I can’t write a long post today (rejoice) because I’m about to start work. However, I wanted to bring a hot 4e subject and wanted to launch a discussion about it over the weekend.
My players are sick and tired of me harping on and on about the length of combat in 4e. Apparently I’m the only one who’s bothered by that. I kid you not, if I mention it one more time at the table, I’m willing to bet that someone’s to slash my tires with his pocket knife.
Truly, my players want to be allowed to think things over without pressure so they can get the sense that they chose the wisest power at the right time. Fine, I don’t mind if each player takes a few minutes during their turn, we’re here to have fun and I’m already doing stuff on my side to make fights shorter.
However, a few weeks ago, in my Friday Chat about the length of combat in 4e, reader Michelle chimed in with what I believe is the fundamental thing that bugs me about 4e. Here’s what Michelle said:
From what I’ve seen, one of the biggest problems is contingencies. The DM can’t just say “you take 20 hit points of damage” and leave it at that.
You see, the Swordmage has Aegis of Shielding up, so that’s 6 hit points absorbed and the damage is down to 14. Also, you have been granted Resist 5 until the end of an ally’s next turn; after you double-check that it still applies, you reduce the damage to 9. Then, you remember that you have 3 THP, so 9 becomes 6, and now you are done.
Not! You suddenly remember that you have an Immediate Reaction power that let’s you use a healing surge under these exact circumstances. You add 15 hit points back in. And now you are done, for real.
Sorry, I don’t think so. Because it’s not just a matter of doing all of this math in your head — you have to explain it to the DM, one step at a time so he can understand why you aren’t bloodied yet. You have to mark off the damage and remove the THP. You have to mark as “used” the power that let you surge. Oh, and you also have to remind everyone that because you used the power, there is a side-effect that gives everyone adjacent to you a +2 AC bonus until the start of your next turn.
The next player has been listening carefully to all of this complexity, so when the DM says “okay, your turn”, he has lost track of what he meant to do, and in any case needs to revise it to take into account the new tactical situation. Maybe not every time, but often enough.
To borrow a term favored by Neal Stephenson in his novel Cryptonomicon, it’s all about the “ramifications”. Branching contingencies, baby.
What she describes above is more or less unavoidable in 4e and I accept that no problem. The rounds still manage to go faster than they did at the same level in 3e where everyone checked rules (Spells) or rolled multiple attacks.
However, a corrolary to what she said is what I call the “Oh Wait!” Syndrome. That happens whenever a player interrupts someone else’s turn by saying “Oh Wait, I forgot to do XYZ” and proceeds to do other actions. And it happens a lot at my table and I bet it does in others too. That for me is getting a little bit annoying. It does because it grinds the game to a halt and interrupts someone else’ turn.
Now of course, I’m not going to discuss this with my players tonight as it will likely irritate them more than the whole thing irritates me. But I do plan to play each turn like this :
Phil: Okay, Pete you are next, Jack you’re after.
Pete plays his turn.
Phil: Any last actions or reactions? Anyone? No? Okay Jack your next, Biff you’re after.
Pete (interrupting Jack’s move): Oh Wait, I could have used a Minor to…
Phil: Sorry man, we’ve moved on.
As much as some players would like to have full liberty to plan moves and be allowed to reach beyond their turn to provide the party with the best possible result for any given turn, this interruption can be avoided with better planning on the part of player and with the DM giving each player more time in their turn to do everything.
As for takebacks, I will still allow them if we discover that a player made a decision based on flawed information. But I think that I will actively seek to cull the Oh Waits! of my table. I’ll stop putting time pressure on players (which may have been generating the Oh Waits in the first place) but I’ll likely not allow Oh Waits from now on.
What about you? Have you seen this at your 4e table? In other games? Am I the only one annoyed by this (maybe I just need a little DMing break)? How do you deal with it?
Being “one of those guys”, I can only share with you what I do at my table, because the “Oh Wait…” happens no matter what version you play. In AD&D, you have people who will want to change their action based on something, except they’re describing it versus naming a power. It’s the same thing.
Here’s what I do, to help alleviate that for my games – declare and/or wait. Prior to each combat round, I have players declare what they’re going to do. Then they do that. If they want to change their action, then they have to wait until everything else is done, then they get to do one thing.
Now that might not be transportable to 4E, but you get the idea – sure, you can change what you’re wanting to do, but it’s like that last minute “OH CRAP!” when you’re in the middle of swinging the bat or running up to the ball to kick it… your reaction time is off and you’re going to end up being a tick slower.
Things like “I’m going to run up to the biggest orc and whack at him…” declaration, then in missle phases the orc sprouts arrows and dies — well, the body drops to your feet just as you run up — I might consider a single action end of round, such as a desperate “OK, I’ll make a last minute course correction and charge his bodyguard.” but that waits until the end of the round.
Again, don’t know if that’s usable in 4e, but you get the drift… “Oh wait” means “I wait”.
.-= Chgowiz´s last blog ..Player reactions to the "Goblin Battle" =-.
The “oh waits” have definitely come up in my game, but so far not to the point of needing to do anything about it. As for the random and conditional modifiers I find it goes a LOT better when the majority of the players are paying attention, and it seems they pay more attention if they’re likely to get bonuses and boosts, so I’m pretty happy with how they’re working so far. I agree though, they can get annoying to keep track of!
