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I tend to offer feats in exchange for skipping animals provided by the class.
Hey, I have a problem with animal/creature companions too! :D
For the moment, I've applied the same solution, but I'm trying to improve my DMing so every player can play with whatever she/he wants to. I promise I'll be able to DM that when 7th Edition comes out ;P
Last posts are really usefull, they perfectly summarized my POV!
Aritz
I find combat to be intensely tedious. I am presently playing through the Savage Tide campaign, and while I love it, I find it intensely dull getting through some combat encounters. Combat has always been the slowest part of D&D for me, and my group has spent the last four sessions in combat.
Four sessions. In combat.
They sacked the Minting House and then moved on to the Crimson Fleet's Base and the Wreck. It took forever to get through, and I must admit I was very bored.
~ Bryon ~
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Our resident Powergamer is the fatest one too.
My resolution to the other gamers who take ages to look up the spell on their turn (and not before while they are waiting):
All Players have a fixed amount of time to state what they will do. In low levels this is one minute and in higher levels up to 3 minutes. If the player is not able to state what he will do in this time he looses his round (PC is confused by all the stuff going on).
That makes players think fast and act fast.
Rules' questions and stuff like this do not count towards the reaction time.
Nonetheless, high level encounters take a lot of time even if all players act fast.
Another suggestion to speed up combats: DMs, run the combat during your prep time. I know, you're saying, "What? How can I run the combat without the players?" It's simple, especially if you're using recent Dungeon magazine adventures. Ever notice that most encounters provide suggestions for a creature's tactics? Simply decide ahead of time what a creature is likely to do over the course of several rounds (since the average combat only lasts about 5 rounds, you only need to decide on 6-7 actions in most cases). Once you know what the monster's likely to do, then roll the dice and record the results. Then, during actual play all you have to do is read back the results.
Yes, I know there's no way to predict what the players are going to do. Remember that you can always ignore what you wrote down and do something else. Also, if you stick strictly to what you wrote down during prep you're likely to come up with a bonehead move every now and then. I know very well that this idea doesn't seem workable.
HOWEVER, in practice it works very well. I do this often, and it saves tons of time. The only caveat is that you have to be prepared to use common sense. You can't be afraid to change plans midstream.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Solution I've found on the animal companions.
1) It's an animal. unless it's given orders it will act on instinct.
2) Give the player a mini of their character and the companion. Even if you don't use minis, having them sitting on the sheet will help remind the player she's playing for two.
3) When my Elan gets to 6th level I'm going to go thrallherd. We'll see how much that bogs down the table.
The makers of 4e promise that it is going to speed up game play.
There's only so much they can do. They can't force people to memorize the rules, so there's always going to be lookups. That, for me, is the one constant that slows down play the most in my games.
This is also why I'm considering using (and creating, oh joy) character cards for every item a character might possess (Gamemastery to the rescue!), abilities they can use (that's the creation part...), spells they can cast (AD&D's spell cards! Yeaa! Done!), magic items they possess (again, Gamemastery to the rescue!), and basically have an index card or Gamemastery card for every item and ability a character can do and possess.
You might be asking why. Speed of play, of course. As a player myself sometimes, I think it'd be infinitely faster to have a "deck" of character info right in my hand, ready to interact with the DM at a moment's notice. Character sheets would be only used to track a character's basics: name, race, stats, saves, alignment, class, etc. The actual "add-ons" every character acquires would be played via character cards.
To give you just one example of what we discussed recently on the subject of the player possessing physical item cards for everything they own. A player and friend of mine mentioned stealing. Pickpockets in town that target your character. What typically happens at the game table whenever a thief targets your character to steal your pouch? The DM determines whether the thief succeeds or fails, and then proceeds to inform you only if the thief fails, tipping you to the attempt. However, if the thief succeeds, what does a DM typically do?
"Can I see your character sheet please?" The DM then proceeds to erase something from your sheet, which is obvious because only a blind man couldn't see the erasure, not to mention the fact that simply asking to see your character sheet spoils the whole point of a pickpocketing attempt in the first place.
With cards representing items you carry, when the thief makes the pickpocketing attempt, and the DM asks to see your cards, does he pull something out of your deck (meaning the thief succeeded, much less if you even KNOW it was a pickpocketing attempt in the first place! Heh. Did he just shuffle your cards to signify a failed attempt? What's missing? Is anything missing? How can the player possibly know why the DM is asking to see his cards? And that, my friends, is how you inject mystery back into playing a character, and this is just for stealing. What if an item is destroyed through an attack somehow? Let me see your cards....
