slow games and the people that make it happen. Options

[Maelstrome]

a bet you a pitcher of synthahol that we wont even play tonight.

[HappyDaze]

B: Hamburger does not plan

So, anti-planning then? Regardless, we still ate time like cheetos that night and I still have the orange stains on my brain from it.

D: Half the fun is wacky twists! and E: Our plans never work out right anyway.

I quite agree with D (Heh, watch this!), but as for E, some of that can be laid at the feet of the group as a whole (including me). We've got to get better at making "the boys" and "the girls" work together - sometimes it seems like we have two subteams that just happen to get contracted together for jobs but have wildly diverging goals, favored techniques, and priorities. I can't really teach teamwork too well without really railroading, so I keep hoping one of the players will step up. For some, that's a bit tough if they strive to stay in character (while I have no doubts Octopiii has leadership traits that he could bring to the table, his charactrer Hamburger is certainly not the leader-type).

[Blade]

There are different ways a game can be slowed down:

1. Players taking forever to decide their action in the middle of combat.
There is at least one RPG that explicitely state that players have 3 seconds to tell the GM what they want to do if they want their character to act. Applying it will probably lead to players complaining that their characters are more used to combat and have a better view of the situation than the player. I solve this by having the player roll a tactics test. Depending on the number of hits they have from 3 seconds to 1 minute to decide.

2. Dice rolls, rules problems.
Have everyone know the rules they use and get some automatism: for example, when someone rolls his shooting test, roll the corresponding dodge test.

3. Player taking forever for a trivial situation
The PC need to get inside a facility that's guarded by one basic guard, with little to no security devices and it seems like your players will spend half an hour talking about it? Cut them short. Tell them they eventually do it or, if you really want them to have a chance to fail, have them roll their infiltration pool and have the guard see them and trigger the alarm if they fail.

4. Players sidetracking OOC
Most of the time, once you got the game really started and the players into it, they won't sidetrack much.

5. Players taking forever for a non-trivial situation
First of all, make sure that the slowness is a problem. Some players enjoy spending hours planning their runs. If it is a problem, don't hesitate to tell your players "let's speed it up"... Or have people come in with guns in hand (always a good solution, according to Raymond Chandler), or events that remind the players they need to act, or events that completely change the situation (after a few time, this should convince them they need to stop spending too long planning things).

[Fuchs]

I use a radical solution for the "planning takes forever" problem: PCs do not plan. The NPC team leader does. Runners are given the run, and given the plan, and their tasks. They can then decide how they screw up the run while doing it.

Of course I also don't kill PCs, especially not for making mistakes. That speeds up play enormously.

I remember that when I was a player, and feared losing a character to making a mistake, I went overboard in paranoid planning too, which was not really conductive to having fun in game.

[StealthSigma]

1. Players taking forever to decide their action in the middle of combat.
There is at least one RPG that explicitely state that players have 3 seconds to tell the GM what they want to do if they want their character to act. Applying it will probably lead to players complaining that their characters are more used to combat and have a better view of the situation than the player. I solve this by having the player roll a tactics test. Depending on the number of hits they have from 3 seconds to 1 minute to decide.

What is your tactics roll based on? Leadership (Tactics) or something else? Cause if it's Leadership (Tactics) I find it exceedingly humorous, since I can't see any min/maxer taking the leadership skill, especially combat-oriented non-face characters. If they have a low charisma to boot with it, heh....

[Blade]

It's part of my total rewrite of initiative rules. The roll itself is based on Logic (or Intuition) + a Tactics knowledge skill.
The Leadership (Tactics) skill can be used by one PC to help the PC coordinate their actions on the fly.