[DL] boring fights?

[Deathbird@t-online.de (Lady Deathbird)]

> Okay, slightly off topic, but I gotta ask.  Is this
> usual???  We have -never- had a problem with players
> getting bored while combats taking a long time, and
> yes they sometime take a while.  Is this common, do
> lots of people just wander off or something?  I'm
> curious is all.  When we boil down to combat, it's
> very much a party thing, with other players offering
> advice or helping deal out cards or refilling drinks
> or whatnot.
>
> Marguerite of EMGB, otherwise known as Maggie Jensen
>
> __________________________________________________

We have agreed on other players _not_ offering advice, unless they do it in character. This was to prevent longer tactical discussions during fights, because one of this tabletop freaks usually had a better suggestion than another one and those two started arguing all over and the rest had to drag them out to go on.... Hence no advises.
As for refilling drinks, we try to cut down the time away from the table to prevent players from loosing the overview and the GM from having to answer resulting questions. This makes multiple roles during combat normally quite boring for other players. Especially if you have to add up different dice and have to keep track of how many times you have to roll to cover all locations and such.

To prevent this, we've done away with stun rules in fight with unnamed mooks (yes, we play Feng Shui... That may be why we want a maybe less accurate but quicker system), but they still exist in duels or when hitting major characters. This cuts down time considerably (and I'm glad to notice that we seem to be not the only ones who have done this).

Huckster, Shamans and other people with funky stuff usually get solo fights until they know how their special rules are handled and can do it alone.

Raven