7 Tips To Speed Up Your Gameplay

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Hello Adventures, the podcast for role
players and game masters to help them welcome

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up your game. We're dungeon masters
Jason Portiso, Joe McCall, and Jim

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Crocker, and today we're gonna I'm
gonna set a time limit for this episode.

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We see if we can get our
episodes to be faster. Because if

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we get episodes be faster and you
can listen to them faster, maybe your

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games will get faster. We need
to listen to a podcast about getting your

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podcast episodes faster. That'll be next
episode. Okay, I'll work on that

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one, but how to well,
no, because then we don't have I

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don't we don't have more time for
ads And then like why Okay, so

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we we need to watch a YouTube
video about making your podcast faster so that

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we can make our podcast faster.
Here gameplay, But that's gonna take too

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long, So I need a TikTok
to teach faster YouTube videos. Anyway,

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this this whole, this whole based
down off the rails, So certainly these

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tangents make our episodes faster. Listen, Jim, listen, we just spent

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twenty minutes talking about Detroit Party.
I will also add off off mic.

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So, Jim, you've got you
get a list for us, Tell me

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about tell me about how to make
things faster. Yeah. So, as

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a person who ran D and D
in the game store that I owned for

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many, many years, one of
the things that was important was to try

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and get in as much play as
we could. And so there's a whole

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bunch of tips that I picked up
from other players and just through experimentally running

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stuff at the store that I found
really sped up gameplay and not in a

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you know, kind of bum rush
everybody kind of way, but just in

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a way that made stuff more efficient. And for the most part, they're

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all pretty easy to adopt. I
mean, there's one of them that might

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be a little controversial. I saved
that one at the end, you know,

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as we're a loving good controversy like
we do, like we do.

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But but I think these are all
things that if you decide you to adopt

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them, you know, you can
do one, you can do all of

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them. They should make things go
a little quicker so that you're doing less

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you know, kind of handling and
bookkeeping and stuff like that, and you

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have more time to you know,
to role play, or you can just

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make the sessions a little shorter so
that you know, people aren't getting burned

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out stuff like that. So shall
I begin, Yes, I think getting

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right to it is this step number
one. Yes, Yeah, there we

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go. That's a good tip,
you know, kind of a good meta

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tip. So the first thing that
I have on my list here is and

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this is interesting because when fourth edition
D and D first came out, this

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was actually the official way that the
book suggested that you do this, which

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is to roll damage along with your
hit dice. So when you pick up

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your D twenty for your fighter,
you grab your ten siders, you know,

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for for whatever your sword damage does. You throw it all at once.

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Then you can just check and see
did I hit Yes, then you

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read the damaged dice off, did
I miss No? Damaged dice don't matter,

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but you've got it all at once
there, Oh okay. So yeah,

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and you would be surprised, genuinely
surprised at the number of times,

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and certainly as a DM, especially
if you're rolling for multiple monsters, the

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amount of time that that's going to
save, you know, in fifteen twenty

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second increments, but if you add
it up over dozens and dozens of times,

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over the course of a game.
I found, you know, like

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that shaves like ten minutes off of
time you'd otherwise just spend throwing dice and

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looking at them to read them.
Some people get some people are I get

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it. Some people are very very
attached to like, roll this die and

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I read it. Then I roll
these dice and I read it. But

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if you could overcome that, if
you're not particularly sentimental or superstitious about that

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part of it, just grabbing that
handful of dice throwing them all at once

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boom will actually save a significant amount
of time if you have everybody at the

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table doing that over the course of
your game. So that's my first tip.

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So outside is less total actual die
rolls. And we all know how

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fun die rolls are. It's not
less total die rolls. I mean,

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it's like you're still rolling the same
number of directions of throwing the die.

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And here's the it's actually and this
is the thing though, Jason, is

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it's actually more dice rolls. Well, I was getting to my that was

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the downside. I was going to
say, upside, there's nothing more satisfying

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than rolling a handful of dice exactly. Yes, Yeah, And also when

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your player as a GM or a
DM, when your players here you rolling

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multiple dice, they immediately perk up, get scared. They're immediately always fun

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a feared, So nothing wrong with
that. The other thing I found is

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that it is slightly harder for players
to fudge anything if they're throwing a handful

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of dice all at once, right
then that single die that they then cut

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their hand over and look at and
go oh to nineteen like that kind of

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thing. So so if they're all
out there on the table, then that

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makes that a little tougher. But
but the whole point there is to speed

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things up a little because you're not
doing you know, like like grabbing the

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separate dice you know, as as
its own action, and and and and

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then rolling and reading them. So
that's tip number one. What's apps I'm

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starting? I like that a lot
of them. I'm starting. I'm starting

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that tonight. Yep, yep,
yep. That's that's great, And it's

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like it's something I've done for years. I just do it out of habit

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now. And and that's the other
thing is that once you like, it'll

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feel weird at first, but once
you've done it for half a dozen sessions,

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it'll just be second nature. You
just do it automatically. Second one

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new players uh specifically assign them a
veteran player buddy. If this is a

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thing that you can do a lot
of times. One of the things that

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really can slow the game down is
the processing time that new players need to

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understand everything that's happening, to find
stuff in the book and things like that.

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And even if all that buddy is
doing is saying to that player,

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you know, they're you know,
flipping through the book fireball, fireball,

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fireball where and the veteran player can
say page two twenty like that, you

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know, that is saving time.
Making sure that players that don't know the

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game, they're paired with someone whose
specific job is to help them bring them

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along and make sure that, you
know, when time matters, they can,

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you know, maybe nudge them a
little, maybe encourage them, help

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them understand what their options are so
that that is not falling on the DM

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who is also managing all the monsters
and all that kind of stuff. So

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give any new players a buddy who
knows the rules, sit them next to

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that person so they can help them
move them along. That will definitely speed

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your gameplay as you go. So
that was tip number two. Tip number

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three the single greatest D and D
accessory that you can have, the one

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thing that if you're going to spend
extra money on something that is not just

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the books, you should spell cards. Oh that's a better answer. Spell

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cards. Nothing slows play like a
player, especially a new player, who

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you want to love the game,
who you want to be enthusiastic, who

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you want to you know, be
a cool magic user or you know,

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warlock or sorcerer or whatever, even
just a bard with all those cool spells

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that they can have. But nothing
slows to the game like they're flipping through

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the book to find that spell to
figure it out, even if it's written

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on their character sheet or whatever.
But you have those spell cards right in

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front of them, lay them right
out on the table boom. At the

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beginning of play. What spells do
you have memorized? You've got these five,

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they're right in front of you.
When it comes time to do it,

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you just pop it, pick it
up. You read the description right

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off of the card. It's got
everything you need on there. They're very

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well designed. They're my favorite D
and D accessory. Like I said,

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that is not you know, you
know, books or character sheets or something

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like that, and absolutely recommend it
for a low cost option. For these

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there are apps of it. The
D and D Beyond app has spells available.

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You do have to own the content, I think for some of the

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at least some of the spells,
and then you can just print your own

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too, like if you can go
through the books as a DM or and

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and and look them up in print, I think, Jason, that's something

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that you do at some of your
public games. Yeah, So for the

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games, I wanted breweries for the
For the store games, a lot of

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players will bring their own characters,
but I have my preaching characters available for

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them. And for the breweries,
we are encouraged to have pregen characters for

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all players. And I made the
character sheets laminated them so that we can

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dry erase them and also white and
also so we can wipe beer off of

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them. And I did the same
for spell cards. I chose spells for

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all the casters and you. And
also this also saves us time and say,

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hey, I know you're gonna long
rest right now, but these are

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the spells I design this character to
have, so we can just skip all

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that yeah, and great. You
know it made it easier as a player

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because I played one of your games, is it The Wizard? Yeah?

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Yeah, And I played the Wizard
and it was like I didn't have to

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figure any of that out, use
my little my little goblin with I love

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it. I didn't have to figure
any of that out. I didn't have

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to look up spells at all,
like it. And I encourage whether they

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are new or veteran or in between, I encourage them to kind of like

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hold them in their hand like it
like a handful of magic cards or yu

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gi oh cards or god forget something
like poker and like but like you have

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your spells at your arsenal and like
this this is how like this probably have

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the Wizard's doing it if if you
were personifying the Wizard, they're for the

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pages of their books that you got. You got What's like, okay,

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what do I have? What gambit
does? But even just like you know,

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having descriptions of everything, it's like, hey, what do we got?

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What do we got? What do
we got? And I like,

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there are you'll see this more like
magic and and Pokemon and Yugo and stuff

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like that where you'll have like the
little tiny book with the card sleeves already

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in them. That might be my
next step eventually, when I want to

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spend even more money on this and
giving them an actual spell book and just

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one extra step of like a little
like a little tiny photo album, but

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like with the spell cards in there. Yeah right, yeah you can.

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You can get them for fairly cheap
ish, but I feel like I want

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to make these look like as cool
as they possibly can. Yeah, And

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every game store has that kind of
stuff as successories, because they sell magic

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cards and Yu Gio's cards and all
that kind of stuff. And you know,

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if you have your character in a
three ring binder, you just buy

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a couple of card pages so you
can slip your spell cards in that they

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go in there behind the character.
And the other thing that I love about

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it is, like you said,
if you've got it kind of as a

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hand of cards, that encourages those
players to glance at them between turns if

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there's nothing going on, if they've
got some downtime, it's like, oh,

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let me remind myself what blade barrier
actually does. And so they're going

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to be more ready and more familiar
when their turn comes around with how those

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spells work and how to use them
then if they have to, you know,

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flip through the player's handbook to find
it when it comes time for them

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to do their thing. So yeah, and all cards. I'll take this

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second to shout out hit Point Press, who makes these of these animated spell

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cards. There's the and I can't
think of what that is called. When

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like you ticular lenticular, that's the
lot they call that where you kind of

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you can kind of like like you
know, you change the angle on it

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and it looks like there's some motion. Yeah, it's like it's like it's

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like a five it's like a five
frame animation. I have the whole set

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up to ninth. Levels are awesome. They're not They're not cheap, but

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they are if you only getting couple
levels, like you get them as your

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character levels up. They're not totally
expensive. And of course Wizards Prince the

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official ones and they look to feel
great. It's funny, my skin is

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crawling as you are mentioning lenticular cards
because they have that feeling of like frosted

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glass. Yeah, that that's like, I hate it. Phobias aside,

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folks, Lenticular cards are super cool. They do come with a with a

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plastic film on them, so that
would mean much, which I peeled off

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immediately. But that's why you put
them in the cards. Sure, yeah,

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I think they take Terrorit sized cards. Well, I they look so

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cool. They made me want to
play a caster, and of course I

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immediately played a barbarian. But that's
not the point. Yeah, and I

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mean and frankly, you know,
if you are playing the Marshall class that

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has a lot of stuff going on
with it, you can do, you

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know, kind of a harken back
a little bit to the fourth edition days.

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You can put some of those fighter
abilities on a card like a spell

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card, sure, so that when
your turn comes around, you know,

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you know, you know, do
your Bardic inspiration on a card so that

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you know how it works every time
it comes around. You don't have to

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again keep preferring to the book or
flipping your character sheet over and stuff.

