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  1. - Top - End - #31
    Titan in the Playground
     
    KorvinStarmast's Avatar

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    Default Re: Disinterested Play

    Quote Originally Posted by Catullus64 View Post
    If it works, it works. My concern with implementing a similar system would be, aside from fears of evoking such mechanics in JRPGs, that it might therefore discourage actual, meaningful conflict between PCs. I don't think it'd be my way of going about it, but it's cool to know that someone's found a way to successfully bring this kind of play to the fore.
    My bard put on a concert in a major city that included no combat and no enemy: this was good fun. There was a reenactment of King Kong/Fay Wray (our halfling polymorphed into a giant ape) among other things. Good time was had by all.
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  2. - Top - End - #32
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    Default Re: Disinterested Play

    Quote Originally Posted by KorvinStarmast View Post
    My bard put on a concert in a major city that included no combat and no enemy: this was good fun. There was a reenactment of King Kong/Fay Wray (our halfling polymorphed into a giant ape) among other things. Good time was had by all.
    We had a similar circumstance in which the Bard and Sorcerer put on a light show using various spells to make up for the fact that the fireworks display stuff was stolen. (We did a 4th of July one-shot.) We proceeded to hunt down the culprits the following morning. Fun first!
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  3. - Top - End - #33
    Firbolg in the Playground
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    Default Re: Disinterested Play

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    I guess it depends on if you want to play a game, play a story, or play every moment of what your characters are doing. And various combinations of each.

    Interestingly, it seems like those most interested in playing out downtime are doing so because they're most interested living in their characters 'lives'. And those don't just stop because you're back in town restocking before the next expedition into the dangerous wilderness / dungeon. Especially if they're having a blast blowing their hard earned loot carousing and living it up like an aristocrat.

    In-so-far as personality based roleplaying goes, I'd much rather see what happens under stress. How is character personality affecting decisions, and even party interpersonal interactions and group decisions, where the metal meets the meat? And that stuff is out there in the adventure. (Even if "out there" = an urban adventure.)
    Hmmm… 8 kinds of fun, Expression?

    Now, I’m going to botch something I’ve heard said on the subject: if you’re normally laid-back, but one day you’re angry about something, that’s fine. But someone who’s never met you before is likely to walk away with the impression that you’re an angry person.

    Or my version of that, if you want to tell the story of someone beaten at their strength, first, you must establish that it’s a strength, show the character succeeding at it (“Kiss the Girls” being my go-to example thereof).

    Point is, how being forged in the fire changes someone cannot be shown unless you first establish a baseline that they’re changing from.

    And, personally, I like getting to know the other PCs, to notice when their actions are “out of character”.

    When things get bad, and my character gets really quiet, that only means something if you know that they’re normally more outgoing. More so, if “my character not making the joke you expected, and looking very serious” is the first sign you have that anything is amiss (“you’ve turned into such a fetching creature”).

    Quote Originally Posted by animorte View Post
    Yes, to both of these very much so. When I got Strixhaven, they gave a really neat perspective on how to approach a living world within. I’ve applied some of those concepts to my play ever since.
    I only saw / learned this existed yesterday. What can you tell me about it? Is it worth getting? Just for the “living world” bit?

    Quote Originally Posted by Easy e View Post
    I find "downtime play" really frustrating and boring, but love "disinterested play" where the players interact with each other. Confusing.

    Role-playing out a shopping trip in town? Boring as all heck to me. Role-playing what we are doing and talking about around the fire while resting? Super fun.

    The difference? No idea? The first is basically task management with a layer of role-playing to slow task resolution down. The second is pure role-playing and getting into character for no reason other than to be in character. No idea why one drives me nuts and the other doesn't.
    It’s common enough, that “X for its own sake” is much more enjoyable than “X as a detriment to Y”, but my hobbiest interest in psychology is insufficient to give it a name.

