Session 2 was fun. (Here's some about character creation and session 1: Lamentations of the Flame Princess is made of lies. Please don't bring discusson of that thread's topics into this thread.)

The PCs' guide, Phillip the converted Mioonkhtuck, abandoned the PCs on the edge of Rechgawawanc territory, perhaps made nervous by the idea of cannibal giants. Eventually they tried to follow him, but got lost in the forest. At night they encountered a pair of spider-monsters, one of which Brom killed when it leapt upon Brother Leobald. The rest of the night, the other complained from the darkness that it was lonely because they had murdered its spouse, and begged one or another of them to come out from their camp and console it in its grief. None of them did, even after it promised them that it had hidden gold, arrowheads, and a silver crucifix in a deep well, and would be willing to lower them down on its line to retrieve them.

They eventually found their way to the trappers' camp, which was celebrating a bounty of colony scrip. (Zef, a trapper, had taken an antique Vikano-dwarfish gold bedknob down to the colony stockade for trade, on the camp's behalf, and had returned with the shares.) They had a pleasant, companionable, and drunken evening. In the morning, Brother Leobald (and most likely the dwarf Van Joost) left Northward to visit the crazy old man with the mountain lions, the source of Zef's antique Vikano-dwarfish gold bedknob, about whom we know nothing else. Brom and Leike stayed in camp to work, being now in the camp's debt, and had an unfortunate then hilarious time wading through giant leeches and baiting wolverines with poisoned offal.

Both Meg and Rob were nodding off during the game, so we called it pretty early.

I want to say what I've taken to be my job, as GM, in this game:

1st, wherever the PCs decide to go and whatever they decide to do, to contribute things to the game that I personally find entertaining, without worrying whether the other players will find them as entertaining as I do. Timid, malicious, talkative spider-monsters? Wading through giant leeches to bait wolverines with poisoned offal? I'm having lots of fun. I hope the other players are having fun too, but whatever, if they aren't they'll drop out.

2nd, to provide, occasionally, opportunities for the PCs to recover lost treasure (which is how you get XP in Lamentations), without worrying whether they'll decide to take them or decline them. If they want to follow the spider-monster to its hidden spoils, and presumably fight it to retrieve them, they can! If they don't, they won't. It's not my job to decide for them, only to offer.

3rd, to make the safe, conventional life - settling in a place to work a job - under no circumstances a source of XP (this is by the rules), but more, to make it appalling and horrible, unthinkable to a person of imagination and spirit.

I've taken it as NOT my job to concern myself with dramatic satisfaction. I don't try to contribute pacing, dramatic escalation, climax or resolution at all. Brom named her sword "Sad Anticlimax," to celebrate killing the spider-monster, and I foresee plenty of anticlimaxes and non-climaxes in this game. It feels a little odd, like I'm not quite holding up my end of the deal, but I'm resolved.

I almost killed Brom! For the wolverine I rolled a damage die with more sides than she had hit points. It happened without my really realizing it, but then afterward, we were a bit whoa. Life on the edge of the dice.

-Vincent

I like the point about the GM having fun!

But why is it not "NOT my job to concern myself with dramatic satisfaction. I don't try to contribute pacing, dramatic escalation, climax or resolution at all."  ?

Particularly the pacing.  Doesnt a poorly-paced game lead to people dropping off and calling an early night?

Vincent wrote:

I've taken it as NOT my job to concern myself with dramatic satisfaction. I don't try to contribute pacing, dramatic escalation, climax or resolution at all. Brom named her sword "Sad Anticlimax," to celebrate killing the spider-monster, and I foresee plenty of anticlimaxes and non-climaxes in this game. It feels a little odd, like I'm not quite holding up my end of the deal, but I'm resolved.

  Doesnt a poorly-paced game lead to people dropping off and calling an early night?

Yeah, no, here in the probability-space of first level, ain't nobody controlling pacing. The dice are, and they've got no dramatic sense whatsoever.

I can accept this or cheat. I accept it. This is the game we signed up to play.

James, this isn't really a planning kind of outfit, at least not yet, so I haven't had to worry about any of that.

-Vincent

Hi Vincent!

