Quote from: Future Villain Band;606320I don't want irrelevant -- even things that are off the map or unpredictable should matter, should be interesting, and should be relevant.

Sometimes relevancy only becomes obvious after the event has happened. You, sir, give every indication you expect an adventure to be like a story in that events are carefully planned out before the adventure occurs. Now if an RPG adventure really were like a story, then your concerns would be valid. But since an adventure is far more like what goes on in real life---with more than its share of bloodshed and excitement, then you will get events that occur out of the blue and sometimes present you with diversions and detours.

To put it another way, the baby decides when it gets born.

Quote from: mythusmage;606323Sometimes relevancy only becomes obvious after the event has happened. You, sir, give every indication you expect an adventure to be like a story in that events are carefully planned out before the adventure occurs. Now if an RPG adventure really were like a story, then your concerns would be valid. But since an adventure is far more like what goes on in real life---with more than its share of bloodshed and excitement, then you will get events that occur out of the blue and sometimes present you with diversions and detours.

To put it another way, the baby decides when it gets born.

As a GM, if players lead me somewhere unexpected, I have no problem -- they led me there, it's clearly something they want (or are at least signaling that it's something they want me to take a shot at.)  OTOH, I don't just throw random, irrelevant stuff at the wall and see if they bite, unless it's specific plot hooks.

There's an excluded middle here where I think most people actually play and GM, where the unexpected happens but it's fairly on-point.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;606322I hold the belief that my time is at a premium and I'd prefer not to spend it mired in GM wankery.  My problem is with you casting these unplanned events as "useless and irrelevant."  If they're useless and irrelevant, then I need them to be really interesting, or else they might be a waste of my time.  

You seem to be bemoaning the fact that PCs get from A to B with no side-paths and jump right into the adventure with nothing happening on the road to it, but unless there's a very good reason not to jump into the adventure -- or I'm not playing in a hex-mapped sandbox -- I don't necessarily need to get lost in the woods or have the runs because I ate the wrong fruit or deal with a handful of bandits.  Unless it's interesting, I want to wave that off.  If it is interesting, it's probably not just being lost, getting the runs, or dealing with Bandit 1, 2, and 3.

I have a valid reason for distractions and detours in the course of an adventure; shit happens. I agree with lackluster portrayals and presentations on the part of a GM, but that doesn't negate the fact that shit happens. you can't avoid it.

You are not in a grand epic that circles about you, RPGs are not a story. Things take place by happenstance, and there is fuck all you can do about it. A GM who allows himself to get excited, and to express that excitement, is what is needed here, not some metagaming limitation on behavior and events that leaves participants with a restricted view of the setting.

To put this another way, you are like the farmhand with the brand new coveralls, who won't let them get dirty by doing his chores.

Quote from: mythusmage;606326I have a valid reason for distractions and detours in the course of an adventure; shit happens. I agree with lackluster portrayals and presentations on the part of a GM, but that doesn't negate the fact that shit happens. you can't avoid it.

You are not in a grand epic that circles about you, RPGs are not a story. Things take place by happenstance, and there is fuck all you can do about it. A GM who allows himself to get excited, and to express that excitement, is what is needed here, not some metagaming limitation on behavior and events that leaves participants with a restricted view of the setting.

To put this another way, you are like the farmhand with the brand new coveralls, who won't let them get dirty by doing his chores.

Like I said its a play style choice.

If you are doing an exploration game and everyone buys into that premise then fine.
The hobbit is a classic quest game the travelling from A to B is the point of it. I have played plenty of games like that but I wouldn't expect that to happen if I am playing a game of James Bond 007, or a Superhero game or ... see its about the game group decideing what sort of game they want to play and participating in that sort of game/story.

So there is no point getting high and mighty and saying my way of playing is more authentic or more real or more fun or more adventurous, or that Future Villain Band is playing wrong because he doesn't want to do the things you enjoy doing.
For soem games explorign the woods and getting lost is great, The Blair Witch RPG woudl be pretty shit without the getting lost in the woods part right but likewise always getting lost in the woods with what whatever game you are playing woudl be daft.

Quote from: mythusmage;606326I have a valid reason for distractions and detours in the course of an adventure; shit happens. I agree with lackluster portrayals and presentations on the part of a GM, but that doesn't negate the fact that shit happens. you can't avoid it.