    And, while I agree with you / while my experience matches yours, I offer the counterpoint that roleplaying in combat doesn’t give me negative feedback. I suspect it’s the magnitude of the change: we could say “I pay to upgrade my sword from +1 to +2”, vs spending 15-30 minutes on a single player exchange. Compare to spending 30 minutes in combat, vs spending 35 minutes in combat, but with witty dialog, in-character choice of actions… and the chance that combat only took 15 minutes when the foes actually agreed to surrender due to our obviously superior banter skills.

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    For this type of play, I usually "make space" in my (mostly improvised) games by using a scene/sequel structure, cribbed from writing advice.

    Scene: "I am going to do <x>, do I succeed?"
    Sequel: "With the new information I learned in the scene, what do I do now?"

    By creating explicit sequels in a game, and making sure they're rooted in an actual place, you create the environment for "disinterested play" to occur, without actually putting anyone on the spot. You're allowing space without forcing it.

    That spot can be a bar, camp, whatever. It doesn't matter. Of course, that also works better if you're less linear in your game structure, since more linear game structures usually don't have the "okay what do we do" step as that's laid out one way or another.
    Are you saying, “reusing a setting piece can evoke roleplaying”? That’s as close as I can come to interpreting what you’ve said, and I’m not sure if I’m even in the right ballpark.

  4. - Top - End - #34
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

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    Default Re: Disinterested Play

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Are you saying, “reusing a setting piece can evoke roleplaying”? That’s as close as I can come to interpreting what you’ve said, and I’m not sure if I’m even in the right ballpark.
    No. I think it may help, but that's not what I was saying.

    I'm saying "if you create slower spots in the game where things are more 'decide what to do' than 'do it', and make sure they explicitly take place in a location vs. kind of glossing over that, then you create a fertile ground for this type of play, if you're interested in it. However, it doesn't force that."

    GM: "Okay, you've just defeated the bandits and returned to town. You have learned <xyz>. What do you do now?"
    Player: "Well, maybe we should...."
    GM: "Okay, so where are you having this conversation?"
    Player: "Um, I guess in the tavern?"
    GM: "Okay, cool. You're in the tavern at a corner table. There's an awful bard playing some sappy songs. It's a fairly busy night, though, and there's a lot of traffic...."

    It's a narrative lull, so nothing is on fire requiring players to DO NOW.
    It's a concrete location, so there's stuff to prompt roleplay.

    However, disinterested play is totally not required, and if the players just wanna talk over their plans, nothing is preventing that. It's actively supported (in that the GM is declaring stuff to prompt it or work off of, "hard edges" if you will), but it's in no way mandatory.

    (Passive support would, to me, just be like letting players decide to go to the tavern if they want to. "Requiring" would be stuff more like mechanical incentivization or even just forcing NPC interactions on them.)
    Last edited by kyoryu; 2022-12-05 at 04:32 PM.
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  5. - Top - End - #35
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Disinterested Play

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    I only saw / learned this existed yesterday. What can you tell me about it? Is it worth getting? Just for the “living world” bit?
    Most people have a concern with the ”power creep” anything Ravnica from what I’ve gathered. That aside, I personally think it’s worth it. I will admit I’m a fan of M:tG and Harry Potter, throw them both into my favorite game and I’m sold. Anyway, back on topic (sorry about that).

    The system is structured to include various jobs, extracurricular activities, and NPCs that you will meet in each one. Each of those NPCs will consistently be found in their own selection of jobs and extracurriculars. They also each have a character profile that includes these things as well as the results of what type of relationship you may develop with them. They call it a bond boon/bane… Here are some benefits or quite-the-opposite examples whether you are on their good or bad side.

    I love the UA Influence Action and how it is developed because of this.

