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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6108548" data-attributes="member: 6681948">He wanted to hire mercenaries to assist in obtaining vengeance on the grell.  He has made the mercenary hiring a precondition of that vengeance scene.  The question now becomes whether that scene is as simple as “we part with some coin and we now have the precise six hirelings we desired or whether complications consistent with the desire to hire mercenaries arise. “Riding across the desert Fremen style” was specifically noted as the desired “cool scene” outcome.  Summoning the centipede created the centipede scene.  He wanted, however, a centipede scene that resolved with no complications, having the precise results he envisioned, with no deviations or complications How many times a statement is made does not change its basic accuracy.  You have also said that the removal of the trappings on which the PC’s had built up their intra-paty role play destroyed the game.  I don’t believe something whose removal destroys the game can reasonably be considered unimportant. OK, I said you project on every real or hypothetical scenario presented.  Please tell me how either of you can report on a scenario that has never occurred. He believe that City B was where the action is, without setting foot in the desert.  Unless he has read the entire scenario (the AP in this case, plus any modifications the GM may have made), he has no way of knowing where the action is.  Neither he PC’s nor the players are omniscient. As I see it, you also want the ability to decide what is irrelevant material unilaterally.  Let’s break it down.  You want to hire mercenaries.  That, to me, makes the mercenaries relevant.  So, is it acceptable for the GM to incorporate any of the following: <ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"> You selecting between a choice of possible hires?  From your comments, I’d have to say no;</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The mercenaries negotiating their terms of service (how long; how much you will pay them; their exposure to danger; provision of equipment; etc.);</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">In the Grell Battle, the mercenaries taking actions other than those you wish (potentially siding with the Grell, but seems unlikely; not risking their necks to protect the PC’s from attacks; hesitating or fleeing the battle)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">After the Grell Battle, the mercenaries taking actions other than those you wish (demanding a share of the Grell’s treasure; negotiating for continued employment having “proved their value”; threatening the PC’s, now in their wounded state, to extort further pay; at the extreme, turning bandit to slay the PC’s and take their loot)</li> </ol>The sense I get is that you wanted to pull open a game book, pluck a price for services, receive precisely the warriors you wanted and have them unquestioningly take exactly the actions you envisions, no if’s and’s or but’s from that GM.  You also indicated you felt that this should allow you to avoid any encounter which could possibly have arisen otherwise in the desert.  If the sole issue you would object to is a bunch of skill checks to determine whether you arrive at the other side of the desert sitting pretty on the centipede, bruised and dusty from numerous falls, tied to the centipede or tied and dragged behind it, with no impact on the fact that you arrive, all resources intact, when I agree that is a waste of time.  And if your GM felt that was all that would be added by not cutting scene to the other side of the desert, I agree 100% with cutting to the other side of the desert. No question, you have been 100% forthright that it is your enjoyment that is the concern, and that you are the one who did not wish to spend time on the scene.  My comments are directed at Pemerton, who seems quite insistent that all the players, not just you, were bored to tears, and the GM kept forcing these meaningless, boring scenes be played out.  That puts the situation in a very different light than one player being bored, and the rest of the table being willing, or even wishing to, play out the scene. In that case, I think your decision that you’re a poor fit for the table’s style and leaving is the mature approach (obviously, based on more than a single scene). Frankly, I’d be less offended by the scenes lacking immediate or even long-relevance than by the scenes being boring.  However relevant, I don’t game with the objective of being bored, and I expect you would agree.  The difference is that you consider “relevant” essential to not being boring. I know – you want a short game where you say “this is my goal” and we immediately cut to your goal.  I disagree that this makes for a good game.  I disagree that “there can never be anything between us and the endgame we want or it is a bad game”. And I believe that the social contract typically provides the GM some leeway to present a series of scenes, not necessarily in the exact order the player may desire. I’m currently playing a Zeitgeist game [I will try to avoid any spoilers], and we are investigating a murder.  There is a specific NPC whose name keeps coming up, and I think he has answers.  I (the player, not just the character) want to find this guy and question him.  I routinely mention the contacts I am asking to keep an ear to the ground, checking in on my sources, etc. and asking if there has been any sign of him.  For several sessions, there has been no word.  But I’m not sitting around doing nothing – other situations and other lines of investigation present themselves, and we’re dealing with them.  At least one of which I have no current reason to believe is related, other than some geographic proximity.  But I trust the GM to run an entertaining game, and that we will either eventually find this mystery NPC or that the situation will be resolved and he will be proven a red herring.  It doesn’t have to be the next scene to make me happy.  Apparently, it does need to be the next scene to make you happy. And, even in a very tightly focused game such as the one you favour, I am not in a position to differentiate between “A BUNCH OF EXTRANEOUS STUFF” and “a bunch of relevant stuff whose relevance is not immediately clear to me”, even if I were 100% opposed to anything ever happening which is not 100% linear related to the immediate goal. And somewhere between these two extremes lies reality.  If the GM decides that, because Hussar gets shirty when we have NPC’s with personalities, we will just have cut-outs so he does not have to waste his precious time interacting with them, and we will skip over scenes he has no interest in, regardless of the interests of the rest of the table, that may signal that it’s time for one of us to leave the table. And, again, recognition that your style differs from the table, and bowing out rather than trying to force a change, would be my definition of the mature gamer choice.  Getting shirty because the GM does not acquiesce to your wishes to dictate how a scene plays out would not.  That seems like a significant difference between your and Celebrim’s style in and of itself.  It also seems like you may not have enjoyed the game Pemerton discusses, prior to the time shunt.  That’s informative to me, so I appreciate the straightfoward answr.  Sorry if I made you repeat yourself.</blockquote>

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