Can't imagine why many are under the impression most games today are just about teams of murderhobos who can't wait to kill the next thing.
No rallying of troops? No prophecies? No speeches? No toasts? No tributes?
A world in which all but four or five characters are reduced to voiceless manqués and window-dressing is like the worst of fan fiction by wannabe authors who just want to cram their favorite characters into an otherwise characterless world.
INSPIRATIONS:Clark Ashton Smith, Mervyn Peake, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Steven Brust, Terry Pratchett, China Miéville.
Players, if you keep attacking the enemies before they can have their say, stop getting sulky when the GM interrupts your 10-minute death speech with "Just roll the death save already."
Is it any wonder there is a dearth of DMs when so many seem to have forgotten respect goes both ways?
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INSPIRATIONS:Clark Ashton Smith, Mervyn Peake, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Steven Brust, Terry Pratchett, China Miéville.
This has morphed from whether it is technically a good thing when the OP was about players should ALLOW it to happen. The point is, the DM does not need the permission of the players to monologue or not. If the players are upset for with a DM taking a minute or two at the end of a campaign for some self-indulgence, the players really should question why they are at that table.
That assumes that the GM only takes a minute or two. If that were all they were doing, there would be a lot fewer player objections.
There should be NO player objections.
If I start waxing on in a monologue for more than 5 minutes I hope my players say something.
These hypothetical monologues are unicorns. I once had a DM talk for 5 minutes without interruption about the history and lore on an area and the BBEG, but as the DM. No one speaks in char for 5 minutes straight. And even if the DM did, so what? Let them. They do 99% of the prep work in a campaign. They deserve a a great deal of latitude and respect.
It is the mindset presented by many in this thread that contribute to the dearth of DM's compared to players.
"Gee, I don't understand why our DM quit when we told him how to run the NPC's. He should be happy with our valuable input. "
As soon as a DM starts reading off a page my mind starts to glaze over. I can only take it for so long. And I’m also a DM, so I can say that.
So when a DM starts reading off a page, describing a building, or a room, you tune out......
I struggle not to. I much prefer something more extemporaneous.
sight, sound, smell, taste, smell, feel (emotion), and sense (vibes)
notable contents, rough idea otherwise
goal.
a fast sketch space is my norm, and that is pretty much the bulk of what I write down unless I am doing it for someone else.
so I can totally get that glazing over at a paragraph bit.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I find this entire thread incredible. First off, no one writes a 10 minute monologue. No one writes a 5 min monologue.
But SO WHAT if the BBEG, at the end of a 30 session campaign, maybe 100 hours of game time, takes 10 minutes. The DM has earned it.
If GMs were willing to only do a ten minute monologue at the end of a thirty session campaign, I might be willing to agree. The problem is that far too many GMs want to monologue every session.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
sight, sound, smell, taste, smell, feel (emotion), and sense (vibes)
notable contents, rough idea otherwise
goal.
a fast sketch space is my norm, and that is pretty much the bulk of what I write down unless I am doing it for someone else.
so I can totally get that glazing over at a paragraph bit.
That's probably what most DMs do at most to bring any scene to life.
But for an NPC to be memorable or truly sympathetic you can't expect a DM to muzzle it just because some at the table lack a threshold for patience they expect in others when it's their turn.
A DM wears many hats and one of those hats requires him or her to play every other character that populates the world. The sorts of players who can't pay attention to a king's oratory are probably the sorts of players who just want things to move on so they can kill something.
I find games that play out like that to be far more dull, repetitive, and somniferous than ones in which a character other than one of the players' characters can get a word in without being interrupted.
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INSPIRATIONS:Clark Ashton Smith, Mervyn Peake, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Steven Brust, Terry Pratchett, China Miéville.
Oh my. A ten minute monologue is probably about average for those who love it.
I can absolutely guarantee that more than a few of the thousands of members of *just this site* have done ten minute monologues. And of all the people who play D&D (just D&D, not counting the spinoffs and knockoffs), a ten minute monologue is probably more common than a 5 minute one.
