I am a DM for many groups, both adults and kids, and when the group is very indecisive, I like to implement the Panic Action. At the beginning of combat they write down what their character will do if they can't decide, and whenever they are taking too much time I say "use your panic action". This can be a combination of things (like move to the closest enemy and attack, heal the lowest HP ally and dodge, etc.), and they can even change it mid-combat. It's a great way to keep the players' heads in the game.
@@pedroivog.s.6870 Usually a cantrip, like Brandon said. But the healer could also choose something like Healing Word for the most hurt ally. After all, if the healer is panicking, there is probably healing to be done!
one thing my groups have used for years is "On-Decking"; It's essentially just "Player 1 your turn. Player 2 you're on deck" so players know ahead of their round to start deciding what they're doing so that they've got their turn prepared hopefully before their turn even starts. Also helps to mitigate someone not paying attention.
So much this. Our DM flat out makes initiative order public info (with enemies getting slotted in as they come up in the order) so everyone can tell at a glance who's up next, etc... He doesn't even need to say who's next cause everyone just already knows. (We thankfully have a pretty reasonable group for this already, and issues only come up if someone does something unexpected resulting in massive changes of plans.)
Idk it seems to me it's a personality thing, some people are ready when it's their turn and some are not, in my experience, adding a timer or prompting them doesn't help and just makes them feel pressured.
@@LordSathar they should feel pressured, otherwise they're wasting everyone's time. After a session or two they start paying attention and planning their turn in advance
I recently got the book, The Monsters Know What They're Doing. Can't recommend it enough. It helps coming up with tactics for my monsters, but I think Im gonna steal this decision tree idea to mix them together. thanks!
@@PressEnter42 His other book is for players and written about how they can Live to Tell The Tale. If you use one, let them use the other. It's only fair.
As a player, it's important to be respectful of the other people at the table and how much of an impact you're having on their time and enjoyment. You have anywhere from 5-10 minutes to plan your turn while everyone else takes theirs. Don't start looking up abilities and analyzing tactical options when your turn starts; put down your phone and do it during everyone else's turns.
I hate when people are even on their phones while someone else is taking their turns... why wouldn't you try to follow the fight if you cared about the game
I know i try to figure out my turn while others are taking their turn. Its also important to be flexible in your planing as something a teammate or enemy does could alter your turn.
I thing that often gets forgotten when it comes to people talking about fights taking too long is that it isn't just people not knowing what to do, but also a lot of friendly chatter and joking about the situation and not just from the player who's turn it is. So some allowance should be put in for that if you implement this rule because it may cut down on the fun of combat if it causes the players to hyperfocus on making good decisions quickly instead of a mix of decision making and interacting with the rest of the group.
Absolutely. Not every table plays the same way. Some tables are incredibly casual, and this wouldn't necessarily be the best rule to implement. It's really for when everyone agrees that the amount of time taken during turns is a real problem.
As frustrating as it can be to get bogged down, it’s always a healthy thing to remember that you’re all friends around the table and this is meant to be a fun game! That said, there have been times when I grudgingly had to admit that being forced to “get serious” about taking our turns improved the gameplay and the experience overall, since we were no longer being hindered by constant goofy jokes and distracting table talk. We still had fun and had the added bonus of getting further into the adventure in a session and enjoying some excitingly tense moments waiting to see what the dice would give us!
@chaosslayer27: I agree with @@masterthedungeon, it depends on the group, and the game, and the setting. If I'm running a game with my buddies at one of our houses and we're all having a good time, then nothing needs to change. If I'm running a game at my local game store, even though I'm friends or friendly with all the players, it's another story. If I'm running a game with my buddies and we only have 2 or 3 hours a week to play, because we all have work and lives, and we really want the story to move, that's anther thing too. And, if I'm running a game at a convention, like GenCon, then it's extra important to make sure that combat moves fast so the story can keep moving, so you can finish in time.
@@masterthedungeon I feel like calling it "casual" is a little demeaning. Like, sure it's a much more laid back atmosphere rather than fast-paced combat, but I'd hardly call my group casual. We're just heavy on the RP side even in combat, and since both I and at least one of my players have ADHD, we easily get derailed not through being "casual," but through simply the strange and wild associations our brains sometimes make at random. I wouldn't call that "casual", just much more cinematic focused. We're just as serious, but in a different way. I still spend weeks on maps, NPCs and lore, they still spend a lot of time working on and refining their character concepts, and we all have a great time creating epic stories together. Plus I know I would be completely unable to play under 1-10, I'd get too stressed out about it, so I'd never force my players to endure that.
@@StormTheSquid Ever had to give a speech? A whole min is longer then you think, and 5 min is an enterity! The point of "fast" combat is to make the fights feel tense, and the cinematic "killing blow" even more special. It also might help keep everyone focused if adhd is a major element of your table. Expecially if your tangents last so long people forget what was happening in the combat. Or... don't! Expecially if this game is a time to be as "adhd" as you want without the pressure to "focus".
i love this! a variant that a good friend of mine did was a COMICLY LARGE i think it was a 20 minute hourglass in the middle of the table that qued something that made the fight harder (more enemies, enimies geting another turn, turrane change, etc.) the amount of times we had 10 second turns was increadable!
Actually, I'm reminded of Matt Mercer on Crit Role as a rule for players: Know your abilities and what you can mechanically can do. It's not the DM's job to know what options your character has available. What the DM's job is, is to give you enough information to know how your feats and abilities apply to the current combat situation.
When this is the first character you’ve ever played in a trrpg, I’ll offer you more advice than normal. When you hit level 3 and get some new interesting abilities I’ll try to help you remember you have a subclass. When this is the 5th monk you’ve played and you’re level 9, I only feel slightly bad at neglecting to mention you forgot to take your bonus action for the 3rd turn this combat.
Yeah. I would even write a conspect at what can my character do and what it does. E.g. palladin 1. Hit things 2. Lay on hands - 20 hp (20 checkboxes here) or 5 hp for illness O O O - my spell slots 3. Divine smite - hit things very painful 4. bless 5. cure wounds 6. divine shield 7. finding good and bad; poison and illness; magic
@@Randleray i think the general understanding is that after a certain point you should be expected to know your class. First time player, first use of class, and freshly unlocked or rarely used abilities obviously will get some extra explaining. But forgetting how much damage the sword you have been using for 3 months is much less tollerated. Besides, always use cheat sheets that contain whatever you want but good things to include are your main actions (Eldridge blast 1D10), spell slots (ideally in a pyramid shape with checkboxes as you use them), items that may be usefull like holy water (and a way to mark off uses), ways to heal others (possibly separated into ranged and contact methods). Also include page numbers to full explanations of mechanics and quick descriptors for normal use. (So Fireball does X fire damage, has X save, and X radius, needs X components. But if you use fireball on a defensive spell the interaction gets way more complicated than nukeing some goblins so you will want page referances for quick lookup of full descriptions in combat when things are fuzzy)
I use tactics time. Everyone has 1-2 minutes to discuss what they're going to do at the top of the round and then 30 seconds for their actual turn. I find 1:10 has the issue of the party can't plan, you have to follow whatever the highest guy in initiative does and synergistic strategies fall out or turns are wasted giving advice. With tactics time the party gets to plan, but there's no butting in on someone's actual turn. I've had a great time with this as both a player and a GM.
I've seen several ways of helping group tactics and this might be the best one I've seen yet, with my brother's "one turn for the whole party, one turn for all the enemies" strategy (which would not work correctly in games like 5E or Pathfinder, but does in AD&D which he is DMing) Might give it a try.
@@Jo-np3qy it's like being able to pause a strategy game, in theory. Is it immersive ? Not really. Does it make it more enjoyable to be able to plan your actions correctly ? Depends on your taste, but to me it's a clear yes.
Solid advice, presented in a mature, open communication way. Too often I've had DMs decide on rules without discussion, and most of the time this leads to dissatisfaction and resentment. The approach of openly discussing the issue, looking for solutions, and then taking soft and easy steps towards resolution is the better way. Thanks! Great vid!
Absolutely worth rolling together, ALSO you get to feel the sting of that miss all the more when your greatsword damage rolls double 6's, and you only hit for a 12. ;)
In that instance, you could tweak it out a little longer. Maybe 3 minutes is more practical, for example. You'd experiment with the time to find a happy balance, preserving the spirit of the 1:10 rule without it being a strict & literal interpretation.
You should use the 3 minute, 2 people didn't want a timer which means you should use the highest one as they aren't confident with thinking in short periods. You're basically forcing the most disliked one on all 5 players.
Great video. The part about the DM's turn is especially important. I've found that I can shave A LOT of time off combat by keeping my own turns as short as possible when I'm DMing. There's no problem with speeding through the enemies' turns; they're not the focus, and roleplaying your mistakes as actual enemy mistakes makes the enemy units feel more real.
Yeah, not taking a long time to plan out my NPC combat strategies sometimes helps because I don't have to, like, intentionally hold back to make some enemies make mistakes in combat. Instead, my haste lets me make mistakes naturally! 😂 Not that I'm some sort of tactical genius or anything, but not every enemy will have a great plan or whatever lol
As a wizard main who has always been the “you have to KNOW your character” kinda guy I love this!! It really pushes my knowledge of each spell and each situation, further stretching the potential of my character!
The only time I get annoyed is when someone is consistently waiting until it’s their turn to start planning their turn. Your turn should be for enacting your action not planning it. You can be planning your move a couple turns before yours. Generally I have a couple ideas in my head in case the turn before mine messes up my first choice. I understand occasionally getting distracted or incredibly thrown off by what happened the turn before but that should be the exception.
One thing that i found helps out a decent bit is giving characters four stacks of notecards with clips, one covers all out of combat action/skills they have so that they can quick reference skills, abilities, and such. The second covers all active combat abilities they can take on their turn, if they unequip and item or a spell is not prepared for the day then those go into the out of combat stack instead. The third covers actions they can take on other characters turns, streamlining any cut-ins. Finally is the passive effect stack, this is played out on their table area more like an equipment page, and any active spell effects or conditions and stuff get added to this area as long as they are active, this helps players take a quick look at what stats they have that are different than usual, or like what ac or save or passive they have is, and the like, speeding up reference time a Lot. Note: this does take initial prep time on session 0, during level ups, and sometimes at rests, but much less than the overall combat options
this reminds me of combat in Paranoia (not exactly a player-friendly game) where you go around the table and ask players what they want to do and if they don't answer quickly then they just don't get a turn. it's less of a 1:10 rule and more of a 1:1 rule or even less. the game is fun I swear.
Paranoia is GREAT. Its just different, when you're playing a commie mutant with an illegal blue barrel, everything looks like trouble... Shoot it. You are a Troubleshooter after all.
I have been debating on using this rule myself for a while now but have been too afraid of scaring my players off. The idea of incentives and being lenient at first though could make it way easier of a transition. I think I'm finally going to commit!
I feel this isn't a very good DM tip unless the group has experienced players, Implementing a clock on people's fun is a fast way to kill all the fun. A big liability with introducing this rule is: are you the DM having to stop to confirm the outcome a lot, are you slowing down the game? What is the outcome of a grapple check against a restrained target while both the grappler and target are blinded? This is easy answer for an experienced DM but could easily waste a minute or two to look up the interaction. Ask yourself next time you play, what is happening between turns, is it chatter, roleplay, is there a lot of clarification on rules going on, does everything slow down when someone casts a spell? (this is a common one). From there individually tackle the problems by communicating with your players. "Hey can we cut chatter down between rounds" "I use this really cool app that lists all the spells I have prepared and tells me their description before I need to cast them" "If you're characters are talking to each other during combat, you can only reply on your turn"
Having my players role the damage dice when they role the d20 really helpped speed things up - even just doing it as a DM sped up my monsters turns alot. Plus has the added bonus, even if I miss, the players can get worried about how many dice the monster will do if it hits next time.
I also use this to save time, and help to narrate my failure. Miss with minimum damage? It was a feint, or had to change stance or approach halfway through. Miss with max? Powerful swing!...that just didn't connect.
@@noahdoyle6780 Oh, that's a really nice take on it. I'd never thought of weaving that into the narrative and makes it feel a lot less bad to just miss and roll high on damage.
3:45 honestly that seems like the most fair compromise I've seen. I've had GM skip turns for taking too long. Exceptionally frustrating when you're getting to grips with the game mechanics/game system for the first time.
