"How to run a PC quick, clean and effective - Forked Thread: (...prevent Grindspace!)

[eamon]

Slightly unrelated, but we used to have problems with fiddliness on the game board. We now use a more widely-spaced game board, 3cm-square or about 20% extra width+height on a square. That makes working with markers and the annoyingly oversized figurines (i.e. all of them) easier. I wonder what the mini designers were thinking when they made all those figures that extend past their base. Sure, it looks cool, but it's really unhandy.

I'm still looking for the ideal markers; I like the pipe cleaner idea, but I think I'd also want some discs under the minis, and if so, nice+solid discs are much easier to move and see. We used poker chips once, which worked great - but they're a bit too big.

Those magnetic markers, are they very magnetic? I could imagine the stickiness being somewhat annoying.

We also use two slightly undersized game boards rather than one large one; this let's the DM pre-draw some stuff and just swap boards for fast gameplay, it's a little easier to handle, and if you really want a huge battle-mat, you just place em side-by-side.

 

[Abisashi]

If your character makes area attacks, come up with a standard algorithm you always use and write it down. For example: if I have dice of various colors, I'd write:

Black
Green
Grey
Blue
Gold

In order, the dice apply to the left-most monster and go right; if there a tie, go top to bottom. In general, don't bother counting the number of dice you need before you roll; if you rolled too many, just ignore the extras, and if you rolled too few, re-roll the dice once you've resolved them. I resolve my area attacks <1/2 the time of the other players.


For monster initiative, we divide the monsters into several blocks of a few monsters, though solo and elite monsters might get a block all to themselves.

 

[MacMathan]

The newest version of the Alea markers don't grab each other on the sides so they are easy to move. I bought and upgrade pack for my older ones from them and they work like a charm.

I also suggest using flip mats. We have 4 or 5 and it allows a lot of pre-drawing and easy portability.

And no I do not have a connection to either company other than enjoying their products.

Just ordered a couple fo 30 sec timers that we will try out soon.

 

[WampusCat43]

If your character makes area attacks, come up with a standard algorithm you always use and write it down. For example: if I have dice of various colors, I'd write:

Black
Green
Grey
Blue
Gold

In order, the dice apply to the left-most monster and go right; if there a tie, go top to bottom.

This works well for the DM also. I use red, white, blue (easy to remember) and black if need be.

 

[DrSpunj]

Nail suggested something similar to this to my group a few months ago and it has speeded up that part of my play at least. I haven't checked to see whether any of the other players have been doing it.

The difference is we just roll the requisite number of d20s and look at how the dice as they fall match up to the targets. The left most dice goes with the left most target, top to bottom if we need to resolve a "tie", and so on. This way I don't even have to assign the colors or figure out which target is #1 or anything. I roll them out, might move the dice around slightly to make it clearer to myself and my players which dice goes with which target and then read off the results pointing at the players getting attacked so they can figure out whether I hit them or not. If any are hit then I glance at the damage die to figure that out.

It's another little thing that has helped our times, I think.