Whenever someone says that "no one does this" it is all but certain that someone is going to soon or, more often, that someone already has. Never underestimate the capacity of humans to be the best and the worst, because we prove time and again that we are always going to be both and all points in between.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I struggle not to. I much prefer something more extemporaneous.
What if the party receive or encounter a letter and one of the players (characters) is expected to read this aloud in order to save time instead of had everyone just read it silently to themselves? That equally sleep-inducing? Or is it just the voice of your DM you can't stand to hear for more than 17 seconds?
The DM isn't just there to narrate your story for you. It's also his or her job to breathe life into non-player characters and sometimes that requires letting them talk for more time than it takes for the impatient player to start itching to kill something. A world in which the only characters with character are those the players play is a world that lacks character.
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INSPIRATIONS:Clark Ashton Smith, Mervyn Peake, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Steven Brust, Terry Pratchett, China Miéville.
Oh my. A ten minute monologue is probably about average for those who love it.
I can absolutely guarantee that more than a few of the thousands of members of *just this site* have done ten minute monologues. And of all the people who play D&D (just D&D, not counting the spinoffs and knockoffs), a ten minute monologue is probably more common than a 5 minute one.
Whenever someone says that "no one does this" it is all but certain that someone is going to soon or, more often, that someone already has. Never underestimate the capacity of humans to be the best and the worst, because we prove time and again that we are always going to be both and all points in between.
In thirty + years of playing I have never seen a DM talk for as long as ten minutes straight except perhaps to set things up at the very beginning. Even then ten minutes seems unlikely.
When it comes to speaking for non-player characters I can't imagine I've ever spoken for even as long as 5 minutes to get out what it is I want to say. I have never written down what an NPC is going to say and have only ever worked from fragments and notes.
The St Crispin's Day Speech from Henry V can be delivered in around two minutes.
That's I'd say a more than fair and reasonable maximum length for a monologue from an NPC.
Whenever someone says? Whenever someone has dug their heals in to argue about something that really needn't have gone any further than simply acknowledging it's rude and disruptive for players to want their turn but then not allow an NPC to speak on its turn you can guarantee that someone will then pull all manner of nonsense out of the air about how we've all had to endure monologues stretching to ten minutes instead of conceding monologues aren't the end of the world.
INSPIRATIONS:Clark Ashton Smith, Mervyn Peake, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Steven Brust, Terry Pratchett, China Miéville.
I find this entire thread incredible. First off, no one writes a 10 minute monologue. No one writes a 5 min monologue.
But SO WHAT if the BBEG, at the end of a 30 session campaign, maybe 100 hours of game time, takes 10 minutes. The DM has earned it.
If GMs were willing to only do a ten minute monologue at the end of a thirty session campaign, I might be willing to agree. The problem is that far too many GMs want to monologue every session.
Nonsense. I have NEVER played with a DM that monologues for more than a couple minutes in char, and NEVER one that monologues every session, and I have been playing for over 40 years.
I’m sure somewhere someone has written a ten minute monologue for D&D before, but it is so rare as to be irrelevant, and any statements regarding such are all but certainly hyperbolic and/or based on misjudging exactly how long ten minutes actually is.
It should also be noted that your response establishes you did not read the post being responded to - that user only mentioned the ten minutes because they were responding to your hypothetical - so your being flabbergasted at the figure is you responding to your own statement, not theirs - and they never actually say that DMs do ten minute monologues. What they do complain about is DMs who want to do a monologue (regardless of length) every single session.
Which brings us to the inherent flaw with your unnecessarily angry posting on this thread - for the most part, folks agree that DMs should be shown great “latitude” to use your word. But “latitude” is a word implying that limits do in fact exist—and that is what players are cautioning against on this thread. You’ll note many of them have accepted that monologuing can be perfectly acceptable - while also acknowledging two general situations where the DM can run out of any latitude they were given.
The first complaint is the over-reliance of monologuing - using it as a primary and repeated exposition tool, falling into the classic storytelling pitfall of “tell don’t show”. This is a fair complaint - if a DM is frequently using monologue rather than dialogue, or relying on monologues where it would not be appropriate to do so, they very well could cross the line into bad storytelling.
