Getting games to go faster

>>50403211
Take the lead.
Make shit happen.
It'a what I have to do to get more than one IC conversation done within the two anda half hour session.
So just do shit.
If you're not the GM, talk to him, tell him it's bugging you, and take the lead.

>>50403211
First off, skip anything that doesn't have an overall effect on the narrative.

A movie never goes into details as far as the protagonists crossing 100's of km to their next destination unless something important is about to happen. You should take this same approach with GMing, only giving players a choice when their choice has a direct impact on the story.

Secondly, focus on rolling the least amount of dice possible to resolve an action. Rolling a die takes less than 2 seconds to resolve, so if you're rolling multiple dice, the time it'll take to resolve an action increases by .05 seconds for every five dice being rolled, even longer if you're adding the result of multiple dice together for damage rolls or something.

Finally, and this is the most important bit, make sure that people are actually paying attention to game. It takes longer when you have to explain the same thing multiple times, so if they can't pay attention, tell them to put away the devices or GTFO.

>>50403211
Use your inciting incident to move the narrative forward and push for a big decision to be made just before the end of the session.

Some new assholes bursting onto the scene takes like no goddamn time. Especially if their objective has them swooping in to (do some shit) and then vanishing, rather than fighting to the death.

Putting a big decision (like the bad guys trying to force trade a hostage for the important artifact) right before the end of the session means players can move the story in big ways but you don't have to prep all outcomes. Just the one they chose at the end of the session.

Build your encounters with fewer hp and higher damage/conditional bonus damage. Let NPCs deny PCs actions or the reverse. Give one side an obviously overwhelming numbers advantage frequently. Let the party run away and/or rout their enemies a little more easily. Once or twice have retreating enemies fall back to reinforcements or a fortified position so players don't pursue unnecessarily when it's time to wrap the fight up. This has worked well for me, even in slow systems with lots of newish players.

Let people discuss their options, but occasionally push the "okay, what do you do?" A little prodding is okay if players fall to overthinking.

>>50403529
I suspect it's not hoarding the preceious seconds that's the problem, but the exact opposite.

Force decisions out of ditherers by questioning the most likely acter after a couple of minutes of discussion, and start laying out the options (as you understand them) after two or three circuits round the table during longer discussions.

What >>50403681 says about forcibly starting and then truncating conflict scenes is also a great idea.
One or two NPCs to 'lead' the party ("There're dozens of them, we can't win, I'm out!") can work for the inverse, if you want an easy show of strength by the bad guys but not a ten-hour combat.
Closing out the session on the hardest decision will also mean that you'll start next time with a few of them with plans formulated as well.

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>>50403529
>>50403681
>>50403958
Thanks for the help, anons.
I need to try harder on the lack of detail for journeys, more of an inbetween from "party takes 10 minutes to walk down a hallway because "there might be stuff"" and "party walks 20 miles without anyone talking about it and they're just basically there" is my current situation for most parties. And then there's one GM who did the former for every. single. movement. do you know how annoying it is to do a journey in the underdark where we have to each individually move models across the board to progress, and then have him wonder why we're slow but also absurdly overleveled? ugh.
Npcs being used as a show of strength is honestly something I've never done, despite it happening all the bloody time in video games/tv. Will be interesting to see how it plays out, and I can do it more easily with what I'll be playing next instead of the RDS bullshit most of the people I've played with insisting on starting at.

>>50403211
What do you consider a milestone? If you're expecting each session to end on some big fight or narrative dramatic bombshell then you either need to play hyper fast paced games or nix those expectation. Games don't follow TV or movie pacing because they're not either. Beyond that just make sure your players know what they're doing and are decisive.

I find that most of the stalling in games comes from players going "Hmmmm.....should I cast......no....well.......maybe if I.....hmmmm......". Set a timer for those flakey fucks, it's the only way to force them to make a choice and stick with it. 99% of the time the first idea is the best one they're ever going to come up with anyway. Also try to stop the players from spending an hour arguing over everything. If there's no natural leader emmerging within your group then it might work to ask them to choose one.