one of my friends runs sr4. he stopped running because his group takes forever to do anything. they argue about who should do what and whos idea is best. they have no team cohesion. it got to the point where a run that should have only taken 3-4 hours went unfinished after 7-8 hours of play and had to be picked up later for another 4-5 hours.
the gm had planned 12 mission it took them 6 sessions to do 2 of them. those sessions where over the course of one month. the gm was fed up with it and quit. i suggested to the gm that he take a prewritten adventure and run it for his normal group and then run it for me and my friend to see which group did it faster. when the group started my friend and i were in that group but we quit due to "conflicting interests". the gm declined the idea. later the friend had the idea that we play the part of recurring antagonists or rivals to his current team in an attempt to straighten them out.we are making our new characters and will probably play later this week or next week.

anyway, what would you do if your players were like this? how would you handle another team playing recurring baddies in your game?

From what ive seen slow games tend to happen now and then, but if it happens every time then its a chain of events that occur that can be easily stopped as long as it quits being brought up. When our slow games happen its usually because we are overanalysing the scenerio and our B&E plan turns into a full Military Orders brief with maps plans and cordinations.

(We are going into my opinion about the situation so dont flame me lol)

From what ive seen keeping things simple makes things smooth. The GM should make the run so players A have situation B and they decide to do C. They should have as many clues as possible that all point in the same direction (or a missleading direction for fun spy adventures) so it moves the story along. If they start over analysing just kinda nudge them along with npc assistance or whatever.

Anyway thats my 2 cents, i prolly just rambled on about nothing lol

As for reoccuring baddies, should just leave that to NPC's. PC's who tend to play a bad guy usually die.... and not the dead kind that you go to a hospital and they make a clone of you. Afterwords peoples feelings tend to get hurt that their baddie is dead... blah blah... you know the deal

i see where you are coming from. if it was slow because of over thinking it would be fine. if it was slow because its complex it would be fine. thing is its run of the mill stuff. ive watched them play. the main thing slowing them is arguments about who has the best plan. the worst instance, the came to a door and argued for 45 minutes on how to open it, if the should open it.it was a normal door and on the other side were a few goons and the target.

as far as the two of us playing baddies. we dont care if we get killed in the game. we are there more or less to set an example for the group. the mission concept is that both teams are given the same mission through different organizations. basically a race. the gm wants to do it to show his team how they should be cooperating. its not a permanent thing. maybe two or three missions at the most unless his group insists on keeping us in or the gm is having more fun. also we were talking about trying to convince one of them to join us. pretty much the gm is tired of his current group and wants to liven it up and speed it up.

When my players start taking forever to decide what to do it is time to get out the egg timer and remind them that their characters have choosen to "wait and see" but the world at large hasn't.

It has been my experience, over the last twenty years, that Shadowrun has always been a slow game.

Unless you are playing Screaming Neon Pink Mowhawk, Shadowrun is about 90% preparation and planning and 10% decisive action.

I always find that once I really start getting into a characters head and role-playing them as the professional criminal that they are preparation is more important than action.

I suppose after a certain period of time a GM could reasonably start hand-waving much of the planning, just as many do Matrix stuff, but for a group to assume that they don't need to at least cover their ass is just asking to be maimed by GM.

It's always the guy with the mental Troll that charges in where Angels fear to tread that is cut down by withering automatic gunfire in the first initiative pass...

Ya if it takes you 45mins to open a door, then thats a problem, remake a melee char, be the guy who charges into everything head first reguardless of whoes talkin about how to do what and let everyone react off that, sometimes its good to talk about plans but if its something thats not worth arguing about, just charge in head first with no knowledge of whats gona happen. If yer GM isnt a dick or thinks much humor from it im sure you wont die the first time.

Hehe, thats my job in the group, when we start talking about it to much i get the "GM head nod" then take my car and crash in the front door, if they dont follow me then so be it. I'll do the mission solo

I had this happen in my last game. The players were hired for some wetwork. They had several different plans and like your group, started arguing on which one was best, so on and so forth. After listening to all the different plans, they all were good, all took into consideration escape plans, covering their own asses, etc, but they wouldn't pick one.

