Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="kaomera" data-source="post: 3287346" data-attributes="member: 38357">I accept that this is the fact of your experience, but mine is drastically different. I can totally see players balking at having some control over their characters taken away (perceived and/or actual), but I don't see how it should take longer to play out... Specifically I can't see the declaration phase taking nearly as long as resolving a round of action under any system. I remember being more lenient than was specifically proposed in the rules as written, but nonetheless players need to be prompt with their declarations. Even if a question arises it should not take more than two or three minutes to get a proper response from each player. Compare this to the fifteen or more minutes it can take any of my players to play out their turns. And some of them take much longer.A declaration phase means that I only have to describe the action once for the entire group. I can make sure that I have their attention ~ and I should, since nothing I'm saying falls into the (false) "does not concern my character" category. The flip side of this, of course, is that I have to keep track of everyone's declarations throughout the turn. I can say that I managed this without too much trouble when I was 10 or 12, but then again that was a different batch of players, with different expectations... They seem more likely to get upset if they think I'm misinterpreting their declarations, rather than just making that much more effort to make them precise the next round. But unless an argument about my interpretation comes up, it still seems like it's going to take less time for me to adjudicate the declarations directly and then call for needed die rolls than to go through the whole process with the player I am assuming pauses (delays) to ask questions, look up rules, ask opinions from the other players, and even for me to ask the player what their character is doing when they (seemingly randomly) start moving their mini or rolling dice, etc. Just having players make a short declaration at the start of their actions could possibly solve many of these problems without requiring turn-by-turn initiative or a party declaration.Movement, in particular, seems to be a big issue for the group. Now, in AD&D we used a non-standard  (attempt at) "simultaneous movement", inspired (IIRC) by Car Wars, Star Fleet Battles, and/or Champions. Rather than have a phased movement system, however, we simply had the DM resolve movement (up to normal maximums) based on declarations and the idea that the action of the round was pretty much happening all at once, rather than "stuttering" with some participants standing still while others moved around them. It was a very imprecise system, and again I can see problems with my current group being immediately willing to adopt it. However, as I've mentioned, my current group has a problem with actually resolving movement in a reasonable amount of time.Now, my current group is pretty slow, as I've mentioned. Possibly I just don't have the proper perspective right now... And perhaps I'm just looking for an excuse to be more strict about "delay of game". I don't really like the idea of having to be the bad-guy and tell my players that, if they can't decide what they want their character to do, then the character sits there and dies. But I also think maybe I might need to at some point.</blockquote>

Verification