Player Narration can be Exhausting!

[Alan]

Hi all,

Over the past two Mondays at our Indie game night, I've played or GMed InSpectres, Universalis, and Extreme Vengeance.  All have mechanics that demand creative player narration.  I've discovered that this can be exhausting!  

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the creative power, but compared to say D&D3e, more happens in a given session and I (and other players) have a lot of input which we have to come up with off the cuff.  This is demanding and I'm thinking that shorter sessions (2-3 hours) are actual ideal.

Has anyone else found this.  Is this true of games like Sorcerer too?

[Fabrice G.]

Hi Alan,

yes, I fing it very true for Sorcerer.

For my firtst game I was all focused on scene framing and the players where reacting well, thus every scene in the evening was meaningfull and intense. We played for 3 hours and we had to stop whereas usually we play for almost twice longer.
I as the GM needed a break, but the players told me they were exhausted too. Since then, I've GMed two other Sorcerer game and one V:tM in a narrativist fashion ; all were more meaningfull but shorter than other games I played.

So at least it's true for me and my players too.

Take care,

Fabrice.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the creative power, but compared to say D&D3e, more happens in a given session and I (and other players) have a lot of input which we have to come up with off the cuff.  This is demanding and I'm thinking that shorter sessions (2-3 hours) are actual ideal.

I think RPG sessions *should* last 2-3 hours (4 at the frickin' most). The 6-8 hour games of yore are a result of a) cludgy rules that take forever to get through, b) lingering wargame mentality ("I move three hexes, turn and...oh wait, I get a +3 cover concealment bonus to all ranged attacks for the next 1.5 moves/level, so..." -- ie, see point a) again and c) lack of player interest/ability to really get anything done in the first place.

I'll reword that know so it makes sense.

RPGs:
a) clumsy rules (which dovetails into...)
b) military wargame mindset (turn-based combat, modifiers up the wazoo)
c) lack of player interest/lack of anything interesting to do

Verdict: Long games BAD! Short games GOOD! Or more to the point (and cribbing from Doktor Edvards and Roger Ebert)...gaming is like sex/movies. The good stuff never lasts long enough, the bad stuff can never be too short.

[Matt Wilson]

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the creative power, but compared to say D&D3e, more happens in a given session and I (and other players) have a lot of input which we have to come up with off the cuff.  This is demanding and I'm thinking that shorter sessions (2-3 hours) are actual ideal.

That's what I thought, as well. However, many posts on the "how long are your game sessions" thread appear to say otherwise.

I also notice that fight scenes make the time whiz by, regardless of the rules. Last night's Extreme Vengeance game was a good 4 and a half hours, yet it felt shorter than our old Wednesday game, which had maybe one combat once every other session.

[Mike Holmes]

Interestingly, I disagree that more happens in these sorts of games. Plotwise. I think that, detail for detail, other methods produce much more action. Really.

What I think this sort of narration does, however, is create a higher density of meaningful narration. That is, when all is said and done, you feel like you got more done because you feel the impact of play more. There are more, and more memorable, moments from the session. Sure, there's less detail about who's armor didn't get penetrated by who's shot. But that stuff's only fun in play (and only to pervs like me), and doesn't make for interesting recollection.

So, what I think heavy player narration games produce is more emotionally dense play. So no surprise it's exhausting.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

The short answer is definitely that 2-3 hour sessions serve this mode of play best, when you first get involved with it.

But that's the short answer. Given pretty solid commitment to playing in this fashion on my part for the last six years or so, I've discovered that two things happen: the session lengthens again, and the ratio of "stuff happening" to "time spent" falls very much under group-contract control (as opposed to, for instance, handling-time constraints).

Best,
Ron

[Tim C Koppang]

Just out of curiosity, I was wondering how much time (especially in games with heavy player narration) you spend on average talking about the social contract or other metagame concerns during actual play.  I realize this differs from group to group and depends a great deal on style preferences, which is why I'm posing the question generally.

Let me try to get more specific.  In a game where the amount of "meaningful content" is higher, do you find that players need to push the pause button so to speak and get everyone's story straight more often that in other style games?  How do these types of out of character discussions affect session length?  It's my impression (speaking from some experience) that ooc interaction of this sort is just as creatively draining as the in-game events.

I suppose I've always wondered whether or not an increased amount of ooc interaction somehow takes away from the "real" roleplaying.  I'm trying to reconcile this concern.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Tim,

I hope more people than myself answer your question, as it's a strong sub-component of the basic thread topic.

For me and the folks I play with, I find that metagame-discussion and in-game role-playing tend to blur. In fact, I'm beginning to think that the traditional You vs. Your Character distinction, in which in-character actions and mannerisms and knowledge are openly enforced, is an extremely derived mode of play and not necessarily well-suited to many kinds of role-playing enjoyment.

To answer you more directly, what I'm saying is that the metagame-level dialogue adds a smoothing, relaxing, and pacing element of play, rather than a draining one. It means that one doesn't have to "role-play" (in the strictest sense of that term) until one wants to.

Best,
Ron