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Post by marsuniversity on Dec 3, 2013 19:12:03 GMT -8
Any other GM's out there have any suggestions on helping players decide on their character's actions in a timely fashion? Basically, I have a few players that are routinely (I would say excessively) cautious when it comes to declaring an action. I know its their play style, but I can see the others loose interest, and when the active player goes into "consideration mode" like he's in a chess match I just want to start pounding my head on the table.
This is the biggest problem in combat. I've tried solving this by addressing it with the players, skipping players who don't have their mind made up when their turn comes, and even using a timer for anyone who dithers. These methods solve things when I push them, but things go right back to their lackadaisical pace the next game if I don't start passing people over or flipping the egg timer with each player at the next game. Its not that they aren't paying attention, but its like they have no idea what to do when their turn comes up.
This is also starting to slow things down out of combat. I've got players over-analyzing every situation before they get into it. I'm playing Shadowrun, so some of this is to be expected and a large part of the fun of the game, but I don't want to spend the 2-3 hours going over minutiae about guard shifts, crowd flow, specific wireless access points for a location that will only be used for a ten-minute (real world time) scene that mostly serves to set up what should be the real focus of the evening here afterwards. I'm considering prepping plot options for the next time this happens, either turning everything into a honeypot scenario (where everything is set up to find the kind of PC-like team who would be spending hours investigating things like a Looney Tunes character eyeing a box and bait trap) or just have some goons bust through the door with guns.
I'd be interested in any suggestions or examples of whats worked for you in the past. Should I keep trying to get the players to understand outside of the game, or should I start knocking PC heads around?
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Post by jazzisblues on Dec 4, 2013 7:49:26 GMT -8
Get a timer set a specific amount of time and when you come to a player they have n seconds to tell me (or at least be telling me) what they're doing or we're moving on to the next character and they spend the round standing there doing nothing. This is guaranteed to get them moving, and to piss them off until they realize how much energy it instills in the game and in the combat.
Just my 2 krupplenicks on the subject, your mileage may of course vary. (1 minute egg timer hourglasses) are available at most any place that sells kitchen stuff.)
JiB
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Post by marsuniversity on Dec 4, 2013 8:39:18 GMT -8
JiB, I have tried timers before, but like I said, I don't keep up with them very well. I'm thinking this might be more an issue with myself, and I should try being more of a taskmaster about this in combat again. Any ideas for handling things outside of turn-based play?
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Post by savagedaddy on Dec 4, 2013 9:23:09 GMT -8
In narrative situations where "the characters" should only have a few seconds to react, I prefer the Shane L. Hensley (Savage Worlds) method.
1. Determine initiative 2. Point at the player 3. Ask "What do you do?"
Immediately followed by a 3..2..1 countdown accented by smacking your hand against the table.
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Post by Kainguru on Dec 4, 2013 10:20:59 GMT -8
Have you tried an electric cattle prod? "3,2,1*zap* wadda you do bitch? you want some more of that, yeah? me and Mr Sparky got plenty more . . . so (in a more reasonable tone) wadda you do!! ?" Aaron
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Post by inflatus on Dec 4, 2013 10:26:57 GMT -8
There are some good ideas here. I've only had this issue once and I remember saying at the table, in my frustrated voice, "what ever comes out of your mouth is what happens". So if they sit there and stare off into space, they do nothing. If said anything that is what their character said. That worked with the group, after the combat didn't go as smooth as they would have liked.
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Post by Stu Venable on Dec 4, 2013 10:42:34 GMT -8
Two different questions, two different answers:
In Combat:
My guess is you're using a combat map of some sort? If so, you're giving your players something to study. Have you tried NOT using a combat map? Have you tried just narrating some of the combats? Especially quick ones? It might not be as fun for the big gun fight climax of the game, but for the lesser ones, it might speed stuff up quite a bit.
I would also suggest you always look ahead two places in the initiative order. When I ran our horribly slow 4E game, I would let each player know when their turn came up AND let the NEXT player know they were "on deck" and to start figuring out what they were going to do. It helped.
If you get too heavy-handed, you risk alienating or pissing off your players. I had a GM once who wanted a "tense" tone for combat and demanded answers literally the second after he announced your turn. It pissed me off. The game died a session later.
Out of Combat:
My first thought with this part of your question was "what's your hurry?" If the characters are carefully discussing, investigating, etc., that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned. It's a symptom of player buy-in and immersion. They're fearing for their PCs' lives, so they're being meticulous. I think that's great.
And it's especially so in a Shadowrun game, where gathering intel is an important, never-to-be-skipped step in running an op.
If it really is a problem, you always have the narrative fast-forward button.
"I'm going to watch the guards to figure our their shift changes and patterns." "Okay, you watch them for 24 hours and get their shifts and patterns down." "I'm going to watch them for a second day to make sure." "Okay, while you're doing that, is anyone else doing anything that second day? No. Okay, after the second day, the pattern's the same." "Third day." "Hasn't changed. The client calls and wants to know when you're going to deliver the e-macguffin."
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Post by marsuniversity on Dec 4, 2013 12:04:56 GMT -8
Thanks for all the great advice here everyone. I'll follow Stu's format and break this up.
