Why do so many bad GMs act like "combat speed" is something

>>49710932
>PbtA systems are not faster than autistic dicepool shit like Shadowrun

Yeah, sure thing buddy.

>>49710932
Often, on /tg/, we only hear the problem cases and issues arisen. Good games don't have vent threads. Good GM's don't get bitched about. So when you hear the same thing over and over, its a common fault of the bad GM's, not ALL GM's.

>>49710932
There's so much wrong about your post that I'm not even going to bother arguing. Instead I'm just going to tell you to shut up and call you stupid.

Shut up stupid.

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>>49711015

Wow, it's a good thing OP was so very wrong, otherwise you might have to defend your opinion, heh! C-Close one!

>>49710932
This is why I write rules on notecards. I run a simple fight in my head, and write down any rules that I would need to use during the fight.

This is almost necessary for GURPS. I don't want to remember any combat rules, only where I wrote them down.

>>49711043
Shut up stupid.

>>49711077

Stay bad, baddie ;^)

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Recently I started a new game as GM for 6 players, and I decided early on to RUSH the turns so fast that I was convinced that it was too fast, normally I encourage people to describe how they attack and then I describe how the enemies get hurt, etc. Also I would intentionally keep people from making little jokes and chitchat during someone elses turn, by saying "your character can only say a short phrase on your own turn" built into their movement, and I prevented any metagaming other than that. I feared it would be too strict and less fun for the players. However the result of rushing the turns was that combat was quicker, and everyone got more turns in. Then after the game they mentioned they liked actually having enough game play where they had to use their skills and spells, instead of getting in a few turns over the course of 4 hours as usual. So I think ultimatly it was well worth giving up some of the fluffy table talk to speed up the mechanics.

However by now 3 of them have dropped out, so even with the remaining 3 PCs I still keep things moving, out of habit.

>>49711015
This. Cancer doesn't need to be refuted, it needs to be removed from the board.

>>49711172

Stay bad, baddie ;^)

>>49710932

Often times this is because you're running a game where combat is deadly as hell and even one wrong move is gonna get players killed. They'll instinctively slow down to consider all their options if suboptimal play is gonna end up in their death.

Sure, you can forcibly keep up the pace by pushing the players to make a decision but that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be fun for the players.

Personally, if I feel a player is taking overly long in taking a turn I'll often just have an enemy taunt them. If they still dawdle, they're automatically considered to have delayed their turn and I'll just turn to the next person in turn order and go "While he's considering his options, what do you do?". I also try and remind people when their turn is about to come up so that they can already start thinking about what they do.

I don't disagree with you but I think that combat pacing is a bit more complicated than putting players to the clock.

tell your player to have buff lists and conditional spells so they can just use them on the fly.Try to make things chose target and roll to speed things up. Have characters plan actions during other people's turns. if all else fails, make initiative, us vs. them and have whoever knows what they are doing go first.

>>49711209
>Sure, you can forcibly keep up the pace by pushing the players to make a decision but that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be fun for the players.

Combat is supposed to be stressful. That is literally the point of combat.

And give it a rest with these "forcibly keep up the pace" style loaded phrases. The GM is the one who decides the pace of the game because he is the portal through which players interact with the world and the world interacts with the player's characters. Things only slow down if he slows down.

It is not more complicated, it is beta GMs fretting more over making sure their players are comfortable and relaxed than actually being involved in the fucking game.

>>49710990
>speed is everything
if you want to end combat as quickly as possible, don't have them to begin with. when comparison shadowrun and pbta, SR's added complexity is well worth it.

>>49711001
#notallgms

>>49711172
so leave already

>>49711312
>>49711172
Hi OP

Nice try, but you just got told. :^)

Anyone can make up shit and post it on the internet, but it takes legit skill to riff off that and serve the other guy. Your response tells me you don't have that skill. You probably spent about 45 mins coming up with your post, and then when you were challenged within minutes, you fell apart. You choked bro. You choked hard.

Oh no! Nobody's falling for it! What are you going to do? Let's see you wriggle on my hook a bit more, kid. Dance up a merry jig and maybe I'll give you a few pointers on how to b8 properly when you're done.

>>49711274
>Combat is supposed to be stressful
And games are meant to be fun.

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>>49711364

Are you that same guy trying to force a new copypasta on the archive?

>>49711384

The two aren't mutually exclusive, you're just retarded. Competitive games are stressful, but they are definitely fun.

>>49711419
But RPGs usually aren't competitive, unless you've got it in your head that the GM should be the player's enemy.

>>49711442

It's an example of why you are plainly and demonstrably wrong, you sperg.

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>>49711312
>SR's added complexity is well worth it
>SR as an example of good complexity

>>49711274
>Combat is supposed to be stressful. That's literally the point of combat.

Combat is just another part of the game and you can definitely have unstressful combat if you so choose. Sometimes it's nice to be clearly stronger than the opposition.

>And give it a rest with these "forcibly keep up the pace" style loaded phrases. The GM is the one who decides the pace of the game because he is the portal through which players interact with the world and the world interacts with the player's characters. Things only slow down if he slows down.

Just because the GM decides the pace doesn't mean that his decision is the correct one. You cannot merely adopt fast combat without understanding the problem.

>It is not more complicated, it is beta GMs fretting more over making sure their players are comfortable and relaxed than actually being involved in the fucking game.

Maybe, but I still think that speeding up combat is more than just putting players to the clock. Pacing is all about reading the party and seeing what sort of pacing they want at the time. If people look bored and out of it, up the pace. If they look exhausted, give them a breather. If someone is taking their sweet ass time deciding on the most optimal spell to cast while the rest of the party is digging out their phones, skip their turn.

>>49710932
I was glad to read this, but also somewhat appalled to learn that I am a bad GM and possibly retarded. Still, it's good to know I'm not the only one with the problems. Please help me find my crayons.

>>49710932
>BAB
Oh look, another 3.5 player trying to rationalize his stockholm syndrome.

>I have to spend six hours a day cultivating an encyclopedic knowledge of the rules to play through combat at anything approaching a reasonable speed
>this is reasonable to expect from someone
>anyone who refuses to dedicate his entire life to mastering this poorly-playstested, bloated, unhelpful ruleset is a retarded casual beneath my respect

>it doesn't matter that the ruleset is more broken than a china-set thrown under a steam roller, and moves slower than a two-legged dog
>you can just power through it by thinking about literally nothing else in your single-minded devotion to this one game's mechanics

>>49711312
>if you want to end combat as quickly as possible, don't have them to begin with.
The issue isn't that combat is long, the issue with long combat tends to be
>Nothing is actually happening except players sitting around thinking who should move where for five minutes before deciding to stay put and shoot
>Combat is just a slow slugfest with no real investment until the last two rounds
>The players are never in real danger and just have to waste time chipping away the enemy's health

Anyway what I do to keep players moving is I have an egg timer and give the players a set time to do their turn, if the timer runs out before they start rolling their turn is skipped. I started at like 3 minutes max per turn and by the end of the session ended up with 1 minute max turns, now turns are 30 seconds max. Players seem to like it actually, gives combat a sense of urgency and seem to like sometimes making bad decisions because they are rushed.

>>49711442
I think the point being made is that the threat of death/injury/loss should be weighing on the players while in combat. Limiting the time alotted to players to make decisions enhances the sensation of that threat, which in turn enhances the enjoyment of winning a fight. It's risk vs. reward.

