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Nate Whittington's avatar

I think it's less about speed and more about pacing, yeah?

Like a GM needs to be able to read the table and understand when the players want to take it slower or when they're starting to drift and need a metaphorical gun on the table.

Similar to your con game that was painfully slow, I've had a game where the GM was basically huffing and puffing because the PCs were having a moment to reflect on an avoidable tragedy involving an NPC and the GM was worried we "weren't going to get as far as he wanted us to", which ended up being a pretty mediocre fight if I recall.

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Matt Strom's avatar

I agree in most cases - the more that happens and the more meaningful choices the players make, the more fun.

But almost nothing happened in one of my most memorable sessions. Previously, the party had killed a medusa and un-stoned the centuries-old imperial crown prince of a nearby empire. The party decided to take him back to the capital and support his bid for the throne. As they talked to him this session, though, they discovered he held some particularly loathsome old beliefs.

Most of the session was a long debate over whether they should cash in this meal ticket for the good life or kill him and prevent a lot of potential misery. It ended with a quick knife in his sleep. Not a single dice roll. I just sat back and listened to my players talk.

Now, a session like this wouldn't fly at a convention. But you can have a killer time despite nothing much happening for the characters. The poison is when nothing much happens for the players.

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