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And just a call back to an
old episode. Two index cards, which

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I have one in front of me
because Jason left it here. Well,

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yeah, I'm old enough that what
we used to do was write our spells

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out Longhand on index cards so that
we you know the ones we use most

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frequently magic missile. Yeah, I
got it right here. So yeah,

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got your magic missile right here.
Pal, All right, So that's that

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is tip number three. Spell cards. They're the single best accessory you can

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have that are not, you know, outside of your dice, in your

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character sheets and your books. Hello
Adventurers, just stepping in here to remind

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you guys that we're actively looking for
submissions for our Hello DMS episode that gets

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reported every month. Send us your
burning D and D questions to Helloadventurers podcast

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at gmail dot com, or send
us a voicemail by visiting Helloadventurers podcast dot

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com slash voice. Don't forget to
begin your message with Hello DMS. You

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can't wait to get your questions and
talk about them on the show. Send

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us your questions today. That's Helloadventurers
Podcast at gmail dot com. Poor you

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the voice at helloadventurers podcast dot com
slash voice. Now let's get back to

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the show number four. And this
is a thing that I used extensively when

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I was running at the store Average
Monster Damage. This is a fifth edition

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thing that they introduced that, as
far as i'm con was just a thing

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that was obvious and there all the
time. But that makes total total sense

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for the number of combats that you're
running. And that is any official D

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and D monster listing will list that
monster's damage in terms of dice you know,

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two D six plus four or just
a static number that indicates an average

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of what that role is going to
turn out as. And any time you're

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running a combat where the stakes aren't
super high or you're not super interested in

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it being super swingy, just use
those average damage numbers. The Noel hits

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you, he's going to do eight
points and you can just keep doing that

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and that's totally fine. Those hit
points aren't abstraction anyway, and there's nothing

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And this is one of the things
that when I pitch this to people they

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kind of get upset about. But
you know, like, well, but

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we like the uncertainty of it.
No one's saying that you can't have that.

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That when it when they come up
against the big bad like the boss

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dragon at the end, that yeah, when you roll that that dragon's breath

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weapon, that's when you bring out
the you know, the eight D six

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and throw them on the table where
everyone can see them and everybody can go

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oh crap, or you know,
breathe a sigh of relief. But if

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you're just you know, if it's
the Orcs, if it's the Cobalds,

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that are you know that you got
to fight your way through to get to

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that dragon. Say if you're if
you're fighting ten coalbalds, Yeah, just

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use average damage and you can even
put if you're afraid of it being like,

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oh, I don't want to like
it just seems so like a cookie

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cutter. So say nine sometimes and
say seven another like yeah, it's not

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that exactly. You make up the
rules a little bit as a as a

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DM guys, you can do that
or you know, and and the other

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way you keep it from being cookie
cutter is how you describe how the damage

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is delivered. This one's a bite, this one's a slash, this one's

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they you know, they shove you
back into it, into one of their

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traps or something like that, and
it's all you know. Each time it's

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four points of damage, but it's
a different four points of damage each time.

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It also means that the players,
if they know you're doing that,

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you can kind of have a little
agreement. These guys are average damage.

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Every time they hit you. You're
going to take four. The players know,

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like as soon as they hear it
hits you, they can just check

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it off in their character sheet and
it's not a whole thing where they got

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to try and figure it out.
And you can also kind of do a

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little bit of there's a different sort
of strategizing and it can be a little

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fun sometimes where you say, okay, Magic, you've got five hit points

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left, but I know they're hitting
for four every time I can take one

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more hit, so I'm going to
stay there before I step off, right.

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Whereas if you're rolling damage and it's
uncertain, that's a different sort of

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strategy, but it can be fun
to mix those up as well. Absolutely

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yeah, And it definitely speeds up
the game, boy because as a GM,

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if you're not having a and it
definitely speeds up the game because as

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a DM, if you're not having
to throw all those extra dice read them,

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and especially if you've got like you
know, like I said, two

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D six plus four where you're doing
math every time. I am someone who

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anytime I can eliminate math from my
life, I will happily take that opportunity.

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And this is one of the ways
you can see that. So Yeah.

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Tip number four average monster damage,
you know, whenever you can whenever

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it's not super important and you really
want the kind of swinginess of actually rolling

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damage dice, it'll speed your game
up immensely. Tip number five. And

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this kind of follows up a little
bit on what we're talking about, Like,

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you know, if you've got ten
Cobalds, group those monsters together.

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Grouping monsters together, this is a
thing that will make it go a lot

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faster, and that you can combine
with some of those other tips like using

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average damage and rolling damage along with
your hit rolls, depending on how you

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want to do it. You know, if you've got nine Cobalds, put

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them into three groups of three,
roll three initiatives for them and have all

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three of them go in that initiative
thing and just you know, and you

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can then grab three D twenties,
roll them all at once. Two of

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them hit you. They're doing four
points each. That's eight points of damage

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to the fighter boom you're moving on, and you've just handled three monsters in

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the time that it would normally take
to do one. I love that,

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yeah, because if you're you know, and the players can still target them

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individually, that's totally cool. It's
not like they're you know, you're combining

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their their hit points for how many
they get taken down and stuff like this.

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But boy, by having them all
act together on a single initiative and

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kind of just throwing all their dice
at once, you can do those big

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hoard encounters in a way that then
doesn't take forever, you know, where

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where you're going. Okay, so
the you know this cobalt attacks roll hit

284
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roll damage, the second co bal
attacks roll hit roll damage. Okay,

285
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then the fighter goes two more cobalts
roll hit roll damage. That can take

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forever. This is skeleton number seven
exactly I've actually said, and especially because

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in a lot of those hoard encounters, what's going to happen is, you

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know, like like two thirds of
those swings are gonna miss, They're gonna

289
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bounce off the armor, or they're
gonna you know, because what the whole

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point is is you're throwing so many
critters at them that that like, even

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though they're only gonna hit one out
of three times, eventually that damage adds

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up and they got to you know, they got to take them down before

293
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they get overcome. Combining that together
is a way to do that without it

