More About length of game

[Noutaja]

Hi everyone!

Usually our Polaris sessions arent very long. Every session lasts something between 4 or 6 hours, I dont know yet that how many sessions we need to play until our protagonists turn to the mistaken. You guys say that it takes 7 or 10 sessions, I say more, maybe 12 or 15.

[Ben Lehman]

Hi everyone!

Usually our Polaris sessions arent very long. Every session lasts something between 4 or 6 hours, I dont know yet that how many sessions we need to play until our protagonists turn to the mistaken. You guys say that it takes 7 or 10 sessions, I say more, maybe 12 or 15.

Hi Noutaja!  Welcome to our forum.  In keeping with Forge custom, let's not post to old threads.  Rather, let's start new ones.  Not a big deal, no harm no foul, please keep talking in this one.  Also, feel free to start your own threads about new topics.  We don't look down on new people starting new threads here.

So, this is a post linking back to the old post Length of Game.  It's a great discussion topic that I'd like to see continued, so thanks for bringing it up again.

I'm really surprised to see people report such long games!  3-4 Polaris usually takes me about two sessions, sometimes three if I'm taking it slow (and these aren't marathons -- about 2-4 hours each). 

Clearly, the answer is in Experience.  How often are you taking experience checks and under what conditions?  Other people: how long do your games take?

yrs--
--Ben

[Martin O'Leary]

Currently playing our first game, had 2 sessions so far. The first had about an hour of actual play, the second about three hours. Characters are on Zeal 1, 2, 2 and 4.

On a related note, do people find that there's much disparity between advancement rates at the table? It certainly seems to us that some characters are better experience magnets than others.

[Steven Stewart]

Well not having played yet, I may not be qualified to comment, but having read lots of the AP and listening to the Paul Tevis marathon of mpgs of AP. It would seem that a lot of groups playing for the first time sort of let the expierence checks flow naturally from the rest of the story, instead of actively trying to push for expierence checks through conflict.

It seems when groups "get" the following two concepts that things speed up a bit more:

(A) using either through poetics like Paul Tevis group or directly, using pharses like "but only if he felt despair (expierence check)" or "futhermore, his heart was hardend against his fellow knights" or directly "but only if that causes an expierence check".
(B) Pushing to exhaust themes to force "It shall not come to pass" and die rolls.

Both require a bit of the "stragetic" nature of Polaris in terms of managing and controlling conflict.

This could result in what some have mentioned as "high impact" or "intense" polaris, and I am not sure all groups can handle that much hard hitting right out of the gates when trying to get used to the system.

But personally, I would rather have a game that was about 4-6 hours total playing time and have more of them so that I could explore more stories and play out different characters than having one long "campaign" totaling 9 sessions for a total of 18 hours.

Does anyone have expierence with starting your first game as "intense" meaning trying in the first scene to exhaust all the themes to force a check (while still of course having a good story - I don't mean to imply that you sacrifice narriation and quality for speed, but I think there are plenty of ways to have "both" quality and speed.) or is this too intense and turn people off the game?

Cheers for now,

Tokyo Steve

[Ben Lehman]

Hey, Steve --

You have some misunderstandings about how Experience works.  The primary motor of experience is behavioral rather than mechanical.  I'm happy to talk with you about it but maybe it's just best to wait until you've read the book and played.

Let's keep this thread for the purpose of talking about the pace of people's games, rather than speculation about what the rules might be.

yrs--
--Ben

[Blankshield]

Way way back when we were doing our initial playtest, the reason things were running so slow (setting aside false starts, etc) is, technically - yes, because experience checks were spaced out.

What caused that though, is that we weren't really grooving on the whole life cycle of the knight, yet, but were really enjoying a slow-paced, heavy description world building kind of groove.

Just offering an alternate take on what could be stretching the play experience out...

James

[Arturo G.]

Our experience is similar to what James describes.

I would also add that in our first sessions we were not paying too much attention to it, and experience checks were mainly derived from failed rolls in conflict.

However, we have learnt to drive the play, as Mistaken, to situations were experience-checks arise. Even during the conflict it is possible to introduce a "But only if" or "And furthermore", which, in case of being accepted, will derive in a experience check. And experience is a powerful story-driver thing, something that a Heart should not try to avoid.

Arturo

[Noutaja]

Sorry Ben, I didnt know the rules (I know now)!

How often are you taking experience checks and under what conditions?

We dont take experience checks very often. My opinion (and maybe other players opinion in my gaming group too) is that we know exatly where our protagonist is going. In a nutshell; sometimes we just say; "hey, we could throw couple experience rolls, because plot has gone forward so much". I know this isnt the right way, but the main thing is that is works. Dont get me wrong, -we do roll checks whenever they're needed.

When you fell too deep to the plot, you'll forget everything!

- Ossi

[Noutaja]

Double post removed at the request of the author.

--mod

[Ben Lehman]

Noutaja --

I have no problem with how often people roll their experience checks, as long as it is based on player decisions and not just on "the plot has advanced so let's roll."  A sterling example of knighthood should not get as many rolls as a debased demon-lover, right?

yrs--
--Ben

[Noutaja]

Of course not.

We roll our checks with an intelligent way. If the story has been very, very tragic, we might roll more checks and if it has been not so hectic, we dont roll so many rolls.

And ben, I know you've heard this many times; Polaris is one of the greatest roleplaying games I've ever played, so gongratulations!