In article <46038469@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, tussock <scrub@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> It is frustrating for the /characters/, they're stuck for months
>watching their lives turned upside down unable to find any answers to
>these mysteries.
> It's fine for the /players/, we skip foward. We go over what's
>happened in their lives in whatever detail people are happy with (some
>can go on for ages getting into their characters lives, others just want
>an occaisional few words of summary), and get back to the game, one
>level up, better trained, better equipped, and a little more lived in.
Okay, that makes the style difference much clearer, thanks.
My group seems to have a lot more emotional spillover from characters to
players. If the characters are frustrated and unhappy, in general, the
players are too. We can "fast-forward" over the rough parts, but the more
of that we do, the less intense the enjoyment of the fun stuff becomes.
So I'd try hard to avoid scenarios that will make the PCs miserable and
frustrated for a year, especially if the players have any reason to think
that they could or should be doing better.
When I ran _Ars Magica_ games which absolutely demanded this kind of
pacing, I tried to make sure that the downtime pauses were *not*
"We're stuck, we're frustrated, we can't accomplish anything" but
instead "We've set matters in motion and now it's natural to wait until
they're ready." The PCs train a milita force to take on the
Winterfolk, but it won't march until Spring when the p***** are clear
of snow and the Winterfolk have less of an advantage. Then the player
can comfortably think about the PCs' lives, and not constantly "Should
I be doing something else? Is there an angle we haven't tried yet?"
If you're not angling for that identification of player and character,
this stops being a problem, and I can see how interrupting
a scenario between hook and resolution would be much more feasible.
Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
|