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takes forever. And if you're me, the monsters are only going to hit

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a third of the time. Yeah
yeah, So that's typically roll. Group

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your monsters together, and then if
you want, like I said, you

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can combine that with average damage you
know, and rolling you know, and

298
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or rolling damage at the same time
as you roll those hits and you can

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get those big fights. Those big
hords really reduced the amount of time that

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that takes. Tip number six.
And this is a thing that some tables

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like some tables don't, I totally
get it, but it definitely speeds the

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gameplay. And that is what I
call TN transparency, which is to say,

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letting everybody know what they're target numbers
are all the time. If they're

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making a skill check, you know, to get up this cliff, you're

305
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going to need a fourteen rogue.
Go, you know, just right off

306
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the bat, telling them what the
ac of the monsters are. If the

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monsters do something that increases it,
you say, they take this maneuver,

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he's sixteen now instead of a fourteen, Go ahead and tell me what you

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get, you know, roll it
and tell me what you get. Especially

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for new players, It's immensely helpful
because the uncertainty that comes from you know,

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I roll it, I look to
you, I roll it, I

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read the number off, I look
to you as the DM. DM you

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00:20:36.559 --> 00:20:38.519
know, you look down at the
monster to see what it's ac is,

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look up, tell me yes or
no, and then yes, you hit

315
00:20:42.440 --> 00:20:45.480
it. Oh cool. Then I
go and pick my damage dice up and

316
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everything I mean, and I'm kind
of, you know whatever, I'm sort

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00:20:48.960 --> 00:20:51.960
of exaggerating a little bit, but
sure, if you can cut that process

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down to you're gonna need a seventeen
to hit it, and the fighter picks

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00:20:55.799 --> 00:20:59.880
up, you know whatever, they're
they're two d twenties for their two attack

320
00:21:00.599 --> 00:21:04.200
and you know, two different colored
damage dice. They throw that all at

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00:21:04.240 --> 00:21:10.039
once and like like that just makes
everything go so much faster. Anytime you

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00:21:10.079 --> 00:21:12.960
have skill checks, anytime they're taking
them swinging anything, just tell them up

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front what the target number is there. Make sure there may be instances where

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you want them to figure it out
because the monster has something, you know,

325
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particularly weird going on or something like
that. But this is one of

326
00:21:25.839 --> 00:21:30.559
those things where you can kind of
get across the idea that these are trained

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adventurers that know what they're doing.
They're professionals at this gig. So like

328
00:21:37.200 --> 00:21:40.920
a guy that's been swinging a sword, you know, for four years,

329
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going down into dungeons and stuff like
that, you know, to the point

330
00:21:42.519 --> 00:21:47.480
where he's managed to survive to be
a twelfth level fighter, he's going to

331
00:21:47.519 --> 00:21:51.720
have a pretty good idea how tough
that thing is and where the chinks in

332
00:21:51.759 --> 00:21:53.880
the armor are. And you know, you know, his trusty magic sword

333
00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:57.000
he's been carrying around for the last
six months. You know, he knows

334
00:21:57.039 --> 00:22:00.119
what the capability is that webinar.
And the way that you get that across

335
00:22:00.279 --> 00:22:03.799
is to just tell the players what
they need to hit, you know,

336
00:22:03.960 --> 00:22:07.480
what the what they got to do
to overcome you know, monsters, resistances

337
00:22:07.519 --> 00:22:10.680
and stuff like that. And I
think that that really really speeds gameplay,

338
00:22:10.920 --> 00:22:14.119
but especially at low level when players
are new, just telling them what they

339
00:22:14.200 --> 00:22:17.680
need, I think that's the right
way to go. So that's tip number

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six. And here's tip number seven. And this this can be a little

341
00:22:22.960 --> 00:22:27.480
controversial, bring it on, but
this is my thing. No devices at

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the table, nothing will speed up
your game, will get your players to

343
00:22:32.720 --> 00:22:36.839
focus on what's going on. Then
just at the beginning of the game,

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very politely telling everybody, put your
phones away, put your tablets away,

345
00:22:41.640 --> 00:22:45.880
whatever it is that you're doing now, digital character sheets, blah blah blah,

346
00:22:45.880 --> 00:22:48.319
all that kind of stuff. Yes, I understand that. I am

347
00:22:48.400 --> 00:22:52.680
a firm believer that the game will
go a lot faster if everybody has a

348
00:22:52.799 --> 00:22:57.440
paper character sheet and whatever reference tools
they need in front of them, you

349
00:22:57.559 --> 00:23:03.359
know, in in you know,
old fashioned codex format, because the the

350
00:23:03.680 --> 00:23:10.440
you know, the opportunities for distraction
with devices, even though people are like,

351
00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:12.720
my character sheet's on my phone,
so I need to use my phone

352
00:23:12.799 --> 00:23:17.039
to look at my character sheet.
Like you know, they're going to be

353
00:23:17.079 --> 00:23:18.599
getting text messages, and they're going
to be looking at Reddit, and they're

354
00:23:18.640 --> 00:23:22.799
going to be you know, like
if it's not their turn, they're gonna,

355
00:23:23.039 --> 00:23:26.759
you know, flip over to some
idle game that they've got on their

356
00:23:26.799 --> 00:23:30.839
phone or something like that. I
don't count people that need to do stuff

357
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like have fidget tools or like I
have a friend who knits at the table

358
00:23:34.400 --> 00:23:37.839
so that she has something to do
with her hands and to kind of you

359
00:23:37.920 --> 00:23:41.640
know, like like you know whatever, keep that part of her brain occupied

360
00:23:41.680 --> 00:23:44.920
that that needs to be occupied.
With something going on. But when she's

361
00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:48.440
doing that, she's attentive to what
the other players are doing. And that's

362
00:23:48.519 --> 00:23:52.720
one of the things that slows the
game down, is when players are not

363
00:23:52.880 --> 00:23:59.359
paying attention to what's going on on
other players. Turns and devices are the

364
00:23:59.519 --> 00:24:03.440
single most pernicious thing that you can
have at the table to draw people away

365
00:24:03.480 --> 00:24:08.599
from giving other players that attention.
I mean, not just that means they're

366
00:24:08.640 --> 00:24:12.640
going to know what's going on,
but that is a courtesy to those other

367
00:24:12.720 --> 00:24:18.000
players to be engaged and interested in
what they're doing on their turns and all

368
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the speeds on each other. Because
if you can find ways to speed up

369
00:24:22.799 --> 00:24:26.759
what everybody is doing on their individual
turns, it makes it easier for the

370
00:24:26.839 --> 00:24:32.880
other players to then give them that
attention because it's not getting drawn out.

