You probably know this technique.

Problem: Combat is taking too long. The players have analysis paralysis or they’re not paying attention or

Solution: Add a timer, requiring each player to wrap up their turn before the timer runs out.

It seems simple, but I’ve seen a shocking number of GMs screw this up. It turns out there’s a fairly large amount of finesse required to pull this off to best effect, so let’s take a deep dive.

MAKING THE TIMER WORK

A lot of what follows boils down to my personal opinion, but it’s also based on a lot of practical experience – not only mine as a GM and a player, but also my discussions with other GMs and players who have used combat timers in their games. There are some pretty common pitfalls, and often those who have gone astray won’t even realize they’ve fallen into a pit. Conversely, there are several best practices that will maximize your results when using combat timers.

A combat timer should not be standard operating procedure.

The first mistake is thinking you should always be using a combat timer. In reality, it’s an emergency measure that you deploy when something has gone wrong and you need to fix it. If combat at your table is moving at a good clip and with satisfying pacing, then you don’t need a combat timer. In fact, you definitely shouldn’t be using one. Even under the best circumstances, the combat timer introduces additional complexity – it’s one more thing that you, as the GM, need to keep track of. If you don’t need it, then focus your attention somewhere else.

More than that, combat timers are usually a temporary measure. In more than three decades of GMing, I’ve only had to implement combat timers a handful of times. In every case, we were able to drop the timer a little later with the game significantly improved as a result. Once people get a feel from what a properly paced combat feels like, they don’t want to go back.

Make sure you’re not the problem.

On that note, before introducing a combat timer, make sure you’re not the problem. If combat is bogging down because you’re the slow one, then that’s only going to exacerbate the problem. At a minimum, in my opinion, if you’re introducing a combat timer for the players, then you should also abide by the combat timer. Also spend some time practicing multitasking and other techniques for speeding up the group resolutions for  your NPCs.

Use a generous timer.

“If I’ve got six players and each of them takes 5 minutes, then every round takes at least half an hour. If the average combat lasts five round, then every fight is burning up two and a half hours!”

That math checks out, but it can lead to a mistake: “I want my fights to take up no more than half an hour. There are typically twelve combatants in every fight, so if we assume the fight will last five rounds, then every turn needs to be no more than 30 seconds. But we’ll want a margin of error, so let’s set the timer for 15 seconds.”

At first glance, this makes sense. But in practice it’s WAY too aggressive. I recommend nothing shorter than 90 seconds, and even two or three minutes might be the right fit for your group.

What happens in practice is that people don’t wait out the timer: The slight time pressure keeps them focused and, usually, decisions are made in 30 seconds or less even though the timer is longer. Occasionally they’ll take more time because the situation radically changed just before their turn or they misunderstood something and now they need to look up a rule or reconsider their options, and that’s okay.

Missing the timer delays your turn. You don’t lose it.

Time’s up? You’re obviously frozen in a moment of indecision. I’m going to resolve the turn of the next character in the initiative order and then we’ll come back and see if you’ve figured out what you’re doing.

The goal of the combat timer is NOT to punish the player. It’s to create a sense of purpose and focus through time pressure.

It’s a hard cutoff.

Making sure the timer isn’t too punitive also removes the temptation to ignore it, which is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. If things have gotten bad enough at your table that you need to implement combat timers as a corrective measure, then you have to stick to it!

Once you start letting the combat timer slide, the time pressure evaporates and it all falls apart. Now the combat timer is just meaningless busywork and you’re wasting everyone’s time with it. (This is also why it’s important to use a generous timer! So that you don’t have to make exceptions!)

Time to decision, not resolution.

On the other hand, generally speaking, the timer is for the player to declare their action. If the timer runs out while they’re resolving their action, that’s okay.

This is partly a matter of practicality (putting half-resolved actions on hold can create all kinds of weird mechanical issues), but it’s also because the primary thing I’m trying to tighten up with combat timers is the decision-making process. That’s almost always what’s kill the pacing.

If you’re also having problems with players taking too long to actually resolve their actions (e.g., the guy who shakes their dice for ninety years before finally rolling the damn things), you might want to address that by expanding what the timer covers. But I’ve found it’s usually more about helping the players refine their resolution techniques in other ways.

Note: The exception to this, for me, are systems where characters get multiple actions per turn. In the second edition of Pathfinder, for example, it’s not unusual for a turn to consist of decision-resolution-decision-resolution-decision-resolution. In those cases, you may want to have the combat timer apply to the character’s full turn. (Although, obviously, you’ll likely want to get a little more generous with the timer to account for this.) If the timer runs out, finish resolving the current action (if any), and then put the rest of the character’s turn on hold.

Two hourglass timers.

A few features you want your combat timers to have:

• The timer should be visible to the players. It puts pressure on them.
• As soon as a turn ends, the timer for the next turn should immediately
• You don’t want to have futz with your phone or some complicated interface.
• In my opinion, you don’t want something that beeps. Paradoxically, you want the timer to apply constant pressure, but when things are flowing well you also want it to seamlessly fade into the background.

The solution I’ve found works best is to have two hourglass timers: When a turn ends, flip the unused timer over and place it on the table in front of the players. Simultaneously grab the previous timer and place it behind your screen. Then repeat, switching back and forth between the timers.

This way you don’t have to wait for the timer from the previous turn to run out before starting the new one (which is a distraction and can create delays). If the players are resolving their turns so fast that the timer from the previous turn still hasn’t run out when it’s time to cycle back to it: Congratulations, you’re winning. You can flip that timer out whenever it finally runs out, which might not be until the start of the next turn.

Help the players.

Make a habit of putting the next player on deck, particularly when they’re losing focus. This will give them extra time to think about what they want to do.

Keep an eye on the timer and give them a ten second warning (or “sand’s running out!”) when appropriate.

Again: The purpose of the timer is not for the players to suffer the consequences of a timer running out.

The goal of the entire table — including you as the GM! — is for the timers to never run out. You should all be working together to accomplish that. So help ‘em out.