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Mar 16, 2012 -- 11:56PM, DoctorBadWolf wrote:

Mar 16, 2012 -- 1:59PM, Centauri wrote:

Mar 16, 2012 -- 1:53PM, Kaganfindel wrote:

Don't ever let a PC interrupt your character's speech.

Phaugh.  I think if you're going to have the villain say something to the party, you should prepare it to be deliverd both as an opening speech and a dying breath utterance, just in case they get the drop on him or attack before he can finish talking at them.  If the speech doesn't work as a dying breath utterance, consider the possibility that it was trite villain monologuing that needed to be interrupted with fire.

If it's really that important, make the speaker a solo and have him say his peace during the bloodied phase.  

I decide when their attacks go off. They can say they're interrupting him, but that doesn't mean they get to.

Me: "Finnan (my character) doens't give a damn what the Sharran scum has to say. He whips his chain at his face, ready to kill. Can I roll iniviative now? "


DM: "Seriously? You want to just interrupt him midspeech?"

Me: "Do you really see Finnan sitting through it?"

DM: "OK, do you say anything?"

Me: "Of course not. I just try to kill him."

DM: "Roll initiative."


If the first DM response was simply "No.", he would probably be a crap DM.

In any case, you appear to agree with me that it's the DM's decision.

I agree with Krusk.

I have been guilty of long winded speaches and or break sequances with a bit too much railroad. And sometimes the players dig it anad some players dont and it's the DMs job to see the flow of the moment. Rolled eyes and side conversations are big hints, or even worse players leaving to go see what's happening at the warhammer table, or playing with cell phones.
Yea time to change the song and let your story hit the trash can. Roll init and get creative on other ways to steer the flow.

On the flip side sometimes you get the butthead that just likes to cause trouble, ones that start fights with every NPC, brawls in every bar, slaughters every possable prisoner, attacks everything hat moves without thought.  Feeling the pulse of the players is tricky there as sometimes they make things right themselvs as a RP issue and sometimes you just have to act supprised when things "go bad" for that charater especiaily if you think he is going to cause trouble even if he played a skald.

One of the problems I have with the newer mindset of D&D is the single serving mentality of the game and its players. So many come in to play the two hours a week with cut and dry rule sets and "from the book" DMs that when they get into real campaigns they need to relearn alot of the game.

Same is to be said to me I need to learn to tone down the immershion of the game and not make it a second life enforced on the players. Folks have jobs and kids (as do I) that come first.

To me being a DM is first and formost the guy whom's job it is to keep focus on the games number one goal and that is to have fun. I may not know every book or stat or item produced but I do know to read the players and keep them busy with what interest them.

So the topic of dealing with inturpted diaglog IMHO falls under the snap descision of a DM to decide if its a group feel, a butthead, or the DM overdoing it.  All three result in the same answer of "ok, roll them bones" it's how you deal with it afterward thats going to make it a positive or negative effect.

Mar 20, 2012 -- 12:29AM, DoctorBadWolf wrote:

but I'm not within my rights, as DM, to decide for the players what their characters do, anymore than they are within their rights to tell me what my NPCs do.

Sounds like a trust issue. My players are welcome to create NPCs out of thin air or help guide the actions or personalities of NPCs in the game. Or come up with new stories and threads wholesale for me to introduce and flesh out. And I'm allowed to take the occasional liberty with their PCs as well if it helps round out the story. All parties work with an eye toward making things awesome.

The DM is a player and the players are also storytellers.

monologues are best delivered as ghostly voices that talk to the PCs as they're moving to meet the BBEG...

or as dying declarations.  "what? you chopped off his head? well, aren't you just that much more surprised when his severed head's eyes open up gliwing red, and a creepy otherwordly voice issues from its mouth and says 'stuff is gonna happen, beware!'"

Or in between multi-stage encounters....say the BBEG teleports or runs away at some point and you hear his voice echoing down the hallway, goading you on or cursing your persistence.   

Mar 20, 2012 -- 9:45AM, Sydonis wrote:

No, no, no, no, no.  Absolutely 100% not.  If the player really wants to make an attack, its not your call to just say "No".  

The only difference between the players and a GM is that the GM controls multiple characters, and has immediate control over Non-player encounters only.  Nowhere in the Rules Compendium does it say "GM's can control a player's character during monologues".  GM's who believe so need to contemplate on the size of their egos.

Many GM's become just as power hungry as players who want to optimize, and control parts of the game they have no right to control.  You may control the history of the world, but you do not control the actions of the players.  As such, if a player wants to make an attack to interrupt an enemy's speech, they are well within their right.  Just make sure the player understands what they're doing before they follow through with the action.

How often do heroes sit back and listen to an entire monologue?  Almost never, unless they're restrained; if anything, villains have to keep monologing during combat, because heroes just don't care.  Anyway, if a villain can't hold off a group of heroes for long enough to finish their speech, they don't deserve to give one.

That said, we each come to the game for our own reasons.  If speeches are really important to you, and you enjoy a good monologue from a villain, just ask the players to chill while your npc's are making speeches.  If one of your players really loves interrupting speeches, then find balance:  let them interrupt half of the speeches, and ask him to chill for the really epic ones.

"You want to attack? No problem. Roll initiative. Okay, I win and make my speech. You're on deck." The speech has no mechanical effect. I'm not telling the character "No." It's outside of the rules of engagement and in the realm of story which the DM has control over, even total control if you want to play it that way. (I don't.)

Not that any of my players would be so rude as to interrupt a good monologue from a villain in the first place. I wouldn't interrupt the party's cleric or bard when he or she did the same. It's a racial feature called, "Don't Be a Jerk," and everyone at the table has access to it even the DM. One hopes everyone takes full advantage of it.