipede or their continuing to dialogue with the potential hires one on one rather than just yell “ALL OF YOU SHUT UP – OK, you, you, you, you, you and you – hired.  The rest of you – GO HOME”?  I think Hussar’s issue was where the game was moving, at least as much as whether the game was moving. The only player we know is complaining is Hussar.  For all  I know, there’s a DM and half a dozen players out there somewhere who tell the tale of “That jerk player who wanted to waste time hiring spearcarriers rather than just taking care of business ourselves.” Both of those, I agree, are great complications.  But they also delay the players’ access to the city, and thus their ability to do whatever it was they were so fired up to do in the city.  As such, I think a player who was totally focused on those activities would probably be just as unhappy finding themselves unable to get past the gates as finding themselves slogging through the desert.  In fact, I could see someone getting shirty because the GM just made up these locked gates and besieging forces because we refused to play out his desert excursion scenario.  The gates would be open wide, if they existed at all, had we slogged through his boring desert scenes. “I stand up and whistle loudly and shrilly.  If that fails, to get the attention of all the potential recruits, I yell  ‘LISTEN UP IF YOU WANT TO GET PAID!!’  Do I have their attention now?   Good.  Starting from the left, I point at random to every second guy.  ‘You, you, you, you, you and you – pack your gear up – you are hired and we head out in 10 minutes.  The rest of you, thanks for coming out but we’ve filled our hiring quota.  BYE!” You now have six hirelings with no idea of who they are, with limited or no time spent in the hiring process.  Done.  And, if you unfortunately selected a few sub-optimal candidates and dismissed Sir Stephen the Spear Saint, well that’s the price you pay for being in a hurry when you hire. OK, let’s summarize.  Because one scene with a prisoner was unsatisfactory to the players, they will never, ever take a prisoner again, because if they do, they will just play out that same unsatisfactory scene.  Hold that thought for a moment.  OK, let’s summarize this.  Just because you want to skip this one scene of NPC interaction, that should not be taken as a sign that you will want to skip talking to all NPC’s.  This one scene should be taken as just that – only one scene – and in no way an indication of how future scenes will play out. So let’s recap:  If the GM makes one scene with a prisoner unsatisfactory, all scenes with prisoners will be unsatisfactory, so never go there again.  But if a player makes one scene with NPC interaction unsatisfactory, that’s not in any way indicative that the player would make similar scenes in the future unsatisfactory. You know what?  It seems like lot of your discussion from your first post on this thread can be distilled down to “assume the players will not be dicks, but assume all GM’s will be dicks”.  Why is that? I see the NPC’s be cardboard back figures about as often as they have negligible impact on resolution of the issues in the movie. It was completely uninjured in your attack and had no reason to believe (it has human intelligence, I believe) that someone might come back seeking vengeance?  And that assumes it had no goal other than to sit here at a choke point until it dies!Another “player knowledge” versus “character knowledge” moment.  In my world, the PC’s  may bemoan this stupid desert in the way, but the players trust the GM enough to allow the possibility the desert encounters will be fun and interesting. Maybe directly relevant to the city, or maybe not and the city goes on the back burner for a while. Perhaps the point might better be “either cut the Tom Bombadil scenes or tell me you won’t so I can find another group to game with”.</blockquote>

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