"Balor's Head" Cad Goleór IRC: Planning

[Steerpike]

I'd be OK with it, but based on what I saw, the system wasn't the issue.  We rolled very few dice that game - it really wasn't the Pathfinder system that slowed things down (I rolled a single Perception roll, I think, and Sorcha rolled a Knowledge check or two).  I run a weekly IRL Pathfinder game (2-3 hours/week) and we sometimes get through a lot of stuff - an average of 8 pages per session in my notes.  In the last session, for example, the players traveled down a branch of Yggdrasil, persuaded some ratatosk to help them as guides, encountered a lost modron, fought a brood of ettercaps, looted their lair, lied their way past a fire drake guarding a root to the Grey Waste, fought a squad of the dishonoured dead patrolling the perimeter of Niflheim, encountered a group of Bleak Cabalists searching for a lost mental patient, snuck past Garm the Hellhound, helped a Dustman find the True Death, and fought a large band of giants (trolls, ogres, frost giant) conveying a caravan of slaves to Hel, a drawn out "boss-battle" of sorts.  I have 7 players of 6th level, and all of that took us about 3.5 hours to run in Pathfinder.  So the system can definitely move quickly.

I certainly don't want to sound ungrateful or overly critical as what I've seen so far of the game is engrossing and detailed and bespeaks considerable preparation and thoughtful world-building and characterization, as well as extensive historical and mythological research.  As we were playing yesterday, however, I noticed a few things that I thought contributed to the game progressing quite slowly and discouraging player interaction.  Unless I'm mistaken, you type out most of your descriptions and dialogue as we play.  This is very time-consuming - much, much more so than improvising orally at a table.  When I run IRC games I tend to prepare a lot of text ahead of time (sometimes too much!) and improvise lines when describing actions that can't be predicted, as in combat or conversations with PCs.

I also noticed that a lot of the dialogue and interaction was between NPCs, rather than between PCs and NPCs.  There are times when this makes sense - but when, in essence, we're listening to a "cutscene" between two NPCs it might be best to write up their dialogue beforehand and copy/paste, perhaps allowing opportunities for PCs to interrupt or what-have-you.  But it's hard to see how a change in system would have altered the way we played that scene, or at least how I would have played it.  Our characters are relatively peripheral to the conflict at hand right now, and my character is a bit of the strong silent type anyway.  I suppose as per Quick and Dirty's system we could have "hijacked" these NPCs, but I don't really know enough about the conflict, the personalities involved, or the issues at hand to play them properly.  I would have found Medraut, or the King, or his mysterious grizzled advisor Gairemand, for example, very difficult to play without a sheaf of notes explaining their motivations.  Does Medraut have a hidden agenda, or does he genuinely want peace?  Is King Ecnel just tired, or is he dying, or cursed (and was the somewhat sinister Medaut involved?!), and is he trying to conceal that fact?  And what is Gairemand's stake in all of this?  Knowing all of these details in advance would rather spoil the sense of mystery and intrigue, and being able to control these important NPCs would mean compromising a sense of suspense and (oh that dreaded controversial term!) immersion, to a certain degree, I think.  Personally I find the whole "hijack" idea a little vertiginous and I think I would be hard pressed to do the characters justice without the "god's eye view" of the GM.  I'm sympathetic to Q&D's overall goal of encouraging player interaction with the story, but I admit to finding the idea of controlling NPCs directly is the least appealing aspect of the system, for me.

This is just my take.  Like I said, I wouldn't necessarily be strongly opposed to switching over to Quick and Dirty, or anything, but I don't think the Pathfinder system mired us in rolls or actively slowed the narrative much.  Perhaps in Q&D the whole council thing could have been resolved in a quick and crunchy manner (Persuasion and Deceit rolls, players contribute AP), but on the other hand Pathfinder could easily do that as well (opposed Diplomacy rolls, a little Bluff or Intimidate, with the players Aiding Another as required).

[sparkletwist]

First of all, I pretty much agree with Steerpike's suggestions as to how the pace and the game could've been improved.

I'll add that I think that the most important thing in a game is to have all the game's participants (including the GM) approximately on the same page. They should be encouraging the same feel, and agree as to the general idea of what might happen in the game's story. Given the way the story was developing and the general aloofness of the active PCs to that story, I feel we might not have been, and maybe that was the real problem, regardless of system.