What you describe is very, very similar to the way I GMed AD&D in the '80, before turning little by little to illusionism, except for a specific point:

lumpley wrote:
1st, wherever the PCs decide to go and whatever they decide to do, to contribute things to the game that I personally find entertaining, without worrying whether the other players will find them as entertaining as I do. Timid, malicious, talkative spider-monsters? Wading through giant leeches to bait wolverines with poisoned offal? I'm having lots of fun. I hope the other players are having fun too, but whatever, if they aren't they'll drop out.

lumpley wrote:
Yeah, no, here in the probability-space of first level, ain't nobody controlling pacing. The dice are, and they've got no dramatic sense whatsoever.

I can accept this or cheat. I accept it. This is the game we signed up to play.

James, this isn't really a planning kind of outfit, at least not yet, so I haven't had to worry about any of that.

-Vincent

Moreno: It's a skill I've been cultivating since starting Apocalypse World. I figure that if what I'm saying entertains me, my enthusiasm will rub off on everyone else, and I won't have to make myself nuts trying to guess what they want. And if it doesn't, well, at least I've had fun! Their having fun is their lookout.

Stefoid: You must be thinking about something other than I am.

I don't control how long a fight lasts, who wins, or whether anyone gets what they deserve. I don't control how long they wait for Phillip before they set out after him, or whether they track him down or get lost trying. I keep up a verbal pace by saying fun things, but I can't control the narrative pacing at all. The only way I could would be to (a) call for die rolls when they aren't appropriate; (b) neglect to call for die rolls when they are; or (c) ignore or fudge the results when we do roll. Cheating!

lumpley wrote:
Moreno: It's a skill I've been cultivating since starting Apocalypse World. I figure that if what I'm saying entertains me, my enthusiasm will rub off on everyone else, and I won't have to make myself nuts trying to guess what they want. And if it doesn't, well, at least I've had fun! Their having fun is their lookout.

Stefoid: You must be thinking about something other than I am.

I don't control how long a fight lasts, who wins, or whether anyone gets what they deserve. I don't control how long they wait for Phillip before they set out after him, or whether they track him down or get lost trying. I keep up a verbal pace by saying fun things, but I can't control the narrative pacing at all. The only way I could would be to (a) call for die rolls when they aren't appropriate; (b) neglect to call for die rolls when they are; or (c) ignore or fudge the results when we do roll. Cheating!

My thoughts on pacing would be on a different angle rather than via the dice.  When you are providing opportunties for the players but it's up to them whether they jump or not it seems to me like they have control of the narrative and the pacing.

I'd echo James' thoughts about anti-climax.  I always found it tough to find a balance between challenging threats that could really kill the characters and making it so easy that they were never in danger.  If they can easily die, play can grind to a halt while they check every nook and crany for traps and monsters etc. and lead to boredom at the other extreme a zillion billion goblins charge forward straight in a line and hack and slash and people get bored of rolling the dice.

*of course i'm not all that familiar with Lamentations so maybe it solves some of these problems that D&D seemed to face.

This is interesting to read, do continue reporting on your game. I've been meaning to write about our campaign for ages as well, but seem to never get around to it. Probably something to do with being insanely busy with big conventions and publications.

And indeed, my experience is that one of the key ways my own, pretty hardcore sandbox OSR D&D differs from your bog-standard narrativist game with dramatic coordination is that pacing responsibilities are on the players, not on the GM: as the GM your job is merely to entertain yourself, provide organic setting/situation (barf forth dungeonstuff as someone might say) and referee whatever it is that the players get up to. Whether what they get up to is three hours of bickering over supplies followed by one random encounter, or an efficient delve that accomplishes many encounters, several fights and plentiful treasure, that's definitely up to the players and how they run their party interactions, planning and execution. Last Wednesday we saw the players flub their pacing, and consequently we only ever had time to taste their actual goal before having to stop for the night; last Sunday the players were motivated and aware of the dangers of failed pacing, and thus they were effective in not only executing (and failing in) their Wednesday plan, but they also deviced and executed an unrelated plan, ending up with 11,000 fantasy-Roman sestertius and 4000 talents - a veritable fortune. Players succeeding in pacing is what makes all the difference.

