Anyone know a way to handle overplanning?

[Calthropstu]

We have a player in my group who overplans in an EXTREME way. We spend so many hours planning for something, sometimes an entire session, and by the next session, if a single detail is changed we have to have MORE planning. I often take to ignoring his plans because they are very rarely cost effective. Action wise, spell wise, ability usage... he wants tons of buffs handed around for single encounters when spells would be so much more used in other ways. I won't say he's a bad strategist, but there are at least two people there that are better. And the extra time spent does not really yield results.

Does anyone else have similar stories? I enjoy planning, but I have watched as others have sat there for endless hours doing nothing at the table. And, when the battle finally happens, it's over within a round or two. This would be true whether the planning happens or not.

I'd like to know a way to get a handle on this as I am beginning a new campaign with my group, one I am running, and I'd like to avoid this pitfall again.

[Doctor Despair]

1. Talk to the player and ask them to try to keep planning to 5-10 minutes for regular encounters

2. Make Profession: Tactician (or use Knowledge: History) that players roll to when trying to plan battles. Based on their result, give them X minutes to plan until their character feels stumped and the party moves on. The player is free to keep thinking on their own, but the campaign moves on.

3. Create smaller gaps between finding out about a future encounter and when the conflict will occur; enforce these time limits strictly, such that 30 minutes (or X) of planning for one encounter leads to the party being ambushed

[Bonzai]

If the players enjoy it, let em knock themselves out.

[RNightstalker]

When my uncle took too long to decide what to do on his turn, my dad broke out the chess clock a time or two lol.

Hopefully, we all can practice in the art of adulting and address this directly. This needs to be addressed before it becomes a bigger issue. The pressure will only build until it is addressed; better to get it out of the way and keep the game moving forward.

[aglondier]

First step is definitely to take the player aside for a chat. Describe the problem, not as an attack on the player, but as a time usage issue for the group. Ask the player for their suggestions on how to speed up the planning sessions, perhaps allowing the group to plan out major encounters between sessions, but insisting on no more than 10 minutes of planning during a session.

A possible solution I have used in the past...strategy meetings are held in real time with the players being In Character, meaning that the monsters have a chance of detecting them and attacking or listening in and planning a response, or time passes inviting a random encounter roll...

[Sneak Dog]

Make as a GM your own, relatively simple plan which will get the job done which you can give to the players after they planned for about five~ten minutes if their planning is going poorly. Stop them after fifteen minutes, ask them their plan and keep the game moving.

Plans coming together is great. Planning for a full hour with little to no pay-off is not.

[Kelb_Panthera]

In the immature but potentially hilarious category of "advise;" name your next character Leroy and just go.

[Troacctid]

Whenever it stalls, you should be ready to say, "Okay, it sounds like we have three main ideas: sneak in, bluff the guards, or cause a distraction. Let's take a vote." Stopping the planning to vote on a course of action is a tried-and-true method of moving things along.

Another good tactic is to time things so that the planning can happen between sessions in your group chat. (You have some form of group chat, right? It's the 20s, every campaign should have one.)

Finally, you should make sure that at least some of the time, good planning is rewarded with favorable outcomes—not just easier encounters but also funnier stories. If your players have shown that they enjoy planning, it's important to pay it off sometimes! Make sure you act completely dumbfounded whenever something off-the-wall actually works. They love that.

[RexDart]

If the planning involves lots of activity, like buying or building peculiar equipment, procuring scrolls and magic items, etc., the bad guys could spy on the group and act on what they find out. Laying traps, changing their own plans, etc.

This could actually be fun too, if the players work on counterintelligence activities.

From a strict time management perspective, maybe the bulk of the planning could be shunted off to email between play sessions, so it doesn't take up game time?

[Calthropstu]

If the planning involves lots of activity, like buying or building peculiar equipment, procuring scrolls and magic items, etc., the bad guys could spy on the group and act on what they find out. Laying traps, changing their own plans, etc.

This could actually be fun too, if the players work on counterintelligence activities.

From a strict time management perspective, maybe the bulk of the planning could be shunted off to email between play sessions, so it doesn't take up game time?

