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6 years ago ::
Sep 13, 2007 - 6:36AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Aug 23, 2007
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There have been blogs that have suggested that the designers are looking to really improve the ‘speed around the table’ -- that is to say, real-time, not game-time. I believe M. Mearls in one of the podcasts even talked about using stopwatches during playtests to see how much real-time has been shaved off in a typical combat encounter. As a busy DM with limited playtime, I see this as a very positive thing. I believe speeding the combats has other indirect benefits, such as making “save or die” effects less problematic – “Oh you mean I’m paralyzed? Oh, well I guess I’ll play Xbox for a half-hour”.
So far from what we can glean from the designers, they are addressing the following game-stoppers, but it may be fun to speculate how they are addressing them as well
- Sub-system / corner-case rules. The classic example being grapple.
- Presumably less dice rolling / lack of iterative attacks. This one is interesting to me only because it hasn’t been a major slowdown at my table. I would be curious to know how they plan to handle this in a compelling way (I have not played SAGA).
- Streamlined monster stats so when it’s the DM’s turn, he can quickly find the right strategy.
There are probably others missing I’m sure. I would go so far as to address other ‘slowdowns’ at the table outside of encounters, such as divvying up treasure.
What do you see as the choke-points that slow down the game at your table and what would you like to see improved? Also please, let’s not turn this thread into ‘I don’t see why rule X is hard’ because I believe there are already other threads discussing that.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 13, 2007 - 8:20AM
#2
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Date Joined:
Feb 10, 2005
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dice rolling is certainly a factor... on a full-round attack action, a mid-level fighter may have several dice rolls to attack, perhaps rolls to confirm potential crits, then damage rolls, then possibly saving throws based on recursive effects... oh, did he have cleave? another set of die rolls... oh, and an action point to get another attack after a full-round attack action? more die rolls.
while dice rolling doesn't seem like a big deal, when you have possibly three or four "rounds" of rolling per character, it can add up -- especially for one of my regular groups, which often has 5-7 players + GM. adding even 10 seconds to each person's combat round adds 1 minute per round... so if combat lasts 10 rounds, we've added 10 additional minutes just from dice rolling.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 13, 2007 - 9:19AM
#3
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Date Joined:
Aug 23, 2007
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I will concede that dice plays a factor and that it is cumbersome. Perhaps I don’t notice it as much at my table since the players all have a system for which die represent which attack, and they roll them all including damage dice together. I’m just curious how one die roll could evoke ‘the feel’ of raining several blows upon an enemy. I assume that this is a talent / feat in SAGA... Mechanically I’m sure it works; my curiosity stems more from its overall ‘game-feel’ in practice.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 13, 2007 - 9:49AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Dec 15, 2006
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The only combersome thing I find about dice is how sometimes people will have a hard time 'adding relevent modifiers' and the DM will sometimes loose track of the 'target number.'
AND random skill checks during battle -.-
If these have been improved at all, that would be great.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 13, 2007 - 10:06AM
#5
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Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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On the note of dice rolls, I think there was some thought that spell wont be xd6 per caster level and more like 1d6 + X/caster level.
Also i think the whole "grapple issue" will be resolved by making it work with a single (or perhaps 2) die rolls.
So for grapple you just announce you are making a grapple attack roll the dice and then compare it to the reflex defence (or armor class or what ever it ends up being) and then compared the same roll against a fortitude check by the opponent.
The monsters will prolly have a stat block that will be simple and really "tell" you how to use the monster.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 13, 2007 - 10:12AM
#6
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I completely agree with this. Dice rolling is not as much of a problem as finding out and adding properly the applicable modifiers. In general the whole party is paying attention to the rolls each one of the player does (so the feeling of progress, fun and interaction stays alive) , but they drift and lose interest when this player tries to figure out what they add up to in reality.
The only combersome thing I find about dice is how sometimes people will have a hard time 'adding relevent modifiers' and the DM will sometimes loose track of the 'target number.'
AND random skill checks during battle -.-
If these have been improved at all, that would be great.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 13, 2007 - 6:18PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Aug 10, 2009
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Just remeber with out the dice rolling part all your doing is telling a story. Its the dice roles that are one of the tools that let your charecter interact with the story and be a part of it.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 13, 2007 - 6:47PM
#8
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A single turn has three parts to it.
[LIST=1]
Decide which action to take.
Check the result of that action.
Apply the effects of that result.
When all of these can be done quickly, the game progresses quickly. If any of these steps take a long time, the game clogs up.
For example, the first step (decide) can be delayed by a player or DM struggling to find the best thing to do. A confusing stat block or character sheet is often the culprit, as is having to look up spells or feats to see whether the PC, NPC or monster really should be doing this.
The second step, checking, is where calculation, dice rolling and comparing with DCs takes place. "Does the action succeed or fail?" is what's being asked here. When the bonuses and DCs are hard to calculate, or there are nested conditions, or several dice must be rolled, this step can take a long time.
The last step, applying, takes the results of the second step and modifies the gamespace with them. Characters and monsters suffer damage and may go unconscious or die, bonuses and penalties are applied, the environment may be modified or destroyed, and character/monster behavior may be compromised in future actions (due to charms, paralyzations, etc). When this modification regularly causes multiple ripple effects that must be dealt with, it makes this step take a long time.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 13, 2007 - 6:49PM
#9
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Date Joined:
Jan 16, 2006
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I've heard some people have systems such as different-colored dice.
But sometimes you are a player who plays online using a very simple system that doesn't have different-colored dice.
And I've played in systems where there is less dice rolling. d20 systems. You can still imagine as many blows as you want with one roll. (I will concede, however, that there are people who need to see a real thing.)
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6 years ago ::
Sep 13, 2007 - 6:58PM
#10
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I don't mind the dice rolling, the dice rolling means "we're doing something."
We play with a caster heavy group that preps with large amounts of buff spells (cleric, shaman, & bard buffs plus maybe one or two others). We lose time figuring out what stacks with what and what applies to what. It is usually different each encounter and sometimes changes round to round so you can't even have an easy cheat sheet as we're usually dealing with a minimum of four spells or spell like effects (frequently more). Simplifying this aspect would be a big help in speeding up the encounter time.
The other big time killer comes from players looking up spells. Our group is very chaotic, even when we tell our fellow players what we intend to cast on our turn they will still take actions that will mess the plan completely up. (As a former infantry squad leader this drives me nuts) What that means to game play is our casters have to change gears almost every round to find a suitable spell. The primary spell they have the stats and effects down pat, but the secondary spell has to be researched to find range, DC, effect, area of effect, or whatever. Either a greater uniformity in the way spells function, a more reference friendly system, or a simpler system would help with these issues (probably a combination of these things would be best.)
Dice rolling is doing something. Taking an action of oportunity of some type is doing something. Role play is doing something. Flipping through books is wasting time.
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