A suggestion for a idea. Add Weather to you campaign/gaming session. I have had entire campaigns change on simple wind directions. Go camping in late fall when most of leaves are falling and a majority of leaves have already fell. Now throw a moderate wind of 10 to 15MPH! Throw in a party cloudy night where the moon light is constantly interrupted! Tell me. If you were a band of ORCs seeing a camp fire and you decided to sneak up on a party. You have a hell of an advantage to gain surprise. The forest with a wind is a relatively noisy place. You have leaves and branches falling creating noise and movement constantly. Any scent is dispersed! Take the same scenario but it is still night with zero wind, full moonlight. The air is 60 degrees. A fire is not really necessary. So the party elects not to have one. Those ORCs might come with in 50 yards and be surprised themselves if the sentries are actually doing their job! I actually use a Weather Table.
This might be good for some playgroups, but for me, our playgroup has had amazing combats where combat is basically an epic puzzle every time. Also, I think this breaks down on higher levels, where turns can get complex, and board states are interesting. This rule goes against a lot of what makes combat fun for me. Terrain that matters, multiple enemies, etc. Also, what about reactions? If you’re having issues with long combat, it could be because you’re with newer players, in which case the game is really overwhelming, or, characters are complex, in which case players really need time to consider their options. If you need a rule like this, I would always just use slowplay warnings. Players taking too much time? Talk to them. “Hey, it’s a group game, consider the time you take compared to others, thanks.” Last but not least, this rule completely removes cool dis rip toons from combat. Combat isn’t bookkeeping, it’s the core gameplay loop of DND.
She did mention that descriptions aren't on player time, but the high level turns taking forever is very true. Our group has hit Level 17 and even the newest player has learnt to use positioning and terrain after 3 years. Combat gets very intensive at high levels, but the idea of this rule is to solve a problem the group's having. If the group doesn't mind long turns, then there's no need to have this rule.
My issue is a lot of times in the circles i play with, I'll have to wait 30-40 minutes per round for combat to get back to my turn. Meanwhile I'm spending like 30 seconds to do my turn, because I'm actually planning my turn between rounds. So combat ends up being 30-40 minutes of waiting, 30 seconds, 30-40 minutes of waiting. Very annoying for me
Something else that helps a lot is reminding players about their turns. I usually say "cleric it's your turn; rogue, you go next." That way the rogue can begin thinking about what they're gonna do and when their minute comes along, they only have to consider the changes brought by the cleric's turn. I also have discussed beforehand with them that if they drag on their turn for too long, their character will perform their chosen "generic action" (the druid shoots a Produce Flame), or they perform the Dodge action.
My group often uses this sort of ruling, but I agree that time spent by DM explaining things should be on his/her time not mine, cause while the rule was implemented to force me to speed up (I'm the player who often takes up a ton of time if there's no limit), it works well in things like DnD or Pathfinder because we've gained a good grasp of the mechanics. But, we're currently playing in a system that I'm not great in and we have people new to the system+DM building bosses with special rules. So it doesn't help me if the rest of the party and DM start discussing clarifications on my turn, altering the decision making I have to do on the fly instead of the plan I had going into my turn and then the DM goes "you went over your minute, do better next time" because the timer was going while I was waiting for everyone else to finish clarifications. It's extra infuriating when we're in a system where the source of my indecision (spells, so many choices, also consequences) is gone and my turn is very simple and isn't changed by the clarifications. I've also kinda just taken up a 'no clarifications or explanations of consequences to my actions pls' attitude with my turns at this point XD So yeah, clarifications should be on DM time, not my time, especially if the rest of the party is jumping on top of it as well. atm it seems like the timer has been removed for the current game, I think the group is capable of fast turns lately if we ignore the time clarifications take up.
As a player, it's very important you should be deciding your next move whenever it's not your turn, and make small adjustments if the situation changes before yours comes around. Normally, whenever my turn comes around I already know which action I'm going to do and I can just immediately announce it
@@Randleray I primarily play utility casters like bard and druid. There's definitely "oh shit" moments where you have to rapidly abandon your previous plan but I find those turns are often few and what to do in those situations can be somewhat obvious (the fighter took a crit and is down. Better heal them, etc). Usually I create a plan A then pour over my spells and other options until my turn comes around. That way, even if the situation does change I have my spell list already in my head or might even come across a better option in the meantime.
@@Randleray I don't think this detracts from my original statement, that decision comes from updating your planned move whenever the situation changes or reveals itself. What I'm corely saying is that you shouldn't end up on your turn with *no* clue what you're going to do and trying to figure things out then. You should at least be giving thought to your next turn (or really, if you're more strategically minded, your third turn from now) whenever it's someone else's turn. I'm certainly not saying to go for the most derivative action and you usually have a decent amount of time to think things over and explore different options.
One way I'm a better player than I was before is not managing everybody's turn. If a fellow player is making a tactical mistake (IMO), I just let them do it.
I have this problem myself. I know everyone's abilities pretty well, know most Spells and am good with tactical movement (15ft diagonally out of the range of Counterspell, Healing Word the Paladin, 10ft to go grab them, drag them 10ft into cover), so if a player is struggling with their turn I'll often throw out tactical suggestions, which sometimes helps, but sometimes just gives them more to mull over
That is wise to stop that. I used to play pretty regularly at my local LGBT center before the pandemic, and there was this one guy who was CONSTANTLY telling everyone how they should be playing their characters. Nobody wanted to play with him. It got to the point where people would just immediately leave the table if he sat down.
As a DM I hate when one player tells another what to do in combat. If they can say something in 6 seconds (1 round) I let it slide as it could be considered shouting out a suggestion in character, but they can only do this once per round. In one instance a player that would not stop micromanaging combat even after multiple warnings, so on his next turn I ignored him and told everyone what his character did. He complained and I told him "You decided to take everyone else's turn for them so I decided to take yours for you. If you don't like it maybe you should let everyone else play the game." Never had an issue with him again
@@AmiableDingo Wearing my DM hat, I don't mind it when players take longer to discuss tactics and coordination. The realism of 6 seconds is belied by the fact that the player characters spend a lot of time training together and discussing tactics. Plus, if players are equally engaged with each other and all around offering opinions and counterpoints, that 's a fun part of the game.
A nice advice I actually never heard about before (the argument for the time proportion of 1 to 10, that is) I will probably testdrive this rule with my party soon, due to time restraints while playing in Uni...
When I was in college, the GM for my pathfinder group implemented this rule (the harsher version where you bungle your turn if you go over time too much). Honestly it was great. Kept players attentive when it wasn't their turn in combat and got people to plan their turns in advance. Combat flowed pretty quickly and intelligently after that.
We do similar. Doesn't happen too often though. DM usually says "ok, what are you doing?" and if you don't start your reply fairly soon after, you basically bungle a continuation of your prior action, freeze in confusion or indecision, etc. It quickly results in everyone remembering to plan ahead and quickly.
Super easy way to safe a moment here and there that really (!) adds up: Rolling Attack and Damage together. Hit? There's your damage. Miss? Just ignore them and sometimes feel a bit bad because it would be a great Damage roll.
Friendly heads up that this rule can be really hard on players with mental health disorders. Alternate options (such as on-deck notices and helping PCs make those flow charts for their own turns) might be good to try first.
This rule will ultimately make players on-deck notice themselves as out of game distractions are very quickly eliminated once this rule is enforced. If they are a spellcaster, an easy counter is ti always carry a "potato-spell" like Arcane Missiles or Guiding Bolt, which will almsot always be a safe and solid use of your turn.
@@GnarledStaff yeah, those or disabilities involving reading or math abilities, or sometimes people will have a condition where they just think more slowly than others or take longer to solve a problem. So perhaps more time, helping them come up with flow charts, telling them they're on deck, and other accommodations might be called for.
My Players Really hated the 1:10 rule.(Didn't even know it was called that) I implemented it in the middle of our campaign, which just now ended. We ended up compromising with this. Under 1min: Advantage on their Next Turn Over 1min: Standard Dnd + modifiers Over 2min: Disadvantage on their next, non combat role (Stacks) Over 3min: They have to use, what I've seen another person here call a Panic Action. (An Action they decided upon at the start of combat) For my next campaign, I might be more forgiving with the over 2min punishment, by making it disadvantage on After Combat Looting Roles, and if they are under a minute I might just making it Advantage on a Looting Role. I'm also probably going to make it so that if they go over 3 minuets they can choose between a panic action, or they can take there time and move down a place in initiative, and for every 3min after that it'll be another place moved down.
The thing is, you dont have a minute to decide your next move because after your turn is over, you would likely have at least 4 minutes to think because you should be planning during other peoples turns
Note this only applies for when you have indecisiveness as the key time eater. If you have a player who doesn't understand their character mechanically it changes nothing as they will still have to lookup things mid turn. Since it only affects decisions it doesn't affect how long the monk spends rolling and calculating his 12 attacks. Also note that there are characters that do have valid reasons to spend longer than a minute, particularly in a crunchy system. For example spellcasters looking at spell details that don't come up often or martial characters with feat flexibility looking at the details of a specific counterfeat. So it is nice to be able to let players save some of their time for future turns for those situations where niche details may apply.
My DM came at me with this idea. I only did a single session ever playing 5e before, so I asked if we could do 1:20 instead. I'm a paladin/sorcerer, so I had to plan for a couple of spells for my next turn, but other than that, it was pretty simple to stay on time. I asked 5 questions "What do I do if the same monsters are still here? Do I change my plans if some of the monsters are slain (AoE spells vs single target). Do I change if my health becomes low? Change if I lose concentration on this spell? Change if an ally falls?
I use a system I call decisiveness points. Essentially, when a player declares an action within a period of time of it being their turn, (usually 5-10 seconds) they get some sort of bonus, like a +1 to all rolls to hit that turn or something of that nature. Doesn’t impact the game that much and I find it speeds up combat significantly when the players are incentivized to pay attention and have their actions ready on their turn. It’s not a unique idea but I suggest trying it and seeing how it speeds things up.
I have a Wizard in my party and he always takes forever. Claiming he had his turn planned until the previous player took their action, now he has to come up with a new plan. Every Time! I'm going to introduce this and see how it changes the game. Thanks for the helpful videos!
You can suggest him to made out a default action. For example, "If my plan can't work right now, I'll use my second highest damaging spell on a nearby enemy" and then he can't think on another turn while others acting.
Yeah, I have a sorcerer in my group that does the same. Suuper annoying. That and half the table seems to have loud conversations about anything else than the game we're in when it's someone elses turn. I had to crack down on that, despite my bloody social anxiety. "Hey guys, it's really nice to hear you're having good conversations, but I need to hear what the Active Player is saying." Mr. Talk About Everything kindly shut up. It felt great. I like to think it helped the atmosphere around the table, and especialy the Active Player who couldn't get their plan heard.
tbf if he's playing a high int/wis type character, he may feel compelled to strategize to reflect that also at least wizards i've played have been highly tactical. not as simple as "pick a target to kill" or "heal an ally"
@@nyankers There is such a thing as over-thinking though, and if their plan is that sensitive all the time. They need to rethink their general strategy, because it's not working and they're probably not as clever as they think.
I really like your channel and have been inspired by quite a few things. On the subject of slow fights, I have to say: I tried the time limit and gave up. If something isn't going well at the table, then you should talk to each other before or after the game. That solves most problems. Sometimes you can still put pressure on as a game master and often you have to also allow the players to think longer and together about a move. That can also be atmospheric.
I do like this. I will probably implement this when I start a new campaign, this way I don't have gripes about it. Also, for ease of monster attack patterns and trees. Just read up on "The Monsters Know What They're Doing." Kieth Ammann does a great job of looking over the monster stats and then applying that to the attack patterns they would most likely take from stats/abilities and lore from the books. Well worth the read!
I use this rule with two minutes. One of the things that frustrates me the most as a DM is that, despite managing the entire game and multiple monsters, I can usually complete a DM-controlled turn with 3-5 rolls _in its entirety_ in less than three minutes. I have not had any time to plan and I am making snap decisions for them, relying on experience and gut impressions. I _do_ have some good players that have been using the entire rest of the initiative to plan their turn and look up what they need, and they usually fly by almost disappointingly fast to the point I encourage them to RP it more, but I have others that spend that entire two minutes deciding to attack one enemy with their only viable option, or spend it looking up basic parts of their character they should really, really know by now (a Fighter not remembering he has multiple attacks at level 6 really got my goat). New players get some leeway, but I'm generally asking for a DECISION on what to do, not a complete turn. Just... say what you want to do that makes sense!
Devil's advocate for a second, as a long time player & primarily: a longtime DM It may take you less time cause there is not a lot of stakes in your decision as a DM... Usually when I'm DMing: my monsters either are stronger (in terms of raw power) than the party, or they have a plan that I was able to setup beforehand cause ya know, I know everything that's gonna happen in the game for the most part, + winning is not very important for the DM For the players their characters and their entire party's lives are in the balance, + most of the time when you're running a stressful fight such as a boss or ambush: the DM is setting the flow of the fight, where the party is scrambling to react. You should obviously use whatever time is best for your group and I'm by no means saying this rule is unfair, but I think it does make sense for the player's turn to take significantly longer than the DM
@@thepurehealer1279 - This is an excellent point and a good reason to go slow. Most of the complaints about a slow game are more rooted in the pace being disruptively slow, such as players not paying attention until their turns or never learning how their characters work.
