Tropico
June 27th, 2007, 15:45
Hey guys..
By now I've played a few games on FG2. It's been awesome fun and reminds me a lot of my old MUDing days before I learned too much about the inner workings of the code and ruined the game for myself. I'm definitely very psyched to start DMing myself soon :D
However, one shortcoming about FG2's type of online-pnp play has become very apparent to me, and that is a general lack of speed. The game and especially combat tends to "lag" and bog down when the players or the DM try to fiddle or adjust stuff on the fly.
The following is a few tips I've found while reading around the web on this issue. Mostly what I've found is that FG2 already does a huge amount to speed up everything; most tips I found on speeding up d20 involved simplifying math and record keeping, something which FG2 already has handled for us, or reducing the number of rolls, which isn't a big deal anyways with FG2's automatic dice. The issue with FG2 is mostly being able to move and react in a snappy way as a DM, and in keeping everyone engaged for long enough that their turn comes around again and they're ready to go.
Anyway, these are tips that I think would help speed up play while at the same time not changing the d20 game and having a good chance of being accepted by players with little fuss. I would appreciate anyone, especially those FG2 veterans out there, who could contribute their own wisdom in tips and pointers, since their own knowledge of FG2 and online tabletops surely exceeds my own by a mile :)
Also, several of these are irrelevant when you're using TeamSpeak, but a lot of people don't, especially newcomers, so I included them anyway.
Do all shopping and char-sheet stuff 'offline' before the game
Maybe I've just been unlucky, but I've seen that a sizable block of time is spent simply looking over the character sheets and 'going shopping' for stuff. I think it would pay well to set up a blog or an email address where players might send all questions and actions of this type during the days before the game, so that when it's time to play everyone is that much closer to just sitting down and playing. Maybe you could even go as far as requiring characters to be 'play ready' before logging in to the game (although that may not be feasible, since would depend entirely on how many people are wanting to play).
Design just a few *special* combats
Instead of having your adventures be a string of combat-focused encounters, possibly try to focus the whole thing more on stuff like exploration, discoveries, puzzles, and people, while keeping the combat whittled down to maybe 2 or 3 very central, very interesting, very challenging fights. The typical quickie 'filler-fight' we take for granted in real PnP and MUDing becomes a monster time-sucker when transported to an online tabletop. Instead of seeing this as a problem, we might see it as a great opportunity to have all our combats be something special and memorable.
Make maps that focus on encounters or scenes
Large maps that detail an entire town or an entire sprawling dungeon become major 'fiddlers' and are guilty of taking up our playing time with mechanics. Instead, maybe consider making maps to be more 'modular' in scope, with each map representing one self-contained encounter area, one dungeon section, or one 'scene' in your story, where it's unnecessary/impossible to casually venture outside the edges of the map.
Preload all maps and images
This is an obvious one.. There's no need for that "Loading..." image to ever show up for your players when FG2 has the feature to pre-load. If you take the time to preemptively load images and maps that the party is getting close to, you eliminate all the little load times, which together, add up to quite a decent bit of time.
Have room and actions descriptions ready and hotkey'ed
Also an obvious one, but I'm not just talking about room descriptions, also consider hotkey'ing stuff like, "You swing your weapon but miss", "Your sword hits! Roll for damage", "Critical threat - roll to confirm"... etc. This comes from my MUDing background where EVERY action was a canned response from the game algorithm. Yeah if you do it too much it'll suck the atmosphere right out of your game, but done in moderation I think it can really speed things up (MUD combats are boring, but heck they are FAST).
Use Joshuha's 'automatic rolls from character sheet' scripts
These little scripts which are discussed and detailed out in this thread (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6015) are a godsend for game speed. I couldn't imagine playing without them now. All hail Joshuha. Yep.
Preroll initiatives
One PnP DM I had had us roll our initiatives as soon as we walked in the door. He himself already had all his NPC's initiative rolls already rolled out along with their other stats. He also used index cards to hold our stats and our place in the round. As soon as we got into an encounter, he simply called out a name and asked for an action. When combat was over, he asked us to roll for the next encounter. The result was very snappy play.
Alternatively, never roll initiatives at all, just order combat rounds by everyone's init. modifier and be done with it. Initiative is one of the few places where EVERYONE has to roll at the same time (and the DM many times) it's a classic situation that one guy will hold everyone else up and prevent the combat from getting rolling.
Assume 10 on monsters' initiatives
If your players are set against eliminating their init rolls, then simply eliminate all YOUR init rolls. Every little bit that you streamline counts.
Roll a single initiative for monsters and move them as a group
In my experiences as a player so far, Ive found that when the round sporadically stops and goes depending on how many monsters there are, my mind starts to numb to the whole thing. If you move monsters as a group in a single turn in the round it will end up being more predictable, more 'followable' and more engaging to the player in the end.
"Monster - Monster - Player - Monster - Player - Monster - Monster - Monster - Player - Monster - Player" is just more tedious to follow than "Player - Player - Monsters - Player - Player". Then again, players may be set against this (though I think it unlikely?)