    We’ve been talking a bit about it over here.
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  6. - Top - End - #36
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: Disinterested Play

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Compare to spending 30 minutes in combat, vs spending 35 minutes in combat, but with witty dialog, in-character choice of actions… and the chance that combat only took 15 minutes when the foes actually agreed to surrender due to our obviously superior banter skills.
    Yup. Finding ways to insert PC personality bits into "action scenes" is a great idea as well. It serves to spice things up a bit, but also has the benefit (mentioned earlier, but I can't remember by whom) that it establishes what "normal" is for a character in such a situation also, which might just be useful when/if some mind affecting spells are in use at some point. Yeah, bit more mechanical than true "out of action" situations, but still valuable and fun IMO.

    Your comment reminded me of a recent scenario where I was playing basically a roguish character whose religion is all about "being stylish" in an Errol Flynn kind of way (dashing swordsman type of thing). And yes, he actually has a "banter" skill. He was in a group of mixed power levels (something we do in our game), and while decently skilled, was definitely down near the bottom in terms of actual combat power level. Light (but stylish!) armor, using a rapier and main gauche for weapons. And we ran into the main baddie, who was a Wyrm. Er... Yeah. Even with someone else casting a decent protective spell on him, he was basically getting wiped by the occasional breath weapon, and more or less had zero chance of doing anything useful. After bravely trying to advance with the group, and getting hit with an attack that knocked him back to the starting point (we use reach rules, so some large critters like giants and dragonish things can often hit you for several rounds before you can work your way close enough to attack. Add in knockback rules, and attacking things like this can be a huge deal), I realized he was completely out of any healing, had fallen far behind everyone else, and would basically die if he continued.

    So he "bravely" took cover behind a wall (right next to someone's cat familiar who sensibly didn't even go into the room - yes, I'm dumber than a cat), and spent the rest of the battle occasionally casting some endurance boosting spells on folks (breath attack also drained fatigue) and made absolutely certain to roleplay the heck out of him "encouraging" everyone in the battle. Basically did a running dialogue of the battle, complete with "oohs, and ahhhs" as people got clawed, bitten, and tailed(?) and otherwise whacked and tossed around, shouting encouragement the whole time. It was amazingly fun, despite having very little actual effect on the battle. The rest of the group had fun as well, laughing along the way.

    So yeah, any opportunity to get a bit of "fun roleplay" in there helps IMO. My rule of thumb is that if I can't do anything effective in a round, roleplay your character being ineffective to the hilts. You know, just to remind the rest of the party that you are still there. Might come in handy when treasure divvying is happening. Or something. "Wait. Don't you remember how I single handedly instilled fighting spirit and bravery into the rest of the party during the battle? Why, if it wasn't for me helping direct the battle, we surely would have lost!"

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    GM: "Okay, you've just defeated the bandits and returned to town. You have learned <xyz>. What do you do now?"
    Player: "Well, maybe we should...."
    GM: "Okay, so where are you having this conversation?"
    Player: "Um, I guess in the tavern?"
    GM: "Okay, cool. You're in the tavern at a corner table. There's an awful bard playing some sappy songs. It's a fairly busy night, though, and there's a lot of traffic...."

    It's a narrative lull, so nothing is on fire requiring players to DO NOW.
    It's a concrete location, so there's stuff to prompt roleplay.
    Yup. That's a great idea. Give's players an opportunity to do some RP, without pushing it on them if they don't feel like it. IME, there are typically some players who love to take opportunities to do this sort of RP, and others who are always like "Let's get on to the next thing". This allows the former to kinda sneak some of that in, under cover of "we're discussing our plans". So serious folks can go back and forth on the next plans, while the RP folks can talk about whatever else they want to do while hanging out in the tavern.

    Though, with my regular group, it's a tossup between whether they'll boot the local bard and take over the nights entertainment, or just decide to start a rip raging barfight. Or both!