@@Verbose_Mode it comes down to those two things so often. The overly social person who is always startled by their turn coming up, needs a refresher course in actions and their abilities, and then doesn't do a bloody thing that's different. Every. Damn. Time. Yet the dm is supposed to know every monster, level of interaction, respond realistically, and then the pc's abilities, backstories, plus whatever esoteric abuse the veteran is throwing in. It's exhausting. The Panic Action plus a minute... Maybe 2,for newbies... That's what I've pulled away from this, as a dm of more than 25 years. I like those concepts, and I want my players to have some investment, or least make it quick!
I suffer from heavy stress problems and when playing D&D I try to relieve myself from that stress. Time limits absolutely kill me. We once had an irl hour to clear a dungeon which was apparently calculated with exploration in mind. I got stressed about time running out and we reached the end in like 15 minutes, leading to a character death. I couldn't imagine how much stress an irl 1 minute timer per turn would give me. Along with that it would basically remove interaction between me and the other players, drastically reducing one of the main reasons I enjoy D&D. My DM has talked about introducing something like this and I'm dreading it if he ever does.
I am not trying minimize: you really have 4 to 6 mins to make a choice because nothing prevents you from using other people turns to work out. When I've seen this used well it got people off their phones and looking at the map. It meant that people had 2 ideas ready to go. Remember the DM is going to take some time themselves depending on the number of enemies/legendary actions. The biggest thing in my opinion this stops is a player who is taking a very long time and is distracted so they're part of the turn is taking three to four times what the rest of the party is taking. It doesn't have to be fair to the second but it should average out that people's battle turns should be about equal.
@@oxnyxws It can stop a player who takes too long but punish others that are prepared but for example hate the idea of time restraints, have anxiety or "stage fright". To some this might feel like the DM brigns in a rule to solve an individual problem instead of talking to people about it. If they keep talking and not paying attention, why are they there to begin with? If the fight is not engaging, why are they fighting it? It can be a good solution, but it can also be a deal breaker for some players and that's fine.
Never heard it as the 1:10 rule. I just used a minute/player because that is what I read years ago 😂 p.s. It's also hard on the other players when one player takes "10 minutes" 😕 p.s.s. The person who does your slides is awesome. They should know that 👍
@@MWSin1 Dungeon Magazine in the early 90's (91 or 92) when I also got into MtG. Saw my first Dungeon Magazine at the card shop. Then discovered Dragon Magazine two weeks later.
I’ve never heard of the 1 minute rule being called a 1:10 rule either, and I can’t imagine why it’s called that instead. The player isn’t taking 10x longer on their turn, because a turn isn’t 6 seconds; a round is. A round is when everyone takes their turn. All calling it the 1:10 rule instead of the 1 minute rule does is make the difference between a turn and a round even more confusing if this is a player’s introduction to it.
This 1:10 rule seems strange to me because I very rarely have players take more than a minute, and the only time they do is if they're asking for clarification on the setting or enviornment etc. On average I'm thinking 15-20 second turns is the norm for my group. I am playing PF2E and not 5E though, and also with very experienced players, so combat may just be a bit more streamlined.
I have players who get anxious about timers. When I need to set a timer for a player in a board game or ttrpg like this, I like to use two timers instead (or the same one twice, rather). The first timer they don't see, and so don't worry about. When I see it's run out, I'll set the timer out for them to see. That way they can think without worrying about the timer, and they know that when I'm setting out the timer and saying hurry up, they know how much time "hurry up" actually means and still don't get anxious about it. It's worked really well with my players
My rule is a little more fluid: if its obvious that the player has been thinking about their turn beforehand, then I won't pressure the player. If something has bungled up their plans, they get some leeway. If its a player's turn and its obvious that they haven't been paying attention or haven't been thinking about their turn, they get about 30 seconds to make a decision or take the dodge action and that's the end of their turn.
As a 5th level wizard I have way more options than my barbarian friend. He just checks "Am I raged? Do I want to go reckless or not?", while I have to pick from loads of spells. Being lower in the initiative order as a penalty in those rounds seems fair, though.
If you're having trouble figuring out which spells to use in combat in less than a minute I would highly recommend Keith Ammann's book Live to Tell The Tale. It can really help you streamline the decision making process and highlight easier ways to think about the choices you have in combat.
"Pick from loads of spells..." Often I know what I am going to do but I always have one bone-headed party member move into "The line of fire" making me rethink my strategy right before my turn. I want to post a sign that reads, "I will lock down the battlefield with you in it. And when I do you can't get angry at me."
@@roguelikeable3704 Looking into it! It's sold out in quite a few Dutch bookstores, but did see at least one with it in stock, so I'm contemplating buying it, thanks for the tip ^^ Also see the "The Monsters Know What They’re Doing" book, but maybe I shouldn't make my DM wiser than he already is...
@@EelcoWind HAHA, yeah, The Monsters Know What They're Doing is great also, but I would hold off on handing that one to your DM until you read Live to Tell The Tale first. Both books were really revolutionary for my table and I can't recommend them enough.
My table just agreed on each player making up their mind before their turn comes up. We write down the initiative order and you see when your turn is up and how much time you have left until it is your turn. It works perfectly well for us. Everyone respects the rule, because we know how annoying it is and drags combat out to have to wait on one person. If you have a question you need to ask a question to make your decision, you come up with a plan B for your action so you can either way just ask when it's your turn and then immediately act.
In the past, my DM constricted our turns to 10 seconds which we've told him countless times is way too short but our party was 8 players when everyone is available so entire 4 hour sessions ended up being only combat before he started restricting us The biggest problem was that due to 2020 we moved our games to discord but he kept that rule. I think you know how frustrating going from a home game to an online game can be now add a time limit to your turn that ends before you even have a chance to assess the situation. He's mostly removed that ridiculous constraint in the last year but it still comes up in sessions where he wants "tension" and we still complain because it's still too little time but he refuses any criticism on the matter
We have a special kind of inspiration I think would work well with this. Instead of 1 inspiration to turn a roll into advantage we can have up 20 points. Using 1 point for oneself can increase a die roll by 1. And you may also use this for the rolls of others to increase or decrease their roll by 1 for 2 points. Usually we get 4 points for something that would warrant inspiration. I could see the DM giving out 1 point to everyone staying under the time limit.
This is all great advice. I've tweaked it a bit for some of my games. Instead of a countdown timer I use a countUP timer that the whole table can see. This adds some social pressure so that I as a DM don't have to act like a grade school teacher all the time. Also, instead of a decision tree, I just use a "Default Action" for the monster even if it is not optimal. I find it easier to keep track of one thing instead of several options. If I run out of time on the monster's turn, I just go to the default action. (examples: Goblins get out of melee and hide, spell casters misty step and fire off a cantrip, zombies all move to attack the same target.) Also, it is important to not punish players who make sub-optimal decisions or misplay their turn. This is not a MTG game.
For controlled zombies, piling onto a single target makes sense. If they're wild zombies, I personally would find it better/more believably if they attack whatever's closest to them.
Wow, that is is a really cool idea! 😊 I like it as a player as well as as a DM. It can be easy to get lost in the others turns and not to think about your own turn too much, especially as the DM. You have to ingage into the players turns too, since you need to set DCs and play alot of reactions/opportunity attacks. So I really like your idea of planning out the monsters strategy beforehand. Following that thought, I think it would be great if the monster manual and adventures would start to include combat tactics and decision trees to help to DM them. That would lift alot of weight from our shoulders.
Just wanna say thanks for adding captions! Sometimes I have trouble understanding what people are saying, and this really helps. I've always wanted to run a campaign, but I've /hated/ how long the combat was; I'll be sure to at least suggest this idea to my players, who also dislike the length of battles.
Thank you so much for your videos. They are helpful, even to the most veteran of DMs. One of the things are DM does as well is remind players that their turn is coming up and to be thinking about what they want to do.
Some great ideas of what to do when you're not sure what to do on your turn: 1) "Ready Action" until you can figure it out later. 2) Dodge, and spend the rest of the round thinking about your action for the next one. 3) Hide, if you're already in cover or can get to it in your movement. 4) Dash to a position where there might be cover. In cases where a player is simply prone to "performance anxiety"--no judgment, I've definitely been in a situation where I totally "blanked" when it came to my turn--they might be able to work out an arrangement with the DM to roll a 1d4 to take one of the above actions rather than "skip" them or fiddle with the turn order.
I think a timer is a good approach. You might want to go easy at first with 2 minutes. However, I think the real issue isn't the speed of combat, but the involvement. I find my long combats are still fun when players get little things off of their turn such as DM to player off of turn: "You notice the ground begins to shake" Player yells: "Something big is coming!"
Hey there, I just want to appreciate your videos. They all have been a great source of inspiration for me lately, and provide a new, refreshing point of view on all sorts of matters. Keep up the amazing work!
I wrote the decision tree before in an AI I designed for my monsters lol, definitely fun. Also I added a random choice in some scenarios to keep it interesting.
Similar! I learned to code pretty much to make my own D&D tools 😅 I'm not that advanced yet, but it does give my learning a nice sense of scope and direction!
You haven't happened to publish/be willing to publish those anywhere, would you? That sounds sick. I am new to DMing, I really want to add in my strategically brained goodness but there's a shitload of stuff to keep track of with new players too.
Came for the DM advice, subscribed for the art! Tangentially, planning out even a brief decision tree, list of objectives, or note about what your NPCs/monsters will do in a few situations (Idle, Social, On Alert, Fight, First Blood, etc.) does add a bit to the DM’s preptime, but it’s a good way to speed up combat AND make your foes seem more unique and interesting rather than just another token on the battle map to take down. I also use Morale checks so that battles don’t take as long - once things start looking bad for enemies, they’re likely to flee. Makes it less exhausting for players, gives them additional reasons to try unusual tactics (since it’s not just a “stand in front of each other and hack until they go down” every time), and makes truly implacable foes like fanatics, constructs and undead REALLY scary.
A one minute sand timer (hour glass) works great for this. Between each player you just have to flip the timer back and forth, and if you need to pause the timer for some reason (resolve an action, or provide DM clarification) you can just place it on it's side to pause the timer so the player is not being penalized for DM time usage.
Yeah, definitely seems like a fast track to everyone playing martial classes. I can see this being more effective if there's a battlemap instead of theater of the mind.
Not really. Even playing the wizard is ridiculously easy to do under a minute. Heck, even when playing as the swiss-knife Cleric (tanking, healing, battlefield control spells, and damage on occasion), I *KNOW* my spells and I have a list of all of my spells in front of me. I'll usually glance at it when it's not my turn, and when it's time for me to step up... I will usually get all of it out 20-30 seconds and then the next player is up. But even if I have to double check the spells, I'm already familiarized with them.
I've run combat where the paladin takes the 5 minute turn and the cleric has it figured out within 10 seconds. For spellcasters, it often comes down to "Does anyone need my healing/support? Do i need to take a problematic enemy out of the fight temporarily? Or should I go for massive damage?" Most spellcasters know which spells are going to be relevant in which situations.
This can work for a lot of people, didn't work for me as a player. As someone who has anxiety and who likes to RP flourishes on their actions, the ticking clock made me dread combat instead of enjoying it. The pressure made me fumbls on my words, or my mind go to blank when I planned what to do, but being put on a spot changed that. As many mechabics in DnD, this can be a hit and miss.
This sounds great and I am sure it works for a whole bunch of people, I just know that when time limits like that are imposed on me specifically I really struggle, probably has something to do with my Global Learning Disorder and ADHD. It's not something I'd immediately leave a game over, but If I end up missing every other turn, or constantly feeling Like I'm not contributing meaningfully then I'd definitely consider it for the sake of my mental health. But generally I'm sure this helps out a lot of tables. Thanks for another great video!
Honestly, if you take longer than this, you're probably over-thinking the encounter a bit. Which is a common player problem, and leads to most of the indecisiveness. Sometimes it's fine to just throw out a cantrip for a few rounds, or shoot a plain old crossbow while you think of something better to do on a future round. Not every action has to be encounter-defining. Sometimes making an impact is as simple as whittling down the minions while your melee guy holds off the bigger enemy, or jusy smacking the nearest enemy really hard.
Or it can help train and condition you to make quicker decisions. Also have ADD and suffer from decision paralysis/confusion when presented with lots of steps/options, this seems like a fun and safe way to exercise that part of my brain to strengthen those pathways. If get bumped in the turn order (which isn't missing a turn) so what, I'm getting another chance to make those speedy decisions. Odd thing is, I'm great in a real crisis and can react and come up with logical solutions quickly. Loads of planning, routes and options then I'm absolutely dogshit.