.-= Bartoneus´s last blog ..Critical Hits 4th Blogiversary =-.
@Chgowiz: I totally get that in pre-3e versions of D&D, OH Wait could be culled with the “I delay” technique and that’s a good suggestions. It can’t really apply as specifically apply in 4e. However, I use it when player need too much time to plan a move or when a player is away from the table.
@Bartoneus: It’s not impossible that I’m having a tempest in a teacup (who would I be without a little Friday Melodrama?) here and as you say, I might create a slingshot effect where players would become defensive and take a LOT longer to plan their move meticulously.
But really it’s just another way of keeping the pace… I’ll see if it works better than pushing players to play faster.
If you don’t declare your power in time, you missed your window to use it and the enemy smacks you. Having a crappy plan in a tactical combat can screw you over, so by that same token, not paying attention to your powers and the combat should also screw your over. I did the same thing in 3.5 with Dodge. “Hey man, assigning Dodge is a free action in my turn, so I should totally be able to have it.” Well sorry bro, but if it’s that easy, you should’ve declared it on your turn! Have an attack to the face and try again next time.
Ruthless, yes, but I don’t tolerate that kind of behavior, because it reduces MY fun with the game too. However, I haven’t found the problem usually, because I make damn sure everyone knows how to play their characters. I talk with people about their characters, about their tactics, and if I see they have loads of immediate crap, I tell them to keep track of it, and remind them at every juncture to keep track of it.
As well, over the internet, there’s usually a lot less time pressure during turns.
.-= Wyatt´s last blog ..Homebrew Character Backgrounds =-.
Here’s a crazy (CRAZY!) thought:
I’m fixated with props and tools and things to play with at the table. It keeps the players fixed on an idea.
Whenever a player is put into a particularly hairy situation by a DM’s decision (they are on low hitpoints, they are betrayed by an ally, whatever), they get a token. Players can redeem tokens for “rewinding” to their turn.
This way, they (passively) acknowledge that what they’re doing costs everyone at the table (in terms of attention and patience), and are limited to a finite quantity of “take-backs”, but are empowered to choose when they want to do it.
Potentially tie this into the one million other uses for tokens – +1 to a dice roll as a token-pay-option, and good role-play as a token-earning-option, etc.
It’s a neat house-rule that is not directly confronting the problem (because directness in this case results in hurt feelings for players who like to be thorough in their gameplay), but results in smoother game-flow and a tangible reminder to a player about when they’ve been back-tracking too much.
.-= Johenius´s last blog ..Awesome Gaming, Deep Role-Play and DM Profiling =-.
No, I’m with you Chatty. Delays during combat while people hem and haw drive me nuts. As a player, they take me right out of the action of the scene and as a GM, they get me worried that the other players are being taken out of the moment or that we are running down the clock.
I don’t think this is necessarily a system problem, though system is definitely a factor. I think it’s also a playstyle problem. It’s one of the reasons why I stopped playing crunchier games like GURPS, because I’m just not very good nor interested in mechanical optimization and so I try to do something that is in character or seems cool, but isn’t my optimal choice and then I get screwed and then I feel like I should be optimizing, but I’m not good at it and then I start hemming and hawing and suddenly I’m one of those guys! 🙂
So I think it depends on your group. If everybody wants to go for fast, chaotic fun, then just let the tactical mistakes lie. If people want to be super-efficient, then you may have to give people a bit of time, though it’s still on them to prepare their moves ahead of time.
System-wise, though, this is one of the reasons I like Savage Worlds. It’s about as crunchy as I’ll go these days, but it has a relatively simple set of options in combat which are tactically interesting but don’t have all these little easily-forgettable exceptions. Another huge factor is that you re-do initiative each round. This makes one round quite different from the other and avoids the repetitive wait that happens when you know your order and have to wait each time to come around.
.-= walkerp´s last blog ..episode 5 – an interview with BASH creator Chris Rutkowsky =-.
The “oh waits” come up at my table, like they do at everyone’s. Although it’s common in 4E, I had it in older editions as well and in non-DND (gasp!) games. My rule as a DM has always been that players can revise an action or take an additional action (i.e. I forgot my Minor Action) so long as no dice have been rolled.
Using the dice roll as the clear dividing line seems to work well. It isn’t as arbitrary as some other solutions and it’s a clear indication that we have moved on to another action, or that an action has been taken and can no longer be revised. The sound of the die rolling is like a gavel hitting the table. The fates have spoken.
I have been using the “once your turn is over you cannot go back” rule since 2nd edition. The players agree and many times I have heard “darn, I forgot to add the extra damage from (…fill in the blank..)” But they make note of it and they remember when their next turn comes around. Combat in 4e is long but it also feels like they are doing something different each turn as opposed to very similar or the same action each round in 3rd edition. As an aside, we play only 2-3 times a year. I am sure if we played in a more regular basis the length issue would be more apparent.
One other thing – I find that making use of cards (power cards, index cards, whatever you use) for keeping track of powers works best. I now rank referencing the character sheet during a battle up there with having to pull out a rule book. The way 4E is designed all the key info can be summed up on reference cards, and the character sheet is mainly for deeper reference.
One of my players is a trained accountant, and thus a whiz with numbers who can easily track everything happening on the table and what each character can do. Unfortunately, the player who sits next to him is just awful with numbers and can barely keep track of what his own powers do, much less those of the others (no blame here, just different personalities).