Whenever it stalls, you should be ready to say, "Okay, it sounds like we have three main ideas: sneak in, bluff the guards, or cause a distraction. Let's take a vote." Stopping the planning to vote on a course of action is a tried-and-true method of moving things along.

Another good tactic is to time things so that the planning can happen between sessions in your group chat. (You have some form of group chat, right? It's the 20s, every campaign should have one.)

Finally, you should make sure that at least some of the time, good planning is rewarded with favorable outcomes—not just easier encounters but also funnier stories. If your players have shown that they enjoy planning, it's important to pay it off sometimes! Make sure you act completely dumbfounded whenever something off-the-wall actually works. They love that.

A good example of how our planning sessions go:

"Ok, we are going into a combat."

"Ok I have my eidolon go invisible and fly over the terrain."

"You see 6 groups of monsters, each will be encountered if you travel through the labyrinth. 4 of these groups obviuously have the ability to fly, and could easily interfere in other fights if they overhear the combat."

"Ok, I make these knowledge checks, what are the capabilities of all the monster groups."

After half an hour of monster descriptions:

"Ok, we have these abilities coming at us. Let's..."

After an hour or two of discussion and arguing, we finally settle on our buffs, and the plan obsessed player wants our castings and actions down to the round by round.

If we know about everything before going to the labyrinth, it goes along the lines of:
Ok, I spend an ENTIRE SESSION purchasing, making trips to libraries, selecting gear, checking with NPCs etc. That entire time, half the table sits around bored, and discussions on non game stuff abounds. In some cases so much so that some players can't even hear the GM.

I think personally an approach of:
"We have these abilities coming at us, everyone write what buffs they want on their characters, where it comes from, and what their durations are. You have 15 minutes." would be far better, but I was hoping for something that wouldn't sound like me being an *******. The real problem is that the strategy minigame is VERY enjoyable to some at the table, but not all. I like the idea of strategizing between games, but the biggest problem with that is even as GM, I never know when combat will actually take place. I often make "outs" for the party to avoid combat entirely which are also often taken. I also put in combats which are meant to make the party run away sometimes... like a "you need to be this tall to hit this dungeon" sign.

So between session is difficult to implement.

[Doctor Despair]

It sounds like giving the strategy-happy players a heads-up on some or all of the sorts of information they are likely to receive would be helpful in your situation. It's out-of-game knowledge, so you have to trust them not to metagame before their characters actually learn it, but if they act in a consistently cautious manner, and you don't plan to specifically no-sell their scouting technique, you could have them roll knowledges at the end of session, give them the info they'd learn next session in DMs, and let them do most of the legwork ahead of time.

[RexDart]

A good example of how our planning sessions go:

"Ok, we are going into a combat."

"Ok I have my eidolon go invisible and fly over the terrain."

"You see 6 groups of monsters, each will be encountered if you travel through the labyrinth. 4 of these groups obviuously have the ability to fly, and could easily interfere in other fights if they overhear the combat."

"Ok, I make these knowledge checks, what are the capabilities of all the monster groups."

After half an hour of monster descriptions:

"Ok, we have these abilities coming at us. Let's..."

After an hour or two of discussion and arguing, we finally settle on our buffs, and the plan obsessed player wants our castings and actions down to the round by round.

If we know about everything before going to the labyrinth, it goes along the lines of:
Ok, I spend an ENTIRE SESSION purchasing, making trips to libraries, selecting gear, checking with NPCs etc. That entire time, half the table sits around bored, and discussions on non game stuff abounds. In some cases so much so that some players can't even hear the GM.

I think personally an approach of:
"We have these abilities coming at us, everyone write what buffs they want on their characters, where it comes from, and what their durations are. You have 15 minutes." would be far better, but I was hoping for something that wouldn't sound like me being an *******. The real problem is that the strategy minigame is VERY enjoyable to some at the table, but not all. I like the idea of strategizing between games, but the biggest problem with that is even as GM, I never know when combat will actually take place. I often make "outs" for the party to avoid combat entirely which are also often taken. I also put in combats which are meant to make the party run away sometimes... like a "you need to be this tall to hit this dungeon" sign.