Thinking about it, perhaps one reason I don't have time for session reportage is that we actually played three sessions last week. Heh.

Give the players the power and responsibility to skip over stuff that won't be fun to play through.  Remind them of this.  Boom!  Pacing that doesn't require GM management.

Dunno if LotFP's rules preclude that, though.  If it's like most of the D&D I played, I imagine there's a large and undefined gap between "what you roll dice for" and "what's worth playing through".

Eero wrote:
This is interesting to read, do continue reporting on your game. I've been meaning to write about our campaign for ages as well, but seem to never get around to it. Probably something to do with being insanely busy with big conventions and publications.

And indeed, my experience is that one of the key ways my own, pretty hardcore sandbox OSR D&D differs from your bog-standard narrativist game with dramatic coordination is that pacing responsibilities are on the players, not on the GM: as the GM your job is merely to entertain yourself, provide organic setting/situation (barf forth dungeonstuff as someone might say) and referee whatever it is that the players get up to. Whether what they get up to is three hours of bickering over supplies followed by one random encounter, or an efficient delve that accomplishes many encounters, several fights and plentiful treasure, that's definitely up to the players and how they run their party interactions, planning and execution. Last Wednesday we saw the players flub their pacing, and consequently we only ever had time to taste their actual goal before having to stop for the night; last Sunday the players were motivated and aware of the dangers of failed pacing, and thus they were effective in not only executing (and failing in) their Wednesday plan, but they also deviced and executed an unrelated plan, ending up with 11,000 fantasy-Roman sestertius and 4000 talents - a veritable fortune. Players succeeding in pacing is what makes all the difference.

Thinking about it, perhaps one reason I don't have time for session reportage is that we actually played three sessions last week. Heh.

While I agree that it´s a good idea to place pacing in the hands of the players and actively free oneself from a burn-out-producing GM mindset, I´d argue that I as a GM would find it boring to watch the other players divy up their treasure for an hour. I mean, I wouldn´t have treasure to divy up, so, effectively, I´d be pushed out of the game. The only time I can add ideas to the game is when the characters are actually doing something, and thus I´d rather nudge my players into situations where I´d get a chance to play, too. Vincent, in your opening posting you make it sound like stepping back from being responsible for pacing is some kind of liberation, and I guess in a way it is, simply because it´s an outcome of the realization that you, as a GM, are not, in fact, the sole provider of fun/action at the table. The rules should contribute. The other players should contribute. Okay, but getting to the interesting situations in play is something I´d press (regardless of whether I´m a player of GM), simply because it´s more rewarding for me - not becauseI feel I have to entertain everyone, but because I feel everyone should entertain me. It´s one of the major reasons why I, as a GM, skip shopping, uneventful travelling etc. and rather be like: "Yeah, yeah, you kinda have the usual stuff you need for the task at hand, it cost you reasonable amounts of money, and you got to X more or less in one piece." I find these parts of play boring, because I can add very little as a GM and they´re boring to watch as a GM-spectator ("5 gold ...mumble, mumble ...oh, and let´s have a shovel, don´t forget the shovel ... is it gonna rain?...") I wanna get players to a point where I can do stuff, too, and see what they come up with as a reaction. If I have to sit back and just watch others do stuff, it´d better be something good. Funny, I´ve never seen this about my GMing til now. Do I rob players of something by fast-forwarding to what to me are the interesting parts? I always thought it was in their best interest and now I see that, honestly, it´s in my best interest, first and foremost. Still not wrong, necessarily.

Hey Jasper, I guess this is something people like you and me just have to take at face value.

OSR guy: And the great thing about it, if something interesting happens we’ll know it’s not because the GM wanted it to happen, it just happened, you know?

Jasper + me: Dude, wtf?

But hey. In a slightly different context, someone once said, [this kind of role-playing] writes stories like football does, and I guess that’s right. Still not my cup of tea, but I guess I kinda sorta get what they like about it. Maybe.

I loved the spider, though. Did you come up with that on the spot, Vincent?

