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The makers of 4e promise that it is going to speed up game play. Which is fine with me. But their experience with slow games does not seem to be my experiences. So I was thinking on having a bit of an informal poll.
What, in your experience most contributes to slow play?
In my experience there are two things that slow us up the most. Miniatures and spell descriptors.
Please don’t argue the merits of 4e solutions in this thread (pretty please). Just the facts. What is your experience?
1. Inattentive players.
2. Looking up spell descriptions (which really goes back to #1, they should be paying enough attention to know what spell they're going to cast and looked it up already).
3. Summoning.
1) Indecisive players.
2) Husbands of indecisive players (no offense, ladies). Worse than #1, especially with power-gamer/munchkin husbands.
3) Newbie players that love to play, don't know the rules real well, and don't try to learn them but try difficult/intricate/insane/complicated ploys anyway despite being aware of their own lack of knowledge.
Love them all-my group has lots of tactical skills but NO speed in developing those tactics and/or strategies. Heaven help an enemy when we finally get the plan ironed out, though.
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At low levels of the game I think it flows pretty well, as the PC's starts reaching higher levels I think the bloat kicks in.
Higher level encounters have critters with so many abilities, powers, feats, etc. that you can either ignore them (reducing the challenge, but speeding up play)or you have DM's fumbling and checking back and forth trying to make use of all the creature's abilities (at the expense of speed). A stat block of a high level dragon can easily take up an entire page, throw in some other critters to the mix and you have a DM with several page of critters just for a single encounter. It will bog down to a degree.
Take a game allowing all of the WotC splat books and you throw an even bigger burden on the DM trying to adjudicate everything.
PLayer: I use super Power X to shazam the dragon!
DM: Hold on, that doesn't sound right.
Player: It's right here in the Book of Exalted Huzzah!
DM: *flipping through pages* That's not what that means.
Player: My other DM let me do it.
AoO's slow it down a degree (if I do X will they get an AoO?), plus the rare AoO chain.
The battle mat does to a degree as well, but can be a good or bad thing. Sometimes a battlemat rocks.
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Low level play is not slow at all.
Once multiple attacks come in an critters get a multitude of combat options and special abilities the game slows down.
By the time 12th level rolls around there are far too many attack rolls and way too many monster special abilities.
Looking up spells can slow things down but mostly from the GM's side of things - and then its mostly high level play.
Oh, and initiative options like delay and ready - the shuffle of initiative can really slow things down.
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I'll second DangerDwarf's notes re high level. Low level 1-10 is just fine. Beyond 10 things start slowing down. SR, incorporeality, armadas of modifiers to hordes of multiple attacks (ranger I'm looking at you). Outsiders are wonderful for their collections of spell like abilities that unless you made notes while prepping the adventure are going to take a long time to look up and configure via CL.
The feature creep seems to be what slows it down. We spent 2.5 hours fighting Zotzilha the other night. He was flying around doing unholy fire breathing on everyone -
Am I in that blast?
What's the save again?
OK, half fire, half unholy. That's X and Y. And I have fire resistance Z, so I take... what game are we playing again?
Oh, CON drain for 3 points. How many hit points do I lose? What's your CON? Hmm, 15 to a 12, is, uh.... 2 hit points per level, what level are you? Ok, 2 * 9 is 18 more hit points you lose.
My turn, ah good. Well, I'll attack first with my 2 headed weapon. And now my animal companion tiger, claw, claw, bite, damage, damage, damage. Oh, a grapple. Ah, you're grappled so I can rake. Rake, rake, damage, damage. And now my summoned djinn goes...
OK, I hit ac 22. Oh wait, the bless, I hit AC23. Does an invisible ally provide flankink? OK, ac 24. Oh wait, concealment. What's that percentage again? Roll, dang, I miss. Oh wait, I think I have blindfighting.
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It's a tough call for 4E. Fire resistance slows things down, but it's cool. Are they going to speed it up so much that they remove all the cool stuff?
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We spent 2.5 hours fighting Zotzilha the other night.
That's the sort of thing that makes me wince.
When I ran the Dragonlance AoM campaign I did so using C&C. The final fight against Frost makes me wince thinking about trying to run it with 3e.
Frost
8 Dragonspawn priests
3 skullwyrms
That would have been a looooooooooooong fight in 3e.
The makers of 4e promise that it is going to speed up game play.
