How to manage the "start" of encounter when opening a door to a room with monsters?

[LaurindoRC]

Hello! I've been reading (and lurking) around GiTP for a while now, you guys are pure awesomeness, and have helped me a lot.

I've searched the forum, and the internets and stuff, and I couldn't find a concise answer, so let's post here for the first time :smallbiggrin:

See, I have this dungeon, there's a lot of closed (not necessarily locked) doors, and many rooms have monsters waiting in them.

My players are crawling the dungeon, searching in the corridor, and arrive at the door. The rogue can't find any traps, and unlock the door.

Great.

What now?

I mean, is not like the players are in the open, and they would be ambushed by monsters... They are enter in a room where creatures are, I don't know, just there, chilling?

Assuming the room is well lit, how do you guys deal with the start of the encounter? The rogue enters and see the monsters. They see her too, and can attack, on their turns? Do I roll for wich monsters were not facing the door and didn't see her enter, hence are surprised? How to deal with the others players who didn't enter the room yet? Are THEY surprised? Are THE ROGUE surprised when opening the door?

Sorry for my bad english, sorry for the dumb question (wich probably has been asked before, but I haven't found it) , and thanks in advance for your help!

[Torpin]

roll listen checks for everyone, if they roll high enough they get to act in the surpise round if not they dont

[tahu88810]

This is what initiative is for. It's how quickly you react to entering a room and seeing enemies/having enemies stumble into the room you're in.

Having said that, you can roll relevant perception checks for both sides prior to the door opening. Are the goblins gambling and talking loudly? The players get listen checks. Are the players discussing things openly? The goblins get listen checks.
Do the goblins have a guy watching the door? He might get a spot check or something, and so on.
If one side succeeds on their checks (listen vs move silently, for instance), they may be prepared and can get a surprise round -- their position is probably ideal, too.
If neither side does, then you use initiative. That's what it represents.

[LaurindoRC]

This is what initiative is for. It's how quickly you react to entering a room and seeing enemies/having enemies stumble into the room you're in.

Having said that, you can roll relevant perception checks for both sides prior to the door opening. Are the goblins gambling and talking loudly? The players get listen checks. Are the players discussing things openly? The goblins get listen checks.
Do the goblins have a guy watching the door? He might get a spot check or something, and so on.
If one side succeeds on their checks (listen vs move silently, for instance), they may be prepared and can get a surprise round -- their position is probably ideal, too.
If neither side does, then you use initiative. That's what it represents.

If the room have "good" light, and none of the players are "hiding" or the likes, would the spot be necessary? Like, aren't the players just "entering" the monster line of sight? (I swore to the players not to use goblins on the campaign after we watched Goblin Slayer :smalleek: )

[Seto]

If one side attacks by surprise (ambush, betrayal, the characters come upon sleeping monsters, etc.), then there is a surprise round, then normal initiative.

In the case you describe, there's no ambush situation, so it's just initiative. No surprise round, but people remain flat-footed until they have taken their first turn. There can still be differences between monsters on guard and monsters chilling: the latter will have to spend actions standing up, drawing their weapons and getting combat ready, for example. But yeah, I wouldn't sweat it. Unless the situation really calls for it (someone being very noisy before opening the door), no Perception rolls, no rolls to see which monsters are facing the door, no nothing. Just:
1) Everyone rolls Initiative
2) Profit.

In many situations, the initial positioning (including the Rogue standing in the door and blocking the way to the rest of the party) will provide chaos and surprise enough.

[D+1]

The rogue can't find any traps, and unlock the door.

Great.

What now?

I mean, is not like the players are in the open, and they would be ambushed by monsters... They are enter in a room where creatures are, I don't know, just there, chilling?It is surprising that this has never been covered in any detail by ANY DMG that I'm aware of, nor does it ever get asked on forums. It's odd that it should have never become a very specific topic, considering it is the situation that is overwhelmingly most common for a fight to begin. IME, tactics and situational modifiers for BOTH sides of such an encounter are needed and desirable, beyond just, "open the door and roll initiative".