- Frank

Uh. No seriously guys, I disclaim responsibility for the game's pacing. Advice for how I can better pace the game, or worries about how the game's pacing might go poorly, are plain misplaced. It's not my job!

My job does include setting and holding standards for when we roll dice and use other rules, and those standards do affect the game's pacing, but I'm not taking pacing into account as I set and hold them. Frank's right: the game's narrative comes out of play, a result or even a byproduct. It's not a concern of play. Same as for football or Chess or any other normal game. It feels weird, but I'm pretty sure that'll go away with familiarity. No fixing required.

Frank, yeah, I came up with the spider on the spot. I've primed myself really well - it's just me doing my Vance impersonation. Thanks!

-Vincent

lumpley wrote: 3rd, to make the safe, conventional life - settling in a place to work a job - under no circumstances a source of XP (this is by the rules), but more, to make it appalling and horrible, unthinkable to a person of imagination and spirit.

I'm about to start running an OSRIC campaign, embracing the sandbox concept wholeheartedly. One thing I'm uncertain about is the treasure economy, and basically how much freedom I should have in generating rewards.

Vincent - what would have happened if the party had taken your spider bait, and traipsed out to the treasure? After the (probable) fight, would it have been a random amount of coinage? Would it just be that monster's lair? Or something else?

I don't want to mess up the tight economy - although maybe I'm over thinking it. Even so, I have absolutely 0 D&D experience, so anything you can shed on this would be helpful.

Roger wrote:

lumpley wrote: 3rd, to make the safe, conventional life - settling in a place to work a job - under no circumstances a source of XP (this is by the rules), but more, to make it appalling and horrible, unthinkable to a person of imagination and spirit.

Could you talk a bit about what you did to fulfill this role?  That sounds like something that would be fun to hear about.

lumpley wrote:
Uh. No seriously guys, I disclaim responsibility for the game's pacing. Advice for how I can better pace the game, or worries about how the game's pacing might go poorly, are plain misplaced. It's not my job!

My job does include setting and holding standards for when we roll dice and use other rules, and those standards do affect the game's pacing, but I'm not taking pacing into account as I set and hold them. Frank's right: the game's narrative comes out of play, a result or even a byproduct. It's not a concern of play. Same as for football or Chess or any other normal game. It feels weird, but I'm pretty sure that'll go away with familiarity. No fixing required.

Frank, yeah, I came up with the spider on the spot. I've primed myself really well - it's just me doing my Vance impersonation. Thanks!

-Vincent

lumpley wrote: I figure that if what I'm saying entertains me, my enthusiasm will rub off on everyone else, and I won't have to make myself nuts trying to guess what they want. And if it doesn't, well, at least I've had fun! Their having fun is their lookout.

Re: the pacing of D&D / LotFP:
I agree with Vincent about this. There is a clear correlation between "playing well" in D&D and having less risk, and therefore less tension, less drama, less pacing. Given a menace or trap prepped by the GM, and given that the GM shouldn't try to kill all the party all the time with overpowered opponents, if you attack it right in the face with no thought or carefulness or planning, you get a "dramatic battle" where if you are unlucky with dice, your character die.
So, if you plan well, fight on a terrain chosen and prepared by you, use movement rates, the area of spells and coordination to minimize the risk and maximize the damage (in a work: if you play well) you get a very mundane and short battle, with small risks, and big rewards (the treasure is the same, but you didn't waste what you already had in a desperate fight).

I know some GMs that didn't like this, and every time they started to ask for absurd rolls, making everything insanely difficult, playing monsters as if they already did know our plans, etc. It was really aggravating, and the principal result was that the players stopped caring. Why try to think a strategy, if it will inevitably fail?

But there is something that did leap at me in your post, Vincent. you said that you improvised the big  talking spiders at the moment. This mean that (1) they were not in your preparation from the game, and (2) they were not already written up with stats?

They were the result of a random encounter roll? (LotFP has them?) or did you choose to put them there? If you did choose to put them there, and it wasn't for the pacing of the game, what was the reason? Did you stat them quickly at the table or did you play them only as "color" and no real threat? If you did stat them, how did you choose their HP and attack values? Did they were poisonous?