371
00:24:32.920 --> 00:24:36.440
They're not sitting there watching somebody flipping
through a book, you know, or

372
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figuring out which dice they have to
roll and stuff like that. Because I

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00:24:40.160 --> 00:24:41.799
get it that can get a little
tedious, that, you know, especially

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in our you know, modern fast
paced world where all of us are competing

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for attention and stuff like that.
But but man, you just, I

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mean, you know, you don't
have to be a jerk about it,

377
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but just having a rule. You
know, I had a rule at the

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store that if you needed to take
a call, you needed to look at

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your phone to get up from the
table and step away from the table to

380
00:25:04.400 --> 00:25:07.920
do it. People could have their
phones, but they had to have them

381
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face down on the table and if
they picked it up to look at it,

382
00:25:11.720 --> 00:25:15.039
then to step away from the table
because that was clearly they were not

383
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in the game when they were doing
that in that moment. And I know

384
00:25:18.160 --> 00:25:21.960
that, like I said, that's
a controversial thing. Some people feel like

385
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they have to have those devices at
the table. Call that the Disney rule.

386
00:25:25.160 --> 00:25:27.839
Yeah, I guarantee you if you
get rid of them, it will

387
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speed your game up. Everybody will
be more attentive, and you will like

388
00:25:32.799 --> 00:25:37.640
it better. I guarantee it.
Yeah, there's times where like it seems

389
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like it's it's like a last resort, but it works. It absolutely works.

390
00:25:41.799 --> 00:25:47.960
Yeah, that would only obviously work
if you if you're playing physically in

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the city location. And this is
what I'm talking about. All this stuff

392
00:25:51.920 --> 00:25:55.880
that I'm talking about is is presumes
face to face play, because if you're

393
00:25:56.000 --> 00:25:59.920
being mediated by Roll twenty or whatever
and stuff, like that. Then there's

394
00:26:00.440 --> 00:26:04.039
there's all kinds of different considerations when
you're when you're sharing time, you know,

395
00:26:04.160 --> 00:26:08.119
over video software or something like that. Yeah, you know, I

396
00:26:08.440 --> 00:26:14.000
guess my whatever. My seven A
for that one is everybody should have their

397
00:26:14.039 --> 00:26:17.200
cameras on. That makes the game
go much much faster. If you're doing

398
00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:22.319
audio only, that's that's death for
gameplay, for speed to play. And

399
00:26:22.400 --> 00:26:25.680
I know that the young folks these
days, some of them like like don't

400
00:26:25.839 --> 00:26:29.160
like to be on camera with each
other. But like, whenever I hear

401
00:26:29.279 --> 00:26:32.279
that, like if I'm going to
play online, never hear game is like

402
00:26:32.440 --> 00:26:37.119
Discord voice only, I'm like,
nope, I'm out. So yeah,

403
00:26:37.720 --> 00:26:41.440
yeah, that that's our that's our
kind of online gaming. That's my online

404
00:26:41.480 --> 00:26:44.559
gaming tip. If you don't want
the games to slow to a deadly crawl,

405
00:26:44.839 --> 00:26:47.480
make sure everbody can see each other
so they can get those social cues

406
00:26:48.039 --> 00:26:51.000
as they need to. One of
the things you say that I liked was

407
00:26:52.359 --> 00:26:56.200
having everyone play with a paper character
sheet. And there's there's a couple of

408
00:26:56.240 --> 00:27:02.599
reasons why I like this. H
A. If we're generating characters by just

409
00:27:02.640 --> 00:27:07.680
clicking through prompts, then we don't
fully appreciate the choices that go into that

410
00:27:07.839 --> 00:27:11.279
character build, especially at higher levels. Like yeah, if you're doing a

411
00:27:11.319 --> 00:27:15.599
one shot and you're starting at level
seven, like you're just blowing past seven

412
00:27:15.759 --> 00:27:18.759
levels of choices. And also like
even for for ongoing characters, like I

413
00:27:18.799 --> 00:27:22.039
would, I would be curious to
have our game, Joe, have everyone

414
00:27:22.279 --> 00:27:26.400
switch over to a paper character sheet
done, just even just have it done,

415
00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:30.680
because no world level seven at this
point, and like having us build

416
00:27:30.720 --> 00:27:33.559
a character sheet and like doing the
math and everything like that, no one

417
00:27:33.599 --> 00:27:36.920
makes us appreciate the choices that were
made. But like also like makes us

418
00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:38.000
write it out. It's like in
high school when you like when you just

419
00:27:38.079 --> 00:27:42.559
copy your notes from from one paid
from one other, it helps you like

420
00:27:42.839 --> 00:27:48.799
like really understand all of the class
features and the character features. Yeah,

421
00:27:48.839 --> 00:27:52.759
and I know I know that,
you know I'm rolling my D twenty and

422
00:27:52.880 --> 00:27:56.480
adding you know, plus plus my
strength modifier front a hit, And I

423
00:27:56.599 --> 00:28:02.440
know that the damage of my javelin
is doing one D eight plus whatever.

