b) Hmm, yeah that is a bit... odd. In all honesty, she probably would have let me get away with it though. She was mostly looking for "Can she think outside the box?" ideas. If I had come up with one, I would have survived. *shrugs* Happens.
I was forgetting, the first d6 of an intentional jump is non-lethal and that, asuming a dex of 16-17, you have a 60% of reducing the falling damage by 1d6, allthis raises a lot your chances of surviving plan B.
Humbly yours,
Yawar
Is this a troll post?Why so disruptive and distrustful? Even if it were, it's quite interesting how other people would react to a given situation. Why should that be trolling?
I don't think I was disruptive. I think I addressed the scenario at great length.
And not distrustful either; call it disbelief that a DM would create this situation. I also express disbelief that people that people here on earth murder abortion doctors, deny the holocaust, strap bombs to themselves to perpetrate suicidal acts of terror, or drive home so drunk they could barely walk to their car without falling over - while I express disbelief that people would do strange and/or bizarre things, that doesn't mean these things don't exist or that I deny their existence. (No, I don't equate the DM in this scenario with a terrorist or murderer, etc. - those were just unrelated top-of-the head examples of hard to believe behavior).
And to answer your last question, if the OP describes it, quite emphatically, as an event that happened when all he really wants is to gauge how other people would react to a given situation that never really happened, that's trolling. He could (in that case) have just as easily said "Hey, I've been thinking about this situation and I wonder how you guys would handle it" which would just as accurately gauge our reactions without lying in the setup. That's not trolling.
Given the responses by the OP, I believe my question was very adequately answered that this wasn't a troll post.
You are missing the collaborative part. Deus Ex is not collaborative. If i wanted Deus Ex machina in a story I would read a book, or watch a movie. This is supposed to be interactive. Puting a player in a crummy situation and then dragging them out by their toes is not good story telling. The PC's are supposed to be the heroes of the story, not extras. I think a player has every right to refuse deus ex when the dm has done something foolish.
Not to mention expecting a deus ex totally destroys the suspension of disbelief. The character certainly isnt expecting to be rescued at the last minute without any hints. And you may very well kill yourself if you think you cannot escape and will be horribly sacrificed in the morning. We are supposed to think in character thats how this game works. If a dm ever uses a deus ex, it should be less transparent to the player. But it should still be rare, and never a major story element.
You're right, Deus Ex is not collaboration between DM and player. But sometimes, heck, especially in the character generation/backstory/introduction phase, DMs do use this technique. And somtimes they use it right in the middle of the adventure.
The collaboration is the metagame assumption on the player's part that when the DM creates impossible situations, the DM also created a surprising solution. Try to worm and wriggle your way out, but when all else fails, look for the surprise solution to unfold.
Vetoing that surprise in advance is counter-collaborative.
(Note: nothing I said here connotes condonement of DMs using this technique; I'm merely acknowledging that it exists and is used sometimes).
You say it's not good story telling. Tell that to Harry Potter. J.K. Rawlings puts poor little Harry in over his head just about every 20 pages or so, more or less, and he almost always has to be dragged out by his toes. Like it or not, (I'm not much of a fan of the books myself) I have to admit that she sold a lot of Harry Potter books. A whole lot. A record-setting lot. So it can't be all bad.
Though I admit its much worse when Harry Potter is a human sitting across the table wanting to play his character rather than watch the DM play tricks on him.
Still, our DMing is heavily influenced by our books and movies we enjoy. It's natural for a DM to employ tactics similar to what authors and directors employ.
The collaborative part is for the players to accept that this might be the case and then discuss their approval/enjoyment (or lack thereof) after the scene unfolds rather than derailing the scene after the stage is set - which as we can see, may very well lead to a fiery death.
As for your comment about suspending disbelief, I use your own words back at you. Suspending disbelief is not collaboration. It's essentially saying "I'm going to do my own thing because this is what I believe and my DM will have to keep up with me.".
There is a middle ground.
How about "Hey, DM, my character has come to the firm belief that there is no escape. She knows she will die and she prefers suicide to certain death. But she cherishes life, and can't bring herself to do it until the last possible moment. So, at the last possible moment, this is how she'll kill herself, if it gets that far."
Now the DM knows that the player is choosing RP suicide rather than waiting for Deus Ex. And if Deus Ex hasn't been strictly verboten, then the DM knows the time to act is now, before the suicide.