From these question follow another one, based on a characteristic that make the preparation of a D&D game a very time consuming task, if you don't cut corners.  The monsters and npcs are to be statted in detail (or not if you want, but this is the sweet call of illusionism: little by little I stopped making all that work and began to "wing it", and after a while all the fights were bogus). How much preparation did you do for these two sessions?

I am asking because this thread (and the previous one) are reminding me of my old AD&D games, and I am trying to remember the different factors that pushed toward illusionism.  For many people the principal one is the inverse relationship that playing well has to pacing. One of my friends began to railroad the game to have "more exciting stories" but that ruined the game so much that I never wanted to play like him.  Other factors are the one I already cited, the work needed to prepare a session (and when I work to create an adventure, I want the player to play it. Not a single statted monster or drawn dungeon has to go to waste!), the PCs mortality (losing a 1st level character because of a bad roll is one thing, but when a character has been played for two years you have a big pressure to fudge rolls to avoid killing him), and the way even the most complete preparation is always missing some npc or place where the PC go. And so the GM start to improvise more and more...

How do you address these problems in the game?

Let's see!

Roger and Marshall, about making the safe life unthinkable: So far the PCs have had two brushes with the safe, sensible life of settling down and doing a job.

The first, in the colony stockade: one of the founding fathers of the colony stepped up before the newcomers, including the PCs, and announced that for men of able body there was a variety of work available. They could dig wells, fell trees, shift boulders, saw planks, or dredge clay. For women and children, they could weed, pick and sow, or they could clean houses and laundry. The work would be fulfilling, in that it would leave them little time or energy left for dissatisfaction! In return, they'd be entitled to a stipend of colony scrip sufficient to their needs - provided that their needs did not exceed a cot in the men's, women's, or children's bunkhouse, as appropriate, and two meals of boiled grain and salted rabe per day - plus a least-share of the colony company's annual increase. For children half a least-share.

The PCs unanimously decided not to take him up on it.

The second, in the trappers' camp: two of the PCs, Leike and Brom, undertook to repay the camp for its hospitality by labor. Two trappers, Able Pauvel and Able Anders, took them and dressed them in astringent stinkweed-saturated cowls, to keep off the giant leeches, and gave them a leather bag of poisoned offal. Their job was to wade through the giant leech infested swamps to the mucky islands where large weasels (wolverines, approximately) made their dens, to leave poisoned offal for them to eat. If they found any dead from the last baiting, they were to carry them back. Leike, being very small, the trappers encouraged to wedge her way into the wolverines' dens and leave the poisoned offal deep inside, where the young were more likely to find and eat it.

Leike did no such thing. The first den they came to, a wolverine rushed out, biting Brom and knocking him sprawling. He subdued it with sleep magic and they carried it back. They resigned the job at once.

In short: nobody in this world is entitled to safe and fulfilling employment. To settle down in this world means to submit to terrible exploitation and the worst working conditions I can dream up!

-Vincent

Ha ha ha!  I was going to ask you if you would have been better off just establishing "regular jobs suck" before char-gen and using that as an assumption during play, so you wouldn't need to spend effort confirming it.  But that confirming sounds hella fun.

It'll sound off kilter, but in the warhammer quest board game, if you stayed in town too long, you just auto retired. Basically an auto kill for the character. That an encounters where either you leave now for the next dungeon or retire. Curious the number of women that wanted to marry our grubby character, but that's random town encounters for ya.

Actually what comes to mind as a funny mechanic would be a disgust meter. Your character tries to live the civilian life, but things just disgust them. When your disgust meter goes up, you get bonuses in combat or such (but the meter goes down over time). So, get disgusted for awhile, then back into the dungeons.

Otherwise apart from the no XP rule, it sounds like an application of very traditional force, to force a certain character choice? Essentially to get over a procedural leak in the system, eg "What if the players just decide to grow cabbages forever?" or suchlike. The warhammer quest example is one kind of plug for that leak (actually come to think of it my disgust meter isn't a plug either, it's only an encouragement to go to adventure).

Happysmellyfish, about how much treasure: I have no idea! Or rather - I have the game's price lists to guide me. If they'd gone and recovered the spider-monster's spoils, I'd've just judged by eyeball, like, what it's spoils would likely be, then gone to the book to figure out their value. Throw in a hook or clue too, by whim, most likely.