However, I hope you don't mind if I defend Q&D a little bit. Here is what I feel Q&D might have done better:

- It is expressly a "PCs act, NPCs react" system. NPC-on-NPC interactions, as written, don't even merit having mechanics or rolling dice. They exist purely to do what the GM wants in order to move the scene forward and to get to things in which the players actually are involved. So, I feel like it kind of lights a fire under the GM to resolve these situations as expediently as possible.

- Compels encourage the GM to get players involved by creating problems that draw them in. Furthermore, they can shift the burden away from the GM having to do all of that, because players are now able to point out situations or character flaws that would create problems for their characters but add to the story without feeling like they're only harming themselves, due to the AP reward. So we'd all be encouraged to chime in situations that could've gotten the current PCs more involved in the story.

- The controversial "hijack a NPC" feature could've figured in, too. I actually sort of agree with Steerpike that using it without knowing the motives and thought process of a NPC could be rather problematic, but I also think that it doesn't necessarily need to be used that way. As a player I wouldn't attempt (and as a GM I wouldn't allow) hijacking of an important, well-defined NPC until it was clear the players really understood that character. However, just about every scene is full of NPCs that have no real personality; blank slates, as it were. These ones are ripe for adding some color or introducing a new twist.

As for why Q&D may or may not be a good fit, I'll be the first to admit that the "god's eye view" has a little bit of fog in Q&D. This is by design. I've found that I prefer (both as a player and as a GM) systems where the players more overall narrative control than something like Pathfinder grants. Obviously, this is a matter of personal preference.

[Steerpike]

Yeah, I should clarify that I have no major problems with Q&D as a whole, and I'd be OK with a switch.  I was just contending that Pathfinder need not be slow, and that hijacking specifically (as opposed to Q&D generally) probably wouldn't help.  I probably would need to see more of Q&D in action to tell if I really liked it overall or no.

[Seraph]

It's true that not all of (or much of, for that matter) this past session's difficulties were particularly the fault of Pathfinder as a system.  That actually wasn't necessarily the point.  The point was that a system with a different focus might actively encourage things to keep moving. 

But the real problem last session was two-fold.  First, neither of the characters belonging to the players present were (or even could be) particularly interested and involved in the events (discussion) taking place.  With that in mind, I failed you two, by keeping you in a situation where there was nothing for you to DO, really.  So I apologize for that.  Whether we change or not, I will keep in mind a way to shift the focus, and give you something to actually do.

[Steerpike]

Are we playing this week?

[Seraph]

Yes.  As long as at least three of us (including me) show up, we will play.  And, for now at least, still in Pathfinder.

[sparkletwist]

I'll just say, Sorcha is probably just going to get up and leave.
She's got no interest in being part of any of peace ritual, and nobody will probably miss her if she's gone.

It'll get things back to being focused on the PCs who are likely to actually be in attendance, too. :grin:

(I'm just giving you a heads-up so you know what to prepare!)

[Seraph]

That works fine, and honestly isn't far from what I was thinking anyway.

[Seraph]

Hey, I am working later than usual tomorrow, and cannot make it until around 4 pm Pacific.  That's 7 pm Eastern and Midnight GMT. Is that ok with people?

[sparkletwist]

That's fine with me.

[Steerpike]

Works for me, although I won't be able to play for super long.

[Seraph]

Ok. I will try to prepare as many bits as I can tonight, so things can proceed quickly tomorrow.

[Seraph]

Actually, work called.  They changed my shift, and I can make normal hours again.  I will be online at normal time tomorrow, and hope people make it then.  But I won't worry if people don't show until 4pm Pacific/7pm Eastern

[sparkletwist]

I'll be there at the normal time. (6pm EST)

[Seraph]

Alright, since everyone either said yes to Q&D, or was willing to try, I think we should give this a try.

Stats in Q&D are pretty much just skills, and now class features.  Some of these are already up on the Q&D thread, but since it is still very barebones, if one of the core features is not there, either ask for it, or make it up (trying to keep power-levels in line, but we can tweak as we playtest).

A preliminary "Rage" class feature was posted in chat yesterday, and I am working on tweaking magic.