Note that you will not find much "story-update" in this post, since the situations I am going to discuss transcend any particular set of events or decisions. Mainly this is about a few situations I have been wrestling with over the last few months (years?), and how one has finally been put to rest while the others are on-going, and how those continue to affect my game and gaming.

For those of you not familiar with my game's history, you should check the following links. The basic run-down is thus: I'm running Narrativist 3E game, possibly vanilla, and I've recently discarded the XP system in favor of one more like TROS' Spiritual Attributes; we play on-line via mIRC chat for a couple hours once a week.

Previous threads in this series can be found here, in descending order (newest first): Thank God for NPCs: More Frickin' 3E, Pseudo-TROS SA's in D&D, Braving the Wrath of Dav, Narrative 3E: Real Time & Effects on Play, "No Myth" with D&D, More Player-Driven 3E, Raven's 3E Game, and Non-silly D&D.

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First, a victory! I've overcome the "I want players to describe their actions" frustration I've had. My glorious ideal to have everyone take charge of their results isn't going to work with my current group. I'll do it when I do it, and they'll do it when they do it. This will likely mean that I will be providing the majority of the narration for the results, with the players providing the majority of the foundational decisions and actions that produce those results. I've decided I can be OK and just damn fine dandy with that.

If anyone speaks up about wanting more narrative power, or "my guy wouldn't have done that" when I describe a result, I'll deal with it then. Likely that will be to say, "Ok, rescind what I said. Never happened. What DOES your guy do?" and just get on with play because, hey, it's just typical player-player negotiation regarding the SIS and I've no vested interest in controlling outcomes.

(Don't get confused! I'm not talking about "My Guy" syndrome above. There is no dysfunctional utilization of the "my guy would've" or similar statements occurring in my games.)

So, that's over with and I think I'm a much happier GM for coming to terms with this aspect of my group's play style.

However, two problems remain: "spotlight time" and "action-per-session."

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The group's characters tend to be split apart into two groups. Given the nature of the IRC medium and text-based play, giving each character(s) enough spotlight time to present an interesting break point to move to another character(s) often means spending around forty-five minutes to an hour of play for each character(s), while the others simply sit and watch.

Recently, I suggested that each character(s) be given 15 minutes at a time before switching to prevent problems that might arise with uneven or delayed spotlight time. The players indicated they did not mind the wait, so we did not implement the 15-minute rule.

However, events at the game last night highlighted the real need for such a system. Play started off late and then ran very slowly at first because of issues here at home while I was trying to run the game; as well, all three characters were seperated from one another, and thus each took up an hour per scene and the last player waited two hours for her turn. Obviously, since we usually have between an hour-and-a-half to two hours to play, this means that play ran quite late, which is not a good thing for our work-the-next-morning, baby-rearing group.

So, though I am nervous about my player's reaction to my implementation of such a rule, since they had indicated no desire to do so before, I will be using the 15 minute rule -- possibly tweaking the amount of time to no more than 20 minutes depending on how play proceedes in regards to the level of choppiness resulting -- in order to make sure everyone recieves equal time during a given night and take the weight of, "Damnit, I didn't give them much time yet they sat here all night," off my aching shoulders.

My main worry is that it will break up play too much. Second to this is that the players will not wish to utilize this ruling. In either case, it leaves me with the problem, and no actual solution to it that I can see other than this one.

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The second and larger problem, of which the above is also a symptom, is a problem of style, mainly highlighted by the amount of action each session sees. There are simply not enough Bang moments occurring during a night's session. Usually this amount works out to one Bang per character per night, and has occasionally been less than this.

I contrast this and the current state of affairs and "feel" of the game with one particular run of sessions last year. These sessions were more active and "interesting" on a per-session basis than are the current episodes of play, and most notably they occurred while I was utilizing a purchased adventure module as the basis and extent of the adventure.

Store-bought adventure modules are constrained to specific locations and nearly if not always clear-cut regarding their beginning, middles, and end. I would generally dislike such elements in play -- arguably pre-scripted due to the specificity of a module's setting and location components without being actually pre-scripted, and designed with clear lead-up, mid-course and goal events in mind -- as they would seem to interfere with the goal of open-ended, player-driven play.