Collaboration.
And I wholeheartedly agree with your last sentence.
|
How about "Hey, DM, my character has come to the firm belief that there is no escape. She knows she will die and she prefers suicide to certain death. But she cherishes life, and can't bring herself to do it until the last possible moment. So, at the last possible moment, this is how she'll kill herself, if it gets that far."
As a matter of fact, that's almost precisely what I said. Like, Um.. verbatim. My GM looked at me with that "Is that your final answer?" glance and then we decided to break game for the evening so that I could think about the situation.
We returned to the situation, she asked if I'd come up with anything, I said "No" and we decided that the scene was done and the character had fallen to her death.
So, are you sure you don't have my apartment bugged? /em paranoid
|
Why get all complicated?
Use speak with animals ask the local squires to chew a hole in the top of your cage in exchange for your weight in acorns. You have animal empathy that means it is a simple diplomacy roll. While the squires are hard at work ask some passing birds to find you some holly.
Now shimmy up the rope attaching the cage to the tree DC 10 to climb a rope. Then go free your companion and light the bad guys village on fire. Sneak out in the smoke and confusion to find some oak trees for your new best buddies.
Man weird druid forest where noble knights' humble squires can only be communicated through spells to speak with animals, and who are more than ready to damage their teeth chewing through wood :D
Man weird druid forest where noble knights' humble squires can only be communicated through spells to speak with animals, and who are more than ready to damage their teeth chewing through wood :D
Must be the domain of an evil knight.
The squires are treated like animals and go hungry often enough that they are willing to chew wood.
You're right, Deus Ex is not collaboration between DM and player. But sometimes, heck, especially in the character generation/backstory/introduction phase, DMs do use this technique. And somtimes they use it right in the middle of the adventure.
The collaboration is the metagame assumption on the player's part that when the DM creates impossible situations, the DM also created a surprising solution. Try to worm and wriggle your way out, but when all else fails, look for the surprise solution to unfold.
Vetoing that surprise in advance is counter-collaborative.
(Note: nothing I said here connotes condonement of DMs using this technique; I'm merely acknowledging that it exists and is used sometimes).
You say it's not good story telling. Tell that to Harry Potter. J.K. Rawlings puts poor little Harry in over his head just about every 20 pages or so, more or less, and he almost always has to be dragged out by his toes. Like it or not, (I'm not much of a fan of the books myself) I have to admit that she sold a lot of Harry Potter books. A whole lot. A record-setting lot. So it can't be all bad.
I dont think that assumption is part of the collaboration at all. If you are assuming the dm will just drag you out of the situation you are in, you are not collaborating, you are watching a movie/reading a book. This is not roleplaying, its completely uncollaborative as the player plays no part in it. Again you missed my point. This is not the same medium as a novel. Just like a movie does not use the exact same story telling methods as a novel, a roleplaying game should not use the exact same methods as either. You have an active participant here, who is supposed to be able to interact with the story. If i wanted a storyline I couldn't influence I would play a video game. As a player and a DM i believe the DM sets the scene and the player acts it out, this is improv not a play with a script.
If you sat at an improv show and asked for a location and an occupation, and the audience yelled out 'act out the first scene of hamlet' you would reject it. This is what the player did by refusing the deus ex rescue. The DM had already destroyed all possibility of collaboration by requiring the use of such a story element.
Though I admit its much worse when Harry Potter is a human sitting across the table wanting to play his character rather than watch the DM play tricks on him.
Still, our DMing is heavily influenced by our books and movies we enjoy. It's natural for a DM to employ tactics similar to what authors and directors employ.
A dm certainly should be influenced by the stories they enjoy, but the underlying assumption that the DM shapes the story and the players drive it has to be there. In a book and a movie I am not an active participant as the reader/viewer. I am not supposed to feel engaged in that way. In an rpg I should be participating in the telling of the story. If the dm takes my actions completely out of the story, I am not participating, and therefore and am not playing a role (read: roleplaying).
The collaborative part is for the players to accept that this might be the case and then discuss their approval/enjoyment (or lack thereof) after the scene unfolds rather than derailing the scene after the stage is set - which as we can see, may very well lead to a fiery death.
As for your comment about suspending disbelief, I use your own words back at you. Suspending disbelief is not collaboration. It's essentially saying "I'm going to do my own thing because this is what I believe and my DM will have to keep up with me.".
