Speeding up play in dungeons

[Paradoxish]

Dr. NRG - its in his best interst to gloss over those rules right now. If he made them take 2 1/2 hours to thouroughly search a 100' hallway, then they wouldn't take 20. They'd roll several times, multiple PCs, until they got good search rolls. This would slow the play down considerably.

Alternately, you could have them choose a designated person to search and simply roll secretly for that person when they enter a new area. They won't be able to keep rolling until they get a good roll since they won't know what their roll was in the first place. If they want multiple characters to search you can simply circumstances modifiers to the rolls of the character with the highest search ranks rather than rolling once for each characters.

This is what I do in my group and it seems to work pretty well for us. If they feel it's particularly important to find something in a room they can take 20, taking a helluva long time to do it, but not minding since it's important.

 

[Pielorinho]

That's a good start, but still begs the question: If what a DM wants is "Conan does Of Sound Mind" or "Indiana Jones in the Temple of Elemental Evil," and what he's getting is "Boring Cautions Adventurers Scuttle About," what are some things he can do about it?

Carrot: Offer the PCs some sort of Hero Point system, in which they gain limited immunity to death if they act with flair and adventure. Not suitable for all games.
Stick: Make the enemy dynamic. Give the PCs a deadline, and if they miss it, Bad Things Happen. Put patrols in the dungeon. Have the NPCs work against PCs who are overly cautious.
Neither Carrot Nor Stick: Talk with the players and encourage adventurous play, especially before character creation.

Bad ideas, if you want to play like this: Making a deadly world with restricted availability of raise dead spells. Requiring the players to create complex backstories for their PCs. Creating a static world in which hit-and-run tactics are highly successful, and in which enemies sit in their dungeon rooms until the PCs come along to slaughter them.

Daniel

 

[Rune]

Rune — Speaking of SH, are you still playing your OA dream campaign? It was a great read; very vibrant.

Thanks for remembering! Alas, that game has come to an indefinite end. In fact, the only original player still living here is my brother. I do hope to get back to it one day in the not so distant future, but no plans exist for it. That said, the story hour is not entirely up to date (most of mine aren't, actually), so maybe I'll post some updates sooner or later.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

On the trap issue, I did this to speed things up so they don't search every 5' square.

traps are only in 3 places doors, chests, and the dc 15 spot check "this is a good place for a trap" places.