How do YOU stay focused?

[Djeta Thernadier]

There was a great article in Dragon recently about hints to keep the game running smoothly.

Has anyone tried the idea of having a time limit for how long a PC has to decide what he/she is going to do in combat? I know this is an issue in my group, and I'm as guilty as the next person at taking too long...

I think having a limit would help me fine tune my quick thinking skills during the game, as well as help the combat move along. I think the GM in my game wants to move the combat along too.

Has anyone seen any results with this? Do you find it actually works?

~Sheri

 

[WinnipegDragon]

Honestly in our group, we expect and accept the off-topic comments. It comes with the territory.

However, if the DM goes silent, that's the cue to shape up and get on with the game.

In most cases if there is a pace to the game that is keeping us on our toes this doesn't happen. We try to keep our yammering to the times when the DM needs to look something up, or sketch out a new map, etc...

 

[Arnwyn]

We don't have a strict cast-in-stone time limit, be we do enforce a reasonableness factor.

If a player is just taking too dang long huming and hawing about what he/she is going to do, after a short time I'll just tell them to "Move it! Choose now, or you're doing nothing this round!".

 

[Anavel Gato]

We have tried to make combat run smoother, but with limited success. We are a small group maybe 3-5 any given week and one encounter could take a half-hour. We have a lot of book readers and rule lawyers. So each move is calculated and re-hashed which takes the risk and fun out of the game at times.

I as DM will get to a person and if they are not ready I move on the the next person and then come back to them, it can screw things up, but it gets the game moving.

Another one of our DM's will start counting, and if the person doesn't do anything or takes to long he skips them altogether.

We tried the egg timer method and it didn't work for us.

I don't know how large groups ever get through combat.

 

[DanMcS]

I don't know how large groups ever get through combat.

Actually, with a big group, you don't have some of the same problems, for instance, you don't have to wait on someone to decide what to do, because they've had plenty of time while the other PCs were going. With a small group, your turn comes round again fast, which is a problem if you're trying to look up a spell or combat maneuver or something.

At the second Ohio gameday, I played in a very big group, a dozen people or more. We knew there was a big combat towards the beginning, so we rolled initiative and sat around the table in that order, and it worked brilliantly, you always knew where the turn was in relation to you.

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

We handle it by not handling it, but we're more "social" gamers.

One solution is seating. You know who the problem people are (and it isn't really a problem, it's just how they approach the game). Ask the problem person if they would mind sitting next to one of the more experienced folks to help move combat along. Then permit some table-talk.

This can be worked into the game if you ever re-start your campaign. Have slow-player and fast-player co-create their characters (like being siblings or something). Then you always have an excuse for the two to be talking to each other.

 

[Rel]

We have no hard and fast rule about a set time. But if you haven't decided what you're doing within 15-20 seconds of when your initiative comes up, the DM will usually say, "I'm just going to have you Delay." If you pipe up quick with an action you want to take, you get to go. If you're still stuck deciding, you Delay until you figure it out.

That said, we spend plenty of time dorking around during an average session. It just isn't usually in the middle of a combat.

 

[Mercule]

Our DM went out and bought a whole bunch of glass beads (like you use to track life with in M:tG). At the beginning of the session, each player gets five. If we tangent, we throw one. The game comes to a complete screeching halt and doesn't continue until the tangent is done. If it's really long, or too many people get too rowdy, it costs more chits (DM's discretion).

At the end of the session, everyone gets 10 xp/level per chit. It isn't much (1% of a level), but it's enough to dissuade us from tangenting too much.

To go from the carrot to the stick.... Back in college, we often had dumb little toys laying around, like Nerf balls. We also owned considerably less in the way of breakables/valuables. Whenever someone started tangenting, it was socially accepted that someone else would grab the nearest Nerf ball, pillow, or even racketball and whip it at the offending party, with vigor, and shout "Tangent alert!"

Hmmm.... I seem to recall that, for some reason, it was the women that were most dangerous with the tangent alerts. Maybe because all the guys were computer programmers and collected comics while the gals were pre-vet, psych majors, etc. and didn't care for comics.

 

[MarauderX]

I was a player in a group that decided to set time limits for players to state a course of action and it got rather stressful for those trying to decide what to do based on the present conditions. There was less time for role-playing during critical moments (like trying to talk your way past a guard while a fight is going on) and there was much more pressure to do the 'best action'. More people felt disappointed with their actions when they were forced to make a snap decision and left sessions second-guessing every action they took. So IMC it is sometimes necessary to push the progress, but if we are having fun, so what.

 

[Ranes]

I'm often running a game for seven players. Two in particular are terribly slow at deciding what to do. I hadn't played with these two prior to our latest game, so it took me a while to realise that they always waited their turn in initiative before even beginning to think about what they might do this round. One of the two players is an order of magnitude worse than the other when it comes to his deliberations. I've thought about timers, chess clocks and the like but I don't want to introduce such instruments unless I absolutely have to.

I also don't want to rush a player who's deciding what her 18 INT character is going to do, if she doesn't also happen to be a genius. As someone on these boards said in another thread recently, a player who spends a few moments deciding exactly where to aim a fireball, so that it catches the most opponents in its blast radius is only doing a reasonable job of emulating her character's very high intelligence.

Basically, if a player takes a while to work out how she's going to do something, I cut her the slack. If she takes a while just to decide what to try to do, I'll put a little pressure on her to reach a decision.

Oh, and I reserve the right lie down, close my eyes and start snoring.