Yet given our group's time constraints and the nature of our play medium, the best sort of game for our group is exemplified by the bounded scenarios found in store-bought adventures, and the play that arose from the use of such.

I don't mind these sorts of things, as long as they're fun (and they were), they just seem to run counter to everything I have been trying to move the game away from for the last few years. I'm seriously beginning to wonder if chat-based play is simply not going to work for the vision of play I have (or at least not with this particular group, or any relatively traditionally-molded tabletop gaming group).

My second observation in this respect is that perhaps 3E is simply the wrong game to be using for play when the obstacles are both the format-of-play and the desired style of play, even tweaked and Drifted as it is. Does the fix entail finding a better game for the format, regardless of its style-support, or one that supports the desired style, allowing the format to take care of itself? Or is the only optimal solution finding one that does both (a beast I honestly doubt even exists)?

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How about those TROS-style XP Awards?
I promised an update, and thus here we are: honestly, they aren't being used as well as they could be. This is also a casualty of our play style. Things move so slowly that folks get in, perhaps, one chance a night to invoke a single Award, and as a result, with no repeated use reinforcing their existance, they tend to be forgotten about and used to less effect than they could and should be.

My reaction to this: the only fix I can see is something that is so central to the character sheet and to play itself that nothing can be done in a game without it being referenced or utilized. This entails a move even further from D&D than we currently are, and I am uncertain as to the comfort of my players with such a move for the reason that other games were offered as the game engine before play began, and the resounding consensus was to stick to the existing engine of play: D&D.

As you can see, we have a wide variety of extreme choices to navigate among the above problems.

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, I don't know 3E at all, but does the tempo of the game seem too slow *when you're playing*? If so, which parts seem to move too slowly? Is it the classic case that everything grinds to a halt when there's combat, or something else?

I'm still trying to figure out this issue of pacing in IRC gaming myself.
I've only played on IRC twice, the two Dogs games this month, and I was surprised at how slow it felt. Paradoxically, the forum games I play feel much faster moving, maybe because five minutes of movement once a day, every day, feels faster than two hours of slow-but-steady play.

Hi Raven,

With the TROS style rewards, I've had a good and excellent time with those in my drift of 3E. I simply called them Ties and award 100 xp anytime someone does something for or against a given tie. Getting new Ties costs 100 xp off the bat, but quickly pays itself back.

I make sure the awards happen on the spot, because players quickly look at their sheet and realize they packed up 1000 xp over the course of a few scenes, and then they really get into it. For a slower paced xp progression, you could reduce the awards to 50 or 25 xp each time instead, although I think too low of an award will get players to ignor it.

As far as IRC time based issues, maybe you should look at a couple of transcripts and see what's eating up the majority of your time with any given scene. Is it handling time, decision making time on the part of the players, or anything else? It also does well to remember it takes about 3 to 5 times as long to communicate on IRC than face to face.

Chris

DannyK wrote: Forgive me if this is a stupid question, I don't know 3E at all, but does the tempo of the game seem too slow *when you're playing*? If so, which parts seem to move too slowly? Is it the classic case that everything grinds to a halt when there's combat, or something else?

Some mechanical thoughts / question on the interrogations.

You indicate that you're not intentionally withholding information, so I presume that there were additional details the player wanted to know that you hadn't anticipated and provided up front. You then did the 20 questions thing to provide her with the details she wanted.

Assuming you've already made it known that you aren't withholding information and the players don't need to use sneaky investigative tactics to get you to reveal something you hadn't intended to reveal...could the mechanics of the interrogation be sped up simply by her making 1 post summarizing in general bullet points all of the items she's looking for answers to? You could then make a standard d20 roll against a pertinant skill to determine how successful the character is. And then just respond with a paragraph summarizing the answers she gets with more or less detail/accuracy based on the roll.

