I brainstormed with Karen for 250 miles. We thought of a couple of ideas to aid game play. First, during game play, resolve parts of the battle as mini encounters within the overall initiative order. Hank acts, then the troll he's fighting, then Perry against the same troll, then Fighting Eagle against his, Vjarne against his, their troll, and so on. It's not a big thing, but it might help keep the flow more focused during game play.
Secondly, I wondered about using a Boggle timer. Roll initiative, set up the battle map with everyone in position, then flip the timer. This should give 3 minutes for everyone to look through their sheets, read one their powers, suggest flanking maneuvers, strategy, etc. and decide on what they want to do. Then, when the timer runs out, all the powers have been chosen, and the round is resolved according to initiative. Oliver goes first, he's already decided to use Lance of Faith, so he moves his guy and casts. Then when it's Fighting Eagle's turn, he uses his chosen power with Oliver's bonus added in, and so on. As we played this week, each player in turn stopped to review his options, bringing the round to a halt. What the Boggle timer does is collect this time into one period at the start of each round to allow quicker resolution of the round itself. This should have the added benefit of keeping everyone focused on the game board during the resolution, and allow the chance to role play more as things unfold.
