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Who Is Ellen - 74 - HD (Patreon)

Published:
2022-12-20 04:05:59
Imported:
2023-01

Content

Dilemma

- At egscomics 

Commentary

Once again, whether talking it through out of character like this would be acceptable would depend on the group.

I can see arguments for and against. For me, though, the big one would be slowing down the game if it happened a lot. Infrequent is probably fine unless going for a certain tone.

I imagine one thing a GM might do, which I vaguely recall seeing done, is putting a timer on a decision in a moment when, in-story, time would’ve been of the essence. Like “you can so this, but do it quickly”.

Which I see as keeping the game going and keeping it a challenge, and not being a overly-controlling GM (if done well, of course).

Files

Comments

AstroChaos

I HAVE pulled out the timer for RP stuff but it's very, very rare. If there is one thing I've learned, it's that you can't force RP. So when I have done a shot clock, it's really only been when the whole party is in the middle of something RP related and how they individually act will influence what happens as a whole. The whole party being drug in chains in front of the local authority would be an example.

Anonymous

I rarely use timers (literally or informally), but when I do it's usually to enforce the pressure of a situation on a player who is inclined to hem and haw about a decision when their character has literal seconds to make a decision.

Some Ed

I think the most important thing on this stuff is to have it be clear when a character is in character and when are they in meta, and also for the GM to be clear on whether there is a timed response needed and whether meta discussions are allowed for a given decision. As a player, I found it exceedingly annoying for the GM to decide to rule that players who were having a clearly meta discussion were actually in character, depicting the conversations that their characters were somehow having in front of the NPCs. I could have accepted a ruling before that conversation stating explicitly that we were not allowed to have a meta conversation right then because we were on the hook for real time responses. That doesn't mean I'd like it, just that I'd consider it a fair ruling. For the GM to give us an unspecified amount of time that turned out to be exactly five minutes to talk amongst ourselves and then declare that 100% meta discussion was something our characters said was not fair. I don't recall arguing that point, though other players did. I just simply refused to enter another game with that GM running the game. Some would say my choice didn't let that GM grow. Personally, I feel that others were pretty clear on what didn't go over well. I don't have to explain each of the points of a GM's GMing style that lead me to determine I'm not going to go to their game.

wargrunt42
>>97895131

I had a GM like that once, so my friends and I did the same thing as you. As a result, our group developed a signal (closed fist on top of the head) for being OOC, humorous commentary, or establishing meta-conversation. It really helped with pacing and generally made sessions run smoother.

Some Ed
>>97895131

I don't really care what system is used to communicate it, so long as all of the players and GM(s) know it and are comfortable with it. In my limited experience with various systems, specifically stating it seemed to work better than most. But there's a nigh infinite variety of systems I never tried, including the one you mentioned. I think one of the most humorous was each player had one item of costume that we would don to be in character. Each player got to choose the item. It was recommended for it to be something that would be associated with the character, but so long as we only had one PC, it didn't really have to be. The GM had a few items, each for one particular NPC, but for most NPCs, they just declared it. This might not have been that humorous, except one of the players chose a particular hat for their item of costume, and then decided they really liked that hat, and started wearing it basically everywhere and all the time. So for them, it flipped from a default of not being in character to a default of in character, and then migrated to them *always* being in character. That still could've been more frustrating, but our GM was really cool about it, and more just wanted to use it for laughs like the rest of us decided to do. "The innkeeper looks at Broghan the Dwarven Barbarian carefully. `I don't know dwarven culture well an' I'm not keen on changin' tha'. I just wan' ye ta know, if yer plannin' on havin' tis ´calculus test´ in yer room temarra, ye be payin' fer any damages to the furnishin's or room, y'hear?`"

Thisguy

I think it’s fine having discussions like this. Something my DM occasionally does when players are having trouble deciding what to do is just ask them to explain, out of character “what is your character trying to achieve?” It’s often hard to describe, in character, exactly what you intend. The DM cannot see into your mind and know exactly what your intentions are. The easiest, and often quickest way, is to just drop the roleplay and explain in simple words. Then the DM can suggest to the player what they can do to attempt to achieve their desired outcome. Making everyone happy, and reducing misunderstandings and misinterpretations. And usually doing it a lot quicker.

Some Ed

In reference to today's main story update: fast forward 4 storylines, at which point you say seemingly out of the blue "So *this* update is when I originally thought Brother would end." In other news, I'm pretty sure that she correctly predicted a future plot point specifically to get a cookie to help her deal with the low blood sugar possibility.