4 Rooms in 3 Hours? Players too cautious and slowwwww

Kissthesky89
Kissthesky89
edited August 2015 in General Discussion
OK so anyone who will check out my page will see that we just finished part 1 of my 1-20 campaign, and part 2 will be going through the entire Under mountain but in a homebrew storyline. My players have never been here (3 PC, 3 NPC), but they know of Halaster and history behind it.

Today we started, playing a short 3 hour session. There was one battle and a trap, they only got through 4 rooms. We have hundreds more to get through and I don't want every session sounding like this.
DM: you enter a room (details etc.)
Guy: I check for traps
Guy 2: I check too
Girl: I'm checking for traps too
They roll
DM: you see no traps
Guy2: I search check for anything special in room
Girl: I'm rolling a check too
Guy 1: I'm also rolling
DM: go ahead (waits) there is a table with a burnt out candle.

This will lead to half a dozen questions asked about it at the same time.
"Its copper. 1.5 lbs. No there are three candles, half used. Nothing behind it.
Girl: I'm gonna pick it up.
Guy 1: I'm gonna stand outside the door then
Guy 2: I feel the walls for any divots or anything.
DM: you pick it up.
Guy 2: so nothing special about the candle.
DM: its just a regular candle.

This process will go on with every item in the room. It takes 20 minutes to get them to fully grasp everything and be ok.
Usually one person wants to check this out while someone else goes to spot check the thingie over here and someone else wants to have their monkey climb a pillar and look around for another spot check. Like I said. 4 rooms, 3 hours. And two rooms didn't even have anything in them.

Then hallways. Someone always darts ahead to look at the next four twists and turns. Another one will stay put waiting. Someone else goes a different way to scout. Each doing search and listen checks at each little turn at the same time. This campaign will never finish at this rate.

Now I applaud their thoughtfulness. They are great strategists, and battle actually moves quite smoothly and normal pace for challenge. They are on point with initiative and usually figure out what they are going to do in between their turns.

My problem is when out of combat in a dungeons crawl, they move waaaay to slow, needing to do two to three back up rolls on all checks and ask for minute details on things that don't matter. More than not, they find nothing and do it again somewhere else.

Many rooms have encounters and traps but there are a lot that have no value or threat, same with the hallways.

How do I speed this along so by the end of a session they actually accomplish something?

Is this my fault for the part 1 campaign every room was made cleverly my traps were puzzling?

How can I tell them that there is nothing to a room and there is no need for ridiculous thought out strategies every time, OR is there a way I can have them not have to ask rolls and back up rolls for every possible check?

Comments

  • NikMak
    NikMak
    Posts: 379 edited August 2015
    "Is this my fault for the part 1 campaign every room was made cleverly my traps were puzzling?"

    a little yeah :)

    by the sounds of things you have sensitized your players to the possibility and danger of traps. there are five solutions i can see off the top of my head

    1) live with it - its quiet realistic that, in a world where dungeon exploring with death by traps is a real possibility: - The ones who live are the ones who take exactly the approach your players are taking. Odds are that sooner or later they will get fed up and stop rolling so often... usually just before they wander into your next trap room! Enjoy the verisimilitude :)

    2) Pre rolled table (similar to 1 but faster) - ask the players to generate a large number of pre-rolls. They all roll up 20 or 30 (or more?) detect trap/spot hidden whatever checks and you have those listed on a card in rows under each player. you can quickly scan across the row for a given room and find out if a player fails a roll as they enter new area and then withhold information as appropriate. You then cross that row of pre-rolls out with a pen, and the next room uses the next row down. They get the reassurance of the dice roll, yet you get your speeded up game.

    3) stop dice rolling so much - tell the players you want to take a more narrative approach, and you will tell them when its required to make those dice rolls again. yes this highlights to the player when there is something to spot/fall into; but maybe thats a price the team pays to push the story forward more quickly? also this lets you focus on the interesting parts of the story, not the boring bits

    4) stop rolling dice - make a house rule that certain skills levels can detect certain difficulties of hidden thing. no dice required. you know the difficulty to spot the spike trap in the wall, and the skill level of the players to spot such things. The trap either gets triggered or it doesn't. Enjoy the verisimilitude :)

    5) have something chase them - you cant stop and check for traps when there is a Balrog hunting you down!