One of these days, though, I’m sure my accountant friend is going to strangle the other at the table. 🙂
@Wyatt: You are the New School Badass DM man. 🙂 The issue can boil down to social contracts and that’s a fair approach. Players know about it and they abide to it.
The issue is not bad at my table. I mean things go relatively fast given the average tiredness of the players on a Friday night (Fall period is worse), but I really feel that the ‘Oh Wait’ is one aspect that we could work together to cull to achieve better playflow…
@Johenius: Good trick… I can see various applications of the tokens that could be cool. But I think that it all boils down to mutual respect and having all players compromise somewhere between Full liberty to plan a turn perfectly and Quick and Dirty play.
I’m fine with “Nope, sorry, your turn is over”.
I think the “Moving On” rule will make your players be more mindful of their powers. Although it may make them slow down even MORE.
Sometimes you just don’t get to do the “best possible action”. Quit worrying about it. Just dive in and GO. Not everything needs to be perfect. Besides, the “perfect” action may be so slightly different from the typical action that trying to figure out what the “best” move is becomes redundant.
Now, I will interrupt people on their turn if they forget to do something (even if I’m a player!). If the Fighter didn’t mark the guy he just hit, I’ll ask “Don’t forget to mark him” (if you know, I’m afraid of that guy not hitting the fighter next round). I’ll remind folks to roll saving throws (because that’s easy to forget).
Part of this is because I’m playing a Bard who has lots of interrupt powers. Once per encounter, If an ally gets hit, I can go “Wait, not so fast” and add my wisdom bonus to their defense If an ally misses with an attack, I can go “Not so fast”, and use an attack that, if it hits, gives the enemy a -5 to their defenses for the ally’s attack. I also do a lot of “spend standard action to heal check to let ally use Second Wind” or “use power to slide ally”. So, because I need to be very Aware of what’s going on so my powers can trigger, I end up acting like a referee for my team. And my turn also goes very quickly because I’ve all ready planned it out (and I can’t do a lot on my turn, since most of my powers are interrupts).
I tend to apply the charitable principle as a DM: if it’s something that’s in the character’s usual MO, I allow a bit of backtracking, as long as other decisions haven’t been made that would counteract it. Forgetting to Mark and Curse are the usual two which I allow (and even in the latter’s case, I allow some extra damage.) But if they forget they had some ability to help, and somebody else is already going on their turn, we all tend to be in agreement it’s best to keep things going.
One thing that I’ve found helps as a DM is to remind players of bonuses they might not be taking into account so they’re not going back and adding ones later. “You do remember you have combat advantage now, right?” That kind of thing.
These only work if you can trust your players, of course. My last campaign had one player who liked to keep adding numbers that he had “forgotten” until he hit…
.-= Dave T. Game´s last blog ..Critical Hits 4th Blogiversary =-.
The one real bugaboo is all those powers that “end at the end of your next turn”. This means you can easily forget what is still going and what’s gone away. Same with benefits from an ally’s power.
Walkerp: Ack, no, not Gurps! Just the thought of a 30 minute roundtable round where all I got to do was ready my Axe makes my stomach turn.
What was it with 80’s game design that assumed that time spent doing nothing was all right?
I really need to give Savage Worlds a spin! I hear just good things about it.
@Erik: The dice roll is a good divide… anything before is not much of an interruption. I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks! And yes Power cards are absolutely necessary to play. All players have them in one form or another.
@Jonathan: I have a friend who plays D&D once a year. They still play 2e because the DM bought everything 2e when the game started (in 86 iirc)… last time I checked, they were 8th level. UGH!
@Rechan: I fine with pointing out a forgotten bonus (I’ll do it if I remember) or having players do so. Or to grant them during their turn. I mean Leaders are based on interrupting other people’s turn and that’s fine.
As this discussion progresses, I realize it’s the interruptions that require a dice roll that bug me. If a Shaman forgets to heal with his minor, I won’t be an ass and prevent it… unless the game state as progressed to much by the time he says ‘Oh Wait’… like if the player after the Shaman gets dropped to near 0 HP by an AoA… this would be construed as ‘let’s move on”
@DavetheGame: Ha I recall that player. That’s why we have the DDi power cards now. 🙂 And Franky is an awesome Leader as he reminds people of bonuses and uses out new magnetic markers to indicate zones of increased damage and such.
@walkerp and Chatty: I use Savage Worlds as well, and we’ve trimmed out even more extra stuff to make it run even faster. The best part is that the players love it! Check out this recent post for an idea of what we do.
.-= PatrickWR´s last blog ..Dynamic dungeons and the lessons learned therein =-.
No “Oh, wait!”s here, either. I don’t always remember what the monsters can do, they don’t always remember what their characters can do, fair is fair. If the “oh wait” would save them from going unconscious and we haven’t gotten too far past it, I’ll let them, but just forgetting that you could have shifted to put yourself in flank? Sorry, the fighter will have to deal with the lack of the +2 bonus this turn.
We have one player who needs to add up every single bonus to hit and to damage every single attack. Every turn. With the same power. Guess who gets less slack for “oh wait”s than everyone else? =P
@Swordgleam: I’m listening to the Penny Arcade/PVP/Wil Wheaton podcasts and I find it inexcusable to play 4e without pre-worked bonuses for usual powers. Come on! Yes I’m aware that not averyone can afford D&Dinsider but everyone can afford to make Index Cards with powers and Bonuses worked in…
I mean come on!