You are not in a grand epic that circles about you, RPGs are not a story. Things take place by happenstance, and there is fuck all you can do about it. A GM who allows himself to get excited, and to express that excitement, is what is needed here, not some metagaming limitation on behavior and events that leaves participants with a restricted view of the setting.

To put this another way, you are like the farmhand with the brand new coveralls, who won't let them get dirty by doing his chores.

You don't really talk like this, do you?  I mean, I'm being punk'd, right?  There's a hidden camera, filming me reading your posts and my growing incredulous face that somebody just used a metaphor about farmhands and coveralls and chores without a hint of irony.  

I mean, you have brought a smile to my face, don't get me wrong, but seriously, this isn't how you talk.  C'mon, say something normal.  It can even be an attempt to insult me, like the farmhand thing.  Just say it normal, don't do that thing with the tone and the voice like you're channeling dead crazy people.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;606320As for your other question, the troll scene exists because we need some way to demonstrate that Bilbo is braver and more adventurous than he thinks, but not as good as he needs to be, serving as a contrast with the Mirkwood spiders later on.  It's character illustrating and a moment of failure.  He approaches the trolls and tries to sneak past them and steal their money, but he's caught.  This, in turn, leads to a moment of danger to liven up the trip, putting the dwarves at risk, which in turn leads to Gandalf having a moment where we see exactly what kind of wizard he is -- outwitting the trolls with minor trickery rather than acting as a showy and overwhelming force.

Basically, it illustrates key points about Bilbo and Gandalf as well as serves to arm the party with the retrieved weaponry.

And this is the problem with arts rather than solid subjects like science or engineering, your interpretation while perfectly valid is no more or less valid than any of the following:

• It illustrates what kind of a novel this is: there's going to be danger and the threat of death, but there is always also an edge of humor to the action.
• Bert, Tom, and Bill also provide a good warm-up for Bilbo to get to know what the risks of his burglar job might involve before he actually has to face the real challenge of the goblins in the Misty Mountains.
• It served to give them three important weapons: Thorin's sword Orcrist, Gandalf's sword Glamdring, and Bilbo's long knife, which he calls Sting. These blades all come from the elves' wars with the goblins many ages ago, so they glow in the dark when goblins are near.
• Tolkien sat down after writing his book and decided it was a bit thin on the pagecount so bulked it out with a few twists and turns. Even if he was around to ask about it you'd never know if he was telling the truth or not since the scene can be so liberally interpreted.

I guess its one of those (pretty much any) arts subjects where someone can become an expert in five minutes of googling or less. Still rather than the endless wrangling which typically entails I don't think we're that much in disagreement. The main partly spoken issue is whether or not the GM is good enough to be able to catch curveballs and run with them, and that knack pretty much comes with the job, or it should do.

That if you like is the real development of great stories, incidentally or otherwise, where the PCs persevere in the face of increasingly stubborn odds - the GM then makes it fun.

Quote from: mythusmage;606274GM: An attitude like that makes your surprise roll an automatic failure, as the horde of pygmy kobolds comes rushing out of the trees waving trinkets for purchase.

GM: Oh, you don't appreciate my GAME WORLD, player BITCH??

GM: TASTE ME FIATS!!

GM: No rolls for you!  I don't care if you're a ranger, he's an elf and between the two of you looking out for trouble in general you are still surprised, my kobold merchants betray you, all hit and you die.

That's why dice rolls are better than mad GMs deciding what is good for their "story".

Quote from: The Traveller;606445I guess its one of those (pretty much any) arts subjects where someone can become an expert in five minutes of googling or less. Still rather than the endless wrangling which typically entails I don't think we're that much in disagreement. The main partly spoken issue is whether or not the GM is good enough to be able to catch curveballs and run with them, and that knack pretty much comes with the job, or it should do.

That if you like is the real development of great stories, incidentally or otherwise, where the PCs persevere in the face of increasingly stubborn odds - the GM then makes it fun.

Yeah, please note I'm not saying that GMs shouldn't run with curveballs or that unexpected things that aren't explicitly planned for should be verboten.  I don't even think random encounters or long stretches of being lost should be banned from every game.  I think they have their place, but I don't want them in every game, and when they do show up, I kind of want to know in advance that just getting lost for two sessions on the road to Damascus is a possibility.  And even that's simply my preference, rather than anything I believe should be universal RPG law.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;606272What is the game about?  I mean, when I play D&D, I'm signing up to kill dragons, not get lost in the woods.  In the same way I don't have to roleplay out my quarterly review by J. Jonah Jameson unless it's important to the plot

Quote from: Future Villain Band;606306Sure, or if that's what I've bought in for.  If I play a horror game centering around a Danielewski-space, exploraton and getting lost is part of the story.  A game set in a massive wood where the PCs are rangers might have a whole story set around getting lost.  

