Quicken Spell slows down game

[Orias]

At my last campaign we had a ton of trouble with that sort of thing (indecision). Many of the players wouldn't pay attention unless the actions directly affected them to the most serious degree. People would get up & smoke when it wasn't their turn, take out books, even pick up a guitar & start playing it. Fortunately we removed some people, removed many of the distractions, & talked about the problem. Now things go alot better.

With how much time is taken outside of your turn, you should have a pretty good idea of what you are going to be doing, not to mention depending on the battle, you can generally get a rough sketch of a battle plan in your head that will tell you relatively what to do in battle.

 

[Celebrim]

I force my players to play quickly. There is little I hate more than an indecisive player. (Even worse is a player that is continually trying to take an action back.) If you look like you are dithering, I start counting to six. If you don't make a decision of any sort, you are assumed to have taken the 'focus' action. That is, it is assumed that your character is entently watching what is going on trying to figure out what to do. Back in 1st edition, I was even harsher. You lost your action then.

It is acceptable, if you haven't decided on a plan, to in responce to me starting to count to six, to say you are taking the 'delay' or 'hold' action in order to give yourself more time to think, but you better have a plan when I get back to you.

I occassonally have problems with players who get upset with me because they expect to be given the time to plan every action out perfectly like this was a chess match. I can only say, "Look, things are happening very quickly. It is acceptable to make mistakes because you had to act quickly. That's part of the game. I have to plan the NPC's actions even faster than you have to plan the PC's actions. You at least can plan while the other PC's are acting. I have to react to all of your requests and still have my NPC's act intelligently. It doesn't always happen, and that's ok too."

Eventually most people get used to it. And it makes you a better gamer too.

 

[Tzarevitch]

Suggestion for eleminating player-indecision delays:

Always call the next two characters, the one whose turn it is and the next one whose turn is coming up.
The next player up won't have so much of an excuse for dithering, plus it gives you all more of a feeling that things are happening simultaneously, as they should in combat.

Works well in both the groups I GM and play in. We have one player keep track of initiative for the GM, usually a non-caster (who has less to think about in terms of his or her own tactics).

I firmly believe it is the players' responsibility to keep track of their OWN iniative. It is a simple thing and they can write it down if they need to.

Tzarevitch