Assuming the room is well lit, how do you guys deal with the start of the encounter? The rogue enters and see the monsters. They see her too, and can attack, on their turns? Do I roll for wich monsters were not facing the door and didn't see her enter, hence are surprised? How to deal with the others players who didn't enter the room yet? Are THEY surprised? Are THE ROGUE surprised when opening the door?
- Start with approaching the door. Are the PC's being cautious and quiet enough to NOT be heard by opponents on the other side of a door?
- Know what the opponents are doing beyond the door. After all, unless THEY are jus' chillin' quietly they are far less likely to be able to hear approaching opponents outside the door. Are they expecting opponents outside their door? Generally we're going to be talking about a dungeon where these beings LIVE and unless they get invaded a LOT, or they've had some warning or suspicion, they aren't going to be especially alert.
- Checking a door for traps and opening locks takes time and also makes some noise. Not a lot, of course, but again, it COULD be heard.
- Listening at doors doesn't make noise and in fact typically requires as much silence as possible to work well. Again, what ARE the people on the other side of the door doing? Is it possible to figure out what they are doing from the sounds they are making? Possibly all you'd hear is voices and movement. But are the voices talking conversationally, arguing loudly, chanting religious incantations, singing folk tunes, mumbling, or what? Is the movement sound made by hard-soled shoes, metal-armor, or bare feet sloshing through puddles? Is it steady footsteps, rhythmic dancing, running? Is it a LOT of individuals or just one or two? Whatever the case, if its determined by listening that someone is on the other side of a door there should be no surprise for the PC's on entering the room. And unless there are a LOT of factors against them they should have quite superior chances to have initiative when entering rather than be subject to random initiative rolls.
- It's difficult to figure out where people are on the other side of a door other than possibly near vs. far, but its possible.
- When PC's actually open a door and enter they SHOULD (if they're smart) have some well-rehearsed tactics for getting into a room and dealing with whatever is there. Once a thief has done their routine at a door they should not be IN the doorway, but have moved aside and all the PC's arranged themselves for the actual entry - like a fantasy SWAT team. In fact, those kind of tactics are exactly what PC's should themselves be exploring to be most effective. Doesn't mean they HAVE to, just that for maximum effectiveness they ought to.
- Generally if you're intending to just go in strong, fighters lead the way in, support types follow up next, and the rest as seems most effective. It has to be remembered, however, that not knowing what's on the other side specifically can easily mean that PC's just rush into traps. But that ought not be that common at all. Mostly they just need to quickly identify AN opponent and move to engage them, but not in such a way that individual PC's can be isolated and immediately surrounded (unless they're tough enough that they don't much care). The advantage of this approach is obviously speed, surprise, and getting all the PC's INSIDE a room or THROUGH a doorway, not half the members in and half out. The disadvantage is not knowing the precise nature and position of things on the other side. Over-reliance on just storming every room can lead to, as noted, simply pig-piling into traps, or enemies who have taken up strong defensive positions or otherwise LURED the PC's into an ambush position.
- There is the option of the more cautious entry. Rather than just all rush in as far as possible/needed, the party moves in only so far as they need to in order to all be where they want to be in, out, ready to act, or a position of safety. They move in and largely give up initiative advantage for simply establishing position for further action once they they view the new area, its contents and its occupants. That is, to not just rush in blind but to get in, get a look, and THEN execute a plan.
- Third is the most cautious option. The party opens the door but does not go through it at all. They simply observe, or wait for any occupants to come to them. This, IME, is one that players ultimately use most. It has the advantage that PC's can be spread out on their side of a door so as to not be all within area-effects. Opponents then typically have to come to the party and must squeeze through a door to do it, so on their side of the door the PC's can be positioned optimally for taking on large numbers of opponents in a constrained area - the doorway itself.

There are lots of other things that can factor in. What is the nature of the place the PC's are in? Will opponents be expecting them? Will PC's have normal or BETTER chances to surprise and ambush opponents? Is stealth and caution a better approach, or misdirection and bypassing fights, or just, "Bring 'em on! I prefer a straight fight..." On their side of the door do PC's have room to set up defensive positions or not? Will expected opponents repeatedly rush a strongly-held open doorway to get at the PC's, or will they realize they need to back up and try other tactics? Would other tactics WORK?