>>49711634
>>I have to spend six hours a day cultivating an encyclopedic knowledge of the rules to play through combat at anything approaching a reasonable speed
>>this is reasonable to expect from someone
D&D detractor here. you know... that is what roleplaying meant for decades. and you know what? we had lots of fun in the 80s and 90s, learning different rule systems and shit. heck, i mastered SR 1E/2E to run it at reasonable speed. that is fine because once you master it, it's loads of fun. my problem with newer RPGs is that they are too streamlined, geared towards people who don't want to learn systems and master them.

>>49710932

Hey check it out.

>System A: You need to roll to hit, and roll for damage based on the results of the hit.
>System B: You need to roll to hit, and damage is standardized.

HOLY SHIT ONE TAKES HALF AS MANY DICE ROLLS. No amount of "feet in the fire" is going to change the fact that System A makes you roll after you roll. It will take more time. Now compound that by all the extra shit some systems cram in, and turns and initiative being handled differently, and hell, the simple base differences in lethality between systems. Two systems can have exactly the same mechanics for combat, but if one has giant health-pools and the other doesn't then *combat is going to take longer in the first one*.

I cannot fathom how you could actually believe what you're posting unless you're doing it to make me angry, and if that was your goal then you have succeeded.

You are dumb.

>>49711419
>Are you that same guy trying to force a new copypasta on the archive?

No, I'm the guy who just blew you the fuck out

>>49712232
>No amount of "feet in the fire" is going to change the fact that System A makes you roll after you roll. It will take more time.
and how much time does rolling for damage take? most gamers will pay that meagre price for the thrill of a damage roll gladly.

>>49712232

>"WOOWWWW I HAD TO ROLL AN EXTRA DIE ARE YOU KIDDING ME NOW I HAVE TO SPEND 2 MINUTES LONGER READING THE RESULT"

lmfao. If "I had to spend an extra second reading a new die" is why your combats are slow and shit, the problem runs deeper than you think, pal.

>>49712232
I agree with everything you said except the specific example, because you can just roll the damage dice at the same time you roll to hit. Everyone I know already does this.

>>49712406
I'm not that anon, but I find that some players can be weirdly stubborn about rolling that way. Like their poor player-minds somehow perceive it as more work to roll two dice at once, than it is to roll and look for them individually.

>>49711419
>mad as fuck
>trying to make out that others are mad

I've seen some desperate damage control in my time, but this is a new low.

Relevant article

http://www.madadventurers.com/angry-rants-control-your-game/

http://pastebin.com/rq3grUfN

TLDR: Combat is only "slow" or "long" if your combat sucks and fails to engage in the first place. Make it interesting and exciting and the problem disappears.

>>49710932
I don't expect anything from my players that I can't deliver myself.

That, and the only one who takes a while in combat is our Wizard, because he always overthinks, but his house is the only one big enough to host the games, so we owe him that.

In some games an attack action may require an attack roll, critical hit confirmation roll, damage roll, exploding damage dice, hit confirmation rolls, toughness/armour/injury rolls, and/or counter-attack rolls. Some characters can even make multiple attacks per turn. Those games are inherently slower than, say, a game where you roll once for your entire attack - no damage rolls, toughness checks, or anything of that nature.

It is true that the -flow- of combat is under the GM's control, but the process of how long it takes to resolve a character's actions in battle? The system does indeed contribute to that. You can argue (and I won't deny) that system mastery can cut that down to a handful of seconds. However the simple fact is that a handful of seconds, multiplied thirty or forty times over a combat encounter, can be significant.

Complexity in games can be great! It's the currency by which you get deep, interesting mechanics and systems. But complexity isn't the goal, it's a side-effect of achieving the gameplay model you want for your campaign. And sometimes you need to switch systems if what you're using doesn't work for you. There's no shame in going rules-light if it gives you a better game experience, just like there's no shame in wanting a game with tons of charts and tables.

So, I guess my point is that different folks play games differently from each other, and maybe the right thing to do is treating your players like human beings and adapting your games to their needs instead of treating them like retarded babies.

>>49713801

And then there's the pseudo intellectual fence sitters.

>>49715029
Not exactly sure what you mean by that, friend. If you mean to say that I'm not attributing the problem solely to players or to the system, well... yeah, I'm not. Slow combats in TTRPGs can have multiple contributing factors. It's never 100% "My players are idiots who can't do math or make decisions" and it's never 100% "This system is prohibitively slow and tedious". Sure, some systems are just plain terrible but I don't think OP is referring to anything like those.

I think most players want combat to be easy to resolve. Not simple, because some players get enormous fun out of complex and deep combat systems. Not fast, because some players like to take their time describing the dramatic back and forth of battle, and because some climactic fights would be disappointing if you just rushed them with a handful of dice rolls. I mean to say they want the combat rules to be intuitive, accessible, and to have clearly understood steps for resolution. You need the mechanics to be something you can wrap your head around (at least at a basic level) in a couple minutes, if not seconds. You need to present the necessary information and options so they don't have to go searching through the manual every time they take an action. Finally, you need clear indicators of how things start, how they progress, and how they finish. You'd be amazed at how many 'good' games fail at this.

>>49715302

Not him but:

>first anon's shitpost takes 5 seconds
>your considered reply explaining why he's wrong takes 10 times as long, probably longer
>in the meantime the shitposter has already said another 10+ stupid things on other threads, and will reply to you with another shitpost

This is why you shouldn't argue with idiots, anon. When people say "an idiot will drag you down to their level and beat you on experience", this is what they mean.

Factor in "I was only pretending to be retarded" types like OP and it's a pointless game.

>>49713801
>>49715302
unless it is excessive complex, the system is not an issue. even rolemaster is playable and you have to use lookup tables there EVERY TIME

I already, as a player, delay my turn until I figure out what to do next.

>>49715302
>Slow combats in TTRPGs can have multiple contributing factors.

It's a meaningless statement. Like >>49713552
says, long movies don't feel long because of their run time, they feel long because they're fucking boring.

It's the same thing with p&p games. Claiming that combat is too long because it takes too long to roll some dice and apply basic math is farcical.

>>49710932
I have an active timer at all times in my games.

If I want my campaign's combat to be strategic or at least organised, I give them a timelimit of 2 minutes.
If I want it to be done quick but not get messy, I leave it at 1 minute.
If I want to make combat a chaotic hell, the limit is set to 15 seconds, resetting on a question related to the combat encounter once per turn.

>>49715445
>long movies don't feel long because of their run time, they feel long because they're fucking boring

Bullshit. When you look at the clock after combat and realize it took two hours to simulate 90 seconds of game-time, combat took a long time. Regardless of how it fucking felt.

>>49711634
The DMG specifically tells DMs to adlib whatever rule they think is appropriate for the situation if they don't know the RAW.

>>49715560

Well we don't fucking care if it "actually" takes a long time chucklehead, we care about if it FELT like it took a long time.

>>49710932

Constantly telling the players to hurry up (or worse, putting them on an actual timer) only serves to annoy and frustrate them, ruining the point of playing RPGs. If a game is slow, the game is slow and that's that.

There are things a GM may do to speed things other than switching games or altering/removing subsystems. One of the most effective is simply having less combat in your game. You don't need to run into a patrol of Fuckbears in every single corridor of the Dungeon of Darn.

>>49715599

Oh look the goalposts are somewhere else now. I thought this was a thread about "combat speed" existing completely independently from the game system, which is laughably, utterly false. My bad, continue talking about your feelings.

>>49715624

>the goalposts are being moved somewhere else now

You're a retard. >>49715445 said to begin with
>long movies don't feel long because of their run time, they feel long because they're fucking boring

Key word: FEEL.

Take your sperging somewhere else you clown.

