I've been thinking about something recently. While there are people who're pretty good at multi-tasking, talking is not always an easy thing to do. It does require some concentration to perform an action and talk at the same time. Its one thing to have a fight and shout orders as a professional soldier, or in the case of adventuring, handle a combat encounter and give minor tactical updates.
However I've had games slog on because players would discuss tactics during every encounter. At that point I decided to implement the quick initiative rule, which basically goes like this:
Every round we roll initiative, determine who goes when and then do a quick round robin where the DM points to each person in succession and that person has a short amount of time to decide their action. No tactical cross-talk, just quick heat-of-the-moment discussion.
I did this the first time after a small encounter took 2 hours to get through (only 10 rounds). So the next encounter, I didn't tell the players I changed the rule, I just sprung it on them. When they rolled initiative, and a player got the first move I pointed to him and said "you have 3 seconds to decide your action, go."
He looked at me with a dumb expression and said "uhhhhh..." I replied "Ok, your character stands there with a dumbstruck look, next" and went down the line. After the first round went much like that and the characters were caught flatfooted (granted the enemies were only a minor threat and I purposely had them roll badly on account of being scared shitless of these adventurers, I am fair... sort of) I gave the players a full rundown of the hotseat rule, or quick initiative. I told them that combat is a fast paced environment and you don't have time to discuss tactics, draw swords, choose an action and go unless you want to spend at least one round having a discussion where the enemy will have the advantage of acting against you. In a fight, you don't have time to do that, you just have to react. Its one thing if you spend time training in hand signals, or short word or phrased code, but combat shouldn't take forever to get through. It encourages players to work together and think on their feet, and ever since I decided to do away with the idea of talking as a free action, games felt more fluid and combat felt a bit more... well real I guess. I mean the players were initially resistant but once we were able to move through encounters without someone holding the game up because they were flip-flopping between spell or ability choices, they were on board.
So what do you folks who play tabletop think of the idea that talking is not always a free action?
What would you do in that situation?
However I've had games slog on because players would discuss tactics during every encounter. At that point I decided to implement the quick initiative rule, which basically goes like this:
Every round we roll initiative, determine who goes when and then do a quick round robin where the DM points to each person in succession and that person has a short amount of time to decide their action. No tactical cross-talk, just quick heat-of-the-moment discussion.
I did this the first time after a small encounter took 2 hours to get through (only 10 rounds). So the next encounter, I didn't tell the players I changed the rule, I just sprung it on them. When they rolled initiative, and a player got the first move I pointed to him and said "you have 3 seconds to decide your action, go."
He looked at me with a dumb expression and said "uhhhhh..." I replied "Ok, your character stands there with a dumbstruck look, next" and went down the line. After the first round went much like that and the characters were caught flatfooted (granted the enemies were only a minor threat and I purposely had them roll badly on account of being scared shitless of these adventurers, I am fair... sort of) I gave the players a full rundown of the hotseat rule, or quick initiative. I told them that combat is a fast paced environment and you don't have time to discuss tactics, draw swords, choose an action and go unless you want to spend at least one round having a discussion where the enemy will have the advantage of acting against you. In a fight, you don't have time to do that, you just have to react. Its one thing if you spend time training in hand signals, or short word or phrased code, but combat shouldn't take forever to get through. It encourages players to work together and think on their feet, and ever since I decided to do away with the idea of talking as a free action, games felt more fluid and combat felt a bit more... well real I guess. I mean the players were initially resistant but once we were able to move through encounters without someone holding the game up because they were flip-flopping between spell or ability choices, they were on board.
So what do you folks who play tabletop think of the idea that talking is not always a free action?
What would you do in that situation?