As someone who have never played D&D I have to chime in and say that “oh wait” would be tantamount to heresy at our table. I would just never allow it. Sure, we’ve helped out new players or had discussions about situations to make sure decisions are made from clear information, but “oh wait”? just no. I consider it like chess… you can pick up the piece while you ponder your move, but you are not allowed to change your mind once you put it down.
This is one of the very reasons that I never enjoyed playing 4e. All those highly conditional modifiers are harder to keep track of than whether or not bless or inspire competence have ran their durations. Combat just isn’t that interesting either, sure there are more little tricks to it than in 3.5, but all in all its just a fancy name for “I hit it with my sword” oh and now you all get bonuses that you won’t remember. High level play with 3.5 may have been problematic, I don’t know I tend to stop at 6th level and have never played past 11th, but the slowdown of 4e is present from level 1 and presumably only gets worse as power choice grows.
To alleviate the “but waits” in my game I try to make sure that I ask my players if they have accounted for bless and flanking, then I ask if they are done before moving on. Once they say that they are done I move on to the next player and it is too late to change anything.
I have a 5minute egg timer, sand falling style hour glass, that I will pull out if I get a slow player. I ask players to team up and help people with decisions and to do their best to know their PC and their actions and be ready when their turn comes up hard to do in 4e but possible. Players at my table must have a complete character ready to go; all powers set and crunched out. I usually only play with RPGA gamers, and they are almost always very well prepared for play so I don’t get the “but wait” much just slow decision makers, who, if they play with me often get used to seeing me pull out the egg timer on them. When the sand is done so is their turn.
.-= shent_lodge´s last blog ..The God Yol =-.
Great topic!
I treat it like any board or card game; nobody expects to be able to rewind a session in those, except in very straightforward situations (“Whoops! I forgot to collect my $200 when I passed Go”).
I’ve successfully dealt with “Wait, I forgot to…” by reacting to them with a sympathetic, “Awww, that’s a shame, yeah that would’ve been helpful.” I just don’t go backwards, unless A. it’s easy (“I should have done 10 points of damage, not 6”) or B. the player’s reminding me of a condition I should have been following (“Wait, am I still taking damage or did that expire?”).
.-= Brent P. Newhall´s last blog ..But I Totally ”Could” To Live By Bread Alone =-.
I’m pretty much in line with many of the posters today. Like Jonathan Zero, I’ve pretty much done away with the “Oh Wait” syndrome back during my 2e days. I won’t deny that there are times when I am more charitable to my players, especially if they have a good idea.. but it has to be an immediate reaction. When I start another players turn and they are on the ball about it, fine. I’ve had players though, in the past, after 2 other people have gone, do the oh wait and I just look at them with that, “Really?” look, and keep plowing on.
They pout, but then they are more on the ball for their next turn.
.-= wrathofzombie´s last blog ..Oh So Sorry… =-.
Possible solution to both problems: individual whiteboards. Give each player a tiny whiteboard for tracking HP, surges, conditions, and of course What I’m Planning for Next Turn. You buy the things for a couple of bucks apiece at Staples and adorn them w/a couple more bucks’ worth of dorky stickers for flavour, insist on a 30-second turn time, and Bob’s your uncle.
In our last session each combat round took an average of ten minutes. Ugh. We had a great time but got through just a single combat against three baddies and a half-dozen minions! We’re dong 30-second turns this week (apparently we have an hourglass?!) and I’m thinking of grabbing whiteboards tonight.
Alternatively, I quite like Chgowiz’s policy: declare or wait (delay). Damn, it feels draconian (especially given our group’s love of tactical intricacy – we’ve got some Blood Bowlers and 40K players) but given that tactical combat is a high-pressure situation it makes sense to capture the pressure feeling in the mechanism itself…
.-= Wax Banks´s last blog ..The world has turned and left me here. =-.
Two things come to mind:
1) Why do the players have to explain everything? I typically play D&D with friends that aren’t cheating douche-bags. Just tell them how much damage was done and of what type and let them figure it out. When my players are bloodied, I have them just tell me.
2) My gaming group recently did a lot of training for the Ultimate Dungeon Delve. This required that we understood our characters very well and were prepared to finish our turns in 10-20 seconds of real time. We had a rule, if you are unsure or unready, just use your at-will on the most damaged target. Simple and effective.
We aren’t that strict during normal casual play, but the experience of having to hurry up and go in order to win the competition left a lasting impression.
.-= Jim Goings´s last blog ..D&D Has a new Website =-.
I’ve found myself in the bad habit of skipping to the next player once the current player has finished their standard action. To stop myself, I ask the player if they have any other actions they want to perform. This also forms a clear delineation between turns, thus shutting down the “oh, waits.”
I’m pretty hard on any changes after a turn is done. That includes “extra” damage or bonuses. I also do my best to remind players of effects, but ultimately, it’s their responsibility to play their character. I don’t go “oh, wait,” when I miss something on a creature’s power. I just make sure to apply the next go around. I expect the same of my players.
.-= Kameron´s last blog ..From kobolds to goblins =-.
