Speeding Up Play (Without Being a Jerk)

Voadam · Jul 2, 2019

Morrus said:
Have you talked to them about it?

This was my thought. "Hey guys, I want to try to keep the pace of combat a bit brisker, one thing that would help would be rolling dice together instead of one at a time on your turns. Thanks."

Depending on the number of people in your group I might add "Because we have so many people I want to cut down the wait time between people acting in combat so people aren't just sitting around so much."

Structurally I would keep the NPCs and pets and summoned monsters and such to a minimum so it is generally just one quick PC action each and the monsters go round to keep it quick paced and more personally focused.

pogre · Jul 2, 2019

GrahamWills said:
One technique I use with slower players is to give them a certain amount of time to resolve the action, and then move on to the next person. So ..

GM: Sam, you're up; Zeb, you're on deck
Sam: Let me see think which power I'm going to use ... I'll charge the orc ... [rolls] ... that'll hit AC 22
GM: That hits. How much damage?
Sam: Let me get my dice ...
GM: OK, let me know when you've added them up. Zeb, you're up.

I also sometimes switch to simultaneous action:

GM: OK, everyone, pick a target and attack. 25 will hit everything, 16 will miss everything. Yell out if you're not sure and roll damage when you hit.

Does it cause issues sometimes? Yeah, but not very often -- and if it people complain, then let them know that you're doing it to speed up the game, but you're happy to stop if the game moves fast enough.

Very similar to what I do. I can be a bit of a jerk though to keep things moving - I'll skip a player and let them come back into initiative when they have figured out their action. Which, is something I think the O.P. wants to avoid. I have big tables with lots of players and the vast majority of those players appreciate how I push the pace.

Having a discussion about speeding up combat might help as others have suggested. Even if not everyone "buys in", if it makes a couple of players more conscious of speeding up their combat turns your combats will be faster.