New CKing Q

[mr_pony]

Hey all,

I've been playing a bit of C&C with some friends, and its gone mostly very well. We played a bit while together at school, someone else ran a one-shot Tomb of Horrors (which went well for the half we did of it, but we lost our sheets at the end of the year ). My somewhat silly ad hoc test campaign setting (based on 17th/18th century central Pennsylvania with a necromantic substitute for the South) has grown into a relatively full world they are exploring and fighting in. The only recurring issue has been pacing. They never get through even half of my prepared encounters, and I only prepare for about half the encounters of A0 per session.

As CK, should I be pushing them to keep moving through dungeons and outdoor encounters, or should I let them argue about whether to open the next door or not for 15 minutes?

This problem has been exacerbated by the addition of new players, and the switch to skype and now additionally maptools. Once we get used to these, it should get faster, but I still think it might be an issue. Do more experienced CKs have any advice for this? I am inclined to either make them select a leader, or simply threaten them with listen checks from monsters, who will call for help.

[Rigon]

you should get faster once you get skype and maptools figured out better, but you can also roll for random encounters when the pace slows to a crawl. Nothing gets a party moving like a good random encounter.
R-
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Rigon o' the Lakelands, Baron of The Castles & Crusades Society
The Book of the Mind

[Sir Osis of Liver]

mr_pony wrote:
Hey all,

I've been playing a bit of C&C with some friends, and its gone mostly very well. We played a bit while together at school, someone else ran a one-shot Tomb of Horrors (which went well for the half we did of it, but we lost our sheets at the end of the year ). My somewhat silly ad hoc test campaign setting (based on 17th/18th century central Pennsylvania with a necromantic substitute for the South) has grown into a relatively full world they are exploring and fighting in. The only recurring issue has been pacing. They never get through even half of my prepared encounters, and I only prepare for about half the encounters of A0 per session.

As CK, should I be pushing them to keep moving through dungeons and outdoor encounters, or should I let them argue about whether to open the next door or not for 15 minutes?

This problem has been exacerbated by the addition of new players, and the switch to skype and now additionally maptools. Once we get used to these, it should get faster, but I still think it might be an issue. Do more experienced CKs have any advice for this? I am inclined to either make them select a leader, or simply threaten them with listen checks from monsters, who will call for help.

Good questions all. With regard to the first, what's the hurry? The point of gaming isn't to get all the way through your adventure. The point of gaming is to hang out around the table with your buddies and have a good time. The only time I've had problems like this was playing d20 and everybody having to spend 20 minutes looking up rules after declaring each and every action. As CK, your first priority is making sure that the people at your table have a good time. If that's how they want to play, then roll with it. Find a way to play into their game. Trap the door with a collapsing ceiling that drops at a rate of 1 ft/round. If you try artificially picking up the pace, you run the risk of making them feel like you're railroading them into something you want them to do instead of letting them do what they want to do. You have to be able to distance yourself from this notion that what's important is the dungeon you've devised. Give them enough time and they'll get through it.

My last session (this past Saturday), I put a trap into one of Jim's Towers that I thought would do some serious damage to the party. Instead, they figured out a way to get it out of the tower and it wound up saving their skins later. It was completely unanticipated on my part, but when they proposed it, I figured why not? Let's give it a whirl. That plan took over 20 minutes to devise. I just enjoyed sitting back and watching them come up with the plan. Then when it worked for them, it was neat. Then more of the monsters came out of the woods and nearly killed two of the party members...that's fun. I'm old enough, and get to game infrequently enough, that when I do get to play, I turn them loose and enjoy the aftermath. It's hanging out with your buddies that's far more important than whether or not they get all the way through your adventure. They're not all there for your enjoyment.

Sorry...didn't mean to come off as lecturing, but I've gone through the same things in the past.

[CKDad]

Well, sometimes a party will just bog down and dither. This can happen to any gaming group, but some are more prone to it than others. These are the times when it's up to the GM to Make. Stuff. Happen!

So... sling a random monster at them. A storm. A meteorite. Night begins to fall and they need to make camp. An NPC takes independent action (think Pippin Took knocking the stone down the well in Lord of the Rings). Something to jolt them out of whatever recursive loop they've gotten themselves into and get dice rolling!
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"I don't wanna be remembered as the guy who died because he underestimated the threat posed by a monkey."

[Sir Osis of Liver]

CKDad wrote:
Well, sometimes a party will just bog down and dither. This can happen to any gaming group, but some are more prone to it than others. These are the times when it's up to the GM to Make. Stuff. Happen!

So... sling a random monster at them. A storm. A meteorite. Night begins to fall and they need to make camp. An NPC takes independent action (think Pippin Took knocking the stone down the well in Lord of the Rings). Something to jolt them out of whatever recursive loop they've gotten themselves into and get dice rolling!

Seconds to that. Sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like you shouldn't have fun as well. I've played under DMs/CKs who have kept a 1' egg timer on the table. When it came time to declare an action, we got 1 minute to declare our action. If we didn't make it on time, we had to hold our action until the end of the round. That was a bit extreme, but it did work at speeding the game up. Damn near started a revolt as well, but for the time that we did it, it worked.

Random encounters work well also. I like using Mimics for doors. It keeps everybody on their feet, although you run the risk of bogging everybody down further when they get to doors.

Bottom line, there needs to be a balance between the party dillying about with ultimately getting through the adventure. It hasn't been uncommon for my group to go 2, 3 and even 4 sessions to complete a module. That's with sessions that start at 9 a.m. and go until 5 or 6 p.m. on a Saturday. Just don't get disillusioned about not completing an adventure a session. It's kinda like horking down a $50 steak at Ruth's Chris like it's a (name your least favorite fast food joint burger here). It doesn't make a lot of sense.

[CKDad]

No need to apologize Sir O.! Different groups have different tolerances for pace, and if everyone's happy & having fun taking their time, have at it!

There are definitely also times it's worth slowing down and taking time. I was more referring to the kind of instances the OP posited, where the party takes forever to decide on opening a single door.

The only time I really crank down hard on things is when I run a convention game or something like that.
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"I don't wanna be remembered as the guy who died because he underestimated the threat posed by a monkey."

[mr_pony]

Thanks for all the advice! All the players have complained about pace, and between the threat of lurking doom, a stricter no metagaming policy, and mastery of the tools, I'm hoping our next session will get along better. And maybe the PCs will see level 2!