[deepomega]

Ran my first SR5 run - I've never GMed before, and most of the players hadn't played before, so given all of that it went real nice. Everyone had a great time, and I managed to keep the rules in play while hand-waving away things that weren't as key to keep the pace up. However, the players reached a point about 80% through the last fight where they were trying to kill some entrenched gang members without destroying the building they were holed up in. The players discussed strategy for a while, and I wanted to keep some real-time pressure on them - having just killed something like 9 gangers, I figured some reinforcements were on their way. I think it's pretty reasonable for player's conversations to take game-time, but I'm not sure how best to measure that. Real time? Do I warn them this is now a real-time section of the run?

[RHat]

This is something to be very careful with - trying to enforce "real time" constraints can get pretty bad for a number of reasons; for example, trying to think of what your character would say or do can take extra time.  In other words, trying to force real time into the game is a pretty bad plan.

If you want to keep the time pressure up, remind them a few times that the clock is ticking, and if they take too long simply have reinforcements arrive.  That said, make sure that timeframe is reasonable - remember that backup is gonna be minutes away at bare minimum, and a full Combat Turn (regardless of the number of Initiative Passes that occur within it) is only 3 seconds.  If you really want to get technical, they could speak or transmit 3 phrases (it's a free action, after all) for each Initiative Pass that they have, and one on each pass that they wouldn't normally be able to act.  That can make for a pretty decent conversation in a pretty short time.

[deepomega]

Running it through combat rounds feels horsey as hell. I think probably the best thing is to remind them periodically that time is passing. A lot of the prep they were doing involved moving vehicles, traveling back and forth across a creek, etc., so it would conceivably have been a few minutes for them to do everything they needed to. I'd planned to give them five minutes before an advance reinforcement showed up from down the street, then more a few minutes after that. In the future I'll probably just let them know how much time has passed, and hand-wave the math on it.

[SnowDog]

I have thought about this too and I think that some amount of player discussion can be tolerated just because players are not professional runners but their characters are. So talking it over to some extent just sort of simulates the experience of their characters and no in game talk might have taken place or it was really very much shorter.

Or if you want to be more strict let everyone know that they have to first think about what they say and then say it as briefly as possible.

Realistically you can even end turn calculation for a while as PCs and NPCs plan their next move. Sure, some of them will be keeping the enemy entertained but I would just make shooters loose some ammo and not even roll dice. Still, situations like these make good plans really shine as planning inside combat can be kept in minimum.

[Volomon]

I try to remind them that talking is a FREE ACTION, meaning if they want to use that action for something else.  Well they already used it.  However I'm not really strict about it I prefer the players to know what their doing at the same time.  I do however skip their turn if all they do is talk cause that was their complex action.

[Slippery_Chicken]

In my current group, if you didn't declare your action within ~10 seconds of it being your turn (this was with D&D's 6-second rounds), then your character wasted his turn hesitating. Everyone liked it and thought it was appropriate. It also sped up combats somewhat, and strongly encouraged players to figure out their actions before their turns came up.

Here's my idea:
I think you should enforce "pseudo-real-time" -track it in real time, but give the players like 50%-100% more time to account for transfers between IC and OOC knowledge/personality. If they declare more than 3 seconds of in-character dialogue without declaring an action, they get cut off and their action phase is wasted with talking. If they do declare an action (which can be done within ~5 seconds of it becoming their turn), then they can talk for 3 seconds before getting cut off. Also, every time they make an in-character utterance, they use up their free action.for that action phase (unless it obviously wouldn't interfere with whatever action they declared).

Encourage them to do their planning before the run.

[Ghoulfodder]

Our GM put us on the clock to plan a snatch and grab run with the same time as our characters had, 15 minutes. I wouldn't want to plan anything complicated, or do it too regularly, but it really hyped up the tension and it stopped us endlessly procrastinating and tweaking ideas.

Telling your group that reinforcements could arrive any minute and they need to act quickly, then putting a countdown on could be a really interesting and exciting tool to use. It'll focus the attention some! If anything that needs clarifying out of character comes up, you can always pause.

[Insaniac99]

Yeah, just be careful with real timers.  I am a fan of them myself, but I have a player that gets stressed out easily and... well let's just say the real timer is NOT a good idea with my current group.

So great idea, just make sure you know your group before you implement it.

[Chrome Tiger]

Yeah, we have a player in my group that can take a bit to formulate what he wants to do.  It is just his nature, and it is in no means anything as bad as sidelining or distracting other players.  Sometimes he may take too long which extends combat and some other game sections, but it is not intentional, and it is not a sidelining or overtly distracting thing, so we abide. 

So yeah, is there a benefit to real-timing my group?  Sure, there could be some level of benefit.  However, I think that it could also cause more problems than it fixes.  For my group, it would be detrimental because it could stress a couple players out not having time to process everything.  For yours?  Who knows.  Try it and see and try not to step on any toes in the process because if it does not work, you will want to have players remaining to go back to normal with.

[ImaginalDisc]

With my group I am a little unconventional.

If you're not ready to declare your action when it is your turn, or ask me some questions about the situation, you lose your turn. I let characters with DNI in the same PAN have extended text chat with one another as free actions.