Well, while two of the players were debating, a third just went out and did his thing. I let the players continue to discuss while the others did their plan. It was successful and in the process, I hoped everyone learned a lesson.

We were there to have fun, didn't need to plan every little detail, just make a reasonable attempt. The GM will point out some gaps if need be, but even the most bulletproof plan, if the GM needs a plot device, he'll make something not go exactly right...

I'd say the GM in the OP just needed to push the players along and after a few pushes, the players will feel comfortable enough with the GM to hit the right amount of planning and just play. Some GMs may require 90% planning, while others are fine with 50% or 10%...just have to find that balance with your GM.

It's up to the players, really. If that's how they want to play, fine. Best thing to do is to voice your concerns to everyone and discuss the problem in a calm, rational manner.

I have the slow player problem at times. One way that it can be handled is to not give them all day to just sit and think about what to do. If they can't come up with their action in a timely manner, things go on without them. If they're taking that much time to talk about what to do when they are not in a stressful or dangerous situation, that doesn't work so well.

As your example, a team is talking about opening a door for 45 minutes? Another goon or guard might come along in that time, or maybe one of the bodyguards has to leave that room to go get something, or a security drone is conducting a sweep, etc. Combat irks me in particular, if they can't figure out an action, other PCs or NPCs actions happen without them.

"Bah, enuff 'dis talk'n stuf, I iz goin' in 'dar an killin 'dem all!"
"No wai..."
*BOOT*
*CRASH*
*Budda budda budda*
"AHHHHHHH!*
*SPLAT*
"ARG! My spleen!"
*CRUNCH*
"Get em off! Get em off!"
*CHOMP*
"It bit me! It bit me on the ass!"

lol, B&E at its best

My DnD group are a lot like that.

Which explains why the Cleric was level drained two levels and after three years I'm the only one that still has the same character....

I'd have the people on the other side take note of the armed thugs standing outside the door and take action appropriately. So their argument gets rudely interrupted by the hand grenade going off.

My group is pretty much the same except with the addition of a couple of players who don't think well on their feet. What usually happens is they sit around arguing what to do for most of the session before my other player has had enough and starts doing stuff. Suddenly they have to try and keep up and think on their feet and they almost always make poor/sub-optimal choices which eventually snow-balls out of control.

Last time we played the aggressive player was drinking grog (rum, water, and lemon/lime juice). Did lead to the amusing excuse of "The grog made me do it."

like the others have said. all is fine when you take your time planning before hand. it is not fine though when you take your time with each individual situation.

thanks everyone for your input.

If ya have to argue about something, it just makes things with no fun. I have no qualms about bombing a mission to make things halarious. Its all a game man, just remind everyone its good to have fun and plan things out and get the job done, but nothings gona work if we dont act on something.

When all else fails, there is a fall back plan. What is this fall back plan you ask? Glad you asked, it is three little letters. BSU! Yea baby, BSU will solve all your problems with characters sitting around arguing about what to do next.

What? Oh, your asking what this magic cure-all actually is? Why simple my good man! BSU is short for Blow Shit Up! Let me tell you, you start blowing shit up and the PCs will ether get hopping real fast or be real dead. Fire, concussion waves, lots of noise, shock, awe, bodies splattered like garbage bags full of Campbells chicken noodle soup dropped from a three story window! Ahhhh, it is a true thing of beauty.