I HEAR you on this! Sometimes my ADHD makes it tough to keep up with what’s happening on the battlemat (figuratively or literally) and I need a quick recap when my turn comes around. One way I help to maintain focus is by planning my next turn while waiting, observing what everyone else is doing; or else helping the other players or DM to look up needed rules or other references in the manuals. Hopefully you can communicate your difficulties with the DM and other players in your group, so they understand that you aren’t bored or uninterested in what’s going on, but that your neurodiversity means you might need to utilize different ways of maintaining focus.
I can’t speak for global learning disorder, but as someone else with ADHD I find this rule to be nothing but positives. I get so bored waiting for my turn. If the turns went faster I’d feel a lot less pressure. Besides it’s not actually 1 minute to decide. It’s X minutes where x is the number of players and monsters.
Autistic person here. This method of combat actually really benefited me when I was a player and even more as a DM. It benefited me as a player because it forced me to stop overthinking my turns. I could be in the moment and enjoy the outcomes no matter what ended up happening. It allowed me to learn my character more effectively so I could make reflexive decisions. The issue I see is that you can feel like you aren't contributing meaningful no matter how long or short your combat turn is. If you spend 10 minutes planning and thinking about your move and then it doesn't work out in favor with the dice rolls, do you not feel equally defeated? I think this format could be freeing for you from that type of consequence, doesn't matter if the dice don't roll in your favor because you didn't spend 10 minutes planning the perfect scenario. That;s just my take, I hope you continue to enjoy the hobby
One of the best combats I have run as a DM was a fight on a wagon into a bandit camp. Whilst there was turns for each player it was run more like you get one or two quick actions to do on your turn and the pacing was so quick that it felt epic and was over in less time then normal combat. Everyone was engaged and was waiting for the next part
I'll be honest. I used to be super, super sensitive about how "slow" my games were. I tried many things, like the 1:10 rule, to "speed things up". And, well, like this video kind of points out, most players would 'agree' the game was slow, but they would quickly find the reality of time restriction is a remedy worse than the ill. So... I stopped caring if my game is slow. Here's what I find: games will have variable pacing as you go and you don't have 100% control of that. Letting go of trying to control pacing, I focused on things that matter: making my monsters more interesting, teaching my players their characters more, clarifying and articulating the situation clearly, and most importantly, teaching my players that ANYTHING could happen, retaining a poker face that leaves them always tense about how long or how dangerous any decision is. "Near end of the session? Doesn't mean that there isn't stragglers waiting to ambush you." Then, I enjoy the game, too, because I'm not hyper focused on pacing and let the game be, what it is going to be.
Lots of appreciate of the advise! Lot's of games, even not in DnD, everyone is so excited, but when the time goes long, it started to kill the buzz. I've seen some DnD games in tv shows, it seems so tense and appealing, but just because it cut out all the blank moment of the games and the edit. Limiting the decision time in actual games will make it looks like real combat, I'll definitely try it when I play. Thank you!
It doesn't work for everyone but having players roll all dice together is a minor assist to speeding things up. Roll, 22 total? hits. roll damage, 17 vs Roll 22 total? hits. 17 Very small change but adds up if everyone at the table does it over several rounds.
Actually in my experience the problem that lengthens combat rounds in most TTRPGs is players thrown off by actions of other players in the initiative before them. For instance: The caster has decided to throw a fireball, but the fighter has already charged directly into the group of monsters. A solution to solve this is to have each player (briefly) announce at the beginning of each round, what they want to do, _in reverse order of the initiative_. You can have them roll a free Insight-, Sense Motive-, Perception-check or whatever is appropriate for your game and situation, if you want them to be able to guess the enemies actions, but usually the enemy does far less to disturb the flow of a combat encounter.
You’re much nicer than me, I instituted a “5 seconds to announce your action or lose your turn” rule years ago…and my players tell me they appreciate it. Note that this is 5 seconds to ANNOUNCE an action, not resolve it.
Great vid. Just popped up at random. I’ve DM’d before and never had a problem with this until I started DMing for my Dtr and her friends. This will make things so much smoother.
TPK's speed up play in combat!! (Just Kidding). Solid advice, as a DM for the monsters, I sometimes use there Dexterity score to determine there initiative, DC 10 + Dexterity modifier.
Definitely a cool option but it's definitely not best for a lot of groups, players who aren't neurotypical or have any mental health issues that cause anxiety or focus issues. That being said I really love this idea and the presentation was so solid and well explained.
@burneraccount anxiety affects different people differently I also can handle it I'm just saying this while a great idea is definitely not a good idea to implement for everyone.
@burneraccount you've been dismissive of anyone with a differing experience to your own lived one. Just read any of your comments they lack a shred of empathy.
I prefer 1:20 , short enough keep the game moving, but long enough that there isn't really any pressure unless you are a prepared caster and DM can do their thing
This is a good rule (with the caveats on the information they needI actually find it better to give them 2-5 minutes at the start of combat (lower amounts when surprised than if they are kicking off a fight) for them to talk about what they would do. I introduced this as they entered level 6, because they were starting to bond well and that extra time to coordinate represents that they are almost instinctual in their overlap between each other.
I had a soft version of this in one the games I ran, with the 1 minute timer coming out as needed to hurry players along. After players got used to it there was a especially hectic time sensitive trap the players had to deal with and everyone for that puzzle fight only had a minute for each person to do something. It can be a neat trick to bring out in certain situations. I know now with more experience talking to your players post-game you can see what they like and works for them.
I use 30 seconds instead of one minute and if the player cannot make a decision in 30 seconds, their action for that round is automatically go defensive for the round. Players that pay attention to the game and understand what their characters are capable of doing can easily make a decision for their action in 30 seconds
I completly agree with this rule as a player and as a DM. It really makes things more realistic and brings out the tension of a combat. Its not because you are a wizard that you can take 10 minutes for a turn, to be able to read the spell's effects in the middle of a fight. For that, its way better when the wizard player really take the role of a student of magical arts and use the downtime out of combat or even when its someone else's turn to read the spells they prepared so they can have a plan for there turn. I do this with any spellcaster i play and it works. Just try to decide your next action while your party companions are taking there turns. In TTRPGs its even easier if the DM use a board for better visual of where each character and monster are, or Roll20 or other app to help when playing online.
60 second is too long if you ask me. They can decide what to do while the others take their turn. Tactical time seems alright, but why dont they just talk about that while camping at night around the fire. At my table they get 10 seconds or their character uses their turn to assess the situation. I have 6 players so its for everyones sake. It works great, our combat is action packed and thrilling. In real life you dont get time to think anyways.
There needs to be time allowed for rules questions and clarification of the battlefield status. Ten seconds is an absurdly short amount of time. Saying you don't get time irl is not relevant, because the characters aren't irl, and we're all trying to visualize a fictional world through various inaccurate descriptions.
@@PaulGuy ofc if they ask questions about the rules then we "pause". We are playing at with miniatures on a board, so there arent that much clarification to be done. I disagree, i think it adds to the tension that a battle is chaotic and you have to think fast. Our battles are very engaging and packed with tension and we all enjoy it.
I literally just put in time a one minute time limit on combat turns and yeah it works great. I kinda wish it was the default; analysis paralysis is in my experience a big part of what turns off first time players. They feel overwhelmed by all of the options which slows down the game which makes everything boring for everyone. If you make them identify a good go-to option it really speeds up play.
Speed up combat tips: I actually took the thing Matt Mercer does in critical role where he calls for a player's actions and also reminds the next person that their turn is coming up. If they were, to use the example in the video, looking up the hardness of stone or browsing through their spell list, it alerts them that it's decision time.
The main problem here is for creative combat. Some things their character would know while the player may need clarification on, such as "does forcibly moving an opponent provoke opportunity" or "in an enclosed space, does Fireball expand to fill the total volume of the spell, or just a circle" or "can i reach the chandelier". Don't get me wrong, the 1:10 rule speeds up combat, but it also makes it less tactically interesting. I think the real solution is just to have players who know what they can do and how their stuff works.
One idea for easing players into the 1:10 rule could also be to allow them to call for a time extention of an additional minute once per battle. Also you could grant that time extention for example when your clearification changed the thing they wanted to do on their turn and now they have to change up stuff fast. Especially if the situation is somewhat your fault because you failed to describe the situation in a way so it is clear to them what they can or can't do.
I feel like this also encourages players to always be thinking. Often times in a normal round you only have to think about what you’ll do once it’s your turn. If you only have so long to decide what to do, you be thinking about it during time outside of your turn, making the whole game more engaging
Great video! I really like this rule, and I think I'll be implementing with my next campaign. For new players, I think it's good to give them more time to figure things out, but after people have the hang of the game, the 1:10 rule is a great way to build intensity, keep things moving, and make combat feel more like...combat. One addition I like to make is adding another minute at the top of the round for group discussion. This let's the players discuss strategy, and it simulates the characters knowledge of one another. It also helps focus the players individual 1 minute timeframe when it comes to their turn. Thanks again!
4:20 reminds me of something my group likes to say: Roleplay isn't just the talky bits. The goals and tactics a combatant uses can make even two statistically identical combatants feel unique. A fanatic cultist and a bandit might all have the same to hit, AC, and such as each other but they will have wildly different approaches to a fight. The bandits might prefer to attack from range, in an ambush, with the goal of robbing a carriage. The Cultists might try to get close to their target and bum rush the carriage in an attempt to kill the riders inside rather than loot it. The bandits could be fairly easy to drive off or intimidate, but the cultists could act with careless disregard for their own safety and even allow AoO's to try and take a shot at their goal. On a similar note, I find that as a Player keeping what my character's goals and tactics are in mind can really simplify decision making. Do they know they have superior mobility and toughness and just saw the guy that killed their family in the back of the bandit's pack? They might consider closing a gap a viable tactic. Only have a bow and the clothes on their back? Their first turn may be to duck for cover so they can take pot shots. This has helped me keep my turns short.
One house rule I've held in reserve is the "Decisiveness bonus". Basically, if a player decides what they want to do within 5 seconds, they get a +1 to attack rolls or DC for the turn. I'm hoping it will work well as a carrot to move quickly in combat. Luckily, my players haven't been horribly slow, so I haven't had to bring the rule in. So I'm honestly not sure how well it will work.
I am a DM for many groups, both adults and kids, and when the group is very indecisive, I like to implement the Panic Action. At the beginning of combat they write down what their character will do if they can't decide, and whenever they are taking too much time I say "use your panic action". This can be a combination of things (like move to the closest enemy and attack, heal the lowest HP ally and dodge, etc.), and they can even change it mid-combat. It's a great way to keep the players' heads in the game.
The idea is good for focusing in general, but what is a panic action for a list of spells?
That's pretty damn smart
@@pedroivog.s.6870Cantrips. It's a panic action, not a detailed plan.
@@pedroivog.s.6870 Usually a cantrip, like Brandon said. But the healer could also choose something like Healing Word for the most hurt ally. After all, if the healer is panicking, there is probably healing to be done!
I am going to shamelessly steal this idea.
one thing my groups have used for years is "On-Decking"; It's essentially just "Player 1 your turn. Player 2 you're on deck" so players know ahead of their round to start deciding what they're doing so that they've got their turn prepared hopefully before their turn even starts. Also helps to mitigate someone not paying attention.
That sounds like a great idea.
So much this. Our DM flat out makes initiative order public info (with enemies getting slotted in as they come up in the order) so everyone can tell at a glance who's up next, etc...
He doesn't even need to say who's next cause everyone just already knows. (We thankfully have a pretty reasonable group for this already, and issues only come up if someone does something unexpected resulting in massive changes of plans.)
Idk it seems to me it's a personality thing, some people are ready when it's their turn and some are not, in my experience, adding a timer or prompting them doesn't help and just makes them feel pressured.
@@LordSathar they should feel pressured, otherwise they're wasting everyone's time. After a session or two they start paying attention and planning their turn in advance
If anyone doesn't already know, the next person after "on deck," is "in the hole!"
I recently got the book, The Monsters Know What They're Doing. Can't recommend it enough. It helps coming up with tactics for my monsters, but I think Im gonna steal this decision tree idea to mix them together. thanks!
Oh wow, I looked it up, this looks like a great book!
@@Guy_W If you get it and use it, warn your players before hand or you may get a TPK with globins like I did XP
@@PressEnter42 His other book is for players and written about how they can Live to Tell The Tale. If you use one, let them use the other. It's only fair.
Love that book.
I want those books so bad!
