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View Full Version : Slow players + murder mystery = oh dear



Soniku
2008-10-26, 10:10 PM
So I'm finding myself at a bit of a problem here. My groups 4th edition campaign has pretty much come to a point at which we want to stop, everyone's decided they were too caught up in the new edition to make characters with any depth and would like to roll anew or try a different system for a bit. Many are suggesting Vampire: The Masquerade. They want a thinky, politically with some awesome fight scenes type campaign.

I would love to oblige, but with all respect to my players, they are about as slow as grass growing when it comes to such things.

We actually tried V:tM before once, things went alright with the introduction roleplaying and so on until they reached a point about half way or so into the first session where they needed to find out more about a man they had killed and stolen the wallet of (the full story is a bit long but needless to say they needed to do this). They could have done any number of things seeing as they had his name and knew the town in which he lived, checking the phone book would have worked, googling his name and the town's name would have worked, if they had really gotten stuck their social vampire could have used his connections to the police to get his information.

But no. Not for my players. They spend the last 30-60 minutes of the session standing around trying to come up with more and more unfeasable methods of trying to find this guy. I ended up getting to the point where I would have allowed anything even remotely logical that they had come up with to work regardless... in fact, I was going to offer an int roll to work out a method, but they were just so interested in working out how to trace this guy who they had the full name and pretty much all the contact details of that even if I had offered they would have probably only rolled to keep things moving rather than being frustrated.

While this is very enjoyable for them most of the time it's utterly aggrovating for me as I hand them clue after clue and they just give blank stares before pondering out loud the possibility of getting in contact with the local mob boss that none of them even know to try and see if he knew this guy... Obviously they did get it eventually (They found his myspace account) but as a GM, while I do my best to make sure my players enjoy themselves with more than just constant mindless hack and slash, really need to be able to keep things moving so I don't end up just watching and replying with negative responses every time someone comes up with an even more ludicrous plan than the last.


Does anyone have any advice for the situation?

Oracle_Hunter
2008-10-26, 10:33 PM
A good way to keep the game rolling is to keep the characters moving. Make it so that they can't sit in one place and plan all day - maybe they're being tracked by Werewolves, or they're in the middle of Sabbat territory and they'll get jumped if they stick around too long.

A more passive method is to note the passing of time. Just say "y'know, time is moving on" and then start saying "an hour has passed" and "several hours have passed" and finally "you only have a couple of hours before dawn." After awhile, your PCs will start making decisions, or their quarry will just slip away.

But, to be honest, it kind of sounds like your players like spending all their time planning things. If so, it might not be a bad idea to set up a situation where, at the end of a session, you give them a bunch of clues and say "alright, figure out what you want to do before next session." That may allow your players the time to indulge in their planning fetish without trying your patience.

sonofzeal
2008-10-26, 10:33 PM
Seems the only problem is you wanting to get through the plot. My advice is simply sit back, watch, and if you notice any of the players actually getting bored, throw in a random Ninja attack or something to shock them out of the rut and keep them on their toes.

Soniku
2008-10-26, 10:45 PM
I have actually used random ninja attacks at times, although that was in a campaign where that was a perfectly valid thing for the setting so I'm not sure it counts.

And yeah, I have done the end-of-session thing before and it worked. Unfortunately a few years on people are having trouble being in contact with each other so much, back then we all went to the same school but now we're lucky to see each other much outside of roleplay sessions and the odd social event.

In response to sonofzeal, this is indeed a case of GM frustration rather than the players being the problem. They rarely get bored save for too much combat, it's the combination of how much time they like to spend and how bad they can be at that sort of thing (We have a new player in the group who is the opposite of the rest, makes quick decisions but they tend to be... unwise) that makes it difficult for me to sit back and watch.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-10-26, 11:00 PM
And yeah, I have done the end-of-session thing before and it worked. Unfortunately a few years on people are having trouble being in contact with each other so much, back then we all went to the same school but now we're lucky to see each other much outside of roleplay sessions and the odd social event.