Have they even said how they're going to address this? I know it was a big point for the folks at Wizards when they announced 4e, but as far as I know, they haven't mentioned it much since. I haven't been checking enworld or the Wizards site much, and It's certainly possible I missed something, but I'm finding that most of the talk is about new races, every class having powers, etc., without any talk of specifics regarding game speed.
Options during combat.
The more things there are for a character to do during the combat round the longer it takes each character to adjudicate, so the longer the combat round takes, so the longer the entire session takes.
There's a player in one of my groups who's well known (and self-acknowledged) as the player who takes the longest to go through any combat round--at any level. He's very much the min/maxer so he's exploited the rules to their very limit with the amount of options he has available to him.
Typically he has his character, a follower, summoned things, spells, more spells, special combat maneuvers, and this, that, and the other to the point that at mid- to high-level play it can take him an average of 20 minutes to play is one turn combat--not whole round, just his turn.
That's an extreme case but it illustrates the point: The more options you have the longer it takes to decide what to do in the first place and the longer to adjudicate those actions.
EDIT:
Forgot to include: Therefore, although this may be heresy, I'm actually in favor of being only able to do one thing during one's turn in the round. Pick a melee thing or a spell thing and you're done.
Creative Director
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Forgot to include: Therefore, although this may be heresy, I'm actually in favor of being only able to do one thing during one's turn in the round. Pick a melee thing or a spell thing and you're done.
I don't think that's heresy at all. I'm actually kind of intrigued by such a setup.
THAT SAID: Playing WoW at the game table and surfing FARK also slow down game play. As does cats walking over the battlemap, players who can't seem to hit the tabletop with rolled dice, and Gomer Pyle quotes.
Forgot to include: Therefore, although this may be heresy, I'm actually in favor of being only able to do one thing during one's turn in the round. Pick a melee thing or a spell thing and you're done.I don't think that's heresy at all. I'm actually kind of intrigued by such a setup.
THAT SAID: Playing WoW at the game table and surfing FARK also slow down game play. As does cats walking over the battlemap, players who can't seem to hit the tabletop with rolled dice, and Gomer Pyle quotes.
True story! One needs something to occupy one's time while one is waiting 30 minutes for a 20-second turn to come up. ;)
SHAZAM!
Shazam? We're talkin' D&D, not DC Heroes! ;)
True story! One needs something to occupy one's time while one is waiting 30 minutes for a 20-second turn to come up. ;)SHAZAM!
PYY-UULE!!
THERE you go! You're off your game, Moonlion! Off by a PILE!PYY-UULE!!True story! One needs something to occupy one's time while one is waiting 30 minutes for a 20-second turn to come up. ;)SHAZAM!
Ha! QFT!
1) Indecisive players.
2) power-gamer/munchkin.
3) Newbie players that love to play, don't know the rules real well, and don't try to learn them but try difficult/intricate/insane/complicated ploys anyway despite being aware of their own lack of knowledge.
I had to modify #2 for it to be true for me. Additional:
4) Players walking out to smoke.
5) Non-Gamer Girlfriends/kids requiring players to get up from the table for 10-20 minutes at a time.
6) The guy reading Dragon (back when it was in print) while everyone else is going and only beginning to figure out what to do when his turn came up.
7) Food. (necessary evil)
For the record, #2, 4, and 6 were all embodied in one player in one of my groups. We kicked him out and the game speed up tremendiouly. (we kicked him out for reasons unrelated to the above, but post-kicking analysis revealed the above).
I'd really like to know how WotC plans on speeding these up?
I find it interesting that some of the things that people list as what slows down their game are some of the fastest in mine. The Min/Maxer for instance knows the rules, knows what he can do, doesn't ever say "oh! That would provoke an AoO? Well, I wouldn't do that then... hrmm... what should I do..."
On the contrary, in my game he is often the fastest, helps others by given them one or two good options when they are confused (not all the options they have) and generally speeds up the game. In my experience it has been THANK GOD FOR POWER GAMERS!
Not trying to say anyone else is wrong, I just find it funny that experiences can differ so much.
I am also shocked that James plays with people who would be playing WoW at the table. That guy would be right on out of my group. If you don't want to play, no problem... but don't bring things down for other people.
Biggest slow down for me is people who don't know the rules and don't ever make an effort to get to know them.
Sean Mahoney
Its to a point in our Savage Tide game where we'll walk in the door at 6:00pm on game night expecting to play till 12:00, and the DM announces flatly that we should get through 2 fights.
He was right.
Problem 1) Iterative attacks. This has (mostly) been elminated in Saga, errrrrr, I mean 4th Edition.