Out ofcuriosity, am I the only one that thinks a single "mission" should take an average of 3 sessions? And that 6 games in 1 month is like a crazy high amount of sessions? Like, my games are super infrequent due to conflicting schedule, but IMO if you do 3 games a month you'Re going at a pretty fast pace. No?

if they were more complex missions maybe with a heavier plot i would agree that more sessions per mission would be fine. i also dont know how long your sessions are. when i run a game i pick a date where nobody has anything else needing to be done and we generally play one mission or adventure for 4-8 hours. the group in question usually "plays" for around 6-10 hours and usually doesnt finish up the the mission so has to pick it up later. the group im running at the moment has been playing MST since the begining of the month. we average one game a week under me or jeremy and about once every two weeks under laron if we dont start a new game. the gm in question trys to do one mission a week which is almost always two sessions despite them being very short game wise if you get that. the missions he has been running are generally simple b&e mostly. back when i played with the group we usually kept things rolling. then we had one bad mission poor in concept and execution. which we managed to survive only because of the combat people(me and one other). and the hacker of the group bitched and said he quit and the other player followed him. after that i started up my sr group with the gm from that game and the combat guy from that game.now my sr game is over and my MST game is going. the sr4 gm is wanting to finish the story he wrote for his sr4 game. jeremy and i had talked to him about it and thats where we are now.

anyway, how long does your group play per session? and how complex would you say each mission is?

Eh, it happens . . mostly, we spend half of the time we are together planning what to do . .
And in the end, in 90% of the cases i was my character who said:"Ah damn it, gimme a gun, i'm gonna go in there and do whatever it is we are getting paid for, if ya pussies can't agree on a course of action"

anybody else just get tired and improvise your way through.

when i do get like that i usually come out on top because i can out my gms on the fly.

I can't really outsmart anyone . . but i can definitely outshoot about 80% of the things my characters are most likely gonna encounter so eh ^^

hey, sometimes thats all you need.

My old group would play 3 - 5 times a week, for 6 or so hours at a time. We were all college students, and would get out of class around noon or so, then play until dinner time, after which we'd go partake in other activities.

lol

we usually get a game in every 2 weeks, and we complete the mission that day, our really long mission we had we took extra time that day to do and it was the equivilent of 4 of our missions, and was really exciting =)

Oh my god.. if I could buy a product to solve this problem, I'd be willing to spend a couple of hundred at least to make it go away.

Seriously, this is like my BIGGEST gripe with my group.

They are so overly paranoid and take forever I've realised that if I give them too much time, they will take it. So I am using all sorts of tactics to keep it moving. At the moment, I am a fan of using missions with strict time parameters for completion which force them to improvise on the fly, or change the mission parameters on them at the last minute.

Its been so bad at times, I've even just been blatantly rude and told them we're moving on and if you haven't work it out in time, stiff shit. I have two players at least who don't make decisions quickly get burned by this but seriously, I just have to stop caring. I'm really trying to coach them to move a bit quicker but it is a real hard act when a game like Shadowrun is effectively 90% prep, 10% action.

Whoever discussed those ratios is dead on the money. It comes down to how the GM sees it but even if the GM wants to change it, there's only so many times your PCs can handle jobs like that. Unless they build a solid reputation as "problem solvers" and their fixers just keep heaping difficult job after difficult job on them because of it.

- J.

Players taking 45 minutes of IN CHARACTER ARGUMENT! to open a door? What? You mean you d not run it "If you say it at the table, you say it in character"? I have found that that stops a whole CRAP load of stupidity....Of course, when a discussion gets like that, I start counting time...45 minutes outside that door? So, those guards have called in reinforcements, and the Troll with the Assault Cannon and Radar Eye Implants from the HTRT is starting to get bored....and thus, I, as teh GM, ask "So..who is infront of the door?" whoever responds first, I say "Surprise!" as I roll the dice..and say "Soak X damage...the guards got tired of waiting..."

You need to speak to them about it and suggest that these minor details can be hand-waved. If they can trust you that you are not going to crap all over them because they forgot to cover some base in the plan of attack then you can just gloss over much of the prep.

You can abstract B&E with a single extended test against a Threshold you think represents suitable security. If you want to add some sort of additional extra surprise you have to stop when they encounter it and give them the opportunity to overcome it.

If failing to plan every tiny little detail leads to potential character death then they will plan every single tiny microscopic detail.

I love that! Perfect! Bravo! Good Show! Hoorah!