424
00:28:02.640 --> 00:28:06.599
Yeah, but why but why is
it plus six? And I kind of

425
00:28:06.720 --> 00:28:10.160
understand, And I'm very much the
kind of person that needs to understand.

426
00:28:10.160 --> 00:28:11.680
I just wanted to say I'm very
much the short private person, I need

427
00:28:11.680 --> 00:28:17.079
to understand the why behind it in
order to fully understand any concept. So

428
00:28:17.279 --> 00:28:18.640
yeah, sorry, And she's where
it says where on the cusp of level

429
00:28:18.759 --> 00:28:22.079
eight we're going to get asis pretty
soon. It's like, you know,

430
00:28:22.359 --> 00:28:26.680
maybe that we we can see visually
and kind of just force people to go

431
00:28:26.759 --> 00:28:27.880
through the math again and again.
We have we have a bunch of new

432
00:28:29.039 --> 00:28:32.039
newer players at the table and some
of them joined us at that level like

433
00:28:32.079 --> 00:28:37.119
four and five, So like having
them see like how one choice affects other

434
00:28:37.319 --> 00:28:38.880
features and things like that, and
then they can make decisions based on that.

435
00:28:40.279 --> 00:28:42.000
But even just like like I said, the high school, copying your

436
00:28:42.079 --> 00:28:48.039
science notes from your scratch pad in
class into your nicer notebook later kind of

437
00:28:48.119 --> 00:28:52.119
solidifies all that information just a little
bit more and you don't have to go

438
00:28:52.160 --> 00:28:56.759
flipping through either pages or or tabs. The other The other really nice thing

439
00:28:56.799 --> 00:29:03.160
about where my brain went on,
like everybody doing a paper character sheet is

440
00:29:03.559 --> 00:29:07.119
when they need to look for information
like hey, do a stealth chuckle,

441
00:29:07.200 --> 00:29:11.960
where's my stealth? And they're looking
through like, no, it's right here,

442
00:29:11.279 --> 00:29:14.599
you know, go to the left. You'll see a list you know

443
00:29:14.759 --> 00:29:18.400
of things here, there's some dots
looked down, you know, about three

444
00:29:18.480 --> 00:29:21.240
quarters of the way down stealth is
there? Oh there it is, Yeah,

445
00:29:21.400 --> 00:29:23.440
because that comes up a lot,
and I know that at the Brewery

446
00:29:23.480 --> 00:29:26.000
game we played. We're like it's
I think. I said, like,

447
00:29:26.119 --> 00:29:29.759
oh, it should be here.
You're like, no, these aren't standard

448
00:29:29.960 --> 00:29:33.359
characters. Yeah, these are different
ones. But if you use a standard

449
00:29:33.440 --> 00:29:34.960
character sheet, then you know,
or you use all the same one.

450
00:29:36.039 --> 00:29:38.160
Yeah. Yeah, But that also
kicks off of the buddy thing that we

451
00:29:38.240 --> 00:29:42.720
talked about earlier, where if you
know, you have one player that knows

452
00:29:42.799 --> 00:29:47.240
that character sheet inside it out,
and they're sitting next to someone that's not

453
00:29:47.279 --> 00:29:49.799
as familiar with it, and that
new player goes, where are my skills?

454
00:29:49.960 --> 00:29:53.200
And you know, the player that's
been there for a while not only

455
00:29:53.279 --> 00:29:57.119
can say center of the sheet halfway
down, they can literally just reach over

456
00:29:57.279 --> 00:30:00.240
and tap on the sheet where it
is the they're looking for, in a

457
00:30:00.279 --> 00:30:04.920
way that if somebody has their iPad
or something like that. It's really hard

458
00:30:06.119 --> 00:30:08.160
just because of the way these things
work. You can't really reach over and

459
00:30:08.240 --> 00:30:12.480
go, well, scroll up here
and then tap there and that's where that

460
00:30:12.799 --> 00:30:15.519
is. It's just a it's got
a different valance to it, and I

461
00:30:15.759 --> 00:30:19.400
you know, and it underlines kind
of the social nature of it when you've

462
00:30:19.400 --> 00:30:22.680
got those sheets and also just you
know, like the other thing I said,

463
00:30:23.079 --> 00:30:26.119
it makes it a lot easier,
Like I was talking about with the

464
00:30:26.160 --> 00:30:29.319
spell cards. If you've got that
paper sheet in front of you, you

465
00:30:29.440 --> 00:30:33.000
can sort of glance down at it
and look at it between turns and familiarize

466
00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:37.519
yourself with it in a way.
That's much tougher if you're looking at a

467
00:30:37.640 --> 00:30:40.839
device. When you get into that
device, kind of the device occupies your

468
00:30:40.880 --> 00:30:44.920
full attention. A sheet of paper
on the table is a thing that is

469
00:30:45.039 --> 00:30:48.400
part of the whole thing that's going
on the take. You know, you

470
00:30:48.519 --> 00:30:52.480
can look over that sheet at the
DM and pay attention to them and be

471
00:30:52.599 --> 00:30:56.759
glancing at it in a way.
It's very that that I feel like is

472
00:30:56.839 --> 00:31:00.160
much more difficult, you know,
if you're trying to do love to have

473
00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:02.400
your tention go back and forth between
a device and the team. I was

474
00:31:02.440 --> 00:31:03.039
going to say, like, have
you a device in my hand that that

475
00:31:03.200 --> 00:31:07.119
draws my attention, but a piece
of paper with with numbers and words on

476
00:31:07.200 --> 00:31:15.240
it rejects bad. There we go. The other nice thing about what would

477
00:31:15.319 --> 00:31:18.599
be nice about no devices? I
know, it's not obviously a room or

