While I appreciate cutting scenes when they get boring, my non-combat scenes tend to be much to short and very unsatisfying. They basically are basically: players have objective -> interact with environment or NPC with a role or brief Q&A -> scene done. This is really boring.

How do you make your scenes play out to be a bit more satisfying and interesting for everyone?

Quote from: PencilBoy99;840162While I appreciate cutting scenes when they get boring, my non-combat scenes tend to be much to short and very unsatisfying. They basically are basically: players have objective -> interact with environment or NPC with a role or brief Q&A -> scene done. This is really boring.

How do you make your scenes play out to be a bit more satisfying and interesting for everyone?

I think you'll find a lot of folks here who don't really think in terms of scenes. Can you clarify what you mean by what is boring here? Are there specific elements you are hoping to see arise?

For my part I tend not to really worry about scenes and just kind of go with the flow so my advice may not be helpful if you are looking for something specific to the notion of a scene. I would say the thing that appears to missing here is conflict and challenge. If players are exploring a room and they interact with the environment yet nothing happens, then its because there is nothing challenging or curious to investigate and interact with. Not every non combat event in a game needs challenge or conflict, but if they consistently never have these things, that is a problem in my view.

I think a simple test for whether your non-combat stuff is working or not is whether it gains the players' interest and takes on a life of its own at the table. If you can spend as much time on a simple hallway as you do on a battle, then you are doing something right. For example a long dungeon corridor with a mural depicting scenes of an ancient battle is interesting but not terribly interactive (by all means have murals that are just there because, but don't expect them to do much beyond serving as decor). On the other hand if have some kind of puzzle or mystery going on and the mural is connected to it somehow, then that makes for a more involved interaction with the environment. Your players are not just passing by the mural and noting its existing, they start asking questions about it and trying to piece together clues from that to the bigger picture.

With NPC interactions, I think it is important to realize that not every NPC interaction needs to produce something significant, but they occasionally ought to. The key for me is to give my NPCs clear motives that I understand. What do they want? Who do they work for? Why? etc. If you have an NPC who is just the friendly barkeep, he'll make some decent small talk, but he's less likely to get involved in the players lives than the friendly barkeep who is looking for a fine wealthy young husband for his daughter. This could go nowhere but it could go in all kinds of directions. He could rope the players into finding or even kidnapping such a man. Or perhaps he works to convince one of the players to marry his daughter (adventurers tend to be on the wealthy side and they tend to die young, so they might fit the bill). This is just an example, it can be anything you think would work or connect to the party in some way. The trick is to never force it.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;840162While I appreciate cutting scenes when they get boring, my non-combat scenes tend to be much to short and very unsatisfying. They basically are basically: players have objective -> interact with environment or NPC with a role or brief Q&A -> scene done. This is really boring.

How do you make your scenes play out to be a bit more satisfying and interesting for everyone?

I mentioned this in the other thread of yours... it bears special mentioning here.

You need to consider what your NPC's motivations are. If you're using them as cardboard cutouts without any motivations or goals - then yeah, it's going to be unsatisfying for everyone. After all - it's like talking to an automated kiosk. How satisfying is that?

When you say the players come in an interact with the environment/NPC brief Q/A that sounds pretty menu-driven. There is *nothing* about that which strikes me as meaty roleplaying. Not every NPC encounter requires this (but I personally try to make most NPC encounters engaging) but the important NPC's are important for a reason. You need to give them that reason.

Ask yourself the basic questions: Why is this NPC's even interacting with the PCs? What do they have to gain from it? Why are they helping them? Why are they not trying to USE the PC's for their own gain? What do they even think about the PCs? etc.

The more you get into your big NPC's and what makes them tick - the more you'll get out of your scenes and therefore your game.

Well first off, you need to decide on how important you want a scene to be. Not important? Than don't worry about it. Ask the player(s) what he wants to do, throw some dice, make something up.

Important scenes are all about stage dressing and interaction. This is where you start talking in character for one, two, a dozen NPCs. It's never as simple as a single dice roll. You should include multiple NPCs, or better yet, get the PCs talking to each other in character. Don't make them recap the entire campaign chapter and verse, but turn up the dial on NPC interaction. Have them pose questions, theories, potential solutions to the players.  This action should all take place against a single backdrop. This can be as simple as an alchemist's lab or as complex as the market bizarre. Throw in a random distraction or two. The alchemist excuses himself to attend to a fizzing beaker. A fishmonger insists that he has just the thing for what ails that barbarians palid color. These little touches breath life into a scene even if only giving the player a chance to exercise a little personality.

