When I go to work, I don't just put my head down and do 8 hours of work without talking to anyone. I'm frequently talking to the people around me about what I'm doing or what they're doing or what we're doing together. Everyone that I've ever worked with does this.
Do you often work to remove a magical parasite of extraterrestrial origin from your brain?
If not, then I would venture to assume that you are put a little less pressure on you than on our heroes.
You are creating a false dichotomy and your assumption is irrelevant. People under pressure are still people. Being under pressure doesn't mean that you stop talking to the people around you. Our characters aren't in fight or flight mode non-stop for 16 hours a day before they spend 5 minutes chatting with exactly one of their companions and then drift off to a peaceful sleep.
Also, the implication that because I haven't been in the exact same situation as the characters means that I can't understand what they're going through is ludicrous. The entire purpose of stories is that you can empathize with other people without having to suffer the consequences that they are experiencing.
What im actualy sugesting, is keep things as they are now:
In field, we are focused on curent matters.
In camp, where we have time, we can talk about other things.
No we aren't. Our companions find time to chat with each other about idle matters as we wander around - why is it that the PC is excluded from this?
From a spell slot perspective, I am perfectly willing to assume that he's using Minor Illusion or is using magic in a way that isn't perfectly encapsulated in an existing cantrip. He's playing with a simple illusion, not disintegrating someone.
Cantrip that he unlearn once the conversation is done?
Yeah, why not ...
Casters can do all sorts of things in the story that aren't exactly spells. The weave cutscene you have with Gale definitely isn't a spell from your spellbook. The "mirror image" thing that Gale does isn't the actual Mirror Image spell - that doesn't create sound. It feels reasonable for characters to be able to do trivial things like this to suit the story, even if we, as players, don't have access to that particular ability in the game.
Lae'zel can probably do a cartwheel. I bet she's great at it. If she did one in a cutscene, it wouldn't surprise me at all. (I assume she would kill something as part of that cartwheel, but that's more about her personality than her ability.) I have no problem with the fact that I, as a player, can't make her do it whenever I want.
I'm fine with that, too, if they can make the transitions between them convincing. I still think they should happen at various times throughout the day.
I dunno ...
I was thinking about allowing to talk with companions any time you visit the camp ... it still feels off to return to camp to "just talk" ... but to be honest, whole returning to camp at any time except for sleeping is quite odd and seem completely iracional ...
So, i presume it would be acceptable. :-/
I don't think you should return to camp to talk. Frankly, I don't think there should be a camp to return to at all, even for sleeping - you should really just be camping wherever you are. But that topic is already well-tread in other threads; I don't feel a huge need to delve into it here.