Always let players know who's got the current turn
Regardless of whether you move as a turn or not, you need to hotkey some turn announcements announcing which Player/NPC/Monster has the turn. This is just to let the player know that yes, you are taking your turn and everything hasn't ground down to a halt suddenly. This should really be a default behavior of FG2 itself imho, but as long as it isn't, we should compensate for it.
Roll damage together with to-hit
The classic dice-pooling thing that speeds up everything just as well in real PnP as it does in online tabletop. In MUDs it isn't even an issue at all; swing, AC resolution, damage and result description are all just one instant pulse, no waiting, invisible. We should try to get as close as we can to that.
Use static 'averaged' damage
This one players could definitely be against using. Just no damage rolls, use the average or the average + 1 of the whatever damage dice you have. I think this could speed up the game not only by having less rolls, but also by increasing the overall damage done by everyone (but it could also bring balance issues, I can't say)
Preroll spot and listen checks
This one is an AWESOME tactic that the same DM above also used. he would simply have us roll a batch of d20s before playing, note them down, and have those be our Spot and Listen results for the session, crossing them off as he went along. Not only did this speed up play, but we never knew when we were actually making a Spot or Listen check in the first place - we just got told the results. This eliminated the whole immersion-breaking "I know there's *something* there because I had to roll, I just don't know what it is" thing that happens when the DM has you roll the check during the game. If I can recommend just ONE tip out of all of these, it would be this one - it really does improve the game a lot.
Give XP in a batch at the end of the game
I've found goal-based XP instead of combat- or encounter-based XP is generally a good idea, but it becomes doubly so in the context of OTs. Just have a list of stuff the party can achieve within the adventure and how much XP each thing is worth, like "Retrieve the Golden Chalice - 1000 XP; Clear dungeon of monsters - 800 XP; Find special secret room at the end - 550 XP; Detect the Duke's betrayal before it happens - 750 XP" and so on. At the end just look at what the party accomplished, add it up and give it out. Easy and simple.
Have a pre-arragement on what to do if someone becomes unresponsive
Something like, "If I'm lagging out or AFK, just have my character heal whoever needs it the most, and run from combat if necessary" or "Just have my character try to tank and protect the mages as well as he can" can put an end to those lulls where everyone going "Dude? you there? it's your turn.. dude?" FG2's little 'sleepy Z' icon is a great and convenient measure for this, I think.
Have a pre-arragement on what to do if someone drops connection
If someone drops out without warning do you immediately know what you do? If it was something with FG2, can you get in touch through MSN or Yahoo? If their whole connection dropped, should you keep going with their char? Keep going without their char? Stop the game? This needs to be known beforehand. Playing MUDs brings many similar situations, so I've seen it happen.
By now I've played a few games on FG2. It's been awesome fun and reminds me a lot of my old MUDing days before I learned too much about the inner workings of the code and ruined the game for myself. I'm definitely very psyched to start DMing myself soon :D
However, one shortcoming about FG2's type of online-pnp play has become very apparent to me, and that is a general lack of speed. The game and especially combat tends to "lag" and bog down when the players or the DM try to fiddle or adjust stuff on the fly.
The following is a few tips I've found while reading around the web on this issue. Mostly what I've found is that FG2 already does a huge amount to speed up everything; most tips I found on speeding up d20 involved simplifying math and record keeping, something which FG2 already has handled for us, or reducing the number of rolls, which isn't a big deal anyways with FG2's automatic dice. The issue with FG2 is mostly being able to move and react in a snappy way as a DM, and in keeping everyone engaged for long enough that their turn comes around again and they're ready to go.
Anyway, these are tips that I think would help speed up play while at the same time not changing the d20 game and having a good chance of being accepted by players with little fuss. I would appreciate anyone, especially those FG2 veterans out there, who could contribute their own wisdom in tips and pointers, since their own knowledge of FG2 and online tabletops surely exceeds my own by a mile :)
Also, several of these are irrelevant when you're using TeamSpeak, but a lot of people don't, especially newcomers, so I included them anyway.
Do all shopping and char-sheet stuff 'offline' before the game
Maybe I've just been unlucky, but I've seen that a sizable block of time is spent simply looking over the character sheets and 'going shopping' for stuff. I think it would pay well to set up a blog or an email address where players might send all questions and actions of this type during the days before the game, so that when it's time to play everyone is that much closer to just sitting down and playing. Maybe you could even go as far as requiring characters to be 'play ready' before logging in to the game (although that may not be feasible, since would depend entirely on how many people are wanting to play).
Design just a few *special* combats
Instead of having your adventures be a string of combat-focused encounters, possibly try to focus the whole thing more on stuff like exploration, discoveries, puzzles, and people, while keeping the combat whittled down to maybe 2 or 3 very central, very interesting, very challenging fights. The typical quickie 'filler-fight' we take for granted in real PnP and MUDing becomes a monster time-sucker when transported to an online tabletop. Instead of seeing this as a problem, we might see it as a great opportunity to have all our combats be something special and memorable.
Make maps that focus on encounters or scenes
Large maps that detail an entire town or an entire sprawling dungeon become major 'fiddlers' and are guilty of taking up our playing time with mechanics. Instead, maybe consider making maps to be more 'modular' in scope, with each map representing one self-contained encounter area, one dungeon section, or one 'scene' in your story, where it's unnecessary/impossible to casually venture outside the edges of the map.
