One player faster at acting/deciding than the others?

[WarKitty]

This is something I've seen come up multiple times. One player is just better at coming up with things to do any comes up with them more quickly than others do. And it seems to end wing.ith that player getting more attention and a chance to do more things, where other players feel like they're reacting to the faster player because they can't react quite as quickly.

I've been both the player in that situation and DMing for a group with that issue. How would you address such a thing?

[Cyrion]

It depends on the situation-

In combat, enforce initiative and don't allow long explanations/dialogs. Characters have to act in order, and if he's not the first to act he will have to react to others.

In the larger scheme of things, think about building adventure hooks and stories that intimately involve the other players in decision making. If another character's backstory is used as part of the adventure it's going to shine a spotlight on that character.

You could also say something to him as a friend outside of the game, especially in connection to someone else's plotline. "I've got an upcoming adventure that really focuses on Fred's character. He may need a bit more time to figure it out than you do because..."

[LibraryOgre]

Use initiative. When initiative isn't appropriate, pick the order. Point to one person, say "What are you doing" and get around to speedy when you get around to him.

[Yora]

Let him announce his descision and then wait for the other players to say what they would want to do before making the actions actually happening.

[Dimers]

All of the above, plus the usual advice: talk about it unambiguously OOC. "This is a problem that is making the game less fun for other people, and here's an idea I had to fix it, how does that sound?"