[PapaR]

So I'm involved in a game played over IRC and currently out games are taking a long time to get through longer than we like. I was wondering if anyone had any tips on speeding the process up a bit.

[Joush]

Get people involved and engaged. A great way to do this is leading questions, like "What do you do?" or "Do you have any questions?"  after describing a situation. If players get stuck, offer them some suggestions for things they could do or review the things they can see, hear and found out recently.

For players, try to keep track of what is going on and make an effort to do things that move the story forward. Even a bad idea is better then trying to think of a perfect idea or endlessly debating your options.

One thing that can massively slow a game down is if players have to declare searching for traps and general, routine precautions. If every hallway, door and area they come to has to be swept for mines with a visual inspection, followed by a chem sniffer, the game will move like grass growing.

[Zilfer]

Get people involved and engaged. A great way to do this is leading questions, like "What do you do?" or "Do you have any questions?"  after describing a situation. If players get stuck, offer them some suggestions for things they could do or review the things they can see, hear and found out recently.

For players, try to keep track of what is going on and make an effort to do things that move the story forward. Even a bad idea is better then trying to think of a perfect idea or endlessly debating your options.

One thing that can massively slow a game down is if players have to declare searching for traps and general, routine precautions. If every hallway, door and area they come to has to be swept for mines with a visual inspection, followed by a chem sniffer, the game will move like grass growing.

Heh, that's pretty slow.

But your advice is very sound. More description sometimes helps, but i think it's keeping the attention of your group and making sure they respond. I know the feeling about speeding up on games. If you have their characer sheets you could also make rolls for them while your waiting for others to respond to something. I think the main key however is once your done describing not to sit there.  You can give them a chance to think if they need it but in real life sometimes you wouldn't have that much time to think.