I am a new DM, and I am currently running a CoS campaign. The first few sessions were fun but lately, it has started to feel like sessions are dragging on. What can I do to encourage my players to make decisions faster, rather than listening to them argue for 20 minutes over what to do on their turn in combat?
The RP has been a hit, but as soon as combat is introduced the game slows down to a snail's pace. A fight against 2 vampire spawn took nearly 2 hours and it was 4 vs 2.
There is lots of advice on the web about speeding up combat.
A lot of it comes down to not putting up with player's crap indecision, whcih sometimes means the GM comes across as mean or the bad guy. At some point, sadly, we do have to be mean.
I've struggled with this for a current group, especially with one player who will, if we let him, take 20-30 minutes on one turn.
The things that I have found that help:
Beginning of round summary: At the start of the round I summarize all the players and monsters, including a quick mention of their HP remaining (using triage terms of green/orange/red). Round 5. There are 10 bandit archers left, most are red. Two of the animated zombies are still up, both in reach of Conan, both badly wounded (red). Conan is green, Bêlit is unharmed, Juma is red.
Beginning of turn summary: At the start of everyone's turn I always say the initiative number and the next person's turn. "Initiative 17, Conan is up, Bêlit is next, Conan, go!"
Time limit: (This is the mean bit) If I get more than 30 second's inaction or silence from a player then that means their turn is over and their character didn't move and took the Dodge action. I've actually done this twice, and it shocked the table so much that turn times did improve. It also, however, caused resentment (which I then resented because to my mind the fact that I had to do this was on them, not me, so why were they getting angry at me!)
I've seen people posting on forums that they wait 6 seconds or even zero seconds. Players should be planning on other turns, so that as soon as the GM says "Conan go!" Conan's player should already know what they are going to do and be able to tell the GM. I'd love to do this but I think players would leave.
Turn times have crept up again, so I'm considering using a different tactic (which I found somewhere on the web, might have been AngryGM).
New rule: On your turn you can ask two questions, either to the GM or to other players. Asking any more questions requires you to take the Investigate action.
This is because I get a lot of questions, from several players not just one, that I've already answered. "Which bigbear is the healthiest?" "Has the mage used a reaction?" "How injured is the bard?" Seriously, players, if you were paying attention on other people's turns you'd know this!
One thing that has me at a complete loss is how to deal with square counting on a person's turn. The biggest time-waster I see in my games is when it gets to a player's turn and that's the time when they look at the board and start counting squares, working out who's in fireball range, what the range is, where they can move without incurring opportunity attacks, and so on. We did try gridless minis and this player hated it.
I hesitate to make this post, because it's going to sound like I'm not trying to help. But, I really am.
The players are not going to speed combat up. You may need to simply skip a lot of combat to keep them happy. Though I abhor typing that out, it's the truth.
But, combat is just about required in a full campaign, especially a published one. Even if you skip a lot, it will come up. I recommend doing everything you can to make the monsters' turns fast. For me, that would mean learn the rules, create shorthand monster notes ahead of time, and make little houserules on the fly. Example: if the monster had 1-2 HP left after the player's attack, I treat them as if they hit 0 HP. Encourage the players to do the same (except that last part), but be aware they won't if they didn't have enthusiasm for combat in the first place.
1) Have a chat with the players about deciding their turn quickly. What do they want to do? Then DO it.
2) Teach them to pull out the dice they will need before their turn and roll them all at once. The player should know by the time their turn starts if they are attacking with a weapon or a spell and if so which one. Since they know what they will attack with even if they may not know the target then they should have already pulled out the d20 and any damage dice they need. If they have more than one set of dice pull out different colors for each attack.
e.g. Level 5 fighter with two greatsword attacks - pulls out a d20 and 2d6 before their turn (ideally 2 sets in matching colors). Decide who they will attack, roll the dice ALL at once. If the matching d20 hits read off the damage - total it up and tell the DM. The players should KNOW their modifiers to hit and to damage. They should NOT have to look these up every turn especially after the first session. If the first attack kills the target then the player just moves the character to the next target and uses the second d20. Turn done.
3) Help them. If a player is trying to decide between the disengage action vs an opportunity attack and then attacking another target then the DM can help them to quickly understand the pros and cons. Don't let the player take 30 seconds sitting there trying to decide just because they aren't good at weighing up the odds. Tell them the rough odds that the op attack will hit and let them decide if that is worth the cost of the action to disengage.
4) Make sure that the players understand the situation. This reduces the number of questions. Using a grid really helps with this. If a player is trying to figure out how to move and keeps counting squares then just ask where they want to go and then tell them if they can get there and whether it would cause any opportunity attacks. The DM can see the board too and there is no reason to wait 2 minutes while a player keeps trying to map out a route to where they want to go. If they can't get there - tell them and don't waste the time until they figure out they can't get there too.
5) Try to encourage the players to pay attention. They will almost always ask which monsters are looking better even if they are paying attention but paying attention will speed things up since they are more likely to know what they want to do.
If players are chronically indecisive, and you don't want to skip them in combat, before the session have each player pick a default action for their character to take, and let them know that when combat starts, they have x-amount of time for their turn, and if they exceed that, they're defaulting to the action for that turn that they picked earlier, so the character is still participating, but it encourages them to keep track of the combat and come up with what they want to do before it comes to their turn.
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I am a new DM, and I am currently running a CoS campaign. The first few sessions were fun but lately, it has started to feel like sessions are dragging on. What can I do to encourage my players to make decisions faster, rather than listening to them argue for 20 minutes over what to do on their turn in combat?
The RP has been a hit, but as soon as combat is introduced the game slows down to a snail's pace. A fight against 2 vampire spawn took nearly 2 hours and it was 4 vs 2.
