brb. empeaching.

Are they content with taking turns in the spotlight and being spectators?

They are, mostly. I'm not.

Or is it just that the back-and-forth feels choppy, or...?

Also, at the moment the sixth player is the former main GM, so I cheerfully offload to her. But she's moving to California in a couple of weeks.

When my party splits up, I have more work shuffling between them.

When they're together, I can often just sit back and let them do stuff with minimal interference from me.

But we often wind up with two groups, even if there's only three players, and I try to bounce between 'em and keep things exciting.

Last night for a while we had the ninja failing to break down a cheap motel door, the gangster convincing his cronies to go give the ninja unwitting backup, and the rest of the group maintaining their cover story.

What disaffects you about the splitup?

There's usually a lot of travel involved. Yesterday we had two of the magi head off to a monastery that was burned down by a different group of players some months before, to investigate whether it was justified.

(It was, technically. The monks were vampires. Justified, but totally overkill)

But this is a 6 hour journey either way, and took them basically a day and a night and a half a day, all told.

Meanwhile the other character do stuff as well, or occasionally just want to skip ahead a few weeks to a certain milestone. But there's a lot of stalling one group so the other can catch up.

Ah.

That is awkward.

[cuddles his tiny islet settings]

And this is a short trip.

Some trips are expected to take months.

Ars has a conceit where players get to RP minions in scenes without their magi, no?

This is medieval Europe.

Yeah. Some players have secondary characters, some take a random disposable guard from the pool of unassigned ones.

That seems like a promising angle.

(It's fun, since the first time someone takes a guard, he makes up his personality on the spot. They're minor characters, so they can easily be shallow caricatures)

That's the usual solution. The problem is that some of the main characters don't like taking guards with them.

Also, if a single magus goes out to do something, taking 4-5 guards is overkill.

Well.

There's an off-play agreement, though, that magi don't go out alone unless it's really dictated by circumstances.

It sounds like the problem is less "sometimes not everybody gets to be in a scene" and more "sometimes group A has to kill three months while group B skips that time with a travel map."

Always ask at least one other wizard to come with you. For safety, in-play, and to keep a party dynamic going, off-play.

@BESW It's a big part of it, but not the only one. Even if the two groups are synchronized, they might both need my adjudication for stuff that happens.

@lisardggY Well, that's the flip-back-and-forth thing, which... just happens.

We mitigated it by offloading more on secondary GMs, though it further complicated matters by requiring the secondary GM's character not being in any group.

Yeah, the disjointedness is inevitable. I just need to get better at shuffling and juggling.

My GMing style tends to be slower and more detailed than the previous GMs, so a scene can take half an hour of real time mostly taken up by descriptions and small actions and their results.

I need to be able to shift styles more.

Apply judicious addition of minions for groups that are taking the slow path when the other group is doing a travel montage.

@lisardggY Ooh, yes.

My D&D style had a really hard time zooming in or out; Fate and other systems have given me a lot more practice with changing my narrative focal length.

I don't mind flip-flopping my attention between two or even three subparties, in systems that work well like that.

I don't like dead air for some players, even if some of them don't mind.

I do still have trouble with the time-variance thing.

It's fine when they can just talk and play between them. It's a good party for that, they can run entire interpersonal scenes for hours in many cases.

@lisardggY Well, it would definitely be optimal if you could somehow master both of them at the same time - but even as a player, I enjoy (not just tolerate) being a spectator every once in a while.

Some tools I use: make the scene they're observing relevant to their own scenes, so it's making them re-think what they already know and what they'll do next.

It's like watching a TV show about your party's adventures - your character is not in all the scenes, but that doesn't make the other scenes boring. At least for me!

Invite them to contribute ideas (largely system-dependent; last night I'd invite the group to collaboratively suggest target DCs for the ninja while he did his solo mission).

Quickly cut back to quirky short-resolution scenes with the off-hand group when things look to slow down.

@BESW One of my favorite tricks when two scenes are running concurrently (not paused, but both running) is to keep an ear open to what's happening over there, and insert a phrase I heard in the other scene into mine. It makes the other scene's players suddenly pay attention. Creates a (fake, but effective) parallel.

Toss a player responsibility for a bit part, whether PC or environmental, especially if there's a lot to track in the scene.

I just model everything that happens as a TV show in my head. I think it's a bit weird because I don't really watch TV shows.

@kviiri ...suddenly I want to watch one of your games, just to see what that winds up being like.

When the scene would cut in TV, it's usually a good spot to switch focus in-game as well.

Aye, or the cliffhanger ending of a chapter in a book.

(The Hardy Boys have served me well.)

(Got to go, baby is sick and getting a bit frantic. Gonna put her to bed a bit early)

Bye!

Oh, dear. Hope she gets well soon!

Just don't use Arrow for your cues. Those guys couldn't find a cliffhanger if it bit them on the ankle while wearing a party hat and humming "Ave Maria.")

Yeah, I think it's weird how I tend to model stuff as TV when I barely watch any shows. I read books way more.

REALLY need to go to bed. G'night.

Good night BESW!

I guess I could part as well, for now. Watching films and playing board games with my friends, is there a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon?

@kviiri arguably not

Random question. Do you think that a Holy Shortsword from a d20 game would hurt a Daemon from Warhammer?

@Tarmikos11 Well sure. If anyone takes the time and effort to summon a weapon from an alternate reality where the apparent rules of physics are different (probabilities shift in jumps of 5%), it probably imbues the weapon with a lot of power.

I asked the question to a WHFRP player, and they basically broke down the way Holy Weapons in that world work, though the idea of an Imperial Guard winding up with a Holy Sword is really cool to me.

I have absolutely zero knowledge of the WH universe. I can't tell a dawmon from an imperial guard. But I can nod pleasantly. :)

Of course.

Brb folks, hard drive might blow out.