Valamir wrote: I presume that there were additional details the player wanted to know that you hadn't anticipated and provided up front. You then did the 20 questions thing to provide her with the details she wanted.

Assuming you've already made it known that you aren't withholding information and the players don't need to use sneaky investigative tactics to get you to reveal something you hadn't intended to reveal...

could the mechanics of the interrogation be sped up simply by her making 1 post summarizing in general bullet points all of the items she's looking for answers to?

In relation to the interrogations: How do you want to handle it? For example, recently I pitched a very low key problematic situation to a player so he could address the premise (A guy with information was running away, but the PC would have to shove through a market place of people to get to him. Does he want to batter and bruise all these people, when the guy might not even know anything?)

He tackled it by describing how he would try and get around people and if needed, pick them up with his ultra strength and set them asside.

It was actually a very reasonable tactical responce. And I said that as I told him that basically this is a 'test of character', where its not about negotiating it but showing something about your character. If he wanted to negotiate it with tactics, we could do it that way but we'd never learn anything about his character.

He nailed it with his next post...he couldn't do it (and gave some background reasons as to why). Very nice.

You might need to describe exactly how to handle it if you want nar: Don't try and work out the correct answer with 20 questions...just make a choice. The correct answer isn't important...finding out your PC's choice and why they made it, is what is important.


Also, on the player waiting for their turn, why don't you pitch them problems every so often and say "Figure out how you'll handle it and I'll get back to you in five or ten to find out". You can keep hand balling them problems to work with every so often until it's their turn.

Callan,

It is Nar already, it's just very heavily focused Actor-stance Nar. Neither the character nor the player wants to simply rush into something headlong with limited understanding -- they (correctly) want enough information to make a meaningful choice about the situation.

It is definitely not a "paralyzed by indecision" problem -- which I'm thinking folks may be marking it as. No, that's a common problem in traditional gaming, and having experienced it before I can say that this is different. Nor, as I mention above, is it a "must find correct solution and beat the GM" situation.

This is really more, as I noted above and have had more time to think about and agree with since, a problem with my own style of play clashing with the group. I prefer more grainy resolution: I like using Pawn-stance and blatant System to complete goals, and not "bogging results down" in acting as much.

This is me: "I want to know if anyone saw who killed him. I rolled a 17 for my Gather Information check. Does anyone tell me anything useful?" "Yes, here's what you're told." Goal --> Result.

But this is definitely not my players. They prefer moving through the crowd and asking questions as would their characters, even if I jump right to the guy who tells them the info and sort of gloss-over the rest with a, "No one seems to know anything, but there's a beggar sitting on the corner who might know something. They seem to see everything without being noticed themselves."

Gotcha. FWIW I totally prefer your more grainier version as well. It allows one to wrap up a whole several hours of in-game time in a nice succinct summary paragraph exactly the same as a novelist would rather than going word for word through each.

For educational purposes, can you share what events have allowed you to peg your players as strongly actor stance? Was there an open discussion along the lines of "the example scene in your above post where you asked them which way they'd prefer to handle it"? Was it mostly you picking up on cues from them in play, and if so can you illuminate your train of thought in figuring that out? Was there some friction in play that was smoothed over when you realized the friction was caused by Author vs. Actor conflict and if so what gave it away?

That sort of analysis would be quite interesting to document I think.

Valamir wrote: For educational purposes, can you share what events have allowed you to peg your players as strongly actor stance?

Hi Raven,

Third possible option for the social skills- transform them into a reward mechanic. If the players aren't using them to roll, but instead roleplaying it through, perhaps you might want to turn it directly into an XP bonus based on their social skill rating. "Ok, you've won the debate with the councilor, hmm, that was pretty good, get 10 times your social rank in XP!"

So, folks who have high social skills are getting more points for roleplaying it through. Players who like to talk through things, will put more points there, and get more points....

Just a thought.

Chris

How do the players keep in character if there's a social situation that relies on character-only knowledge?

For example, say a player's wizard had suspicions that an NPC wizard wasnt the great mage he claimed...and so wanted to engage the wizard in technical small talk about spells, in the hope of catching them out.