As it happens, this spider-monster really did have arrowheads (which count as money) and a silver cross, but it didn't have any gold. We all knew it was lying about the gold. The well where it was stashing its spoils might have been something interesting, though.

Anyway, my personal judgment of what a monster's spoils are likely to be is what guides it for me in this game. It's not my job to worry about how quickly or slowly the PCs are advancing, just to sometimes give them an opportunity to recover treasure. If they want more treasure than I'm offering, it's on them to come up with a plan.

-Vincent

happysmellyfish wrote:
I'm about to start running an OSRIC campaign, embracing the sandbox concept wholeheartedly. One thing I'm uncertain about is the treasure economy, and basically how much freedom I should have in generating rewards.

Vincent - what would have happened if the party had taken your spider bait, and traipsed out to the treasure? After the (probable) fight, would it have been a random amount of coinage? Would it just be that monster's lair? Or something else?

I don't want to mess up the tight economy - although maybe I'm over thinking it. Even so, I have absolutely 0 D&D experience, so anything you can shed on this would be helpful.

Stefoid, on when to roll and how I choose scenes: Oh, it's all logistical, not dramatic. We roll for the outcomes of uncertain actions, dramatically significant or not, dramatically satisfying or not. Same with scenes. I can maybe go into this, but it's complicated, and we'll need to find a good starting place first.

I hope that "oh, it's all logistical, not dramatic" answers your question. Does it?

Moreno, on prepping encounters: In Lamentations, statting up a monster at the table is trivially easy. I suppose I could stat them up in advance, but there's no reason to, the result will be the same.

I have a random encounter table prepped, yes - well, it's a capricious encounter table. It's a list of monsters they're likely to encounter in this monster-infested wilderness, in rough order of most common to least common. I chose the spider-monsters from it by whim.

-Vincent

lumpley wrote:
Stefoid, on when to roll and how I choose scenes: Oh, it's all logistical, not dramatic. We roll for the outcomes of uncertain actions, dramatically significant or not, dramatically satisfying or not. Same with scenes. I can maybe go into this, but it's complicated, and we'll need to find a good starting place first.

I hope that "oh, it's all logistical, not dramatic" answers your question. Does it?

Re: logistics and scenes, is it a case of, "If Vincent deems a situation logistically relevant, we play a scene about it; logistically irrelevant stuff does not beget scenes"?

David, I can't say for Vincent's game specifically, but for this kind of (o)D&D play, scenes are largely dictated by dice rolls (and resource management), too.

If the players decide to go out in the wilderness, you roll for a random encounter for (say) each day of travel. If the roll dictates there's an encounter, that's a scene, otherwise we move on, lightly describing the journey.

If you're hexcrawling, there's a roll to see if you're lost. If you're lost and realize it, that's a scene otherwise we move on.

If you run out of food that's a scene, you decide to hunt or whatever, and we roll to see if you catch anything.

If there's any scene-setting, it's done by the players. I believe concrete scenes are initiated by player action. You might be sailing on a ship, doing a totally uneventful journey, that could be ended with a sentence of narration from the GM, except the players decide to break into the captain's cabin.

It is, from a gameplay standpoint, pure logistics, as Vincent says. But I'm just now reading through the Dying Earth novels (particularly Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's saga) and it's also incredible how strongly the result resembles its literary inspiration. Vance might write off a few days of travel with a simple sentence if the journey is uneventful, but if something crosses Cugel's path or Cugel decides to do something out of the ordinary, then we get a "scene".

I'm currently running Pathfinder in the same way and it's a lot harder to pull it off, because of how much bulkier the mechanics are. In LotFP you can stat up a spider monster by giving it AC, HP and an attack bonus and you're done, whereas in PF that hardly suffices. I've developed my own tools to handle this issue which technically means I'm cheating in the opposite sense to what Vincent mentioned. To control pacing in LotFP would be cheating, to achieve this hands-off oldschool play in Pathfinder is cheating.

