Balancing a Game Session: Conversation vs Action

[muranternet]

I just ran my first GURPS session since about twelve years ago or so, and it went pretty well, I think. We played over Skype/MapTool, and it went about 5 hours or so. Typical of my GURPS sessions, I let the players drive a lot of the story via conversation with each other and NPCs, and I happen to know pretty good players. We had to stop just before a big fight was about to take place, like literally as I was setting up the field, because a player had to go to bed; no problem, I just saved the campaign file and we scheduled a followup.

Now, the party didn't actually accomplish that much in traditional RPG terms (i.e. tallying up treasure recovered [0], maidens rescued [0], and mysteries solved [0.4]), but seemed to have a good time while the game was running due to the interaction. Afterwards they said they liked the session but thought they didn't actually get very far (whatever that means in an RPG).

As a GM where do you draw a line, if at all, on balancing character interaction and goofy RP stuff vs chopping up bad guys and grabbing boxes full of experience points? If the conversation is funny and interesting, I tend to let it run as I'm enjoying it too damn much, and it allows me to stretch as well and play off the characters' weird ideas (real or not) and interactions to drive the narrative in a logical direction. But maybe I fall too far in that direction and lose track of accomplishing missions and such for the party. I just want to know where everyone else falls in.

[mlangsdorf]

I've ran as many as three straight talking/investigation sessions in a row before the players said, "next session, we're going to find something and kill it." My experience is that people will tell you if there's too much talk. You need to listen if there's too much combat, though.

[Victor Maxus]

These days, we play four to five hour sessions, and have any form of combat once every two or three sessions. We are old now, and we like the whole role playing, character development, PC and NPC interaction, figuring out the story line, giving play time for characters to develop their own story line things to do. This has become our focus, along with the fact we run low point campaigns, including 25 point and 50 point settings.

The fights are rare, but since you get a feel for who each character, including the NPC's and the enemies, each combat has more meaning when it does occur. If a favorite NPC is critically wounded in a fight, it is no longer a generic guy who was tossed out there to fill space, it is the guy who helped you fix your broken wagon wheel, or the guy you have a few drinks with after working the fields, or the guy whose kids have taken a liking too and so forth. Now when he is down and hurt, you try to do more to keep him alive, you do more before a fight to make sure every one will be safe, you actually try to avoid fights so you won't endanger buddies and pals.

The same can be said for the enemies as well. A lot of times enemies just include that jerk of a guy you can't stand, and a fist fight can happen, and since he caused you so much grief in the social interaction phase, it just feels good to deck him. Other times you get to know the nice side of an enemy, you kind of feel for him, but he still works for the bad guy, so having to kill him in a fight can be a bit of a trouble.

So, fights are rare in our setting, but when they happen, because of all the conversation and social interaction, each fight is that much more meaningful. But I do caution, we are all 20 year plus GURPS players and 25 plus in any RPG setting. This many appeal to us because of years of playing the action based style just wore thin, and the change of pace is what we are looking for. The answer for the balance lies there, what do you and your players want. Tone towards what works best for you.

[Kromm]

I've run entire adventures that were basically talk interspersed with nonviolent skill rolls. I don't think that pure action is necessary for anything but an action-adventure campaign . . . with my players. To get the right balance for yours, ask them!

[muranternet]

I suppose the question was phrased wrong; not so much combat/noncombat, but sort of characters interacting versus "doing adventure stuff." As in, "Let's make fun of each others' ridiculous ideas and play out our personalities" versus "Time to grab this box of pencils and deliver it to the duke." I tend to run campaigns as a freeform, with a lot of open ended possibilities, so I don't mind so much personally when the plot stalls a bit for the sake of funny interactions, but I have been in groups as a player where a GM had "an adventure" prepared, and seemed to get annoyed if it looked like we weren't going to get through "an adventure" in the allotted time frame. Since GURPS tends to be more open and mutable than other systems, I have to assume that GURPS GMs tend to run a wider gamut in style as well.

[pyratejohn]

I believe players like to have a sense of accomplishment at the end of the session. The trick is discovering what gives each player that feeling, and allowing them to experience that during play. For some, character interaction is what it is all about. Others get satisfaction from advancing the storyline. The former tend to slow the pace for the latter, so I try to pay close attention to the in-game chatter and after-game comments to get a sense of everyone's feelings on the pace of the game, and speed things up or slow things down a bit as necessary. There may be times when the pace of the session is slow, but if you can end it with a bang or a cliffhanger, chances are that's what the players are going to remember most.

