What do you do to simplify or speed up your D&D/d20 game?

[Starman]

It seems that there has been quite a bit of discussion lately about some of the problems people have with D&D or d20. I thought it might be helpful to have a thread to discuss ideas people had to speed up or simplify their games.

For example, Henry mentioned in one thread that in a recent battle that he and his players had to keep track of a bless spell, darkness spell, and modifiers for fighting from higher ground. What if you set up a white board near the table that everyone could see. You could write any situational modifiers up there fairly quickly and everyone could easily refer to it when needed.

What other ideas do you have to speed up or simplify the game (without changing a bunch of rules).

EDIT: I changed the title to maybe attract some more replies. I'm sure that there are a lot more clever ideas out there that GMs could share.

Starman

 

[Campbell]

The Ultimate Combat Sheets found at Mad Irishman's website have been a huge boon in tracking combat modifiers.

 

[Psion]

The only two obstacles I found were
"Counting down initiative"
and
At high levels, getting players to do the math for iterative attacks.

For the former, I use initiative cards - roll initiative, sort them, and flip through them every round.
For the latter, I made players start bringing scratch paper and jot down their results so they don't have to re-do the math a dozen times.

I considered using p-kitty's "have the book open" rule for casters, but we don't have many casters, so that one has not gone down yet.

 

[DM_Jeff]

Speeding up

Yes, behind the DM, on a miniatures case high enough for everyone to see, we have an erasable white board. When a PC is responsible for a modifier (bard or marshall ability, cleric or wizard spell), they get up and jot down the modifier.

Everyone politely points out to anyone rolling their overall modifier and the game moves on. Clear and simple.

-DM Jeff

 

[dagger]

We have a large white board with the numbers written from 1 to 30. On the right we have all the characters listed with a letter by each one. So basically everyone rolls and calls out "A 12" "C 19" "B 2", and each letter is written next to the number. Also listed next to each character is his initiative modifier in case character or monsters have the same number (for ties). And the DM just calls out each letter or name when it comes up. Everyone can see whose turn it is and when there turn is coming up. The monsters are assigned letters or symbols as needed. This helps us go faster because everyone is usually ready to go and it keeps things organized.

All of our casters seem to have the books open anyway.
-----------------------------------
We also sometimes use a 30 second rule when a large amount of players get together. Using the white board and the 30 second rule helps keep things moving.
------------------
We use a 1” grid battle matt with a large thin clear piece of plexiglass (12 bucks at home depot for the same size as a Chessex matt, you can get much bigger plexi for not much more, for extra space to write on) laid on top of it. Which can be easily written on with grease pencils (sometimes called china markers), and which are easily removed with dry paper towels. In addition to the benefits of keeping the mat in perfect condition and allowing ease of drawing for buildings or whatever. The plexiglass has and additional benefits of allowing space to record spell durations and whatever ever else is needed for the characters. We have the casters keep track of there own spell durations and other such things.


These are few of the things we have that help keep the game organized and running smoothly. We have been using the plexi setup since 91, and it has worked well. We have used it with all types of battle matt’s and other games (hero clix maps, you name it).

 

[Castellan]

We have a couple of things to help out with quick resolution:

1. Whiteboard. Lots of folks have mentioned this already. However, we've gone a bit further with the concept. The guy who hosts the game has a separate room where all his gaming stuff is, so he has a table permanently set up for this. On the table, he placed a piece of 4' x 8' plywood. On the plywood, he attached some cheap shower siding (looks kinda like tile, acts exactly like a whiteboard). We have a battlemat on it, but there's space around the battlemat for writing with wet or dry-erase markers (we've found wet erase works better, though).

When I run a game, I keep the initiative count right on the table. I don't have to find a separate sheet of paper, and I don't have to worry about dropping intiative cards (I'm clumsy some times). I simply write something like:

      123456789
Carl  xxxBB
April xxxH
Tim   xxxx
Paul  xxxx
Me    xxxP

I mark off rounds with an 'x' and when some effect is in place on a given character, I try to mark it down with a one-letter code. For instance, 'B" is usually Bless, 'H' is usually Haste, 'P' is usually Paralyzed.