478
00:31:18.680 --> 00:31:22.680
excuse me, it's obviously not a
rule that would work at my table or

479
00:31:22.759 --> 00:31:26.519
our table, Jason. But the
one really nice thing that I thought of

480
00:31:26.680 --> 00:31:30.400
is partially challenge that. Yeah,
the one really nice thing is all that

481
00:31:30.480 --> 00:31:33.079
would require changes to work at your
tip. Yeah, it would, it

482
00:31:33.119 --> 00:31:37.400
would. It would require a hefty
amount of changes. But the one really

483
00:31:37.480 --> 00:31:41.680
nice thing is there'd be no meta
gaming. There's definitely been times that I'm

484
00:31:42.119 --> 00:31:45.839
like talking about a monster and I
hear somebody say the name of the monster,

485
00:31:45.880 --> 00:31:48.680
and I'm like, how would you
know that? Where I hear them

486
00:31:48.759 --> 00:31:53.200
clicking, Yeah, because they're looking
they're googling the monster that I just described,

487
00:31:53.319 --> 00:31:57.119
or if I accidentally like say the
name and I don't want to give

488
00:31:57.200 --> 00:32:01.480
all that information away, and so
oh yeah that that's the other really nice

489
00:32:01.519 --> 00:32:06.799
thing is your players can't look at
that strong that's strong focus. That's somebody

490
00:32:06.880 --> 00:32:09.480
that's not that's not thinking about what's
going on at the table, that's not

491
00:32:09.680 --> 00:32:14.359
listening to your description, right,
you know where you're kind of doing a

492
00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:17.519
slow burn to reveal that it's a
troll, right as you're describing the weed

493
00:32:17.599 --> 00:32:20.960
stripping off of it and stuff,
and their head is down in their phone

494
00:32:20.960 --> 00:32:22.920
going tippity tappity tippity tappit. The're
not looking at you. So yeah,

495
00:32:24.960 --> 00:32:29.920
let's recap. Yes, let's recap. So seven ways that you can speed

496
00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:32.720
play at the table, assuming that
we're sitting down altogether playing a face to

497
00:32:32.759 --> 00:32:37.039
face D and D game. Number
one, roll damage along with your D

498
00:32:37.160 --> 00:32:39.839
twenties. Anytime you can combine dice, throw them in one big fistful that

499
00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.319
is going to speed play. You
know, it'll save you ten to fifteen

500
00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:45.960
seconds per role, But the number
of roles you make over a you know,

501
00:32:46.039 --> 00:32:50.119
a full game that'll actually get you, you know, a substantial amount

502
00:32:50.160 --> 00:32:53.519
of time back. Number two.
Any new players at your table, if

503
00:32:53.559 --> 00:32:57.920
you're introducing them to the game,
try and give them a buddy next to

504
00:32:57.960 --> 00:33:00.359
them that can help them navigate the
game. It'll speed things up for everybody

505
00:33:00.559 --> 00:33:05.880
and keep everybody more engaged. Number
three. Best accessory that you can buy.

506
00:33:06.279 --> 00:33:08.519
You know, like I said,
aside from dice and your rulebooks,

507
00:33:08.839 --> 00:33:13.839
spell cards lists of spell cards.
You can buy the official ones that come

508
00:33:13.880 --> 00:33:16.480
from Gail Force nine. You can
print your own. You can write them

509
00:33:16.559 --> 00:33:21.039
longhand on index cards the way we
used to back in the days of Basic

510
00:33:21.160 --> 00:33:22.880
D and D. But having spell
cards instead of having flipped through the book

511
00:33:23.119 --> 00:33:29.559
always speed things up. Number four
for you as DM average monster damage.

512
00:33:29.839 --> 00:33:34.440
If you've just got Quorcs or Cobald's
or you know, you're some basic monsters,

513
00:33:35.079 --> 00:33:37.680
don't bother you know, rolling that
D six damage for them every time.

514
00:33:38.839 --> 00:33:40.839
Take a look in the book.
It'll tell you how much the average

515
00:33:40.920 --> 00:33:45.119
damage is. Just use that instead, just you know, read it off

516
00:33:45.200 --> 00:33:46.920
as you hit. Save you a
whole bunch of dice rolls. It'll make

517
00:33:47.039 --> 00:33:51.079
speed things up for everybody because players
will know what they got to mark whenever

518
00:33:51.119 --> 00:33:54.799
they get hit in any combat where
you're using that number five. Grouping monsters

519
00:33:54.839 --> 00:33:58.799
together, when you have large groups
of monsters, have them act on the

520
00:33:58.839 --> 00:34:00.720
same initiative. Have a big fistful
of dice, throw moll at once.

521
00:34:00.759 --> 00:34:05.319
Combine that with average damage to have
your you know, big fight against a

522
00:34:05.400 --> 00:34:07.280
horde of zombies or skeleton. Just
go lickety split, just right like that

523
00:34:08.400 --> 00:34:13.280
number six. Target number transparency,
tell the players what they need to roll.

524
00:34:13.599 --> 00:34:15.440
Don't be coy about it, don't
be you know, there may be

525
00:34:15.639 --> 00:34:19.960
times every now and then where it
matters that they're not quite sure what's going

526
00:34:20.039 --> 00:34:22.400
on, but boy, for the
most part, assume that competent adventurers have

527
00:34:22.480 --> 00:34:25.559
an idea of what's going on.
Just tell them what the armor classes of

528
00:34:25.599 --> 00:34:30.000
the monsters they're encountering are, the
target numbers of any skill checks they're making.

529
00:34:30.039 --> 00:34:32.639
Tell them right up front so they
can know immediately whether they immediately whether

530
00:34:32.679 --> 00:34:36.599
they hit that target number or not. So target number transparency, that's the

531
00:34:36.599 --> 00:34:38.519
thing that will really speed things up. And finally, number seven, I

532
00:34:38.599 --> 00:34:42.480
guess somewhat controversial. This may just
be because I'm an older you know,

533
00:34:42.639 --> 00:34:45.559
an older DM, but if you
can set things up so that you have

534
00:34:45.800 --> 00:34:51.039
no devices at the table, or
at least no devices that are used extraneously.