So between session is difficult to implement.

The part that I bolded above is what stands out to me, and starts sounding less like "fun with strategy" and more like "control freak." Like the "alpha" player in a cooperative board game who ends up making the moves for every other player.

In my campaign, we actually spent a good chunk of our last session on the "purchasing, making trips to libraries, selecting gear, checking with NPCs etc." stuff, though everyone was pretty engaged with it, and we're planning to take on a dragon for the first time, which is the sort of thing that prompts strategizing by even the most seat-of-your-pants players. One thing our DM did that was cool was to shorten some of the research a little bit. His monsters are often a little different from RAW Monster Manual - not to "fool" players who are relying on OOC information, just as part of his worldbuilding for a game setting that sometimes differs from that of "regular" D&D. But he cut to the chase on one meeting: "You meet with your wizard acquaintance and pick his brain about dragons, and his knowledge tracks with what you can see in the Monster Manual. He also warned that "alignment" for dragons is a little different than for the rest of us, and their motivations are often inscrutable." (The last bit being the DM's deviation from RAW, and basically that even though we're confronting a copper dragon, don't assume he's necessarily a "good guy dragon.")

So that sort of thing and doing some stuff between sessions can help a little with the time management aspect.

But I think the player needs a little honest "Hey, I know you like this sort of thing, but chill out a little, dude" conversation. Also might be good to talk openly about game balance, and how if the players are allowed to flawlessly prepare for every eventuality, it's not much fun or challenge, but you also don't want to have to engineer stuff like mishaps where they lose some of the specialized equipment they brought, the bad guys counter-plan against YOUR plans, etc.

[Bronk]

We have a player in my group who overplans in an EXTREME way. We spend so many hours planning for something, sometimes an entire session, and by the next session, if a single detail is changed we have to have MORE planning. I often take to ignoring his plans because they are very rarely cost effective. Action wise, spell wise, ability usage... he wants tons of buffs handed around for single encounters when spells would be so much more used in other ways. I won't say he's a bad strategist, but there are at least two people there that are better. And the extra time spent does not really yield results.

Does anyone else have similar stories? I enjoy planning, but I have watched as others have sat there for endless hours doing nothing at the table. And, when the battle finally happens, it's over within a round or two. This would be true whether the planning happens or not.

I'd like to know a way to get a handle on this as I am beginning a new campaign with my group, one I am running, and I'd like to avoid this pitfall again.

I've done or seen all of the things already mentioned... For example, I have fond memories of playing Shadowrun, but at first we used to collectively argue/plan for like 6 or 7 hours. We'd finally get to the game part around 4 in the morning, and some of the players would always have dozed off, some after only a half hour or so. Then, one friend came up with GunBoy, an impulsive character who would, when the player or PC felt things were taking too long, just start without everyone else. It really got things going!

In your case, I'd suggest enacting the previously mentioned 'time is passing' trope, as well as the 'you're being spied on while you prepare' trope, but I'd also make that whole preparation part a legit part of the game. If that one guy is taking too long, the others can abandon him to go eat or something, and he'll miss a mini adventure. Or, if they actually detect that they're being spied on, dealing with that would be part of the fun as well.

Oh, and talking to the player too. You didn't say what class they were playing, but demanding specific buffs from other players isn't cool, especially after a few hours.

[SangoProduction]

As has almost certainly been said before, talk to the player.
It seems like they may have a bit of a mental problem, and can do with being encouraged to let go of their absolute control.

[Calthropstu]

As has almost certainly been said before, talk to the player.
It seems like they may have a bit of a mental problem, and can do with being encouraged to let go of their absolute control.

I wouldn't say absolute control, he does accept criticism and if someone says they don't want to do something he'll accept it. He doesn't dictate, he just seems to want everyone to plan out almost round by round.
I generally prefer a more flexible approach with as few resources spent as possible. He wants to blow through buffs like water.

[RNightstalker]

Introduce a new BBEG that spies on the players and interrupts their planning sessions by bringing the fight to them.