Figures. Well, you can still sacrifice the first hour of a session to let them do their planning (while you prep for the session, or otherwise entertain yourself) or you'll just have to pressure them.

I do not mean "random ninja attacks" either; you just put them into situations where time is of the essence... and then track the passage of game time.

Example
The players discover that an Assamite strike force is going to kidnap a visiting vampire fop, with the idea of committing Diablerie back at their temporary Haven. The strike is to take place in a few hours, and the players know the time and location of the strike - but not how it's going to be carried out.

Your players will plan, of course, but be sure to note that game time is passing. Start with a half-hour, saying "a half-hour has passed; the attack is going to take place in 2 1/2 hours." That should get them moving with the basic stuff. If not, count off every half-hour - being sure to note that it'll take at least a half hour to get to the location of the attack.
* * *

The trick is to remind your players that time is an issue. Even if there isn't a deadline like the above, putting things off for a day can really screw you over in Vampire. All it'll take is a few examples of that, and your players will be working a little faster.

Soniku
2008-10-26, 11:05 PM
Hmm, that could work. I have fears that the groups new reckless player could end up taking the initiative and doing something utterly silly but I'll have to try it out to see if that happens.

(I have a plethoria of horror stories about him but that's for another time)

Oracle_Hunter
2008-10-26, 11:08 PM
Hmm, that could work. I have fears that the groups new reckless player could end up taking the initiative and doing something utterly silly but I'll have to try it out to see if that happens.

(I have a plethoria of horror stories about him but that's for another time)

Reckless is good. He'll probably push the other players to go do something if you nudge him a little (like, with time passage), and they're probably thoughtful enough to keep him from being suicidal.

Bad comes to worse, you have a couple bloody encounters that should settle down the Reckless Guy a bit, but will have advanced the plot in the process.

elliott20
2008-10-26, 11:14 PM
I second the suggestion on putting the players on the clock.

Not so much that you would actually put down actual time or anything, but rather, you need to create a sense of urgency. i.e. they have information that says the killer is going to board a plane that will allow him to fly far out of their reach and they will no longer be able to track him. or maybe the killer is going to kill again, and they know who the target is.

then, after all is said and done, if they don't bother to kick into gear, let them fail, and let them reap the consequences of that failure.

Keep in mind though, you don't want to actually put down an actual number or some such or else at some point you will need to enforce it.

Soniku
2008-10-26, 11:18 PM
Unfortunately not. I don't even have to nudge him a little to send him off on a psychotic spree of blood and murder. For a quick example of how bad he can be, in the fantasy campaign I was running the party went up to a house in the middle of nowhere because... well, it was there. An oldish guy answered the door, he was the first to speak. "Hello, do you have any valuables?", he quickly got a gun pulled in his face, argued with the party a little before they decided to abandon him apart from one character and he got the door slammed in his face. He proceeded to attempt to boot down the door, get shot by the guy who had in the meantime moved upstairs to a window and was pretty terrified as some guy in razor bladed armour was trying to steal his things. This players last words were "Quick, break in, he's reloading!"

Okay, that's a very abridged version but the rest of the players tend to just ignore him and let him go off and kill things because they don't want to be associated with the randomly psychopathic idiot and would generally treat him like Belkar... only they don't care about the rest of the world enough to keep him on a leash. If I had more time to plan things with him he could have made a great villain, but whatever.

elliott20
2008-10-26, 11:25 PM
uhhh... that just sounds... I don't know... why do you game with this guy again?

Oracle_Hunter
2008-10-26, 11:26 PM
And that's why your encourage your fellow PCs to carry stakes :smalltongue:

No fooling - I once played a Brujah Vampire Hunter (a sick joke by his former prey) who had 3 dots in Potence so that he could auto-stake offending PCs :smallbiggrin:

Lemur
2008-10-27, 12:37 AM
If your players only come up with infeasible things, then maybe you could run a campaign where the only good solutions are the seemingly infeasible ones. A Malkavian as your primary antagonist might serve as the basis for this; or you could put them on the run, making it necessary for them to act in an unpredictable manner.

