Slow Player

[dreaded_beast]

In the group I DM, there is one player who takes a while to decide what to do during his turn. I try to be lenient and give everyone at the table as much time as they need to decide what to do, while giving some gentle prodding to hurry along.

However, 1 player in the group takes a little bit longer to decide what to do relative to everyone else. Where everyone usually takes anywhere from 1 to 2 minutes at the most, I think the player in question sometimes takes roughly 5 minutes to decide what to do.

I'm a bit worried because I have started to notice that it takes away some of the spotlight time from the other players. I feel bad for the players who only take 10 seconds to state what they want to do, then the player in question takes a few minutes to decide. I feel as if the other players are being penalized for being fast and effecient.

In the beginning I didn't mind, thinking he would get better with time. However, the campaign has been moving along and he hasn't improved. Last session I actually had to skip his turn during combat since he was taking to long, in my opinion. Fortunately, after he missed his turn, he started being quicker about deciding what to do.

That was near the end of the session, so I don't know if this will stick with him. Any advice on what to do?

 

[ThoughtBubble]

In the group I DM, there is one player who takes a while to decide what to do during his turn. I try to be lenient and give everyone at the table as much time as they need to decide what to do, while giving some gentle prodding to hurry along.

However, 1 player in the group takes a little bit longer to decide what to do relative to everyone else. Where everyone usually takes anywhere from 1 to 2 minutes at the most, I think the player in question sometimes takes roughly 5 minutes to decide what to do.

I'm a bit worried because I have started to notice that it takes away some of the spotlight time from the other players. I feel bad for the players who only take 10 seconds to state what they want to do, then the player in question takes a few minutes to decide. I feel as if the other players are being penalized for being fast and effecient.

In the beginning I didn't mind, thinking he would get better with time. However, the campaign has been moving along and he hasn't improved. Last session I actually had to skip his turn during combat since he was taking to long, in my opinion. Fortunately, after he missed his turn, he started being quicker about deciding what to do.

That was near the end of the session, so I don't know if this will stick with him. Any advice on what to do?

I have a player (and a half) like this. It's especially bad when he gets sidetracked into talking during his turn. This is when I hold up a hand and say "5...4....3...2...1..." If I reach 0, his turn is skipped. Usually I get to 3 and he's moving though.

 

[Anax]

Best suggestion I can make is: Encourage in a group-wide sort of way that combat is taking too long and that people should plan what they intend to do ahead of time. Worst case, talk with him about it. Think a bit first about what he generally takes the most time with, and how that might be fixed.

Is he a spellcaster who frequently needs to look spell details up? Encourage him to become more familiar with the spells he has available, maybe even suggest he make some quick reference cards or put sticky notes on the pages for spells that he frequently needs the details for. Learning what effects spells have, along with the various necessary details can be daunting, but it shouldn't take a huge amount of time to get familiar with at least the most frequently cast.

Is he a fighter trying to squeeze every last tactical advantage out of combat? Suggest that deciding whether or not to put one more point into power attack probably isn't worth slowing the game down. If he frequently needs to refer to special rules for trip, grapple, bull rush, or the like, suggest that he make a quick reference (like above) to help with those situations.

In general, I think most players will be willing to speed up if you let them know it's a problem. If he keeps doing it, keep (gently) bringing it up to make sure he doesn't backslide. In the worst case, keep a time limit in mind for all the players, and try to keep a rule (not a heavy one, but enough to keep things moving) with all of your players--so that even when one of the players who usually doesn't take too long to plan a move suddenly takes a long time, move along ahead of them.

Oh, and be willing to suggest (in terms of keeping the game moving) that if a player needs more time to think about their action, perhaps they should delay until they know what they'd like to do. Not only does this give someone a bit more time to think (and yet still keep the pressure on to act when they can), it will allow a tactically-minded player to spot a situation that fits tactics they already have in mind and jump when things are right for that tactic. Over time, this will hopefully also encourage thinking about more options, which will reduce the need of a player to plan on their own turn.