[Calthropstu]

Introduce a new BBEG that spies on the players and interrupts their planning sessions by bringing the fight to them.

I'd rather avoid being a complete jerk.

[RNightstalker]

I'd rather avoid being a complete jerk.

Sometimes the best way to fight fire is with fire. Sometimes it's the only way someone will wake up and smell the coffee.

[GrayDeath]

Make them face KAOS the Chaotic Chaotic neutral Wizard who rolls what spells he prepares, and then asks bird swarms wqhere to aim his next conquest.

Dont do it without lampshading it, and you all will be able to enjoy a few "at msot we can say buff this and that, then go" planning and play.

And, of course, as was said, talk, talk and talk.

[Lorddenorstrus]

Attack them. Not with what ever they were planning to attack. Something random, but make it around semi challenging encounter.
It needs to be difficult enough that they can't just spend 1-2 rounds auto attacking and just winning from over statting it. But not so overly difficult that a mistake will murder someone.

I've found the over planning types tend to freak out because they don't know how to play their characters unless every action is pre planned and in full auto pilot. So jumping them until mr. planner learns will force on the fly practice. Not every fight has to be pre planned, I would argue only the massive fight vs the BBEG should have a full on plan. And yeah even wizards.. they can prepare a 'generic' list vs type of creature.

This isn't being mean you're intentionally choosing encounters in a low enough range that it isn't deadly but it forces resource usage. This will allow the players to practice their characters so to speak. Because really that's the issue at hand. They need practice so they aren't forced to plan for hours just to 'properly' play.

[rel]

If you want to strategise you need time and information.

Careful tracking of time including any realtime planning counting as time in game combined with regular wandering monster rolls rob the players of time.

illusions, sensibly designed environments, intelligently played monsters and suitably perceptive sentries rob the players of information.

When used in combination, these methods make long in game planning sessions a decidedly sub-optimal strategy.

[Clementx]

Everyone say it with me. "What is a plan? A list of things that aren't going to happen."

Just tell the player the game does not require that level of planning for success, and the amount of unpredictable events will make that time be wasted.

[H_H_F_F]

First thing first, as has been said, talk to your player. It does not need to be a confrontation at all. "Hey Jack, I know you really like planning things out round by round, but as a DM I like a faster paced game. Can we try to keep the planning phase to like, 20 minutes tops, unless there are special circumstances?"

Other than that...

Strategy meetings are held in real time with the players being In Character, meaning that the monsters have a chance of detecting them and attacking or listening in and planning a response, or time passes inviting a random encounter roll...

I'd suggest enacting the previously mentioned 'time is passing' trope.

If you want to strategise you need time and information.

Careful tracking of time including any realtime planning counting as time in game combined with regular wandering monster rolls rob the players of time.

This is an aspect of the game that seemed completely obvious to me. Never go OOC around the table unless you *need* to.

Using time crunches is an excellent way to do a lot of things - not allowing the players to rest between battles, or to have extensive planning. "We need to clean this place out in 45 minutes, we gotta move now!"

In the last campaign I played in, our final confrontation involved a magically coerced army, 100s of thousands strong, controlled by 3 cult members by magical means. We had to somehow find them and take them down, but how do you find 3 people within an army, if they know you're coming?

My friends all had simplistic approaches that I "had to" shoot down, and show how absurd they were. We were sitting at one of the command tents planning.

I saw that battle as a puzzle to be figured out, akin to our previous quest - an infiltration of a castle. The DM didn't see the scenario as I did. To him, this was a place for suspension of disbelief, not puzzle solving.

10 minutes into our discussion, we could here the blowing of horns, and a young officer burst into our tents. "They're on the march! Go, go, go!"

In that scenario, I was the problem player. Not because my approach is an issue, just because I didn't think about the issue in the same terms as the DM. We flew over the army, and just saw our 3 targets among the soldiers, each in a different location. The DM originally planned (and hinted) that the forces would march one day later, but that was to give our characters time to rest, not to plan. Once he realized I was reading the situation "wrong", he intervened, in a way that brought the game back to the pace he planned on without targeting me or making me feel stupid or useless.