This is not collaborative at all, this is handling a player/dm issue outside of the game. It is collaborative gameplay, but not story telling. If a story is supposed to be told collaboratively, everyone is supposed to actually participate in telling it. The player is a spectator when there is a Deus Ex and is taking no part in it.
Suspension of disbalief is saying, I am accepting the circumstance of the story (the game) and acting within it. We do that every moment we roleplay. I am obviously not an Elf Sorceror who hurls fire and death at enemies of all shapes and sizes. I am not a paladin in shining fullplate who calls upon polytheistic gods to lay waste to evil. These things are in fact not possible. I am a software developer living in new york city. But I accept the fantasitc elements of the story and the game by suspending my desire to disbelieve what is clearly false. That is required in roleplay. If I have to think from the perspective "My friend over there is actually controlling the story and therefore I clearly since my fictional character in a roleplaying game that only exists on this piece of paper in front of me and acts via these odly colored geometric shapes here on the table (dice), and therefore someone will come swooping to my rescue, I am no longer experiencing the story. I am simply playing a game. There is no role to play, just dice to roll. It is metagaming at its worst. It is acting in character from the assumption, 'we are playing a game and there for there must be a way out coming even though my character has no way of knowing there is one'.
There is a middle ground.
How about "Hey, DM, my character has come to the firm belief that there is no escape. She knows she will die and she prefers suicide to certain death. But she cherishes life, and can't bring herself to do it until the last possible moment. So, at the last possible moment, this is how she'll kill herself, if it gets that far."
Now the DM knows that the player is choosing RP suicide rather than waiting for Deus Ex. And if Deus Ex hasn't been strictly verboten, then the DM knows the time to act is now, before the suicide.
Collaboration.
And I wholeheartedly agree with your last sentence.
That isnt collaboration as I have relinquished my part in the story. In that example I am saying 'if i were to have any part in telling this story here is what my character would do. But since I do not have a part, what do you want my character to do?'
An actual middle ground is the dm giving the player some hint help is on the way or better yet to present challenges that are actually solvable.
I accept that the DM Fiat is neccesary when the dice get malevolent, or when the players make an unforseeable mistake. But to just use it as a story telling method is just plain not good dming in my opinion.
Why get all complicated?
Use speak with animals ask the local squires to chew a hole in the top of your cage in exchange for your weight in acorns. You have animal empathy that means it is a simple diplomacy roll. While the squires are hard at work ask some passing birds to find you some holly.
Now shimmy up the rope attaching the cage to the tree DC 10 to climb a rope. Then go free your companion and light the bad guys village on fire. Sneak out in the smoke and confusion to find some oak trees for your new best buddies.
All animals nearby are charmed, its ussually necesary something stronger than Diplomacy to make them do what he wants.
Seriously? The poor guy has a stenght of 3, that means not only that he can't successfuly take 10, it means a 45% chance of a 5d6 falling death.
I find it hard to believe that every animal of the forest is charmed. How do these guys stop non-charmed animals from wandering into their little kingdom? Last time I checked a bird is pretty flighty (pun intended).
Even if all the squirrels are all charmed that doesn't mean you can't also charm one to help you. Unless every animal of the forest is charmed and given instructions to not talk to you there has to be some wiggle room.
A 45% chance of a fatal fall sounds like a 55% chance of not being dead to me. Take your chances and roll the dice!
BTW A wood and wicker cage is going to be pretty easy for a squirrel to destroy. You should see what they did to our eaves.
A 45% chance of a fatal fall sounds like a 55% chance of not being dead to me. Take your chances and roll the dice!BTW A wood and wicker cage is going to be pretty easy for a squirrel to destroy. You should see what they did to our eaves.
Its 45% of falling to certain death per check, 25% of not falling but not descending and 30% of descending, wich translates to 60% of falling and 40% of succes. Since climbing its at 1/4 of your speed he will need two checks per round to descend, so 1 to climb the rope and 10 to descend the tree. Do you wanna take your chances that way?
Its 45% of falling to certain death per check, 25% of not falling but not descending and 30% of descending, wich translates to 60% of falling and 40% of succes. Since climbing its at 1/4 of your speed he will need two checks per round to descend, so 1 to climb the rope and 10 to descend the tree. Do you wanna take your chances that way?
