Frazzled DM needs help ....

[wotmaniac]

Short version: players spend too much planning, etc. -- need to cut it down.

Long version:
Okay, don't get me wrong -- I like when players do clever and intelligent things (I even reward such things).  I don't mind them spending time planning, etc.  I even allow things like taking extra time to make decisions, and having the whole group chime in for what would really be 1-on-1 talks (to account for crazy-high INT/WIS scores and the concept that the characters would take many things for granted that the players themselves don't -- this also accommodates what would normally take place during off-screen time).

Here's the problem: what we play isn't what I would normally call "Dungeons & Dragons" ... it's more like "Dungeon & Logistics".  The vast majority of each game session is spent discussing various plot lines and how to approach each, treasure sheet assessment/management, and how they're gonna orchestrate their next move.  While, yes, this does provide me the benefit of actually knowing their plans, the problems caused aren't really worth the heads-up. 
we play twice/month, for 8-10 hours each session.  out of that, 5-6 of those hours are spent with all this shit.  not only does it bore me to tears, it also causes it's own set of problems:
1) 2 of the players are fairly new.  those 2 plus a 3rd seem more interested in actually doing things, and I'm losing them fast.  to compound things, one of the 2 experienced players is a very forceful personality, and thus sets the entire pace of the game (oh, and did I mention that he's married to one of the newbs?  and also DMs another game with both of them?).  nothing happens without his approval (or at the very least, "fails to hate it").
2) said alpha-male player is hyper-paranoid (because of his personal DM style), crazy-smart, over-educated, and very meticulous.  He's a really cool guy (and out-of-game, provides the most enjoyable non-game discussions of anyone I know); but surely you can see how this might be a bit nightmare-ish for a DM.


At level 14, the characters are pretty-much able to act with carte blanche (i.e., they can come and go as they please; resources as needed; etc., etc.) -- so hiding away to justify the inordinate time spend on this shit isn't an issue for them.  And this isn't an issue of them "out-smarting" me, or that they're too powerful/etc. -- I can deal with that just fine.  I just want to play.

I've tried just glossing over stuff to get things rolling, but that doesn't help much.  When I'm like "okay, time passes, and you all do *this*", I get a big "hold on a minute" as they/he insists on "roleplaying" each and every minute.  NO! JUST GO DO SOMETHING! 

I do realize that some of this may be my own doing ..... 
I've been told that the plot is very dense and extraordinarily intricate, and demands a high level of meticulousness -- never mind that I have repeatedly told them/him that it's all just window dressing meant to give a compelling reason to go kill shit (as opposed to random, mindless hack-and-slash.  in other words, I want to provide some intellectual stimulation as they hack away -- you know, a sense of purpose).
The overwhelming sense of paranoia?  I told them that they were over-fixated on it, and that it was simply to instill a sense of danger, so that they didn't fall in to the boring-ass complacency of knowing that they're gonna "win" by default.  that's it.

I made it a point to tell them that I have intentionally eased-off of them, and that I have intentionally held off on the plot-escalation specifically so that they could relax a bit.  I've tried to ret-con some of the heavier-handed bits that have happened to help facilitate this.  But, oh no, all of the campaign's elements are inextricably ingrained in to the characters, and we can't do the slightest thing that might accidentally break the tiniest bit of immersion, 'cause then we couldn't have any fun.

So, what do I do?

Thanks.

[Nachofan99]

Honestly?

Just start dropping fireballs on them.  Like, you're all in your usual watering hole planning your next move when...fireball.  Roll initiative.

The second after that combat.  You're all busy tallying up the gear from the first encounter when...fireball.  Roll initiative.

The second after THAT combat, you find a note.  Hastily reading it you find out...fireball.  Roll initiative.

Hopefully at this point they are so clueless as to what to do that when you approach them with an NPC who needs their *urgent* help, they accept sans planning.  If not, fireball - roll initiative.  The encounters are not meant to deal damage to the party or wipe them out or anything.  Just to engage them.

I've started a few sessions like this when the group's attention was not focused and after the second combat everyone tended to get a lot more engaged.

Obviously I think your case is different and might need a slightly different approach, but I'm sure just injecting raw adrenaline into the heart of the beginning of the session should make it high octane enough to get them moving instead of planning.

This was a particularly good GM for Shadowrun's general treatise on too much planning and not enough action; if they are sitting down long enough for me to blow something up, something is getting blown up.

[Pimpforged]

Where are you located? I only ask because I know a guy who would play exactly like this if we let him.

The solution we (as players) came up with was just to tell him that we wanted to go kill shit and we would do it without him if he didn't stop. On a side note, the games he runs are usually a lot of fun because everything is so well thought out and planned.

[genuine]

Bring a novel. Or a movie. Or a boardgame. When the players get into their excessive planning pull out sorry and play along with the other bored players.