In Combat
I'll definitely try sticking more firmly to a time limit and giving people a heads up that they'll be up next in the order to see if that nets any improvement this week. Typically, I don't use a minis or a map except in particularly large fights or when positioning is important (over or around a hazard, for example). I had actually considered the opposite: using mor maps to see if that helped out, but I hadn't noticed any real difference in cases when I have used them in the past. Has anyone seen a benefit from this?
Out of Combat
Stu, you make a very valid point here, and I've had some very fulfilling sessions where all the players were enjoying the prep work and feeding me ideas and angles I hadn't thought of unintentionally, and that's all that got done. Recently, I've started seeing one or two players getting really into this and I can see the other players at the table start mentally checking out after a certain point.
Maybe the real question here should be about keeping everyone engaged. On one hand, I've got a player debating where they can set up surveillance gear and devising fallback plans A through J, and everyone else has nothing to contribute and no more prep work they want to do. I don't want to squash one players fun in favor of another's (after all, it's Shadowrun and most experienced player go in expecting to pass the spotlight time around), but I'm talking about just over two hours (the last time this happened) of providing details for one side of the table while the only thing I hear from the other side is, "nope, I'm all set." Is there anything to do to keep both sides interested at the table, and not loose interest in the campaign as a whole (myself included)?
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Post by Stu Venable on Dec 6, 2013 9:00:14 GMT -8
Part of this can't be avoided, as it sounds like you have two contrasting player types: planners and doers.
You might try taking an inventory of their skills, so you can work the less engaged players into the planners' preparation and intel gathering.
Have the hacker search backgrounds on the guards that another player has to scam his way past. Maybe have one of the shooty guys notice someone staking-out the hackers place.
Throw in complications that give opportunities for the other players to assist.
If they don't seem interested in doing that, then you have a situation where your party is there for entirely different reasons. In situations like this you have to balance the play preferences. Give the planners an opportunity to do some planning, but when it starts going too long, give them an in-story reason to cut it out.
If you're in a situation where you have combat monsters who *always* look bored when there's anything but combat happening (this doesn't sound like the case here), then you run into the danger of a heckler's veto, where every expressed displeasure results in a change in the game more to their liking, until you lose your planners entirely.
The trick it to balance the wishes of both groups.
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Post by marsuniversity on Jan 3, 2014 10:30:12 GMT -8
Well, after the usual holiday scheduling problems, our group has finally just been able to make it together for a session. Unfortunately, the player I've been concerned about wasn't able to make it, so I can't say if anything I wanted to attempt will work or not yet.
However, I did pick up on something I've been doing as a GM that may have been feeding this situation. When trying to get the group back on track, I usually ask, "what do you want to do next?" While I thought this was a nice, un-railroady statement, but I realized that my players tend to react to it with long discussions about how to proceed. At this session, I've started hinting at the most obvious courses of action by asking, "do you want to check on A, follow up on B, do C, or something else?" It seems to still give them a lot of freedom, but also reinforces the big ideas that are already out there instead of encouraging open brainstorming over deciding on a course of action.
For their part, the players feel like they accomplished a lot and seem much more excited for the game than they were before the holidays. I still need to work on everything with a full group, though.
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D.T. Pints
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Post by D.T. Pints on Jan 3, 2014 15:50:00 GMT -8
If you have INCREDIBLY proactive players a True Sandbox can work. But often my players really would like SOMETHING to do. That multiple choice technique seems to work the best without too much of a rail feel.
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maxinstuff
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Post by maxinstuff on Jan 7, 2014 16:31:06 GMT -8
I also find that players forget things. Often multiple choice is more just a reminder of the current plot hooks.
Also, discussion about what to do isn't bad as such, as long as it is directed productively. ie - there is an actual goal that guides their actions.
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Post by yojimbohawkins on Jan 8, 2014 14:13:04 GMT -8
I have this problem with a player as well. In our old campaign, it was a massive problem, as every decision led to the 'analysis paralysis' situation, which then drags in other players. Even worse, the player in question would offer suggestion for the actions of other players, along the lines of 'What if you do this?', or 'It would be better if you used this spell'.
Talking to the player was a good start, but what has moved things along in a positive way was starting an L5R game for that group. Any dithering results in the loss of a simple action, as does any suggestions to other players. It seemed a bit harsh at first, but now everyone is used to it, things move along a bit quicker.
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Post by marsuniversity on Jan 9, 2014 13:11:56 GMT -8
Jimbo, I think you succinctly summed up my issue with a TV Tropes-ism as "analysis paralysis".
I've got some good pointers and ideas from this thread, now I'm just waiting for the next game that everyone can attend to try them all out.
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Post by jazzisblues on Jan 22, 2014 17:00:53 GMT -8
If you have INCREDIBLY proactive players a True Sandbox can work. But often my players really would like SOMETHING to do. That multiple choice technique seems to work the best without too much of a rail feel. This is why I tend to run what I call a "dirty sandbox" the players can do whatever they have an urge to do. Well they can try. But there are going to be things that I'm going to throw out too and they can choose to get involved or not but they still occur. JiB
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