Have you ever had your group spend an entire session in the starting tavern rather than begin the adventure you want to run? Have you had to throw out entire detailed outline of NPC backstory because the party didn't care "about a sob story" and just wanted to get their reward and leave? Are you frustrated with people hogging the spotlight doing something really boring while you just want to move on "to the good stuff"? Well, you might need to check where your group lies on the "vibing vs tasking" spectrum and maybe adjust your expectations accordingly!
Recently I was watching some Hymn of the Unconquered Sun Exalted Actual Play stream by Devil's Luck Gaming. The characters were pretty chatty, they talked up a few NPCs, got into some fights, etc. While watching the second half of the third episode, hearing the characters banter for the better part of an hour, talk about wanting to go to sleep and taking half an hour to do so, playing some music, singing, writing a haiku and so on and so on I started tuning out. This wasn't the first time I had such a feeling - "why won't they just move past this and get to the part where they get to cleave armies with grimscythes bigger than themselves or making the mountains weep to flood valleys? Surely they have better things to do?" and I realised my expectations weren't in the correct place - the group has been "vibing", and that's fine too.
By "vibing", I mean the players were enjoying their time talking to one another, doing small things and generally having fun without engaging the system, the story or any task at hand. They just finished resolving a transe situation of negotiating with an evil spirit turned fighting that spirit, so this was their decompression and so on. Not to mention that the group seems to be more focused on getting into their performances (being pretty good at playing their roles, doing voices, being in full make-up and getup and so on, generally giving off "theatre person" energy ;) ), so this can be their preferred mode of play.
I'm personally a more introverted person. When I play RPGs I focus more on engaging with the mechanics, progressing the goal we set out to do forward, and in general dealing with the bigger picture stuff. I would call this kind of engagement "tasking" since it's focused on the task at hand. I do roleplay of course, but I find roleplay for roleplay's sake less engaging.
Of course, one mode of engaging with the game isn't inherently better or worse - they are different and complimentary. It helps, however, to understand what you like engaging with and what kind of engagement you expect from the Actual Plays you watch.
While watching ExalTwitch Academy I had similar frustrations as with the Hymn of the Unconquered Sun - the player characters would often focus on fooling around and hanging out with NPCs, meanwhile the bigger plot of the game of figuring out who the hidden traitor in the academy is would fall by the wayside. That felt a bit frustrating for me to watch and I often found myself not engaging with what was being shown. But then when Season 2 Episode 1 and 2 rolled around and the characters were dead-focused on infiltrating a ballroom gala and stealing some important documents all the while distracting the host, those episodes felt invigorating! Clear goals, everyone working towards moving them forward, every interaction could be the one to break the heist, it was a great listen for me! Again, vibing vs tasking.
Of course, just because you're talking and rolaplaying with an NPC doesn't mean you have to be just vibing - it could be a crucial part of moving a plot along. Like in our game City of the Bull God S01E07 - the player characters go with some local London Mages on a pub crawl and get progressively more hammered. Meanwhile they try figuring out if time travel is possible and then decide to test their theory in practice. All of it is low stakes banter between the two players and the GM, meanwhile they are also doing a groundwork for what later in the series will be a full blown time heist to save someone that has already been dead and burried for a year. Tasking and vibing at the same time!
Of course, even getting the right kind of engagement doesn't guarantee you'll like the end result. As task-oriented RPG Blender's Exalted Campaign can be, the player characters tend to go down the weeds of chasing down the tasks and end up spending 30 something episodes brokering peace in a town after a "beach episode, quick in and out" has gone awry. That was followed by basically racing against the clock to try stopping some doomsday monster from being unleashed meaning the characters have no time to do side activities (or even spend their XP by training). Understandably, vibing and tasking is just one part of enjoying a game.
So yeah, all in all, it's fine if the party wants to spend hours in the starting tavern and talk with every NPC, but that probably needs to be communicated clearly. Same with wanting to go light on the story or interactions with the NPC in favour of accomplishing other things - it's a different engagement that is just as valid. It's best to make sure everyone is on the same page about what to expect from the game ahead of time and so on so that people aren't disappointed with mismanaged expectations.
Heck, if you get good at time management, you can have a bit of both. Give every player a "time slot" where they can pursue their things, be that interacting with an NPC or getting some project done, and then as long as players are patient with one another everyone can get the engagement they want without one or the other bloating into taking up the entire session...
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