Speeding up Gameplay in 4E

[Lhorgrim]

This isn't a 4E bash thread, but I do need some help keeping my game alive.

My main problem as the DM is the speed of play. Too often I find myself stopping the game to draw out a combat map at the beginning of an encounter. It really drops us all out of the moment when I have to whip out the dry-erase markers and spend the next several minutes drawing.

Because the combat environment is now so important, it takes even longer to draw the map because the scenery now can have an important effect on combat options.

Most of my other game issues may be more related to the gamers than the game. The group is made up of several minis games players, and they tend to run their characters more as game pieces than characters.

I can throw more non-combat encounters at them, but I'm guessing that will just cause them to drop out of the group.

I can't map the combats ahead of time unless I make the adventures more linear, and then I feel like I might as well be playing D&D minis.

Advice for speeding things up is appreciated.

 

[ExploderWizard]

If your players are really into the boardgame aspect of play and more non-combat type encounters might cause them to quit, why is drawing out the map a big deal?

I would think that this would be a bigger problem for roleplayers than minis oriented gamers.

Are you the main one that this is bothering? If thats the case it would be a good idea to discuss what you all want out of the game with your players. Discuss the type of game you would like to run and listen to what type of game they want to play.

 

[darjr]

Try multiple matts each with an area drawn out. Or if you can, print them out as simple line drawings. Either way have them set asside and ready to go.

I would like to suggest dungeon tiles, but I think it might not help here.

The other thing, is just use a generic chamber. Draw obstacles only as needed. I don't like this method personally, but I've seen it done, and it does cut down on the map prep.

 

[Rel]

Unless you are rolling for lots and lots of random encounters, I don't understand why you couldn't draw many if not most of the encounter areas ahead of time. I usually have at least some idea of where the PC's will be going and what they'll encounter there (and, consequently, what those encounter areas will look like).

A few years ago my battlemat got messed up by using incorrect markers on it and not erasing them soon enough. Rather than shell out the cash for another mat, I went the cheap route and bought a 2'x3' pad of 1" graph paper from the office supply store (for, I think, $14.99). Best move ever!

Now I can pre-draw encounter areas. But, even better, if they later come back to those same areas I can just whip that map out again. And, even betterer, if they go someplace that I haven't drawn a map for but is kinda shaped like one of those earlier maps then I can use them for that as well. In one campaign run by another guy in our group, we had a running joke that EVERY encounter happened on this particular street corner on a map that was drawn on Night 1 of the campaign.

Another thing that helps cut down on drawing maps for our group is the use of "dungeon tiles". I didn't buy the ones that WotC makes but I DO have the Descent boardgame that has snap-together dungeon tiles that are perfect for this sort of thing. That game also has lots of counters that I can use as well as additional tiles for types of terrain. Granted, you still have to take the time to set up the battlemat. But it's much quicker to lay down a half dozen tiles and a couple terrain markers than it is to draw something similar on the battlemat.

 

[darjr]

...I went the cheap route and bought a 2'x3' pad of 1" graph paper from the office supply store (for, I think, $14.99). Best move ever!...

I've got to try this.

What do you do about areas that should only be revealed to the players as they get to them? Do you just cover them up with sheets of paper?

What about transitional events, when the players have real time encounters that cross areas?

 

[Rel]

I've got to try this.

What do you do about areas that should only be revealed to the players as they get to them? Do you just cover them up with sheets of paper?

That would be an option. Generally speaking I tend to use the graph paper sheets for large, set piece battles where a good bit of terrain is visible. Often outdoor areas or large caverns, that sort of thing. As such the entire area is usually visible to the PC's upon them entering the encounter so I don't have areas that will later be revealed.

I recently ran a one shot game at the NC Game Day and GenCon where there was a fight inside a big crater with some caves in the sides of it. In that case the PC's couldn't see what was inside the caves while doing the crater fight so I simply put the contents of the caves on another sheet of paper.

But for dungeons or buildings where there are lots of walls and doors that limit line of sight, I usually use the aforementioned Descent tiles anyway so they are not pre-drawn. If I have a known layout (like I know at the start of the night that they are going into the goblin warren) then I grab the tiles I know I'll need, in the order that I'll need them, and put them aside at the start of the session so there is no delay in setting them out.

What about transitional events, when the players have real time encounters that cross areas?

I'm not entirely clear on what you mean by this but if you're talking about either "random encounters" or simply encounters that happen outside an elaborate set piece that I've pre-drawn, I just use a blank sheet of the paper like you would a normal battlemat. Sometimes I'll draw the scene on it but more often, especially for wilderness encounters, I'll simply grab a couple pieces of terrain from our accumulated collection (it's handy playing RPG's with a bunch of guys who sometimes play Warhammer Fantasy Battles) and put them where I think they should go on the fly.

 

[Lhorgrim]

The problem I have with pre-mapping is that I only have the one flip-mat. I will look into getting one of the graph paper pads at my friendly local office supply store.

As far as what the players are looking for versus what I'm looking for, it's a bit complex. These guys want to role play, but like an alcoholic at an open bar they have a tendency to fall into old habits when the narrative stalls. When I have a map ready, such as the pre-mades for a module, the narrative flows into the combat. When I have to draw anything more complex than a standard room, the narrative stops and the minis game starts.

We also have a couple of new players in the group, and they don't have any experience with the minis games or other rpgs. I don't want to skew their view of 4E.

Has anybody had any success with running a 4E game without minis? Does it hurt gameplay significantly with all of the position based special abilities?

I'll try to score a graph pad and spend more time in prep. Maybe that will even out the transition between combat and everything else.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Minigiant]

Once I made the PCs fight on top of MTG cards. Each card is 2 squares and well all know what the colors mean. Each room is a carefully ordered deck and when dealt in a certain way makes the room fast. Especially the "Wall of Goblins" room deck.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Using something like Dundjinni to draw our your maps and print them ahead of time is the way to go. My group did it for the first time last night and it saved so much time that I'd say we got in at least 2 more encounters than we would have if I had drawn the maps by hand. I don't think we'll ever go back to hand drawn maps on a Battlemat. It was nice because while the players put the map together and taped the pages together I had time to read through the encounter (I am running them through Keep on the Shadowfell). Even if you aren't using a module this technique is useful if you have a few encounters that you KNOW that you are going to throw at your players... you still use the hand drawn maps for impromptu encounters but the planned encounters have that much more "UMPH" with a well drawn printed map.

 

[Lanefan]

We use a chalkboard, and they're usually mapping their progress on the chalkboard as they go along anyway...which means, the map is already (mostly) in place when something happens.

I'd actually advise *against* pre-drawing maps...yes it might speed things up, but it's also an iron-clad tip to the players that they've found a Significant Encounter once it becomes obvious you've put the effort into pre-drawing a map for it. (the battle-maps included in the 4e adventures are a pain in this way also...pull one of these out and the players know something big is in the wind...)

Lanefan