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Can we talk about using a kitchen timer to speed up slow players?
My game group in Austin had a guy who took forever on his turn, so last month I brought a 3-minute sand timer from a Pictionary box. It cut our Terraforming Mars game from 4 hours to under 3, but now he's mad and says it ruins the fun. Where do you stand on using timers to keep things moving?
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wesleypatel1mo ago
phoenixh74 said 3 minutes is short for heavy games, and honestly they're right. My group had the same problem until we bumped our timer to 5 minutes for complex turns and kept 3 minutes for lighter stuff. The slow player stopped complaining once he had that extra time to actually plan his moves.
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phoenixh743mo ago
You mentioned using a 3-minute sand timer for Terraforming Mars. That's a pretty short time for a complex turn in that game. Maybe the problem is the timer length, not the timer itself. Our group uses a 5-minute hourglass for heavy games. It gives enough time to think but stops the really long pauses. The guy might be less mad if he felt he had a fair shot to plan.
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