    And, at the risk of dipping back into "on focus" play, these situations can also be a great way as a GM to drop in "things for players to pursue". Don't want to do it all the time, otherwise the players will come to expect that "if we sit in a bar and play it out, something plot significant will happen", but I've been known to just roll with whatever the players decide to do and create some small little thing right on the spot from time to time. Maybe they spot a couple having an argument. If they intervene, maybe one of them decides to carry a grudge (and make up who/what that may involve). Perhaps they overhear the equivalent of Mr. Pink, Brown, and Blonde sitting around planning a heist. Or they notice the local protection payment pickup going on. None of these require the PCs to get involved at all, but they could choose to do so.

    And just to nullify this trope, I once had my party traveling through an otherwise uninteresting portion of a kingdom, where "nothing interesting is happening". So basically, they'd travel along the road, occasionally seeing other folks, but always just "normal folks doing normal things". And they'd stay at an Inn, but it was just a regular Inn with regular people. Made a huge point of "nothing interesting is happening". Oh... they tried to make interesting things happen, or discover interesting things, overhear interesting things, etc. But to no avail! It was actually fun having them roleplay in an environment where everything was just bland and boring, where the most interesting conversations were about the weather. And yes, after a point, they too started roleplaying how bland and boring everything was (pretty sure there was a chorus of Eeyore voice play going on at one point). I even invented a chain of Inns that were all exactly identical (and boring), just to mess with them more. To this day they still talk about "that boring area of <whatever kingdom>. Let's never go there again!", all while laughing about it.

  7. - Top - End - #37
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Disinterested Play

    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    Yup. Finding ways to insert PC personality bits into "action scenes" is a great idea as well. It serves to spice things up a bit, but also has the benefit (mentioned earlier, but I can't remember by whom) that it establishes what "normal" is for a character in such a situation also, which might just be useful when/if some mind affecting spells are in use at some point. Yeah, bit more mechanical than true "out of action" situations, but still valuable and fun IMO.
    Absolutely. I like seeing several people with experiences trying to incorporate their character’s personality and motivation into the active parts of the game.
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  8. - Top - End - #38
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: Disinterested Play

    As others have pointed out, "disinterested" isn't the best term. I think what you're going for is "free play." If you have some time (and haven't already seen it), I'd recommend this video from Folding Ideas.

    The relevant bits are from 1:34 to 18:00, but the whole video is frankly worth watching as a discussion of play priorities and gaming aids.

    Now that the semantics are out of the way, I love these scenes! Both in media and in gaming, they are some of my favorite scenes. I find them vital for characterization, audience engagement (the PCs in any non-streamed game), and establishing stakes.

    I'll point out that I tried to make space for this exact thing in my sci-fi pointcrawl. Relevant thread here. It did not go well; one of the commenters on that other thread (and on this one) mentioned that without very specific prompts, free play is very hard to roleplay. I think that if you want these scenes, you really, really need to lay the groundwork. Unless one of your players is willing to step up and have a scene together with another character, turning the PCs loose for free play typically results in them staring at you, unsure of what to do next.

    Spoiler: Wild Speculation
    Show
    I'm fully theorizing (as I've never been able to pull this off heretofore), but laying the groundwork in this context is dependent on what kind of scene you're looking to have.

    Do you want two PCs to have a scene and establish a bond? Might want to lay some groundwork by highlighting key background elements and letting the PCs know (outside of the game) that it's completely OK if they want to pull another player into a quick scene. For example, if you know that they have a connection via backstory, bring that up during play, then give them the opportunity to have that scene later on.

    If the players don't take the bait, that's fine; they've just let you know that free play isn't something they're interested in.

    Want them to invest in an NPC? That's even easier; the NPC can just approach the PC and have a conversation. I find that's usually easier, since waiting for players to interact with NPCs that aren't Plot Relevant (TM) can take *checks notes* never.


    I'm really interested in your experiences cultivating this kind of play, Catullus; let me know how you've pulled this off, 'cuz I need all the help I can get!