The second addresses monologues which are too long. The ten minute figure is hyperbolic, but I am guessing there is a fair share of three-to-five minute monologues that could have probably been ninety seconds. I would also hazard a guess that a substantial number of those are designed to be a more manageable length, but inexperience with monologuing leads to slow delivery or meandering off script, both of which can quickly exhaust a reasonable person’s deference. Note, players on this thread have also consistently stated they feel this problem is not a big issue if it is the last session—capstone speeches seem to be given a bit more leeway in how bad they might be (which is entirely fair and reasonable—it is one of the last chances for the DM to engage in a non-combat way and it isn’t like there’s going to be a repeated pattern since there’s no more time for the bad behavior to repeat itself).
I think both of those are fair complaints - particularly in cases where both overlap. And, to be completely frank, it would be far more disrespectful to the DM not to raise it as an issue - one can’t learn if the players are unwilling to point out flaws in a constructive way.
I’m sure somewhere someone has written a ten minute monologue for D&D before, but it is so rare as to be irrelevant, and any statements regarding such are all but certainly hyperbolic and/or based on misjudging exactly how long ten minutes actually is.
It should also be noted that your response establishes you did not read the post being responded to - that user only mentioned the ten minutes because they were responding to your hypothetical - so your being flabbergasted at the figure is you responding to your own statement, not theirs - and they never actually say that DMs do ten minute monologues. What they do complain about is DMs who want to do a monologue (regardless of length) every single session.
Which brings us to the inherent flaw with your unnecessarily angry posting on this thread - for the most part, folks agree that DMs should be shown great “latitude” to use your word. But “latitude” is a word implying that limits do in fact exist—and that is what players are cautioning against on this thread. You’ll note many of them have accepted that monologuing can be perfectly acceptable - while also acknowledging two general situations where the DM can run out of any latitude they were given.
The first complaint is the over-reliance of monologuing - using it as a primary and repeated exposition tool, falling into the classic storytelling pitfall of “tell don’t show”. This is a fair complaint - if a DM is frequently using monologue rather than dialogue, or relying on monologues where it would not be appropriate to do so, they very well could cross the line into bad storytelling.
The second addresses monologues which are too long. The ten minute figure is hyperbolic, but I am guessing there is a fair share of three-to-five minute monologues that could have probably been ninety seconds. I would also hazard a guess that a substantial number of those are designed to be a more manageable length, but inexperience with monologuing leads to slow delivery or meandering off script, both of which can quickly exhaust a reasonable person’s deference. Note, players on this thread have also consistently stated they feel this problem is not a big issue if it is the last session—capstone speeches seem to be given a bit more leeway in how bad they might be (which is entirely fair and reasonable—it is one of the last chances for the DM to engage in a non-combat way and it isn’t like there’s going to be a repeated pattern since there’s no more time for the bad behavior to repeat itself).
I think both of those are fair complaints - particularly in cases where both overlap. And, to be completely frank, it would be far more disrespectful to the DM not to raise it as an issue - one can’t learn if the players are unwilling to point out flaws in a constructive way.
On page 4. Someone else posted the ludicrous claim 10-minute monologues are common and went as far as saying that among all players of D&D and similar games they would be more common than 5-minute monologues. So that's at least twice now you've claimed others were misrepresenting what some people were saying when in reality it's just you ignoring what some people are saying so you can instead just fulfill some need to insult others. Maybe stop gaslighting people by claiming things haven't been said that have been said and maybe call out those making such ludicrous claims instead of just fulfilling that need to insult others by acting like no one has made them and we're just incapable of "critical reading."
It's incredible how you can't even find it within yourself to say it's rude and disruptive behavior for an obnoxious player to interrupt a perfectly good monologue.
Instead you've pretty much ignored the actual subject of the thread so you can argue with others about what makes for a good or a not-so-good monologue like that's the ******* subject of the original post and as if anyone here is arguing in favor of bad and long-winded monologues.
INSPIRATIONS:Clark Ashton Smith, Mervyn Peake, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Steven Brust, Terry Pratchett, China Miéville.