A 45% chance of a fatal fall sounds like a 55% chance of not being dead to me. Take your chances and roll the dice!BTW A wood and wicker cage is going to be pretty easy for a squirrel to destroy. You should see what they did to our eaves.
Stay here and commit suicide or have a tiny chance of survival? Yes every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Save versus death DC 100 and I will pick up that my dice and pray for a 20.
Its 45% of falling to certain death per check, 25% of not falling but not descending and 30% of descending, wich translates to 60% of falling and 40% of succes. Since climbing its at 1/4 of your speed he will need two checks per round to descend, so 1 to climb the rope and 10 to descend the tree. Do you wanna take your chances that way?
A 45% chance of a fatal fall sounds like a 55% chance of not being dead to me. Take your chances and roll the dice!BTW A wood and wicker cage is going to be pretty easy for a squirrel to destroy. You should see what they did to our eaves.
Stay here and commit suicide or have a tiny chance of survival? Yes every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Save versus death DC 100 and I will pick up that my dice and pray for a 20.
What I was questioning was your eagerness to throw into the least likely to succeed escenario when thaere are other alternatives.
PSD: I replyed last week but my post was eaten and I only realized know.
The situation is a serious railroad. The character has no control over their fate: they must move forward along a predetermined path or be killed by DM fiat. Sometimes a railroad is necessary to introduce a character into an ongoing campaign, but often not.
Instead, you crashed the train.
I think there's something praiseworthy about that. The players have control over their characters. It must be so, even if they have to kill themselves to achieve it.
On the topic of railroading the beginning of campaigns...
I'll admit that the beginning of campaigns is always where I struggle the most. I've kind of gotten to the point where I want to tell my players that it is their responsibility to figure out why their character wants to travel with this party, and they can make new characters until they make one that will actually stay within the (wide-open sandbox) boundaries of the campaign. I have several players who roll-play their way through things and get bored quickly when other players are smurfing around in a bar trying to decide whether or not they want to join the posse to find the missing girls.
And I almost don't blame them. One of my players was saying he was just role-playing and that his character didn't want to get involved yet, and I wasn't sure how to answer him. It's not a group that handles the split party very well, and when it's the first 5 minutes of the campaign it all is GM fiat anyway. Since the rest of my campaigns are very open-ended, the beginnings always feel really forced (because they are). Ugh, maybe I should just accept that, and tell my players up front.
So I guess deus ex machina is not as bad at the very beginning of a campaign, where just telling the players where they are is GM fiat.
Still, that's a brutally hard scenario for a player who hadn't chosen to be sans party. I also really don't like Batman NPCs who prepare for every scenario (charming *all* of the animals?). It usually feels like the GM is cheating. Without a lot more context, I'd kind of feel cheated.
Edit: I wouldn't have had my character give up for purely metagaming reasons, figuring the GM wasn't trying to kill the character right off the bat, so I *might* have thought of a way to survive and/or held out help of a rescue. That was kind of the conclusion of my other paragraphs, but I never spelled it out. I think both sides appeared to not be willing to work to create a solution, and while it's metagaming I feel it's excusable because integrating new PCs is hard and rarely elegantly done.
Now if it was a campaign that had been going for a while and I left my party and ran into that scenario, I'd feel it was my own fault.
First, get a new animal companion.
Release the animal companion from service. The rules don't state if you need to have the previous animal companion present to do this or not. Since you don't know for sure if the animal companion is dead or not, you can simply assume it is dead. Based on your description, there's no way to tell if the companion is dead or not. Even if the animal were present in a nearby cage, you could release it from service from your cage (there are no rules for this either).
If a druid releases her companion from service, she may gain a new one by performing a ceremony requiring 24 uninterrupted hours of prayer in the environment where the new companion typically lives. This ceremony can also replace an animal companion that has perished.
If all the animals in the forest are charmed, that's irrelevant. The druid ability will get an animal outside the forest -- there's nothing that says the animal has to come from that particular forest, only the environment where the animal typically lives.
Since you are small, the constrictor snake is probably your best bet. They have a climb speed and they're of a medium size. The animal companion gets a bonus trick, so have it learn the "work" trick.
Once you have the animal companion, use the "push an animal" usage of handle animal and have the snake bring you a club-sized or quarterstaff-sized branch. You can fail this over and over, but you can retry without penalty (and you have a lot of time). Have it fetch a branch off the tree of about club size and bring it to you. Using the Shillelagh spell, break the cage bars with the club.