I'll write durations off to the side, and by looking at the initiative ticks, I can tell if a spell/effect has worn off, yet. The coding is subjective. 'P' might be Paralyzed, or it might be Polymorphed. I'm not showing the list to the players, so it really doesn't matter in the long run.

So far, this has worked really, really well.

2. Effect cards. These can be 3x5 notecards, or Post-Its, or whatever you like. One of our players has taken the time to type up all of his party-affecting spells on these cards. He's sized them to fit into those thick plastic trading-card protectors (means he can write on-wipe off, if need be). If he casts Bless, he places the BLESS card on the table near the battle. Everyone can see it, and as long as they see it there, they know to apply the bonuses. Another player just uses Post-Its for the same effect. The players all know to look around the perimeter of the battle for "effects cards."

We had tried propping cards up, or using a mini white-board, but we discovered that there was always someone who couldn't see it. So, by laying the cards down, it works well.

3. Player counters. Minis look cool, but they don't convey any real information. We've taken the step to replace minis with counters that contain info. We started with poker chips that were just a hair larger than 1-inch in diameter. They fit reasonably well on a battlemat, and when you glued a circle of laminated paper to one side, you could write valuable info: Name, "health bar," Armor Class. We upgraded to some specially-printed clear plastic chips with an applied backing that contains name and a permanent health bar. We now write the Armor Class underneath the health bar.

This helped us to (a) figure out where everyone is, (b) see at a glance how injured someone is (we've always liked avoiding the, "I've only got 3 hit points left! Heal me!" and instead gone for the, "Well, I look like I have some big nasty wounds and scratches..."), and (c) determine Armor Class without constantly asking. (c) is especially for the DM (usually me) so I'm not always asking, or trying to locate notes. It also lets the player update Armor Class based on spell-effects or a change in armor without me having to keep track.

4. Spell radii. The player who printed nice spell effect cards, and bought the nice die-cast 1-inch plastic counters also cut out some spell radii from plastic mesh. He went to Lowes or Home Depot and bought enough for a couple of screen doors. Then, he cut out circular radii of various sizes, and cone-shaped radii (both for 3.0 and 3.5). Why use this instead of what's provided in the Core Rulebooks? Well, since it's mesh, you can lay it on the battlemat and place counters/figures on top of it, and still see the markings easily. It's waterproof, wet-erase-markable, and doesn't tear or stain, so it's lasted a long time.

This same player also bought some square wooden dowels and cut them to various lengths. Counting squares for the distance to a target, or determining line-of-sight can be a hassle. The dowels can be laid on the mat between a character and his target, and you know right away which squares are affected and whether or not the target is visible/in range. The square dowels mean they don't roll away like the round ones do.

***

That's most of what we do to "speed things up." In some cases, it doesn't sound like it would, but you'd be surprised how much time it saves. I've also found that during combat, especially with larger groups, it helps to announce to player X, "It's your turn," and to announce to player X+1, "You're up next, as soon as she's gone." A lot of players sit and "watch" the action and don't think about what they're going to do until it's their turn. We have a couple of players who will take upwards of five or ten minutes to make a decision, and simply declaring that they "delay" takes them out for a whole combat because they're distracted by what others are doing and too busy second-guessing themselves. I've found that if you announce to them that their turn is next, they suddenly focus on what needs to happen and the delay drops to less than a minute when I call on them. Your mileage may vary on this, however....

D20 combat can get complex and long-lasting pretty quickly, but I've found that this really helps to streamline some of the more mundane stuff.

 

[KB9JMQ]

Wow, lots of good ideas here.
I made a sheet for tracking Initiave that one of the players is responsible for.
We also do the "You are up next" thing and that does help.
I like the casters to keep an open book in front of them. Some of my players are relatively new and don't have the spells memorized.
My INIT sheet also keeps track of spell durations and such stuff.

 

[MarauderX]

We have a large white board with the numbers written from 1 to 30. On the right we have all the characters listed with a letter by each one. So basically everyone rolls and calls out "A 12" "C 19" "B 2", and each letter is written next to the number. Also listed next to each character is his initiative modifier in case character or monsters have the same number (for ties). And the DM just calls out each letter or name when it comes up. Everyone can see whose turn it is and when there turn is coming up. The monsters are assigned letters or symbols as needed. This helps us go faster because everyone is usually ready to go and it keeps things organized.

