Gaming Efficiency: do you get a lot done in a session

[JohnH]

Our home groups normally plays for about 4-5 hours and the amount of "stuff" we can finish varies from session to session. We're mostly beer and pretzel gamers so there's more then a little bit of table chatter and fooling around. As long as everyone's having fun the number of rooms cleared or monsters killed doesn't really matter.

The only issue I have is the length of combat in 4E, especially at higher levels. We've had combats last an entire session and at the end of those nights you are left feeling a little flat. But if something really cool happens during one of those combats it sorta makes up for it.

 

[jasper]

You may want to drop a player or two. IMC
1. if Grey and Big nose (players nick names) sat down at the table together, the speed of game slow by 2/3rds. Either Players were having personal issues with each other or fighting in game.
2. Limit the number of rules. I did Core only.
3. Party Caller. Player who calls general direction. Aka We go South, Left, to the bank, etc. This was enforced after a group spend 2+ hrs fighting on going left or right in a module.
4. As above in the thread. Punch the "Player Pause" and make them make a decision. I had to put some gamers on "shot clock" . And yes they forfeited their turn.
5. Limited player options. If Jasper can't player mages above 6th level; jasper no plays Mages.
6. may not apply. Limited the DMs. I had groups 7 players 6 dms. No waiting, and no finishing adventures because of the rotation schedule.

 

[Desdichado]

It's really not about Skyrim. It's really about observing your own game and seeing where you waste time and deciding if that's worth fixing.

Efficiency can only be measured if there are concrete goals. XP per session, or something like that.

I don't have goals like that, I just want my games to be fun. When I'm running, I think I run at pretty close to peak efficiency for me, anyway--I skip everything that I don't think is fun, and spend the "right" amount of time on things that are. When I'm not running, I think we occasionally have stuff going on that I wish we'd skip over, but all in all, that's pretty efficient too.

For a value of efficiency that means I'm enjoying whatever it is that we're doing during a session.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

When I prep for our 4e sessions, I plan 6 combat encounters and make sure that one near the end is disposable if things get bogged down. At higher levels (late heroic/paragon) I prepare one less. RP/Skill channeges/etc tend to take insignificant time compared to combat.

I've toyed around with a lot of different variations on skill challenges to replicate minor encounters -- if I need to create a feeling of the PCs hacking their way through minor encounter after minor encounter, it's a skill challenge, and I save the actual combat encounters for important/interesting moments. In some cases I've been pretty pleased with the results -- creating skill challenges or "combat challenges" as barriers between encounters.

Group size, of course, makes a HUGE difference, naturally. When we have 6-7 players, we get a lot less done than when we have only four. And that's just a matter of game math -- because with more PCs you need to have more NPCs, so to finish the encounter, you need to do more damage, but the average rate at which your PCs do damage doesn't really change all that much when you have more PCs -- unless you get creative, you still have one player taking his turn at a time.

Having said all of that -- our group is very wargamey -- we love the tactics, etc. We're happiest when we're in combat (unless things are going slowly or it's not an interesting battle). I try to find ways to end combats that have become uninteresting -- either the NPCs surrender or flee or we just hand wave the last bit -- so we can move on to something else.

It has become more and more my opinion that the game is actually far better for smaller groups of players -- a table of four players means smaller groups of NPCs for the DM to manage, shorter combats, more spotlight time for each PC, and so on. A player gets 20% less spotlight time when you add a 5th player, and 33% less when you add a sixth (If you have 4 players, they each get roughly 15 minutes of spotlight time out of every hour; with 6, each gets 10 minutes. Those of you with groups of 8-9 are edging close to 7-8 minutes of spotlight time for each player -- sounds pretty challenging).

Anyway..... I don't really think long combats are a bad thing in and of themselves -- but I think long DULL combats are awful. A boring skill challenge is over in a few minutes. A tedious combat can drag on for an hour or more.

-rg

 

[Janx]

Efficiency can only be measured if there are concrete goals. XP per session, or something like that.

I don't have goals like that, I just want my games to be fun. When I'm running, I think I run at pretty close to peak efficiency for me, anyway--I skip everything that I don't think is fun, and spend the "right" amount of time on things that are. When I'm not running, I think we occasionally have stuff going on that I wish we'd skip over, but all in all, that's pretty efficient too.

For a value of efficiency that means I'm enjoying whatever it is that we're doing during a session.

Key word is measured.

I can tell when processes are wasteful, and when they are "efficient enough" I can usually figure out solutions to make those things better. It's part of what I do for a living.

Right this moment, I am revising some user interface for a process, because I see the way it makes the user work and I see how to make it faster and easier.

I do not have a measurement of time or clicks to complete the task, but I can tell that the process was clunky and I have made it better with my changes. I know my changes are good because I have a track record of successfully doing this kind of thing.

This technique falls in the bucket of "I'll know it when I see it."

Which is probably good enough for most gamers.