  9. - Top - End - #39
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    ElfWarriorGuy

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    Default Re: Disinterested Play

    Quote Originally Posted by Sparky McDibben View Post
    I'm really interested in your experiences cultivating this kind of play, Catullus; let me know how you've pulled this off, 'cuz I need all the help I can get!
    The closest I've come to having a consistent device to insert it was with my Bard/Rogue PC in a friend's 5e game. I like composing songs and poems in my spare time, so I wrote a whole bunch for this guy. Some of them were for his Bard spells, but most were just old stories, love songs, sailor's tunes, marching ditties, dirty epigrams, hymns to the setting deities. The other players were pretty much always cool with taking a break from whatever we were doing and listening to a song or poem. It really made the game feel kind of like The Lord of the Rings. The DM would start to ask me, in tavern or camp, if I had one to share, and it became a kind of cue for an interlude of this kind of play: the Fighter told war stories, the Cleric player invented daily rituals for his god, the Barbarian flexed his culinary muscles.

    But that's hardly generalizable! Not everyone likes writing songs and poems, and not everyone is going to have the same tolerence for them being.
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  10. - Top - End - #40
    Orc in the Playground
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    Default Re: Disinterested Play

    Quote Originally Posted by Pauly View Post
    My default setting as a player is disinterested play. I’m much more interested in my characters doing cool and cinematic things than achieving victory in the scenario. I am actively following the plot and I’m not doing stupid things for the lolz. It’s just that arriving in style is more important to me than getting to the destination.

    I used to be more hyper focussed on power curves, action efficiency and character optimization. When I was doing this I played very straight to the mission. I cane to the realization that this style of play wan’t actually fun for me
    I am exactly the same. Combat or lost of action is often boring compared to disinterested play.

    Sessions where there is almost no dice rolling can sometimes be the most memorable sessions

  11. - Top - End - #41
    Orc in the Playground
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    Default Re: Disinterested Play

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    Shenanigans during table time aren't what's being discussed in the OP though. It's taking table time to play out stuff that's normally during downtime, not during table time. That's far more than a little bit of time for something entertaining during normal play time. It entire extra scenarios the GM needs to add so this stuff can be played out, instead of being between session bookkeeping.
    Why would things like this "normally" be regulated to downtime? Often when one player has some solo social interaction, the rest of the party can do in character things that don't required a DM. Thing like chatting to each other, cooking a meal, gardening, getting drunk together etc.

  12. - Top - End - #42
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Planetar

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    Default Re: Disinterested Play

    Quote Originally Posted by Catullus64 View Post
    What features of game systems have you found to either encourage or discourage it?
    Having play with peoples full of "social anxiety or similar issues", I'd say that one major issues is to manage to keep enough separation between players and PCs for the players to still feel comfortable playing. A GM accepting and encouraging struggling players to rely on "narration" rather "talking", or even "third person narration" rather than "first person narration", can really help a lot.

    Another point is that if players are not interested in "down-to-earth" things like sharing meals, that doesn't mean you cannot find some similar scenes that capture their interest. They might react better to cartoon-like interactions, here is a few examples at our table :
    + one PC known to make pretty bad mistakes while being overhaul a great tactician outside of those huge blunders was immortalised in a painted portrait with him having an "Eureka !" moment while his advisors were having a facepalm.
    + another PC of royal bloodline had a very high rate of death of their bodyguard, which means that when bodyguard number 27 (or whatever its number was) actually survived a major confrontation he was generously rewarded.
    + there was a few moments where a PC and a rival NPCs were making assassination attempt against each other for fun (never serious ones)

    Obviously, that's not everyone's cup of tea. But the point is that even if players found a common interest in the more technical and "game" part of the game doesn't mean they communicated and harmonised with each others what they like and expect from the "roleplay" part of the game. And there are probably tables where while an agreement can be found for the former, tastes are too different to find an agreement on the latter.