Every door is different. Conditions on either side of a door could make one general approach to a coming fight better than another, but which? Well, which tactics are the PLAYERS better at, and which are their PC's better geared to handle? Which tactics prove most useful and successful for them? Which does the DM have their opponents better able to plan for and react to? How do varying tactics work within the combat structure of the game? Which will a DM reward or permit to be most effective and give circumstance bonuses for or allow to work reliably, and which will a DM be most annoyed by and take steps to ensure will not be as effective as players want them to be?

I don't have all the answers for you because everyone's answers are going to be different. Each game is different; different players, PC's, different rules and styles of play. You simply have to slowly explore what works for you as a DM, just as the players need to explore what works for them as a party. If you set up a game to be a lot of door-kicking then expect the players to handle it accordingly - like a small, tactical action team that kicks doors and storms rooms. Even if they're not intently trying to maximize their efficiency at it, over time they WILL gravitate to the tactics that are most effective most often. This is generally to be perceived as SMART game play, and yet it can be turned against them if they become too complacent and over-reliant on a limited set of door-kicking procedures.

[LaurindoRC]

Whoa! Thanks for the most helpful insights, guys!



It is surprising that this has never been covered in any detail by ANY DMG that I'm aware of, nor does it ever get asked on forums. It's odd that it should have never become a very specific topic, considering it is the situation that is overwhelmingly most common for a fight to begin. IME, tactics and situational modifiers for BOTH sides of such an encounter are needed and desirable, beyond just, "open the door and roll initiative".


Yeah, about that...

Sometimes I just make all of them roll initiative and walk then dungeon, turn by turn.

I know, it's tiring and time-consuming, but it's the only way I've found that the party can keep track of a lot of things. Like potion and buffs duration, and movement and stuff.

For example: Before we started using turn by turn, some players would say "I'll scout the room for hidden treasure", while another would just "go kick the door", and stuff.

Like, some players naturally are better are roleplaying, while others prefer the "mechanic" game, the rolling and damage and numbers and math.

During the "exploration" phase, the "roleplayers" always outshine and cleary "out fun" the others, because the rogue is walking the room and searching and trapfinding and what not THE ENTIRE TIME, leaving no room for the others.

Note that the rogue is a halfling, so it's kinda ridiculous that she walked the entire room searching while our nimble and agile druid wood-elf just stood there.

So, we deal the exploration in turns. With initative, and with move and standard actions (ou double moves) , so everyone can "walk" the room in due time, anyone can search and move and talk and stuff, everyone gets to play.

We waste a lot of session time on this, but this way all players get to be in the spot light.

That's the way we run, and maybe that's the reason I fell in this question about start the fight when my PCs enter a room.

Any thoughts on that?

Thanks!

[Seto]

Any thoughts on that?

That... isn't my cup of tea, at all. I prefer to spend table time on dramatic moments and waive the details that I can waive. There are several reasons I would be very frustrated playing in such a game. But, well, if you've been doing this a while and everyone seems to be fine with it, why not. I guess it does make the most of the tactical aspect of D&D, however much at the expense of everything else.

I do understand better where your questions come from. If you're decomposing actions to that extent, you find yourself wondering what exactly the foes behind the door are doing every round, when they might or might not be alerted to the presence of the PCs, etc. I could tell you what I would do, but it probably wouldn't be compatible with your style of play. Maybe... maybe you could arbitrarily decide, before the session, exactly where every monster is and what they're doing when the PCs open the door, UNLESS something happens that would change it? That would save you from having to decide at the table when the game is going and your plate is full of other things to handle.

Mechanically, as for modifiers and surprise etc... I would advise not to bother, especially since playing everything round-by-round is already mechanically complex. Roll Initiative for everyone involved when the door gets opened and the two enemy groups notice each other. As I said in my earlier post, if you want the PCs to have an advantage because they're ready for battle whereas the monsters are chilling, decide in advance that "half of the monsters will have to spend a turn getting to their weapons and picking them up. One of the monsters had taken off his armor to go to the privy - he will probably regret it!". Something like written adventures do.

[LaurindoRC]

That... isn't my cup of tea, at all. I prefer to spend table time on dramatic moments and waive the details that I can waive. There are several reasons I would be very frustrated playing in such a game. But, well, if you've been doing this a while and everyone seems to be fine with it, why not. I guess it does make the most of the tactical aspect of D&D, however much at the expense of everything else.

