"[It is the s]ame with choosing not to go into the sewers in the first place. There's literally no other game than "we go into the sewers to fight these rat things." We can undertake prep and stuff beforehand, of course, but if I say, "no, my character has a date tonight" or whatever, that's identical to saying "I don't want to play after all." If I do that, we put the dice and character sheets away and find something else to do with our afternoon.
[...]
Sebastian, our GM, is under no obligation to give us anything else to do. He'd be like, "okay, make your plan, find a third player, spend your XP and your gold, I'll be here waiting." If I'm like, "my character goes on a date," Sebastian shrugs and says "okay. Let me know when you go back into the sewers." Even if we play out the date, for whatever reason, and let my character have relationships and passions and crap like that, in the back of both our heads we're calculating how this is going to change my character's performance vs the rat zombies and future monsters.
[What if the GM makes the Monster snatch up my girlfriend?] He can do that if he wants, but I'm not playing obstructively so he's under no pressure to. If I'm drawing play out to avoid, y'know, playing, then I suck and he should call me on it.
Grabbing my character's girlfriend would be a tactical move, to change the tactical landscape, not to do any bullshit like testing my loyalties or whatever.
[...]a backdrop of narrative stuff - passions, conflicts - doesn't make this kind of play more fun at all, UNLESS it adds tactical complexity. When it does add tactical complexity to play, THEN it's fun (and that's how it's fun). Otherwise it's intrusive non-play. You can imagine me talking about my character's girlfriend instead of playing the game, and Seb and Elliot are rolling their eyes, or packing up, or going on without me."
-Vincent
This makes sooooo much sense...
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