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.
First, I’m glad everyone is enjoying their characters and wants to continue, that’s good news. I was asking the question to check given the same was asked of me. I wasn’t necessarily expecting anybody to stop but it felt like a sensible time to check in, gather some feedback, and also to say “that’s fine” and give an easy out if anybody wasn’t feeling it any more as that’s probably not an easy conversation to initiate for everyone.
I’m also assuming that unless you jointly present me with a document signed “We the People” then everyone is only speaking for themselves. =)
With regards to posting rate, I’m sure many of you have played more games than me and maybe other people’s experiences vary, and this is just the ones I’ve been involved in, but after the first initial burst of excitement, I don’t think I’ve been in one where everybody meets one post a day over an extended period of time. That doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s a good thing to strive for and momentum is certainly needed to keep things going, but I think the pace of most games naturally varies. Players also have dips and lulls and busy periods and that’s fine with me. If you can give people a heads up that’s great but it may also not be top of your agenda. I assume *everyone* has plenty of other stuff going on outside of their game, many of which naturally have to take precedence.
I take the point about rolling more dice. You invest skill points etc. in your characters and you want to use them - that totally makes sense. I can think of some examples where I can (and will) add some in. But I also think this only works up to a point - turning every interaction just into a dice roll takes away a bit of player agency (and potentially satisfaction) in terms of actually sorting through clues and information and putting things together.
Similarly I think there’s a balance to be had with how certain rolls are made and handled. It’s not what I’d expect in PBP and is an exaggeration of course, but personally I don’t want to be in a game where it’s “I persuade the king to advance us the gold. I roll my Diplomacy check.” I’d rather work with the arguments and dialogue players put forth, with rolls supplementing that, but different GMs will do things differently. The Sense Motive thing is a tricky one - my view is it would get boring fast to put up a spoiler box for a check for every post/interaction with an NPC. Conversely, only putting up something when there is something relevant to be gained from a roll feels like it’s a giveaway and telling you something is up when you (players or characters) might not have any reason to suspect this. As with most of these things, I think it’s finding the right balance, which I’ll strive to do but it’s definitely more of an art than a science..
My opinion is that I don’t think every NPC needs to be plot-relevant; sometimes they are but it’s not immediately apparent - or not known until much further down the line. Foreshadowing and seeding things is a key part of storytelling. Equally, the early appearance of an NPC doesn’t always mean they’re the Scooby Doo villain. Sometimes they’re just an NPC.
I also don’t think every NPC has one important piece of information only or that if you don’t ask the right questions you should necessarily get the answer anyway. You might also conceivably ask something I haven’t thought of that will give you some information that I wasn’t expecting so I wouldn’t want to penalise that either. That said, I *do* think it is my job as GM to ensure that you have sufficient clues and information to piece things together and I will potentially adapt that depending on what you do (which is happening, but it’s behind the screen). One method of doing that is to come up with another reason to give you useful information from a given NPC, but it’s not something that will always happen and it needs to make sense - an NPC isn’t going to come out with a critical piece of information that’s a total non-sequitur.
Regarding charm person, the charisma roll is just how the spell works. Charm person is probably one of those spells where exact interpretation will vary by GM but generally I read it as they become very friendly and helpful to you but they’re not simply going to tell you where the bodies are buried. It’s for sure a good spell but it still has limitations (it’s level 1 after all). I also don’t think failing the roll shuts the conversation down, but it probably does mean you might need to tread carefully or try a different tack to continue this topic. It also tells you something from the reaction that this is something the NPC doesn’t necessarily want to talk about (which doesn’t automatically mean that what they’re hiding is relevant but there’s a decent chance it might be assuming the questions are sensible).
I also don’t think it’s metagaming to ask questions someone else suggests, that’s just chat. Same as if you’re in combat, the invisible character wouldn’t be asking the party in game not to obstruct their charge line as it gives away their position but I think it’s totally valid for that character’s player to let the others know their intentions. That’s just smart tactics.
To allay any fears, this isn’t a video game where you’ll get into a situation where the one critical piece of information you need to continue means the game stops because you don’t ask the right question, don’t find the secret door, or indeed don’t pass the skill check that it’s gated behind. There will be other clues, evidence etc. The feedback is useful - running (and playing) a mystery scenario is challenging and I’m definitely learning some lessons here. It is a balance between ensuring players have enough information to work with or making it too easy and that isn’t always easy when you’ve got different players with different play styles and preferences that vary and/or you don’t know. Sometimes players will miss something a GM thinks is obvious and players will always send the GM a curveball at some point by doing or saying something that you don’t expect. But to my earlier point, I am adapting things as necessary in line with your actions.