  13. - Top - End - #43
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: Disinterested Play

    Quote Originally Posted by Mordante View Post
    Why would things like this "normally" be regulated to downtime? Often when one player has some solo social interaction, the rest of the party can do in character things that don't required a DM. Thing like chatting to each other, cooking a meal, gardening, getting drunk together etc.
    Because if this is done at the table, what happens more often than not is that the one player doing the solo social stuff and the GM are interacting, and the rest of the players are sitting around twiddling their thumbs wondering why they bothered to drive to game night, or log in to play. It's wasting their time. Unless you really do have a table completely full of players who just love sitting around just roleplaying their characters with each other (somewhat of a unicorn scenario in my experience), the rest of the players (or at least some of them) are going to feel left out.

    Players join games with GMs specifically to interact with and experience the GMs setting/adventure. That's why they signed up. As a GM, you need to be aware of this fact. They could just text each other (or zoom/skype/whatever) if they just want to interact amongst themselves. It's interaction with the GMs "world" that they're getting together to play for. The GM has to be extremely aware of this, and make any solo/offscreen stuff during play sessions very brief as a result.

    If a single player wants their character to go off and do something solo that requires the GMs interaction, that's a perfect scenario for that player to contact the GM, on their own, off table, off session, and have a conversation or side session where that play is conducted and resolved. Don't take time at the table during game time for this stuff. I strongly support this sort of play as a GM, and love when my players come to me with ideas of things they want to do, or conversations they want to have, basically going off and "doing something interesting". But yeah, I ask them to contact me during off play time to deal with it. Otherwise, it's that one player monopolizing the table game time. Which is often not terribly fun for the rest of the players.

    If something does come up during the game session that involves one PC interacting in some social way with an NPC or three and the GM is managing this, what I do is allow "table talk" (I actually always allow this). The rest of the players are "involved" in that they're watching the session and can talk player to player with the one actively involved. They can make suggestions (and sometimes snarkily give intentionally bad, but funny, advice) and otherwise kibitz along with the whole thing. This "involves" them, even if their own characters aren't directly involved. IMO, that's much better than just telling them to go sit by themselves and "go RP something".

  14. - Top - End - #44
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: Disinterested Play

    Quote Originally Posted by Catullus64 View Post
    Do you enjoy what I here term disinterested play? What value does it have to you? What features of game systems have you found to either encourage or discourage it?
    Hey Catullus, have you tried anything like this?

    https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress...gn-bluebooking

  15. - Top - End - #45
    Orc in the Playground
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    Default Re: Disinterested Play

    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    Because if this is done at the table, what happens more often than not is that the one player doing the solo social stuff and the GM are interacting, and the rest of the players are sitting around twiddling their thumbs wondering why they bothered to drive to game night, or log in to play. It's wasting their time. Unless you really do have a table completely full of players who just love sitting around just roleplaying their characters with each other (somewhat of a unicorn scenario in my experience), the rest of the players (or at least some of them) are going to feel left out.

    Players join games with GMs specifically to interact with and experience the GMs setting/adventure. That's why they signed up. As a GM, you need to be aware of this fact. They could just text each other (or zoom/skype/whatever) if they just want to interact amongst themselves. It's interaction with the GMs "world" that they're getting together to play for. The GM has to be extremely aware of this, and make any solo/offscreen stuff during play sessions very brief as a result.

    If a single player wants their character to go off and do something solo that requires the GMs interaction, that's a perfect scenario for that player to contact the GM, on their own, off table, off session, and have a conversation or side session where that play is conducted and resolved. Don't take time at the table during game time for this stuff. I strongly support this sort of play as a GM, and love when my players come to me with ideas of things they want to do, or conversations they want to have, basically going off and "doing something interesting". But yeah, I ask them to contact me during off play time to deal with it. Otherwise, it's that one player monopolizing the table game time. Which is often not terribly fun for the rest of the players.

