How to Use The Horror's Deck To Help Estimate Game Time

The Unit Length of A Good Time 

Body Counts

Last sesh, my players left the enormous snuff-film production soundstage that is glamoured in the wild hills above Diamond City, concluding their investigation ravaged and cursed, blinded or burned, and with an explosive gunfight car chase down a winding two-lane road. It took like 7 weeks. 

dog that is a panther - castrated

rooster that is a falcon - speared

"cowhead" - tabletopped then curbstomped

"timothy" - clubbed with a kindergartener's desk

well-armed pink-haired gentlemen - shot, run over

the dogwalker's camry - blown up

the journalist's corolla - half blown up

How many sessions is that? 4 if you count the one where we were all late and there was a show after we had to get to -- 5 if you count the one where I should've called it earlier because I had no clue what above Diamond City was hidden in the hills. Call the soundstage 3 proper game sessions long, then.

Calendar Alerts

It's been a year, and in the 5e game I play in, our party is still in Hell, still trying to take down The Big Bad Guy. When I pitched playing an RPG to my friends  -- most of whom had never played one before -- they were all curious how much of a time commitment it was going to be. Some were wary of the other pitches DnD enthusiasts had made them: how rich and amazing the character development will be, the responses of the fantasy world to their actions, after three long years sitting at the same table...

I told my friends, basically, its a new game, everyone playing it is new playing anything like it, I'm new running it or anything like it -- don't worry -- we are all prepared to swiftly abandon this project if it sucks.  

I wanted to run Demon City because I don't like fantasy and it seemed impossible that I could ever coordinate my work schedule and my friends' work schedules with the kind of consistency I thought something like a Game-of-Thrones-length series needed. But a horror movie? One bad night -- oh, that could be arranged.

Hostage Negotiations

My players

talk

a 

lot.

Except when they're freaked out :) 

But overall, the sound of our game is a three hour long argument about everything. 

This is particularly true for Action Rounds. We've had enough of them now that they understand the odds are against them -- they gotta scrap for every advantage -- and one tactical error could put them down. So when it comes to make a choice, every time its like 

"Okay but I have this [skill that doesn't apply to the present situation] so it should be better for me...!"

"Well but like lets imagine how that would go in real life..."

or 

"Okay but for them you said [previous judgement call about advantages that doesn't apply to the present situation]...!"

"Yeah but lets consider how this situation is unique..."

Which is good because it 

- affirms the reality of the fiction,

- and that the players are invested in it 

- and that the problem before them is a challenge

- a challenge in the way real life abstract problems involving the cooperation of a lot of different personalities might be a challenge

- that is, by requiring we insist from each other careful thinking about how things go in real life and how situations are unique 

 

Brain Pain

Does the mental picture of an RPG session as something like a sustained argument among friends suggest anything useful for writing them? Putting one together, wondering how many sessions I'm looking at, I'm might ask, how long might the back-and-forth be for these different player-characters to enjoyably describe a solution to these problems? 

In an epic fantasy world of warring states, it might make sense that, to resolve it, if the problem was imagined to be as challenging as it might be in real life, would probably take three years of conversations every couple weeks. Sooner maybe, if the people at the table were the trustworthy and competent representatives of the citizens of the states and not, say, violent attention-deficit plunderers (though, to be sure, what DnD player couldn't imagine a committed team of lucky violent and attention-deficit plunderers bringing some kind of positive resolution to bear upon a warring-states campaign-long type problem?). 

How long does it take to solve a problem like a snuff-film-directing illusionist necromancer?

If you are one of my players

stop

scrolling

now

thank

you

(cuz of spoilers)

How to Use The Horror's Deck To Help Estimate Game Time

Simple or Complex Discussions

The card spread above is the horror deck I'm throwing. 

The campaign element each card represents is as follows:

On the left are cards pertaining to a below-the-line snuff-film production crew (The Heirophant) who, upon realizing they are never going to receive the necromantic power (Ace of Wands) that was promised them, went on strike (2 of Wands, Dominion). It is their more brazen torture-murder-movie-making (9 of Swords, Cruelty) of Silvia Moreno (3 of Swords, Sorrow) that puts Investigator PCs onto the case. PCs begin the campaign in their clutches, about to be snuff-filmed in a rank basement lair (7 of Cups, Debauch). The lead agitator, Silvia's boyfriend Wolfgang, is squatting in his Uncle's foreclosed coffee shop, Cafe Mr. Nice Guy (8 of Cups, Indolence).

On the right is the transcendental horror herself, Duchess Emmelina Plurolle (Art) and her associated cards. She hunts Wolfgang for stealing from her production offices a magical focus --  her camera (Ace of Wands). It had been used for the movies she makes catering to a rich and perverted clientele, one of whom is a police detective colleague of the PCs (4 of Cups, Luxury). Emmelina has some terrifying ideas about nature and art which are evidenced in recycling the meat of her human victims for disgusting sculptures of animals that she then glamours to appear as simple taxidermy -- to be sold to tourists at her store, Scales & Tails (9 of Disks, Gain). 

Wolfgang has lots of terrifying ideas about how Emmelina is a necromantic poser.  An omnipresent theme in the campaign is of appearances (6 of Cups, Pleasure). Paranormal-skilled characters will be able to see through the necromantic set-dressing of the renegade snuff-film crew. Emmelina, whose necromancy is real, will test them with all kinds of illusions and doubles. 

The point is:

Adventure Themes 

- describe the kinds of problems PCs will face.  

- help rate complexity

- are, in the case of this spread:

- stuff pretending to be other stuff (6 of Cups, Pleasure)

- psychopathic torture (9 of Swords, Cruelty)

- obscure entities in conflict (2 of Wands, Dominion)

Major Horror NPCs 

 - are always complex: these are the best thing to try to kill the PCs with after all. 

 - from them emerge campaign themes

Minor Horror NPCs & Locations

- can be simple or complex: it depends.

- campaign themes give a hint: if a lot are in play, it's probably complex. If one or none: probably simple. 

Stuff Not in the Spread

- inevitably, an unexpected Minor NPC or Location became significant

- as above, the number of campaign themes at play may hint at if it should be counted as a complex or simple problem. 

Talking through a complex game problem can take a couple hours. Nearly a whole session. Sessions usually start with a simpler problem that spirals into the complex problem, or they end with the simpler one, possibly to hint at spiraling yet to come (like Downtime or a Hook). Simple problems may then take at most like an hour. 

Accounting for Bullshitting

If I had it my way, everything would be richly complex, all themes firing for every campaign element all the time even unexpected ones, we would start the game exactly on time and I would remember all the rules. So the adventure would be 8 hearty-and-perfect-sessions-long. Accounting for previous half-starts and fuck-ups, it will probably be closer to 6. 

The fun of the themes are about dried up. The clues are all in the party's hands, whether they know or not. All that's left is for them to talk out the picture (Complex) and get murdered by Emmelina (Complex). 

RPGs aren't diplomatic episodes. But the picture of them as fun and challenging discussions among friends may bring into relief even other table-side necessities like colorful description and making jokes and taking wild chances, or in a word, the bullshitting.