Hmmm...interesting choice. Roll initiative.
There is lots of advice on the web about speeding up combat.
A lot of it comes down to not putting up with player's
crapindecision, whcih sometimes means the GM comes across as mean or the bad guy. At some point, sadly, we do have to be mean.I've struggled with this for a current group, especially with one player who will, if we let him, take 20-30 minutes on one turn.
The things that I have found that help:
Beginning of round summary: At the start of the round I summarize all the players and monsters, including a quick mention of their HP remaining (using triage terms of green/orange/red). Round 5. There are 10 bandit archers left, most are red. Two of the animated zombies are still up, both in reach of Conan, both badly wounded (red). Conan is green, Bêlit is unharmed, Juma is red.
Beginning of turn summary: At the start of everyone's turn I always say the initiative number and the next person's turn. "Initiative 17, Conan is up, Bêlit is next, Conan, go!"
Time limit: (This is the mean bit) If I get more than 30 second's inaction or silence from a player then that means their turn is over and their character didn't move and took the Dodge action. I've actually done this twice, and it shocked the table so much that turn times did improve. It also, however, caused resentment (which I then resented because to my mind the fact that I had to do this was on them, not me, so why were they getting angry at me!)
I've seen people posting on forums that they wait 6 seconds or even zero seconds. Players should be planning on other turns, so that as soon as the GM says "Conan go!" Conan's player should already know what they are going to do and be able to tell the GM. I'd love to do this but I think players would leave.
Turn times have crept up again, so I'm considering using a different tactic (which I found somewhere on the web, might have been AngryGM).
New rule: On your turn you can ask two questions, either to the GM or to other players. Asking any more questions requires you to take the Investigate action.
This is because I get a lot of questions, from several players not just one, that I've already answered. "Which bigbear is the healthiest?" "Has the mage used a reaction?" "How injured is the bard?" Seriously, players, if you were paying attention on other people's turns you'd know this!
One thing that has me at a complete loss is how to deal with square counting on a person's turn. The biggest time-waster I see in my games is when it gets to a player's turn and that's the time when they look at the board and start counting squares, working out who's in fireball range, what the range is, where they can move without incurring opportunity attacks, and so on. We did try gridless minis and this player hated it.
Skip turns if they take too long. It's draconian, but you won't have to do it more than once or twice...
I hesitate to make this post, because it's going to sound like I'm not trying to help. But, I really am.
The players are not going to speed combat up. You may need to simply skip a lot of combat to keep them happy. Though I abhor typing that out, it's the truth.
But, combat is just about required in a full campaign, especially a published one. Even if you skip a lot, it will come up. I recommend doing everything you can to make the monsters' turns fast. For me, that would mean learn the rules, create shorthand monster notes ahead of time, and make little houserules on the fly. Example: if the monster had 1-2 HP left after the player's attack, I treat them as if they hit 0 HP. Encourage the players to do the same (except that last part), but be aware they won't if they didn't have enthusiasm for combat in the first place.
NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY
I've magically reduced a lot of my monster's HP by half when I felt the battle was starting to become boring for the players.
1) Have a chat with the players about deciding their turn quickly. What do they want to do? Then DO it.
2) Teach them to pull out the dice they will need before their turn and roll them all at once. The player should know by the time their turn starts if they are attacking with a weapon or a spell and if so which one. Since they know what they will attack with even if they may not know the target then they should have already pulled out the d20 and any damage dice they need. If they have more than one set of dice pull out different colors for each attack.
e.g. Level 5 fighter with two greatsword attacks - pulls out a d20 and 2d6 before their turn (ideally 2 sets in matching colors). Decide who they will attack, roll the dice ALL at once. If the matching d20 hits read off the damage - total it up and tell the DM. The players should KNOW their modifiers to hit and to damage. They should NOT have to look these up every turn especially after the first session. If the first attack kills the target then the player just moves the character to the next target and uses the second d20. Turn done.
3) Help them. If a player is trying to decide between the disengage action vs an opportunity attack and then attacking another target then the DM can help them to quickly understand the pros and cons. Don't let the player take 30 seconds sitting there trying to decide just because they aren't good at weighing up the odds. Tell them the rough odds that the op attack will hit and let them decide if that is worth the cost of the action to disengage.
4) Make sure that the players understand the situation. This reduces the number of questions. Using a grid really helps with this. If a player is trying to figure out how to move and keeps counting squares then just ask where they want to go and then tell them if they can get there and whether it would cause any opportunity attacks. The DM can see the board too and there is no reason to wait 2 minutes while a player keeps trying to map out a route to where they want to go. If they can't get there - tell them and don't waste the time until they figure out they can't get there too.
5) Try to encourage the players to pay attention. They will almost always ask which monsters are looking better even if they are paying attention but paying attention will speed things up since they are more likely to know what they want to do.
Another piece of advice from my current group: Have a good character sheet.
One of my players made a character sheet for another player that listed all the dice and bonuses in a big table on the front page
For example:
Attack Action - two attacks
Fist, +6 attack, 1d6+6 damage.
Magic Dagger, +6 attack, 1d4+7 damage.
Bonus Action
Single attack (must have used Attack Action) - fist, +6 attack, 1d6+6 damage.
2 attacks (must have used Attack Action, spend 1 Ki) - fist, +6 attack, 1d6+6 damage.
(Don't trust the numbers, I just made them up :-)
If players are chronically indecisive, and you don't want to skip them in combat, before the session have each player pick a default action for their character to take, and let them know that when combat starts, they have x-amount of time for their turn, and if they exceed that, they're defaulting to the action for that turn that they picked earlier, so the character is still participating, but it encourages them to keep track of the combat and come up with what they want to do before it comes to their turn.