>>49715633

And that's irrelevant to the topic of the thread. I might be having the time of my life, but a system that requires I recite the preamble to the constitution before making my attack roll is going to take longer to resolve combat than one that doesn't.

You can *like* systems with lengthy combat, that's fine. But that doesn't make it any less lengthy.

Hi i dont know if this is the right place to do this but im looking for a couple people to play my homebrew 5e on roll20...

>>49715665

Are you a cute girl?

>>49715674
nope just a bingus

>>49715665
It's not. Go to the general thread for that.

>>49711963
There is a pretty big line between "I want my game to run fluidly and be open to what someone wants to play", and "Devoid of minuta to work with".

>>49715658
>And that's irrelevant to the topic of the thread.

It's the foundation of why anyone cares about the time combat takes in the first place. Nobody raises an issue over this topic because people are counting the minutes go by because they've got a hot date to catch.

Fuck off already.

>>49715696
hey thanks ill do that

>>49715704

Okay, one, false. And two, let's bring this back. Do you, or do you not, believe that the speed at which combat is resolved exists independently of the system being used to run it?

That's the question. The answer is binary. It's yes or no.

>>49715704
>It's the foundation of why anyone cares about the time combat takes in the first place. Nobody raises an issue over this topic because people are counting the minutes go by because they've got a hot date to catch.

That's not true though. Even if the players are enjoying themselves on a minute-by-minute basis, there are only so many hours people can spare from their schedules of doing non-RPG things, and you generally want to go somewhere and accomplish something in an RPG session or the whole thing will feel like a waste (ideally, you want to complete the whole adventure in a single session, or at least get to a good "save point"). The actual amount of time spent per fight is relevant.

>>49715729

The answer is that nobody, except spergs such as yourself apparently, cares.

>>49715743

>Even if the players are enjoying themselves on a minute-by-minute basis . . .
>The actual amount of time spent per fight is relevant.

I feel you will find this an exceedingly difficult argument to support if you simultaneously believe that the point of p&p games to begin with is fun, but I am going to amuse myself by watching you try your best mental gymnastics to do so.

>>49715801

God damn can you dodge a question.

>>49715810

Stupid questions asked by stupid people are not worth answering. The subject was not about the literal length of combat resolution to begin with, which I reiterate, nobody cares about. People care about whether or not the time spent resolving it is fun and engaging.

>>49715801

You appear to be in full "I know I've lost this argument but God help me I'll never admit it" mode.

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>>49710932
>game's pace is literally whatever the GM decides it is
>it should be very fast, GMs who don't do this are bad

>>49710932
I only halfway agree with you. Yes, the GM can make an enormous difference in the pacing of the game, but complex mechanics can also slow things down. Of course, for me, the most important thing isn't when somebody's turn gets done, but how much time there is when nothing but thinking is going on. If a player is engaged and asking questions, that keeps people interested and involved, at least for a while. So I usually give people about 10-15 seconds of thinking before I start pestering them, but if they start asking questions or even talking about the decision they face, I'll give them a good bit more time.

>>49715933

You appear to be in "wishful thinking" mode.

>>49716022

>Characters are in a fast paced situation that demands them to think on their feet or suffer dire consequences
>L-Let's let em take their time, I wouldn't want to make them uncomfortable

t. beta GM

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>>49711963
>you know... that is what roleplaying meant for decades. and you know what? we had lots of fun in the 80s and 90s, learning different rule systems and shit.
>my problem with newer RPGs is that they are too streamlined
Don't treat middle school like it's old school. Overly-complicated RPGs were an unfortunate (but understandable) development, not the original state of things. The early days of role-gaming rested heavily upon GM improvisation, and this was a good thing. It allows for fast, easy play, and in my experience, heavy sets of rules almost end up being circumvented when they invariably give unrealistic or undesirable results, leading me to question the point of having all those rules in the first place.

>>49711137
>try to reasonably respond to OP
>the rest of the thread explodes into a fireworks show of bickering
>jokes on me this was a crypto shitposting thread all along

Damn I always get trolled every time

>>49716304
What is the correct amount of time?

My group has the opposite problem. Combat is fast. We just dick around too much outside combat.

>>49716308
That game relied on DM fiat because the actual rules were an incomprehensible mess.

>>49716411

Zero seconds. I ask, "What do you do?" and you go "Huh what?" as you look up from your cellphone, your turn is skipped. If they weren't paying enough attention to formulate even a specific question to clarify their current circumstances.

This, of course, is assuming superior voice/irl based play, not textcuckery, although the same principle applies; zero seconds of decision making is allowed after the words "What do you do" are uttered, because you had the entire span of time watching other people's turns and events taking place up to that point to make your decisions.

>>49716830
Modern crunch-heavy games have created this culture of players who believe that the only power they can exert over the game is what is explicitly given to them in the rules. I believe this was done to empower the players, but the effect has been the opposite.

When the GM is making rulings in fast-and-loose style systems they'd be taking lots of input from the players as to what is appropriate. Now they do not, but instead must abide by the rules.

Ironically all the new crunchy systems have depowered the players by shackling them to rulesets.

Ever wonder why the best DnD games are always those run by GMs who houserule and otherwise ignore rules?

>>49716830
>That game relied on DM fiat because the actual rules were an incomprehensible mess.
The rules to Moldvay Basic were incomprehensible to you? It's not perfect, and it's a bit ad hoc (because D&D developed organically), but it's simple and should be pretty far from difficult to understand. Are you thinking of OD&D, or maybe AD&D?

>>49713801
>maybe the right thing to do is treating your players like human beings and adapting your games to their needs instead of treating them like retarded babies
Except in the shockingly frequent number of cases where the players basically are retarded babies. It's unbelievable how some people take a minute or more to re-familiarize themselves with the """complex""" workings of attack and damage rolls or whatever else every time it is their turn.

>>49716913
Here's an example of what he's talking about. With different concrete rules for each specific combat "maneuver" (like disarming, tripping, feinting, etc.), some end up being superior to others for any given character. That means that your menu of effective actions is greatly reduced. And the big problem becomes when you compare these to your more typical attack (like a sword strike). Either your typical attack is better, in which case that's all you ever do, or it's worse than one of those, and you get people going around tripping people over and over, which is all kinds of ridiculous.

But with improvisation? There is no consistent rule that the GM feels bound to follow. Sure, he's going to patterns to the way he does things, but if he's any good, he's going to tweak things according to the situation, so that most reasonable maneuvers aren't rendered ineffective and tripping somebody over and over isn't particularly viable.

>>49715560
>the ratio of game time to in-game time matters
i bet all those times when a GM skips a journey must be quite exciting then.

>>49715624
>"combat speed" existing completely independently from the game system, which is laughably, utterly false.
>completely
well, yes. "completely" is utterly false. "largely independent of dice-rolling" would be very true though.

>>49715729
the answer is no, not completely. but is is independent of that to a fair degree as soon as tactics are involved. in a pure narrative game, it does not matter much if a character makes sound tactical decisions, so no time gets ate up by weighing options back and forth.

>>49717381
>very true
As opposed to a little true or a bit false?

>largely independent of dice-rolling
It's demonstrable that rolling a die once takes less time than rolling it twice.

>>49717353
>>49715560
The relevant factor is the ratio of in-game excitement and out-of-game excitement. Spending a fairly exciting OOG hour simulating a very exciting IG 90 seconds is good. As the OOG component takes longer or is less excitement your ratio decreases and your game experience is less good.

>>49717353
>a GM skips a journey must be quite exciting then
Its good since you're not spending time on unexciting stuff, in or out of game.

