Brainstorming ideas for quicker gameplay

[Sporemine]

Hello people.

I've been thinking about ways of keeping gameplay flowing quicky (I have players that are unfocused a fair bit of the time) and have come up with a few ideas.

For anybody who would like to add, that's the idea of the thread (hence the thread name)

1) Initiative tracker
2) Player stats (Defenses, init, etc. Otherwise, getting them slows the game down)
3) Beethoven (It mellows people out)

Kudos

-Sporemine

 

[Jack99]

1. Remove 33% of all monsters' hit points and add 50% to their damage.
2. Use a timer to give players 20 seconds to determine what they will do during a round before they forfeit their turn.
3. Play and enjoy short and brutal combats

 

[Garthanos]

Roll attack and damage dice together
...or dont roll damage at all use static
average number (modified for crits).
or pre-roll all the dice -- avoid
losing the paper with the rolls on it.

take away all the action cards from
the player obsessed with shuffling
them...
or provide them to somebody who
cant think of something to do.(pick
a card any card ;-))

 

[aco175]

We have one player keep track of the initiative for the party and monsters. It works ok, but I would rather have a dryerase board that everyone can see. The DM and others have to keep asking who is next, and after a few rounds some people still do not know who they go after. Maybe having the order where all can see will allow players to begin their rolls while another is finishing. I tend to find that most player's actions do not have the next player needing to wait for them to be resolved.

 

[Markn]

Average Damage for monsters and players is a HUGE factor in speeding up games.

For example, if your power does 2d10 + 15 damage, it does 26 damage.

Try it for one session and you won't go back.

To add a bit of variety on monster damage (so PC's don't always know how much damage they will take) roll a d6 along with the monsters attack. If the d20 is even, add the d6 to the average damage. If its odd, subtract.

Looking for dice, rolling the extra dice and adding the dice take up a much more significant time than people realize. Since most people do 1 or 2 things on their turn and usually at least 1 thing on another persons turn with an immediate action that has a major effect.

Prior to trying this, we rarely had fights shorter than 1 hour. Now some fights are 20 minutes with very few reaching an hour.

 

[aco175]

Another idea that we use to help is I have the players roll for monster damage on them. I go around the minis rolling to hit and just say what to roll for damage. I get to keep rolling to hit and the players groan when they roll high and cheer when they roll low.

 

[Garthanos]

Another idea that we use to help is I have the players roll for monster damage on them. I go around the minis rolling to hit and just say what to roll for damage. I get to keep rolling to hit and the players groan when they roll high and cheer when they roll low.

hmmm I already have players roll defense (they like it) it doesnt speed things up but it involves people a little more when its not their turn. Having them roll damage??

 

[Sporemine]

1. Remove 33% of all monsters' hit points and add 50% to their damage.
2. Use a timer to give players 20 seconds to determine what they will do during a round before they forfeit their turn.
3. Play and enjoy short and brutal combats

I like 2 and 3, I already use them (not 20 seconds though, about 5, and I usually let them have 1 slightly longer tactical debate for each combat)

As for 1, I have seen LITERALLY hundreds of different versions of the same idea, and most don't work. That generally leads to overpowering or underpowering. If it works for you I might try it.

Kudos

-Sporemine

 

[Garthanos]

Is the answer to this question no?

-Sporemine

I would say Never.

 

[Sporemine]

I would say Never.

"If there is an exception to every rule, then every rule must have at least one exception; the exception to this one being that it has no exception." "There's always an exception to the rule, except to the exception of the rule - which is, in of itself, an accepted exception of the rule."

Confused yet?

Kudos

-Sporemine