This is how you deal with a problem player 95% of the time - assume good faith, use the world, and be flexible.

[RNightstalker]

Everyone say it with me. "What is a plan? A list of things that aren't going to happen."

^^LOVE that!

[MR_Anderson]

If the players enjoy it, let em knock themselves out.

Mostly this, but you also have to completely change things up on the party sometimes.

I mean, it may look like green tea ice cream, but sometimes it is wasabi and you get wrecked.

Make as a GM your own, relatively simple plan which will get the job done which you can give to the players after they planned for about five~ten minutes if their planning is going poorly. Stop them after fifteen minutes, ask them their plan and keep the game moving.

Plans coming together is great. Planning for a full hour with little to no pay-off is not.

I disagree, being the type that strategizes things, I’ve learned to deduce what is the best path forward, and I’ve learned to do it very quickly. What takes an hour is getting the other people to abandon their idea of a plan.

A good example of how our planning sessions go:

"Ok, we are going into a combat."

"Ok I have my eidolon go invisible and fly over the terrain."

"You see 6 groups of monsters, each will be encountered if you travel through the labyrinth. 4 of these groups obviuously have the ability to fly, and could easily interfere in other fights if they overhear the combat."

"Ok, I make these knowledge checks, what are the capabilities of all the monster groups."

After half an hour of monster descriptions:

"Ok, we have these abilities coming at us. Let's..."

After an hour or two of discussion and arguing, we finally settle on our buffs, and the plan obsessed player wants our castings and actions down to the round by round.

If we know about everything before going to the labyrinth, it goes along the lines of:
Ok, I spend an ENTIRE SESSION purchasing, making trips to libraries, selecting gear, checking with NPCs etc. That entire time, half the table sits around bored, and discussions on non game stuff abounds. In some cases so much so that some players can't even hear the GM.

I think personally an approach of:
"We have these abilities coming at us, everyone write what buffs they want on their characters, where it comes from, and what their durations are. You have 15 minutes." would be far better, but I was hoping for something that wouldn't sound like me being an *******. The real problem is that the strategy minigame is VERY enjoyable to some at the table, but not all. I like the idea of strategizing between games, but the biggest problem with that is even as GM, I never know when combat will actually take place. I often make "outs" for the party to avoid combat entirely which are also often taken. I also put in combats which are meant to make the party run away sometimes... like a "you need to be this tall to hit this dungeon" sign.

So between session is difficult to implement.

Yea that shouldn’t happen.

DM/GM should only allow such a scenario every so often, but when he/she does, players absolutely should playout the planning. All planning should be considered real-time role playing.

However there is a cutoff!

Having served in the military over 20 years, including time working with intel, there are two really good takeaways I’d like to share.

1) Actionable Information - Situational Information can change at any moment, the information gathered needs to be acted upon before it changes, and you never know when it will change, after a certain point information is worthless.

2) Some famous Quotes

Spoiler: Quotes

Show

A Good Plan executed Now is better than a Perfect Plan executed Later.

The Plan is useless, but Planning is everything.

No Battle Plan survives contact with the enemy.

Always be flexible.

Introduce a new BBEG that spies on the players and interrupts their planning sessions by bringing the fight to them.

I'd rather avoid being a complete jerk.

Well, it isn’t if you only do it so often.

As a player, when planning takes to long (from me being the strategist) I just start combat. I found another player who was not interested in delaying, so we would just start. Yea, it pisses off the group, but we move the game forward. Playing a character that specifically sells his services as a strategist, kind of lets you get away with this though.

The way to do this from the DM/GM perspective is to have something encounter the group while they plan, and then trigger the other groups.

My last recommendation is to get the players used to not always being fully buffed. I know this is a game where we see every stat and number, so we must ask how to always combat as the best, but it is a game about role playing more than numbers.

I hope this helps.

[RexDart]

A bit of a tangent, but it just occurred to me that having a villain who's an obsessive planner would be fun.