They make stuff up.

"Hey, Alsgordex, I was wondering, what are your thoughts on the Basking-Ulthemar paradox."

The fact that the "Basking-Ulthemar paradox" has never showed up before in the game, is of no importance. It may show up in the future, if the improvisation requires it.

greyorm wrote: I was bemoaning the fact that despite having chosen social skills such as Diplomacy, Intimidate, etc., the players were not using them at all, and instead relying solely on character-acting to achieve the desired effects. [two solutions elided]

The group's characters tend to be split apart into two groups. Given the nature of the IRC medium and text-based play, giving each character(s) enough spotlight time to present an interesting break point to move to another character(s) often means spending around forty-five minutes to an hour of play for each character(s), while the others simply sit and watch.

Rob Carriere wrote: ... one of the players in the group I mentioned likes to play characters who are diplomatic, verbally subtle, and full of intrigue. He himself couldn't do any of those to save his life. What this method allows us to do is translate his performance into his character's performance (OK, he's being unusually polite and indirect. What would happen if a character with +16 Diplomacy were to be unusully polite and indirect). This does, of course, require that all players know what's on everybody's character sheets.

Adjustments in the other direction can be handled by roleplay. In other words, if you are diplomatic but you play a character that isn't, you better not use your diplomatic savvy.
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Vaxalon wrote: Remember that any overture can be interpreted positively and negatively. Someone who's being nice can seem condescending; someone who's being confident can seem overbearing.

Rob Carriere suggested a Take Ten rule when players role-play the social challenges rather than roll dice. Another way to handle it is to give the player a small bonus or penalty to a die roll at the end to determine success.

"I liked the way you guilted the little twerp into telling you the name of the thief. Make a Diplomacy roll at +4."

"I don't think you can scare the bouncer. He's bigger than you and your threats really aren't going to frighten anyone. Make an Intimidate roll at -2."

This system lets players role-play (the fun part) and roll dice, too (taking into consideration the character's skill). It's fortune in the middle, with all its well known problems, but it works well enough.

Adam,
You're entirely right. I've played in, and enjoyed, games like that.
SR
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Thank you for the suggestions, everyone (Chris, Rob, Adam)! I will add these to the list to pass along to my players for discussion.

NN (what is your real name?), you ask a good question, though it is something that has honestly never come up before in play (and I have played with this group for many years). I am not certain what the reaction to such would be, though I assume the players would simply make it up on the spot. I cannot say for certain, as I am reminded of the time one player became very concerned and slightly uncomfortable when a sorcerer successfully charmed her character, and she was asked to play her character as such.

As you can see, this points to the desire to avoid any sort of Pawn stance (rather, any sort of getting "out of character"), so there is a good possibility that at least this player would be unfcomfortable with stepping outside her character and into (I believe) Director stance to "make up facts within the game world." As such, I do not know what would occur.

(BTW, someone correct me if such a situation, as Vax described, is more akin to Author stance.)

Finally, Mike, that is a really good suggestion. I have used it in the past, as well, though to ill-effect. That may have been just my own lack of experience in keeping up with two (or more) windows at once, however. I believe in order for it to work for our group, we would have to add an extra "social" window, so that everyone can feel as though they are still part of the same game (something I believe is rather important to our group).

I will definitely bring this up with the players, though thus far I have repeatedly heard, "I don't mind waiting for my turn, it gives me a chance to do other things around here" regarding the current situation. Note, despite these statements, I am still not fond of proceeding in the current fashion because of the problems with someone quite possibly not getting to their turn before they or I need to sign off for the night (which has happened before and I feel is utterly unfair to the player(s) involved). So even if "they don't mind", it is still a concern for that reason.

greyorm wrote: Finally, Mike, that is a really good suggestion. I have used it in the past, as well, though to ill-effect. That may have been just my own lack of experience in keeping up with two (or more) windows at once, however. I believe in order for it to work for our group, we would have to add an extra "social" window, so that everyone can feel as though they are still part of the same game (something I believe is rather important to our group).