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Old 12-11-2021, 04:38 AM   #1
Chris Rice
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: London Uk, but originally from Scotland
Default How you personally play adventures

For those of you who regularly play, a question. If you are playing a dungeon adventure (for instance) do you play the entire adventure using the strict turn sequence and movement rules or do you slot in and out as the action happens?

If the former, doesn’t this make play quite tedious as the players traverse the empty parts of the dungeon? Obviously Death Test did away with the intervening portions but most adventures won’t be like that.

If the latter, when do you decide to slot back in to the strict strict rules and how do you determine where the players are at the start of the action?

Looking forward to your ideas.
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Old 12-11-2021, 07:03 AM   #2
phiwum
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
Default Re: How you personally play adventures

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Rice View Post
For those of you who regularly play, a question. If you are playing a dungeon adventure (for instance) do you play the entire adventure using the strict turn sequence and movement rules or do you slot in and out as the action happens?

If the former, doesn’t this make play quite tedious as the players traverse the empty parts of the dungeon? Obviously Death Test did away with the intervening portions but most adventures won’t be like that.

If the latter, when do you decide to slot back in to the strict strict rules and how do you determine where the players are at the start of the action?

Looking forward to your ideas.
I definitely use turns only when necessary.

When an encounter is imminent, I have the players place their pieces on the board. I direct them to place them with the lead figure in a particular megahex. Then I place the nasties (if they can be seen). I might have the player move one turn walking before the nasties attack if they haven't been seen immediately.

The biggest issue I have isn't when to go to turns, but when approaching figures should be seen (outdoors). That can be tricky. A flying figure can be seen quite far away in most circumstances, often too far for even my quite large maps. For the sake of game play, there's a pressure to make the sighting relatively close.
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Old 12-11-2021, 07:51 AM   #3
Shostak
 
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Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: New England
Default Re: How you personally play adventures

My groups (not just TFT) use maps and combat-length rounds only when necessary. There are some sessions that run two or three hours without anything but role playing, and at other times, elaborate tactical action will run for a couple of sessions, and still other that bounce between the two a few times in the same duration.

When popping into tactical mode, I explain the features of the map, let the players place their characters within a designated zone, and tell them what their characters can see/hear/etc.

We exit tactical mode when there is no longer a compelling reason to stay in it—usually a threat has been removed or evaded.
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Old 12-11-2021, 09:29 AM   #4
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: How you personally play adventures

I will approach this in the way described above (more or less) when characters are traversing extended areas (say, 10 turns of movement or more) that are truly uninteresting, which is also typical of all other fantasy games, at lest in my experience. But I don't particularly like it and think the alternative - continuous use of turn based play and explicit hex scale movement - is much more engrossing, exciting, and engenders better dungeon design and player decision making.

When I stay in 'continuous play' mode (which is surprisingly often - probably a block of 30-60+ minutes in most of our 1-3 hour sessions. Sometimes the whole of one or more continuous sessions), my approach is to begin by laying down MH tiles (or drawing on a battle mat if that is easier due to the scale and shape of the space), showing only those features within the line of sight and area of illumination of the players. Then turn based play begins, and at the end of every turn of movement I take up tiles (or erase areas) that are no longer visible and lay down new ones corresponding to spaces that can now be seen. Other features, foes, friends, etc. get placed and removed as they enter and leave line of sight.

This is not slow at all; actually, I'd say it feels like a faster mode of play then the default we all mostly do in other games, because you are not clumsily narrating all kinds of boring crap about this tunnel going off in that direction and that chair being in the SE corner of the room, etc. These things are just there. You do have to have a decent command of the rules, no one can suffer from a decision making disorder, and you need to have mastery of your physical components. But with a modest amount of practice it is surprisingly brisk and smooth to play like this.

And the benefits are huge. For starters, if you have a good map of your dungeon (or whatever), then the specific hex placements and orientations of players dictate when traps are triggered, whether a search for something does or doesn't yield results, etc. That means player decisions are meaningfully influencing the details of what happens, instead of the GM making ad hoc or random decisions all the time. And it is soooo much more engaging. Also, it drives the GM to design better dungeons, as you are motivated to introduce interesting features and spaces all over the place, so that moving through your labyrinth feels like the opening sequence of Indiana Jones instead of a blandly narrated walk down a series of empty hallways.

As an example, we recently played the Unself King microquest this way, with me substituting the recommended empty tiles with 'juicier' tiles filled with all kinds of fun features (rope bridges and drop offs and rubble and cob webs and so forth). it transformed the space into something so rich in features and encounters that the players felt excited and on edge every single turn, over hours of play.

Last edited by larsdangly; 12-11-2021 at 09:33 AM.
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Old 12-11-2021, 03:31 PM   #5
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: How you personally play adventures

I only run combat turns when action is happening where it would matter. So, for combat, or expected combat, or other situations where combat might be about to erupt, or where there is other action that makes sense to use combat turns for, such as when people are rushing or competing to do something, like get or recover an item when others are also trying to get it, or people are rushing to get out of someplace before someone arrives, or whatever.