Know your players. Often, players surprise each other (as in one situation I presented earlier where nobody expected any of them to just launch into an attack mid-dialog with practically no warning). Yet, getting to know the players at the table helps (and by players, I mean getting to know the DM, too).
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I struggle not to. I much prefer something more extemporaneous.
What if the party receive or encounter a letter and one of the players (characters) is expected to read this aloud in order to save time instead of had everyone just read it silently to themselves? That equally sleep-inducing? Or is it just the voice of your DM you can't stand to hear for more than 17 seconds?
The DM isn't just there to narrate your story for you. It's also his or her job to breathe life into non-player characters and sometimes that requires letting them talk for more time than it takes for the impatient player to start itching to kill something. A world in which the only characters with character are those the players play is a world that lacks character.
Doesn’t matter. If the letter runs longer than about 120 seconds to read I start to glaze over. When we go around the table at work and are each expected to read a section of the case aloud to the table it happens there too. 🤷♂️ It’s the tone people’s voices take on when reading aloud instead of just talking. I would take a practiced, rehearsed speech over one read aloud any day.
Doesn’t matter. If the letter runs longer than about 120 seconds to read I start to glaze over. When we go around the table at work and are each expected to read a section of the case aloud to the table it happens there too. 🤷♂️ It’s the tone people’s voices take on when reading aloud instead of just talking. I would take a practiced, rehearsed speech over one read aloud any day.
The St Crispin's Day Speech from Henry V can be delivered in around two minutes.
That's I'd say a more than fair and reasonable maximum length for a monologue from an NPC.
The only people here suggesting a DM might deliver long-winded monologues are those who just want to argue and who have tragically failed to post anything that gives voice to their actual thoughts on the actual subject of the original post: it is selfish and obnoxious behavior for a player who'd probably sulk if he or she was in the middle of saying something and was interrupted to interrupt the DM when he or she is obviously delivering a monologue.
No one in this thread wants to listen to a DM or anyone else at their tables bore everyone else present by speaking for aeons. Not even those of us who have defended proper and good use of monologues.
All this talk about monologues that are too long or monologues that are poorly utilized or just plain terrible is off topic and a distraction coming from those who seem incapable of simply acknowledging it's pretty ******* shitty behavior to just ruin a perfectly good rallying cry, prophecy, or speech from an NPC. Makes me suspect those doing that are the types of players who are rude and disruptive. Seeing themselves in what was described in the original post.
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Doesn’t matter. If the letter runs longer than about 120 seconds to read I start to glaze over. When we go around the table at work and are each expected to read a section of the case aloud to the table it happens there too. 🤷♂️ It’s the tone people’s voices take on when reading aloud instead of just talking. I would take a practiced, rehearsed speech over one read aloud any day.
120 seconds?
Yeah, after about 2 minutes my mind starts to glaze over.
Since I occasionally have to give speeches of 10 to 15 minutes in length, I am well aware of the time it takes, and was neither exaggerating nor employing hyperbole
though sermons can occasionally not be monologues, they still fill the time the same. And a ten minute monologue is absolutely going to have the same effect that a 10 minute sermon or speech does -- and if it isn't memorized and is merely being read out, that not only cuts down on the word count, it introduces pauses that are not natural language and tonal shifts that are OOC, so while I might hope that no one is doing them...
they are absolutely happening.
I won't argue they are not rare, lol, but no creative endeavor should be seen as irrelevant, even something as "throwaway" as a forum post. My point, however, was never to say that "no one does this".
Because someone, somewhere, will have and someone somewhere, will -- if someone somewhere is not doing it at that moment.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
As an older DM, I've noticed a BIG difference in folks that grew up on books versus the ones that grew up on screens.
I'm ADHD as HECK, but even I'm like "FOCUS, Kids!". LOL!
Oh, I can listen to someone give a memorized speech, or speak extemporaneously for extended periods of time without problem. It’s listening to someone read aloud that makes me go fuzzy after a couple of minutes. It’s those unnatural pauses and tonal shifts that AEDorsay mentioned that put me off.
