Realm-Weavers

I’ve written about my struggles with the crunchy game systems that seem to derail my suspension of disbelief. Matt disagrees, saying that this isn’t because of the system, it’s because of certain types players within parties. This goes for GMing (trying to manage a narrative) and playing( trying to immerse myself within a narrative). 

I wasn’t convinced by his argument, but after reading this article by Ryan’s blog Fool’s Pyrite (hyperlinked https://fools-pyrite.com/posts/slow-games ), I’m starting to wonder if Matt is correct. 

Flow and pacing are essential for game immersion. Ryan has neatly categorized what has the potential to completely interrupt gameplay. 

(Quote)

• Pondering: Time spent waiting for an active player to make a decision. The more often a single player is selected to decide something (e.g. strict initiative or turn orders, or a GM-type role in lots of games), the more often this will slow down play.
• Friction: Time spent trying to get a single action done. Often this is looking up rules, debating rules, figuring out math, answering questions, etc. More complex games have more friction, but you can mitigate some of it with good book design.
• Too-damn-much-to-do:Time spent working through the game itself. Sometimes a turn in a game is two decision and a roll of a die. Other times it’s moving six characters around a board, allocating ten points of metacurrency, deciding on two actions, and then resolving twelve different status effects. In the latter case, the game ixs slower, even if we’re sailing through each individual step at maximum speed.
• Inattentiveness: Time spent waiting for an active player to re-immerse themself in a game. This is sort of the same as pondering (we’re waiting on someone to make a decision), but it’s different enough that I broke it out. Especially as games slow down, people start chatting or eating snacks or getting up to stretch. Then they have to come back and take a second to get ready to play, which further slows the game down. A vicious cycle we’re all guilty of participating in at some point or another.

I really need to think about this. My dislike of crunchy games may be due to certain types of players- especially when a multitude of abilities or choices may lead to analysis paralysis, or lengthy bouts of rule lawyering.

– Jeff Johnson