Problem 2) Layered Spell Effects. I'd like to see how they are going to tackle this.
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Creative Director
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I am also shocked that James plays with people who would be playing WoW at the table. That guy would be right on out of my group. If you don't want to play, no problem... but don't bring things down for other people.
If a player gets taken out of a battle, say by petrification or fear or something like that, and he's able to play WoW on his laptop without being TOO disruptive (no sound is a must) I really don't mind that at all. Provided said player can pay enough attention to the game that when he's back in, he's ready to go. He certainly wasn't disrupting anyone else from playing.
Honestly... if everyone at the table seems to be having fun, I don't really care how "slow" or "fast" the game is going, to be honest.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Spells, and to be honest, generally on my side of the screen. I always try to look them up before the session, but I always forget one detail or another.
AoOs are a big culprit too. My players avoid them at all costs, and they're always recalculating their actions to avoid them.
Slightly off topic, one thing that we do fairly fast is multiple attacks. My players are pretty good about rolling attacks in a batch then damage in a batch and not doing attack-damage-attack-damage. For monsters, I use color coded d20s (typically green for claws, red for bite, or, one player might receive the attacks on the red dice and another the green dice).
I tend to find high level combat slows down. Between the options, mega HP, and multiple attacks, a 30 second fight can run most of the night.
That said, I have noticed that when players are paying attention and planing their moves ahead, even a high level fight canmove pretty quick.
Convoluted options rules.
"If I dismount backwards while chanting a prayer and wearing orange hotpants I get a +2 to my off-hand attacks and a +1 deflection bonus to my AC."
"Deflection?! No way, dude."
"Yes way, dude. Check the book."
"I just did. It doesn't say anywhere in here ..."
"Wrong book, dude."
"Well, which book is it then?"
"I don't know. Your the DM ... "
"Well, in that case I'm calling it a morale bonus instead of a deflection bonus ..."
"You can't do that! The book says it's a deflection bonus."
"Which book?"
etc.
Sometimes I call this the Dirge of the Plustas. Arguing your plustas with the DM and/or rules-lawyer players brings the game solidly down to a crawl. Things that seem to spark these arguments the most:
*AoOs
*Spells
*Combat manuevers
Ironically, the system brings this down upon itself. By insisting to have a rule for everything it encouraged players to rely more on the book then themselves when resolving conflicts (or really anything, "What's the DC to wake up?").
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Honestly... if everyone at the table seems to be having fun, I don't really care how "slow" or "fast" the game is going, to be honest.
We've run a few sessions of Burnt Offerings. We meet for maybe 6 hours per session, which usually includes a meal break. So far, we've managed only one combat encounter per session. During one particular session, we didn't even get a combat encounter. My players are heavy roleplayers, and are really enjoying Sandpoint, interacting with NPCs and sleuthing things out. I think our progress through Burnt Offerings has been slow, but they're having the greatest time!
So, I'd say roleplaying makes our game slow. But everyone's enjoying it, so that's cool!
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RPG Superstar 2013
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Well, I won't list things that arent' a part of the game, everyone knows kids, quotes, and 'that reminds me of that one dude you killed eight times in the tomb of horrors.'
But, in the game, I think comploicated rules sets are what they're talking about. Grapple doesn't slow down our games, but I could see where it could. Have monk, will grapple, everyone will learn the rules.
I have to ditto the comment about people who don't know the rules and don't bother to learn them. If I have to explain bab+strength again to a certain significant other, I'll puke. Smart, runs a really good game interms of tension, going with the flow and her kobold NPCs, but the game slows down on rules when people don't know them.
I am torn on the powergamer thing. Most of the time, I am ready, have a plan and do something effective. But my superflexible guy yesterday froze, cause I didn't know which thing to use. I seriously had to let the players make fun of me because I had too many choices and didn't want to waste something too powerful.
Then I critted the dragon with Night's Caress and they shut the hell up.
: }
Apparently pictures on naked girls kissing on one of your player's cell phones can bring the game to a grinding halt.
About initiative: Someone in the group bought the Combat Pad a while ago and we've been using it ever since. It really nice and really speeds up combat. Allows everyone to see where they are in the order. Friday, the DM didn't use it. It was literally sitting within arm's reach and he decided to go with pencil and paper. We kept busting the DM's chops about how the pad is nice and useful and its right over there. We found out later it was because there were some other monsters in the area that he wanted to surprise us with. I guess he didn't realize that the board is magnetic and he could remove some of the things and put them back on when he needs to.