But that does not mean that I'm not keeping the rules in mind. (Either the labyrinth-scale rules or the combat-scale rules, noting that walking speed is usually slower than 1/2 MA, and that real people tend to take time to stop and look at things, particularly in a new place that might be dangerous.) I'll usually still be keeping track of time spent. And I tend to be tracking where the other nearby NPCs are, that the PCs haven't encountered yet, because they will be moving around and doing things too, making noises, and able to listen or see things and respond to them. So time matters, as does how much noise and light and bodies and other evidence the PCs may be creating.

Unless the PCs are trying to do things very quickly (with appropriate penalties to their abilities to pay attention to and notice things, or to be quiet, or to discuss plans with each other, etc), I assume they'll be taking more time than necessary to explore a place, and fiddle around, and I'll be noting how long they take discussing what to do or otherwise chatting, and how loud they're being (both because they might be heard, and because the PCs would have to hear any sounds over the sound of their own conversations and noises).

I often lay out situations on a map so that players can indicate where PCs are standing, without using turns unless/until it matters. But I will be translating their movements and what they say they do into time passed and noise made and so on.

And, if one player is moving their PC much farther/faster than the others (as particularly seems to happen with some players on VTTs, more than it seems to in-person), then I may interpret that as that their PC starts wandering off that direction by themselves, but depending on what's in that direction, and where the other PCs are, and what the other PCs are doing, I may not just advance time so fast, but tell other players they notice that PC starting to wander off, and/or move the wayward PC back to tell them something happens before they get that far (even if it's just another PC telling them to wait up).
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Old 12-12-2021, 03:44 PM   #6
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: How you personally play adventures

Something I do, that others might find counter-intuitive, is to stay 'on map' when characters are navigating complex spaces, searching, possibly straying near traps or other hazards, etc. These are generally activity that happen off stage, through theater of the mind, in most roleplaying games, but that i find elevate to much more exciting style of play when you treat them as part of the tactical action. Basically, everything is a bit more exciting when it feels like your decisions about where you go, look, listen, etc. matter.
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Old 12-13-2021, 12:47 PM   #7
Peter von Kleinsmid
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Join Date: May 2021
Default Re: How you personally play adventures

Yep. I don't always lay out a map for non-combat situations, but when I have, it usually tends to lead to interesting things. Players tend to get more involved and creative as they interact with the space by moving relative to the other figures and what's in the area.

They also tend to be more on their toes, since they expect something important or dangerous might happen, and that their positions will matter.

And the GM can present situations with the map and NPCs that play out using figure movements rather than narration, which can also be different in interesting ways.

Also, when you have some more quiet or timid players mixed with some more vocally aggressive players, having the map in play can level the playing field a bit, and let the quieter players participate without having to be suppressed by the more vocal players.

Last edited by Peter von Kleinsmid; 12-14-2021 at 06:39 AM.
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Old 12-13-2021, 01:11 PM   #8
DeadParrot
 
Join Date: Apr 2012
Default Re: How you personally play adventures

Anything other then a small quest would take too long to stay "on initiative". Staying "on map" is another matter. For Fantasy Trip games, we have been free moving all figures 3 hexes then the GM informs us of what, if anything we notice. As others have commented, staying "on map" helps keep players involved as they have to frequently move their figure(s). And it reinforces that the characters are in a situation where things may happen at any moment.

As a player in an "on map" situation, I have found moving to the next door or alleyway to be an effective way to bring a quick end to a gone on too long discussion about what we should do next.

I have noticed the VTT tendency to encourage players to move further away then when physical minis are involved, including myself.
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Old 12-13-2021, 06:46 PM   #9
Axly Suregrip
 
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Durham, NC
Default Re: How you personally play adventures

Quote:
Originally Posted by DeadParrot View Post
As a player in an "on map" situation, I have found moving to the next door or alleyway to be an effective way to bring a quick end to a gone on too long discussion about what we should do next.
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Originally Posted by DeadParrot View Post
I have noticed the VTT tendency to encourage players to move further away then when physical minis are involved, including myself.
I think the difference is: on a physical table top everyone can see you reaching for your mini/counter before you even touch it, much less move it. Before moving it you will hear, "What are you doing?"
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Old 12-13-2021, 08:05 PM   #10
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: How you personally play adventures

I think the most common reason given as to why staying continuously 'on map' is a bad idea is that it is slow. I do it a lot, in many different circumstances and sometimes for long times, and my experience is that the opposite is the case. I suppose traversing 100 yards of empty hallway would get boring, but that's a GM problem, not a game system problem. If there seems to be nothing interesting to look at or do, then maybe your dungeon needs some sprucing up!
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