The one thing that remains is to check with players. I just did a quick poll with my more impatient players (I have two) and he said that he thought that the rhythm of the fights were adequate.
So this opens an interesting question: What do we do when only the DM is bothered by something, given that I’m as much allowed my own fun (or absence of annoyance) as anyone else around this table?
If I practice what I preach, I guess I have to say that I should accept it and focus on other things. I’ll do the ‘Are you done’ routine, but I won,t be clamping down on the Oh Waits since nobody else seems to mind.
Wow! You have a LOT of comments, I’m having trouble keeping track of it all before I post! 🙂 (Plus I’m at work… dosen’t help…)
I remember my favorite DM in a 3.5 game : “That’s IT, now, you have 6 seconds to tell me what you do. If you don’t, your character does NOTHING. Period.”
I’ve never played with a possibility to take back an action or to go back… that simply cannot be done for me… When you play chess, there’s that rule : “pièce touchée, pièce à jouer, pièce lâchée, pièce jouée” (you touch it, you have to play it, you drop it, you are done.) Once you call an action, you can’t take it back. Exception : misunderstanding the descriptions.
“I jump through the window.”
“You realize the window is only 6 inches wide?”
“What? Ah, ok, crap… I hit the suspiscious door, then…”
I see a huge difference, also, between Larpers and non-larpers… For one, larpers know how much trouble it is to drink a potion or to put on an armor (and how undomfortable it is to sleep in an armor). Plus, live, if a monster charges you, you can’t say “wait! back-off, I’m not sure which spell is more efficient here!” So reflexes go with it. Forgot to drink the potion? Too bad.
But all in all, DnD has really quick battles, regardless of the edition…. I also played Rolemaster (like 15-20 years ago) and I currently play GURPS (in a contemporary Heroes meet Supernatural setting) and while DnD battles are totally unrealistic compared to those two systems, it is incredibely simpler (provided you know the rules…)
An other thing : It is MUCH faster and better and generally pleasant when everyone is paying attention, even when it’s not their turn. No need to repeat everything. No need to talk over the people who lost interest and are talking about last weekend because it will be too long before it’s their turn to play. When everyone pays attention, generally (but not always), when their turn comes, they know what they want to do. Period.
(That said, I haven’t tried 4th edition… *blush*)
@Phil: I think it’s not that he can’t do math (he is studying to be, quite literally, a rocket scientist) it’s just that he really likes watching all the small numbers add up to big numbers, and it never gets old for him. Ever.
“What do we do when only the DM is bothered by something, given that I’m as much allowed my own fun (or absence of annoyance) as anyone else around this table?”
You have more leverage than anyone else does to fix the problem. So if it’s fixable, do what you need to, and if that’s too much work, then let it go. Players should (hopefully) understand.
It looks like most of my thoughts have been covered by others, so just for tallying: as a DM, I’m pretty flexible about “oh, waits”. I get them even in my vastly simplified home brew games. That said, they’re almost always due to lack of attention, or lack of rules understanding (how does the power/rule actually work?) I find that a little frustrating as a DM, but I bow to the fact that we’re playing a game.
In the world of min/max, you always make the best choice. What happens if you don’t? If you make a mistake? I think we should all learn to live with those mistakes. If your character is at risk, you’d better be paying sharp attention! Otherwise, cultivate the flexibility to recover on your next turn…
I’m a player, not a DM, but at my table we use several of these & similar ideas to keep combat moving along.
1) The DM announces whose turn it is, who’s next, and who’s in the hole.
2) A 30-second sand timer signals the beginning of your turn. If you don’t declare actions before it’s out, you automatically delay.
2) After acting, the DM will summarize: “That was your standard. Any move or minors?”
3) Following additional actions, DM asks “All done? Any free actions or other considerations?” – This is your last chance to spend or change an action.
Then the “Oh Wait!” happens.
1) If it’s any type of action, well, too late. No going back. And the players hold the DM to the same rule.
2) If it’s number crunching that was done incorrectly, it’s acceptable and the change is made (as long as it doesn’t require re-rolling dice). Reasoning: The +2 dmg bonus from the paladin doesn’t affect the roll of the dice or the action, but is just a mathematical oversight. The creep did take the extra dmg, but the player just forgot it. Maybe it would be described as a difference of player vs. character knowledge.
So, combat actions are contained completely within a PCs turn, but sometimes a small change to dmg or ongoing effects is still allowed if it was forgotten. Seems to work well for us so far, and everyone feels that it’s still fair when they have forgotten one of those odd ramifications.
We just played a 3 hour long fight (I planned the whole session to be a fight) and you know what… there was not one ‘oh Wait’ in the whole thing. And I think only Yan has read the post today.
But I did make an effort to ask everyone if they were done done… 🙂
Ugh. I skimmed the comments a bit. I caught where you mentioned that you probably shouldn’t mind. Well, that’s cool if you don’t but if it gets under your skin you have to remember that you’re one of the people playing the game too and adjust things accordingly. Contrary to some older schools of thinking you’re not really any more important than any other player in the game but your comfort zones should still be respected just like anyone else’s.
From my outside perspective the ticky way D&D seems to work these days is something I just automatically labeled in my mind as a weakness of the system as soon as I heard about it. It sounded like some experiments in game design I’d tried once and quickly abandoned as too unwieldy to promote casual fun. I can see where that level of crunch could readily lend itself to all sorts of delays.