Another option is to listen to their plans, and beat them at it. Either alter your own plans on the fly to render their plans irrelevant, or jigger things so that their own plans effectively screw them over. Then tell them that if they insist on planning in front of you you'll be forced to take advantage of it.

If they want to plan, do it elsewhere like you do.

[Gods_Trick]

Have you talked to alpha-nerd? Tell him that its him solo managing the party, and its losing the newbs. If hes smart, he should ease up. Its really not a GM'ing problem I think, its a paranoia problem in a plot driven world.

[wotmaniac]

I've talked to him a little -- he had mentioned that he was going to try to take a back seat on the next adventure .... but guess what?  he just couldn't help himself.

The thing is, up until the last couple of days, I've been internalizing my extreme dissatisfaction with the game -- I thought it was me.  but then it occurred to me that another common denominator existed -- his incessant planning.  and then everything finally started to make sense.

Since I first posted this, I came up with a something similar to the fireball thing (at least, in effect) -- I'm toying with the idea of making a whole clan of ninjas who are solely dedicated to interrupting their plans.  I don't care that they're walled-up in their rope trick or magnificent mansion or whatever -- POOF! ninja strike; take damage and roll initiative.  when they try to call bullshit on me, I simply say "the gods of planning are angry for you abusing their powers; and thus have smited you.  now go do something spontaneous."

Where are you located? I only ask because I know a guy who would play exactly like this if we let him.

Phoenix, AZ.  He used to live in Seattle.

[Nachofan99]

ninjas

Exactly.  That was my second suggestion right after fireball.  Nothing says pure adrenaline injection like ninjas!  They don't even have to be challenging, they just have to be there.

[BrokeAndDrive]

He obviously wants to play D&L. Gotta find a playstyle to balance what he likes with the other players.

Re: the fireball thing. I'm sure everyone here would be rightfully pissed if the DM suddenly said "I have read all the caster handbooks, and have nixed every single & -tier spell, and you all must write 5 pages of backstory." Forcing a player to play something he doesn't want to play is a dick move.

[Sohala]

How about invisible fireballs cast by ninjas?

[Gods_Trick]

Ehh,  I really don't like Ninja's attack. I've had dick GM's abuse 'suddenly Ninjas/Pirates/Dinosaurs/Devils/X attacks!' because he was getting bored, so I'm biased against it. It just seems so random and 'fuck you!' that it seems like bad GMing.

I'd suggest a half hour prep time in game and ready or not, the adventure starts if you prefer a metagame solution. If its an in-game solution you prefer, maybe make them the defenders of X, where X is immobe and they have to react rather than attck.

[Nick]

You can have a 'Plot Timer' and let them know that your world is dynamic enough that things move on whether or not the players do anything. Let them know that the 'Plot Timer' runs on 5-10 minute intervals so that they can sit down and plan while you go take a toilet break or a smoke break or a beer break.

When you're back, the game rolls on whether or not they have settled their shit.

I have had players take an hour, right outside the door of a mid-boss, trying to plan stuff out. I told them in advance that you guys can send emails back and forth or use the forum that I have to keep logs and stuff for my games to plan in advance certain things like battlefield tactics and stuff, just don't do it real time.

Other times include how they are going to invest the dragon hoard after they killed the dragon, whether they want to dabble in real estate or open a bank and how many NPCs are they hiring etc etc. I told them to plan that after the game, not during it.

Stuff like that. Just let them know that you need to keep the game moving and the world revolves on its own momentum, not around the players.

[wotmaniac]

as for the time limit thing ... they always seem to be able to justify the time, one way or another.  it usually involves obtaining some sort of time line in advance and some other proper recon (through various means), and then pick their time.  surely they can find a couple of hours blah blah blah.

The more I think on this, the more I realize that the planning issue is merely symptomatic of a different issue .... the interposing player who pretty much dictates the rest of the party/group.  oh, he'll listen to other players; it's just that he's thinking 3 times as fast as them, and it's almost impossible to counter him for very long -- his go-to argument style is the "rapid assault/information avalanche"; which, of course, doesn't allow the time needed to even process such a tsunami, let alone fully analyze it ... leaving everyone to be swept along with the tide.  at which point he jumps head-first in to developing his air-tight, iron-clad plan for everybody to follow along with.
To make matters worse, given the specific set of circumstances, from the characters' perspective, this should be the most awesome thing in the world; but for the other players, it's a different story.

at times, it feels like he's running the game, and I'm just there to toss out some fluff description from time to time
there have often been times that I've ended up changing entire scenarios simply because they didn't happen to jive with his sense of logic -- the circles he spins create an environment that pushes me to either change the scenario on the spot or I end up looking a total dick for railroading the entire scenario wholesale down his throat.

the dilemma with all this is that we've become too good of friends for me to just say "GTFO my table" (that, and he'd take half the group with him).




thanks for letting me vent.  I'm still wide open to suggestions.

