Quote from: Christopher Brady;890242Which is my point.  Doesn't matter what's the system, it's the players (which I include the GM as) that makes the game fast or slow.

Not really; they can certainly make it faster (if they've memorised the rules) or slower (if they don't know it and have to be constantly reminded), but that doesn't change the fact that different systems have different processing times. All the players do is augment that time, they don't make it go away.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;890242Which is my point.  Doesn't matter what's the system, it's the players (which I include the GM as) that makes the game fast or slow.

Man, people (including me) were sincerely surprised when someone mentioned that his group ends a typical D&D4e combat in merely 45 minutes, and that's the lowest limit I've heard of;).

Quote from: Kiero;890265Not really; they can certainly make it faster (if they've memorised the rules) or slower (if they don't know it and have to be constantly reminded), but that doesn't change the fact that different systems have different processing times. All the players do is augment that time, they don't make it go away.

I'd say the people still make a huge difference, especially if the GM does many things  in his head, requiring no conversation. I can run GURPS at the speed of the description of what players say they do plus what I say happens, plus a few dice rolls and notes and counter movements. Others learning the game will stop to discuss rules & options, look stuff up, think about what to do, find stuff on character sheets, etc.

Quote from: Omega;889756No more complex than determining to-hit, bonuses and penalties for normal combat. The main thing is to note down your base score and armour adjustments. And just worry about the modifiers. If any. As I noted. Once you know your base chance the rest is easy. Front load that at chargen. What I did. Sd in the above example. My base is 114%. Against light armour it is 124, medium is 134, and heavy is 144. After that its just determining. "Who is faster? Is anyone slowed, stunned or hasted?" Grapple type modifier works much the same. Frontload your base and just worry about the modifiers which are also not that many.

The main drawback is it, and pummeling, is its own little mini-game instead of using the existing rules somehow. Its also not exactly well explained some elements.

Other systems intigrate it into the core combat. 5e for example.

light bulb above head turns on !!!!!!!!


oh i get it now only one quick question did the game at least point out to front load the math

Quote from: kosmos1214;890381light bulb above head turns on !!!!!!!!


oh i get it now only one quick question did the game at least point out to front load the math

Not that I recall. But that was semi-covered with combat in general where it used to suggest jotting down your to hit requirements for your current level to save having to look it up every time.

Same with spells and such. We noted this stuff down rather than leaf through the books every time.

Think at least one character sheet they put out had a space for noting your grapple and pummel.

We went into it assuming that you noted stuff down to save time and book flipping. Local group I picked up seems to have followed that too. Two of the players note down alot of things.

Quote from: Omega;890389Not that I recall. But that was semi-covered with combat in general where it used to suggest jotting down your to hit requirements for your current level to save having to look it up every time.

Same with spells and such. We noted this stuff down rather than leaf through the books every time.

Think at least one character sheet they put out had a space for noting your grapple and pummel.

We went into it assuming that you noted stuff down to save time and book flipping. Local group I picked up seems to have followed that too. Two of the players note down alot of things.

ah ok i was woundering only because its the kind of thing my group would have missed to do if they dident point it out or have a space for it on the sheet.

As to writing down spells thats a new one on me (though it makes sense) in truth at the time i memorised the spell lists and even had the dm look at me once or twice to ask how a spell worked

OD&D tells you to note down relevant things on the back of the sheet and a glance at one of TSR's AD&D character sheets shows that yes there is a space specifically on the sheet for noting down your pummeling and grappeling scores. So while the book may not say flat out "frontload this" in the grappel section (it may say so elsewhere). The character sheet does.

The OD&D sheet also had a space for noting down your current to-hit vs various ACs. BX tells you to write down everything and the example of a hand written character sheet shows not only the to-hits noted but also the saves and other info.

Quote from: Omega;890840The OD&D sheet also had a space for noting down your current to-hit vs various ACs.

What sheet was that? The only sheets I used back then were blank pieces of paper - mostly the reverse side of computer paper printouts and 3-ring, ruled school notebook paper.

One of the early character sheet packs. Which one have no clue. Though could be mixing it up with the BX one which had a space for to-hit notation.

ah thanks

I once averaged 4 different combats in one 4 hour time slot of Earthdawn at Gencon. Earthdawn though averages 3 hours for most fights, so it was usually 1-2 in an 8 hour session.

DnD can have a lot of fights at low levels, usually 1 an hour, but at Level 20-30 in DnD 3.x we were averaging 1 fight per an eight hour session. Which killed two campaigns, the DM just couldn't take the fight lengths any more and called it off.

Savage Worlds can easily do two fights in a 4 hour session + other activity. I easily had 4 different ones in a 4 hour session of my current game, Necessary Evil.

These fight times are why we are using Savage Worlds these days over other systems, just much faster combat times and a more robust toolbox for noncombat activity. When we were young teenagers and 20 somethings, a 6-8 hour session was the norm and now its 4-6 hours at max. And at 6 hours people get cranky, damn middle-aged-ness. So Savage Worlds gets the nod for having tactical combat but less widgets and dials than DnD and Earthdawn to deal with.

What makes fights go long is generally dealing with the system (GM turns) and then length of player turns. The GM can only control his side of the game, the other part is player control. So if the GM's turn lasts 5 minutes even with multiple characters to control, but every player's turn lasts 5 minutes and there are 7 players, that becomes a 40 minute round. So to get combat flowing, you need players to reduce their turn length. If player turns only last a minute and the GM's is 5 minutes (This may seem long, but the GM has to control all the enemies and sometimes the NPC allies too in games that aren't Savage Worlds), its a 12 minute round length for 7 players for example. You can get 5 rounds of combat done in a hour that way. But this requires players to think about what they are going to do before their Initiative phase comes up. In game, this rarely ever happens. So game speed is all about GM and player turn speed when it comes to combat.  

As a Gm I've reduced my turn speed by having NPC cards made up and sleeved. So I have all my stats in front of me with their Action Cards on top, makes it easy to run their turns without having to flip through the book to their stats. You can also use bookkeeping cards or strips of cardstock or index cards with status names and conditions on top that you can place next to minis on the board to mark status and their effects so you don't need to keep track of what status is on what NPC and what they do. Every little time saving measure you can implement can speed up combat time and keep the game's pace flowing more smoothly.