However I have to admit I’ve seen this in less crunchy games too. I’ve even run Amber, a diceless RPG and had people slow down turns interminably while they tried to find just the right thing to make it all turn out alright. I’m leaning towards thinking this is a major playstyle decision. I wonder if you could blunt some of these sorts of impulses by cautiously adding static puzzles to your game?
Another possibility idea along this vein (get it out before it gunks up your combat) is to find ways to promote this sort of thought in how combats start. Let them get jumped a couple times and be unable to change their minds about things and they might start using that puzzle solving energy where it belongs: in the planning stages.
There is one thing about the White Wolf storytelling system you might try adopting too if you think it would help any. Before the round begins get a general idea of what everyone is planning to do. These can be vague and basic. You don’t need to know that Wizzo is going to use a lightning bolt spell to light up the enemy leader. He can just tell you he’s casting an offensive spell. It gives you and them a general idea of what’s going on and lets the specifics fall out as things happen. Broadly useful categories for this might be offensive spell, beneficial spell, move closer and attack, run away, or a broad “other” category to handle things like digging in a pack for an item or something else uncommon. How you allow them to depart from this broad outline is kind of up to you though. Whether it’s easy or hard depends on the style of play people are into. Whichever way you decide to go with it though, make sure they see NPCs occasionally using the same system as they change their minds.
I had a strange idea about the token system after reading it. What if it’s not the player that gets the tokens? What if when change their minds, instead of them using a token they give you a token that allows you to be an evil bastard and complicate their lives at some future date? You could think of every “Oh wait” as a stack of coins piling up to buy someone a rival, having the maids at the next inn accidentally hand the PCs clothes to another band of travelers leaving them stuck wearing whatever odd cast-offs are handy or inflicting a miserable head cold on their character. The combat penalties would probably be pretty minor but they’d talk a bit funny and look miserable. You know, the usual list of “it’s a bad thing but it could be amusing and promote roleplay” sort of thing.
Isn’t a lot of this delay really just to do with the minions? Playing Feng Shui recently, we really noticed that minions (“mooks” in Feng Shui) slow stuff down. Obviously players who don’t know the rules are a major source of delay but in general if they know the rules that’s not a problem.
I do think it’s true though that a mechanic (like “bloodied” or the RM critical system) where keeping track of combat-related modifiers requires threshold values and separate rules can be very time-consuming, especially if the GM needs to know it about all of the characters. In Rolemaster I got around this by assigning tasks to the players – Bob is keeping track of activity penalties, Jane is tracking rounds, etc.
.-= flashheart´s last blog ..Truth seeking in the colonies =-.
A day late.
No one will ever read this. That useless, empty, late comment.
Oh well.
First off, google ‘4e too long’. You are not alone. Not even close. many other blogs and sites are grappling with this issue, which is really about 4e coming back full circle to being more of a tactical wargame again.
You had a 3 hr session that you planned to be all one fight? I have news for you. You played a tactical wargame with a 1:1 ratio. Everyone has a good time? great. But that is what it is.
So as long as you look at it for what it is, and stop comparing it to games that are less encounter biased, eveyone is happy.
BTW, you mention Franky’s skills as a leader often…you are blessed with a good team. I’ve always thought that the best GM’s attract good players.
@Wax…OK, I laughed out loud. The whiteboards made me laugh. Not in a bad way, just in a, “wow I guess there is asome serious keeping track goin’ on.”
(P.S.–ate at Sel de la Terre by the aquarium yesterday. Don’t try this with kids…)
@Jim G, maybe as GM’s we should all have player exams like your ‘ultimate Dungeon Delve’. Just thinking.
Personally, I got rid of ‘combat rounds’ a while ago, for various reasons. But that’s a different post.
.-= LordVreeg´s last blog ..edited The Calendars =-.
Oh my goodness. For the first time ever, someone has quoted me at length on the Internet without proceeding to call me an idiot! I blush.
Jim Goings asked why everything needs to be explained, and I guess he has a point. I probably over-explain because I want to make sure I get the rules correct, and I feel like transparency is part of honesty. Also, if I invoke that Resist 5 (from the quoted example) “out loud”, someone may remind me that it has expired.
Wax Banks suggested individual whiteboards. That’s not a bad idea, if there is space. The important thing is putting the information up where everyone can see it.
On the topic of “oh wait”: if the next player or creature hasn’t actually taken an action yet, but the player or DM is simply describing what is going to happen, I think it should be allowed. Among other reasons, sometimes the player or DM jumps the gun. Now if the player has been asked and answered “yes, I’m done”, that’s different.
If you have a player who can mark, curse, quarry, and frequently forgets to do so, it’s probably best if the other players do the reminding, diplomatically. Sustains are trickier — I think the DM should assume that sustainable effects will be sustained, as they are usually a big part of the player’s arsenal. To me, then, the question turns from “did they sustain?” to “did they try to take two minor actions?”
Maybe you could put notes next to character names on the initiative order sheet, assuming you use one. “Quarry” next to the Ranger, “Curse” next to the Warlock, etc. Then the reminder is right there when you look to see who goes next.
Okay this discussion is continuing past what I expected so I’ll go back and answer where I feel it’s warranted. As usual, know that I read all comments, I just stop auto answering when I can’t keep up.