Eventually, it's not unlikely that everybody in the group will speed up a bit and have more planned out ahead of time--if you have four people, and everybody takes two minutes to move, everybody has about eight minutes to think about what they're going to do, and two of those after seeing exactly what they have to work with. (Although I must admit, if *most* combats in the campaigns I played took that long, I'd feel the combat was a little slow. Good tactics is nice, but the flow of gameplay is also very important.)

Good luck.

Edit: Oh, and I've both been this player and been irritated by this player in the past. But as my group has gotten more comfortable with the rules, things have changed. Another important thing that our (until just recently) DM has done is: whenever the rulebook seems likely to come out to check a detail of how X works, he makes a quick judgement call (usually in our favor, for that moment) based on what he recalls, leaving us to hunt down the specifics either while waiting for the next turn or after the session. Getting bull rush exactly right isn't important enough to spend that much time on. Really, once our new-to-the-class druid became comfortable with his spells and other abilities, everything became pretty quick. But again, we all feel that it's right to delay or perhaps just quickly adjust position if we're not sure what to do within 30 seconds after our turn starts.

 

[robberbaron]

Use a combat timer. 30 seconds per character should do it.

 

[sellars]

Worst case, talk with him about it. Think a bit first about what he generally takes the most time with, and how that might be fixed.

I Don't see why this would be int he worst case. In our group we work with a lot of feedback, both on in-character playing and the story-line as on the style of playing both of DM and players.

IMO talking to him about it should be one of the first things to do, as long as you do it in a way that does not provoke a conflict.

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

Limit his information

I once ran a werewolf game in which the party was raiding a vampire lord's house to try and recover a video tape. This one huge combat lasted the entire adventure really because it got quite gory, but the simple fact was that as I came to each player I told them what they saw. If they asked what someone outside 'their area' was doing I told them they couldn't see from where they were - the first time someone told me he wanted to look that was what he did.... next in initiative please! He got the information but lost his turn getting the information. It seemed harsh but everyone caught on and the idea had been that this game would be one complex brawl.

So if he's the type that starts asking where everything is, and planning his exact move - that's what his character is doing. Combat is very quick, and requires snap decisions. In the game above one of the party took a decision that seemed sensible at the time, but ended up stuck between two of his packmates and couldn't do anything useful. So he lost a round or two in maneuvering himself into a better position. Again a little harsh but no one complained as they all realised that it worked in the situation they were in.

What this will require is that you set up a detailed combat with a specific map and detailed opponents so that you can run that one combat in this way. After that he should start to move quicker - or else he won't be getting anything done.

 

[Maldur]

I do the countdown if needed, but just to decide what to do. The actual action can take longer, esp if you need to find some obscure rule, or spell description.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Time for the egg timer at the table.

 

[StalkingBlue]

A minute or two to decide on an action in combat? And that's for the players who are _not_ slow?!

I suspect you are giving people far too much time to linger over decisions, so the other players tend to fade out until it's their turn - and only then scramble to try and come up with their action. It looks like you've trained your group into a bad habit.

You need to speed things up. A lot.

My suggestion:

1. Talk to all players about making combat more exciting and entertaining for everyone by speeding things up. Agree on a reasonable time for deciding on an action, I'd say 15 seconds at most.

(No, that's not too short! Remember that every player has time to think about his next action during the entire round of combat for all other PCs and NPCs/monsters, which gives them several minutes already.)

2. Enforce this time limit for a few sessions to break the bad habit. Whoever doesn't state their action within 15 seconds is considered to delay (not lose their turn!) until ready to state an action.

3. When you find that everyone at the table is looking alive and ready to act during combat rather than slouching there with eyes glazed over or paying attention to something else, gradually relax time control. You'll find you have a much more attentive and proactive group I bet.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Don't just use the stick, use a carrot as well!

5xp for every combat decision made under 10 seconds. Yeah, your party will level up a little faster, but who cares? They'll get real good at acting quickly and that'll be more fun.