[Sohala]

Somehow divide his character from the rest of the group and see how it goes. Give him something to do by himself of course, but that has no bearing on the rest. Just to see how it goes.

[Gods_Trick]

Is he a real friend? Then tell him since he can't help himself from doing it in-game, does he mind if you give him a RP tool to help? If hes cool, and by this I mean he actually wants to fix the prob, his character gets a serious, 2ed curse, something related to speech or thought.

If hes not cool, then you have to go guerilla, and find spells and techiniques where the scrying gets subverted or fed false positives.

Oh just got a good idea  . Split up the party. Give the newbs some autonomy. If they/he complain, just explain its to give everyone a chance to do things.

[ZeroKnight]

At lvl14, they have to have made more than a few enemies. And if they keep using the same spots to plan, then an enemy doing a little recon/divination could easily set up an ambush.

Another Idea would be to mute the character, by curse or just DM smite. You cant be party leader if you cant talk.

[wotmaniac]

after watching our WoD game develop last night (GM'd by another friend), I've concluded that I do indeed need to close the table a little bit. ...
I usually run an open table (with the ideal concept being that everyone gets to contribute together), because I really like the team effort.
However, I've decided that I need to split the party -- basically, everybody is gonna need to have their own side projects.  This keeps the party steamroller off balance, and give everyone else a solid excuse to have to do their own thing.
It's not the type of game that I typically like to run, but I'll definitely be having more fun if everyone else is having more fun.

thanks.
I'll let you know how it turns out. (though, I'll have to check the schedule ... I think it may be a couple of weeks.)

[zioth]

A lot of these suggestions sound like short-term fixes that will frustrate the party. However, you shouldn't let yourself be bullied by this player, even if you think he's smarter than you.

I think the important thing for a group like this is to give them a really intelligent enemy. The problem player may be able to think three times as fast as anyone else, but you have two weeks to plan out what the enemy is doing. At 14th level, enemies have access to some pretty potent divination magic, which should be able to locate the characters. Maybe the enemy uses Locate Person/Object, and then teleports in in the middle of a planning session. Maybe the enemy uses Scry+Detect Thoughts to learn all of the party's plans while they're making them. Maybe the enemy sets lures to separate the party right after the planning session, and then attacks.

Or, maybe, by the time the party has spent hours working out the details, it's too late. The bad guy has already done his bad things. The above tricks can work a few times before they get annoying, but this one makes a lot of sense. The enemy isn't sitting around waiting for the party to plan. If the attack is planned for high noon and the party starts planning at 11:30, they won't have more than half an hour before it's too late.

If you have a very mature party, a nice one-time trick would be to have the problem player's character charmed or dominated, and get the player to plan _against_ the party. You have to be careful with this one though. With the wrong group of players, it can destroy a game.

[Sjappo]

You've got some bad habits to break mate. Won't be pretty but it's got to be done.

at times, it feels like he's running the game, and I'm just there to toss out some fluff description from time to time
there have often been times that I've ended up changing entire scenarios simply because they didn't happen to jive with his sense of logic -- the circles he spins create an environment that pushes me to either change the scenario on the spot or I end up looking a total dick for railroading the entire scenario wholesale down his throat.

If you do this ones, it's OK. If you do this repeatedly he and the other players expect him to be always right. Don't do it again. Maybe hes explanation for events is cooler than yours. So be it. If yours is plausible as well, stick with it. That way you will have him guessing again. It may help to pick up on alternate explanations put forward by the other players and adapt your story to incorporate them. He has to stop feeling like the allknowing oracle.

we play twice/month, for 8-10 hours each session.  out of that, 5-6 of those hours are spent with all this shit.  not only does it bore me to tears, it also causes it's own set of problems:

Make it clear that you are going to be using this time to spice up the encounters. Prepare ambushes, BBEG does some scrying to throw a wrench in their carefully laid-out battle plan. Ask for some preparation time yourself if need be. I mean, the made the plan, BBEG scried, players have to travel 1 hour. BBEG (and thus you) have 1 hour to prepare!

They have to feel that things don't get easier, maybe even harder, if the plan excessively.

Of course the success of these tips depend on how forceful a person you are, can be and are willing to be.

Other things I noticed:

I've been told that the plot is very dense and extraordinarily intricate, and demands a high level of meticulousness -- never mind that I have repeatedly told them/him that it's all just window dressing meant to give a compelling reason to go kill shit

Write it down. Write down the plot as it stands now and give it to your players. Use part of one session to discuss any questions. That may end discussions about misremembered plot details. Update every few sessions or when necessary.

I've talked to him a little -- he had mentioned that he was going to try to take a back seat on the next adventure .... but guess what?  he just couldn't help himself.

