Speeding up play: suggestions?

[LazarusLong42]

Hey all. Because of dwindling numbers of players, we're going to be mashing two groups together (one group is sort of in-between campaigns, another is just starting a campaign), and a couple of players have expressed doubts about speed of play. Mainly, they worry that with eight players and one DM, everything's going to be slllloooow.

The obvious thing is that in combat, people need to be paying attention and rolling their damage dice with their d20. But do people have other suggestions, especially for keeping people from being bored during non-combat situations?

(Of course, if this is a dead horse, and you can link to an old thread, that works too )

 

[der_kluge]

As it turns out, I was just thinking about this very thing this morning.

I run a party of 6 10th level PCs. And the combat gets fairly complex with the monsters having so many special abilities and attacks.

There are a couple of things we do that seem to help:

When you are dealing with one player, go ahead and remind the player who is next on the initiative to think about what he is doing. A lot of my players will resolve their attack, and by the time I get to them they say, "I did 42 points of damage." So, I try to let them know what the AC is, and if there is any DR involved.

My party is also uber powerful, and I've yet to really bring the fear of god into them with a heinous battle. So, I was thinking, after watching them mop up a group of about 9 various Slaad Saturday night, that I was going to just throw about 20 of the boogers on them. Resolving that much combat will take forever, so I was thinking about pre-rolling all the 20s, (all the possible crit rolls as well) and all the damage for all attacks. That way, I can just read down through the list and whoever the Slaad happen to attack, that roll is the one they get. I can even list out the AC that the Slaad hits with the roll I've generated, and then I can just scratch off the to-hits as I go down the list.

That should really help a lot.

 

[der_kluge]

Another thing I do, and this helps a lot, especially at higher levels, is to outline a set of tactics for the monsters. This doesn't always work because the PCs will throw a big wrench into my plans sometimes, but I try to outline, in general, what the bad guy will do - usually starting with his most powerful attack first, and then I try to include a backout plan, i.e., what to do if he's about to die.

That saves a lot of time because it summarizes the key abilities of the creatures. For spellcasters, it's imperative to have all the spells memorized noted as well.

 

[heirodule]

If you aren't aleady, use index cards in initiative order and cycle through them.

And announce that the next player is "on deck" when prior to resolving the current active player

 

[Varianor Abroad]

The obvious thing is that in combat, people need to be paying attention and rolling their damage dice with their d20. But do people have other suggestions, especially for keeping people from being bored during non-combat situations?

Have them also include any percentile miss dice, etc. Any die that you expect to roll should be in hand. Just read the miss chance before to hit, etc.

On the macroscale, I have a player who handles initiative tracking that. They remind the person who's going to be next up. If we come to a rules question, I typically have someone else do a lookup and move on to the next player's action. We come back to the answer. This works best if it's a resolved action (ie.e you know you hit, the question is how much damage under X condition) and you want to keep play moving.

Take a look at your players. Who is consistently slow to respond? Why? Is it someone who has trouble looking up spells? Consider photocopying relevant pages for them. Is it someone always figuring out bonuses on an attack? Why? Help them make a chart listing the combinations.

What's your own organization like? Are you always looking up monsters? Put them on initiative cards. Are there common rules lookups for your group? AoOs used to be checked all the time. Go through your books with post it tabs (the little colored ones from 3M) and mark stuff you want to refer to a lot.

Good luck. It is possible to pare it down considerably.

 

[LazarusLong42]

If you aren't aleady, use index cards in initiative order and cycle through them.

And announce that the next player is "on deck" when prior to resolving the current active player

There are people who don't do this? I personally use the Game Mechanics cards, with a few modifications of my own; they work very well.

 

[WizarDru]

Here's some quickies that I've derived from running a group of 6 from 1st to 22nd.


1. Always announce who's turn in intiative it is, and at least the next two players coming up. This gives the players a chance to choose their actions and research relevant rules questions before they have to act.

