I won't bore you with an overly-verbose description for this one. I'll only use this opportunity to say THANK YOU for accompanying us on this grand journey, and we hope that your next session is the best one yet.

-Ivan & Steve

Do your players (or yourself as a player) behave differently when your PCs enter a city, village, or township? Today we're discussing some of the unique challenges of playing in a city setting.

We go in-depth on how specific game times associated with city play differ from a traditional gaming model which heavily incorporates the TTRPG pillar of exploration. We run down several methods for keeping the action moving, avoiding boredom, and maintaining canon.

We also cover the idea of player pragmatism, and the unique phenomenon of behavioral shifts caused by a change of locale.

Our Website: https://icastspells.com
Our Twitter: @passive_podcast
Our Email: passiveaggropod@protonmail.com

Show Breakdown:

• 0:00: Intro
• 0:30: TTRPG News
• 08:35: How some adventure types lend themselves to city settings.
• 09:30: Adapting the TTRPG pillar of exploration for intuitive city play.
• 11:50: Making a locale robust without getting stuck in the trap of endless prep.
• 20:15: Lore is great for reinforcing a city's character.
• 22:43: Maintaining canon.
• 26:32: Cities provide much more immediate consequence for questionable behavior.
• 31:58: How to avoid alienating certain player types while in different locales.
• 36:48: Pragmatism, character integrity, and how locale can influence the behavioral shifts of players.
• 44:07: Ways to regain tone after out-of-character conversations short circuit encounters.
• 49:44: Avoiding getting into a boring string of fetch quests.
• 54:33: Outro

To have the problem of finishing a campaign milestone and have your players still wanting more, even though the story is over, is a much better problem to have than your players being bored because there is no end in sight.

How many campaigns have you been a part of that have languished and died because of a lack of payoff. Is your gaming group losing steam? Are you scrambling to wrap up story arcs? We address these challenges and more as we discuss how we think many stories are better for having an ending.

Our Website: https://icastspells.com
Our Twitter: @passive_podcast
Our Email: passiveaggropod@protonmail.com

Show Breakdown:

• 0:00: Intro
• 02:40: TTRPG News
• 16:19: Main Topic
• 18:32: Personal examples of TTRPG campaigns that suffered from having shaky conclusions.
• 22:30: Consider playing your TTRPG campaign in chapters.
• 27:23: How unclear campaign goals can affect pacing.
• 29:20: The fantasy of the never-ending campaign can stand in the way of good games.
• 32:03: How many times have you as a GM/DM had to scramble to tie up a campaign?
• 33:42: Examples of TTRPG systems that nudge players toward campaign conclusions.
• 35:39: Foregoing a game's natural conclusion can prevent you from trying other things that you might find you enjoy.
• 37:52: Framing the conclusion of your game.
• 45:40: Outro
• 47:31: Absolute Mayhem