D&D 5E (2014) Do you time your players in combat?

[pdzoch]

No.

But I do have a DM Inspiration pool of dice I add a d20 to every time somebody pulls out their phone.


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Inspiration for the DM! Love it. As if the dungeon needed any more help against the players.

 

[TallIan]

No.

But I do have a DM Inspiration pool of dice I add a d20 to every time somebody pulls out their phone.


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This is an awesome idea.

I have in the past skipped a players turn, moving him down the initiative order for that round. It happened twice and he quickly realised that when he was moved to last place he would lose a whole turn.

I have to say though; one player distracted by thier phones is being a *@% or has some personal issues, but with the whole lot distracted? you might want to examine your game, system or dming style. I've been a player in game where a great DM lost very enthusiastic player's interest because the game went on too long. We changed systems to little effect because none of us really liked the new system. Switched up again and things went fine after that.

So it might be worth a chat with the players.

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[Glomb175]

I had this problem for a while. The way I solved it was to incentivize the players to be ready to act when their turns came up. I gave advantage to anyone who acted immediately when their turn came up.

I use initiative tents on my DM screen to indicate turn order. I place a turn marker (large painted clothes pin) on the player tent to indicate whose turn it is. When I moved the turn marker to the next player, it is their turn to act. If they respond immediately with their turn action, they have advantage. If they do not respond with a turn action right away, then they do not get advantage (other than what is already provided for in the rules of the game). This motivated everyone to always be ready to act on their turn and it really sped games up. It actually encouraged players to give permission to other player to act for them if they stepped out for any reason, just so that they would not lose the advantage roll.

Love this. Might adapt it a bit for my group because I fear this would be too effective. I think every player would get advantage on every attack on every round, and tbh they're all way too overpowered as it is. So I might do the initiative tents and clothes peg, leaving it to them to see whose turn it is without me prompting, and if they pay attention then they continue as normal, but if not, they get disadvantage.

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[iserith]

Mine aren't so bad, we're all close to thirty so not particularly young either. They're focused at the start but after about 4 hours they lose concentration and that's when the phones come out. It's funny you mentioned character sheets as that's a common occurrence, we meet for a session and they spend an hour levelling up their characters. Cheers for the feedback, I'll bear it in mind

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Maybe around 4 hours in is when it's time to look for a good stopping point, even if you end a little early. I prefer to end with everybody wanting more than with people too tired or distracted to continue. That may be something for you to try.

 

[robus]

Mine aren't so bad, we're all close to thirty so not particularly young either. They're focused at the start but after about 4 hours they lose concentration and that's when the phones come out. It's funny you mentioned character sheets as that's a common occurrence, we meet for a session and they spend an hour levelling up their characters. Cheers for the feedback, I'll bear it in mind

Then perhaps this would help: http://theangrygm.com/how-to-structure-a-session/

You need to time your sessions to the attention span of your players and finish early at a good stopping point. They should do any bookkeeping like leveling up outside of the session (it just a matter of making choices and sometimes looking stuff up. That's not a great use of session time.

Managing the experience is just as much the DMs job as adjudicating actions.

 

[Glomb175]

This is an awesome idea.

I have in the past skipped a players turn, moving him down the initiative order for that round. It happened twice and he quickly realised that when he was moved to last place he would lose a whole turn.

I have to say though; one player distracted by thier phones is being a *@% or has some personal issues, but with the whole lot distracted? you might want to examine your game, system or dming style. I've been a player in game where a great DM lost very enthusiastic player's interest because the game went on too long. We changed systems to little effect because none of us really liked the new system. Switched up again and things went fine after that.

So it might be worth a chat with the players.

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The instance in which this occurred was somewhat an anomaly, we were doing a 6 hour session whereas we usually do 4, and it was 3 of the 5 players looking at their phones, two of them have remarkably short attention spans, and the third cares more about football. But the point you've raised did cross my mind, as I'm sure it would with any dm, worried that maybe he's losing his group's focus by not being engaging enough. At which point I did step up my enthusiasm even more but to no avail. There's some great advice in this thread that I'll probably use and I will have a chat with them too.

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[pdzoch]

Love this. Might adapt it a bit for my group because I fear this would be too effective. I think every player would get advantage on every attack on every round, and tbh they're all way too overpowered as it is. So I might do the initiative tents and clothes peg, leaving it to them to see whose turn it is without me prompting, and if they pay attention then they continue as normal, but if not, they get disadvantage.

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A photo of my DM screen and initiative tracker and turn marker:



My initiative tents use Magic Set Editor and the templates are available in the downloads section.

 

[LordEntrails]

I will say that the players have to know the initiative order if you want them to plan ahead.

But the technique I learned from a DM years ago at GenCon that was/is very effective is that if the player is ready with their action, and actually rolls to hit and damage (when appropriate) as soon as their turn starts, they are allowed to automatically add +1 on their attack or skill roll.

+1 is a nice bonus, enough to give a meaningful incentive, but generally not enough to change the balance of things.

 

[Morrus]

This is an awesome idea.

I have in the past skipped a players turn, moving him down the initiative order for that round. It happened twice and he quickly realised that when he was moved to last place he would lose a whole turn.

I have to say though; one player distracted by thier phones is being a *@% or has some personal issues, but with the whole lot distracted? you might want to examine your game, system or dming style. I've been a player in game where a great DM lost very enthusiastic player's interest because the game went on too long. We changed systems to little effect because none of us really liked the new system. Switched up again and things went fine after that.

So it might be worth a chat with the players.

It's not really a problem.

 

[Shiroiken]

I have done so in the past, when a player or group required it. It was even better in 3E, where they were told they took the Delay Option. Fortunately, I no longer have that problem with my current group (sometimes they do take a while to figure something out, but that's more the exception, rather than the rule).