As a player, it's important to be respectful of the other people at the table and how much of an impact you're having on their time and enjoyment. You have anywhere from 5-10 minutes to plan your turn while everyone else takes theirs. Don't start looking up abilities and analyzing tactical options when your turn starts; put down your phone and do it during everyone else's turns.
I hate when people are even on their phones while someone else is taking their turns... why wouldn't you try to follow the fight if you cared about the game
I know i try to figure out my turn while others are taking their turn. Its also important to be flexible in your planing as something a teammate or enemy does could alter your turn.
I will say that some of my players actually focus better while on their phone
Untill the whole field is flipped again, and you are playing a cleric
2 minutes or skip. You plan when others are going or before combat. If you dont know your character then youre going to be slow, thats really on them.
I thing that often gets forgotten when it comes to people talking about fights taking too long is that it isn't just people not knowing what to do, but also a lot of friendly chatter and joking about the situation and not just from the player who's turn it is. So some allowance should be put in for that if you implement this rule because it may cut down on the fun of combat if it causes the players to hyperfocus on making good decisions quickly instead of a mix of decision making and interacting with the rest of the group.
Absolutely. Not every table plays the same way. Some tables are incredibly casual, and this wouldn't necessarily be the best rule to implement. It's really for when everyone agrees that the amount of time taken during turns is a real problem.
As frustrating as it can be to get bogged down, it’s always a healthy thing to remember that you’re all friends around the table and this is meant to be a fun game! That said, there have been times when I grudgingly had to admit that being forced to “get serious” about taking our turns improved the gameplay and the experience overall, since we were no longer being hindered by constant goofy jokes and distracting table talk. We still had fun and had the added bonus of getting further into the adventure in a session and enjoying some excitingly tense moments waiting to see what the dice would give us!
@chaosslayer27: I agree with @@masterthedungeon, it depends on the group, and the game, and the setting. If I'm running a game with my buddies at one of our houses and we're all having a good time, then nothing needs to change. If I'm running a game at my local game store, even though I'm friends or friendly with all the players, it's another story. If I'm running a game with my buddies and we only have 2 or 3 hours a week to play, because we all have work and lives, and we really want the story to move, that's anther thing too. And, if I'm running a game at a convention, like GenCon, then it's extra important to make sure that combat moves fast so the story can keep moving, so you can finish in time.
@@masterthedungeon I feel like calling it "casual" is a little demeaning. Like, sure it's a much more laid back atmosphere rather than fast-paced combat, but I'd hardly call my group casual. We're just heavy on the RP side even in combat, and since both I and at least one of my players have ADHD, we easily get derailed not through being "casual," but through simply the strange and wild associations our brains sometimes make at random.
I wouldn't call that "casual", just much more cinematic focused. We're just as serious, but in a different way. I still spend weeks on maps, NPCs and lore, they still spend a lot of time working on and refining their character concepts, and we all have a great time creating epic stories together.
Plus I know I would be completely unable to play under 1-10, I'd get too stressed out about it, so I'd never force my players to endure that.
@@StormTheSquid Ever had to give a speech? A whole min is longer then you think, and 5 min is an enterity! The point of "fast" combat is to make the fights feel tense, and the cinematic "killing blow" even more special. It also might help keep everyone focused if adhd is a major element of your table. Expecially if your tangents last so long people forget what was happening in the combat.
Or... don't! Expecially if this game is a time to be as "adhd" as you want without the pressure to "focus".
i love this! a variant that a good friend of mine did was a COMICLY LARGE i think it was a 20 minute hourglass in the middle of the table that qued something that made the fight harder (more enemies, enimies geting another turn, turrane change, etc.) the amount of times we had 10 second turns was increadable!
Actually, I'm reminded of Matt Mercer on Crit Role as a rule for players:
Know your abilities and what you can mechanically can do. It's not the DM's job to know what options your character has available.
What the DM's job is, is to give you enough information to know how your feats and abilities apply to the current combat situation.
When this is the first character you’ve ever played in a trrpg, I’ll offer you more advice than normal. When you hit level 3 and get some new interesting abilities I’ll try to help you remember you have a subclass.
When this is the 5th monk you’ve played and you’re level 9, I only feel slightly bad at neglecting to mention you forgot to take your bonus action for the 3rd turn this combat.
Yeah. I would even write a conspect at what can my character do and what it does.
E.g. palladin
1. Hit things
2. Lay on hands - 20 hp (20 checkboxes here) or 5 hp for illness
O O O - my spell slots
3. Divine smite - hit things very painful
4. bless
5. cure wounds
6. divine shield
7. finding good and bad; poison and illness; magic
@@jsamue12 100%. If you forget that you get an extra 2d6 of radiant damage with the sword you've been using for 3 months, that's on you dawg.
@@Randleray i think the general understanding is that after a certain point you should be expected to know your class. First time player, first use of class, and freshly unlocked or rarely used abilities obviously will get some extra explaining.
But forgetting how much damage the sword you have been using for 3 months is much less tollerated.
Besides, always use cheat sheets that contain whatever you want but good things to include are your main actions (Eldridge blast 1D10), spell slots (ideally in a pyramid shape with checkboxes as you use them), items that may be usefull like holy water (and a way to mark off uses), ways to heal others (possibly separated into ranged and contact methods).
Also include page numbers to full explanations of mechanics and quick descriptors for normal use. (So Fireball does X fire damage, has X save, and X radius, needs X components. But if you use fireball on a defensive spell the interaction gets way more complicated than nukeing some goblins so you will want page referances for quick lookup of full descriptions in combat when things are fuzzy)
@@Randleray of course. I gave a very specific example because it’s normally the small things that get forgotten entirely
I use tactics time. Everyone has 1-2 minutes to discuss what they're going to do at the top of the round and then 30 seconds for their actual turn.
I find 1:10 has the issue of the party can't plan, you have to follow whatever the highest guy in initiative does and synergistic strategies fall out or turns are wasted giving advice. With tactics time the party gets to plan, but there's no butting in on someone's actual turn. I've had a great time with this as both a player and a GM.
Yeah, real life players are terrible at teamwork. At least compared to an actual, skilled adventuring party.
I've seen several ways of helping group tactics and this might be the best one I've seen yet, with my brother's "one turn for the whole party, one turn for all the enemies" strategy (which would not work correctly in games like 5E or Pathfinder, but does in AD&D which he is DMing)
Might give it a try.
I like this.
I get that but doesn't it break immersion? And isn't it a form of meta-play? Would the characters have time to plan? If they do, fine, but if not.....
@@Jo-np3qy it's like being able to pause a strategy game, in theory. Is it immersive ? Not really. Does it make it more enjoyable to be able to plan your actions correctly ? Depends on your taste, but to me it's a clear yes.
Solid advice, presented in a mature, open communication way. Too often I've had DMs decide on rules without discussion, and most of the time this leads to dissatisfaction and resentment. The approach of openly discussing the issue, looking for solutions, and then taking soft and easy steps towards resolution is the better way.
Thanks! Great vid!
"May I interest you in a ✨Bribe✨?"
Iconic
one thing that's often overlooked is rolling dmg and attack dice together. it's great and speeds up rolls a lot
Agreed! I've found that this method is underrated in cutting time!
Absolutely worth rolling together, ALSO you get to feel the sting of that miss all the more when your greatsword damage rolls double 6's, and you only hit for a 12. ;)
The 1:10 rule needs more selling to me. 1 minute at the table is not the same as 1 minute online.
In that instance, you could tweak it out a little longer. Maybe 3 minutes is more practical, for example. You'd experiment with the time to find a happy balance, preserving the spirit of the 1:10 rule without it being a strict & literal interpretation.
I had my 5 players vote on a timer for next campaign. two said no timer, two said 2 minutes, and one said 3 minutes.
We'll be trying 2 minutes.
If 2 said no and 1 said 3, isn't 3 minutes a better compromise?
Be very careful using the words "compromise" and "better" in a sentence
You should use the 3 minute, 2 people didn't want a timer which means you should use the highest one as they aren't confident with thinking in short periods.
You're basically forcing the most disliked one on all 5 players.
Turns out, 2 minutes works just fine.
@@Buglin_Burger7878 2 minutes works
Great video. The part about the DM's turn is especially important. I've found that I can shave A LOT of time off combat by keeping my own turns as short as possible when I'm DMing. There's no problem with speeding through the enemies' turns; they're not the focus, and roleplaying your mistakes as actual enemy mistakes makes the enemy units feel more real.
Yeah, not taking a long time to plan out my NPC combat strategies sometimes helps because I don't have to, like, intentionally hold back to make some enemies make mistakes in combat. Instead, my haste lets me make mistakes naturally! 😂
Not that I'm some sort of tactical genius or anything, but not every enemy will have a great plan or whatever lol
As a wizard main who has always been the “you have to KNOW your character” kinda guy I love this!! It really pushes my knowledge of each spell and each situation, further stretching the potential of my character!
The only time I get annoyed is when someone is consistently waiting until it’s their turn to start planning their turn.
Your turn should be for enacting your action not planning it. You can be planning your move a couple turns before yours. Generally I have a couple ideas in my head in case the turn before mine messes up my first choice.
I understand occasionally getting distracted or incredibly thrown off by what happened the turn before but that should be the exception.
One thing that i found helps out a decent bit is giving characters four stacks of notecards with clips, one covers all out of combat action/skills they have so that they can quick reference skills, abilities, and such. The second covers all active combat abilities they can take on their turn, if they unequip and item or a spell is not prepared for the day then those go into the out of combat stack instead. The third covers actions they can take on other characters turns, streamlining any cut-ins. Finally is the passive effect stack, this is played out on their table area more like an equipment page, and any active spell effects or conditions and stuff get added to this area as long as they are active, this helps players take a quick look at what stats they have that are different than usual, or like what ac or save or passive they have is, and the like, speeding up reference time a Lot.
Note: this does take initial prep time on session 0, during level ups, and sometimes at rests, but much less than the overall combat options
This is a great idea!
this reminds me of combat in Paranoia (not exactly a player-friendly game) where you go around the table and ask players what they want to do and if they don't answer quickly then they just don't get a turn. it's less of a 1:10 rule and more of a 1:1 rule or even less. the game is fun I swear.
Paranoia is GREAT. Its just different, when you're playing a commie mutant with an illegal blue barrel, everything looks like trouble... Shoot it. You are a Troubleshooter after all.
I have been debating on using this rule myself for a while now but have been too afraid of scaring my players off. The idea of incentives and being lenient at first though could make it way easier of a transition. I think I'm finally going to commit!
only do this if the player is not paying attention, don't punish attentive players because theyr planned action got ruined by another players turn
I feel this isn't a very good DM tip unless the group has experienced players, Implementing a clock on people's fun is a fast way to kill all the fun.
A big liability with introducing this rule is: are you the DM having to stop to confirm the outcome a lot, are you slowing down the game? What is the outcome of a grapple check against a restrained target while both the grappler and target are blinded? This is easy answer for an experienced DM but could easily waste a minute or two to look up the interaction.
Ask yourself next time you play, what is happening between turns, is it chatter, roleplay, is there a lot of clarification on rules going on, does everything slow down when someone casts a spell? (this is a common one). From there individually tackle the problems by communicating with your players. "Hey can we cut chatter down between rounds" "I use this really cool app that lists all the spells I have prepared and tells me their description before I need to cast them" "If you're characters are talking to each other during combat, you can only reply on your turn"
Having my players role the damage dice when they role the d20 really helpped speed things up - even just doing it as a DM sped up my monsters turns alot. Plus has the added bonus, even if I miss, the players can get worried about how many dice the monster will do if it hits next time.
but it sucks as a player to miss by one and see max damage.
If you have multiple attacks, roll multiple d20s, but make sure they look different and the DM knows which order they’re supposed to be in.
I also use this to save time, and help to narrate my failure. Miss with minimum damage? It was a feint, or had to change stance or approach halfway through. Miss with max? Powerful swing!...that just didn't connect.
@@noahdoyle6780 Oh, that's a really nice take on it. I'd never thought of weaving that into the narrative and makes it feel a lot less bad to just miss and roll high on damage.
3:45 honestly that seems like the most fair compromise I've seen. I've had GM skip turns for taking too long. Exceptionally frustrating when you're getting to grips with the game mechanics/game system for the first time.
A suggestion for a idea. Add Weather to you campaign/gaming session. I have had entire campaigns change on simple wind directions. Go camping in late fall when most of leaves are falling and a majority of leaves have already fell. Now throw a moderate wind of 10 to 15MPH! Throw in a party cloudy night where the moon light is constantly interrupted! Tell me. If you were a band of ORCs seeing a camp fire and you decided to sneak up on a party. You have a hell of an advantage to gain surprise. The forest with a wind is a relatively noisy place. You have leaves and branches falling creating noise and movement constantly. Any scent is dispersed! Take the same scenario but it is still night with zero wind, full moonlight. The air is 60 degrees. A fire is not really necessary. So the party elects not to have one. Those ORCs might come with in 50 yards and be surprised themselves if the sentries are actually doing their job! I actually use a Weather Table.
