Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="JamesonCourage" data-source="post: 6109040" data-attributes="member: 6668292">I'm one of the "world-builders" right now, but I end up improvising basically all of every session.No problem. As always, play what you like <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Your post said "But, why are you forcing me into play that I don't want? Why are you adding complications when there are already things to do in the game?... Why add in a bunch of extraneous stuff when it's not needed, and, if the players have their way, will never actually come up in play?"You didn't really qualify it the way you just did. So I replied to what you wrote.Well, yes. I'm running the game; I get to say what happens, and you get to say what you do in response to it. Now, I could "abuse" that and go all railroady and super heavy-handed and maliciously antagonistic, but I don't. I don't need to, and it's not my style, and it's not fun for me. But, yes, if you sit at my table, you follow my rules. If you say "I'll tell him this,", and I say "well, what do you say?", then it means you tell me what you say, not sum it up again.But, there's a reason for that. I let people sum up stuff all the time. If I'm not right now, it's because this NPC is likely to interrupt you (maybe he's offended, or something), interject with something new, get interrupted, or the like. But, you, as a player, don't know that. However, it's important you start playing out this particular conversation, even if you don't know why, not just sum up like we did the last time.There's reasons for the way I do things, and it's resulted in games that engage every single player I've had, and I've had compliments from all of them. And, as GM, I'll empathize if you want to move something along, and I'll likely help speed through it. I just won't do it at what I think is the expense of the game, and I get final say on what I think that is, as GM.But yeah, that's not everyone's cup of tea, and I get that. It's cool to play differently, with different table expectations and different social contracts.Only if they literally obsess over never letting a complication come up. If they have to obsessively bypass any and all complications, they can go for it. It's not what most functioning adults do in real life, but they can play their characters that way as long as it doesn't hurt party cohesion, and it doesn't bore me.But yeah, you can "avoid" complications. Use my example: barbarian killed someone in a duel based on pride, and the guy had a wife. The barbarian could've shrugged, and moved on. Complication over. Instead, he engaged it, and tried to apologize (feebly), and interacted with her off-and-on throughout the campaign. That wasn't necessary either, but it became pretty interesting later on in-game, when years had passed, and they'd had a long-lasting friendship.But, no matter how that barbarian responds -either walking away coldly or trying to apologize to the widow- it tells us something interesting about his character. This is a "complication" that isn't going to hurt the party, it's just an interesting complication that we can explore if we want to.Other complications are a lot more forced -say, any random encounter. But, I like those, too, as they can tell us stuff about characters (Bronn killing the other mercenary), set up stuff for later (Bronn championing Tyrion), or tell us stuff about the setting that we can use later on (hill tribes are dangerous).Also fair.I thought it has been said? And that you could even do it with a check? It's just also been said that you can't always do so. That there might be complications.In Celebrim's game, the setting means that it's hard to do. That won't bug me any more than following the rules for magic or attacks. It's just as much a part of the game, both with built-in limitations and assumptions. If I sat at that table, I'd know to expect that. It might be looser at my table, but I've had PCs start a civil war before, and raise an army from the peasants. I'm not going to block you if you have the capability to. If you want six men to fight, and the setting allows for it, and you have the ability, go for it.Style difference, certainly, but your advice certainly rings as not universally applicable, then.You don't need to force it, though. It can just happen afterwards. The two knight PCs in my game got squires after they were knighted, and as events unfolded, they came to like them in really interesting ways. And, those relationships were shaped by events. The events matter, but they could've been anything. For example, the squires were in a skirmish with them when they attacked some cultists, and their actions and reactions (to getting hit, or spells cast at them) led the players to think about them a certain way. If it was an attack on the road, it'd likely be different. Or if it was another knight insulting them. Or if it was a sage complimenting them.It doesn't really matter what I throw at them, that bonding experience (or disgust, or admiration, or whatever) will happen based on events. I like seeing what develops, because each situation is quite different in how it resolves, how people act and react, etc. And it's interesting to see how relationships unfold.I don't need to force it. I just want to see it. And skipping the desert skips that, and that's why I don't like it. But, yes, it's a play style difference. It's not wrong to skip it, or to play through it. And I think it's bad advice to say either way it somehow "right". But, that's me. Play what you like, and all that.If I have no knowledge that one of my very close friends that I live with and game with has some sort of disease, and that he's planning on selling his stuff and moving very soon, but I don't know that, is that somehow not relevant to me? What about a spouse considering a job offer they haven't shared yet? Someone who is planning on proposing to his significant other?Things can be unknown and have a lot of relevance to me (whole "invasion of privacy thing" in there, I'm sure). It's kind of necessary to "the twist", and stuff, in fiction.No, I didn't ignore that. I just said that it's fine, for my group (and apparently others), for us to find out how something was relevant later. This is not related to any GM ever obligating you to do anything. This is a completely different issue.And I've also noted -and I am now noting again- that it's cool if you need it to be relevant now. But it's also fine to not know why it's relevant, to some groups.Side note: the caps aren't helping, but they are amusing. If you want to entertain me, keep it up. If you want to convince me, well, probably best to tone it down.Right. This goes to the "you want to know how's it relevant right now" part. It hurts with reveals, twists, etc., but it's a fine way to play. Not universal, obviously, but not in any way "wrong" or "bad" or anything.What? People explicitly wrote earlier how they might be necessary to dealing with some part of The City Across The Desert, and you called it railroading. Now, it's post-hoc? So, if they are involved, it's bad, no matter what? That doesn't sound right, but that's what I think I'm getting.I know you said you want to know why they're relevant to the party right now, so couldn't that be done even if it was post-hoc? Why is that bad? This is why I said it looks like you said it's only okay if it's planned. Apparently post-hoc justifications are bad?Yeah, I know, it's like you don't like this style, and have framed it in a bad light, or something. So, people that like mystery games are doing it wrong, because they don't know how something new might tie in yet, or if it does? Or, people that like interacting with things, and then having that interaction pay off later, they're doing it wrong, too?This is what I'm having trouble with, Hussar. I don't get the logic; it escapes me. I don't mean that as a slam or anything, and I get the "want it to have relevance right now" bit, I just don't get the "people who don't play this way are playing wrong" implications, here. You don't like it; that's cool. Why is it bad for others?This might be a hair-pulling moment for you, so sorry if it is, but... what's the difference between the desert stopping you from getting into the city as soon as you'd like to, and the siege? I mean, I know there are a lot of differences, but if both are impeding your goal of "get into the city", then what's the thing you're objecting to? This is me asking, honestly, to attempt to understand. I think the answer to this might be the mental breakthrough I need to get where you're coming from.Well, that might be an interesting complication. One of the NPCs in the military that the players have had transferred to their unit multiple times is a woman who hates orcs (one of the main antagonistic forces so far this campaign), and who violently hates anyone who has harmed a child. They quite like her, but she's a little volatile around those beings, and so they only keep her around in that sort of situation when they feel it's worth taking that risk (she murdered a helpless person who had killed children, albeit while they were literally about to walk said person to be executed).That can make for an interesting complication, from my experience. Same would go for hating the grell.I think we'll attribute why you might think that to different reasons. You've said you wished that people in this thread that get on your case for implying others are "bad GMs" would get on the case of people who have said "worse of you", or the like. In that spirit, I'd like to express that I'd like to see you start acknowledging all of the good things people have said could / do happen to the PCs, instead of blowing up only the bad ones that they bring up as possibilities. Just a wish, though. As always, play what you like <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification