Feature suggestion: animated hourglass

[Chrome]

Hey again,

My players are sometimes spending way too much time discussion or thinking about what they are going to do. This takes the speed out of especially combat and is unrealistic. (We are playing with skype so chatspeed is not limiting)

I would like to have a way of putting time pressure on them and the ideal for D&D is hourglasses in my opinion.

How about making an animated hourglass the DM can set up with some time (30s, 1min, 2min etc) that then shows up counting down on the players screens to let them know they have to hurry and have a deadline?

Would anybody else use this?

[sunbeam60]

Would anybody else use this?
We Skype, not type, so I wouldn't consider this a required feature, but certainly a nice one. Something like this will conceivably be doable in Lua script come 1.06. I like the idea better of doing these little tools as extensions, kinda like how Firefox comes in a bare bones install that is easy to come to grips with and then let users install extensions as their skills increase.

[joshuha]

I find that prompting them for a vote sometime speeds things along when the party is being indecisive. If multiple ideas are being presented, just do the votes all in a row and go with the one that gets most (and tell your players not to vote for more than one).

/vote Goto the library for research on the ancient languange in the map?
/vote Speak with the temple cleric about the holy symbols?
/vote Attempt to follow the map blindy?

[gurney9999]

/vote Are your sure you want to charge through that door with the flames shooting underneath its frame?

[joshuha]

/vote Are your sure you want to charge through that door with the flames shooting underneath it's frame?

Why hasn't anyone clicked the checkbox yet?

[Paradoxic]

They all must have gone afk briefly, don't worry... I'm sure they'll click on it soon.

[WolfStar76]

Hey again,

My players are sometimes spending way too much time discussion or thinking about what they are going to do. This takes the speed out of especially combat and is unrealistic. (We are playing with skype so chatspeed is not limiting)


While I could see this being useful to some, I find it much easier to crack the whip at my players, at least in a combat situation. If someone wants to stop and debate combat options for a couple minutes - I remind them that this is combat and that their "turn" takes 6 seconds. I then ask them, point blank "What do you want to do?" - that usually snaps them out of it.

If a player is being particularly obstinate, and have had more than their fair share of time to pick something to do, I warn them to do something quick or else they're taking a delay action and I move on. For some, especially spellcasters, this works just fine, as they need a moment to pick a spell, which I don't see as being unrealistic at all.

For players that are hemming and hawing over a puzzle, or choosing between one of three doors, or other non-combat items, there are a few things you can do.

The first is to simply let them take their time, 5 or 6 minutes of table-talk might be dull for you as the GM, but you can use that time to prep FG for the next encounter.

If you really feel like the party is taking too long, you can start to ask them if they want to know anything about the situation - make them ask questions, sometimes a minor clue tossed at them, even a false one, will spur them into action.

If the party is standing in the middle of a goblin-infested hole, depbating what to do next, it's also possible that some goblin guards overhear them debating which way to go, and attack on a surprise round.

My personal favorite is to start rolling dice if the party is taking too long. Someone will usually ask "What are you doing" at which point I pause and reply along the lines of "Oh, don't worry about that, you'll meet him in a little bit. . . and he's not happy."

Something cryptic like that can also spur the party into doing *something* as it beats standing around waiting for an ambush.

I guess I'm lucky in that I have 2 impatient players who do most of my spurring for me, but the above tricks can all be used to keep the party moving along - without imposing a "forced" time limit that might stress the players out and ony make things worse. A timer could, in fact, even backfire, unless you have a consequence lined up for not obeying it, and that feels too heavy-handed. . . at least for me.

Just some food for thought.

[The Velvet Souljah]

Yeah, I think I am with WolfStar on this one. It would be an interesting feature but I am not sure it would mean a whole lot to me as this is something that I prefer to handle in a different manner.

Hopefully, the pace of the game is such that players are in the moment and are looking to push ahead of their own accord. If that is not happening, my own (personal) sense is that something in the game needs to be fixed and simply fixing the symptoms with something like a timer won't do much.

Having said that, I can see that some people would find it useful and helpful to their games.

In general, I do like the ideas of timers - timers to countdown the number of rounds that spell effects are still around, etc. I would think this kind of thing could be handled with one larger component, killing two birds with one stone.

[richvalle]

In general, I do like the ideas of timers - timers to countdown the number of rounds that spell effects are still around, etc. I would think this kind of thing could be handled with one larger component, killing two birds with one stone.

It looks like the new init tracker will have this functionality built in.

rv