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I have been running plenty of one-on-one games and group games over the past few years, and there is one problem about group games that has been causing me plenty of grief and frustration: the way a group formulates plans.
Giving each player an equal say in planning and the execution of plans, be it during combat or outside of combat, is inefficient. People have to communicate (often complex) ideas to one another and respect one another's desires, and even a plan hashed out this way tends to be a disjointed "design by committee." It takes a group a painfully long time to arrive at decisions this way, and the end result is one of those "crazy and nonsensical player plans."
The best method of coming up with effective plans in an efficient time frame is to have one person, ideally a pre-appointed leader, do all the planning by themselves, and to have everyone else as merely a sounding board of ideas to be incorporated or ignored as needed. However, that leaves the players apart from the main planner feeling unengaged, because their desires count for far less.
This could be solved by having the players take turns being the "plan-maker and leader," but good luck trying to find a satisfactory way to shuffle around such a role, even among a group of close friends.
In my experience running one-on-one games and group games, the most efficiently-constructed plans are the ones crafted solely be a single player, the most effective plans are those made by a single player with the others as a sounding board... and the absolutely worst plans that take a maddeningly long time to form are those created by the group as a whole, in a way that tries to respect the desires of each player.
How can this effect be mitigated when running a group game?
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I think talking to your players about it is the way.
Are you playing high stakes combat focused game? Nothing wrong with planing actions for combat in those and it is to be expected. Just ask them to hurry up if they went into analysis paralysis.
Out of combat, ask them to discuss plans in character, treat it like any other scene, ask questions, nudge, introduce NPCs, whatever, talking about things in character IS the game. See if your system have an argument resolving mechanic for PCs.
Talk to your players and bring this topic up, ask if they as frustrated with delays as you are? Maybe they would come out with a solution, without you doing anything.
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>>55201017
Have players / characters capable of calling out bloody stupid plans.
Alternatively, wisdom rolls or equivalent for characters to realise how and why the plans are flawed.
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