    If something does come up during the game session that involves one PC interacting in some social way with an NPC or three and the GM is managing this, what I do is allow "table talk" (I actually always allow this). The rest of the players are "involved" in that they're watching the session and can talk player to player with the one actively involved. They can make suggestions (and sometimes snarkily give intentionally bad, but funny, advice) and otherwise kibitz along with the whole thing. This "involves" them, even if their own characters aren't directly involved. IMO, that's much better than just telling them to go sit by themselves and "go RP something".
    It really depends on the type of game I think. We exclusively play f2f, all of us sitting together. Not sure if any of the players in my group have/use Zoom or Skype outside of their professional environment. Currently I'm in 3 3.5 groups these are all friends groups, not sure if I would ever want to play RPGs with random strangers. All of the games are very sandbox games. The GM creates the world or setting and then it's up to the players to interact with the world. The GM can tell what is going on in the world hint at things the players can do but it it up to the players to act on them. In one group where we switch GMs once in a while the players decided they wanted to set-up a roof tile production site. To create a steady stream of income to pay for the adventures they want to do, to pay for local taxes and the personnel they have. I think we did 3 complete sessions on this, where to get clay, where to get potters, transport, design, testing.

    We certainly don't have combat every session.

    For me DnD is foremost an open world Role Playing Game, where characters can do what they want and the GM builds the world around them.

  16. - Top - End - #46
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Aug 2022

    Default Re: Disinterested Play

    Because I was responding to this statement:

    Quote Originally Posted by Mordante View Post
    Why would things like this "normally" be regulated to downtime? Often when one player has some solo social interaction, the rest of the party can do in character things that don't required a DM. Thing like chatting to each other, cooking a meal, gardening, getting drunk together etc.
    It's specific to "solo social interaction".

    Quote Originally Posted by Mordante View Post
    It really depends on the type of game I think. We exclusively play f2f, all of us sitting together. Not sure if any of the players in my group have/use Zoom or Skype outside of their professional environment. Currently I'm in 3 3.5 groups these are all friends groups, not sure if I would ever want to play RPGs with random strangers. All of the games are very sandbox games. The GM creates the world or setting and then it's up to the players to interact with the world. The GM can tell what is going on in the world hint at things the players can do but it it up to the players to act on them. In one group where we switch GMs once in a while the players decided they wanted to set-up a roof tile production site. To create a steady stream of income to pay for the adventures they want to do, to pay for local taxes and the personnel they have. I think we did 3 complete sessions on this, where to get clay, where to get potters, transport, design, testing.
    This is not solo social interaction. This is the entire table working together on something. Absolutely, that "something" does not at all have to be combat. But if something is only interacting with just one PC, and it's going to take more than a few minutes of time, it's something you should think about taking off table (or finding some way to get the rest of the players involved like I mentioned earlier).

    Maybe I misinterpreted what you were talking about, but when you use the words "solo social interaction", I think in terms of one player, playing one character (that's solo, right), off by themselves and roleplaying out a social interaction with an NPC. It could be negotiating for better terms on their tile business or something, but if that one player chooses to RP that 'In character" for an hour or so, and is in no way involving the rest of the players, then that's going to cause problems for everyone else.

    Hence why I suggested keeping such intereactions either short, or to involve the other players (even if just in active table talk), so that they don't get bored. So yeah, I'm not saying disallow this play, but structure it so that it has more of a group feel and "includes" the rest of the players in some way.

    What I'm tring to head off here is the occasional prima-dona type player (we've all seen this) who feels compelled to basically dramatically orate the equivalent of a couple acts from Richard III every time they are roleplaying "talking to the local innkeeper about the weather" or something. That sort of color can be super fun, but it gets old old old quick. Unless the rest of the players really just enjoy watching someone else do this (and sometimes they do!), the typical reaction is increasing annoyance and a desire to "get on to the part where something actually happens". It's a balance IMO. Too little of that color makes the game feel very stiff and mechanical and the characters are just stats on a sheet. Too much? Players get tuned out. And absolutely, the balance is going to be different depending on the makeup of the table. I don't think I've ever played with two different groups where the "feel" was exactly the same in this regard.

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