In 8 hours of gaming...

[Piratecat]

How do you keep it to only 5 or 10 minuets per session? What is your secret?

1. The player casting the spell, or doing anything odd, has the responsibility of having the rule book open to the correct page.

2. I know the rules pretty well, and I have at least one other player (Sagiro) who know them as well as I do.

3. If I can't find the answer in two minutes, I make a judgement call and look it up afterwards... unless the answer means life or death for a PC.

4. No one is allowed to argue more than a minute or so on rules calls. In fact, no one argues at all unless they feel I'm being unfair or they're sure I'm wrong.

It used to be 2-3 minutes per game, but Dr. Rictus (our best rules guru) moved to a different state!

We do it this way on purpose. I hate rules interruptions; they slow down the game!

 

[Hejdun]

I would say anywhere from 1-30 minutes a session.

It really depends, but it is usually kept to a minimum. I know the rules pretty much front to back, or I at least know where to find them. The other three people in my group also have decent knowledge of hte rules, so they are also there. We are all responsible enough to have the books open to the right page if we are planning anything odd (how far to jump, how to turn undead, etc.)

 

[Crothian]

Just a few minutes if that. And while people are looking up rules the DM goes on with other things so it doesn't stop the game. We've all been playing since the game started and we know the rules well enough to get by.

 

[Vhane]

I've been thinking we should have had the rules memorized by now and most likely do, it has to interpretation, oh h*ll I have no idea whats wrong with us, to d**n pig headed for our own good, try as we may we cannot agree.

Do you think its a trust issue? We dont enjoy spending 15-25% of each session arguing, but it happens anyway.

 

[turtle]

zero minutes

 

[turtle]

its about how willing one is to suspend their disbelief and just do it

 

[coyote6]

I don't think we spend much time; the only things that we really have to stop down to lookup are occasional spell effects. I try to keep Angramainyu's reference sheets handy, which helps quite a bit (except occasionally, when someone wants to "jump as far as I can" ).

But arguing about rules, or even discussing 'em? Not much, really. Last time, I think we talked for about 5 minutes, decided "Hell, we don't know; let's do X, and we'll ask on ENWorld later." Of course, we forgot about it before asking . . .

 

[1StrangeFellow]

Our group has two seperate modes we like to call "With Steve" and "Without Steve". Steve is an individual who won't shut up about anything. He starts telling stories about campaigns he was in eight years ago when someone does something that reminds him of them. He interrupts the DM to tell him how he would resolve things. He tells us about his other characters. If everyone else is busy or won't listen, he will walk into the other room because 'it wasn't his turn' and then not know what is going on (sometimes with disasterous results, like when he gets stuck in my Glue spell I cast or slips on my Grease, gets in the way when I communicate to the other characters that I want to cast an area spell, or attacks something we had stopped attacking and gotten to surrender). The DM can't control him - or won't. The other players, the DM's roommates, won't let me be too critical of the DM or suggest that I should take control of the game to stop it. I'm stuck trying to speak over him or interrupt to say 'let's focus on our current situation, not something that happened to you eight years ago' or reminding the DM where we were at and having both of us try to awaken the players from a Steve-induced trance (DC 25). Fortunately, Steve is probably not going to be able to keep playing with us every week, if at all, from today on out.

With Steve, half our time is blown. Of that time wasted, a third is probably him telling pointless stories, another third telling the DM what he would do if he were DM or rules lawyering, and another third is wasted by telling other characters what they should do or getting mad at them because he doesn't pay attention until his turn during combat and walks into something stupid.

Without Steve, we don't spend nearly as much time looking things up or arguing rules/judgements. Our first eight sessions or so of this campaign were peacefully 'without Steve'. I really hope we can continue to be 'Without Steve' if he's going to keep acting this way.

 

[Shin Okada]

Usually, just few minutes. Sometimes, may be up to 30 minutes or so. And, most of those "ruling" minutes are spent to find the rule on the book, not to "argue" the rule. Oh, FYI, we are Japanese. So I think we are spending much time to find particular rule in English book, than you English speakers are.

Tips,

* We are, basically, only using core rule books. So the gaming system is relatively solid and simple.

* All the players have PHB and DMG.

* We are playing "rotation" campaign and among current 5 members, 3 of us are DM of that campaign. Also, another one is DMing 3e for other people.

* We talk about 3e rules often, as one of popular daily topic. So we do not need to argue on rules when we actually playing a session.

* When I prepare an adventure, I check the rule which might be (possibly) used in each encounter or scene. And I write down page number of that rule, or sometimes summery of that rule into that part of that adventure memo. And I print it before I DM.

* When I prepare an adventure, and when I wonder how a particular situation should be solved by the rule, I post a question here. With the answers and advices from those super helpful guys, I have no problem solving that situation when I actually DM that adventure.

 

[Ziggy]

We usually use less than 5 minutes on rules, mainly looking up spells and their effect.

A few times we discussed the combat rules, but only for a few minutes, then the GM made a call and we continued (no more discussion after that).

The different GM (3 of us in different campaign) often discuss rules on mail between games, often prompted by iffy situations encountered when playing. Often we reach a common understanding, sometimes we agree to disagree, and thus have slightly different interpretations in the different campaigns.

But Never, Ever let the rules discussion disrupt the flow of the game, a short discussion is okay, a heated argument is not. If you disagree, then discuss it after the game.

.Ziggy