...and can you throw darts at it?

Actually, the best part is that the explanations of what the various areas mean are colour-coded to match the dial!

I really need to hand this to a group that struggles with pacing and see what happens. Alas, I've gotten pretty good at handling pacing with my own group just through constant chatter, so I haven't seen the dial make a big difference. I have seen it make a small positive difference, though.

The very first session where I brought it out, one player went Bullet Time on a sprint to splash an orc with acid before the orc could react to his approach and gore him. This nicely got us on the same page for a back-and-forth narration:
Dan: "I crouch down, every muscle tense, ready to push off from the cave wall!"
Dave: "A droplet of water falls from the ceiling. It's traveling... traveling..."
Dan: "I push off, sprinter-style, foot crashing into the puddle!"
Dave: "A huge splash goes up! The falling droplet strikes your cheek! The orc's shoulders twitch and it looks like he might be beginning to turn..."

The following session, Dan got bored during a "conversation with townsfolk" scene and slammed the marker on Scene Summary: Facts Only. There was a moment of discord, as another player (John) said, "No, wait, it's important what we learn here." Dan responded, "Then let's just establish what we learned!" Which sounded like a problem at first, but we eventually realized that it wasn't one. I just asked John what he hoped to learn, broke that into "what you'll definitely learn", "what you definitely won't learn", and "what you might learn", rolled a die for the latter, and voila.

For a real player disagreement to arise re: the Speed & Focus dial, it would have to be not about "what happens?" but rather about "what does that look like?" It hasn't come up yet in my group. If it does, I plan to handle it the same as any other social disagreement. This is all metagame-level stuff, so direct person-to-person talk works fine.

One observation: the dial is much more relevant in a play environment which allows for some slowness (for me, often immersing in the sense of a place). If you're trying to do as much fictional stuff as possible in your limited play window, your group will probably default to the fastest speed and least detail the group deems permissible for any given chunk of play.

That sounds like more than small positive differences!

Have you tried a version where it is just Bullet Time -> Slight Slo-Mo -> Real Time -> Action Summary -> Scene Summary -> Multi Scene -> Episode Summary

Dave, do you see this as codifying existing social mechanisms? I ask because I think groups do this on the inter-player level regularly, either through physical and verbal cues or through direct discussion. But most of this is habit, and it's really cool to see it atomized and laid out for players to use, even if it is just a reminder that they have a wide range of control.

John, you mean ditch the subcategories (rich detail / sparse detail, etc.)?

I'm certainly willing to consider it. Still gathering data... I can think of one instance where Dan put the marker on "Real Time - Sparse Detail" to signal that he wanted to maintain moving through a tunnel in character, he just didn't care much about the moss on the walls.

Posted By: komradebobYou know, this would be really great if there was another band that covered "conflict scaling" to go along with the pacing, too.

Not sure if "conflict scaling" = "resolution scaling", but if you click on the image you can see how the dial relates to resolution... Take a look, and if that's not what you're talking about, could you clarify?

David:
Oops, missed the link part, but yes, that's pretty much what I was talking about.

It's a really great visual aid that nicely shows something I've tried to write out and explain for a really long time. I hope you don't mind if I steal this thing.

Can I ask a bit more about some actual play use? Your example of two players having different desires for pacing sounds pretty interesting to me. Also, can you tell me about how it interacts with skills use of characters?* Or, how it might interact with any sort of scene-framing? Does a shift in pace on the track tend to also correspond with the engagement of some sort of resolution mechanic ( official or unofficial)?

*Here I'm thinking about the way something like a research, invention, navigation, or repair skill might tend to go with pacing on the right side, while something like combat skills or manuevers will tend towards the lft side. Does this change at all how players build characters once they've used this track?

Not to be a douche, but you meant "pacing" in the title of this thread, right?

D.

Yeah, Paul's nailed it. It's two separate scales, stuck on one sheet of paper for convenience and melded by "most likely combos" logic.

KBob, feel free to use it. I can even send you a more printer-friendly verison if you want (whisper me about that). My only request would be that you let me know how it goes!

Can I ask a bit more about some actual play use? Your example of two players having different desires for pacing sounds pretty interesting to me.

My short answer is that the dial helps resolve differences only by highlighting, "Hey, this is a relevant dimension of play that we should interact with, instead of being passively dissatisfied." I've found that once the players know they can express their pacing desires, then they do, and things tend to get worked out well enough.

I had an idea where game currency could be used to win pacing disputes, but there didn't seem to be much upside to encouraging winner/loser rather than compromise. In a competitive game, though (which Delve is not), I might try it.

Also, can you tell me about how it interacts with skills use of characters? Here I'm thinking about the way something like a research, invention, navigation, or repair skill might tend to go with pacing on the right side, while something like combat skills or manuevers will tend towards the left side.

There's two things going on, right? There's the in-game time scale of a resolution, and there's the play coverage of in-game time. The way these line up in Delve is specific: "what gets played" takes the lead and determines when skill rolls are or aren't made, and how much they cover. In another system, though, I could easily see letting skill-based resolution mechanics lead, and adjusting the pacing/detail of narration depending on whether a "real time skill" (like a single attack) or a "scene summary skill" (like "research") is being used.

Does this change at all how players build characters once they've used this track?

For the Delve model, no. But for that latter model I just postulated, I could easily see how it might! If I was creating a character, I might well pick more "small-scale resolution skills" as a way of pursuing my general preference for high detail.

Or, how it might interact with any sort of scene-framing?

This is huge. As a GM, this one of my favorite things about the dial. It lets me know when to flex my visual and atmospheric portraiture skills before a rapt audience, and when to quickly spit out the bare basics. I honestly wish my players used the dial more for this. Although, post-dial-use, they have made some definite progress in giving me verbal guidance.

Does a shift in pace on the track tend to also correspond with the engagement of some sort of resolution mechanic ( official or unofficial)?

Shifting doesn't cause any particular mechanic to be employed right then and there. It just dictates, when the fiction calls for resolution, what scale will be resolved.