>>49711274
>Combat is supposed to be stressful.
Another thing many GMs do is forget that players often enjoy roflstomping enemies. Especially if they feel like they initiated it somehow. A lot of combat is against guys you intend to have lose anyway, so there's no need to let the generic mooks get away with killing party members.

Bosses are for the challenge, and often they're one guy so the party all knows what they're doing. Just be careful. I have a friend who ran three boss fights in a row where the party all got knocked flat on their asses, had to beg for their lives, and then DMPCs showed up and rescued us. By the third time it happened the groups wasn't merely miffed, we weren't angry, we were goddamned sullen about it, because we'd never successfully completed an adventure to its end even though the rest of the sessions were fun and we wanted to keep playing.

The objective really is to set up a fun story and some exciting paper tigers for your friends to knock over.

>>49716308
i said 80s and 90s. not 70s. rolemaster is clearly 80s. as is phoenix command. do you dispute the existence of complex systems in the 80s?

>>49717480
You'll notice that the RPG in my picture was Moldvay Basic, which put out in '81. My point is not that complex games didn't exist in the '80s, but that these games were a corruption of what came before them. I was also out-trumping you on the implied "kids these days don't know what real music is".

>>49717440
>It's demonstrable that rolling a die once takes less time than rolling it twice.
yeah but the difference is generally negligible for the speed of combat, especially since many players enjoy rolling dice.

>As the OOG component takes longer or is less excitement your ratio decreases and your game experience is less good.
you know, sometimes people want a skirmish game-like tactical combat session. often they don't. there is no general optimal length of combat.

>Its good since you're not spending time on unexciting stuff, in or out of game.
yeah, it's very memorable.

>>49711104
Shut up stupid

>>49717541
nah, i did start on Dark Eye 1E, which is comparable to D&D of that era. not a complex game by any means.

also, corruption is of course bullshit and only serves to reveal your bias.
rolemaster sought to liven up combat through criticals and make every weapon feel different. the latter part slows combat down, as you require lookup tables for most attacks.
phoenix command goes beyond fantasy and into modern firearms combat, seeking a high degree of REALISM which was a fetish for many years in game design and gamemastering.

but the REALISM fetish ceased when gamers had thoroughly explored that type of gaming and the thirst for more cinematic systems became more prominent in the 90s. the 00s then saw a slight shift towards more narrative game.

long story short: none of this is corruption, people explored different things in different eras. it's not like old-school type of gaming is currently regarded as panacea by most gamers.

I think we're losing sight of the argument here. The OP is making the claim that different systems do not meaningfully affect how quickly combat is resolved at the table, and that choosing a system based in part on the time it takes to do so is wrong.

Can we all at least agree that that's retarded?

>>49717681
Aye

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>>49710932
>Blaming the GM or the system
Technically, yes, but-

1) TOO MANY PLAYERS IN THE FUCKING GROUP HOLY SHIT. I really like my GM, but holy shit I could watch a fucking TED talk before he even gets back to me. We *never* have fewer than 5-6 fucking players, and it's always either 3.PF or similar systems which have low efficiency when it comes to effort-per-detail ratio. On top of that, including so many people actually narrows the viable play-time window so fucking small (more people = more scheduling problems) that we can barely get anything done in our sessions.

2) USE A FUCKING SCRIPT, JESUS CHRIST GM. He's got everything planned out on paper and in his head, but then when we get to it he takes fucking forever to describe or say what's going on with too many "uhs" and repeats. Takes fucking forever. He talks like this in casual conversation too, in fucking circles.

3) VISUALS HOLY SHIT FUCKING ENGAGE ME. We're not 8 year olds full of imagination, at least try to get some models or print some terrain. My GM just fucking loves to run without even so much as a grid if he can, we're lucky if we get so much as an wet-erase map he scribbled in 30 seconds to move around on. I would seriously start paying 10+$ a session if it went into buying terrain molds and making some.

Otherwise,
I would say the system can be to blame. Some are inherently faster, but yes I would agree some can be made faster doing it differently.

>>49717747
Man I feel bad now reading this.
RPGs can be a unique form of fun but all too often they are a form of therapy for the mentally disabled.

>>49717786
>a form of therapy for the mentally disabled.
Meaning?

TED talks are designed because a person can pay attention for about 15 minutes. There's a reason I reference them.

If every player can't do something about every 10 minutes, if the group can't actually finish a simple encounter designed to last one session actually in the one session (our GM always fails at this despite trying), and if I've got nothing to stare at but a fucking sheet of numbers while you talk in circles to say what could have been said in half the time...
yeah I'm either going to say fuck it and go back to the wargames table or I'm going to be chatting on facebook.

If you are GM and you complain about players not being at attention when you get back to calling on them, it can also be your own fault by simply not being a very good speaker or not actually providing an engaging experience, and it can also be the fault of the other players for sucking at exactly the same thing.

I've got 3 games a month, and two of them with the same group that I really like. Everybody is actually engaging. The third group is the worst fucking grind I've ever forced myself to sit through, despite it being the same GM. The players in the good group are what make that one good, they're better than the GM is at his job.

Literally the only reason I play RPGs is to enjoy social time with people.
If I feel like I'm sitting in at a lecture... something is wrong and the whole thing is a waste of time.

>>49717681
no. he's merely overstating this case to garner some attention. if he had toned down the rhetoric and merely claimed that people overestimate the impact of system on combat speed, i'd entirely agree with him.

>>49717934

>If OP held cuck opinions like me I'd agree

Dodged that bullet desu

>>49717747
>We're not 8 year olds full of imagination

You're not*

>>49717635

>Coming back nearly a full 10 hours later just to make the same lazy shitpost

P sad desu

>>49718108
>>You're not*
You're OK with literally nothing?

No excuse, there's tons of easy tools available. The one time our forever GM stepped down for a campaign, the player who stepped up to be GM printed out and assembled all the maps. Took less than an hour to print and assemble all maps for the entire campaign which lasted 6 months. Halfway through the campaign we even had miniatures trees and some other misc shit from the hobby shop donated by a couple players and I even made a few print'n'fold buildings.

Forever GM meanwhile can barely be arsed to provide so much as some wet eraser scribbles on the fly.

>>49718155
>You're OK with literally nothing?

Yes, because it's literally a game about imagination. I am surprised this has to be openly stated.

>>49717445

What point are you trying to make here besides nitpicking niche scenarios wherein you actually want the PCs to easily slaughter all opposition, as if that were the rule rather than the exception?

Nevermind how you're blatantly ignoring that slowing combat down does nothing but slow the pace of the game down and give players more time to perform tactical maneuvers which, by your own scenario, are completely unnecessary given that they're expected to roflstomp these mooks anyway.

>>49718180
>It's a game about imagination
It's also about putting any fucking effort whatsoever into hosting. It helps. A lot.

If they can't even provide so much as a grid, why the fuck are they even bothering. That's the thing I don't get about my forever GM.

>>49718155
>Printed Out
>Assembled

Perhaps you underestimate the amount of people who choose, sometimes wrongly, sometimes rightly, to not use published content, and instead come up with their own ideas.

Fat whole lot of good a year's worth of maps will do you when they're for places the campaign won't ever visit. (not taking quantum ogres into account)

>>49718224
Maybe your GM doesn't want to play grid-based systems, but can't move on because you won't try anything new

Maybe try selflessness for a change

>>49718233
>not published content, instead come up with their own ideas
There's literally drag-n-drop applications with a fuckton of premade assets, which you can combine into your own original map faster than I can doodle the equivalent wet-erase map in MS Paint.

> for places the campaign won't ever visit
He railroads. HARD. Again, it's almost inexcusable, especially when we're so fucking cooperative.