My favorite tactic is to give thema time limit in game, to stop all of the unnecessary planing.
"You have until midnight tonight to finish this assignment. Get to it!"
If they start making exessive plans, I continually remind them that there isn't enough time to be doing that in game, so they make a shorter, simpler one, shich usually works out better than the original one because it's less rigid and thus, more adaptable.

Well, usually I am the Troll with the PAC that gets bored ^^
And i think that's much more intimidating than one of the NPC's *snickers*
You need one such player in your Group. Someone who wants to have FUN.
Who wants to be Rambo or Terminator or something like that.
One of the people who does not care about bad form. "Bite me, just do it!"

Seriously man, just do what I do. If the PCs stop and start arguing like that then start shooting at them. Hell, the guards know where their loud unprofessional arses are. Nothing tells the PCs that the GM loves them like large volumes of full automatic gunfire.

I like both of these equally, anything they are discussing thats not real life related forces them to be real with their timing and planning tho it doesnt stop their night before mission planning cause those can take forever anyway. And having a Random encounter if they take to long is nice to it distracts them from their planning, although it doesnt always put them back on track

Also keep in mind that this behavior may have been caused by a previous GM and is not necessarily a result of your actions as a GM. If this is the case, it is your responsibility as a GM to either live with it or to try to convince them that they can start to gloss over some small details without you instantly killing them for it.

If you've ever said "Aha! You fool! You didn't specify when checking for traps that you were specifically checking if pressing in the door handle while turning it clockwise while standing only on these specific tiles did anything! You die a horrible death! Muahahahaha!" You might be the problem. If you've heard that, you probably have a problem.

I've discovered that if the players believe the GM won't arbitrarily kill them over some little detail they'll start purposefully coming up with their own inventive ways of putting themselves in danger.

Here's in idea out of left field that just came to me.

Instead of starting a session with meeting Mr J finish a session with it.

Finish a run, award karma and then jump forward to the start of the next job.

That will give you at least a week out of game for them to scheme and plot, send you e-mail about leg-work etc.

Then you can get a flying start at the next session.

Just had some of this glacially slow play in my game last night. The characters were hired to recover some cargo that Haida pirates had taken off a ship near Prince Rupert (in my game the Tsimshian coastline is the Sixth World equivalent to IRL Somalia). We had the following issuess:

Do we take a plane or a boat to get there?
Can anyone operate a plane/boat?
Do we know anyone else that can?
Should we rent or steal the plane/boat?
I'll need a disposable fake SIN for this - how much/how long will it take to get it?
Is this false SIN good enough to rent with?
No - OK, let's steal it. Here's the plan... <<<GM cuts them off and tells them that they are successful at stealing a chartered fishing boat to save time.>>>
How are we getting back if the plane/boat is fragged? <<<Oddly, no one ever addressed this.>>>
"I have aeronautic engineering and he has demolitions - how long would it take us to build some rockets?"<<<GM's eyes glazing over here>>>
"I want to purchase..." <<<GOTO Availability minigame.>>>
"Oh yeah, me too..." <<<GOTO Availability minigame... again>>>
"And..." <<<GOTO Availability minigame... one more fucking time>>>

NOTE: No one really bothered to get any intel on the opposition. One character picked up a bit passively from her eco-background knowledge skills, but they didn't really do squat for legwork despite being handed a direct lead from the guy that gave them the job. I almost felt bad when they got blindsided by the Sludge Spirit the pirates used as their vanguard. Almost.

Availability is a pain in the arse.

It's designed to keep players from picking up gear that will ruin the run in a couple of minutes but it more often prevents them from picking up vital gear they didn't know they were going to need until they heard what the run was.

Some bits of gear take weeks to acquire. Nothing that has an availability takes less than 6 hours..

In D&D, our GM came up with the hilarious option of having one of the guards on the other side of the door holler "We can hear you, you know!" It has become a running joke, but it has also helped discourag the "ok we're here, now what should the plan be" style of gaming they were starting to fall into.

i distinctly remember there being an occassion where a GM had the complete group roll to do something as simple as that . .
and somehow, we all failed again and again . .