It's usually bad form to do stuff like "The bad guys have a bunch of Brooches of Shielding, because the wizard player loves Magic Missile," of course, but if the bad guys do stuff like that because they're specifically gathering intelligence about the characters, it could be interesting, especially if the players get creative with the counter-intelligence role.

[MR_Anderson]

Came across a classic quote that needs to be shared.

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

Seriously, it is perfectly fine to wreck the player’s plans.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Came across a classic quote that needs to be shared.



Seriously, it is perfectly fine to wreck the player’s plans.

If I understand the problem correctly, it's not that the plans are effective that OP has a problem with. As you say, no plan survives contact with the enemy. The problem, if I understand correctly, is that the amount of time they take with actually coming up with the plan is digging into the amount of contact they make with the enemy to an unacceptable degree. That is, they spend so much more time with planning than actually executing the plans that it's bogging the game down.

The correct answer is, as always, talk to them and explain why the problem is a problem and ask them as politely but firmly as you can to knock it off. The GM's a player too and if he's not having fun you don't have a game before long.

[MR_Anderson]

If I understand the problem correctly, it's not that the plans are effective that OP has a problem with. As you say, no plan survives contact with the enemy. The problem, if I understand correctly, is that the amount of time they take with actually coming up with the plan is digging into the amount of contact they make with the enemy to an unacceptable degree. That is, they spend so much more time with planning than actually executing the plans that it's bogging the game down.

The correct answer is, as always, talk to them and explain why the problem is a problem and ask them as politely but firmly as you can to knock it off. The GM's a player too and if he's not having fun you don't have a game before long.

Yes, but the easiest way to have that conversation is after a lengthy period of planning that resulted in not being worth it, or multiple events where planning failed.

Planning is important, but only so far as making a cohesive operation. See, my tactic takes all rationale required for having that conversation and removes it. The OP is the DM/GM looking for ways to prevent it from happening in the game he will be starting, he has the ability to layout this trend from the get go rather than changing things through it, which pisses players off.

You can try and talk to the group, but it is unlikely to change a habit. Changing a habit requires changing the environment that creates the habit. The individual wants detailed plans so the group is successful. If the group continues to fail most of the time because they don’t act, they will start to see no payoff for their actions.

A party missing the encounter or treasure would be upsetting. One could even establish a new adventuring group of NPC’s that beats them to the encounters/treasure on occasion, a group of adventures taking two hours of game play to plan a 10 round fight, is more than long enough for another group to have that 1 minute fight.


To sum it up...
Talk is cheap, but results speak for themselves, let the other players get pissed that they are losing out, and they will refuse to cooperate with such long planning periods unless they see a point to it. If the tactic is unsuccessful, and the party really enjoys planning, create massive intricate battles and place them in leadership roles.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Yes, but the easiest way to have that conversation is after a lengthy period of planning that resulted in not being worth it, or multiple events where planning failed.

Planning is important, but only so far as making a cohesive operation. See, my tactic takes all rationale required for having that conversation and removes it. The OP is the DM/GM looking for ways to prevent it from happening in the game he will be starting, he has the ability to layout this trend from the get go rather than changing things through it, which pisses players off.

You can try and talk to the group, but it is unlikely to change a habit. Changing a habit requires changing the environment that creates the habit. The individual wants detailed plans so the group is successful. If the group continues to fail most of the time because they don’t act, they will start to see no payoff for their actions.

A party missing the encounter or treasure would be upsetting. One could even establish a new adventuring group of NPC’s that beats them to the encounters/treasure on occasion, a group of adventures taking two hours of game play to plan a 10 round fight, is more than long enough for another group to have that 1 minute fight.


To sum it up...
Talk is cheap, but results speak for themselves, let the other players get pissed that they are losing out, and they will refuse to cooperate with such long planning periods unless they see a point to it. If the tactic is unsuccessful, and the party really enjoys planning, create massive intricate battles and place them in leadership roles.

Maybe that works, maybe they realize you're being passive-aggressive and you suddenly have a bigger problem.

Manipulating your friends, or at least acquaintances you want to be on friendly terms with, is very rarely a good idea.