Party needs to get moving...

[Atanuero]

In a brand new campaign, our party is moving really slowly. In the last 3 hour session, all we managed to accomplish was a single, short chat with a baron and one (1) encounter involving an ambush of 6-8 lizardfolk and their shaman (druid 4). The party consists of a Warblade, a Crusader, a Sorcerer, a Psion, a Cleric and a Bard, all 3rd level. The Cleric is run by the Crusader's player, because he's been unable to make it to the last few sessions-he just sort of lives in the Crusader's backpack, coming out to heal in battles and then going back inside again.

It's not really as if we fool around too much, because I (the DM) am managing to keep them focused most of the time. I'm just not sure what the problem is-events that are meant to be only a few minutes take a huge amount of time. What can I do to keep things moving?

[nerulean]

Are your group spending a long time discussing what the best course of action is in every situation? Do they plan their moves together before you actually get the person whose turn it is making an action? Do they discuss exactly how the party face should say absolutely everything in important conversations?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then there you go. My first group used to spend ridiculous amounts of time with the game 'paused' while we planned tactics, which made our encounters horrible, efficient slaughters that took far longer than everyone acting individually. You could impose some sort of realistic limit on discussion, like, you only get six seconds a round in which to chat. Maybe bump it up a little, but try and hold to it.

Another possibility is that they're roleplaying a lot. If that's the case, throw in some NPCs that are fun for you to play and just go with it.

Lastly, there's the fact that D&D just plain takes a long time to play. If you're following the rules relatively closely then you've got an awful lot of rolling to do. There are some tips in the books about keeping roll time to a minimum, but they don't really make a lot of difference. A combat, especially one with lots of little dudes, can easily take two hours for six rounds. That's just how the game works. Bear it in mind for if you ever have to DM when you haven't had enough time to plan. :smalltongue:

[Name_Here]

Well first off I would put the cleric on a bus or kill him outright. I have a 2 missed sessions policy at my games and if you miss more than 2 sessions don't bother coming back your character is dead. It's harsh but I like to have my sessions at the same time every week and if they have obligations that keep them from attending at that time they probaly aren't able to make it to the session often enough. Also nobody can keep 2 characters running in their head it just doesn't work so one character enevitably ends up shutting up for hours and not being a character.

As for theparty taking too long to do things you need to install a time limit to how long it takes them to complete their turn so that meleers should have a rough idea of what enemy they are attacking and what weapon they are using and spell slingers should have the book open to the spell that they are casting.

And don't get dragged into long rule debates. Give whoever objects a few minutes to look up the rule on the group's PHB while you look it up on yours if neither of you can find it after a few minutes of searching write down the rule you want to look up later and make a ruling. If the person continues to complain tell him to STFU or GTFO cause you've already decided and you're not going to look at the rule he finnaly found until the game is over.

And if the group is just sitting around making contraptions to open up every door in the dungeon because they're afraid of traps just eliminate traps and tell them that there are no traps on any of the doors and slap the first on who tries to make a rube Goldberg device.

[Solo]

Place a 5 minute time limit on discussions.

[SamTheCleric]

Make them roll initiative for conversations. And only speak in turn order.

:P

[Kurald Galain]

It's not really as if we fool around too much, because I (the DM) am managing to keep them focused most of the time. I'm just not sure what the problem is-events that are meant to be only a few minutes take a huge amount of time. What can I do to keep things moving?

Is everybody nevertheless having fun?

[Triaxx]

Start rolling a d6 as they talk. Eventually they'll ask what you're doing. Explain you're rolling for non-lethal damage. They'll ask from what.

Answer: Boredom.

[Megafly]

buy an egg timer. One of the mechanical ones. when they start to waste time set it to 5 minutes and start it going tick tick tick tick. If they ask what it is for, tell them they don't want it get to zero!