I do understand better where your questions come from. If you're decomposing actions to that extent, you find yourself wondering what exactly the foes behind the door are doing every round, when they might or might not be alerted to the presence of the PCs, etc. I could tell you what I would do, but it probably wouldn't be compatible with your style of play. Maybe... maybe you could arbitrarily decide, before the session, exactly where every monster is and what they're doing when the PCs open the door, UNLESS something happens that would change it? That would save you from having to decide at the table when the game is going and your plate is full of other things to handle.

Mechanically, as for modifiers and surprise etc... I would advise not to bother, especially since playing everything round-by-round is already mechanically complex. Roll Initiative for everyone involved when the door gets opened and the two enemy groups notice each other. As I said in my earlier post, if you want the PCs to have an advantage because they're ready for battle whereas the monsters are chilling, decide in advance that "half of the monsters will have to spend a turn getting to their weapons and picking them up. One of the monsters had taken off his armor to go to the privy - he will probably regret it!". Something like written adventures do.

I see!

Well, as I said, I really couldn't make the other way in the exploration...

Let's say, the party entered in the first hall of the dungeon. There's torches and stone columns, but no monsters.

I guess I need help on that. Because, when we don't turn by turn:

- Rogue: I want to search! (and she want to search like EVERYTHING), so, the search roll is a single roll for the entire room? One for, I don't know, each 3 square meters? Or traps?

Meanwhile the others are [not so much-] patiently waiting, and they kinda of "do nothing" outside of combat.
While the rogue disable the traps and unlock the doors and find the hidden chests, outside combat, the only thing the others do is like, the spellcasters identify a potion found in the chest, or the brutes smash open doors that the rogue couldn't unlock.

I managed to avoid this using turn by turn, but any other way to do this would be nice.

As I said, I have a, let's say, particular, party of players. Half of the party prefers the math, but still likes to roleplay, but are more "shy". The more roleplaying players are loud, expansive and, boy, do they talk. The others feel "diminished" and losing spotlight time.

Thanks in advance

[tyckspoon]

I guess I need help on that. Because, when we don't turn by turn:

- Rogue: I want to search! (and she want to search like EVERYTHING), so, the search roll is a single roll for the entire room? One for, I don't know, each 3 square meters? Or traps?


This is what the Take 10 rules are for, really. Get the Rogue's Take 10 values for their Search skill, let them know anything they find that is under that DC, maybe give some tips on things that might warrant more specific attention if you want (IE, there's a secret door on the west wall. The Rogue's Take 10 value isn't high enough to find it directly, but they might have found some stuff that indicates its existence/location and would be worth looking at these three or so squares in more detail..) Tell the rest of the party that took 5 minutes, have them mark the time off the duration of any timed effects they have on, ask if there was anything the rest wanted to do while the Rogue was wandering around the room, move on.

[Seto]

- Rogue: I want to search! (and she want to search like EVERYTHING), so, the search roll is a single roll for the entire room? One for, I don't know, each 3 square meters? Or traps?

Meanwhile the others are [not so much-] patiently waiting, and they kinda of "do nothing" outside of combat.
While the rogue disable the traps and unlock the doors and find the hidden chests, outside combat, the only thing the others do is like, the spellcasters identify a potion found in the chest, or the brutes smash open doors that the rogue couldn't unlock.

I wonder how you avoid this by going turn-by-turn, because in my head it would have the opposite effect:

- Rogue: I search this part of the room.
- Fighter: I, uh, guess I also search? Even though my Perception is low?
- Wizard: I keep walking.
- Cleric: I... don't know. I wait for the others to finish.
- Rogue: I search the next part of the room.
- Fighter: I knock on the walls.
- Wizard: I go stand guard while the Rogue is searching.
- Cleric: still waiting. Do I have to speak every turn?
- Rogue: Nothing? Okay. I search the next part of the room. 4 more turns and I'll have checked everything, we'll be good to go!
- Fighter: 4 more turns? ... Can't we just move on?