Can you work out a code with him. A quick way to tell him he's doing it again so he can correct himself. If he truly wants to tone down he should be open to the suggestion. Maybe even do this as a group, if he and the other players are cool with it.

[emissary666]

I think the "SUDDENLY NINJAS!!!" scenario works if you use it once. Just something to remind them that A) stuff's happening B) that it is a game, not a logistics puzzle and C) your the DM, you still have control, he does not dictate what happens. Don't use it again though, then they get pissed off.
Also, making sure time moves on will eventually make things move faster. Maybe, if one planning session takes too long, someone else completed the encounter or the bad guy won. It is frustrating and denies everyone an encounter, but, in my experience, they will move faster next time. A minor version would be to have a significant complication, like reinforcements, traps, built up defenses, heavy artillery, etc. Just try to enforce the idea that time doesn't stop because they have. As an added benefit, the new complications add more action for the newer players.
My final suggestion is one of absolute desperation, GM intervention. This is outright saying "can we please move on?", with more detail of course. Let them know that you have a game you'd like to be playing, that you have something planned, and that, with group consensus, you would like to move on. This is kinda pitting you against him, but it may give players the courage to tell him that "I don't want to spend 2/3 of the session on roleplaying and planning" letting the action-oriented players to voice that they would like to move on with the action. An Alpha player tends to cow other players into doing what he wants to do, intentionally or not. If the other players speak up about this, then it may help him understand that he may be reducing the enjoyment of other players. Preferably, talk with everyone first and arrange a session where you or the players can voice a desire to move faster in a civilized manner without worrying about in game or in life arguments.

[Rejakor]

1.  You have a social problem translating into game, not a game problem translating into social.

You said it yourself.  You, are going along with mistakes he has made cause you don't want to be a dick to him.  This, even if you hadn't said anything else, would label him as a much more forceful personality than you, especially since it doesn't seem like he's throwing a tantrum or something if you don't do it his way.  He's just out-alpha'ing you by showing up.  And that's fine, but you need to acknowledge and plan for that instead of letting it make the game boring.

2.  This social problem is affecting the way you run your game.

Ambushes are a part of DnD.  Ninjas attack, rocks fall, someone summons an Umber Hulk right into your favourite tavern.  Impose a free action limit on speaking - you can only speak 2-3 sentences per round, and if there's a lot of noise, screaming civilians, fire, distance, then you better be able to make those listen checks or rounds are going to be wasted yelling back and forth and going 'WHAT'?  Enforce this as a RULE.

Metagaming together a plan and then all PCs following it individually is not something you are going to allow anymore.  Even supergeniuses do not come to the same conclusion every single time.  If the guy starts itching to optimize everyone else's actions, take him aside and ask him to allow the other players to take their OWN actions.  You've gotta be firm about this one, cause otherwise it's 'this guy and his 5 characters and 4 other people who are observing'.  Ask him to literally not say a word on anyone else's turn and not give suggestions for a few sessions.

Putting everyone on a timer likely won't work because this player thinks so fast and doesn't allow discussion.  In a realtime couple of minutes he could/would make/explain a complex plan, if he needed to.  Classic alpha stuff.  So don't.  Just encourage other people to roleplay their reactions to his character being overbearing.  If he can't grok the line between 'character' and 'him personally' then that's a separate problem.

Play to the other characters' areas of expertise.  Enforce the fact that anything you tell that player that their character knows, his character doesn't know, and then put them on a /rounds/ time limit so that character doesn't have TIME to tell his character all this stuff (plus make it technical, hard to explain to someone who isn't an X (arcane caster, druid, sha-forged warrior)) and turn it into a 'shut up and follow me!' scenario but the one doing the 'shut up and follow me' is the other character, not him, for once.

Switch between these things, sudden ambushes with speaking restrictions, urgent tasks that don't allow time for planning, situations that unexpectedly change or require splitting the party (even by a few hundred feet, telepathy jamming is also a really cool way of disrupting 'groupthink' tactics) (example - room with 2 dangers, door that enemy reinforcements are coming through and a doom device about to blow up a city that needs to be stopped, suddenly, have archers appear above the party, and don't allow talking except on-turn, and only a few sentences, and noise restriction.  It'll frustrate him to hell as people do suboptimal things, but the looks on people's faces as they get excited, if he's an alpha-type he should recognize it and realize and ease off after a couple of times when you do that and people get really excited and into it.) until he 'gets' it, and then occasionally throw in a setpiece for him, like a thoroughly defended and magically warded supercastle that he can thoroughly scout out and work out a complex plan to crack it perfectly.

Also, if he makes a mistake, never ever change the way it is.  Don't.  When you can, scatter subtle clues that will, after the fact, show that it was always this way but he didn't see it.  That way you have proof you're not being a chucklefuck DM.