>>49718247
>Maybe try selflessness for a change
The other dude blew him out of the water in every fucking way you could grade a GM. Literally, the only reason he's forever GM according to his wife, is because this is his social outlet. He just wants to herd people up and talk at them and feel important in his social circle.

>selflessness
>from the players
>selfless
>not the host
>what is hosting a social event
>what is hosting
>what is being a host
Let me ask you this,
Why are players at your game when you GM?
Because YOU want them to be?
Or because THEY want to be there?

>>49718289
>Why are players at your game when you GM?
>Because YOU want them to be?
>Or because THEY want to be there?
wasn't this the moral in that niche D&D movie Zero Charisma? been awhilesince I've seen it but Im pretty sure this was the movie in a nutshell

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>>49717681
>guys, stay on topic!

>>49718097
wow, you really showed me

>>49718224
personally, i only run combat as theatre of the mind. if there's any confusion about positioning, i might draw a quick sketch but i won't leave it lying on the table.

>>49710932
Alright, I activate my Boots of Haste and full attack the giant with 20% miss chance with my +3 Keen Falchion. I roll 2 at full attack bonus and 1 attack at attack bonus-5, roll 3 different miss chance checks for each of them and toss out one of them, and 1 of them critically threatens so I roll again to confirm and crit the giant, killing it. The giant drops so I use my free Cleave attack and the 2 leftover attacks on the other giant in reach, repeating the same process at -5, -10, and -15 attack bonus for each attack, which, due to how stupid 3E's AC mechanics are and how low giant AC is, all hit and one of which crits.

That's 8 1d20 rolls, 6 miss chance rolls, and 14d20, plus the mechanics of full attacking and Cleave in general stop you from resolving it all as one. And this is one of the simplest, most straightforward attack routines for that level with only two extra mechanics to take into account - Cleave and miss chance.

You can fuck right off with your "system doesn't matter!" bullshit. Not every system has you making an equivalently complex action each turn.

>>49719218
*14d4

>>49719218

>It's the fifteenth retard who enters the thread thinking that a game's complexity precludes engagement
>"If your movie was short and simple, then people would like it more! I mean, Lord of the Rings was just so long that nobody enjoyed it!"

This is the equivalent of what your point is.

>>49721302
>Sixteenth retard makes his play
Yes, because you aren't moving the goalpost from where OP started. OP had nothing to say on player engagement. If anything they were bitching about players being interested enough to take their time and plan.

>>49711312

Moving those goalposts awful far, OP.

>>49712347

If rolling a die and determining the result takes roughly 1-3 seconds on average then rolling for attack and damage will, by its nature, take at least 3-6 seconds on average depending on how many dice you're rolling.

Which is fucking trash when you consider that you're wasting twice as much time just to realize that you rolled a [1] on the die and either stabbed yourself in the face for "reasons" or that you rolled the least amount of damage possible which means that your turn was slightly less of a waste of time than if you missed or, god forbid, hit another party member because of a fumble.

>>49721668

If a player is interested in the result of dice, exactly why does it matter how many seconds it takes to count up?

And before you strawman this point into an issue where you take sixty years to read the result of abunch of dice or whatever, I do want to emphasize that by your own admission, we are literally talking about *seconds* here.

As another poster mentioned, most all players gladly spend the extra second spent reading a damage die to see what it might be.

>>49711634
what rape clown plowed your ass to make you think it takes that long to memorize the rules?

>>49721668
so what? what kind of fucking clown gamer are you? do you want guaranteed success? must every move, every action be hyper-intense, over the top cinematic action? this is just fucking dumb. ebb and flow is part of gaming. success and failure is part of gaming. the fluctuation between spectacular attacks and boring whiffs is part of gaming.

if you want to remove this contrast from gaming, you're just stupid. you need light and shadow.

a certain amount of boredom is vital to highlight the top class action. there, I said it.

>>49723841
>do you want guaranteed success? must every move, every action be hyper-intense, over the top cinematic action?
When one system takes one dice to separate success from failure and another system takes two, then the second objectively takes longer.

Rolling one dice to see if you succeed or not does not make every dice roll a "guaranteed success".

>>49722242
>If a player is interested in the result of dice, exactly why does it matter how many seconds it takes to count up?

Because it leads to the same outcome but one takes longer than the other to resolve.

It's like driving from Philadelphia to San Francisco just because you like driving.

>And before you strawman this point into an issue where you take sixty years to read the result of abunch of dice or whatever, I do want to emphasize that by your own admission, we are literally talking about *seconds* here.

Between 4-6 people, plus the enemy, the average turn will take over a minute to resolve and that's if we completely cut out the time for desciptions, OoC distractions, only attack once per turn, and don't do anything stupid like rolling dice off the table or flipping through the rulebook to check a rule.

When you take that into account, it could take 3-5 minutes until your turn comes up, at which point the smartphones are out and nobody's paying attention anymore.

>>49723841

>so what? what kind of fucking clown gamer are you? do you want guaranteed success? must every move, every action be hyper-intense, over the top cinematic action? this is just fucking dumb. ebb and flow is part of gaming. success and failure is part of gaming. the fluctuation between spectacular attacks and boring whiffs is part of gaming.

Maybe in your games.

In most games that are ACTUALLY good though, the players should feel engaged at all times.

There can be fast moments, slow moments, funny moments, and dramatic moments, but there should NEVER be moments where people are rolling their eyes, pulling out their phones, and waiting for the dull moments to be over so that the campaign becomes interesting again.

If there's a section that nobody gives a fuck about, it bears some consideration for why that dull section is there in the first place when it's not advancing the story.

>>49723841
I'd like you to look again at OP's post which advocates RUSH RUSH RUSH COMBAT NEEDS TO BE FAST DON'T LET THEM BE BORED

And your own, which is "nah, you need some parts of combat (risking your life and blood) to be mundane and boring so the epic bits are more epic. That's why two rolls isn't worse, it's so you can have some boring bits to make the super rolls even better".

It's an interesting contrast.

Eh, I'm fine with two sets of dice being rolled with easy to compute modifers used to determine their effect.

(I.e. To hit and damage with defense, to hit and defense with flat damage)

Still, if you are throwing 10 dice around to attempt an action, and then 10 again to determine it's effect... Jesus christ

>>49721302
Move the goalposts more you gigantic fucktard.

>>49723910
the poster is replied to complained about "meaningless" minimum damage rolls. please try to keep up with the discussion.

>>49723971
no, if you compare a system with damage roll compared to one without damage roll, the one with damage roll takes 1 roll's worth of time longer (someone equated 1 roll to 1-3 seconds). for this price you gain variance in the resulting damage compared to systems with, let's say fixed, damage.

>When you take that into account, it could take 3-5 minutes until your turn comes up, at which point the smartphones are out and nobody's paying attention anymore.
first of all, none of my gamers have to pay close attention all the time in combat. secondly, if a player cannot stay focussed in a combat where turns take 3 to 5 minutes each, he suffers from ADHD and requires medical treatment. 10 minute turns would be long, agreed, but 3 to 5 minutes? that's a very decent, appropriate turn length.

>>49724339

... When you say turn, describe what you mean.

A game state shouldn't be so complicated that it takes 3 minutes for a player to make their choices.

RPGs aren't wargames, there should be less meaningful pieces in a given round.

>>49724087
>never a dull moment
i call bullshit. you're like a sunny weather football fan who only turns up to the high profile matchups between successful teams. people who love the game go to the games when it's cold and rainy or hot as hell. they enjoy the high-scoring fast-paced matchups but they also warrior through, slow-moving defensive grinds.

it's not only impossible to never have a dull moment, it's not even desirable.