[Victor Maxus]

Originally Posted by muranternet

I suppose the question was phrased wrong; not so much combat/noncombat, but sort of characters interacting versus "doing adventure stuff." As in, "Let's make fun of each others' ridiculous ideas and play out our personalities" versus "Time to grab this box of pencils and deliver it to the duke." I tend to run campaigns as a freeform, with a lot of open ended possibilities, so I don't mind so much personally when the plot stalls a bit for the sake of funny interactions, but I have been in groups as a player where a GM had "an adventure" prepared, and seemed to get annoyed if it looked like we weren't going to get through "an adventure" in the allotted time frame. Since GURPS tends to be more open and mutable than other systems, I have to assume that GURPS GMs tend to run a wider gamut in style as well.

Ditto on my first response. A lot of this social and character interaction we do is based on what the PLAYERS want, not what I want. Just like you, I run a very loose adventure line, allowing characters to dictate the general course of events. I have main goals out there they should work towards achieving, but if they come up with other things they want to do, I let it go.

Some Examples

A player, who is a poor peasent, trying to get money to buy gifts for the girl he has a crush on, then trying to get to a major trade center to buy those gifts. (Closest one is two days walk away)

Another player trying to make payments on a fishing boat he purchased and getting some people in the village to help him crew it so he can go out on fishing trips to make money (they live on the border of the vast wilderness, it can be dangerous out there fishing)

Two players are a couple of Don Juans, trying to seduce the ladies, and always competing with each other in this category. Third player is a bit of a social and gentleman type of a person, always stepping in to either stop them from over doing it, or bailing them out when they make a pass at the wrong person at the wrong time. (One of them tried to seduce the wife of the local Earl, not smart)

And the list can go on, there is the hunter trying to establish himself as the local guide, the various tavern games they like to get drunk and enter, the festivals around the kingdom they like to attend and see what they can get out of it, so on and so on. All of this are the players ideas, not mine. They are developing their characters, and most of our time is spent doing this. Thus, as I said in my previous post, when a fight or serious adventure plot point comes up, it is that much more meaningful because of the extra time they put into it. So, yes, go ahead, goof around some, but if the players want to get back on task, let them. It seems you may have to do it like I do it, just go with the flow and have fun with it.

[Phaelen Bleux]

Originally Posted by muranternet

I suppose the question was phrased wrong; not so much combat/noncombat, but sort of characters interacting versus "doing adventure stuff." As in, "Let's make fun of each others' ridiculous ideas and play out our personalities" versus "Time to grab this box of pencils and deliver it to the duke." I tend to run campaigns as a freeform, with a lot of open ended possibilities, so I don't mind so much personally when the plot stalls a bit for the sake of funny interactions, but I have been in groups as a player where a GM had "an adventure" prepared, and seemed to get annoyed if it looked like we weren't going to get through "an adventure" in the allotted time frame. Since GURPS tends to be more open and mutable than other systems, I have to assume that GURPS GMs tend to run a wider gamut in style as well.

I played in a campaign with 4 PCs in a spaceship who did not much more than rattle around the ship and roleplay PC interactions. It was a lot of laughs and fun--I guess compare it to "Seinfeld"--the TV show "about nothing" (and yet always about something, as well as entertaining for many).

As long as I'm having an evening of fun, what happens with the storyline is moot.

[whswhs]

Really, the standard of "right" and "wrong" is "what's appropriate to the audience"—and that means your particular audience, not some generic audience for a typical GURPS session. GURPS is flexible and adaptable to different needs of different audiences. The important thing is to know what your players want, and to recruit players who want the sort of campaign you want to run and are good at running.

My players aren't your players, so what suits them wouldn't necessarily suit yours.

I can tell you, though, that it's perfectly possible to run a session that's all conversation and character interaction. My first GURPS campaign had only two scenes with combat rolls in two years. Part of it was encountering alien races and bureaucracies and buying and selling; part of it was the internal interactions of the PC crew of the ship. Eventually I had one of the alien races offer a young member as a trainee member of the crew, and interaction with him became a subtheme of the campaign.

The big division, I think, is between episodic and continuous narrative (or in musical terms, stanzaic versus through-composed): Does each session constitute a unit that has to present a complete action, or does all the action carry forward from session to session, with each session ending when you run out of time or reach a good temporary stopping point? Continuous narrative is much more likely to allow "nothing happens" sessions.

On the other hand, you should remember the mystery writer who said that when he didn't know what would happen next, he had a couple of guys with machine guns come in the door.

Bill Stoddard

[muranternet]

Thanks for all replies; we had the second session tonight and it seems to be running pretty well. I'll just play it by ear as to plot progression. The first few sessions for me are always a bit more scripted, as the players don't know enough about the situation in the world to effectively dictate the direction of the plot, so all this advice should serve well once we get more into the "So what to you want to do now?" phase of the campaign.