There’s endless essays about railroading and player agency and things but my view is that just leading people by the nose does rather remove the mystery element and, personally, I feel, takes away some player agency and just makes you more characters in my narrative rather than characters with control of your actions. Similarly, I tend to err on the side of players being proactive with their characters for the same reason, though I accept that there are legitimately plenty of times where you are looking to the GM for cues or to set the agenda. People’s thoughts and opinions on this will vary and we could go down some deep rabbit holes here so, mixing my metaphors, I’d rather not get too lost in the weeds of this.
I’ll also say that while this isn’t a sandbox - you have a clear and defined mission - it’s also one which will naturally have various steps and stages to complete it that you’ll uncover through your actions but which were not laid out from the beginning. What you do and how you get there is up to you and if you choose to follow up a lead and it leads to a short sidequest I’m not going to stop that. But if you do get a point where you’re truly stuck, or you’re really going off target or you’re fixating on some minor detail that isn’t relevant (“But he was wearing a YELLOW jacket - that MUST mean something because the princess ALWAYS wears yellow too”) then I will try and give you a steer and nudge you in the right direction. I don’t want things to become frustrating and not fun, though I am conscious that players have different tastes.
Something that I think probably would be useful is to collect together the various pieces of information that you do have, as well as any potential theories or ideas. Having everything in one place is useful in terms of being able to sort things through and given the long form nature of PBP a lot of time can potentially pass in the real world between information that was only a couple of days ago in game. (On the plus side, having a written record of exactly what was said that you can refer back to is useful.) I’ve done this before and I know the players found it useful so I’ll pull something together here. Obviously feel free to add to it because I won’t be privy to all of your ideas. I’ll also look to put together a list of NPCs that you’ve met to help keep track, which hopefully will be useful too. If there’s other stuff like this that would be beneficial please let me know.
Sorry to have not weighed in earlier, it's been a week alright. But I did want to emphasize that I like my character and like the game, and want to continue. Pick is being quiet right now because as far as I'm concerned I'm not really doing anything relevant to the current scene.
I do feel that maybe a document where we write down our leads, NPCs, etc might be useful; it also isn't necessarily only the job of the GM to maintain. When a game is slow paced it can be very easy to forget previous information that's been discovered or was mentioned literal months ago in the real world, which is a drawback of the PBP format in a way, though as Drifter says the written and searchable record is great.
One question I have for my fellow group members is 'how often do you check Discord' ? That's not a judgment, it's me trying to gather information as to whether that's the best way to communicate. In most of my current PBPs, Discord has become the default for handling table talk (as opposed to the message board), so I just unconsciously assume that everyone else is as chronically plugged into Discord as I am, but that might not be right. If some of us are using Discord to make suggestions and other people only check Discord once in a while, that will certainly cause a communications gap that can create issues. For me, I'm going to absolutely see Discord posts every day, whereas (especially if a game has slowed down some) I may not actually get to the boards every single day- Discord is to me a great way to nudge someone that they might be up in the game, or that there's a moment for them to shine. But that only works if everyone is using it-- if not, then I can certainly make an effort to post here instead.
Joreld, glad your computer woes are mostly past. This scene we are in-game right now does seem like a great chance for Joreld's persuasive skills to shine-- I'd hate for us to waste the good opportunity that Ialia's charm gave us by not milking it for all it's worth.
OK, so assuming we're all happy to move things along, if anyone wants to ask any further questions of Korwen please jump in and do so - I'm assuming that you will be. Otherwise let me know and I'll wrap it up.
I'm eager to leave and look elsewhere for our ranger.
One question I have for my fellow group members is 'how often do you check Discord'?
I check them both (Discord and Paizo) fairly frequently.
OK, so assuming we're all happy to move things along, if anyone wants to ask any further questions of Korwen please jump in and do so - I'm assuming that you will be.
I've given my best OOC advice in that regard since I'm not in the scene. The decisions are out of my hands.
I know I'm guilty of this but can we try to keep OOC discussion over here rather than in the gameplay thread please. It seems the Discord isn't really working for everyone so my suggestion is we just use this as the main discussion forum.
I've been having a think and I'm not averse to splitting the party for a bit if that's what you would like to do. It does make sense in the context of where things are. If so, you'll need to agree on a time and place to reconvene. I assume that you do have some ways of getting messages to each other if necessary but not for easy real-time communication. Factoring in travel times I think you'll probably want a few days in-game to both go into the forest and to start combing the hills some more.