This is how I imagine it, but maybe it goes differently at your table.
Essentially, sometimes the Rogue has useful things to do, and the others don't. Thats okay, it's perfectly fine that the spotlight is not evenly divided 100% of the time, as long as the other party members also get their time to shine, later. But, by forcing them to have turns, you remind them constantly that at this precise moment (searching for treasure and traps) they don't have much to contribute, while making that moment 4 times longer. If I was the Wizard for example, I would much rather let the Rogue search, then have my moment when she finds magic items and I have to identify them.
As a rule, dividing up game time in six-second rounds is not supposed to happen outside of combat. It's a necessity to handle the tactical complexity of combat, but it takes a toll on the flow of the session.

If I understand right, the problem is that she wants to search everything, all the time. I've had that kind of player. So, a couple suggestions to better deal with exploration:

1- Abstract it so that it takes less table-time, but emphasize the in-game time.


- Rogue: I want to search!
- GM: Cool. The whole room? It's gonna take you 5 minutes to explore it. If you wanna take 20 and really be as thorough as you can, that's about 1h40mn. Either way, most of your buffs will expire. Do you proceed?
- Rogue: Yes, we better make sure there's no traps.
- GM: Cool. You find [this, that]. 2 hours later, the party leaves the room and notices that the corpses that were in the hallway are gone. Something must have taken them...

It doesn't take much effort to say "I search the room" or "I sleep 8 hours" or "I'll painstakingly look at every single crack on the wall to make sure we're not missing something". But the players should see that time doesn't stop when their characters roll dice. The dungeon and its denizens continue to go about their business. Searching everything means that the monsters have ample time to set up their ambush in the next room. Knowing this might make players think more about their choices - which helps immersion.

2- If the room is actually interesting, on the contrary, make it less abstract and more diverse, so that everyone has something to do.

- GM: so, Ragnar opens the door. You all see a large room. The floor is covered with dust and...
- Rogue: I want to search!
- GM: ... what are you searching exactly?
- Rogue: what's in the room?
- GM: As I was saying, there's dust on the floor. But this looks to have been the study of a wizard: a small library has several ancient-looking tomes. There are paintings on the wall representing Djinn battling Dragons. A half-rotted desk is in the corner. There's also a trunk glowing with bluish dwarven runes.
- Rogue: Sounds good. Can I search now?
- GM: Well, what do you want to look at?
- Rogue: ahem, the trunk looks right up my alley.
- Wizard: wait, don't touch it. I'll go with you, I wanna look at those runes before we try to open it.
- Cleric: Can I look at the paintings on the wall? They looked interesting.
- GM: Sure. Your Knowledge [Religion] tells you that this is some sort of mythic battle sacred to elemental cults. And Ragnar, while the others are looking around, do you want to do something?
- Fighter: I could go look at the books... but they aren't my thing. No, Ragnar takes one look at the library, then snorts and goes back to the door, drawing his sword. "While you're all having fun at the museum, someone has to stand guard!", he says.
- GM. Okay. Back to you Rogue and Wizard. You wanted to search the trunk?

In general, when players apply their skills, it means their characters are taking specific actions, even if the GM doesn't always describe them because they're not always interesting. But "what are you searching for, and where are you searching?" is a legitimate answer to "I search". Searching for traps is very different than searching for hidden keys. That's why a character "searching everything" takes hours for a single room. If you give them texture, if you give them stuff to interact with, I'll guarantee that every player will want to participate in exploration, not just the Rogue. And it can be by just looking at things or poking them, not necessarily rolling a Skill.

3 - ... Don't use traps. Or at least, don't require a Search roll to find them.
Very often, when you have a player who wants to be careful and search everything, it's because they expect to be sucker-punched. Maybe they've had an adversarial GM before. Anyway, everytime they get hit by a trap, they think: "Ah, I KNEW I should've searched every door. I won't let myself get caught again." If you can get the point across to your Rogue player that she doesn't NEED to search every inch of the dungeon, and she won't get punished for it, maybe she'll stop doing it. So either don't use traps, or when you do, give some sort of warning: for example, a trap that's already been sprung by a monster and is visible, or some clue that they can see without having to Search for it.

