Party Leaders & Group Leaders

Let's say you've got a big gaming group. Everyone's talking over each-other all the time, debates take forever. Here's a real-quick rules-light solution.

• Whenever the party is reasonably safe, they can choose a Party Leader (PL).
• If the party can't decide what to do in-character, the PL is the deciding vote. 
• If the group can't decide on what to do out-of-character, the PL's player has the deciding vote. 

Choosing a PL should require an out-of-character vote from the group (ties broken by the GM), and can be expressed in-character as simply as "Hey [PC], you take point" or "I know how these bandits operate, follow my lead." The party does have to be reasonably safe before you can switch the party leader, but as long as that's the case you can swap whenever.

Ideally, you want your party leader to be the PC with the skill-set most relevant to the current challenge. In the real world, you'll also want the PL's player to have a basic understanding of the rules and be able to make sensible decisions. Switch your party leader often so every player that wants to can try out the role.

So why bother with this mechanic? Because I've been in plenty of session that have stalled out because nobody wants to take the responsibility of stepping on toes by saying 'we move to the next room.' I've sat through even more sessions where everybody thought they had the only solution and insisted that only their plans were used. If your group is bad at reaching a decision, then having them take turns to play tiebreaker is a pretty simple, primary school, talking-conch style solution just to make sure that you all get to actually play a game instead of being paralyzed by indecision.