But anyways, he wasted so much time erasing and rewriting the order, it was annoying after a while. That combat pad is great (2 thumbs up).
So, I'd say roleplaying makes our game slow.
*Sarcasm*
Yea so we need to eliminate roleplaying from 4E. Lets get rid of annoying things that aren't evil from the monster manual and focus on stuff for the players to kill.*End Sarcasm*
I seriously envy those of you with powergamers that think fast about their options. Our powergamer thinks about how his every move will benefit the group, which is nice, but it bogs things down real fast. Especially since his schtick isn't always straightforward. The bladesinger had so many options it was insane sometimes. The priest right now has fewer, but he loses time deciding on the usage of his divine feats among other things. Add in his efforts to help others, and we can lose a lot of time.
On the flip side, he's also a great roleplayer, so we can lose a lot of time to the comfortable zone of in-depth characterization. I guess it balances out.
A DM without the balls to keep his players in line and to manage their character/sheets. I'm like a drill sargeant with stuff like that.
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Creative Director
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The more I've thought about it... the more I've realized that there IS something relatively new that slows the game. Immediate actions and free actions. They do a great job at interrupting the flow of the game and forcing the GM to switch gears more often than he should when handling his side of the screen. I don't have as much of a problem with spells like delay death or close wounds, since they help to prevent sudden player kills, but beyond that they really start to get annoying. The proliferation of immediate actions (and to a lesser extent free actions) in the more recent WotC books is, honestly, the #1 reason I've pretty much excluded anything from PHB2 on in my home games.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I seriously envy those of you with powergamers that think fast about their options. Our powergamer thinks about how his every move will benefit the group, which is nice, but it bogs things down real fast. Especially since his schtick isn't always straightforward. The bladesinger had so many options it was insane sometimes. The priest right now has fewer, but he loses time deciding on the usage of his divine feats among other things. Add in his efforts to help others, and we can lose a lot of time.
Same here. My powergamer almost always goes through 3-4 plans as we work through a round. As the situation changes, so does his plan for the optimal strategy, and he often is sitting on his initiative trying to figure out what to do or trying to implement a plan which assumes a fact that has changed since he came up with it.
Same here. My powergamer almost always goes through 3-4 plans as we work through a round. As the situation changes, so does his plan for the optimal strategy, and he often is sitting on his initiative trying to figure out what to do or trying to implement a plan which assumes a fact that has changed since he came up with it.
Maybe my powergamer moonlights as your powergamer? Maybe not, since mine will just admit he's thinking and wondering about two different things at a time. Any additional plans are kept behind his teeth. That, and said powergamer's wife would bludgeon him with his dicebag if he tried moonlighting like that. They've got a small child (around 3 years and a couple months, IIRC) and Mom doesn't need more distractions, she needs Dad to be available sometimes. Probably has kept our powergamer more frazzled than normal for the past few years . . . .
1. bad player trying to pick out spells
2. looking up said spells because he only read the short bit of info in the big list
3. cell phones
4. non-gamers at tables - not to bad now I don't mind wives, husbands, and kids, but in high school I remember it was horrible
5. players who are only wanting to play because there friends or bf/gf's are playing, but have no want to play the game or learn the game
Fizz
High Numbers of Attacks, Spells, Minions, Etc.
Looking Up Spells
Arguing Over Points That Have No Clear Answer (Why can't I jump off the cliff and activate my boots of levitation at the last second to save time? There's nothing in the rules that says that I can't.)
If a player gets taken out of a battle, say by petrification or fear or something like that, and he's able to play WoW on his laptop without being TOO disruptive (no sound is a must) I really don't mind that at all. Provided said player can pay enough attention to the game that when he's back in, he's ready to go. He certainly wasn't disrupting anyone else from playing.
Honestly... if everyone at the table seems to be having fun, I don't really care how "slow" or "fast" the game is going, to be honest.
I guess I can see that. My other worry would be that other players who should be involved are watching the screen instead of what is going...
Fear just finally came into effect in my game with a Fear spell cast on the rogue and fighter in the group and taking them out until the very last round of combat. I was surprised at how effective it was but also how it really kind of ruined fun for some of the people in a big fight... not sure how to fix this though.
Sean Mahoney
Spell effects.
Conditional modifiers.
Inattentive, indecisive players.
Dinner, (We play after work, on Monday) everyone needs some dinner.
Talking story, we see each other once a week and spend a good amount of time catching up.
Futtin arround, it's game, we 're playing and there is a lot of joking arround and out of game talk.