In any case, I'd advise being flexible in terms of how you respond to your players, and perhaps adopting a little bit of a "all paths lead to the same destination" philosophy. That is, if your players aren't responding to clues and only coming up with bizarre ideas, pick the one that you like best and let it accomplish something when it's implemented. What the players don't know yet can be bent if necessary.

Soniku
2008-10-27, 07:13 AM
uhhh... that just sounds... I don't know... why do you game with this guy again?

Because he turns up every week without fail and is a pretty awesome person, insanity aside :smalltongue:

hewhosaysfish
2008-10-27, 08:10 AM
I would advise a a degree of caution with the whole putting the players on the clock thing. If the players have just been throwing ideas around and their characters have not been researching things, making calculation or drawing up maps or diagrams then they may (justifiably imho) interpret their half hour of sitting around throwing ideas out as being a half hour of their characters sitting around throwing ideas out. They've been talking in character the whole time and if you declare that this half hour has taken all afternoonaftermidnight (damn vampires) then they may be a tad miffed: "What the hell?!", they cry ,"Have our characters been talking really slowly like Ents or something?!"
Especially if you then point out the because they've wasted a whole daynight the badguy is now closer to completing <insert evil plot here>. Then they may really feel like your picking on them.

If they are making preparations other than just talk then by all means feel free to tell them that it takes several hours to find the blueprints of the museum or whatever.

Solmage
2008-10-27, 08:45 AM
I have to disagree with hewhosaysfish, because frankly session time can't ever translate to in-game time on a 1:1 ratio. A gentle reminder of this should be enough to quell protests. "We have 4 hours of gaming time. During those 4 hours, at least 2 in-game days will pass, regardless of what you accomplish. So if you spend 4 hours planning, that just means you spend 2 days deliberating back and forth on what to do."

As for psycho-boy, make character creation more painful (FULL-blown GOOD background stories tied to stats and class to accept a character) and don't hesitate to kill him off every time he does something psychotic. He can spend most of the sessions planning a new level 1 character (should take him at least 4 hours to develop a nice bio that you'll accept) to have it all be lost within 10 minutes of psychotic behaviour. That should teach the merits of reasonable actions.

valadil
2008-10-27, 08:49 AM
I can sympathize with players who don't want to play a fantasy game where their problems are solved by using the phone book. They want something they can't do in real life. Give them something on a bigger scale.

Oslecamo
2008-10-27, 08:58 AM
It's the player's duty to mess up with the GM's plans.

This is, what's the fun of playing an RPG if you can't do crazy stuff? Contacting the mob boss FTW!

Oracle_Hunter
2008-10-27, 09:01 AM
I can sympathize with players who don't want to play a fantasy game where their problems are solved by using the phone book. They want something they can't do in real life. Give them something on a bigger scale.

Well, they are playing WoD - the fusion of the mundane and the fantastic is kind of a running theme.

That's why you have Magic Hackers, Werewolves on Cellphones, and Vampire Club Owners.

I think the scale is just right until they settle in to the campaign setting. Once they have some serious contacts, he can start revving up the scope of the adventures :smallamused:

valadil
2008-10-27, 09:05 AM
Oh I agree that WoD is a good setting for doing fantastic things with mundane tools. I'm just not sure if the players realize that that's the scope of the game. It's easy to overlook a cell phone as a resource if you're expecting to use magic to solve your problems.

Soniku
2008-10-27, 12:47 PM
I can sympathize with players who don't want to play a fantasy game where their problems are solved by using the phone book. They want something they can't do in real life. Give them something on a bigger scale.

I was planning to but that was the first puzzle of the first session and there were pretty much countless ways to do it. I have no problem with mundane or extrodinary solutions, it's my players completely unfeasable solutions after long periods of talking (Many ideas that would have worked were shot down, only for them to settle on the craziest they could)