@ND: You bring a fresh perspective to this blog as I think you are the first open Larper I’ve seen here. I’m not nearly as strict as your 3.5 DM (nor others who’ve advocated a hardline so far).
Like many 4e DMs, I’m concerned that the length of fights will occlude everything else in a session.
However, contrary to hyper crunchy games of the 80’s (Gurps/Champions/Rolemaster), combat remains, to our group, a very enjoyable aspect of the game.
I recall reading Monte Cook saying that the very idea of starting a Rolemaster fight prompted his gaming group to become bath in full storytelling… I don’t forsee this happening in our group (and likely other 4e).
Also my players cherish their liberty and we all like the mutual trust that we’ve built up. So whatever trick I plan to implement to get rid of Oh Waits is likely going to be integrated into the gentle but firm way I’ve been doing things so far.
@Swordgleam: I agree with you, but any use of the DMs authority in order to increase the DM’s pleasure must be done with care and diplomacy as it skirts the very fine divide between a team leader’s authority and a tyrant’s.
@Mattimus: It looks like a decent set of rules. And since you are a player reporting them, I assume that the group accepts them and that’s absolutely perfect. Much like N.D.’s 3.5 group seemed to accept the stricter way of doing things.
If a group comes up with a strategy everybody agrees with, there’s no better solution. Sounds self evident but doesn’t happen all that often. Most group work on unwritten and often undisclosed social rules.
@Lanir: My level of annoyance with 4e is not nearly at the level where I think another system would deliver me a more satisfying experience. I’ve tried reading earlier editions of the Storyteller system and didn’t find it to my tastes.
More generally though, analysis paralysis is a very real problem in all games where players overvalue risks and spend too long trying to work around it. In fact that might be one of 4e’s ‘area of improvement’ in that I think that Ademtures/DMs tend to create threats that seriously punish player mistakes so player defensively spend more time planning against it.
The Oh Wait syndrome is really related to inattentive players and given the game’s crunchiness, it’s hard to keep our ADD friends to focus for 20 minutes before their turns come again.
Implementing more efficient playing practices (Power Cards, White Boards, rolling Damage with to hits, etc)… help curtail inattention as things go faster.
@Flasheart: I use little flags standing near minis to track status effects and Penalties. It has fixed all the conditional issues we had with the game.
@LV: Friend, I’ve spent quite a long time trying to answer your comment in a polite and diplomatic way. Failing that I’ll go with assertivness,
I must tell you I really don’t appreciate you telling me what is or isin’t a Roleplaying game when discussing what happens at MY gaming table on MY website.
As interesting as I find our discussions so far, I must say that I don’t think anyone but my gaming group is qualified to make such a call. I don’t mind that you define a RPG in a way different that mine, that’s part of the coolness of having a community sharing point of view. But having you reach over my gaming screen and calling my spade a garden hose is, at best, very rude according to my personal values.
Our D&D campaign is one of experimentation and exploration where we explore gaming styles that our group isn’t used to . We tried political intrigue, dungeon crawling, Player-driven goals and now a session-long set-piece encounter in a rich descriptive environment.
So please, I don’t mind arguing all day long, just qualify your opinions as just that, opinions.
Now that my annoyance has been explained, I thank you for the kind comment about GMing. I am blessed to have players that are willing to play along my GMing experiments and who actively participate in helping me build a better game.
I really can’t wait to post the pictures of last night’s game, it was a stunning piece of work.
@Michelle: Far from me to call you an idiot, your comment was very appropriate and summarizes the challenege of playing 4e. I tell myself that if I, a 4e nut with a lot of DMing experience, others must have it so much worse. Hell, at Gen Con, a player in NewbieDM’s game told me that they each took 5-7 minutes to make their turns AND argued like only the Latin can do (I have joke immunity, I’m Latin too) …
…so imagine how bad it can go. I’m starting to feel that while simple on the surface, 4e is not a beginner’s RPG.
@Michelle: About all these status and stuff (Marked, Cursed, Ongoing Damage), using the magnet markers (Dark-platypus.com) has made all of this a trivial matter now.
Best purchase I did at Gen Con.
one game session does not the game make. therefore calling your game a tactical wargame based on one session is inane. anyone who has read the session recaps knows that chatty’s games are really about the story as much as the rules, which is the heart of D&D.
I’m sure there’s no malice involved. I like to assume that LV Just voiced his opinion but phrased it in an unfortunate way.
Let’s leave it at that and go back to our usual programming.
@Chatty,
Assertiveness is fine. I have thick skin when it comes to this stuff. This is your house, and if it came across that I called your wife ugly in your house (to use the right analogy, I think), then I am more than happy to aplogize. No one should do that.
And I don’t ever consider our conversations arguements. You have, as I have remarked many times, showed more flexibility and open-mindedness than almost any of the writers whose sites I post at. I certainly think of you as sufficiently aware of the ‘big-picture-view’ of your own game table, and we’ve had some good exchanges.
So please qualify my above comments as merely an opinion, made fully and honestly with 100% faith in your own creativity and your perspective. But the opinion is unchanged.
The impression I am given by the dozen (+ or minus a few) posts I have read about length of combat in 4e, a small % of what must be out there, and by the many solutions I see offered, as well as by my comrades involved in it, is that a lot of people are enjoying their 4e games but the length of combat is an issue.