535
00:34:51.400 --> 00:34:52.920
Have people put their phones face down, step away from the table if

536
00:34:52.920 --> 00:34:57.360
they need to make a call,
and put those character sheets on good old

537
00:34:57.440 --> 00:35:00.320
fashioned paper character sheets, so that
the people are not you know, flipping

538
00:35:00.360 --> 00:35:05.880
through Roll twenty or whatever or dand
beyond on their iPads at the table.

539
00:35:07.400 --> 00:35:10.599
That will speed things up. It
may require a little bit of change of

540
00:35:10.679 --> 00:35:15.199
how people are used to interacting with
the game, but it will increase everybody's

541
00:35:15.239 --> 00:35:20.440
attention and it will definitely speed play
in the long run if you can keep

542
00:35:20.480 --> 00:35:22.920
those distractions off of the table.
Those are my seven tips. I'm sure

543
00:35:23.440 --> 00:35:27.079
a whole lot of people will have
got a whole lot more ideas, and

544
00:35:27.199 --> 00:35:31.039
this feels like the perfect opportunity for
them to call in or email us,

545
00:35:31.639 --> 00:35:36.079
Jason, how would they do that? You can always send an email over

546
00:35:36.199 --> 00:35:39.159
to Hello Adventurers Podcast at gmail dot
com, or you can send us a

547
00:35:39.280 --> 00:35:44.800
voicemail at Helloadventurers podcast dot com slash
voice. Yeah, and I would love

548
00:35:44.840 --> 00:35:47.119
to hear any tips anybody has that
you know are not included as part of

549
00:35:47.159 --> 00:35:51.159
that list. There's a few that
are a little more esoteric and maybe you

550
00:35:51.199 --> 00:35:53.039
know, kind of specific to certain
situations. But if you've got some I

551
00:35:53.119 --> 00:35:55.400
haven't thought of, you know,
I'm all of yours on that. Yeah,

552
00:35:55.480 --> 00:35:59.000
let us know if anything's been working
for you, and let us know

553
00:35:59.159 --> 00:36:01.559
about how hard your players cried when
you took their phones away. I will

554
00:36:01.599 --> 00:36:07.119
say that like that these are kind
of like for in person games, A

555
00:36:07.239 --> 00:36:12.159
lot of these really work for online
games as well. Like if you have

556
00:36:12.159 --> 00:36:14.360
an auto roller, then you're not
really saving any time by doing it.

557
00:36:14.400 --> 00:36:16.360
All at once, so that one
doesn't really apply. But even having veteran

558
00:36:16.400 --> 00:36:20.719
players pair up with new players even
online, they can the DM each other

559
00:36:21.480 --> 00:36:25.679
and not that almost works better online. Having spell cards, you can have

560
00:36:25.760 --> 00:36:30.079
digital spell cards, you can have
like bookmarks to the spell stucher using,

561
00:36:30.360 --> 00:36:34.239
and most VTTs and most digital character
sheets you can just click on the spell

562
00:36:34.559 --> 00:36:37.679
so you're you essentially have your spell
cards already. If you're doing it depends

563
00:36:37.719 --> 00:36:39.840
on what you're playing with. If
you're doing your roll twenty thing, then

564
00:36:39.880 --> 00:36:43.760
it's it's going to roll damage for
you. But if you're doing it over

565
00:36:44.079 --> 00:36:46.599
of just over discord and then it's
just a communication thing for you. The

566
00:36:46.760 --> 00:36:52.440
average damage still works. Group initiative
still works even if you're using an initiative

567
00:36:52.880 --> 00:36:57.400
web app, like I use an
improved Initiative dot app, which is absolutely

568
00:36:57.480 --> 00:37:00.440
staple in my games at this point. That'll take care of an it for

569
00:37:00.559 --> 00:37:06.519
you and get DC transparency and keeping
extraneous devices away. That even works online.

570
00:37:06.559 --> 00:37:08.719
So this so this is on for
everybody. Jim Jim fantastic job.

571
00:37:08.760 --> 00:37:13.760
And that's how you do a podcast, a long form podcast in the time

572
00:37:13.800 --> 00:37:16.719
it takes us to do a Hordror
story podcast, and that is a commentary

573
00:37:16.800 --> 00:37:22.239
on how long it takes us to
do a short episode. But Jim,

574
00:37:22.599 --> 00:37:24.280
I'm running a game. I'm running
a bergame tonight. Actually, if I'm

575
00:37:24.280 --> 00:37:28.079
going to make sure that I use
at least a couple of these so we

576
00:37:28.119 --> 00:37:34.000
can spend less time doing clerical stuff
and more time describing how these players are

577
00:37:34.079 --> 00:37:37.760
absolutely wamping me. I got womped
the other day. But we'll do game

578
00:37:37.800 --> 00:37:40.639
stories another time. Fantastic, So
thank you so much for listening to Hello

579
00:37:40.719 --> 00:37:45.079
Adventurers. We are your hosts,
Jason Portiso, Jim Crocker, and Joe

580
00:37:45.159 --> 00:37:49.400
McCall producer, editor, engineer Jason
Portiso. Music is by Nick Spurrier,

581
00:37:49.800 --> 00:37:52.480
artwork by Kristin Roderick. You can
reach out to us any feedback or suggestions

582
00:37:52.519 --> 00:37:58.360
by emailing Hello Adventurers podcast at gmail
dot com. Hello Adventures is a JTP

583
00:37:58.519 --> 00:38:00.840
audio production Goodbye Invents