- Tracking spell durations is a positively painful experience for me, especially durations measured in rounds or minutes.
- Actions that require bunches of die rolls to resolve - area attacks and their ilk.
- Situational bonuses.
- Monster abilities that refer back to spells, especially when they list substantial differences. The alter self - polymorph - shapechange line of spells also induces head aches.
- Players of Psionic classes waffling over augmentations.
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- Too many people around a table... Playing! It's fun (You know, the more the better), but 8 players and a DM is like being in a school playground... :P
- Inattentive players.
- General unknowledge of spell descriptors.
- Most of my fellow players avoid learning most of the rules -Some of them, when we converted from 3e to 3.5, still asked "Should I roll high or low?". Then one of the players who actually knows the rules was accused of "knowing to much the rules" and we had our first RPG-argument. Fortunately, nobody has asked "What dice should I roll?" again since then.
The problem is that the "talkative/roleplaying" parts are really funny, because they flow at our rythm, but our combats used to suck. But we love the combat encounters, so we try to make them funnier every meeting:
We incorporated the initiative cards in first place, followed by Spell and abilities cards (But no, we are not converting our games into a CCG-Con!) and now we roll attack and damage rolls together.
As DM I use a half-minute sand clock; if the player doesn't decide what to do and starts to do it in those 30secs, her/his character just stands defensively. They panicked the first two rounds (the fastest rounds i've ever played), but we all agreed that it has been funnier since then.
After that, they've started to pay more attention, rogues have started to flank INTENTIONALLY (yeah, I know we've a problem there XD) and I think the one with the spiked chain we'll be trying to trip in a couple of game sessions :P
Aritz Cirbián
EDIT
I love D&D-3.5, but if 4e rules allow me to do the same adventures and help our games to be funnier (for the combat encounters, I mean) and my fellow players find those rules easier to learn, we'll probably converting with the first Paizo 4e AP... to the 4.5 edition XD
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What slows down our game (besides the already mentioned need to look up and clarify the effects of spells - highly annoying!) are animals.
And I'm not talking about a gamers cat, but about the animals in the game.
I'm sick of all these familars, animal companions, summoned nature's allies, special mounts etc. . I once had a wizard, a ranger, a paladin a druid and a cleric in a campaign and it felt more like a circus than an adventuring group.
The player of the cleric even dared to ask if his character could have a trained dog, that aids him in combat!
It's not just combat, but also movement. Every chasm forces a discussion about how to get the animals down there. One of my players even wanted to design something like a rucksack to carry his dog while climbing. At character creation I tend to offer feats in exchange for skipping animals provided by the class. But I often do this with NPCs as well when their animals are not vital to the story (I usually try to avoid this).
The makers of 4e promise that it is going to speed up game play...
Yeah, right. Sure it will.
But in (non-sarcastic) answer to your question:
1. Players who don't know the rules.
2. Players who don't pay attention.
3. Overly complex characters.
4. Indecisive players.
5. Overly complex encounters.
Here's a few suggestions on how to combat these and other problems:
1. Use spell cards. Each card contains the relevant spell information in synoptic form. Thus, players who don't know the rules well or players who have difficulty making decisions quickly can choose from a limited number of available cards and don't have to scan a spell list that likely has far more spells than they can currently cast.
2. Use maneuver cards for special maneuvers such as feats without constant effects, Tome of Battle maneuvers, etc. See #1 above. Yes, using all these cards seems like more trouble than it's worth, but it's much easier and quicker than scanning through a sloppily scribbled-on character sheet with a million notes in the margins.
3. Make sure that each player pre-calculates the effects of constant effects on the character sheet. For example, if the fighter has Weapon Specialization (longsword), then just write down his total attack bonus including the feat's adjustment. Don't force the player to remember that he must add that +1 every time he rolls the dice.
4. Teach new/inexperienced players the rules by asking them to look the rules up during play - especially if they refuse to read the book on their own. If they don't own the book, let them read your copy.
5. If you're the DM, make sure you're prepared. It's not as hard as you might think. First, make sure you've got the plot down well - flowchart it or use note cards if you must. Second, highlight or make notes for all traps, monsters, and treasures. Third, make sure you are familiar with each monsters' stats. Fourth, make sure you have all the necessary materials on hand before play begins. Fifth, assign various bookkeeping duties to players who can be trusted to do it well - remember you don't have to do anything. If you have to skip any of the above steps, make sure it isn't step #1.