Callan S. wrote:
Essentially to get over a procedural leak in the system, eg "What if the players just decide to grow cabbages forever?" or suchlike.
It might appear as a leak, but I think it comes pretty naturally that "we're not here to grow cabbages" is part of the social contract. In short, when you agree to play D&D, you've agreed to play a game about treasure hunting monster killers. I mean, if I decide to play in Apocalypse World a guy who drives off into the sunset in the ten seconds of of play and refuse to make a new character, is that a procedural leak? Or if I decide I want to play a weasel-employed traitor in Mouse Guard, and attack Gwendolyn during the briefing? I'm not "playing along", I'm not playing the game we agreed to play, so we better revise our agreement.

It would be trivial to add a rule to most editions of D&D that says: "If your character decides to retire from the life of adventuring, that character leaves play as a PC. Make a new character." But do we really need it?

In short, when you agree to play D&D, you've agreed to play a game about treasure hunting monster killers.

Anders wrote:
Maybe you regularly hire out your services as guards along the main road through the area, to the point that it becomes less like adventuring and more like holding down a job.

Maybe one of the characters have to spend a month in town to learn new spells or train for the next level, leaving the others with enough downtime that not doing something "productive" (as in "money-generating") seems like a waste

Teataine wrote: Callan S. wrote:
Essentially to get over a procedural leak in the system, eg "What if the players just decide to grow cabbages forever?" or suchlike.
It might appear as a leak, but I think it comes pretty naturally that "we're not here to grow cabbages" is part of the social contract. In short, when you agree to play D&D, you've agreed to play a game about treasure hunting monster killers. I mean, if I decide to play in Apocalypse World a guy who drives off into the sunset in the ten seconds of of play and refuse to make a new character, is that a procedural leak? Or if I decide I want to play a weasel-employed traitor in Mouse Guard, and attack Gwendolyn during the briefing? I'm not "playing along", I'm not playing the game we agreed to play, so we better revise our agreement.

It would be trivial to add a rule to most editions of D&D that says: "If your character decides to retire from the life of adventuring, that character leaves play as a PC. Make a new character." But do we really need it?

"If your character decides to retire from the life of adventuring, that character leaves play as a PC. Make a new character."

Hey Callan, I've re-read your post a couple of times, but I'm seriously not getting you. I'm reading all sorts of stuff into your post, like advocacy of games that "let you do anything" and condemnation of genre emulation, and man I do not want to go down that road.

Because I don't want to get off track, I'll jump back to the original point and try to rearticulate. You said how this is "traditional application of force to get over a procedural leak in the rules". I find this about the same as saying that the GM challenging a character's Beliefs in Burning Wheel or the GM having the NPCs run up to the Dogs with their troubles is application of force. It's simply how the game works, that's where the reward cycle is.

I'm not sure about the prices in Basic/LotFP but beet farming will in most D&D editions, by the rules, I dunno, maybe net me a few coppers a month in D&D or whatever. That's not even one experience point!
It's the same as not pushing my character's Beliefs in Burning Wheel and then complaining I don't get any artha. Is that a procedural leak in the rules?

I think there's a surprisingly huge push towards that in the old D&D system (and I do mean system, not just the rules). I think it would be wrong to underestimate it.

For context, consider what game we're talking about and when it was written. LotFP is just a rewrite of that game, with a few rationalizations of the mechanics and some horror colour.

Gregor,

like advocacy of games that "let you do anything"

You said how this is "traditional application of force to get over a procedural leak in the rules". I find this about the same as saying that the GM challenging a character's Beliefs in Burning Wheel or the GM having the NPCs run up to the Dogs with their troubles is application of force. It's simply how the game works, that's where the reward cycle is.

The character might have aspirations to go off into the sunset and plant cabages, but we all know that plan isnt going to last 10 seconds before something goes horribly wrong.

I've personally found the issue of character freedom rather easy to work with, given what I've learned at the Forge over the years. Like, say that a character doesn't want to go into the dungeon - no problem, just make a character who does want that, or we'll deal with whatever it is the character needs to do to respect his nature first, quickly, and then go into the dungeon. This is no force nor unfair limitation on characters, it's just us as a gaming group setting an agenda and keeping to it; we're playing to see if the characters can amass treasure and xp and whatever else we'll find worthy of amassing, so planting gabbage will only get as much attention from us as we find entertaining.