That's what I do, anyway.  I know I'm doing it right when I get players discussing an issue to one another in character. You can let that play out for as long as you like before stepping in and shifting the spotlight over to another player.

Tom

"Which TV, movie, book, or cartoon character is this?"

All my NPCs have personalities I've swiped from somewhere, preferably a comedy.

My high level magic user on the first level, who is one of my "Idiot Detectors," is "Necross the Ha Ha Ha Mad" from the "Cerebus the Aardvark" comic.  And his djinn servant is "Hassan" from the Daffy Duck cartoon, "Ali Baba Bunny."  "HASSAN CHOP!"

My City Guards are the Night Watch from Ankh-Morpork.

The two ghost wizards who hang around the PC's house are Statler and Waldorf, the two old guys on "The Muppet Show."

My NPC interactions are anything but dull.

First rule... give the NPC a personality you will have fun playing.

Here's another trick to making scenes interesting for everyone, not just the PCs involved: introduce clues and information directly useful to uninvolved PCs.  This will not only have that player sit up in his or her seat and start the mental gymnastics to have their character appear on the scene in the nick of time to take advantage of that info, but you can create a new scene around the information exchange if you care to. Do this a few times and your players will pay more attention to what's going on when they aren't directly involved.

Here's an example: character A is looking for a solid blacksmith to forge a fancy sword. Characters B and C are visiting the local church to gather info on a threat or other subplot. When they arrive, they find the church is being outfitted by a new beautifully crafted metal crucifix. The priest is having a conversation with the courier who delivered the crucifix, praising the work of the reclusive master smith. The courier tells the priest how the smith never turns down work for the church and then leaves. Unfortunately, character a is off roaming about looking for a smith.

Now, player A is just as invested in the scene as players B and C, even though his character isn't part of it.

Tom

Quote from: Old Geezer;840261All my NPCs have personalities I've swiped from somewhere, preferably a comedy.

Do your players detect the sources, like Statler & Waldorf?

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;840265Do your players detect the sources, like Statler & Waldorf?

Sometimes.

One of the Statler and Waldorf characters is a skull animated by a spirit.  He has made some money by being a fairly accurate sage, so he had the Dwarfs make him an arm.

PC:  "You should have them make you a body."

STATLER:  "Why do I want a body?  I'll quit while I'm a head!"

S&W:  "Har har har har har har har"

Quote from: PencilBoy99;840162While I appreciate cutting scenes when they get boring, my non-combat scenes tend to be much to short and very unsatisfying. They basically are basically: players have objective -> interact with environment or NPC with a role or brief Q&A -> scene done. This is really boring.

In order for an objective to be interesting, there needs to be an obstacle preventing you from accomplishing it.

For example, let's say you have an objective of going to the corner store and buying a Coke. In general, that's not going to result in an interest scene because there's no meaningful obstacle. But if there's a team of ninjas hunting you through the neighborhood, it gets interesting. If you can't leave your sister alone because you're afraid she might commit suicide while you're gone, it gets interesting.

For your combat scenes, the combat mechanics are generally taking care of providing interesting obstacles. But we could imagine a combat scene which was fairly boring: Imagine a single attack roll that resulted in all your opponents getting wiped out. (That's not to say that you should never have combat scenes like that, any more than you should always have ninjas guarding the corner store.)

For your non-combat scenes, you need to figure out what the obstacle is. And you'll get even better scenes if there are either multiple obstacles, multiple objectives, or both. (In many cases you can simply set up the objectives of the scene so that they conflict with each other and, presto, you've got both.)

Technoir introduces a useful concept it calls "vectors": You often can't just automatically jump to making a "I solve the problem" die roll. Instead you have to make some preparatory rolls in order to establish a vector to the thing you actually want to affect.

For example: You want to shoot Victor inside his club. But you can't just drive up outside the club and shoot him. First you're going to have to figure out a way to get inside (sneaking or fast-talking your way past the bouncers), then track him down, and then take your shot.

For example: You want to convince Michael to sell you the datachip. But first you're going to have to get him to admit he has it. Then you've got to convince him that there's another way to save his sister. And then you've got convince him that you're offering him something worth the risk.

As with anything else you prep, you don't want to fall into the trap of predetermining how the PCs are going to overcome the obstacles. Instead, just set the obstacles: Michael doesn't want to admit he has the datachip. Michael needs it to save his sister. Let the players worry about how they're going to overcome those obstacles.

There's two other things that can also make scenes more satisfying:

1) A real chance of failure.  It shouldn't be a foregone conclusion that the PCs win, or they'll figure out what's going on and get bored, even if they're not aware of *why*.