Yeah, after about 2 minutes my mind starts to glaze over.
it appears your mind started to glaze over before you reached the rest of my reply given you failed to notice that question was rhetorical and just repeated yourself instead of noticing I then shared that I myself had said two minutes should probably be the maximum length of any monologue and explained how off topic this thread has become because you and others don't want to admit it's ******* behavior for a player to expect everyone else's ears and eyes when it's their turn but lose patience when its that of an NPC.
INSPIRATIONS:Clark Ashton Smith, Mervyn Peake, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Steven Brust, Terry Pratchett, China Miéville.
Yeah, after about 2 minutes my mind starts to glaze over.
it appears your mind started to glaze over before you reached the rest of my reply given you failed to notice that question was rhetorical and just repeated yourself instead of noticing I then shared that I myself had said two minutes should probably be the maximum length of any monologue and explained how off topic this thread has become because you and others don't want to admit it's ******* behavior for a player to expect everyone's ears and eyes when it's their turn but lose patience when its that of an NPC.
Since the rest of your post was after another quoted post, I presumed it wasn’t addressed to me, so I didn’t read it. My bad yo.
Can't imagine why many are under the impression most games today are just about teams of murderhobos who can't wait to kill the next thing.
No rallying of troops? No prophecies? No speeches? No toasts? No tributes?
A world in which all but four or five characters are reduced to voiceless manqués and window-dressing is like the worst of fan fiction by wannabe authors who just want to cram their favorite characters into an otherwise characterless world.
INSPIRATIONS: Clark Ashton Smith, Mervyn Peake, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Steven Brust, Terry Pratchett, China Miéville.
SYSTEMS: ShadowDark, C&C, AD&D.
GEAR: pencils, graph paper, dice.
Is it any wonder there is a dearth of DMs when so many seem to have forgotten respect goes both ways?
INSPIRATIONS: Clark Ashton Smith, Mervyn Peake, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Steven Brust, Terry Pratchett, China Miéville.
SYSTEMS: ShadowDark, C&C, AD&D.
GEAR: pencils, graph paper, dice.
I struggle not to. I much prefer something more extemporaneous.
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sight, sound, smell, taste, smell, feel (emotion), and sense (vibes)
notable contents, rough idea otherwise
goal.
a fast sketch space is my norm, and that is pretty much the bulk of what I write down unless I am doing it for someone else.
so I can totally get that glazing over at a paragraph bit.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
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If GMs were willing to only do a ten minute monologue at the end of a thirty session campaign, I might be willing to agree. The problem is that far too many GMs want to monologue every session.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
That's probably what most DMs do at most to bring any scene to life.
But for an NPC to be memorable or truly sympathetic you can't expect a DM to muzzle it just because some at the table lack a threshold for patience they expect in others when it's their turn.
A DM wears many hats and one of those hats requires him or her to play every other character that populates the world. The sorts of players who can't pay attention to a king's oratory are probably the sorts of players who just want things to move on so they can kill something.
I find games that play out like that to be far more dull, repetitive, and somniferous than ones in which a character other than one of the players' characters can get a word in without being interrupted.
INSPIRATIONS: Clark Ashton Smith, Mervyn Peake, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Steven Brust, Terry Pratchett, China Miéville.
SYSTEMS: ShadowDark, C&C, AD&D.
GEAR: pencils, graph paper, dice.
Oh my. A ten minute monologue is probably about average for those who love it.
I can absolutely guarantee that more than a few of the thousands of members of *just this site* have done ten minute monologues. And of all the people who play D&D (just D&D, not counting the spinoffs and knockoffs), a ten minute monologue is probably more common than a 5 minute one.
Whenever someone says that "no one does this" it is all but certain that someone is going to soon or, more often, that someone already has. Never underestimate the capacity of humans to be the best and the worst, because we prove time and again that we are always going to be both and all points in between.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
What if the party receive or encounter a letter and one of the players (characters) is expected to read this aloud in order to save time instead of had everyone just read it silently to themselves? That equally sleep-inducing? Or is it just the voice of your DM you can't stand to hear for more than 17 seconds?