Eero's right. There's no force in action here.

It's not my job to get them to go adventuring. No skin off my nose if they don't! They're free to do whatever interests them, moment by moment, and I'm perfectly well entertained either way. In fact I'm delighted either way.

-Vincent

Eero, if the instructions for play said to, before play, think of a character who lothes a conventional life (for whatever reason) or otherwise your not equiped to play (as much as if you don't have dice your not equiped to play), I'd pay your point. But in that case (or even if it's being done sans instructions) there'd be no need for the GM to make a conventional life appalling and horrible.

Callan, it's fine with me if they go adventuring; it's fine if they don't. That's their call. There's no force.

I'm not GMing a world where becoming a serf and growing cabbages is the hearty, fulfilling, honest life. That's just romantic bullshit. Being a serf sucks. If the PCs want to settle down and grow cabbages, their choices are: be a serf like the other cabbage-growers, which sucks, or make a way for themselves to somehow grow cabbages without being a serf. They can do it, but they'll have to make it happen for themselves.

It's not my job to give them a happy, easy life, even if they want one.

-Vincent

Georgios wrote:
Given your comments how the dice control the pacing in your game, does that make things refreshingly unpredictable or frustratingly uneven? I've played and run fantasy-style games which were vaguely comparable to what you're describing here, and I've had both experiences. Our Warhammer games were unpredictable in the most entertaining and exciting sense of the word, but our few stabs at D&D just made the whole experience very draining.

What do you think makes the dice-based pacing work for you?

Vincent, one mans suck is another mans treasure. Or atleast another mans tolerable. If a character is fine with whatevers first presented and the GM does not dial up the appaling and horrible with the intent to make the character hate it/think it sucks and stop doing it (which is obviously paired directly with it sucking), I'd pay there is no force.

I think a world where growing cabbages IS sucky, no matter what, no matter who, is as much RBS (Romantic BullShit) as the one where it IS, no matter what, no matter who, hearty and forfilling. If the text prompt you to pitch for a particular RBS and everyones on board that the psychology of a character is to match the psychology of the setting (because this is setting with its own psycology, not just 'a setting'), I'd pay there is no force there as well.

If Eppy had had Brom say "wolverine baiting is the best! I've found my life's vocation!" then that would have been fine with me too, yes. So we're agreed that there is no force.

-Vincent

Vincent, I don't remember how much of this is present in LotFP, but I believe it to be very present in (classic) D&D. Do you agree with this evaluation, based on your experience so far:

Between the seed content like the positioning of the characters (frex: you're a fighter, you're a magic user), implied setting (frex: implied economy via price lists and pay for hirelings, henchmen and other services), the artwork (which in classic D&D almost always depicts adventurers stealing treasure from monsters) and the reward mechanics (xp for treasure and sometimes monster killing) and reward cycles (leveling until you get a castle or wizard tower) and the mechanical focus (combat resolution mechanics and a very specific skill list (if any)) I find there is a pretty strong systemic funnel for focusing play.

So, Eppy (or any one of your players) could say "wolverine baiting is the best", yeah totally. There is no force at work. But will he? I think there's an overwhelming chance he won't, ever, baked right into how the game is designed.

I personally find D&D's "you're an adventurer" just as definitive as Dogs' "you're a dog", even if perhaps not as explicit or in rare occasions contradicted in the text (it is a pre-theory piece after all).

(I think that if the game ever floundered on this premise it was in the late AD&D and early 3rd edition period which is a subject for a different thread.)

Gregor, yeah.

I can see circumstances where Eppy and Rob might decide to have Brom and Leike bait wolverines for a living for a little while. Round about level 3, let's say, where it's still fun but relatively safe, if for some reason they decide they need a quantity of colony scrip. (Brom and Leike would make an excellent team for wolverine baiting.)

But that'd be in service to their larger, longer-term ambitions, whatever those turn out to be. I don't predict that their long-term ambitions will include becoming expert, veteran wolverine baiters. I might be wrong, but I don't predict so!

-Vincent