>it bears some consideration for why that dull section is there in the first place when it's not advancing the story.
change of pace, asshole.

>>49724123
yes but allow me to point out that >>49711312
is me. so i havent been agreeing entirely with OP to begin with.

>>49724408
>... When you say turn, describe what you mean.
well, i was quoting another poster. in this context, it's supposedly 3-5 minutes per round, assuming each PC takes turn per combat round exactly ONCE.

>RPGs aren't wargames, there should be less meaningful pieces in a given round.
speak for yourself. different strokes for different folks. many gamers bemoan combat systems that lack a multitude of tactical options, like pushing, feints, striking at hit locations. others prefer narrative style a la FATE. for an average mainstream RPG, like D&D, CoC, Vampire of Shadowrun a 3 to 5 min round is just fine, if you have a party of 4 players and roughly the same number of enemies.

>>49716329
Don't let it get to you. There's always a few people skimming for posts with actual meat in them in threads like this and while they might not respond (especially if the thread has derailed into bickering) that doesn't mean it didn't have an impact. An example of the subject in play that worked out is far more useful than a sea of speculative opinions, and people who are here because they care about how the subject applies to their game and not just to take a bat to opinions they don't agree with will take notice.

In my own case, I've let combat slow down the game a tad too much and your example showed me that the costs of speeding it up might be worth it for the sake of everyone's enjoyment.

>>49724339
>the poster is replied to complained about "meaningless" minimum damage rolls. please try to keep up with the discussion
But you can easily do that with just one roll instead of the damage roll.

Hell, just replace damage rolls with a set amount of damage, and on a crit, double damage (or whatever modifier your weapon does).

There, piss easy and you've halved the number of dice, while maintaining that "YES I rolled a crit!!!" you seem to enjoy while keeping the mediocrity of "oh, normal damage" and "bah, I missed".

WOW was that even so hard?

>>49724626
>the
congrats, you just made combat more uniformly. go ahead streamline role-playing even more. use D&D 5E as guiding star and see where it takes you.

>>49724428
>i call bullshit. you're like a sunny weather football fan who only turns up to the high profile matchups between successful teams.

Too bad that's not what we're talking about here sunshine.

There's a difference between being a spectator and being a participant for one.

There's also a difference between a competitive game and a cooperative game for another.

Even then, nobody wants to sit through a baseball game where nobody hits and it's three hours of watching two dudes play catch and nobody wants to watch a football game where one side just lets the other score nothing but TD's on them until the end of the 4th quarter.

>it's not only impossible to never have a dull moment, it's not even desirable.

If you're having dull moments then try running shorter sessions or having a break towards the middle.

>change of pace, asshole.

Nobody cares about your dull fanfiction chief, just cut to the chase.

Your players will thank you.

>>49724819
Being more complex doesn't make a game better, especially when that complexity does jack and fucking shit that couldn't be accomplished with simpler mechanics.

>>49724339
>first of all, none of my gamers have to pay close attention all the time in combat.

Then what's the point of having combat?

>secondly, if a player cannot stay focussed in a combat where turns take 3 to 5 minutes each, he suffers from ADHD and requires medical treatment.

3-5 minutes is a long fucking time when you're bored to the brink of tears and just waiting for combat to be over so that you can move on to the rest of the story.

It has nothing to do with an ADHD issue, it has to do with a "god, why am I just sitting here doing nothing, I could be doing something else," issue.

Get one of those toothbrushing Hourglasses (they're usually calibrated to 2 mins)

They have 2 mins to make their choice of what to do, if they haven't decided what to do by then, their character is paralyzed by indecision or stress or something and their turn is skipped.

>>49717747
My GM is guilty of this. First two sessions were great, we only had 4 people, no one had to worry about spells and combat took like five minutes. Next session he got some fucks to come over and now we take an hour every fight. Shits retarded, and it would help if half that time wasn't taken up between the GM and his GF rules lawyering the fuck out of each other since she cant just read her fucking spells off.

>>49724819

If you can condense 300 pages of information into only 30 pages of information, it begs the question of what the other 270 pages are there for.

Adding to >>49724626

Here's an easy and simple way to do damage without rolling.

>Weapons have a base damage value equal to the average value on the die, rounded down [1d6=3, 1d8=4, etc.]
>On a crit, you deal double the base damage.
>On a hit, you deal the base damage.
>On a miss, you deal [1] damage.
>On a fumble, you deal no damage and the enemy can makes one attack against you, assuming that they didn't already spend a reaction.

There, quick, simple, easy, and above all, much much faster to resolve.

Hell, even gives a slight buff to martials since it means that unless they fumble, they'll always deal some damage on their turn.

>>49725294
>Hell, even gives a slight buff to martials
How the fuck is increasing the chance for martials to get hit as they get better at fighting(as represented by getting more attacks, like D&D usually does) a buff? Think about it for more than a second - a level 1 Fighter has a 5% chance to fumble on their turn, but a level 20 Fighter has an 18.5% chance to fumble, and that's before attacks in addition to the ones they get just from gaining levels come into play.

>>49725364

There are plenty of ways to avoid to avoid an attack if you don't just charge in like an idiot mate.

It's not my fault you're bad at the game.

>>49725364
To be fair, they'll also be attacked more often if they go melee. You can also just make it so instead of multiple attacks, you just multiply the damage done by number of attacks.

...

Which is a buff to ranged

>>49725432
Yeah, the Fighter sure is charging in like an idiot by using his class feature.

>>49710932
>And in every single solitary case, I can 100% guarantee you that these are GMs who allow the players to spend like 3 minutes hemming and hawwing over what they're going to do on their turn, instead of putting their fucking feet to the fire and saying "It's your turn, go" and making them skip their turn if they are not on the fucking ball.
No, actually, this isn't true in most cases. Long turns are usually the result of having to look up rules in order to make sure that you're doing the thing you want to do correctly.

>>49725364

I don't know about you, but I'd rather eat an AoO for rolling a fumble than, say, losing my weapon, stabbing myself/an ally, or some lolsorandumb bullshit like dropping my shorts and doing the hockey-pockey.

It seems fair that I open myself up to a counterattack because I overextended myself.

>>49725476

You have ranged weapons, thrown weapons, weapons with reach, advantage, and shit like the halfling's [Lucky] ability.

Again, it's not my fault that you're bad at the game.

>>49725510
I'd rather not eat anything because that's a fucking shitty rule.

>>49725535

What do you expect to happen if you roll a [1] on the die?

This is even assuming that the enemy is in range to hit you with an AoO in the first place you shit.

>>49725534
>Punishing the Fighter for using his class features as intended is a good idea

>>49725553
I think that's fine. It's good to traumatize new players into never playing DnD again.

>>49725552
>What do you expect to happen if you roll a [1] on the die?
Gee, I don't know, maybe an automatic miss like it was before you thought up your abortion of a rule. It's not even like this is a new argument because this has been the counterargument against critical fumble mechanics in D&D since 2E was current, if not even before then.

>>49725553

If you're dumb enough to rush into melee without having an alt. weapon around, you deserve to eat an AoO if you roll a [1].

I mean what, you think people carried around spears and bows just for kicks? You think that mounted warriors had an advantage just because their horses had pretty manes?

You're like that kid who picks up SF and gets mad because everyone else knows how to pull off a Shoryuken.

>>49725619
>D&D
>realism

>>49725614

If critical fumbles were meant to only be misses then there wouldn't be a d100 critical fumble table.

You just sound mad because you can't get away with be a shitter anymore.

