Yeah, you all know the good ole Ryan quote. So, does it hold for minis? I mean, it would not seem to since you are going back and forth. Could an RPG be made so that everyone "had a turn" and you could speed up and maintain that fun ratio?

....or....

Is it a case more like foreplay? Is it moderate fun leading up to a much larger payoff? This is my view but if you approach RPGs like a boardgame and think there is no fun in role-playing buying supplies from the that stubborn gnomish storekeep with the daughter who keeps making eyes at you behind his back...then I could definitely see it Ryan's way. If the "fun" is defined as combat or one singular type of event, then yeah, you might be bored for 4 hours so you can have 20 minutes of combat but I would then question whether you are playing the right game. This is not a condemnation but a simple fact. Maybe you would be happier with a board game or minis game. It would provide that constant "challenge/fun" you are looking for. Perhaps another aspect would be the type of RPG you are playing which brings me around full circle to my original question...

Thoughts on a way to make an RPG that has constant player involvement? Think of the timing of a board game where everyone had a turn or with some minis games where you have movement/combat phases. Could that kind of timing be adapted to RPGs?

It's simply that Ryan is probably a crap GM.

This one mystifies me. All I can say.

-clash

I have to say, I was a bit taken aback by how everyone just nodded their heads and agreed with him like it was simple truth. I have always enjoyed the game, but it came to me that if he was focused on combat or some short lived aspect of play, it could well be that he only enjoys about 20 minutes of his 4 hours of play.

Of course, Kyles theory may be correct as well.

Kyle's post *does* pass Occam's Razor...

-clash

Well, there was just such a hoopla about it when Ryan spouted off about it that it makes one wonder if I am just looking at RPGs in a very and fundamentally different way. I like the hunting through a space port looking for the best deal on your FTL relays. If the GM thinks that is made of boring, I probably am in the wrong game. No shame on him or me, we just want different things out of our gaming experience.

But then I wonder, re-reading the article, if fun==combat or am I missing something.

Ah well, thanks for the responses.

If fun==combat, and he's playing D&D, what was his problem?

-clash

I've been in sessions like that - normally it's due to games where my character isn't doing much or saying much for extended periods. This can be for many reasons: the party's split up and someone else is interacting with an NPC, it's a D&D combat and I'm not playing a spellcaster who has to sit there and pore over a shit ton of options every time their turns comes up, it's a game where I'm experienced in playing it and everyone else is still trying to figure it out...or yeah, the GM is sometimes bad (this includes me, sometimes.)

I don't think it's generally true, though. There's a lot of very distinct problems that can lead to that outcome, though.

I think we've all been in games or run games that were just off kilter or one of those games where nothing pans out the way it could have or should have. I know I've been bored before during a game session due to a group split or too much focus being placed on one PC (that is a GM issue).

The 20 minutes of fun thing, however, is pretty much crap. I've never experienced that. I could say 50% of the session was fun at the very least. This is still not as good as it should be, but if I was in a game that had 20 minutes of fun for every 4 hours played - man I'd probably make it through one game and ask "Was this a bad night or is it always like this?"

I'm almost wondering if the quote is referring to the time taken to resolve a combat vs the time it takes for combat to happen in-game. So "20 minutes of fun" could equal the cool action-movie combat scene that everyone is envisioning as they play, while the 4 hours is a reference to the length of time it takes to actually resolve the action, with players rolling dice and picking moves and such.