The DM isn't just there to narrate your story for you. It's also his or her job to breathe life into non-player characters and sometimes that requires letting them talk for more time than it takes for the impatient player to start itching to kill something. A world in which the only characters with character are those the players play is a world that lacks character.
INSPIRATIONS: Clark Ashton Smith, Mervyn Peake, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Steven Brust, Terry Pratchett, China Miéville.
SYSTEMS: ShadowDark, C&C, AD&D.
GEAR: pencils, graph paper, dice.
In thirty + years of playing I have never seen a DM talk for as long as ten minutes straight except perhaps to set things up at the very beginning. Even then ten minutes seems unlikely.
When it comes to speaking for non-player characters I can't imagine I've ever spoken for even as long as 5 minutes to get out what it is I want to say. I have never written down what an NPC is going to say and have only ever worked from fragments and notes.
The St Crispin's Day Speech from Henry V can be delivered in around two minutes.
That's I'd say a more than fair and reasonable maximum length for a monologue from an NPC.
Whenever someone says? Whenever someone has dug their heals in to argue about something that really needn't have gone any further than simply acknowledging it's rude and disruptive for players to want their turn but then not allow an NPC to speak on its turn you can guarantee that someone will then pull all manner of nonsense out of the air about how we've all had to endure monologues stretching to ten minutes instead of conceding monologues aren't the end of the world.
INSPIRATIONS: Clark Ashton Smith, Mervyn Peake, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Steven Brust, Terry Pratchett, China Miéville.
SYSTEMS: ShadowDark, C&C, AD&D.
GEAR: pencils, graph paper, dice.
10 minutes would be around 2000-3000 words. I can't think for a single time I or any DM I've played with has done that!
I’m sure somewhere someone has written a ten minute monologue for D&D before, but it is so rare as to be irrelevant, and any statements regarding such are all but certainly hyperbolic and/or based on misjudging exactly how long ten minutes actually is.
It should also be noted that your response establishes you did not read the post being responded to - that user only mentioned the ten minutes because they were responding to your hypothetical - so your being flabbergasted at the figure is you responding to your own statement, not theirs - and they never actually say that DMs do ten minute monologues. What they do complain about is DMs who want to do a monologue (regardless of length) every single session.
Which brings us to the inherent flaw with your unnecessarily angry posting on this thread - for the most part, folks agree that DMs should be shown great “latitude” to use your word. But “latitude” is a word implying that limits do in fact exist—and that is what players are cautioning against on this thread. You’ll note many of them have accepted that monologuing can be perfectly acceptable - while also acknowledging two general situations where the DM can run out of any latitude they were given.
The first complaint is the over-reliance of monologuing - using it as a primary and repeated exposition tool, falling into the classic storytelling pitfall of “tell don’t show”. This is a fair complaint - if a DM is frequently using monologue rather than dialogue, or relying on monologues where it would not be appropriate to do so, they very well could cross the line into bad storytelling.
The second addresses monologues which are too long. The ten minute figure is hyperbolic, but I am guessing there is a fair share of three-to-five minute monologues that could have probably been ninety seconds. I would also hazard a guess that a substantial number of those are designed to be a more manageable length, but inexperience with monologuing leads to slow delivery or meandering off script, both of which can quickly exhaust a reasonable person’s deference. Note, players on this thread have also consistently stated they feel this problem is not a big issue if it is the last session—capstone speeches seem to be given a bit more leeway in how bad they might be (which is entirely fair and reasonable—it is one of the last chances for the DM to engage in a non-combat way and it isn’t like there’s going to be a repeated pattern since there’s no more time for the bad behavior to repeat itself).
I think both of those are fair complaints - particularly in cases where both overlap. And, to be completely frank, it would be far more disrespectful to the DM not to raise it as an issue - one can’t learn if the players are unwilling to point out flaws in a constructive way.
On page 4. Someone else posted the ludicrous claim 10-minute monologues are common and went as far as saying that among all players of D&D and similar games they would be more common than 5-minute monologues. So that's at least twice now you've claimed others were misrepresenting what some people were saying when in reality it's just you ignoring what some people are saying so you can instead just fulfill some need to insult others. Maybe stop gaslighting people by claiming things haven't been said that have been said and maybe call out those making such ludicrous claims instead of just fulfilling that need to insult others by acting like no one has made them and we're just incapable of "critical reading."