>>49725619
>If you're dumb enough to rush into melee without having an alt. weapon around
Alternate weapons exist to get around damage reduction/immunity and monsters that are dangerous to get into melee with as a consequence of their mechanics, not to deal with shitty fumble mechanics that have no place in a game with a flat probability distribution, and nothing you say can change the fact that your idiotic houserule removes any incentive to use melee weapons over reach or ranged weapons.
>>49725690
You mean the critical fumble table that doesn't exist outside of shitty homebrew?

>>49725685

If you're going to have over 30 weapons to choose from, why not give a good reason for why you'd want to choose them?

Even Guts had a crossbow, throwing knives, and an arm cannon to use whenever he couldn't use dragonslayer on somebody.

Fuck, even run-of-the-mill cops have a pistol, tazer, pepper spray, and a flashlight to use whenever they go out on patrol.

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>>49725690
>If critical fumbles were meant to only be misses then there wouldn't be a d100 critical fumble table.
But there isn't.

>>49725753

>Alternate weapons exist to get around damage reduction/immunity and monsters that are dangerous to get into melee with as a consequence of their mechanics, not to deal with shitty fumble mechanics that have no place in a game with a flat probability distribution, and nothing you say can change the fact that your idiotic houserule removes any incentive to use melee weapons over reach or ranged weapons.

There really shouldn't be any reason to use melee over reach or ranged weapons, they should be a last resort for when the enemy gets too close.

I mean, if you had to choose between a bow, a spear, and a knive, why the hell would you use anything but a bow when your opponent is still a ways away from actually hitting you?

>>49710932
Low level PF vs high level.

There really is a difference there in speed. When you have to add a zillion modifiers and roll five attacks, yeah, it's gonna take a little longer. Not to mention the simple act of adding up all those D6 rolls from a lvl 18 spell. Not to say that addition is hard, but none of out players are fucking Rianman.

Pretty much why I only run low-level games now. More fun that way, I feel. Makes the players feel like things are actually a threat.

>>49725859
see
>>49719218

There are too many mechanics in 3.5/PF that amount to extra rolling for the sake of extra rolling that can't be skipped/grouped together for convenience and that slows down a game regardless of how fast a player is at adding/subtracting minute bonuses.

>>49725825
>why the hell would you use anything but a bow when your opponent is still a ways away from actually hitting you?
Because you specialized in using a zweihander and the other options are ineffective in the context of D&D.

Nothing you say can change the fact that you're advocating for a rule that makes Fighters more likely to hurt themselves as they get more skilled.

>>49725794
Shows how much you know.

Critical hits and fumbles existed as early as dragon magazine.

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>>49725954
>dragon magazine

>>49725954
AD&D rules are not relevant to 3E, 4E, or 5E, none of which have official fumble rules for a good fucking reason.

>>49725946
This isn't 3rd edition anymore chief.

You don't have to take three feats just to find out that you should've chosen a wizard instead.

>Nothing you say can change the fact that you're advocating for a rule that makes Fighters more likely to hurt themselves as they get more skilled.

If they behave anything like you are then you probably deserve to eat a fumble.

I mean, you're bitching about a 5% chance to fumble when the game already has plenty of ways to either avoid the AoO or avoid the fumble altogether.

>>49726020
Not going to stop the OG's from using them anyways.

Besides, fumbles merely missing might as well be a houserule for how many GM's actually rule it as such.

>>49725060
>especially when that complexity does jack and fucking shit that couldn't be accomplished with simpler mechanics.
but it couldn't.

>>49725063
>Then what's the point of having combat?
combat does not lose its meaning if your players don't follow the minutiae of what's happening on the other end of the combat area, especially if their characters can't witness it anyway.

>3-5 minutes is a long fucking time when you're bored to the brink of tears and just waiting for combat to be over so that you can move on to the rest of the story.
if you dislike combat that much, RPGs are probably not the right hobby for you. or stick to FIASCO.

>It has nothing to do with an ADHD issue, it has to do with a "god, why am I just sitting here doing nothing, I could be doing something else," issue.
it has to do exactly with that. you know, sometimes you sit at a party for minutes and just listen to your friends talking. you do nothing but listen. which brings me to my point again: if you dislike combat that sitting through it bores you to tears. if you constantly need attention, make decisions, etc. you're in the wrong hobby.

me, i like hanging out with my friends. i occasionally like the tactical side of combats, sometimes the narrative side. sometimes i like exploring a combat system. many times the 3 to 5 minute breaks just add to the suspension of what's going to happen next.

if you're not invested in the RPGs you play, you're a shitty player. pure cancer.

>>49725294
so characters get glanced to death and need D&D's shitty HP bloat to survive? great game design.

>There, quick, simple, easy, and above all, much much faster to resolve.
not to mention complete crap

>>49725534
let's face it: you're a legitimate retard and there's no point in wasting any more time on you.

>>49726062
>I mean, you're bitching about a 5% chance to fumble
Per attack, for a class whose entire schtick is getting more attacks than other classes to the point where they have two separate class features to enable them to attack more times in a single turn AND whose other thing is getting extra stats(read: feats, as several feats are infinitely superior to stat boosts if you are using the combat style in question), which has not one, not two, but three separate feats that enable bonus action attacks.

>>49726138
>combat does not lose its meaning if your players don't follow the minutiae of what's happening on the other end of the combat area, especially if their characters can't witness it anyway.

Why are you splitting the party?

>if you dislike combat that much, RPGs are probably not the right hobby for you. or stick to FIASCO.

The issue isn't necessarily the length of combat, it's the fact that combat is not only long but not all that engaging as well.

>it has to do exactly with that. you know, sometimes you sit at a party for minutes and just listen to your friends talking.

Why are you just sitting around and talking to your friend at a party?

For that matter, why is your friend the only one talking?

> if you constantly need attention, make decisions, etc. you're in the wrong hobby.

If your definition of fun is forcing your players to sit through your shitty fanfiction before you give them fucks to give then you're in the wrong hobby, not me.

>>49726233
You're sitting here bitching because now you have to consider an attack option that isn't just going into melee and mashing A until everyone around you is dead.

It's not even that hard, you don't want to get hit then don't put yourself in a situation where you could get hit.

>>49726161
>Ignores several options that would allow him to safely attack an opponent without risking an AoO
>Calling others retarded

Okay chief, go back to super clappy happy fun-times if getting hit for 12 damage at most is enough to make you think that it's game over.

We need less namby pamby shitters like you around anyways.

>>49725364
You only fumble if all your attacks are 1s. There, done.

>>49726312
And you're repeatedly advocating for a shitty rule that gets Fighters hit more often for getting better at fighting, which would be immediately and obviously retarded to anyone with a brain.

>>49726331
No, fighters need to have it even worse.

>>49726331
Better, but there's a reason fumble rules have never been official, let alone core.

>>49726381
Fine, ranged attack also fumble and eat an AoO from the nearest enemy.

If there isn't an enemy around whatever the ranged attack hits is now an enemy.

>>49726375
Fighters are supposed to be tacticians, they're supposed to be men that have seen combat dozens, if not hundreds of times, and they're supposed to be men who have mastered various arts of combat so that they're ready for any situation.

A weapon is a tool that is designed for a specific purpose. You wouldn't go to build a home using only a screwdriver so I don't see why you honestly expect to survive when you're only carrying one type of weapon.

This is also not counting the shit that you're ignoring that would allow you to avoid the fumble in the first place but no, that would affect your shitty argument and make you out to be a shitter who doesn't know what you're doing.

FFS, in the months that I've been playing in a 5e game, I can count the number of times I've rolled a fumble on one hand, and I rolled twice per turn to boot.