    let us know what approach you eventually decide take and how it works out
    Post edited by NikMak on
  • Kissthesky89
    Kissthesky89
    Posts: 15
    I really like the second one of rolling ahead of time, it will cut out a lot of pauses. I admire their diligence, and in a megadungeon like Undermountain, they should be, but I want them to feel like they accomplished a lot more than they did the last session. These are all great ideas, although cutting out rolls altogether would upset players who enjoy practically making up reasons to roll ("I roll to see if I can do a running backflip off the wall in this empty room.... Nope. Fell on my face") lol.
  • Kissthesky89
    Kissthesky89
    Posts: 15 edited August 2015
    Is there a good way to manage them all asking random questions about different parts of the room all at once? One guy will be focused on a tapestry, while someone else is wondering about the statue, and because he is busy rolling and such, he doesn't pay attention to what I say about the tapestry so almost everything I say ends up repeated by other players once or twice to whoever wasn't listening. This only takes a moment but it happens so often with people talking over each other, the party wastes lots of time explaining things I have already explained to those who were busy talking.
    Can't tell them "sorry I already said it so you missed it, because in game a PC can communicate to another PC. I just need questions and rolls and examinations to happen one at a time without everyone saying their own ideas and questions and not hearing me out.

    Like I said, these players are good, especially for how new they are, I just feel that their own eagerness is killing nearly half of our time.
    Post edited by Kissthesky89 on
  • NikMak
    NikMak
    Posts: 379 edited August 2015
    sounds like the pre-rolls is the way to go for you then. talk it over with the player and see if they like it. If they are happy doing so, you can also use a random number generator of some sort and you can make a load of numbers really quickly. So if you want a 1d20 roll , and If you have access to excel (most people have i think?), entered the following into each cell, this works well in my experience

    =randbetween(1,20)

    if you want other random numbers (like 3d6 ) you can stack it so you get

    =(randbetween(1,6)+randbetween(1,6)+randbetween(1,6))


    as for the group management thing of getting everyone to pay attention at the same time; thats trickier! let me know when you solve it ;)

    seriously though part of the game is the social chit chat, and some game groups are more chatty than others. Is everyone else at the table ok with the repetition and chatter? Can you still enjoy the game if you let it continue as it is?

    if the answer to either of those two questions no, there is something you can try...

    my current group is at the chattier end of the scale (in large part we play quite a silly game at the moment so its no big deal). one way is to order things a little. So ask everyone what they are doing (player 1: "im look at the tapestry" player two "i look for traps in fire place" etc.) but don't tell them the result of those actions them all at once. Once each player is committed to their action they are waiting to hear the result.

    Then get everyone to roll (or consult your new table of pre-rolls). Then go round the table and tell everyone what their roll achieved. they should all be waiting to hear about the success/fail of their own roll, and by default that should limit the amount of chatter and repetition needed as they should all be focused on you.

    But be aware this doesn't work with a 100% success rate. some folks just talk... a lot.. you cant stop them, and thats OK to if everyone is still enjoying the game. Hi BlondeBadger if your reading this :D

    i hope thats not too much info, please get back to me if i havent explained things well!
    Post edited by NikMak on
  • NikMak
    NikMak
    Posts: 379 edited August 2015
    almost forgot, another solution is to get the other players to explain it. if player 2 asks about the tapestry, ask player 1 to tell them about it. You can then focus on player 3.

    this has the advantage they THEY will be the ones repeating themselves over and over again and they should get the hint pretty quickly about how dull that can get. note the 'should'. players are weird and hard to control. cat-herding is easier, but then thats half the fun of GMing!

    good luck
    Post edited by NikMak on
  • cgregory
    cgregory
    Posts: 780
    You definitely sensitized your players to the possibility and danger of traps

    A sixth option would be to create a "trap" like a magic mouth spell that informs them they have a set about of time to reach another specific room located somewhere else in the dungeon. Whether or not there actually is any penalty to not reaching the other room in time is up to you. But the simple knowledge that they can't spend time examining every single thing should reduce the number of rolls and it might desensitize your players a bit.

    As for party management assigning a "party leader/spokesman" can sometimes help manage all the actions/questions. Basically, the players tell the party leader/spokesman what they are going to do and that person tells the DM what everyone is going to do. The players can change the party leader every session. What this does is reinforces to the players how confusing everyone talking at the same time is and takes some of the management aspect out of your hands and puts it in one of the players hands. Since you can hear what the players are intending to do, before the party leader officially tells you, you get a bit of prep time for when those really unusual actions come up.