6. Use a timer during combat. In my games, I use a kitchen timer. Each player has exactly 30 seconds to announce his action(s) during combat. If the timer goes off before the action is announced, that player's character is assumed to be fighting defensively for that round. This might seem overly harsh, but remember that combat is supposed to be tense and dangerous. Also, you'd be surprised at how effectively this method encourages players to become better and more decisive tacticians.
7. Move the game along. Remember that DMing is essentially a form of performance art - keep up the pace or your audience will get bored. Read your players, and if they seem to be drifting away speed things up. Talk louder, faster, and more animatedly. Stand up and move around while talking if you must. Of course, your ability to do these things is at least partially dependent on your preparation (see #5 above). In most cases, if the players aren't paying attention it's the DM's fault.
8. Don't allow players to create characters with levels in too many classes. Not only will their characters be more playable mechanically, they'll be simpler and easier to use.
9. Limit the supply of magic items. This isn't just a matter of preferring "low magic" over "high magic" styles of play. Keeping the magic item selection simple provides for a smoother flow of play because it limits the number of choices a player must make each round. Also, each item grows in perceived value as the player comes to better understand its significance and usefulness.
10. Limit the number of creature types in each encounter. Generally speaking, it's easier to run an encounter with 20 creatures of the same type than it is to run an encounter with 7 or 8 different types of creatures - especially at higher levels. For most situations, 3-4 different types of creature is about the most you want to have. Reduce this number if the encounter involves a large number of creatures or if the creatures are especially complex. For extremely complex creatures (like Dragotha, for example), a single creature is more than sufficient.
11. Roll all the dice at once. If you are rolling a simple attack, for example, then pick up 2 d20s, the appropriate damage dice, and any other dice that might factor into the attack (such as for Caster Level checks, or whatever). Of course, designate which dice apply to which roll beforehand. Then, roll them all at once. You'd be surprised how much time you save NOT having to roll again to confirm a critical hit, make a damage roll, etc., because you've already done it.
12. If you're not the DM, make sure you're ready to play. Make sure you have all the rulebooks, character sheets, dice, pencils, and note paper you need. Don't count on the DM to supply all this stuff - the DM has enough work to do, so don't ruin the game for him/her by not bringing your own materials.
13. If you're a player, use scratch paper instead of your character sheet to keep track of hit points, nonlethal damage, buff spells, and other temporary adjustments. It's much quicker to just cross something off a piece of stratch paper than it is to erase your character sheet and write down the new number. Not only that, but your character sheet stays legible much longer and gets less confused.
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6. Use a timer during combat. In my games, I use a kitchen timer. Each player has exactly 30 seconds to announce his action(s) during combat. If the timer goes off before the action is announced, that player's character is assumed to be fighting defensively for that round. This might seem overly harsh, but remember that combat is supposed to be tense and dangerous. Also, you'd be surprised at how effectively this method encourages players to become better and more decisive tacticians.
I second that! We're doing this in our games and it really speeds up the combats. And 30 seconds are really enough to decide, which action to take. We don't use the Fight defensively action though. The player has to decide on the spot when the time is up or it's the next player's turn. This leads to some unwise decisions from time to time, but I find this nice, because it reflects the heat of combat where it is not uncommon to make a bad decision when rushed.
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What slows down My games the most is me..
Pre Combat Smoke...
2 hours later after 5 rounds of combat.
After Combat Smoke..
And being the DM not much happens when I go out for a Smoke.
Oh.... yeah... and Combat can get a bit long.. I have learned to shorten by being prepared beforehand with combat maps and print ups of things they will face.
Newbies when we have them, especially newbie spellcasters.
Roleplaying, but that's fine by us. The worst are the campaigns where lots of characters are having their separate secret plots, many of which require 1-on-1 discussions with DM...there have been sessions where DM spends most of his time in kitchen talking separately to different players (at the same time other players might have 1-on-1 discussions with each other...couple of PC groups have turned out to RPG versions of Survivor, except that we don't vote people out from the island).
But I mostly play low-level games so huge amounts of options seldom plague our games...
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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1) Clerics and Druids: Hmm, do I wildshape or spell, do I use this spell or that spell? Where is that spell located? I'm running RotRL with core spells only, and research allowing access to other sources to cut this down. And don't get me started on Turn undead. Rarely used mechanic, so when it's used, we have to stop, pull out the charts...
2) conditional modifiers
3) Food and getting caught up with each other over the week.
4) Errata! Remembering which spell has been fixed how.
5) Fortunately I -am- the powergamer, so rules aren't as much of an issue.