Anyway, I digressed a bit here, but to get back on topic, this is one area I definitely feel could speed up play and add some spice to the game for the players whenever the DM asks to see your 'deck". FWIW.
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Hmm...usually what slows our games is too much alcohol.
On the plus side we are usually too loaded to notice or care that we've spent an entire evening on one encounter.
House Rule 1: If a player gets hit with a critical hit he must immediately do a shot of <insert that nasty booze leftover from that party you had> and then scream "MEDIC!". If a DM-creature gets hit with a critical hit that kills the creature, the DM does a shot and screams "CURSE YOU ALL!"
House Rule 2: When a player uses a consumable (wand, potion, scroll, etc) they must take a swig of their beer. (usually beer is drunk all the time, but when this rule was a shot of liquor, we got WAY TOO WASTED to play!)
House Rule 3: If anyone can down down an entire beer while you "decide what to do in a round" your character automatically delays to last initiative and the player must do a shot.
House Rule 4: If the DM is taking too long looking up a rule, spell, etc. A player may challenge the DM to do a shot to continue looking up the rule. If the DM declines, all players get a +2 bonus to all rolls for the next round. If the DM accepts but does 2 shots, all other players must do a shot as well and the DM can take his time looking up the rule.
We've had others, usually modeled after other drinking games, but these persist as standards.
Playing WoW at the game table and surfing FARK also slow down game play.
Fark is a short-term problem. Within ten minutes the offender's computer will be frozen, and he'll have one less distraction. :-/
Seriously: the biggest time-killer I've seen is The Player Who Doesn't Know The Rules. The most recent example I've met insisted on playing a druid, because he thought the old-green-religion mindset was cool. A round and a half after his turn, and he would still be poring over his character sheet, shouting out all the cool things he could do. Including each spell he had prepared. Individually.
The one time he used a summoning spell, I had to dig out my copy of the MM, turn to the correct page, and tell him, "Okay, for the next few rounds, you also have this bear."
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.
This, plus:
4) Tracking buffs and similar effects that require in-play accounting.Of course, judging from the presence of similar abilities in auras and paladin smites, I'm not seeing that improve under 4e.
Players make it slow.
1) Don't know the rules
DM: DC for web?
Player: ahhh..... How do I calculate that again?
2) Haven't decided what they will do.
Dm: What does Tharn do?
Player: Ah, he, um, ....
3) Not paying attention
DM: So, what does Kleva the Destroyer do?
Player: Man this new Hulk comic is awesome!
4) Lazy
DM: Ready to play?
Player: Well just give me a second I haven't leveled my character yet.
DM: But you had all week? You think I write these adventures 5 min before the session!?!?
Kids are the biggest distraction in our group-- there are nearly as many as there are players.
I'm willing to bet there are more kids (of gaming age) than there are players. Kinda sad when you think about it.
GGG
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Contributor
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Rapid level advancement slows our games down. Other things mentioned by other people as well, but no one has mentioned rapid advancement. It slows us down in two ways.
1) Players end up spending way too much time actually doing the level up during game time. This means they are distracted during play, or sometimes so many players are levelling at once that the game can't proceed until they are done.
2) Sometimes it seems like our new funky powers appear faster than we can adjust to having them. I often find that my current character levels up without ever getting to use the newest poer from his last level up. Makes it easier to forget what he can actually do.
Both these problems are more severe for spell-casters than non-casters.
Among things mentioned by other posters, but setting aside the various "player doing something else" issues, I would say the biggest slow-down in our games is High-level play (too many options and too many effects to track).
Actually, here are a few more things:
Poorly organized information (like having to flip between multiple books to run a monster. frex evil wizard summons celestial bison. Now you need his stats from the module, the bison stats plus the template).
loot tracking, identifying, dividing and selling.
Freeform play: I like to let my players roam where they will, but the game moves a lot slower if I have to pull an encounter out of the air.
A few things that don't slow my games down:
The grid. Fights on the grid are usually faster for us with less confusion/argument.
Powergamers. Our powergamers are of the "I'm ready with my best option" variety.
Attacks of Opportunity. We have these down, and know how and when to avoid them.
Initiative tracking. We've been using initiative cards forever.
Free and Immediate Actions. The only times these come up in our game, it's because they are part of a plan or regular tactic. all the free action spells that we've used are that way because we tie them to another action.
Our resident Powergamer is the fatest one too.
My resolution to the other gamers who take ages to look up the spell on their turn (and not before while they are waiting):All Players have a fixed amount of time to state what they will do. In low levels this is one minute and in higher levels up to 3 minutes. If the player is not able to state what he will do in this time he looses his round (PC is confused by all the stuff going on).
That makes players think fast and act fast.
Rules' questions and stuff like this do not count towards the reaction time.
This is the sort of thing that if taken too far (say a five second count) really starts skewing the game away from those who might want to join in, but are perhaps too intimidated by the rules of the game - and D&D has a ton of those, and not all of them are even all that rational. Eventually Darwinism wins out and you've got what you always wanted: power gamers at every table. There are a lot of what I would call design flaws with every version of the game that contribute to some degree of slowness, the basic rules system being the biggest. Computer games on the other hand take most of the tedious rule learning out of the player's hands allowing them to explore the game more freely, though no computer setting has yet to eclipse the world created by a good GM.
There are, and have been other games that move much quicker.
-GGG
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1) Players who haven't decided what to do yet and have to look stuff up when it's their turn, because they still haven't decided which spell will be useful or whether or not a Grapple would be a useful tactic or they should just swing their sword.
2) Players who make a summoning based build and haven't bothered to write up the critters they'll be summoning *before* the game, instead of trying to figure out the stats for a Fiendish template Girallon enhanced by Augment Summoning while the rest of us are sitting around glaring at him.
3) Monty Python / Rocky Horror / whatever quotes. We don't mind these, because as long as everyone is laughing, it doesn't count as 'slowing things down.'
4) Spouses who need to call and talk about absolutely nothing for 10 to 30 minutes, including such pressing emergency topics as what they are going to have for dinner the next night, on the one night a month they let their spouse out of the house.
5) Food breaks. As mentioned by someone above, an accepted evil, although we prefer to order the food before we start playing.
6) Computers. Any single program 'that will save so much time!' at the gaming table *always, always, always* ends up sucking up the entire evening, with half of the group huddled around a monitor oohing and ahing over some feature, and / or trying to get the 'time-saving' feature to work for four freaking hours (that would have saved a couple seconds over rolling the dice, if it had worked). If I want to use a computer while playing a game and ignoring everyone else in the room, I've got characters in City of Heroes/Villains, World of Warcraft, Dark Ages of Camelot and Everquest 2 I could be playing.
None of the stuff that slows us down involves the game, rules or system, so much as the people, and some of them we accept and don't mind.
Our gaming group plays Villains & Vigilantes, D&D, Vampire, GURPS, Trinity, etc. and rotates between games fairly regularly. We also have played such 'rules-light' fare as Star Fleet Battles. I do understand that grapple rules or 'plustas' can get overwhelming for gamers who aren't quite as psycho as us, but after filling out an Energy Allocation Forms at convention tournaments, I think it's safe to say that there's not a rule in 3.X that can slow us down.
If anything, the only time the rules slow us down is when we switch systems and have to adjust to a new set of rules.
"Wait, I attack of opportunity!" "Wrong game. This is GURPS." "Uh, I stop-thrust?!"
It seems to me that the consensus seems to be, it is not the rules that make the game slow, its the players.
I find your assessment interesting. We have very knowledgable players at our table and its not the players that slow up the game, its the game that slows up the game. So while the concensus is the "players" as the root cause, I must disagree with that conclusion.
I shudder to think what our gaming table, slowed to a crawl during CR20 encounters, would be like if players couldn't calculate spell DCs or were easily distracted. I feel for some of you.
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It seems to me that the consensus seems to be, it is not the rules that make the game slow, its the players.I find your assessment interesting. We have very knowledgable players at our table and its not the players that slow up the game, its the game that slows up the game. So while the concensus is the "players" as the root cause, I must disagree with that conclusion.
I shudder to think what our gaming table, slowed to a crawl during CR20 encounters, would be like if players couldn't calculate spell DCs or were easily distracted. I feel for some of you.
I agree that the system makes a huge difference, even with competent players.
I'll add one suggestion we happened along to speed gameplay. Keeping track of all those buffs can be a giant pain, especially when you have three spellcasters, a bard and a dragon shaman all modifying attacks, saves, conditions, etc.
I started using index cards to solve the problem of forgetting what modifiers are affecting the characters.
(1) Write the name of the spell/power/effect in BIG BOLD COLORFUL LETTERS.
(2) Write the mechanics effects underneath.
(3) When the effect comes into play, whip out the card and stand it upright on the table, for all to see.
This was so handy that everyone copied the idea, and even the DM got into the act, prepping cards for powers and effects the enemies would use.
I think it also helps in that it draws all the players attention to the tabletop, where all the modifers are displayed, and hopefully focussing their attnetion on the action taking place on the tabletop too.
It would seem that the cause of a slow game is players when they are inexperienced/unknowledgable (though not always)and the game system when your players know what they're doing. I feel a graph with a rate of change function coming on . . . .
2) Players who make a summoning based build and haven't bothered to write up the critters they'll be summoning *before* the game, instead of trying to figure out the stats for a Fiendish template Girallon enhanced by Augment Summoning while the rest of us are sitting around glaring at him.
If players want to summon other creatures they need to make up a stat card to use in the game. No stat card for a summoned creature a spell caster has tried to summon, the spell fails.
It's mean and draconinic, but I am tired of players summoning a creature and not having the stats available, to play. We spend the first hour of a game session just talking story, players can use that time to prep stat cards for creatures they wish to summon.
Although it doesn't slow game play per se, at low level, running out of spells can slow down the pace of the game. When the cleric is out of spells it is time to turn arround, set up camp, rest and pray for spells. This has slowed down the pace of the game more than once at low levels.
The biggest thing that makes ultracanon D&D slow in my opinion? Too many hitpoints for everything.
Battles are these huge rolling operations where badguys and goodguys are chopping on each other like wood and everything just grinds to a sad halt. Granted this is more true as level goes up, but it goes up pretty fast usually.
Granted also that there's a lot of feats and special abilities designed to help artificially boost damage dealt which is kindova' roundabout fix that adds a lot of complexity seemingly just to add a lot of complexity.
That and there's always the guy who picks his feats and items and such to all synergize in a perfect way, who ends up with these insano damage yeilds despite all sense and reason, while everyone else just has a nice option or three--which in the end makes him the one guy who kills things and everyone else who just, y'know, stays out of the way.
I think if 4e had approached the situation like military de-escalation, pulling back both on the crazy woo-hoo special abilities, but also on the inherant power bloat the game takes on with levels, that they'd have a chance at a faster, funner game.
That said, I think they like their overbloated morass of nonsensical abilities and powers that don't make sense. I think there's gonna' be even more of that than there was. I think they LOVE that stuff. I think a lot of D&D players, bless their confused hearts, love it too (or at least know no better).
What's going to speed up 4e? It's a new edition so there's only the three books. That's what will speed it up. Everyone's characters will be of necessity low level and most of the weirdo wu-shu that bogs everything down will be unknown to most players and their level will be low enough that it will have yet to darken the doorways of most gaming groups.
Well said, Grim.
Spot checks slow the game down.
IF I call on one player for a spot check, then every one will want to make a spot check followed by a listen check. After a failed spot check players tend to start meta gaming and taking precations they would not have otherwise. Every one wants a second spot check and a listen check before they do anything else.
Spot checks slow the game play.
Another thing which has been slowing down my gaming group of late: book keeping.
As per the rules, you can walk into a sufficiently large enough town and just go into the magic store and purchase whatever you'd like within the price limitations. This past session began with the players getting a running total of how much treasure they had accumulated, teleporting to the Free City of Greyhawk, cashing in old or unwanted treasure and splurging on mystical equipment. Sadly, this wasn't a group activity so much as one player maintained the group's inventory lists and would do the math and sometimes ask "Do we want this?" and get an answer from the other players.
He then did up the math to purchase a bow for himself and a suit of armour for the paladin//cleric. That was really one of my worst experiences gaming - it took forty-five minutes to handle all of that. I had nothing to do other than sit and wait until all the accounting was done, and I'm the DM.
~ Bryon ~
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It seems to me that the consensus seems to be, it is not the rules that make the game slow, its the players.I find your assessment interesting. We have very knowledgable players at our table and its not the players that slow up the game, its the game that slows up the game. So while the concensus is the "players" as the root cause, I must disagree with that conclusion.
It was my assessment of the opinions posted on the thread, it was not my own opinion, (though I can think of one or two instances of players acting up). I do think that the rules can slow down the game. My first post suggested that I think spell descriptors are a culprit at my table. But it is interesting that before you ever get to the rules that players seem to be more culpable than the rules at many game tables.
After players, the second major cause of slow games seems to be "high level play." And the culprit in high level play seems to be two-fold: too many options and too many hitpoints. Or at least that is what I am reading in this thread.
Traps
No single thing slows the game down more in my opinion.
If you have them in there you are telling your players to slow down and make roles at every door.
A couple traps show up that aren't on a door and you suddenly have a dungeon crawl that is literally that... a rogue crawling forward taking 20 on searching every square inch of the parties path.
If you don't put them in you are punishing the poor guy who has been dumping points into search and disable device.
If you just put in a few, they don't know where... so it is back to slowness.
If you put in a bunch it is actually more fun... but only for the rogue... the rest of the party sits around waiting for something to happen.
Add on to this the fact that my groups rogue is normally the caster and the caster is inexperienced and unwilling to take the time to learn the rules and before every door we get:
Paladin Player: "Would you search this door please so we can get going?!?"
Rogue Player: <didn't notice... nose in book>
Paladin Player: <Throws something> "Come on! We would like to play!"
etc. etc.
Sean Mahoney
The biggest thing that makes ultracanon D&D slow in my opinion? Too many hitpoints for everything.
Battles are these huge rolling operations where badguys and goodguys are chopping on each other like wood and everything just grinds to a sad halt. ....
So very true! Nothing is more boring in D&D than long drawn out combats where Pcs square up with monsters and start trading blows, for a long time, die roll after die roll.
Traps
No single thing slows the game down more in my opinion.
If you have them in there you are telling your players to slow down and make roles at every door.
A couple traps show up that aren't on a door and you suddenly have a dungeon crawl that is literally that... a rogue crawling forward taking 20 on searching every square inch of the parties path.
...
Sean Mahoney
That is why I made the rogue class ability "trap finding" an automatic spot check. I played a rogue years ago and the dm layed traps out randomly, forcing my pc to search every 10', that sucked. Of course that leads to the spot check meta gaming dilemma stated in a post above.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Traps
A couple traps show up that aren't on a door and you suddenly have a dungeon crawl that is literally that... a rogue crawling forward taking 20 on searching every square inch of the party's path.
Which is probably sensible, if the PC's have unlimited time. If the rogue is taking 20 (that's 2 minutes) each 5' of corridor, it'll take 2 hours to check 100 yards of corridor. (In the real world, I imagine that's about the speed that a bomb squad moves through potentially lethal territory.)
Again, if they've got the time to spare, then let them go for it. These PC's are professionals, not happy-go-lucky nut-jobs. Assume the guy's taking 20, and let him know when or if he detects a trap. in real time, it takes 20 seconds to check your map key and determine whether the rogue's skill-plus-20 is enough to detect the traps.
Now, let the clock strike 11:00, and give the villain a phial that contains the young queen's stolen soul, which he'll be admixing with the psychic residue of a dozen lemures' death throes at the stroke of midnight, and maybe the party doesn't think it has two hours to make it down that corridor.
And, honestly, I think the fun comes in disabling the traps, rather than the finding of them.
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That is why I made the rogue class ability "trap finding" an automatic spot check. I played a rogue years ago and the dm layed traps out randomly, forcing my pc to search every 10', that sucked. Of course that leads to the spot check meta gaming dilemma stated in a post above.
I do that as well in 2nd Edition but I generally roll on my side of the screen for thief trap detection. Generally they don't know what I'm rolling for, with all the number of rolls I may do in a session (some just to keep them guessing).
Sure, it may not allow the player to roll using that way but my group finds it an acceptable compromise to keep them from slowing down considerably due to trap and taking the metagaming out of the equation.
Players not doing paperwork. Fail to level up last game? Fine, you play at the lower level. No, I will not take away from anyone else's game time because of your procrastination.
Excessive Dice Rolls. Auto-confirm crits, I'm thinking of combining Hide & Move Silently into a Stealth roll, Spot & Listen into Perception. My players sure do like that Critical Hit Deck - I also use action points in my game, which I let a player use three to remove the bleed damage he had received. (Yes, I let the bad guys use the Crit Deck. >:D )
Too many books! Seriously. Limit yourself.
The food and "catch up" time is all handled before game. We've set up a rotation of who's contributing dinner, dinner served at beginning of game, dessert mid-way. Extra-long sessions might require McD's or BK runs.
Which is probably sensible, if the PC's have unlimited time.
Now, let the clock strike 11:00...and maybe the party doesn't think it has two hours to make it down that corridor.
Sure, put a fire under them and they have no choice. But if they ignore all the traps and rush through then they likely won't make it through some of the fights to come.
The scenario you paint would be fun... and it is a great example of when I would NOT include traps.
My experience is coming from running SCAP... the PCs are racing to save the lives of the kidnapped orphans or save the city from an impending flood... but first they must deal with a dungeon choke full o' traps.
And, honestly, I think the fun comes in disabling the traps, rather than the finding of them.
See I think the disabling part isn't great fun right now either... and even when it is, it is typically only fun for the one character involved... the rest of the party are just standing a safe distance back.
Sean Mahoney
Increase weapon damage!
In my campaign weapons do more damage
Great sword 3d6
Great axe 4d4
Bastard sword 2d8
Longsword 1d12
Shortsword/Broad sword 1d10
Heavy mace 2d6
Halberd 2d10
Heavy flail 3d4
Dagger 1d6
Warhammer 2d6
Long comp bow 1d12
short comp bow 1d10
longbow 1d10
shortbow 1d8
Heavy crossbow 1d12
light crossbow 1d10
A knife 1d4
Any weapon that does 1d6=1d8 1d8=1d10 1d10=1d12
Increase weapon damage!
In my campaign weapons do more damage
Great sword 3d6
Great axe 4d4
Bastard sword 2d8
Longsword 1d12
Shortsword/Broad sword 1d10
Heavy mace 2d6
Halberd 2d10
Heavy flail 3d4
Dagger 1d6
Warhammer 2d6
Long comp bow 1d12
short comp bow 1d10
longbow 1d10
shortbow 1d8
Heavy crossbow 1d12
light crossbow 1d10
A knife 1d4
Any weapon that does 1d6=1d8 1d8=1d10 1d10=1d12
That's just more Dice to add.
I'm thinking of combining Hide & Move Silently into a Stealth roll, Spot & Listen into Perception.
Thats the way I've done it. I have a running score for all PCs Hide, Move Silently, Spot, Listen and Search skills.
Iron Heroes ALMOST got it right by combining these like-type of skills into skill classes. You buy one point of perception, you get all three perception skills at one point. Essentially it becomes one skill.
When the characters sneak (stealth), I use the lowest of the two between move silent and hide. When the characters need to detect something, I use the bottom two of Listen and Spot. 4e desingers have all but flatly announced that they have adopted Saga rules that utilize Perception vs. Stealth skills, so at least that parts fixed.
A lot of interesting ideas here.
For one thing, I think it is all relative. When I was a kid, we played Rolemaster, and thought nothing of dropping 5 hours on a single big battle (yeah, seriously, it sometimes took that long).
As an old-fart gamer (well, nearly), more than 30 minutes on a battle is too long in my opinion. Combat is what always drags it down.
I think there are two distinct problems with D&D in this respect:
1) Too many "special case" rules. Every feat and spell has it's own peculiarities. Sometimes that adds detail and flavor, but it does slow things down. God help you if you're trying to use all those supporting books (like "The Complete 4th Level Dual Wielding Fighter's Guide" or whatever).
2) "Blow-by-blow" combat. D&D (and many other games) focus on capturing every single move, jump, opportunity attack and so on. It just becomes a grinding match most of the time.
For a faster game, abstract combat more. Make it about morale, tactics, cooperation, and the emotional flow of a fight (rather than tracking sword-blows). But then, that is a different game, which is not D&D.
That's just more Dice to add.Increase weapon damage!
In my campaign weapons do more damage
Great sword 3d6
Great axe 4d4
Bastard sword 2d8
Longsword 1d12
Shortsword/Broad sword 1d10
Heavy mace 2d6
Halberd 2d10
Heavy flail 3d4
Dagger 1d6
Warhammer 2d6
Long comp bow 1d12
short comp bow 1d10
longbow 1d10
shortbow 1d8
Heavy crossbow 1d12
light crossbow 1d10
A knife 1d4
Any weapon that does 1d6=1d8 1d8=1d10 1d10=1d12
We know our math and how to add and subtract...
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When the cleric is out of spells it is time to turn arround, set up camp, rest and pray for spells. This has slowed down the pace of the game more than once at low levels.
This happens in all levels with our group.
House Rules...
That is awesome! I want to watch that!
3. Overly complex characters.
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.
Sorry, but I don't agree. I can make some complicated characters and they run smoother than some single class characters I've seen. It's all about being organized. I know what my character can do and what his options/tactics are. I also keep track of all my stuff on scratch paper (like other posts have suggested), it totally saves time.
Lilith Can I play in your game? ;)
We use initiative index cards and they rock.
I use a "timer" when someone is taking too long.
GM: "What's your Int?"
Player: "16."
GM: "What are you going to do?
16
15
14
etc."
Go to next player at 0. They fight defensively. It's worked out pretty well.
I love the idea of item cards and ability cards.
High level combats are going to take longer no matter what. Not only that, they are more dramatic too.
For rules questions, what the GM says goes. If there is a problem with it or the GM has a rule wrong it gets settled after the game. That has really handled that problem.
Yeah, I do that a lot. When something comes up, if we can't find it in a quick lookup in the Rules Compendium, I adjucate something that makes sense and look it up between games.
But I do have a big beef with the casters. They NEVER seem to know what they're going to do and everything grinds to a halt as they read N! spells.
Its heinous in my game because the worst is the 38th level cleric who's taken Multispell 3 times. Nothing like looking up five spells per round to slow things up.
I tend to warn people ahead of time "hey, you're next." That helps some, but not always.
Hmm... I guess it all depends on the group you game with.
High level play usually runs faster for our group.
It's the low level play, where you have to "plink" everything to death, that takes too long...
By far though, the single most slowing thing in our group is players. Usually due to exhaustion. (Most of us are blue collar workers, that barely make it through the week without falling asleep behind the wheel going to, or from, work. But we work hard to play hard. We just have to suffer the consequences. ;-) )
The DM controls the pace of the game — always.
Just to be clear, you are saying that the speed of a game of 1st level people and 20th is the same or if not it is on the DM? Same goes for a D&D vs. GURPS or RIFTS game? Really? You don't think the rules can play a role in speed of play?
Note: That is fine if that is your opinion, I would just be surprised.
Sean Mahoney
Some really interesting comments so far.
I've run groups from 1st through 14th level. Some observations...
1) Running a game when people are tired (as from work). This is so bad, I insist on weekend / holiday gaming only.
2) Players who failed to update their character.
3) High-level play. Specifically: as level increases, monster hit points greatly out-pace damage output. A 1st-level barbarian can kill a 2 or even 3 Hit Die monster in one blow. Not so even for evenly-matched units at high level. Also, too many options for players at high level, yet most of the options are ineffectual (i.e. DCs too easy to make, spell damage is measly, etc). A circle of death against a pack of 6 hounds of thassilon got just 1 of the hounds.
4) Rules-lawyers / power games who don't actually know the rules (yes, I've had one of those; kicked him out and the game sped up tremendously).
5) Wildshape and polymorph. Wildshape is easier to handle: I created a spreadsheet with all the critical animal stats.
6) Looking up spells (until I got folks to make spreadsheets of their spells with all critical info in one place).
7) Cohorts. I've found that familiars and animal companions aren't so bad compared to classed cohorts who have spells, multiple attacks, etc just like PCs. And NPCs traveling with the party.
8) Frantic attempts by players to explore every possible way to reduce / avoid harm from monster / trap / etc. Do they really think I'm going to kill off their beloved characters? ;-)
9) Too many people at the table. I prefer 3 players, personally, so everyone has time for role-playing fun side-trek stuff. 4 is fine. 5 is already too many, although I understand other DMs handle more well.
Something I stumbled upon as really fun at high levels: Pact magic. Unlike a spellcaster who might have dozens of low-level (read, ineffectual) spells, a binder has a small set of supernatural abilities - bypass most kinds of protection, all the abilities are on 1 page in the book right in front of the player's nose, etc). Which is why I wrote Secrets of Pact Magic! (excuse the shameless self-promotion)
I really hope 4E demonstrates how to speed up play. Even if I stay with 3.5, I would love house rules to speed up play. I'm thinking of fewer hit points all around (maybe: Hit Die + Con modifier + size modifier like constructs have, + 1 to 4 hp / level as determined by class). Might also make players think twice before attack everything. Or maybe not.
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Spot checks slow the game down.
IF I call on one player for a spot check, then every one will want to make a spot check followed by a listen check. After a failed spot check players tend to start meta gaming and taking precations they would not have otherwise. Every one wants a second spot check and a listen check before they do anything else.
When I DM, I usually do all the rolls on Spot, Listen, Move Silently etc. I do all the roles on skill where the players don't immediately see if their PCs are successful (like it's the case with Swim, Climb, Balance etc.).
This speeds up the game and avoids the mentioned effect of players begging to be allowed to do checks.I assume that every character listens all the time and doesn't only when his players mentions it and is running around nearly deaf the rest of the time. Same with spot etc. . I'm doing this with Move Silently too because I assume that the character does his best and expects to be successful. Okay, when I roll a fumble I mention it on the spot, because then it is unquestionable that the character failed.
And it adds atmosphere too! When I roll behind the screen the players are getting nervous. Why am I rolling? Are there traps or hidden enemies? That's kinda cool, because it adds exitement in addition to speeding up play.
Cohorts. I've found that familiars and animal companions aren't so bad compared to classed cohorts who have spells, multiple attacks, etc just like PCs. And NPCs traveling with the party.
When characters have cohorts, the player of this PC has to run the cohort in combat too in my games, most of the time. Sometimes, when a certain action of a cohort is needed because of the story, I demand to run the NPC instead, but I normally avoid to do this, because it gives too much away and makes the players suspicious when I do this.
So I wouldn't make a cohort an important part of the story in the first place.But cohorts are not that complicated with movement like animals are. Usually they can bypass any obstacle that the PCs can bypass. But I'm sick of all the discussions about how to get the horse down that chasm or the dog up that ladder and so on...
9) Too many people at the table. I prefer 3 players, personally, so everyone has time for role-playing fun side-trek stuff. 4 is fine. 5 is already too many, although I understand other DMs handle more well.
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3 and no cohorts? Do they play 1 character each? My preferred number is 5. What about other people?
Thing that slows it down
1) high level play
2) people not thinking about what they are going to do until it is their turn
3) people asking for advice or expressing an 'inner monologue' ie "i am thinking of drinking a potion because I am a bit injured"
4) wierd continuing spell effects (I HATE confusion, and dislike web, evards etc)
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Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games
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We play with 8 players every Sunday, and have a variety of delays:
1) Smoke breaks - we've got 3 smokers, and when they take a break, everything comes to a halt.
2) Off-topic discussions/comments - We love 'em - especially the movie quote banter (re: Evil Dead flicks/Monty Python, etc.) and D&D war stories from prior campaigns, but they do slow the session down. But hey, we're having fun, so who cares, right?
3) Ignorance of the rules - We have one player who keeps "forgetting" how to figure out his attack/damage rolls (he's a little slow). Every session, we have to figure them out for him during the first combat encounter. Once they're written down in front of him, he's good to go. We don't mind helping him, but it slows down play.
4) Combat - Combat slows play down, but we actually enjoy this. The combat encounters tend to suck in everyone's attention, and the longer they go, the more suspense tends to build around the table. Each maneuver/option and its repercussions keeps all of us focused on the battle. We may be strange, but we actually enjoy long combat encounters. There have been many sessions where we have spent 4+ hours on one combat and loved every minute of it! In fact, these encounters tend to become legendary with our group, and become fodder for #2 above.
Really, everything that slows the game down tends to add color/flavor for our group. We don't mind long sessions, and rarely get caught up in rules debates, as there are 4 of us who know the rules very well, which keeps us from having to look up everything that comes up in game - and if we have to look something up, one of us has a good idea of which book/page number the rule in question can be found (The Rules Compendium has sped this up even more for us).
Another thing that helps is that both of the players who DM (me and one of my buddies) spend a lot of time preparing for the session, including mapping out the tactics of the creatures/bad guys before the session. This helps streamline things immensely.