All good, I'm still interested in playing too.
If we slow down a little bit that is okay too, I think pbp game all operate on different speeds.
I am enjoying my character and bringing him to life.
Here’s my takeaway from Slowdrifter’s post. This game is a mystery that requires the players to be actively thinking, parsing information, sniffing out the red herrings, and gathering clues to solve the mystery through their characters. To this, I say GOOD. This is the basic dynamic for all mystery novels. Readers read Agatha Christie and try to solve the mystery before Hercule Poirot reveals the answers… i.e. mysteries are not passive reading experiences. RPG-based mysteries are cut from the same ‘active engagement’ cloth. The PCs have to lead the investigation and use clues to navigate through the game-world.
Which leads to what I think is Slowdrifter’s second point… for any players unwilling to solve the mystery by thinking it through, this likely isn’t the right campaign type for them. They can step away from the game without guilt simply because it isn’t their “cup of tea”. I think this is worth serious consideration for anyone struggling with this game. The unstated, but logical, assumption is that Slowdrifter is not going to change the core ‘mystery’ mechanic/dynamic of the game. A mystery that simply solves itself through a series of rolls and clues handed out on a platter is not a mystery. That’s someone reading you a novel, highlighting every clue, and explaining the mystery to you. You aren’t ‘solving’ anything. Slowdrifter – as a fellow player – has the right to enjoy the game he is running. While every GM is empowered to ‘tweak’ a game to make it flow more smoothly, asking them to change the fundamentals of the game they are running is a bridge too far, IMO.
This brings me to Ialia’s reply. Normally, I’d probably leave the following unsaid, but counter-points seem necessary here, so…
…you have acknowledged there may be red herrings. [but] …Every conversation with a NPC must have some story-advancing piece of information.
Nope. These two are mutually exclusive. You can’t have red herrings AND have every conversation advance the plot. And, related to what I wrote above, if every conversation has story-advancing clues, then the GM is spoon-feeding information which means the mystery dynamic is largely gone.
It's critical to separate our characters from the players behind them. Our characters only exist in your world; they are part of the flow. They implicitly know things that we don't. Their only existence is thinking about the things that are happening in that imaginary space. They will reason and tease out the idea because they are part of the story. To make a game of it, the character has to have an opportunity to know something that the player does not. Give us more skill rolls - anything that helps the players to figure out something that our character is likely to know.
You are conflating player thinking with character knowledge. I read this in one of two ways. 1) You want characters to get a ‘roll’ to avoid doing something stupid because of a player’s logic fail since they aren’t ‘part of the world’. And/or 2) This bit is just related to your next paragraph about skill rolls.
Also, when you post, give more. Every conversation with a NPC must have some story-advancing piece of information that we will receive by the end of it. Nothing can be left unsaid, and if we don't ask the right question, it's on you to make a narrative excuse to give it to us. More Sense Motive checks in spoilers, and then embed higher DC spoilers that give us a fragment with which to craft our next question. And then once we have that one piece of information that we are to get from that NPC, wrap up the encounter immediately and move us on to the next thing.
Fully implemented, this set of ideas will soundly kill the mystery dynamic. The game will no longer be a mystery at all, it becomes a set skill rolls requiring virtually no player brain power. Let’s spell it out:
Every conversation with a NPC must have some story-advancing piece of information that we will receive… And then once we have that one piece of information that we are to get from that NPC, wrap up the encounter immediately and move us on to the next thing.
Result: There are no false leads and you always receive the exact information you need which is overtly telegraphed because the conversation immediately ends.
More Sense Motive checks in spoilers, and then embed higher DC spoilers that give us a fragment with which to craft our next question.
Result: Players rarely need to think because they can rely on SM (or other) rolls to feed them all the clues, including the next best question to ask.
Nothing can be left unsaid, and if we don't ask the right question, it's on you to make a narrative excuse to give it to us.
Result: No matter how off-base the questions or mentally lazy the players are… the GM is obligated to spoon-feed them ALL the information and rationalize it somehow. This is the fattest set of training wheels ever. There are also no consequences in the game for poor decisions vis a vis the actual mystery. You can’t fail to solve the mystery because it is dished out on a silver platter, no matter what the characters do.
Lead us. We want to be led.
Absolutely not. Don’t use ‘we’ and ‘us’ when you really mean ‘I’ and ‘me’. Personally, I have no need to be led and no interest in it. I’m prepared to solve this mystery as the GM has laid it out with a minimum of clues and no adult supervision. I don’t need my hand held as I cross the street.
I'll add that when Ialia had to make a CHA roll to get an answer to what seemed like an important question, I was like, What? That's an example of an unnecessary gate.
No, that’s part of the rules. You cast Charm Person. Opposed CHA checks are part of the deal and, in this particular case, it was a clue as to what sort of questions you couldn’t ask. There were other lines of questioning you could have tried.
I'm not about to metagame Samara's line of questioning. I'm playing my own character.
It wasn’t metagaming, it was table talk. I was trying to help my teammates out of a jam so we could forward the plot. If it was metagaming, Slowdrifter could have called me on it and said those options were no longer on the table for you guys as a penalty for my ‘infraction’.
Ialia, given all that you wrote and how far apart you seem to be from Slowdrifter’s vision of how to run a mystery campaign (assuming he doesn’t radically change his playstyle), you should probably give more thought to whether this is truly your “cup of tea”.
Good news! My computer issues have been resolved. So I can post more regularly again. I'm just a little lost, is all. I'm so used to APs here on the forums, that given the wings to fly, I'm afraid to soar. Please be patient with Joreld: he's just as dense as his player. But he IS handsome!
Ialia wrote:
Lead us. We want to be led.
Absolutely not. Don’t use ‘we’ and ‘us’ when you really mean ‘I’ and ‘me’. Personally, I have no need to be led and no interest in it. I’m prepared to solve this mystery as the GM has laid it out with a minimum of clues and no adult supervision. I don’t need my hand held as I cross the street.
You may very well solve this mystery all by yourself. But we are a party. I hope I can safely say we all want to have fun.
Pathfinder is, by its nature, a tactical combat simulator. The plotting is fresh but I'd like to roll more dice. Unless DM is making it up as they go, there's a trail and we are meant to follow it. I don't believe this is some sandbox of exposition. I wasn't accusing you, Samara, of metagaming. DM reminded us in Discord that you had asked questions, and it seemed to me they were implying those questions could be asked by any of us that were still speaking with Korwen. It's a courtesy to the players to give us all a chance to stay involved through skill checks.
Good news! My computer issues have been resolved. So I can post more regularly again. I'm just a little lost, is all. I'm so used to APs here on the forums, that given the wings to fly, I'm afraid to soar. Please be patient with Joreld: he's just as dense as his player. But he IS handsome!
The long and short is that we have the ear of the farmer who just met with a pair from the group we eavesdropped on the night before, which are plotting some insurrection but not obviously leading us toward Glanwyn. This too appears to be dead end although the farmer has a wood golem, which may or may not be suspicious. Now's your chance if you want to ask him anything.
Thank you for the thoughts and feedback. I have been reading and formulating a response but I want to make sure I address everything so it might take a little time.