2) A sense of risk.  If you can make some consequences to failure, then you help ramp up the tension a bit.

"We have to get over the fence to get to our contact!"  Boring.  You know what's going to happen.

"We've got to beat the guards to our contact!  And this fence is in the way!"  Better.  Now we know that there's a reasonable chance we won't actually beat the guards.

"If we don't beat the guards to our contact, they'll kill him!"  Far more interesting.  Now there's a chance of failure, and some real consequences if we fail.

Quote from: Old Geezer;840261"Which TV, movie, book, or cartoon character is this?"

All my NPCs have personalities I've swiped from somewhere, preferably a comedy.

I find if I don't do this then my NPCs have a very unfortunate tendency to mirror my own personality too much.  I don't use comedy but comic books are great.  If I know the villain is like "Magneto" or "Sabertooth" then I can customize them very quickly.  Otherwise, the world is filled with Cyclops.  :-)

Quote from: Justin Alexander;840289For your non-combat scenes, you need to figure out what the obstacle is. And you'll get even better scenes if there are either multiple obstacles, multiple objectives, or both. (In many cases you can simply set up the objectives of the scene so that they conflict with each other and, presto, you've got both.)

Quote from: robiswrong;840329There's two other things that can also make scenes more satisfying:

1) A real chance of failure.  It shouldn't be a foregone conclusion that the PCs win, or they'll figure out what's going on and get bored, even if they're not aware of *why*.

2) A sense of risk.  If you can make some consequences to failure, then you help ramp up the tension a bit.

I agree with these - but I'd say even more important is to engage the PCs motivations more than just risk. Make it something they really care about succeeding in.

This goes for combats, too - the better fights are ones where the PCs really want to beat their foes, rather than just survive the random encounter.  

Often, players don't care much about non-combat scenes in part because the GM doesn't care much about them.  It isn't life-and-death; there's not a lot to be gained; and little or no experience points.  If you want to make non-combat scenes more important to the players, make them more important to the adventure.  

Some ideas:

1) Have NPCs who are strongly motivated, and have strong personalities, whom the players may love or hate.

2) Give the NPCs foibles and weaknesses. In particular, many GMs tend for NPCs to know everything, and the PCs have to convince them to dole out information. My rule of thumb is that the PCs should be overall better informed than most of the NPCs they encounter. The typical NPC will know some things they don't, but there is even more that they don't know but the PCs do.

3) Put real rewards as well as risks on the line.  Many GMs shy away from this because of the instinct that treasure should only be earned by "real" action, not just talking.  This is exactly what convinces players that dialogue scenes are unimportant fluff to be skimmed through.  For example, the PCs could be interviewed for being inducted into an organization, which gives lots of information and perks to its members.

4) This can be an opportunity for the PCs' other actions to matter. Have them be treated like heroes - or anti-heroes. For example, a noblewoman's younger son may have been saved by their actions - but his older brother was killed by monsters. If they make a good impression, she rewards them amply. Alternately, maybe she is convinced they instigated the violence.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;840289For example, let's say you have an objective of going to the corner store and buying a Coke. In general, that's not going to result in an interest scene because there's no meaningful obstacle. But if there's a team of ninjas hunting you through the neighborhood, it gets interesting.

I LOVE that part in Postal 2... where you're sent to buy some milk but there's a terrorist hit squad lurking in the back of the mini-mart!

Actually, the whole game is like that... mundane tasks obstructed by insane complications.
So yeah, it's not the mission that's interesting, it's whatever makes it difficult.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;840162While I appreciate cutting scenes when they get boring, my non-combat scenes tend to be much to short and very unsatisfying. They basically are basically: players have objective -> interact with environment or NPC with a role or brief Q&A -> scene done. This is really boring.

How do you make your scenes play out to be a bit more satisfying and interesting for everyone?

https://youtu.be/lg8fVtKyYxY

(EC are a bunch of hipster douchebag assholes, but this is probably the best talk about choice in games that I've run across. Credit (har har) where it's due.)

After watching that video, and applying the concept to TT rpgs, I try to introduce as much conflict driven choice into scenarios as I can. It really helped me with making skill checks more interesting. If a skill check doesn't involve any kind of conflict or choice, I usually skip it now.

Quote from: jhkim;840379I agree with these - but I'd say even more important is to engage the PCs motivations more than just risk. Make it something they really care about succeeding in.

Yeah, that was kind of implicit in my points, but thanks for the clarification and making it explicit.

I think this is a lot of why combat tends to be default.  "Not dying" is something that most players care about succeeding in.