On A Clock

Based on the in-game combat we've had, I've been trying to think about where we could shave time.  My first impulse was calculating to-hit numbers, but really, that hasn't been so bad.  Certainly, looking up the melee combat rules every time we get down to that part is a pain, so I may have to write up a cheat sheet for those.  The bulk of the time my players spend in these fights is waiting for each other, and the reason they're waiting is because of decision making time.

Now, I've tried running games on a stopwatch before.  I've played in games on a stopwatch.  What I find is that players don't much care for it; despite the feeling of frantic intercommunication that tends to emerge as the players are working out their moves adds to the experience, the resulting turn resolution, that takes several times long, tends to destroy the flow of  the session; you just end up with a game swapping between fast-paced and very slow-paced, and it makes the slower sections seem all the more painful for it.

The last time I tried this particular tactic was when I ran my WarShips game in 2006.  The premise was each player was either the Captain or the CAG of a Star League WarShip.  Our initial way of running combat was to have the battlemat laid out, and each captain has a set of command counters for his ship, and each CAG had a set for their fighter squadrons.  I gave the PC's 60 seconds to discuss their tactics and place their command counters, and then I called the turn and ran the turn with the commands on the table.

What I found was that this severely punished some players.  A number of my players didn't think quickly on their feet; they enjoyed the table top because they could ponder their move.  The response was split, but those who liked the new system also liked the old system, and those who didn't like the new system preferred the old system, so we went back on the second session.  I'm worried about the same thing happening if I started playing stupid games like that with A Time of War, which has no provision for simultaneous turn resolution at all (players always have maximum information possible at the point of action due to initiative ordering), I fear I'd just be asking for trouble.