This might be good for some playgroups, but for me, our playgroup has had amazing combats where combat is basically an epic puzzle every time. Also, I think this breaks down on higher levels, where turns can get complex, and board states are interesting. This rule goes against a lot of what makes combat fun for me. Terrain that matters, multiple enemies, etc. Also, what about reactions? If you’re having issues with long combat, it could be because you’re with newer players, in which case the game is really overwhelming, or, characters are complex, in which case players really need time to consider their options. If you need a rule like this, I would always just use slowplay warnings. Players taking too much time? Talk to them. “Hey, it’s a group game, consider the time you take compared to others, thanks.” Last but not least, this rule completely removes cool dis rip toons from combat. Combat isn’t bookkeeping, it’s the core gameplay loop of DND.
She did mention that descriptions aren't on player time, but the high level turns taking forever is very true. Our group has hit Level 17 and even the newest player has learnt to use positioning and terrain after 3 years. Combat gets very intensive at high levels, but the idea of this rule is to solve a problem the group's having. If the group doesn't mind long turns, then there's no need to have this rule.
My issue is a lot of times in the circles i play with, I'll have to wait 30-40 minutes per round for combat to get back to my turn. Meanwhile I'm spending like 30 seconds to do my turn, because I'm actually planning my turn between rounds. So combat ends up being 30-40 minutes of waiting, 30 seconds, 30-40 minutes of waiting. Very annoying for me
Something else that helps a lot is reminding players about their turns. I usually say "cleric it's your turn; rogue, you go next." That way the rogue can begin thinking about what they're gonna do and when their minute comes along, they only have to consider the changes brought by the cleric's turn.
I also have discussed beforehand with them that if they drag on their turn for too long, their character will perform their chosen "generic action" (the druid shoots a Produce Flame), or they perform the Dodge action.
DM of many years, never heard of the 1:10 rule. Got about 20 seconds into this video before it dawned on me how incredible this rule is.
My group often uses this sort of ruling, but I agree that time spent by DM explaining things should be on his/her time not mine, cause while the rule was implemented to force me to speed up (I'm the player who often takes up a ton of time if there's no limit), it works well in things like DnD or Pathfinder because we've gained a good grasp of the mechanics.
But, we're currently playing in a system that I'm not great in and we have people new to the system+DM building bosses with special rules. So it doesn't help me if the rest of the party and DM start discussing clarifications on my turn, altering the decision making I have to do on the fly instead of the plan I had going into my turn and then the DM goes "you went over your minute, do better next time" because the timer was going while I was waiting for everyone else to finish clarifications. It's extra infuriating when we're in a system where the source of my indecision (spells, so many choices, also consequences) is gone and my turn is very simple and isn't changed by the clarifications.
I've also kinda just taken up a 'no clarifications or explanations of consequences to my actions pls' attitude with my turns at this point XD
So yeah, clarifications should be on DM time, not my time, especially if the rest of the party is jumping on top of it as well. atm it seems like the timer has been removed for the current game, I think the group is capable of fast turns lately if we ignore the time clarifications take up.
As a player, it's very important you should be deciding your next move whenever it's not your turn, and make small adjustments if the situation changes before yours comes around. Normally, whenever my turn comes around I already know which action I'm going to do and I can just immediately announce it
@@Randleray I primarily play utility casters like bard and druid. There's definitely "oh shit" moments where you have to rapidly abandon your previous plan but I find those turns are often few and what to do in those situations can be somewhat obvious (the fighter took a crit and is down. Better heal them, etc). Usually I create a plan A then pour over my spells and other options until my turn comes around. That way, even if the situation does change I have my spell list already in my head or might even come across a better option in the meantime.
@@Randleray I don't think this detracts from my original statement, that decision comes from updating your planned move whenever the situation changes or reveals itself. What I'm corely saying is that you shouldn't end up on your turn with *no* clue what you're going to do and trying to figure things out then. You should at least be giving thought to your next turn (or really, if you're more strategically minded, your third turn from now) whenever it's someone else's turn. I'm certainly not saying to go for the most derivative action and you usually have a decent amount of time to think things over and explore different options.
One way I'm a better player than I was before is not managing everybody's turn. If a fellow player is making a tactical mistake (IMO), I just let them do it.
I have this problem myself. I know everyone's abilities pretty well, know most Spells and am good with tactical movement (15ft diagonally out of the range of Counterspell, Healing Word the Paladin, 10ft to go grab them, drag them 10ft into cover), so if a player is struggling with their turn I'll often throw out tactical suggestions, which sometimes helps, but sometimes just gives them more to mull over
That is wise to stop that. I used to play pretty regularly at my local LGBT center before the pandemic, and there was this one guy who was CONSTANTLY telling everyone how they should be playing their characters. Nobody wanted to play with him. It got to the point where people would just immediately leave the table if he sat down.
As a DM I hate when one player tells another what to do in combat. If they can say something in 6 seconds (1 round) I let it slide as it could be considered shouting out a suggestion in character, but they can only do this once per round.
In one instance a player that would not stop micromanaging combat even after multiple warnings, so on his next turn I ignored him and told everyone what his character did. He complained and I told him "You decided to take everyone else's turn for them so I decided to take yours for you. If you don't like it maybe you should let everyone else play the game." Never had an issue with him again
@@AmiableDingo this is the way
@@AmiableDingo Wearing my DM hat, I don't mind it when players take longer to discuss tactics and coordination. The realism of 6 seconds is belied by the fact that the player characters spend a lot of time training together and discussing tactics. Plus, if players are equally engaged with each other and all around offering opinions and counterpoints, that 's a fun part of the game.
A nice advice I actually never heard about before (the argument for the time proportion of 1 to 10, that is)
I will probably testdrive this rule with my party soon, due to time restraints while playing in Uni...
When I was in college, the GM for my pathfinder group implemented this rule (the harsher version where you bungle your turn if you go over time too much). Honestly it was great. Kept players attentive when it wasn't their turn in combat and got people to plan their turns in advance. Combat flowed pretty quickly and intelligently after that.
We do similar.
Doesn't happen too often though.
DM usually says "ok, what are you doing?" and if you don't start your reply fairly soon after, you basically bungle a continuation of your prior action, freeze in confusion or indecision, etc.
It quickly results in everyone remembering to plan ahead and quickly.
Super easy way to safe a moment here and there that really (!) adds up:
Rolling Attack and Damage together.
Hit? There's your damage.
Miss? Just ignore them and sometimes feel a bit bad because it would be a great Damage roll.
Bonus: you can shake all those dice together to make the click-clack noises
Friendly heads up that this rule can be really hard on players with mental health disorders. Alternate options (such as on-deck notices and helping PCs make those flow charts for their own turns) might be good to try first.
This rule will ultimately make players on-deck notice themselves as out of game distractions are very quickly eliminated once this rule is enforced. If they are a spellcaster, an easy counter is ti always carry a "potato-spell" like Arcane Missiles or Guiding Bolt, which will almsot always be a safe and solid use of your turn.
Valid points. Not sure how to mitigate that beyond giving more time. I'm assuming this would be referring to things like anxiety disorders.
@@GnarledStaff yeah, those or disabilities involving reading or math abilities, or sometimes people will have a condition where they just think more slowly than others or take longer to solve a problem. So perhaps more time, helping them come up with flow charts, telling them they're on deck, and other accommodations might be called for.
My Players Really hated the 1:10 rule.(Didn't even know it was called that) I implemented it in the middle of our campaign, which just now ended. We ended up compromising with this.
Under 1min: Advantage on their Next Turn
Over 1min: Standard Dnd + modifiers
Over 2min: Disadvantage on their next, non combat role (Stacks)
Over 3min: They have to use, what I've seen another person here call a Panic Action. (An Action they decided upon at the start of combat)
For my next campaign, I might be more forgiving with the over 2min punishment, by making it disadvantage on After Combat Looting Roles, and if they are under a minute I might just making it Advantage on a Looting Role. I'm also probably going to make it so that if they go over 3 minuets they can choose between a panic action, or they can take there time and move down a place in initiative, and for every 3min after that it'll be another place moved down.
The thing is, you dont have a minute to decide your next move because after your turn is over, you would likely have at least 4 minutes to think because you should be planning during other peoples turns
Note this only applies for when you have indecisiveness as the key time eater. If you have a player who doesn't understand their character mechanically it changes nothing as they will still have to lookup things mid turn. Since it only affects decisions it doesn't affect how long the monk spends rolling and calculating his 12 attacks. Also note that there are characters that do have valid reasons to spend longer than a minute, particularly in a crunchy system. For example spellcasters looking at spell details that don't come up often or martial characters with feat flexibility looking at the details of a specific counterfeat. So it is nice to be able to let players save some of their time for future turns for those situations where niche details may apply.
My DM came at me with this idea. I only did a single session ever playing 5e before, so I asked if we could do 1:20 instead. I'm a paladin/sorcerer, so I had to plan for a couple of spells for my next turn, but other than that, it was pretty simple to stay on time.
I asked 5 questions "What do I do if the same monsters are still here? Do I change my plans if some of the monsters are slain (AoE spells vs single target). Do I change if my health becomes low? Change if I lose concentration on this spell? Change if an ally falls?
I use a system I call decisiveness points. Essentially, when a player declares an action within a period of time of it being their turn, (usually 5-10 seconds) they get some sort of bonus, like a +1 to all rolls to hit that turn or something of that nature. Doesn’t impact the game that much and I find it speeds up combat significantly when the players are incentivized to pay attention and have their actions ready on their turn. It’s not a unique idea but I suggest trying it and seeing how it speeds things up.
I don't think I'd use this rule, but I enjoy the animations and the nice, set pace of this video.
I have a Wizard in my party and he always takes forever. Claiming he had his turn planned until the previous player took their action, now he has to come up with a new plan. Every Time! I'm going to introduce this and see how it changes the game. Thanks for the helpful videos!
You can suggest him to made out a default action. For example, "If my plan can't work right now, I'll use my second highest damaging spell on a nearby enemy" and then he can't think on another turn while others acting.
Yeah, I have a sorcerer in my group that does the same. Suuper annoying. That and half the table seems to have loud conversations about anything else than the game we're in when it's someone elses turn. I had to crack down on that, despite my bloody social anxiety. "Hey guys, it's really nice to hear you're having good conversations, but I need to hear what the Active Player is saying." Mr. Talk About Everything kindly shut up. It felt great. I like to think it helped the atmosphere around the table, and especialy the Active Player who couldn't get their plan heard.
Just cast firebolt if they take too long
tbf if he's playing a high int/wis type character, he may feel compelled to strategize to reflect that
also at least wizards i've played have been highly tactical. not as simple as "pick a target to kill" or "heal an ally"
@@nyankers There is such a thing as over-thinking though, and if their plan is that sensitive all the time. They need to rethink their general strategy, because it's not working and they're probably not as clever as they think.
informative, will use this information
I really like your channel and have been inspired by quite a few things. On the subject of slow fights, I have to say: I tried the time limit and gave up. If something isn't going well at the table, then you should talk to each other before or after the game. That solves most problems. Sometimes you can still put pressure on as a game master and often you have to also allow the players to think longer and together about a move. That can also be atmospheric.
I do like this. I will probably implement this when I start a new campaign, this way I don't have gripes about it.
Also, for ease of monster attack patterns and trees. Just read up on "The Monsters Know What They're Doing." Kieth Ammann does a great job of looking over the monster stats and then applying that to the attack patterns they would most likely take from stats/abilities and lore from the books. Well worth the read!
I use this rule with two minutes. One of the things that frustrates me the most as a DM is that, despite managing the entire game and multiple monsters, I can usually complete a DM-controlled turn with 3-5 rolls _in its entirety_ in less than three minutes. I have not had any time to plan and I am making snap decisions for them, relying on experience and gut impressions.
I _do_ have some good players that have been using the entire rest of the initiative to plan their turn and look up what they need, and they usually fly by almost disappointingly fast to the point I encourage them to RP it more, but I have others that spend that entire two minutes deciding to attack one enemy with their only viable option, or spend it looking up basic parts of their character they should really, really know by now (a Fighter not remembering he has multiple attacks at level 6 really got my goat). New players get some leeway, but I'm generally asking for a DECISION on what to do, not a complete turn. Just... say what you want to do that makes sense!