Now have the animal to "work" and carry you down the tree -- possibly in it's mouth.
On the topic of railroading the beginning of campaigns...
I'll admit that the beginning of campaigns is always where I struggle the most. I've kind of gotten to the point where I want to tell my players that it is their responsibility to figure out why their character wants to travel with this party, and they can make new characters until they make one that will actually stay within the (wide-open sandbox) boundaries of the campaign. I have several players who roll-play their way through things and get bored quickly when other players are smurfing around in a bar trying to decide whether or not they want to join the posse to find the missing girls.
And I almost don't blame them. One of my players was saying he was just role-playing and that his character didn't want to get involved yet, and I wasn't sure how to answer him. It's not a group that handles the split party very well, and when it's the first 5 minutes of the campaign it all is GM fiat anyway. Since the rest of my campaigns are very open-ended, the beginnings always feel really forced (because they are). Ugh, maybe I should just accept that, and tell my players up front.
So I guess deus ex machina is not as bad at the very beginning of a campaign, where just telling the players where they are is GM fiat.
Still, that's a brutally hard scenario for a player who hadn't chosen to be sans party. I also really don't like Batman NPCs who prepare for every scenario (charming *all* of the animals?). It usually feels like the GM is cheating. Without a lot more context, I'd kind of feel cheated.
Edit: I wouldn't have had my character give up for purely metagaming reasons, figuring the GM wasn't trying to kill the character right off the bat, so I *might* have thought of a way to survive and/or held out help of a rescue. That was kind of the conclusion of my other paragraphs, but I never spelled it out. I think both sides appeared to not be willing to work to create a solution, and while it's metagaming I feel it's excusable because...
You can leave the one player in the bar and let the rest of the group go out and be hero's and he can join them later when he gets bored :)
On the topic of railroading the beginning of campaigns...
I'll admit that the beginning of campaigns is always where I struggle the most. I've kind of gotten to the point where I want to tell my players that it is their responsibility to figure out why their character wants to travel with this party, and they can make new characters until they make one that will actually stay within the (wide-open sandbox) boundaries of the campaign. I have several players who roll-play their way through things and get bored quickly when other players are smurfing around in a bar trying to decide whether or not they want to join the posse to find the missing girls.
And I almost don't blame them. One of my players was saying he was just role-playing and that his character didn't want to get involved yet, and I wasn't sure how to answer him. It's not a group that handles the split party very well, and when it's the first 5 minutes of the campaign it all is GM fiat anyway. Since the rest of my campaigns are very open-ended, the beginnings always feel really forced (because they are). Ugh, maybe I should just accept that, and tell my players up front.
The four starting hooks for me have always been, money, fame, power, good deeds. Offering a reward will get most characters interest regardless of background. Notoriety works on some who have an interest in such things. Offering political power, land, title etc as a reward is always useful, or position in an organization. And last but not least, the help the helpless hook will get whoever is left almost certainly. If you arent throwing in these hooks to start with I wouldn't blame your players for their characters not being motivated. I always ask ahead of time what my pc's goals are. I then tailor the hooks to them. If i get a detailed background from a player i'll try to make it more specific, but otherwise the big four almost always work.
|
The four starting hooks for me have always been, money, fame, power, good deeds.
Money - My character always takes VoP, so money does him no good.
Fame - He's a thief, so he tries to stay under the radar.Power - Not interested.
Good deeds - Not a hippie.
I'd say generally my character doesn't need a hook. He just wants to get XP to level, so that he can increase his abilities. But if you threw in a quest feat or some other bonus to his natural abilities as a reward, that would definitely motivate him.
The four starting hooks for me have always been, money, fame, power, good deeds.Money - My character always takes VoP, so money does him no good.
Fame - He's a thief, so he tries to stay under the radar.
Power - Not interested.
Good deeds - Not a hippie.
I'd say generally my character doesn't need a hook. He just wants to get XP to level, so that he can increase his abilities. But if you threw in a quest feat or some other bonus to his natural abilities as a reward, that would definitely motivate him.
a thief... with Vow of Poverty...
error 404, this page does not exist...Good deeds vs Vow of Poverty (remember where that feat comes from?)...
error 404, this page is very unlikely to exist ;)
characters don't want "XP to level", if that's what his motivation is then he wants power! yes that's power, not the political power you refer to but still power.