File: 1470975832466.gif (140KB, 379x440px)

140KB, 379x440px

Do you guys think he's just trolling, or does he actually believe in this?

>>49726462
>and they're supposed to be men who have mastered various arts of combat so that they're ready for any situation.
And the mechanics don't support this whatsoever. Between the feat system, the weapon style system, and stats making sure that you want to focus on one style alone, they're pretty clearly in the "specialize in one weapon, use others in a last resort" camp and have been since AD&D introduced weapon specialization, where you might grab proficiency in another weapon for a backup in case your primary weapon doesn't work(see: DR, immunity, rust monsters, etc)

Introducing a mechanic that does nothing but shit on close range weapons and making specializing in them objectively fucking worse than specializing in reach/ranged weapons while leaving all of the others untouched is absolutely fucking retarded. Get the fuck out of here with this shit.

>>49726507
I've met too many grogs who actually believe this fucktard garbage to dismiss it out of hand.

>>49726551

We're not talking about 3rd edition you mongoloid.

If we were then I'd suggest that you play a better game in the first place.

Although, at least this tells me why you're such a fucking shitter who hates to learn new things.

>>49726462
>A weapon is a tool that is designed for a specific purpose. You wouldn't go to build a home using only a screwdriver so I don't see why you honestly expect to survive when you're only carrying one type of weapon.

What you're saying is all melee weapons have a flat chance to get you hurt, and using it better (mutiple attacks a round) will make you have a higher chance of getting hurt.

It doesn't matter WHAT melee weapon you're using if you're attacking with it you're going to roll fumbles.

Besides, in games like 3e and 5e you need to actually specialise in your particular weapon type and be comparatively shit at other weapon types. That means your "supposed to be tacticians" doesn't mean shit since the current rules don't match with your imaginary musings on what fighters should be like.

>>49726579
I was talking about 5E.

>>49726579
>a street sam should be able to use guns, swords and mounted turrets equally well

>a fury morphed soldier specced person should be able to use blades, high powered lasers and mechadendrites equally effectively

>a Soldier class should be able to use blaster pistols, blaster rifles, vibroswords and lightsabers all equally effectively

And yet in all those games you are a lot worse in all fields if you put your resources into using all types of fighting compared to if you specialise heavily in one type of gun, sword or other specific form of attack.

>>49726585
>>49726593

Since when do you need to specialize in a weapon?

In 3e I could understand since you needed a feat to blink and scratch your ass at the same time but 5e?

The fuck y'all niggas smoking and where can I get some? Maybe it'll help me forget how retarded your argument is.

>>49726634
>a street sam should be able to use guns, swords and mounted turrets equally well
>a fury morphed soldier specced person should be able to use blades, high powered lasers and mechadendrites equally effectively

There's a difference between being able to fire a gun while wielding a sword and controlling robots that can shoot shit remotely.

>a Soldier class should be able to use blaster pistols, blaster rifles, vibroswords and lightsabers all equally effectively
>d20

There's your problem.

>>49726664
You get weapon styles for free from being a Fighter, something you would know if you played 5E. They make it pretty obvious what you're supposed to do with your Fighter when you pick them.

Using a weapon that doesn't align with your primary stat is an incredibly shitty idea against anything because of the inherently lower damage, so it's not useful as anything other than a last resort when you can't use your primary weapon.

Combat feats like Polearm Master and GWM are objectively better in combat compared to taking the stat boost if you specialize in either weapon type. Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert are definitely better for offense but Dexterity is also a defensive stat so it's not as clear cut as it is with the melee feats.

>>49726778

You're overselling fighting styles a tad chief.

Maybe YOU should actually play the game instead of acting like an expert because of extended white room theory crafting sessions online.

>>49726836
>Maybe YOU should actually play the game
Already did, I quit in disgust because of how godawful the system is.

>>49726856
Sure chief, whatever you say.

>>49726744
I'm talking about the one with the d6s and force/despair points and stuff.

>>49726744
>There's a difference between being able to fire a gun while wielding a sword and controlling robots that can shoot shit remotely
Except for a mounted turret that's wired for manual control, you're still going to be shit at it if you're not specced for it even if you can fire an LMG fantastically.

>>49727006
If you're a street sam, you shouldn't be trying to using machines to do your dirty work.

That's what the Rigger is for.

>>49710932
The speed of combat resolution has actually been a topic of great interest in my local gaming community ever since a Cyberpunk 2020 combat oneshot took all night in real life but less than two minutes in universe.

While it is true that nothing slows combat down more than a player who can not make decisions, a number of other factors play a role in speeding up the rounds. One easy way to speed up anything is to do the static math before hand, creating a table. For example in DH writing a table with all of the thresholds for all ranges of all of your weapons, or adding together five different modifiers to weapon damage beforehand into one modifier.

The number of sequential rolls is also a factor: simply rolling all of the dice that might be needed in one go, discarding the unused results does speed up play.

A third factor is the number and type of mathematical operations and the size of numbers used. Addition is faster than subtraction, multiplication is usually slower than subtraction and division the slowest. Working with small numbers is faster than working with big numbers.

>>49727068
And what about rolling a third less dice if you try to be ok at using all guns instead of specialising in automatics?

Or literally half your dice if you try to be good at stabbing things, clubbing things, fisting things AND shooting things with shotguns, assault rifles and pistols while having no money or karma left over for anything else?

>>49727091

Holy shit dude, you are seriously overselling just how much you "lose" just by investing in a melee weapon and a ranged weapon.

Like, holy shit, if you're going to autistically spout logistics then at least be right about the logistics you're spouting.

>>49713457
Or they get mad about seeing that if they miss the two hit, and got a really good damage roll or something.

>>49727192
Not if you want "all weapons" like Mr >>49726462 "must be skilled in everything so as to avoid bad situations".

Trying to use a melee weapon in shadowrun is only really viable with either a strength-based dude, an adept specced into it, or as part of an infiltration attempt with stungloves. It's really so much easier just to back up a meter or two and riddle the guy with bullets because most folks can dump most of their strength without any real penalties.

It's the difference between 10 and 18 dice rolled.

>>49716881
>tfw that'd never work in my game because my players are thinking about each other's moves (i.e. the things that are actually happening) during each other's turns, and the Wizard is the party strategist always

>to the point that the last time I got to play, I was the Leeroy of the group specifically because I had a specific target before my turn (and always played martials)

>>49727344

Again, overselling yourself.

The most you'll honestly need for a combat specialist is maybe three weapons.

One for close-range, one for mid-range, another for long-range.

So if the Street Sam has a blade, a pistol, and a sniper rifle, he's already covered for the majority of encounters that he could be facing within the scope of his abilities.

>>49728018
That's still trying to excel in 3 fields at once and two stats. There's no point in trying to stab someone with a STR+1P -1AP knife when your strength is 3, compared to shooting someone with a full auto assault rifle burst for 10P -2AP -9 dodge.

Not to mention pistols have an effective range of 5 meters without penalties, and sniper rifles take penalties for anything in their short range by having their sights be thrown off if you're not lying down. You've literally skipped out on middle range gun fights with that loadout.

>>49724266

The goalposts have been the same since the topic was invented you insufferable moron. Nobody but retarded bean counters care about how many seconds it takes to read a die.

>>49729120
You say that, but in reality people get pretty fucking pissed when something simple that should take no longer than 15 seconds instead takes several minutes because of godawful mechanics.

>>49727832

So wait, it'd fail to work because your players are incapable of paying attention to other players' turns unless they get a refresher course on what they did on that players' own turn?