An interesting sidebar is how many of these postings cite combats that ‘went on all session!’ as the thing that drove them over the edge.
No one would complain about a 3-5 hour long tactical wargame, that’s what the game is about. The reason it is an issue is because it is being viewed as a roleplaying game, when my perspective is that it shares more with the Tactical wargames from whence the Roleplaying hobby came than most games.
Tactical roleplay? Maybe.
Keep up the good work. I’ll keep reading.
.-= LordVreeg´s last blog ..edited Igbarian adventure DM only =-.
Thanks man, I appreciate.
I also agree that the length of 4e combat is a Huge issue for people who would love to play the D&D brand but could do without combat as they are implemented.
Which brings back an old idea of mine where we could use a mechanic like skill challenges to create mechanically interesting fights that lasted 15 minutes.
In my games we let the next player know that they are, “on deck,” so that they can start planning. My group is also very helpful, and even as a DM I like to drop advice to a player that is new or trying out a new class (I cant count how many times I’ve suggested to the paladin that he use divine challenge on something).
.-= Antioch´s last blog ..New Site Layout is Pretty Nice =-.
ChattyDM @40: Are you referring to the magnetic disks that go *under* the miniature? The kind that requires you to lift the miniature every time you add or remove one? Because in my experience, that just leads to miniatures going over like a line of dominoes.
…I’m looking at the Dark-Platypus site now — the flag things look like they might work better — is that what you mean?
Yes I was referring to the little rods with markers. They have very strong magnets on their tips. The Markers themselves are thin, long rectangle stickers you fold over a tiny magnet rod.
The magnets are so strong that the markers guide themselves on the rods. And the markers can stack on themselves really easily.
Really cool!
UPDATE!
We used a 30-second timer for combat turns today in our H3 (Pyramid of Shadows) 4e session. Fantastic. At one point some of the players had something like five or six combat modifiers to keep track of. Individual whiteboards next week, for certain.
In any case, we breezed through the (solo) combat more quickly than ever before, and it was a varied, interesting, tense encounter (the white dragon, FWIW). What a difference that constraint makes!
.-= Wax Banks´s last blog ..Rio? Really? =-.
@Wax: That’s very good to know. The best use I’ve seen of these white boards was Brian Nowak (Of the Ready Action blog). They used a magnetic version and applied a table containing all the 4e Status Effects (and described) on half the board. Placing magnets on the various status boxes allowed easy tracking. The remaining white space was great for ongoing damage and other bonused/penalties.
Just sayin’
Shit, that’s brilliant.
.-= Wax Banks´s last blog ..Rio? Really? =-.
This is quite timely, we had a combat that lasted 3.5 hours during last weeks session.
Now, this was definitely an ‘exceptional case’. In reality it was two encounters squished together with the idea being that two NPC parties are also fighting, leading to the players being one of three sides in the fight, so they aren’t expected to attack everything. (For those interested and have a DDI sub, go download ‘The Temple Between from Dungeon 161 and look at the ‘Grand Cathedral’ encounter).
I got comments from every player the next morning saying how much they loved the fight and really enjoyed it, they thought it was a really epic encounter where they had to pull out all the stops just to survive, let alone prevail and they didn’t really mind that it took so long.
However, for my thoughts, although I loved running the fight, I didn’t really forward the story at all during that evenings session (well, the PC’s now know there are at least 2 factions at play, but really that’s not a high story exposition:gametime ratio), as such I get a little panicky that we aren’t really pushing the story forward.
But then…who cares? I’m still enjoying running the fights, and the players are enjoying playing them, does it matter if we reach the story end in 1 month or 1 year? You don’t want to cheapen the story for the players by speeding to a conclusion…yet I still worry about the time.
Anyway, back to the discussion topic 🙂 Certainly in this fight with the number of stances and magic item dailies and other special circumstances that took place (not to mention regeneration on the monsters that could be on or off based on the recent damage type they’ve taken…) made for a fairly hefty ‘oh wait…’fight.
In my case, my players are pretty good about it…I frequently get ’20 damage…oh wait…21!’ so they tend NOT to change things once they have forwarded their turn on. That said, occasionally it DOES happen (the common one is the fighter not stating that he is marking his attacked foes and me thus not marking as such in my notes) and then rewinding what happens based on that.
If it’s just a case of adjusting numbers…I tend to let it slide. If it’s an ‘oh wait’ that adjusts the layout of the board, then I’ll tell them they’ve missed the opportunity and we’ll play on, generally this tends to work however I think you have to be VERY careful of ‘saying NO’ which is what this amounts to.
I could see a slippery slope where DND could end up being much more like a game of Descent where the DM is vetoing players actions for them not following the turn order correctly or being away of all their little bonuses etc. I think any sufficiently knowledgeable DM will be able to avoid this situation, but saying NO COULD lead you into a very authoritarian position that upsets your game if you aren’t careful with it.
I guess the lesson to the players here is ‘pay attention and be on the ball with these things’ 🙂
Slow combat’s a big problem for my group, who at this rate will hit level thirty by 2014. I used to complain about it on D20 Source, but the rants got unpopular. Now I’m thinking of ways to speed the game up, which should make everyone happy. I encourage other bloggers to do the same.
.-= Jonathan Drain´s last blog ..A Wizard Did It: Patching 3E to 4E Continuity =-.