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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 5087476" data-attributes="member: 8835">When I see a question like the title of this thread, my first suspicion is that combat is taking too long in general.I've got a blog article on how to speed it up:<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/janx/300-making-combat-faster.html" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/janx/300-making-combat-faster.html</a>It won't cure everything, but it'll reduce the problem of each player taking too long.For the main topic, I expect players to be paying attention.  I disallow tv and other distractions.  With laptops/pdas having in-game uses, the line gets fuzzier.  When I have players facebooking instead of paying attention, I'll deal with the player.As a side note, I have kicked a friend from a campaign because he was trying to trade magic cards during my sessions (as in multiple offenses, and impeding game play regularly).  It was disrupting my game, so since he'd obviously rather be playing a different game...I like using a battlemat, because it gives players a visual to lock onto.  The pieces get moved around, which attracts their attention.  Plus, if they do drift off, they can get a sit-rep by glancing at the board, rather than asking me 50 questions on their turn.Per the complaints in this thread, the common theme is players taking too long, which leads to boredom and not paying attention.  I don't like a strict "if you say it, you do it" policy, but you do need to get your players to start making choices.  If they hem, and haw, then their PC hems and haws, either put them on full defense and skip their turn, or delay their action.  Allow for  a little, "um, I'll uh, go here and cast magic missile!".  But don't let them take more than a few minutes without actually choosing an action.  The bulk of the turn should be to clarify and resolve the action, not decide what action to take.As a game design observation, I've noticed that for simple actions, people don't like waiting for more than 4 or so actions.  draw a card/play a card could be considered 1 action (yes, I know it's 2).  Add more players in that scenario, and you start having boredom and inattention issues as the game play slows down.  Add in more actions that occur per player, same problem.Thus, 1st level combat in D&D with 4 PCs goes pretty quick.  When folks start swinging multiple attacks at higher levels, you notice the slow-down again.Without changing the game, you need to get people to hurry up, in order to reduce the impact of this phenomenon.  Part of that is to get rid of distractions, and rush your players  bit.  Cut them off if they do take too long.</blockquote>

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