Devil's advocate for a second, as a long time player & primarily: a longtime DM
It may take you less time cause there is not a lot of stakes in your decision as a DM... Usually when I'm DMing: my monsters either are stronger (in terms of raw power) than the party, or they have a plan that I was able to setup beforehand cause ya know, I know everything that's gonna happen in the game for the most part, + winning is not very important for the DM
For the players their characters and their entire party's lives are in the balance, + most of the time when you're running a stressful fight such as a boss or ambush: the DM is setting the flow of the fight, where the party is scrambling to react.
You should obviously use whatever time is best for your group and I'm by no means saying this rule is unfair, but I think it does make sense for the player's turn to take significantly longer than the DM
@@thepurehealer1279 - This is an excellent point and a good reason to go slow. Most of the complaints about a slow game are more rooted in the pace being disruptively slow, such as players not paying attention until their turns or never learning how their characters work.
@@Verbose_Mode it comes down to those two things so often. The overly social person who is always startled by their turn coming up, needs a refresher course in actions and their abilities, and then doesn't do a bloody thing that's different. Every. Damn. Time.
Yet the dm is supposed to know every monster, level of interaction, respond realistically, and then the pc's abilities, backstories, plus whatever esoteric abuse the veteran is throwing in.
It's exhausting.
The Panic Action plus a minute... Maybe 2,for newbies... That's what I've pulled away from this, as a dm of more than 25 years. I like those concepts, and I want my players to have some investment, or least make it quick!
I suffer from heavy stress problems and when playing D&D I try to relieve myself from that stress. Time limits absolutely kill me. We once had an irl hour to clear a dungeon which was apparently calculated with exploration in mind. I got stressed about time running out and we reached the end in like 15 minutes, leading to a character death. I couldn't imagine how much stress an irl 1 minute timer per turn would give me. Along with that it would basically remove interaction between me and the other players, drastically reducing one of the main reasons I enjoy D&D. My DM has talked about introducing something like this and I'm dreading it if he ever does.
I am not trying minimize: you really have 4 to 6 mins to make a choice because nothing prevents you from using other people turns to work out. When I've seen this used well it got people off their phones and looking at the map. It meant that people had 2 ideas ready to go. Remember the DM is going to take some time themselves depending on the number of enemies/legendary actions. The biggest thing in my opinion this stops is a player who is taking a very long time and is distracted so they're part of the turn is taking three to four times what the rest of the party is taking. It doesn't have to be fair to the second but it should average out that people's battle turns should be about equal.
@@oxnyxws It can stop a player who takes too long but punish others that are prepared but for example hate the idea of time restraints, have anxiety or "stage fright". To some this might feel like the DM brigns in a rule to solve an individual problem instead of talking to people about it. If they keep talking and not paying attention, why are they there to begin with? If the fight is not engaging, why are they fighting it?
It can be a good solution, but it can also be a deal breaker for some players and that's fine.
Never heard it as the 1:10 rule. I just used a minute/player because that is what I read years ago 😂
p.s. It's also hard on the other players when one player takes "10 minutes" 😕
p.s.s. The person who does your slides is awesome. They should know that 👍
How many years ago? Because if it was enough years ago, the 1:10 rule would have been very generous. D&D rounds used to be a minute long.
@@MWSin1
Dungeon Magazine in the early 90's (91 or 92) when I also got into MtG. Saw my first Dungeon Magazine at the card shop. Then discovered Dragon Magazine two weeks later.
I’ve never heard of the 1 minute rule being called a 1:10 rule either, and I can’t imagine why it’s called that instead. The player isn’t taking 10x longer on their turn, because a turn isn’t 6 seconds; a round is. A round is when everyone takes their turn. All calling it the 1:10 rule instead of the 1 minute rule does is make the difference between a turn and a round even more confusing if this is a player’s introduction to it.
Yeah I've played with "10 minute turn" guys... as a 30 second turn guy, waiting 30-40 minutes for my turn was agony
This 1:10 rule seems strange to me because I very rarely have players take more than a minute, and the only time they do is if they're asking for clarification on the setting or enviornment etc. On average I'm thinking 15-20 second turns is the norm for my group. I am playing PF2E and not 5E though, and also with very experienced players, so combat may just be a bit more streamlined.
I have players who get anxious about timers. When I need to set a timer for a player in a board game or ttrpg like this, I like to use two timers instead (or the same one twice, rather). The first timer they don't see, and so don't worry about. When I see it's run out, I'll set the timer out for them to see. That way they can think without worrying about the timer, and they know that when I'm setting out the timer and saying hurry up, they know how much time "hurry up" actually means and still don't get anxious about it.
It's worked really well with my players
1:17 This made my skin crawl... Sidewalks are the necessary evil of the pedestrian
Another awesome video with great advice
Incentivizing quick combat with advantage on treasure rolls is freaking genius. I’m totally going to try this.
My rule is a little more fluid: if its obvious that the player has been thinking about their turn beforehand, then I won't pressure the player. If something has bungled up their plans, they get some leeway. If its a player's turn and its obvious that they haven't been paying attention or haven't been thinking about their turn, they get about 30 seconds to make a decision or take the dodge action and that's the end of their turn.
As a 5th level wizard I have way more options than my barbarian friend. He just checks "Am I raged? Do I want to go reckless or not?", while I have to pick from loads of spells. Being lower in the initiative order as a penalty in those rounds seems fair, though.
If you're having trouble figuring out which spells to use in combat in less than a minute I would highly recommend Keith Ammann's book Live to Tell The Tale. It can really help you streamline the decision making process and highlight easier ways to think about the choices you have in combat.
"Pick from loads of spells..."
Often I know what I am going to do but I always have one bone-headed party member move into "The line of fire" making me rethink my strategy right before my turn. I want to post a sign that reads, "I will lock down the battlefield with you in it. And when I do you can't get angry at me."
@@peterwhitcomb8315 Hehe, poor barbarian :p
@@roguelikeable3704 Looking into it! It's sold out in quite a few Dutch bookstores, but did see at least one with it in stock, so I'm contemplating buying it, thanks for the tip ^^
Also see the "The Monsters Know What They’re Doing" book, but maybe I shouldn't make my DM wiser than he already is...
@@EelcoWind HAHA, yeah, The Monsters Know What They're Doing is great also, but I would hold off on handing that one to your DM until you read Live to Tell The Tale first. Both books were really revolutionary for my table and I can't recommend them enough.
My table just agreed on each player making up their mind before their turn comes up. We write down the initiative order and you see when your turn is up and how much time you have left until it is your turn. It works perfectly well for us. Everyone respects the rule, because we know how annoying it is and drags combat out to have to wait on one person. If you have a question you need to ask a question to make your decision, you come up with a plan B for your action so you can either way just ask when it's your turn and then immediately act.
In the past, my DM constricted our turns to 10 seconds which we've told him countless times is way too short but our party was 8 players when everyone is available so entire 4 hour sessions ended up being only combat before he started restricting us
The biggest problem was that due to 2020 we moved our games to discord but he kept that rule. I think you know how frustrating going from a home game to an online game can be now add a time limit to your turn that ends before you even have a chance to assess the situation.
He's mostly removed that ridiculous constraint in the last year but it still comes up in sessions where he wants "tension" and we still complain because it's still too little time but he refuses any criticism on the matter
We have a special kind of inspiration I think would work well with this. Instead of 1 inspiration to turn a roll into advantage we can have up 20 points. Using 1 point for oneself can increase a die roll by 1. And you may also use this for the rolls of others to increase or decrease their roll by 1 for 2 points.
Usually we get 4 points for something that would warrant inspiration. I could see the DM giving out 1 point to everyone staying under the time limit.
idea, roleplay stops the timer
I 100% agree with this. Honestly I wish more of my players would try roleplay style solutions in combat scenarios.
This is all great advice. I've tweaked it a bit for some of my games. Instead of a countdown timer I use a countUP timer that the whole table can see. This adds some social pressure so that I as a DM don't have to act like a grade school teacher all the time. Also, instead of a decision tree, I just use a "Default Action" for the monster even if it is not optimal. I find it easier to keep track of one thing instead of several options. If I run out of time on the monster's turn, I just go to the default action. (examples: Goblins get out of melee and hide, spell casters misty step and fire off a cantrip, zombies all move to attack the same target.) Also, it is important to not punish players who make sub-optimal decisions or misplay their turn. This is not a MTG game.
For controlled zombies, piling onto a single target makes sense. If they're wild zombies, I personally would find it better/more believably if they attack whatever's closest to them.
Wow, that is is a really cool idea! 😊 I like it as a player as well as as a DM.
It can be easy to get lost in the others turns and not to think about your own turn too much, especially as the DM. You have to ingage into the players turns too, since you need to set DCs and play alot of reactions/opportunity attacks. So I really like your idea of planning out the monsters strategy beforehand.
Following that thought, I think it would be great if the monster manual and adventures would start to include combat tactics and decision trees to help to DM them. That would lift alot of weight from our shoulders.
We highly suggest the book series "The Monsters Know What They're Doing" for just that type of thing!
@@masterthedungeon Oh yes I wanted to get that book for a while now. Thanks for the tip, time to get it!
Just wanna say thanks for adding captions! Sometimes I have trouble understanding what people are saying, and this really helps.
I've always wanted to run a campaign, but I've /hated/ how long the combat was; I'll be sure to at least suggest this idea to my players, who also dislike the length of battles.
Thank you so much for your videos. They are helpful, even to the most veteran of DMs. One of the things are DM does as well is remind players that their turn is coming up and to be thinking about what they want to do.
Some great ideas of what to do when you're not sure what to do on your turn:
1) "Ready Action" until you can figure it out later.
2) Dodge, and spend the rest of the round thinking about your action for the next one.
3) Hide, if you're already in cover or can get to it in your movement.
4) Dash to a position where there might be cover.
In cases where a player is simply prone to "performance anxiety"--no judgment, I've definitely been in a situation where I totally "blanked" when it came to my turn--they might be able to work out an arrangement with the DM to roll a 1d4 to take one of the above actions rather than "skip" them or fiddle with the turn order.
I think a timer is a good approach. You might want to go easy at first with 2 minutes. However, I think the real issue isn't the speed of combat, but the involvement.
I find my long combats are still fun when players get little things off of their turn such as
DM to player off of turn: "You notice the ground begins to shake"
Player yells: "Something big is coming!"
Hey there, I just want to appreciate your videos. They all have been a great source of inspiration for me lately, and provide a new, refreshing point of view on all sorts of matters. Keep up the amazing work!
I wrote the decision tree before in an AI I designed for my monsters lol, definitely fun. Also I added a random choice in some scenarios to keep it interesting.
Similar!
I learned to code pretty much to make my own D&D tools 😅
I'm not that advanced yet, but it does give my learning a nice sense of scope and direction!
You haven't happened to publish/be willing to publish those anywhere, would you? That sounds sick. I am new to DMing, I really want to add in my strategically brained goodness but there's a shitload of stuff to keep track of with new players too.
Came for the DM advice, subscribed for the art! Tangentially, planning out even a brief decision tree, list of objectives, or note about what your NPCs/monsters will do in a few situations (Idle, Social, On Alert, Fight, First Blood, etc.) does add a bit to the DM’s preptime, but it’s a good way to speed up combat AND make your foes seem more unique and interesting rather than just another token on the battle map to take down. I also use Morale checks so that battles don’t take as long - once things start looking bad for enemies, they’re likely to flee. Makes it less exhausting for players, gives them additional reasons to try unusual tactics (since it’s not just a “stand in front of each other and hack until they go down” every time), and makes truly implacable foes like fanatics, constructs and undead REALLY scary.
A one minute sand timer (hour glass) works great for this. Between each player you just have to flip the timer back and forth, and if you need to pause the timer for some reason (resolve an action, or provide DM clarification) you can just place it on it's side to pause the timer so the player is not being penalized for DM time usage.
This was it. The video that sucked me into watching the entire catalogue today.
These are fantastic, fun videos with a charming aesthetic.
Yeah, definitely seems like a fast track to everyone playing martial classes. I can see this being more effective if there's a battlemap instead of theater of the mind.
Not really.
Even playing the wizard is ridiculously easy to do under a minute.
Heck, even when playing as the swiss-knife Cleric (tanking, healing, battlefield control spells, and damage on occasion), I *KNOW* my spells and I have a list of all of my spells in front of me. I'll usually glance at it when it's not my turn, and when it's time for me to step up... I will usually get all of it out 20-30 seconds and then the next player is up. But even if I have to double check the spells, I'm already familiarized with them.
I've run combat where the paladin takes the 5 minute turn and the cleric has it figured out within 10 seconds. For spellcasters, it often comes down to "Does anyone need my healing/support? Do i need to take a problematic enemy out of the fight temporarily? Or should I go for massive damage?" Most spellcasters know which spells are going to be relevant in which situations.