All of our casters seem to have the books open anyway.
-----------------------------------
We also sometimes use a 30 second rule when a large amount of players get together. Using the white board and the 30 second rule helps keep things moving.
------------------
We use a 1” grid battle matt with a large thin clear piece of plexiglass (12 bucks at home depot for the same size as a Chessex matt, you can get much bigger plexi for not much more, for extra space to write on) laid on top of it. Which can be easily written on with grease pencils (sometimes called china markers), and which are easily removed with dry paper towels. In addition to the benefits of keeping the mat in perfect condition and allowing ease of drawing for buildings or whatever. The plexiglass has and additional benefits of allowing space to record spell durations and whatever ever else is needed for the characters. We have the casters keep track of there own spell durations and other such things.


These are few of the things we have that help keep the game organized and running smoothly. We have been using the plexi setup since 91, and it has worked well. We have used it with all types of battle matt’s and other games (hero clix maps, you name it).

In lieu of all of that, I use 1 tact-tile to record initiative and try to keep it out for everyone to see. It's mobile and can connect to the other tiles on the table for maps, and tact-tiles don't need to take up the whole table unless I use them all so players can use books & laptops. There are all colors of markers that are cheap, and whipping out pre-drawn plans for the game is much easy & faster than drawing areas by hand in-game. The players are great and know what they want to do when their turn comes up. As we have progressed the battles have been longer and more complicated, and I find that I am the one that slows things down the most when the bad guys attack.

 

[Henry]

Initiative: I use Game Mechanics Initiative Cards. Those things are the most awesome development since polyhedral dice.

Damage Dice: Roll your damage and concealment dice (if any) at the same time as your attack roll. This really speeds up those players with multiple weapon attacks. I have one player of a Monk who actually rolls his next THREE ROUNDS of attacks before-hand, and lays them out for all to see. That works very well for him.

Short Stat blocks: And as I stated before, the players likely won't shoot you if some statistics are minorly fudged. It may be an issue in some gaming groups, but in mine it's really not. Most NPC's, with exceptions of major ones, are statted much like 2nd edition monsters:

all three AC's (touch, flatfoot, and regular), class and level, hit points, a save number (just one, usually a low-ball of their actual number), and attacks and damage.

a troll would look like:

Troll: ac 16 (t 11, ff 14), giant 6, hp 63, save +4, claw +9 (1d6+6) bite +4 (1d6+3) rend (2d6+9). Regens.

To go the far side of the spectrum, A Pit fiend might look like:
Pit Fiend: ac 40 (t 17, ff 32), out 18, hp 225, save +20, claw +30 (2d8+13) bite +28 (4d6+6, fort 27 or devil chills, fort 27 or d6 con/death) wing (2d8+6). Also, 18th level sorcerer & 18th level cleric, regens, DR 10/good+silver.

I know a pit fiend is not a level 18 sorcerer and cleric, but that covers most of their abilities and spells they can throw, plus allows room for a few surprises besides their normal abilities. Who says that ALL pit fiends have blasphemy and meteor swarm, and not power word kill and shapechange? They're only going to use a few abilities anyway when the players attack, so why stat all that out? If the pit fiend were going to be a major villain, then I'd stat him in full, pile on the enhancing magics before combat, plot tactics that maximized his abilities, etc. But Pit Fiend #3 from the left is getting a short stat block (yeah, like I have games with multiple pit fiends as cannon fodder! )

 

[Scribble]

The only two obstacles I found were
"Counting down initiative"

For me this system works better. I used to use a white board with everyone's name on it in order of init, but it started to bog things down when (especialy later in the night when I'm getting tired) I would look at the screen and for a moment loose track of where we were...

Maybe initiative cards would work too, but counting down backwards seems to go faster for me. 30 29 28 27 26 25 (hey that's me!) and so on...

We also don't use a battlemat. We just use minis on a table and eye things up. If it's a major issue about something we measure it. For fireballs and such, we say point to a spot where you center it. then we check the template. This cuts down on people spending precious minutes searching for the best spot to let the fireball loose.

Don't sweat the details. Yes I know there's an exact DC listed in the books for what it takes to climb a slope covered in ants while wearing bermuda shorts, but here's what I say it is now.