It once took us 15 minutes to realize we were pushing the door instead of pulling it... This guy never got to GM again.

I was in a length DnD campign over the course of a few months, slow paced game but still really good. Same thing with me i was the only one to lose exp, or get killed... And i wasn't even build a "power build" Just an elven finesse fighter really, the only time i was geeked.. when the DM said "you're going to die," and targeted me.. tried to kill me, and i almost made it out alive.

Most games slow down usally cause a lack of rules + a lack of knowledge of your character concept. People make a character, and don't play it the way they build it or can't build it the way they want to play it. Which is a valueable lesson GURPS has taught me, use a week or so to TALK with the players here and there about concepts, game idea/style, and spend a WHOLE session creating characters with them AS a group. I'm a switch hitter, I'll play anytime of character in any game and make it work. I tend to deal with the "simple" fightery/playmaker types, I'm not the one that shines with brightness but i'll make the party much more cohesive and better with me around.

Its all about player education, as a GM is your job to make the game fun and entertaining for all the players.

Well, it was a light-switch that we needed to push . . mind you, it was rolling and rolling again AFTER having found it . .
Nope, i won't be playing with that one again either . .

My entire last session degenerated rapidly into a Availability minigame. Sigh.

One player who was absent wanted to know what happened so I told him. He was about to ask if he could do some shopping next session to prepare. I just said no, because otherwise everyone would want to.

- J.

Just tell them to tell you what they want, do some rolls that look convincing enough and tell them if they get it next time?

Here's a couple of solutions for when players take too long in the planning stages prior to the run (using a "retrieve the package" run):


#1: After days of creating the perfect plan, everything on the run goes smoothly, too smoothly. After the players breach the poorly-guarded area, they are unable to find the requested package. A quick database run reveals that the package was moved to a more secure floor or to a new facility. Now the players need a new plan quick, because the run deadline is still tomorrow...

#2: As the players are in a heated argument, the phone rings. Hi, this is Johnson. I just learned another party is interested, and I'm moving the deadline to tonight. Get it done and I'll double your award.

I think you got it wrong. The problem is not the time in game, but the time around the table.

Absolutely. Shadowrun can make a 2 hour in-game planning session take a 4 hour gaming session IRL. Then the Legwork and Availability mini-games have to be added in, and we can have several hours of time spent getting ready for a run. If you avoid the mini-gams and roleplay the situations, it will usually take even more IRL time.

I think it really comes down to convincing people that you wont burn them for not planning things perfectly.

Every time a GM says this happened to you because you forgot X, you get a slower player.

herein lies the problem, they never plan BEFORE the run. and when they get into it they argue about what actions to take.
its the table time not in game time.

edit
on another note. the game which the gm and i are trying to spur the team in the right direction will begin in an hour.
depending on how it goes i might post a copy of the game here.

The best way to cut short the availability game is to look at what contact they are going through, and if that person should have access to that stuff. High availability? Add extra time (defrayable if the PCs grease the wheels) or just say no. Sure, it standardizes things a bit much and makes it less realistic, but the whole game is a process of representation not simulation.

Legwork can be a bitch, though. I personally skipped talking to Ricecakes because A: we took fricken forever to decide on a boat to begin with; B: Hamburger does not plan; C. He didn't want to deal with yet another syndicate if he could help it; D: Half the fun is wacky twists! and E: Our plans never work out right anyway.

hey, i had a group "discuss" for 15 minutes on how to leave a club

setup:
the 2 PCs in the club were elves
only elves & elf posers went to the club
6 koreans gunned down by the rest of the team in about 3 seconds flat
the elf mage covered the sounds of gunfire
no one in the club was wiser, other then the bouncer who hid at the 1st burst
......
...........
................
15 minutes of discussing on how to leave the club IRL
the elven PCs were worried they would be IDed for leaving a club full of elves
think they finally slipped out the back