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Funny note on Take 10.
At a Con a month ago, the party was moving overland, and had been doing so for several days. We were told to do a Perception check, so I ask if I can Take Ten. Reply was: "No, because you are not under stress." So I just rolled it.When next asked to do a check, I asked again if I could Take 10 (I always ask), and was told a simple "No". So for this would I asked "Can I ask why I can't" which also got a reply of "No." So I just gave up at this point... and didn't bother much with the rest of the scenario.
There is a lot of unnecessary hate Vs the take 10. If I have the high perception of hte group I tell the dm I move slowly and take perception checks the entire way. Is it ok to let me take 10 every ten feet instead of making me roll to speed things up. This actually makes it harder for us to find things since the average roll on a d20 is 10.5. So I am at a loss for doing so.
I have yet had a Dm say no.
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I get all inits out prior to game start
4-6 init results
6 perception results
Sometimes I have sense motive results too even if they arent needed.
I cross out #s as chars use them and roll the cards in with my monster groups. It gives a faster rate of play and helps with metagame (oh I rolled a 1, can I get some help on this perception.)
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** spoiler omitted **
There are 2 things I do when running on Roll20. One option is to move the token to an area of the map that is blacked out to players. The problem with this is that you have to remember exactly where they should be. The other thing I do is I make an "enemy" token that is not actually one that they are fighting and put it on the tracker. For example I'm running Skulls and Shackles and my marker for the bad guys is a pirate flag. Then you can drop enemies to the gm layer without them disappearing from the tracker
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The GM should never ever add to un-related table talk when there is time restraints they are simply slowing the game down. My experience is a few players like the topic and most players don't care and want to get on with the game. There simply is not time to do this. the GM should be driving the pace of the game not slowing it down.
As a GM I almost never look up a rule I ask a player to do it so I can keep going. For example at a recent table I didn't know the rule for falling damage into water, and asked a player to look it up as I went to the next person in the initiative order. If it's a life/death result for a player based on a ruling I will be extra careful with the correct rule.
If a player brings up a rule I have never heard of and I'm pretty sure is wrong I ask them to look it up and show me otherwise we are going with my understanding of the rules, and I keep going with running the game.
If we're running out of time I put players who are not ready on hold after about 10 seconds if they are not ready to go.
If the scenario is known to run long I let players know at the outset about this and will put un-ready players on hold in all combats.
If a player walks away from the table I put them on hold automatically I don't wait for them.
I don't let players flounder going down the wrong way, I tell them they spend a couple hours and find nothing.
If players have several options but don't seem to be decisive or a floundering altogether I repeat the clues and present it as a multiple choice option.
At the end of long into's I summarize the main points.
Some puzzles have nothing at risk if they fail, so I just tell players through trial and error they figure it out. The puzzle in Destiny of Sands part-3 is like this.
I find out what the tables take 10 perception is and will give out potion types without having the whole table roll if they got it covered with this roll, usually the do.
I let a table declare they are going to "Pathfinder the room" this means searching everything in detail, so any perception checks needed are done, as long as one player as detect magic i let them know if they detect magic. They don't have to say I search the bed, now I search the desk, etc. Depending on room size this usually takes 2 to 3 minutes against buffs.