I am speaking of roleplaying games. Plots independent of ones belonging to PCs or NPC entities do not exist.

There may be Baron Whatshisface's plot to assassinate his rival or the evil High Priest of Cornholio's plot to sacrifice enough innocents to summon his patron demon.  There ain't no such thing as THE plot. That would be storywanking not roleplaying.

As events unfold in an rpg, they automatically become part of the PCs' story. Getting lost, slaying a dragon, losing a game of strip poker to a tavern wench, are all part of the ongoing story in an adventurer's life. To exclude possibilities of any of that happening is to preordain, in part the life of a PC.

I don't play rpgs to get told what happens and roll dice at what the GM thinks are appropriate dramatic points. Fuck that, I can read fiction away from the gaming group.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;607482I am speaking of roleplaying games. Plots independent of ones belonging to PCs or NPC entities do not exist.

There may be Baron Whatshisface's plot to assassinate his rival or the evil High Priest of Cornholio's plot to sacrifice enough innocents to summon his patron demon.  There ain't no such thing as THE plot. That would be storywanking not roleplaying.

As events unfold in an rpg, they automatically become part of the PCs' story. Getting lost, slaying a dragon, losing a game of strip poker to a tavern wench, are all part of the ongoing story in an adventurer's life. To exclude possibilities of any of that happening is to preordain, in part the life of a PC.

I don't play rpgs to get told what happens and roll dice at what the GM thinks are appropriate dramatic points. Fuck that, I can read fiction away from the gaming group.

Second! Call for vote.

Quote from: mythusmage;606319The trouble with random events is that certain people see no purpose in them, so when they happen these people present them poorly and in a way that discourages or boors the players. There is no such thing as a boring encounter, only boring GMs. Run with verve and vigor that woman with a load of laundry down by the riverside can be an exciting encounter.

As I blogged last week, if your random encounters suck, you're probably doing it wrong.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;606322You seem to be bemoaning the fact that PCs get from A to B with no side-paths and jump right into the adventure with nothing happening on the road to it, but unless there's a very good reason not to jump into the adventure -- or I'm not playing in a hex-mapped sandbox -- I don't necessarily need to get lost in the woods or have the runs because I ate the wrong fruit or deal with a handful of bandits.  Unless it's interesting, I want to wave that off.  If it is interesting, it's probably not just being lost, getting the runs, or dealing with Bandit 1, 2, and 3.

In my game, any adventure where you go from point A to point B involves in-game traveling. I describe the landscape, and introduce obstacles, dangers, and interesting locales for colour. If you set off for the distant mountains to find a dragon lair, and the GM immediately says "okay, you're at the mountains - what do you do?", there's no sense of the mountains being distant. Of it being a real hardship rife with danger just to reach the mountains.

Take Lord of the Rings. The Fellowship set off for the Anduin via Redhorn Pass. But shit happens. Crebain, snowstorms, wolves (in the book), etc. Because getting there is half the challenge. And it brings the world alive.

The geography Frodo and Sam traverse on their way to Mordor is a key part of the story. It shows how the land is getting increasingly dark and dangerous. The journey is the adventure. That doesn't mean it's a hex-crawl. This isn't aimless exploration. It's a straight-line journey with a clear destination. But skipping the travelling part diminishes the destination.

Quote from: Haffrung;608130The geography Frodo and Sam traverse on their way to Mordor is a key part of the story. It shows how the land is getting increasingly dark and dangerous. The journey is the adventure. That doesn't mean it's a hex-crawl. This isn't aimless exploration. It's a straight-line journey with a clear destination. But skipping the travelling part diminishes the destination.

Absolutely. Look what you have for an adventure if you skip the travel parts and just say: " Ok Frodo, after a long and perlious journey you are at Mt. Doom. Do throw the ring in or what?"

Ok we have a nice 15 minute adventure assuming Gollum shows up (out of thin air since there is no context to his presence). I suppose we flash forward back to the Shire to handle the scouring. :rolleyes: