Hello, all!
After much lurking, I have finally come forward to beg your assistance.
I will soon run a short dungeon crawl at a convention (yay Polycon!) with a 4-6 hour time limit. I'm normally one to let the game unfold at its own pace, but the last time I tried to run a con event, the players didn't get through the front door.
To make matters worse, I was intending to include some non-combat encounters: puzzle rooms, shifting floors, etc. I've heard that 30 min. to an hour is a good average time per combat encounter, but if somebody with experience using puzzles and the like could offer a good, general time estimate, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks,
Lurk3r
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Depending on the group size I try to limit any non-BBEG encounter to 5-10 minutes per player depending on the level of experience at the table. Most combat situations are or CAN BE resolved in about 5-6 turns average, and if the players are each taking over a full minute PER round then they are just slowing the table down.
I assume since you are playing at a con you will be running at least 6 players right? If that is the case then I would try to limit it to 30 minutes and if it isn't "close" to being wrapped up, have a backup plan where the NPC's escape, or have them resort to desperation acts like suicide attacks and so forth.
For roleplay encounters I usually limit the time limit on these to 15-20 minutes at maximum before pushing the players onto the next thing, or having something occur that implies that time is of the essence.
Thanks, Carbon. I was planning on 4 to 7 players.
As to the combat, I've played in (not run) games where each round took 10 minutes. I could play a game of Magic before my turn came around again.
Games I run usually go a bit more smoothly, but it's not the combat I'm worried about. It's the players arguing over how best to solve the puzzles.
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Thanks, Carbon. I was planning on 4 to 7 players.
As to the combat, I've played in (not run) games where each round took 10 minutes. I could play a game of Magic before my turn came around again.
Games I run usually go a bit more smoothly, but it's not the combat I'm worried about. It's the players arguing over how best to solve the puzzles.
If it is a situation where puzzles are confounding things I would have a few hints or likewise be dropped somewhere as to the lethality of the trap that is (probably) going to be associated with it. If the players see a half dozen scratches along the wall by bloody fingernails only a few feet from the entrance then they are LESS likely to actually TRY something without bickering endlessly about it. If you instead set it up so that they at one point encountered a creature that appeared to have survived the encounter, even if only barely then they might be less scared of it.