This can work for a lot of people, didn't work for me as a player. As someone who has anxiety and who likes to RP flourishes on their actions, the ticking clock made me dread combat instead of enjoying it. The pressure made me fumbls on my words, or my mind go to blank when I planned what to do, but being put on a spot changed that.
As many mechabics in DnD, this can be a hit and miss.
This sounds great and I am sure it works for a whole bunch of people, I just know that when time limits like that are imposed on me specifically I really struggle, probably has something to do with my Global Learning Disorder and ADHD. It's not something I'd immediately leave a game over, but If I end up missing every other turn, or constantly feeling Like I'm not contributing meaningfully then I'd definitely consider it for the sake of my mental health.
But generally I'm sure this helps out a lot of tables.
Thanks for another great video!
Honestly, if you take longer than this, you're probably over-thinking the encounter a bit. Which is a common player problem, and leads to most of the indecisiveness.
Sometimes it's fine to just throw out a cantrip for a few rounds, or shoot a plain old crossbow while you think of something better to do on a future round. Not every action has to be encounter-defining. Sometimes making an impact is as simple as whittling down the minions while your melee guy holds off the bigger enemy, or jusy smacking the nearest enemy really hard.
Or it can help train and condition you to make quicker decisions. Also have ADD and suffer from decision paralysis/confusion when presented with lots of steps/options, this seems like a fun and safe way to exercise that part of my brain to strengthen those pathways. If get bumped in the turn order (which isn't missing a turn) so what, I'm getting another chance to make those speedy decisions.
Odd thing is, I'm great in a real crisis and can react and come up with logical solutions quickly. Loads of planning, routes and options then I'm absolutely dogshit.
I HEAR you on this! Sometimes my ADHD makes it tough to keep up with what’s happening on the battlemat (figuratively or literally) and I need a quick recap when my turn comes around. One way I help to maintain focus is by planning my next turn while waiting, observing what everyone else is doing; or else helping the other players or DM to look up needed rules or other references in the manuals.
Hopefully you can communicate your difficulties with the DM and other players in your group, so they understand that you aren’t bored or uninterested in what’s going on, but that your neurodiversity means you might need to utilize different ways of maintaining focus.
I can’t speak for global learning disorder, but as someone else with ADHD I find this rule to be nothing but positives. I get so bored waiting for my turn. If the turns went faster I’d feel a lot less pressure. Besides it’s not actually 1 minute to decide. It’s X minutes where x is the number of players and monsters.
Autistic person here. This method of combat actually really benefited me when I was a player and even more as a DM. It benefited me as a player because it forced me to stop overthinking my turns. I could be in the moment and enjoy the outcomes no matter what ended up happening. It allowed me to learn my character more effectively so I could make reflexive decisions.
The issue I see is that you can feel like you aren't contributing meaningful no matter how long or short your combat turn is. If you spend 10 minutes planning and thinking about your move and then it doesn't work out in favor with the dice rolls, do you not feel equally defeated? I think this format could be freeing for you from that type of consequence, doesn't matter if the dice don't roll in your favor because you didn't spend 10 minutes planning the perfect scenario. That;s just my take, I hope you continue to enjoy the hobby
One of the best combats I have run as a DM was a fight on a wagon into a bandit camp. Whilst there was turns for each player it was run more like you get one or two quick actions to do on your turn and the pacing was so quick that it felt epic and was over in less time then normal combat. Everyone was engaged and was waiting for the next part
I'll be honest. I used to be super, super sensitive about how "slow" my games were. I tried many things, like the 1:10 rule, to "speed things up". And, well, like this video kind of points out, most players would 'agree' the game was slow, but they would quickly find the reality of time restriction is a remedy worse than the ill.
So... I stopped caring if my game is slow. Here's what I find: games will have variable pacing as you go and you don't have 100% control of that. Letting go of trying to control pacing, I focused on things that matter: making my monsters more interesting, teaching my players their characters more, clarifying and articulating the situation clearly, and most importantly, teaching my players that ANYTHING could happen, retaining a poker face that leaves them always tense about how long or how dangerous any decision is. "Near end of the session? Doesn't mean that there isn't stragglers waiting to ambush you." Then, I enjoy the game, too, because I'm not hyper focused on pacing and let the game be, what it is going to be.
I just found this channel and it’s great. Keep up the good stuff, I’m off to binge another 10 or 11 videos from the channel.
Great video! Been a dm for a long time and I’ve never heard of this suggestion before. Learn something new every day it seems 😁
Lots of appreciate of the advise! Lot's of games, even not in DnD, everyone is so excited, but when the time goes long, it started to kill the buzz.
I've seen some DnD games in tv shows, it seems so tense and appealing, but just because it cut out all the blank moment of the games and the edit. Limiting the decision time in actual games will make it looks like real combat, I'll definitely try it when I play. Thank you!
It doesn't work for everyone but having players roll all dice together is a minor assist to speeding things up.
Roll, 22 total? hits. roll damage, 17
vs
Roll 22 total? hits. 17
Very small change but adds up if everyone at the table does it over several rounds.
Actually in my experience the problem that lengthens combat rounds in most TTRPGs is players thrown off by actions of other players in the initiative before them.
For instance: The caster has decided to throw a fireball, but the fighter has already charged directly into the group of monsters.
A solution to solve this is to have each player (briefly) announce at the beginning of each round, what they want to do, _in reverse order of the initiative_.
You can have them roll a free Insight-, Sense Motive-, Perception-check or whatever is appropriate for your game and situation, if you want them to be able to guess the enemies actions, but usually the enemy does far less to disturb the flow of a combat encounter.
You’re much nicer than me, I instituted a “5 seconds to announce your action or lose your turn” rule years ago…and my players tell me they appreciate it. Note that this is 5 seconds to ANNOUNCE an action, not resolve it.
Great vid. Just popped up at random. I’ve DM’d before and never had a problem with this until I started DMing for my Dtr and her friends. This will make things so much smoother.
TPK's speed up play in combat!! (Just Kidding). Solid advice, as a DM for the monsters, I sometimes use there Dexterity score to determine there initiative, DC 10 + Dexterity modifier.
They can't take a long turn if they're dead. (insert Roll Safe tapping on his head)
as a DM of a party consisting of only a fighter and barbarian, they dont take long to choose what to do.
Definitely a cool option but it's definitely not best for a lot of groups, players who aren't neurotypical or have any mental health issues that cause anxiety or focus issues. That being said I really love this idea and the presentation was so solid and well explained.
@burneraccount anxiety affects different people differently I also can handle it I'm just saying this while a great idea is definitely not a good idea to implement for everyone.
@burneraccount you sound pretty ableist and impatient imo
@burneraccount that's pretty ironic considering all of your comments here have been inconsiderate to others
@burneraccount you've been dismissive of anyone with a differing experience to your own lived one. Just read any of your comments they lack a shred of empathy.
I prefer 1:20 , short enough keep the game moving, but long enough that there isn't really any pressure unless you are a prepared caster and DM can do their thing
Good vid, probably not gonna use this though. Thankfully my players are pretty snappy when it comes to combat.
This is a good rule (with the caveats on the information they needI actually find it better to give them 2-5 minutes at the start of combat (lower amounts when surprised than if they are kicking off a fight) for them to talk about what they would do.
I introduced this as they entered level 6, because they were starting to bond well and that extra time to coordinate represents that they are almost instinctual in their overlap between each other.
if the player doesnt decide in one minute, their character takes the dodge action
This
I had a soft version of this in one the games I ran, with the 1 minute timer coming out as needed to hurry players along. After players got used to it there was a especially hectic time sensitive trap the players had to deal with and everyone for that puzzle fight only had a minute for each person to do something. It can be a neat trick to bring out in certain situations. I know now with more experience talking to your players post-game you can see what they like and works for them.
I use 30 seconds instead of one minute and if the player cannot make a decision in 30 seconds, their action for that round is automatically go defensive for the round. Players that pay attention to the game and understand what their characters are capable of doing can easily make a decision for their action in 30 seconds
I completly agree with this rule as a player and as a DM. It really makes things more realistic and brings out the tension of a combat. Its not because you are a wizard that you can take 10 minutes for a turn, to be able to read the spell's effects in the middle of a fight. For that, its way better when the wizard player really take the role of a student of magical arts and use the downtime out of combat or even when its someone else's turn to read the spells they prepared so they can have a plan for there turn.
I do this with any spellcaster i play and it works. Just try to decide your next action while your party companions are taking there turns.
In TTRPGs its even easier if the DM use a board for better visual of where each character and monster are, or Roll20 or other app to help when playing online.
60 second is too long if you ask me. They can decide what to do while the others take their turn. Tactical time seems alright, but why dont they just talk about that while camping at night around the fire. At my table they get 10 seconds or their character uses their turn to assess the situation. I have 6 players so its for everyones sake. It works great, our combat is action packed and thrilling. In real life you dont get time to think anyways.
There needs to be time allowed for rules questions and clarification of the battlefield status. Ten seconds is an absurdly short amount of time. Saying you don't get time irl is not relevant, because the characters aren't irl, and we're all trying to visualize a fictional world through various inaccurate descriptions.
@@PaulGuy ofc if they ask questions about the rules then we "pause". We are playing at with miniatures on a board, so there arent that much clarification to be done. I disagree, i think it adds to the tension that a battle is chaotic and you have to think fast. Our battles are very engaging and packed with tension and we all enjoy it.
I’ve seen that giving them a group initiative where they plan their turns together with a 2-4 minute time limit works a little.
I literally just put in time a one minute time limit on combat turns and yeah it works great. I kinda wish it was the default; analysis paralysis is in my experience a big part of what turns off first time players. They feel overwhelmed by all of the options which slows down the game which makes everything boring for everyone. If you make them identify a good go-to option it really speeds up play.
Speed up combat tips: I actually took the thing Matt Mercer does in critical role where he calls for a player's actions and also reminds the next person that their turn is coming up. If they were, to use the example in the video, looking up the hardness of stone or browsing through their spell list, it alerts them that it's decision time.
The main problem here is for creative combat. Some things their character would know while the player may need clarification on, such as "does forcibly moving an opponent provoke opportunity" or "in an enclosed space, does Fireball expand to fill the total volume of the spell, or just a circle" or "can i reach the chandelier".
Don't get me wrong, the 1:10 rule speeds up combat, but it also makes it less tactically interesting. I think the real solution is just to have players who know what they can do and how their stuff works.
One idea for easing players into the 1:10 rule could also be to allow them to call for a time extention of an additional minute once per battle. Also you could grant that time extention for example when your clearification changed the thing they wanted to do on their turn and now they have to change up stuff fast. Especially if the situation is somewhat your fault because you failed to describe the situation in a way so it is clear to them what they can or can't do.
I feel like this also encourages players to always be thinking. Often times in a normal round you only have to think about what you’ll do once it’s your turn. If you only have so long to decide what to do, you be thinking about it during time outside of your turn, making the whole game more engaging
Great video! I really like this rule, and I think I'll be implementing with my next campaign. For new players, I think it's good to give them more time to figure things out, but after people have the hang of the game, the 1:10 rule is a great way to build intensity, keep things moving, and make combat feel more like...combat.
One addition I like to make is adding another minute at the top of the round for group discussion. This let's the players discuss strategy, and it simulates the characters knowledge of one another. It also helps focus the players individual 1 minute timeframe when it comes to their turn.
Thanks again!
Yo, the look of this video is lovely. Well done! Nice to see good old advice in a nice new vest
Excellent explanation and presentation.
4:20 reminds me of something my group likes to say: Roleplay isn't just the talky bits.
The goals and tactics a combatant uses can make even two statistically identical combatants feel unique. A fanatic cultist and a bandit might all have the same to hit, AC, and such as each other but they will have wildly different approaches to a fight. The bandits might prefer to attack from range, in an ambush, with the goal of robbing a carriage. The Cultists might try to get close to their target and bum rush the carriage in an attempt to kill the riders inside rather than loot it. The bandits could be fairly easy to drive off or intimidate, but the cultists could act with careless disregard for their own safety and even allow AoO's to try and take a shot at their goal.
On a similar note, I find that as a Player keeping what my character's goals and tactics are in mind can really simplify decision making. Do they know they have superior mobility and toughness and just saw the guy that killed their family in the back of the bandit's pack? They might consider closing a gap a viable tactic. Only have a bow and the clothes on their back? Their first turn may be to duck for cover so they can take pot shots. This has helped me keep my turns short.
One house rule I've held in reserve is the "Decisiveness bonus". Basically, if a player decides what they want to do within 5 seconds, they get a +1 to attack rolls or DC for the turn. I'm hoping it will work well as a carrot to move quickly in combat.
Luckily, my players haven't been horribly slow, so I haven't had to bring the rule in. So I'm honestly not sure how well it will work.