The situation usually comes up as a player complaining that they aren't having a fun in a game because the GM is describing everything in too great a detail, or the story is getting nowhere due to infinite distractions, or perhaps someone is hogging all the limelight.
An example of GM not respecting players' time
by creating long sidequest with nothing but dead ends
(among many other things...)
The situation can also be caused by the system not respecting players' time with a high crunch:
If each time a combat starts you lose 2-4 hours of game just rolling dice,
this better be a lot of fun, otherwise you might be wasting time...
All of those scenarios are a matter of managing your screen time. Essentially, a good RPG session is like a good episode of a TV show - a balance of action, drama, progressing the story, etc. Also like with a TV show you have to manage how much of your limited screen time you devote to each component - you might have 4 hours of footage you'd want to show, but with a 30 minutes runtime, you have to cut some things down or out.
With that approach, you (both the GM and the players) can start saving and spending that screen time where it suits the story and your game the most. Describing a pretty mosaic on the floor? You probably only need a short establishing shot rather than devote 10 minutes to it. The PC explores a dead end of a side quest lead? You could have a quick montage, rather than spend an episode on it. PC's nemesis shows up? Now it's time to slow things down and focus!
Don't forget that you are also your own audience, so make sure everyone is engaged in at least most of the story. If one character gets a solo scene, either make it short, entertaining to listen to, or be sure to switch to what other people are doing from time to time. Doing 3 solo scenes for 3 characters each lasting half an hour is more manageable if you switch between the plots every 5-10 minutes, rather than leaving someone twiddling their thumbs for an hour waiting for their go. Perhaps borrow a page from Fellowship and try swinging the spotlight between characters on a cliffhanger - when they get into danger, when some big twist happens, or just whenever enough time has passed and you come to a natural "scene cut".
You can apply similar principles when it comes to mechanics. If a player wants to knock out some minor NPC to show off you don't have to bust out the full combat engine - just decide everything in one simple roll, or wave away the need to roll entirely. You can handwave a thief stealing pocket change to pay for their drinks, a fighter roughing someone up, etc. to save screen time when it's not important, giving you more time to spare on the meat of the session.
On a higher level, you can start tailoring your RPG systems for your games. Be critical of the systems and every now and then make sure they work for the story you have at hand. For example, we moved away from Exalted 3rd edition for our Princes of the Universe game because the game would slow down to a crawl whenever combat would start. In our last session that used that system we had a one-on-one combat where one turn would take over an hour of rolling. Not two episodes later when we switched over to Godbound, we had a 5 PCs fight multiple armies and multiple generals and the whole engagement took less than that one duel. By cutting out the grindy mechanics we gave ourselves a lot more screen time to spend elsewhere.
In the end what constitutes a good investment of screen time is up to your group. If you like a grindy combat, by all means, focus on the grindy combat, but make that decision consciously. Have a chat with your group and figure out which parts of the game are fun for you, and which you'd rather hasten up, if any.
No comments:
Post a Comment