D&D General Players who take Excruciatingly long turns: solution?

[Lanefan]

I play a lot of Savage Worlds too and the changing initiative does add to the tension and (good) chaos of the fight. I really should give variable initiative in 5e a try and see if it works well. My one worry is that it will play hell with "until turn" effects.

You just have to track by initiative instead of turn for those effects - instead of "at the end of your next turn" the effect ends on the same initiative next round as it started in this one, regardless of whose turn goes when next round.

Yes this means sometimes the target will be affected twice and other times not at all, depending how the init rolls go, but that's part of the chaos.

 

[Lanefan]

We're playing changing initiative in our current 5e game. I'd never do it on tabletop - rerolling and rewriting the initiative table every damn round for an entire party and potentially a couple of dozen enemies/allies is just too slow and painful. But we play using FG and there's a plugin that does it automatically.

I'd never rewrite it all every round - just get the players to leave their init die on the table in front of them, or write their own init's down on something, and you have init dice for each foe that you leave in front of you. (as a good GM you've got at least 25 d20s, right? )

That said, the second step for me is to go to a much smaller die for init's (we use d6) and allow ties. But that's a whole other discussion.

 

[Lanefan]

Rules around durations for all 3 WotC editions are built around cyclical initiative. They're far more standardized in their effects on targets than they ever were under editions with initiative rolled every round.

To me the bolded is a bug rather than a feature, though I know others will see it differently.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

One of the solutions with a group that I played with was no smoking weed or drinking, until at least past the half-way point of the session.

 

[bloodtide]

I fixed this in my game long, long, long ago with the Three Second Rule. Simple enough: When action takes place, a player has three seconds to say their character actions.

Just take the Big Three:

1.Clueless not playing Attention (all most always on their phone)
DM: The goblins on the other side of the bridge charge and attack, what is your action for this round.
Player: beep,beep,beep,clickclick "Uh..what? Whats gong on?" beep, tap, beep, "Wow, this YouTube video is Awesome!"

2.The Clueless Rule Player.
DM: The goblins on the other side of the bridge charge and attack, what is your action for this round.
Player: "Um, Karg will attack...ummm, how fast does my character move? What is the damage for a battle axe? What does my rage do? endlessly flips through some books

3.The Canner
DM: The goblins on the other side of the bridge charge and attack, what is your action for this round.
Player: CAN my character attack? CAN my character shoot an arrow from his bow? CAN my character charge?

And it's simple: If the player can't give me an answer in three seconds, their character stands confused for that whole round. And quite often will get attacked, fall in the pit of lava or such.

End result is I get my fast game.

 

[J.Quondam]

I fixed this in my game long, long, long ago with the Three Second Rule. Simple enough: When action takes place, a player has three seconds to say their character actions.

Just take the Big Three:

1.Clueless not playing Attention (all most always on their phone)
DM: The goblins on the other side of the bridge charge and attack, what is your action for this round.
Player: beep,beep,beep,clickclick "Uh..what? Whats gong on?" beep, tap, beep, "Wow, this YouTube video is Awesome!"

2.The Clueless Rule Player.
DM: The goblins on the other side of the bridge charge and attack, what is your action for this round.
Player: "Um, Karg will attack...ummm, how fast does my character move? What is the damage for a battle axe? What does my rage do? endlessly flips through some books

3.The Canner
DM: The goblins on the other side of the bridge charge and attack, what is your action for this round.
Player: CAN my character attack? CAN my character shoot an arrow from his bow? CAN my character charge?

And it's simple: If the player can't give me an answer in three seconds, their character stands confused for that whole round. And quite often will get attacked, fall in the pit of lava or such.

End result is I get my fast game.

Whoah, harsh! Even food that falls on the floor gets a full five seconds of reprieve.

 

[gnarlygninja]

That does feel way too harsh to me, it's not even the amount of time the characters would have to do things

 

[Bacon Bits]

Yeah that's too much. I don't even like the idea of a set timer, let alone a 3 second one. The one time we tried that in 4e it had the effect of making the game feel like a business meeting. Worst session of TTRPG I can remember.

I do think it's the DM's responsibility to keep the game moving. I've also played with people who have stopped the game to read 5 different spells, and then done it again the next turn. It's one of the reasons I think summoning and polymorph spells don't belong in the game as written. In almost all cases I can recall, the DM would just wait a reasonable amount of time and then say, "tick tock". If they still got no response then it was, "okay, you need to make a decision now. do you do anything or not?"

You might also try suggesting they think out loud. First of all, it's more engaging for everyone else. Second, articulating your thinking uses another part of your brain. You often come to a decision faster by forcing yourself to organize your thoughts into language. Third, it implicitly solicits advice. D&D is a collaborative effort and there is no real reason to make combat any different than the rest of the game, especially if someone is struggling with it. Just beware that some players will take it as an invitation to direct other players like puppets. If this happens you have to shut that down but it's pretty rare.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I was thinking about this thread a bit more and I realized that I play with a group and they are super-slow. It tends to be one or two players in particular - one is VERY slow and often interrupts other people's turns which slows them down.

I, occasionally, DM this group and combat is WAY, WAY faster.

I'll go back to some of the techniques I mentioned in my last few posts:

1. Tell people who's on deck
2. Give them a sense of urgency if they take too long, "you better decide quick otherwise the enemy will take their turn instead" or I literally say, "You have to choose now or I'm moving on."
- I kind of like what @Lanefan said about moving them down initiative. I'll do that if players happen to be afk.
3. Don't let them interrupt
4. Take their first action
5. Don't overly punish players for out of character mistakes.*

*Note: They still feel the full consequences of stupid actions in character.

So, this post is also to say that the DM holds some responsibility for the speed of combat

 

[delericho]

Assuming that there are no disabilities in play, that none of them are brand new to the game, and that there are no other factors that would require additional support...

I would strongly suggest explicitly stating some expectations for the group, so that everyone is on the same page:

• When it is your turn, you are expected to do so promptly. It's okay to ask for clarifications, but you are expected to be paying attention to the game and be ready to act.
• Your character is your character. You are expected to know what your powers do and how to use them.
• You are expected to choose your character's actions. Please don't ask what you should be doing on your turn, and please don't attempt to advise another player on their turn. In a life-and-death struggle your character's don't have time for these in-depth discussions; please act accordingly.
• If you are taking too long, the DM will advise you that you need to act now. Declare an action, or you'll miss your turn.

The other thing that would probably help, as others have mentioned, is to pre-warn whoever is next that their turn is coming.

Regarding the specific players:

For one, it's because he is kind of a scatter brain, but still wants to play complex spell casters with cool abilities (he is playing a circle of spores druid currently). Another is a builder -- I first met him playing HERO in the mid 90s. He builds these highly specific characters then can't remember exactly how he constructed their Thing they do.

These are unfortunate choices. But, essentially, they need to be responsible for their characters - they chose them, so it's up to them to know what they can do and how to do it. If need be, have them skip a few turns, and they'll quickly get the message.

(But do state your expectations clearly first - otherwise, the first time you drop the hammer you're going to have a big fight!)

The third is just not paying attention half the time (we play on Fantasy grounds).

This is a problem player behavior. I would advise talking to this player directly and explain that they need to pay attention.

(The only thing, though, is that they might not be paying attention because the other two players are taking an age. So fixing one problem might fix the other. But you can't rely on that.)