I told you earlier in my post that I've had that kind of player. A Rogue, too. He was very proud of his Perception score, and he would exclaim: "I look for things I can perceive!" everytime he would enter a new room. The way I deal with this now is by using Passive perception. I have a tacit agreement with my players. Actually not tacit, it's explicit. I told them: "Whenever there's something to roll Perception for, I'll assume you take 10. That way we don't slow down the game. But I will tell you. If a roll of 10 is sufficient, I will straight-up tell you, 'You spot a crack on the wall that looks suspicious'. That means it's basically impossible for you to roll under 10 in Perception. You're that aware! Now for special occasions when you think it's warranted, if you want to actively Search, you tell me what you're searching for and where, and you can roll." I do the same thing for Knowledge: when they see a monster, I assume they take 10 and I tell them what they know.

Hope this can help you.

[Crake]

Pages 21 to 24 of the DMG cover this in a fair amount of depth. If you're new to DMing in general, I would recommend you actually go through and give the DMG a good read, it has a lot of useful information on designing, building and running encounters, as well as NPC interactions and extensive information on worldbuilding.

[D+1]

My thoughts are a bit scattered this evening so excuse me if my response meanders a bit.


Let's say, the party entered in the first hall of the dungeon. There's torches and stone columns, but no monsters.

I guess I need help on that. Because, when we don't turn by turn:

- Rogue: I want to search! (and she want to search like EVERYTHING), so, the search roll is a single roll for the entire room? One for, I don't know, each 3 square meters? Or traps?

Meanwhile the others are [not so much-] patiently waiting, and they kinda of "do nothing" outside of combat.Start by reading the description of the Search skill. Strictly speaking, looking at a floor plan one search roll covers a 5'x5' square area. If it's a matter of searching a volume of material then it covers a 5' cube volume. So, fully searching a 20'x20' room is 16 search checks for one PC. But you don't need to DO 16 search checks unless EVERY 5x5 area has a different thing hidden or somehow worth noting. You instead just note that searching that area takes that amount of time - 16 full rounds for a fast search of that size room - but if there's nothing to find, you don't need to waste playing time on it. If you do spend any time on it, as DM you don't have to roll multiple times if YOU decide that one roll is sufficient chance for the PC to discover whatever there is to discover in whatever size area the DM deems appropriate.

There is also no good reason whatsoever for some PC's to be standing around relying on ONLY the rogue to search. EVERYONE can search, and reasonably clever players would ensure that they maximize the party's chances of finding things by ensuring that everyone DOES contribute to searching. If there's one thing to find in a room, but there's 4 PC's, why wouldn't the players want 4 separate search rolls made to find it? 4 attempts are more likely to succeed than 1, even if some have much worse skill at Search than others. If the PC's are going to bother searching AT ALL, then they should bloody dang well leave no stone unturned. Yes, the rogue has the best chance if only one PC does any searching, but the party has a far better chance to find things if everyone gets involved.

Of course there are also reasons not to search - fear of actually triggering traps that weren't found, for example. But once a rogue has checked for traps there's certainly reason for fighters and clerics to search, leaving only the squishy mages to remain cautious and on watch while others concentrate on searching. Only rogues can find COMPLEX traps above DC 20, but any trap of DC 20 or less can still be found by non-rogues. If they have a desire for self-preservation they should be helping to search for non-complex traps at the very least. Worst case scenario they don't have to do it separately if they don't want to. They can take the Aid Another action, search as a group where they can for what they can, and in so doing just add to the rogues Search check. And as noted by others this doesn't even begin to take into account rules for Taking 10 or Taking 20, which would improve chances of finding things even more - but take greater amounts of time.

There are a half-dozen ways to skin that cat and NONE of them are seemingly being used by your players because they have seemingly been taught to simply wait for the game to come to them. It actually sounds to me like they either just haven't read the rules to learn how best to go about it, or they genuinely don't care about the success or failure of searching - whether for traps, treasure or whatever else. So, at the very least YOU, as DM, should be reading up on those rules and knowing better what can/can't be done and how you can handle it better mechanically (or by actually IGNORING the mechanics that they themselves are taking no interest in.)