It's incredible how you can't even find it within yourself to say it's rude and disruptive behavior for an obnoxious player to interrupt a perfectly good monologue.
Instead you've pretty much ignored the actual subject of the thread so you can argue with others about what makes for a good or a not-so-good monologue like that's the ******* subject of the original post and as if anyone here is arguing in favor of bad and long-winded monologues.
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Know your players. Often, players surprise each other (as in one situation I presented earlier where nobody expected any of them to just launch into an attack mid-dialog with practically no warning). Yet, getting to know the players at the table helps (and by players, I mean getting to know the DM, too).
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Doesn’t matter. If the letter runs longer than about 120 seconds to read I start to glaze over. When we go around the table at work and are each expected to read a section of the case aloud to the table it happens there too. 🤷♂️ It’s the tone people’s voices take on when reading aloud instead of just talking. I would take a practiced, rehearsed speech over one read aloud any day.
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120 seconds?
The only people here suggesting a DM might deliver long-winded monologues are those who just want to argue and who have tragically failed to post anything that gives voice to their actual thoughts on the actual subject of the original post: it is selfish and obnoxious behavior for a player who'd probably sulk if he or she was in the middle of saying something and was interrupted to interrupt the DM when he or she is obviously delivering a monologue.
No one in this thread wants to listen to a DM or anyone else at their tables bore everyone else present by speaking for aeons. Not even those of us who have defended proper and good use of monologues.
All this talk about monologues that are too long or monologues that are poorly utilized or just plain terrible is off topic and a distraction coming from those who seem incapable of simply acknowledging it's pretty ******* shitty behavior to just ruin a perfectly good rallying cry, prophecy, or speech from an NPC. Makes me suspect those doing that are the types of players who are rude and disruptive. Seeing themselves in what was described in the original post.
INSPIRATIONS: Clark Ashton Smith, Mervyn Peake, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Steven Brust, Terry Pratchett, China Miéville.
SYSTEMS: ShadowDark, C&C, AD&D.
GEAR: pencils, graph paper, dice.
Yeah, after about 2 minutes my mind starts to glaze over.
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Since I occasionally have to give speeches of 10 to 15 minutes in length, I am well aware of the time it takes, and was neither exaggerating nor employing hyperbole
though sermons can occasionally not be monologues, they still fill the time the same. And a ten minute monologue is absolutely going to have the same effect that a 10 minute sermon or speech does -- and if it isn't memorized and is merely being read out, that not only cuts down on the word count, it introduces pauses that are not natural language and tonal shifts that are OOC, so while I might hope that no one is doing them...
they are absolutely happening.
I won't argue they are not rare, lol, but no creative endeavor should be seen as irrelevant, even something as "throwaway" as a forum post. My point, however, was never to say that "no one does this".
Because someone, somewhere, will have and someone somewhere, will -- if someone somewhere is not doing it at that moment.
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Oh, I can listen to someone give a memorized speech, or speak extemporaneously for extended periods of time without problem. It’s listening to someone read aloud that makes me go fuzzy after a couple of minutes. It’s those unnatural pauses and tonal shifts that AEDorsay mentioned that put me off.
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it appears your mind started to glaze over before you reached the rest of my reply given you failed to notice that question was rhetorical and just repeated yourself instead of noticing I then shared that I myself had said two minutes should probably be the maximum length of any monologue and explained how off topic this thread has become because you and others don't want to admit it's ******* behavior for a player to expect everyone else's ears and eyes when it's their turn but lose patience when its that of an NPC.
INSPIRATIONS: Clark Ashton Smith, Mervyn Peake, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Steven Brust, Terry Pratchett, China Miéville.
SYSTEMS: ShadowDark, C&C, AD&D.
GEAR: pencils, graph paper, dice.
Since the rest of your post was after another quoted post, I presumed it wasn’t addressed to me, so I didn’t read it. My bad yo.
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