2. Have all players have relevant rules information when their action comes up. This includes having the page open to the ability being used in the PHB, such as a Bull Rush, or the spell listing. If it's a spell, they should know the DC and the type of the save, as well as the results of a successful save. For a skill or feat, they should know what the relevant rolls and modifiers are, such as their grapple score.

3. Put a time limit on rules reasearch and judgement calls. If you can't find a definitive answer in the rules in a short amount of time, make a call and move on. Don't waste time arguing and don't change your ruling later, even if you decide it wasn't the best ruling to make. Research the rule later, but don't interrupt the flow of the game for it. Enlist the aid of your players whlie doing the research, to speed the process.

4. Have players make relevant rolls ahead of time, to prepare for their turn. If necessary, let them make the rolls while you verify the next player's action, then return to them for the result. If a player is casting a fireball, have him roll against SR and his damage ahead of time. If he's going to attack five times using his bow, have him roll the attack rolls and miss chances before you get to him.

5. Make spell cards to place on the table, listing all the relevant effects of each spell in operation during combat. This saves the PCs forgetting spell effects during the combat, allows players to quickly reference things like the effects of haste, bless or holy aura, and speeds up play.

6. Have all sub-characters move with their associated character, not on a separate initiative. Have all similar non-boss monsters move as a group in large combats. Have all cohorts move with their leader, all animal companions and familiars with their friends and masters, and all companions or npcs move together. If you have a battle with a lich, two ogres magi and six ogres, have the ogres all move at the same time. Simplify the initative order whenever possible.

7. Put bookmarks or post-it stickers in both the DMG and PHB to frequently referenced pages. Need to refer to the environmental effects pages all the time? Put a label sticker on it or other pages you know you're constantly flipping to, such as grappling and special actions, or to the section on damage effects (what's the difference between stunned and dazed, again?)

8. Recognize 'torch-lighting' issues and handwave them whenever possible. Some things are pendantic or not-fun to cover in-game. Don't force players to announce every insiginificant action or play through every tedious encounter, if the answer is never in doubt. If the party encounters a weak opponent that has no chance against them, don't play the combat out. If a party member can eventually succeed at a task with repetition and little or no risk, simplify it to a single roll or just assume success. Don't waste time with things that don't matter or waste the collective group's effort and attention.


That's a good starter list, I think.

 

[Shallown]

The best thing I ever did to speed up play is set a time limit for telling me whatthey character is doing. Usually like 30 seconds if the player hesitates just have them hold. Sounds kind of harsh but they have quite a while between thier own actions to plan what they want to do. If they are waiting to see how womething resolves it usually boils down to going good or bad and they better have actions for both results planned. Ie if they are waiting to see if the fighter takes down orc X he should have his actions planned for if he does or doesn't. otherwise he is in hold.

I enforced this rule strictly for about 3 sessions after that the players were use to going fast and furious and I could be a little more lax about enforcing it. Once the habit was formed I was happy and things went better, plus as an aside the party seemed to mesh better and work as a team. I reserved the right to take a little longer as GM if I had multiply creatures to resolve but tried to stick to the rule myself only taking 45 seconds or so. My reasoning is I haven't played this creature for 10 levels so maybe it takes me a little more time, live with it.

Later
hope it helps

 

[Shazman]

Having one person besides the DM keeping track of all of the initiatives can help as well. Also the better the players know their character sheets and spells, the quicker things will go. Nothing slows things down worse that someone trying figure out their modified attack and damage rolls or looking up a spell during their turn.

 

[Voadam]

Give players only six seconds to decide and anounce what they are doing on their turn or else declare they are delaying. Take as much time as you need to resolve actions, but when their turn comes up they should not waste peoples time reading spells and reanalyzing the combat positions before anouncing their actions, they should do that on other people's turn.

For listen and spot our DM has a list of our scores and uses one roll for the party to reduce dice rolling.

Have bullets of pertinent PC stats handy (grapple checks, etc.).