The four starting hooks for me have always been, money, fame, power, good deeds.Money - My character always takes VoP, so money does him no good.
Fame - He's a thief, so he tries to stay under the radar.
Power - Not interested.
Good deeds - Not a hippie.
I'd say generally my character doesn't need a hook. He just wants to get XP to level, so that he can increase his abilities. But if you threw in a quest feat or some other bonus to his natural abilities as a reward, that would definitely motivate him.a thief... with Vow of Poverty...
error 404, this page does not exist...Good deeds vs Vow of Poverty (remember where that feat comes from?)...
error 404, this page is very unlikely to exist ;)characters don't want "XP to level", if that's what his motivation is then he wants power! yes that's power, not the political power you refer to but still power.
Agreed...
Exalted feats do require a certain amount of "goodness" to be able to take. Require both DM permission and a small ritual to be performed. All the "Vow of..." feats require Sacred Vow as a prereq if I remember correctly. Any character qualifying for Exalted feats is in fact going to radiate goodness from every pore.
There is nothing wrong with a Rogue taking Vow of Poverty. One that lives his life as a "Thief" however is taking from others and possibly causing them hardship. Not a "good" act even if it may not be evil. Only church or deity sanctioned "jobs" would pass muster. Such as sneaking into a evil stronghold to disable the doomsday device or retrieve a artifact of goodness from evil clutches.
Adventuring for "self-improvement" and betterment of ones own skills is indeed a noble goal, as long as those adventures often allow you to maintain your "good" status and access to your Exalted feats. Therefore "good deeds" would be a way of life.
The four starting hooks for me have always been, money, fame, power, good deeds.Money - My character always takes VoP, so money does him no good.
Fame - He's a thief, so he tries to stay under the radar.
Power - Not interested.
Good deeds - Not a hippie.
I'd say generally my character doesn't need a hook. He just wants to get XP to level, so that he can increase his abilities. But if you threw in a quest feat or some other bonus to his natural abilities as a reward, that would definitely motivate him.
Are you describing one character there? If so, that's a mass of contradictions.
Or are you just saying that there is at least one argument that might be made by some players against any of those 4 hooks?
LoL, I'd love to see a player show up at my campaign with a VoP/Thief who spends his life stealing but has no interest in or use for anything he steals, is not interested in power but is motivated by increasing his abilities (but only in ways that don't make him more powerful), who glows with an inner light of goodness but doesn't do good deeds, and who somehow expects to stay under the radar as a glowing, santified tool of the gods of goodness while his only aspiration in life is becoming a paragon of increased abilities that nobody has ever heard of.
a thief... with Vow of Poverty...
error 404, this page does not exist...
Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
Riding through the glen...
a thief... with Vow of Poverty...
error 404, this page does not exist...Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
Riding through the glen...
I thought of him of course but I didn't think he'd actually fit in that description (although I get your point).
|
|
The four starting hooks for me have always been, money, fame, power, good deeds.Money - My character always takes VoP, so money does him no good.
Fame - He's a thief, so he tries to stay under the radar.
Power - Not interested.
Good deeds - Not a hippie.
I'd say generally my character doesn't need a hook. He just wants to get XP to level, so that he can increase his abilities. But if you threw in a quest feat or some other bonus to his natural abilities as a reward, that would definitely motivate him.
If you are actually going to *fight* to not have a reason to work with the group, it's hardly the DM's fault if your character gets left in the bar.
And yeah, if this is one character, he's insane, being a person who steals things but has an anti-materialist Exalted feat and yet heaps contempt on doing good deeds, as well as being a power-craving person who isn't interested in power. Saying that he's cuckoo for cocoa-puffs would have been a shorter, and equally useful, character description.
It wouldn't be such a difficult thing for me if my players were just a little more considerate of the other people sitting at the table, but they're not. The aforementioned roll-players hear "girls missing after going to the cemetary to visit their father's grave" and immediately start heading that way, leaving several of the players behind. The others are content to do frivolous crap in the bar, and I am left with forcing their hands, or letting the party split. Every time the party splits, though, the players who aren't actively involved with the current action get bored and start distracting everyone else.
Of course, once they all get to the cemetary and are slaughtering zombies all is well and right with the group, but still. The first few minutes if any campaign are always the worst for me.