Quote from: Old Geezer;811135And even if it's a sandbox game, if the game has reached the point where "let's go talk to the Baron" is what the players want to do, somebody saying "I'm going to go over here and talk to this peasant slopping the latrine instead" indicates something isn't working right.

I wouldn't say things aren't working right just because someone wanted to chat with the piss boy for a moment. If there are six characters in the group and at least half of them are going to speak to the baron, I don't see anything wrong with some others perhaps wanting a perspective from people in less elevated places.

Lowly working class people and children are often treated as if they aren't there by some high born folk. This sometimes puts them in positions to see and hear things that may be valuable to know. Players seeking information from such people are showing a genuine interest in things and attempting to gather intelligence from multiple sources. To me, that means things are working just fine.

The Stagecraft advice is spot on in this respect: what holds your attention gets the more detail.

Basically it is a question about relevance. That which the PCs spend the most face-time with holds the highest relevance. This is beyond what should versus what did hold attention. The shift can happen on campaign demands, but that's another concern.

In a structured adventure there are competing demands of relevance, one for the adventure's main arc, and another for the player's current interest. In a structured campaign (domain mgmt, mission based, guided sandbox, etc.), again it pulls between what GM wants to run and PC interest. This spectrum continues on into a completely freeform sandbox where the GM steps back and is only interested in the player's interest (and thus free to worry about the latrine boy's daily life).

Regardless of the manner of competing tensions, that central stagecraft advice holds for each.

Quote from: AndrewSFTSN;811182Do you reckon that's always true?  What if the Baron was seen by that random guard in a poor disguise consorting with ladies of the night instead of the Baroness?  My players often try to talk to the "window dressing" for some info from the common man while still moving the scene forward...at least I think that's what they're doing.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;811221I wouldn't say things aren't working right just because someone wanted to chat with the piss boy for a moment. If there are six characters in the group and at least half of them are going to speak to the baron, I don't see anything wrong with some others perhaps wanting a perspective from people in less elevated places.

Lowly working class people and children are often treated as if they aren't there by some high born folk. This sometimes puts them in positions to see and hear things that may be valuable to know. Players seeking information from such people are showing a genuine interest in things and attempting to gather intelligence from multiple sources. To me, that means things are working just fine.

It would be lovely if the players I'm thinking of would say something like "I'm going to talk to the linkboy to see who he's escorting from whom's chambers at night," or the like.  That would be lovely.

Instead, I'm talking about "You've been announced and you move forward and approach the Baron" and one player suddenly says "I'm going to go over there and talk to somebody else."  Not "I'm going to go over to the pillar and talk to the captain of the guard"; sometimes it's even "I'm going to go talk to somebody else."  Um... and what do you think the Baron and his court will think of this major insult?  "Waah waah waah, you said we could do whatever we wanted."

The process of only playing with people who share your vision of fun is a neverending refining process.

tl;dr If your idea is "talk to the servants and see what dirt's out there," say so; do not suddenly break the action in the middle of a scene about something totally different.

Quote from: Old Geezer;811303It would be lovely if the players I'm thinking of would say something like "I'm going to talk to the linkboy to see who he's escorting from whom's chambers at night," or the like.  That would be lovely.

Instead, I'm talking about "You've been announced and you move forward and approach the Baron" and one player suddenly says "I'm going to go over there and talk to somebody else."  Not "I'm going to go over to the pillar and talk to the captain of the guard"; sometimes it's even "I'm going to go talk to somebody else."  Um... and what do you think the Baron and his court will think of this major insult?  "Waah waah waah, you said we could do whatever we wanted."

The process of only playing with people who share your vision of fun is a neverending refining process.

tl;dr If your idea is "talk to the servants and see what dirt's out there," say so; do not suddenly break the action in the middle of a scene about something totally different.

Ah.  Indeed the search for better players is forever ongoing.

Quote from: Old Geezer;810265Watch movies and plays.

Who are your NPCs?  The world should be full of them.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard was "Every character in a scene wants something, and each one is going to try to move the scene in a direction that gets them closer to what they want."  Now, the messenger may only want to deliver her message so she can leave and go have a quiet drink and a smoke somewhere, but that's what she wants and she's going to try to move things that way.

Et cetera.  Just think in terms of "what do these people want and how can they move towards those things?"

Aka motivations. Really important.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;810262One of my ongoing challenges as a GM is "filling out scenes." That is, players typically do a few things, and there are a couple of rolls, and then I'm often at a loss. When other GMs have run things for me there's a lot more interaction in their scenes, and they're more vivid, and they definitely take a little longer.

Given that I'd like to encourage more interesting, richer scenes, with more things for the characters to interact with (where they might be overcoming some obstacles or exploring) and more dialogue (where there are NPC's)?

What are your system-agnostic tips for getting better at this?

Well, first and foremost, make sure you create a clear mental image for yourself of the place the PCs are. Think of the things that are there; don't necessarily describe absolutely everything (there can be such a thing as too much information for the players), but keep in mind what's present, in case there's something that they may be inspired to interact with.

As for NPCs, keep in mind that everyone in your virtual world should be a fully-fleshed out person.  I call this the "Cast of Thousands", and so it means that while you don't necessarily have to think out the life story of every background NPC beforehand, you should trust your instinct in terms of just what an NPC might say, do or act like in reaction to the PCs.  Sometimes, some idea might just jump out at you from out of nowhere; that's when you know you're creating a living world, and you should trust that.  Don't be afraid to suddenly let an NPC, from something crazy that jumps into your head, suddenly become more than just a two-second interaction with a PC.  I've had at least a couple of NPCs that ended up starting out as being background nobodies for a single scene and through this process suddenly ending up being important recurring characters in the entire campaign.