As for the amount of passing time, you'll never be able to manage it any better if you DON'T break out of doing every little thing round by round. Start guestimating and making judgement calls, and stop calculating everything. You're letting the rules slow your game down when you don't have to and actually don't want to. Is a room largely empty? You can rule that it takes less time to search and one roll as a group will cover it. If it's full of boxes, bags, chests, barrels and a million little knickknacks you can rule that it will take substantially MORE time to search it - even if there's nothing there worth finding - but you can then be prepared to just make the necessary rolls and relay the information. If you have bored players because they have their PC's do nothing while ONE PC does all the searching, that's really their fault, but it's in your own interests as well as theirs to get them more involved in the game.


As I said, I have a, let's say, particular, party of players. Half of the party prefers the math, but still likes to roleplay, but are more "shy". The more roleplaying players are loud, expansive and, boy, do they talk. The others feel "diminished" and losing spotlight time.Searching is not spotlight time. REMOVING traps that have been found is spotlight time for the rogue, but general searching for traps and loot is ultimately everyone's job - NOT JUST THE ROGUE. If they're bored tell the players to INTERACT and GET THEIR PC'S INVOLVED. As players they are not there to have the game INFLICTED upon them. Their ACTIVE participation is necessary - always.

Do you think a spell or a potion will still be in effect when they kick down the next door? Then don't freak out about it, just tell the players how long it will still be in effect after subtracting what YOU feel is a reasonable guess at the amount of time that's passed. If you've been doing so much round-by-round handling of actions in exploring dungeons you should be an expert at simply picking a reasonable time out of the air and not have to STILL tediously play out things round-by-round and always having a precise number. If they complain that you haven't specifically tracked it round by round you simply tell them, "We're not going to do that anymore because it's KILLING the flow of the game in ways that no other gaming group puts up with. From this point on we stop taking things round by round the moment combat is over. We will all just deal with it. If you're worried about spell and potion durations, be more judicious about when and why you use them and don't expect them to last forever. ESPECIALLY not when you're wasting buckets of time searching every nook and cranny rather than making judgments about what areas might be worth the time in the first place."

One of the other reasons you've probably gotten into this rut is that at some point you probably should have been telling them to stop doing so much pointless searching, but then you should have also become more proactive in giving out clues to them that spending time searching in certain areas is a good idea. The players then take their cues from you that an area might turn up something worthwhile if searched before deciding to spend the time and effort. Sometimes it will pay off, but sometimes it won't. That could be because they just rolled badly, sometimes it will be because things are too well hidden, sometimes it will be because there just isn't anything to be found. If they then want to search even if you AREN'T dropping hints that they should, then they freakin' well don't get to complain that they're bored.

You should also learn to roll dice just for effect - you know there is nothing to be found if searched, but you GET PAST IT with quick dice rolls and tell them, "You find nothing." They see and hear you rolling dice, even if you're actually paying no attention to the results, so they should be satisfied that they have at least covered the possibility that something may have been there. This is a standard DM thing to do, and has been since the game was invented.

Each DM teaches their players what activities are worth the time and effort in their campaigns by how they manage the game. If you keep tracking things round by round, whether you realized it or not, you're teaching your players that TO YOU, it is vitally important and necessary to do so. So they take that lesson to heart and comply. You thought it was THEM who needed the round-by-round tracking at all times but that probably wasn't the case, or wasn't entirely so. Regardless, there must have been a time when you decided to just track it all round by round when what you really needed to do was get better at making that a judgment call, and show the players that you weren't out to cheat them out of the nickels and dimes of their spells and potions duration, but trying to move the game forward. You and your players are disconnected. You're not in synchronized communication about what's valuable to spend time on IN GAME, and what isn't. You can handle it all with mechanics just by being more efficient with how you process this very common set of procedures. You can set the mechanics deliberately aside and open up the game by NOT letting the mechanics choke it off. But mostly you need to get more interaction with your players going, both about the meta-game issues of what they want from the game and how you can best provide it, and what THEY are doing in the game through their characters actions that actually create the problems they're seemingly most annoyed with.

[LaurindoRC]

Sorry it took me so long, had no internet for the weekend.

I wish I had the time to reply to each of you guys individually, but that's not the case.

I had the time, however, to thoroughly read all your replies, and I took all of them to my heart.

Seriously, you guys are the best!

I'll try your suggestions and see how the game flows!

Thanks a lot, all of you!