Preload all maps and images
This is an obvious one.. There's no need for that "Loading..." image to ever show up for your players when FG2 has the feature to pre-load. If you take the time to preemptively load images and maps that the party is getting close to, you eliminate all the little load times, which together, add up to quite a decent bit of time.
Have room and actions descriptions ready and hotkey'ed
Also an obvious one, but I'm not just talking about room descriptions, also consider hotkey'ing stuff like, "You swing your weapon but miss", "Your sword hits! Roll for damage", "Critical threat - roll to confirm"... etc. This comes from my MUDing background where EVERY action was a canned response from the game algorithm. Yeah if you do it too much it'll suck the atmosphere right out of your game, but done in moderation I think it can really speed things up (MUD combats are boring, but heck they are FAST).
Use Joshuha's 'automatic rolls from character sheet' scripts
These little scripts which are discussed and detailed out in this thread (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6015) are a godsend for game speed. I couldn't imagine playing without them now. All hail Joshuha. Yep.
Preroll initiatives
One PnP DM I had had us roll our initiatives as soon as we walked in the door. He himself already had all his NPC's initiative rolls already rolled out along with their other stats. He also used index cards to hold our stats and our place in the round. As soon as we got into an encounter, he simply called out a name and asked for an action. When combat was over, he asked us to roll for the next encounter. The result was very snappy play.
Alternatively, never roll initiatives at all, just order combat rounds by everyone's init. modifier and be done with it. Initiative is one of the few places where EVERYONE has to roll at the same time (and the DM many times) it's a classic situation that one guy will hold everyone else up and prevent the combat from getting rolling.
Assume 10 on monsters' initiatives
If your players are set against eliminating their init rolls, then simply eliminate all YOUR init rolls. Every little bit that you streamline counts.
Roll a single initiative for monsters and move them as a group
In my experiences as a player so far, Ive found that when the round sporadically stops and goes depending on how many monsters there are, my mind starts to numb to the whole thing. If you move monsters as a group in a single turn in the round it will end up being more predictable, more 'followable' and more engaging to the player in the end.
"Monster - Monster - Player - Monster - Player - Monster - Monster - Monster - Player - Monster - Player" is just more tedious to follow than "Player - Player - Monsters - Player - Player". Then again, players may be set against this (though I think it unlikely?)
Always let players know who's got the current turn
Regardless of whether you move as a turn or not, you need to hotkey some turn announcements announcing which Player/NPC/Monster has the turn. This is just to let the player know that yes, you are taking your turn and everything hasn't ground down to a halt suddenly. This should really be a default behavior of FG2 itself imho, but as long as it isn't, we should compensate for it.
Roll damage together with to-hit
The classic dice-pooling thing that speeds up everything just as well in real PnP as it does in online tabletop. In MUDs it isn't even an issue at all; swing, AC resolution, damage and result description are all just one instant pulse, no waiting, invisible. We should try to get as close as we can to that.
Use static 'averaged' damage
This one players could definitely be against using. Just no damage rolls, use the average or the average + 1 of the whatever damage dice you have. I think this could speed up the game not only by having less rolls, but also by increasing the overall damage done by everyone (but it could also bring balance issues, I can't say)
Preroll spot and listen checks
This one is an AWESOME tactic that the same DM above also used. he would simply have us roll a batch of d20s before playing, note them down, and have those be our Spot and Listen results for the session, crossing them off as he went along. Not only did this speed up play, but we never knew when we were actually making a Spot or Listen check in the first place - we just got told the results. This eliminated the whole immersion-breaking "I know there's *something* there because I had to roll, I just don't know what it is" thing that happens when the DM has you roll the check during the game. If I can recommend just ONE tip out of all of these, it would be this one - it really does improve the game a lot.
Give XP in a batch at the end of the game
I've found goal-based XP instead of combat- or encounter-based XP is generally a good idea, but it becomes doubly so in the context of OTs. Just have a list of stuff the party can achieve within the adventure and how much XP each thing is worth, like "Retrieve the Golden Chalice - 1000 XP; Clear dungeon of monsters - 800 XP; Find special secret room at the end - 550 XP; Detect the Duke's betrayal before it happens - 750 XP" and so on. At the end just look at what the party accomplished, add it up and give it out. Easy and simple.
Have a pre-arragement on what to do if someone becomes unresponsive
Something like, "If I'm lagging out or AFK, just have my character heal whoever needs it the most, and run from combat if necessary" or "Just have my character try to tank and protect the mages as well as he can" can put an end to those lulls where everyone going "Dude? you there? it's your turn.. dude?" FG2's little 'sleepy Z' icon is a great and convenient measure for this, I think.
Have a pre-arragement on what to do if someone drops connection
If someone drops out without warning do you immediately know what you do? If it was something with FG2, can you get in touch through MSN or Yahoo? If their whole connection dropped, should you keep going with their char? Keep going without their char? Stop the game? This needs to be known beforehand. Playing MUDs brings many similar situations, so I've seen it happen.