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  • NikMak
    NikMak
    Posts: 379
    interesting cgregory: - I have never played in game where there was a single party-to-GM spokes person before, have you found it universally successful? Also what does it do to the social dynamic? I can imagine it being quite effective you have a game where there are military ranks for all players, and the chain of command could be used to decide who gets to speak to the GM... Im not sure i would like it for all games /groups of course, but in the chain of command structure.... hmmm... i imagine it would add something interesting to the feel of the game for some stories
  • Kissthesky89
    Kissthesky89
    Posts: 15
    These are all excellent options!!! I was beginning to feel this megadungeon was going to last until I turned 40, (I'm 25 haha) but of these ideas we are bound to find a system that gives them the detail and peace of mind they want without taking so long to get there, can't wait for next week! :D I will let you know what I tried and how they worked.

    My party is chatty and usually it is quite amusing, I enjoy the nonserious and silly aspect they maintain and yet truly want to survive, so I think I'm beginning to understand. Its not a matter of making them skip over their strategy, but rather make their strategy more efficient.
  • cgregory
    cgregory
    Posts: 780
    The party leader concept is from 1st edition D&D. The main job of the party leader was to take all the actions of the PCs and present it in an organized manner to the DM. I never allowed a party leader to overrule another players actions. They can suggest it's not a good idea, but if the player wants to do it, it is their choice and the party leader needs to present that player's action.

    It really just frees up time for the DM, to flip to the page with certain rules, write some quick notes, etc. During NPC interactions the interaction was between the DM and the individual players not just the DM and party leader.

    I don't use a party leader for every campaign or gaming system, but I found that players remained more organized even after stopping the use of a party leader setup. I bring it back in every so often for a module or two when I feel things are getting too chaotic or I'm in a campaign with too many things to keep track of.

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  • UselessTriviaMan
    UselessTriviaMan
    Posts: 546 edited August 2015
    The party leader/spokesman role was known as the Caller in 1E D&D. While it can cut down on the multiplayer overtalking problems Kissthesky described, in practice (in my experience) it has only worked well in a straight-up dungeon crawl. For pretty much any other style of game, it's not nearly as effective.

    _Edited to add:_ D'ohh! Beaten to the punch by cgregory!
    Post edited by UselessTriviaMan on

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  • NikMak
    NikMak
    Posts: 379
    I find it interesting (perhaps that should read telling) that it was recommended in d&d 1, yet ive never even heard of it before, let alone seen it first hand... And I've been gaming scince the red box :)
  • Unknown
    Lots of great methods in here for sure, I frequently use the roll ahead of time method. It speeds things up, and it adds a level of mystery to things since the players will likely not be able to keep track of where in the listing they are. This can work well for Initiatives and Perception tests in particular.
  • Maesenko
    Maesenko
    Posts: 325
    Going to chime in here.

    I agree that you set your players up to think very cautiously after part 1, but it might be wise to be direct and tell them that not literally everything needs to be dissected and examined down to the minutiae. Alternatively, if you're worried about them asking for a description of everything, give the description ahead of time. Personally, I have found that the best result for focusing players is to go around the table individually and address their question(s), then move on to the next -- just make sure everyone else is paying attention!

    You say that you can't tell your players that you "just need questions and rolls and examinations to happen one at a time without everyone saying their own ideas and questions and not hearing me out." I think just the opposite. This is a situation that must be addressed sooner rather than later, as it will only get worse if you don't do something about it now. Just try to be polite about it, but don't be afraid to be firm, either.

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  • Bortas
    Bortas
    Posts: 645 edited August 2015
    The way I tackle it is with a "passive perception/search" check. Essentially, a very skilled character can be expected to always have in the back of their head a certain amount of trap sense (or whatever the skill is that they have dumped a lot of points into - the same technique works with, say, passive diplomacy, or passive knowledge). Essentially, I assume that they are constantly 'taking 10', so 10+their perception. If that is higher than the trap DC, they find it without ever making a roll ("the hair on the back of your neck stands up, you freeze, something doesn't feel right. Then you spot it, an almost invisible trip wire at ankle height"). Aside from that, I then place traps in relatively obvious areas, places players SHOULD ask to look for traps ("entering the treasure room of the defeated villain, their on a pedestal rests a large chest, alone in a shaft of light from the ceiling" roll 2+12 skill "the chest is not trapped" boom!).

    Also, I asked almost "the exact same question":http://forums.obsidianportal.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=3800, and this community provided!

    -bort
    "Morwindl":https://morwindl.obsidianportal.com
    "EIDL":https://eidl.obsidianportal.com
    Post edited by Bortas on
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