Combat time

[Etarnon]

I like to DM modern military / espionage or sci fi games that have a lot of heavy weapons and lots of damage.

I give players 15 seconds to decide what they want to do, then we roll it.

If the player can't decide, too bad...know your character, and their weapon / capabilities.

In the rush, nobody gets skipped, but a certain type of player tends to get pissed off that they are "Rushed".

To those people I say okay, "you got 6 seconds to decide." (which a lot of games that I play use 5 to 10 seconds)."

In the end, a lot of the flavor of what fast paced combat is going to be to me is: fire from cover, shoot enemy, move to better cover, call in airstrike, hold for the push / rally your guys / wait for reinforcements.

Anything else, to me, belongs in the category of fantasy / anime', cartoonish.

Best game I ever saw for super fast deadly combat was RECON by RPG, Inc. (Later bought out and revised by Palladium.)

Easy to lose PCs in the game, but combat was zippy fast.

[spotlight]

Time in combat. You all have given me some thought. I recall a GM from years ago who used a three minute egg timer. With anaverage of five or six players, that gave us plenty of time to decide our actions, then we stated them in order of our initiative rolls. No statement by the time the sand ran out, you only got to defend.

Enjoyed the game, even though I occasionally got stuck out.

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

Keeping the pace is of absolute importance to me. When i run games, i dont allow procrastination, or anything else for that matter, to slow things down. Sure, in the beginning, some players have it rough-going, but once they get used to the style, all players are constantly thinking 1, 2, and 3 steps ahead with every scenario.

1st penalty for draggers: turn moved to bottom of the initiative list for that round only.
2nd penalty: missed turn for that round.

This method allows flexibility for more rounds to be included w/o the delay in progress in adventuring. I once played in a groups campaign once, for one say only, that dragged so bad that i never returned. I had a chat with the DM afterwards and gave him some suggestions. He contact me later and said that the implementation of said advice actually increased interest in his games.

On the other side of the coin, i am aware that there are those that like the micro-side of gaming, so let me make clear that i am not finding fault with others preferred gamestyles, for we are corrrect in our unique preferences.

In the end, we get alot a fun in as well as some serious adventuing within the time alotted for that day's gameplay.

That's my duckets worth, no more and no less.

Game on!

[Etarnon]

The all the group gets the three minute egg is a fantastic idea.

Good times.

[Rook]

I think this really comes down to the nature of the players involved. If you're talking about 5 experienced players who are in role and are focused and on-task, a ten-minute fight could be played out in 30 minutes or less. Otherwise, anything goes...

[templeorder]

Having done a few clock runs this weekend, it should take about 15 minutes at the most. It really depends on the size of the opponent group and specific abilities of the party (area affect spells = good). One fight with 4 characters took less than 5 minutes. I've also had 4 on 1 fights take a half hour because everyone is agonizing over their decision as they try and take down a super baddie as fast as possible.

[Dark]

In most normal sized encounters I have DMed run at most about 15 minutes when your players are on the jaz.

[Baron_Samedi]

For any game, wheter its fantasy based, future, horror, whatever...i give my players fifteen to twenty seconds each to figure out what they're going to do. I usually explain it away as being shocked by the action and they are forced to wait until the next opportunity to act...Anything past that point, i leave them in the dust...i don't think that its fair to anyone else who is prepared and knows their character well enough to react in turn to wait for those that don't.

[tesral]

That burns me no end, the player that dithers over an action. A table full of them is enough to raise my stress level through the roof.

[Law]

In the two systems I play the most (Mutants and Masterminds and New World of Darkness), combats tend to be fast and furious, so I chose 15 minutes, though 30 minutes isn't entirely unheard of. There isn't any counting squares, measuring distances, looking stuff up in books. Just roll and go . . . the way I like it.

[Arkhemedes]

I voted a half hour on average though some can run much longer. Some of it largely depends on the system. In D&D 1e and 2e, 10 minutes game time of combat = 10 rounds, but in 3e+ 10 minutes of combat = 100 rounds. That's a big difference, and I've never known a combat to last 100 rounds.

[tesral]

I got the impression it was table time that was being discussed.