Most of the skills I value as a DM are skills I get better at the more I do them. I'm talking about storytelling, improvising, roleplaying, knowing the rules, combat, ...ect. But the one thing I struggle with the most is the pacing of the session. I would love for my sessions to start off strong and end at a satisfying moment or a cliffhanger of some sorts but I find it very hard getting there in a session.
During the session preparation I know which possible scenes might occur but I find it difficult predicting how long my players will actually need to go through them. I've read a lot about cutting parts out of the middle section of a session instead of the start and end but how do you actually do that? This is especially a problem during one shots where reaching the end should feel satisfying, yet I nearly always reach the end scene with only 20 min left, which is often not enough time for an exciting battle and some storytelling to finish the story off nicely.
Is game pacing something you get better at the more you do it or do you use tools to make sure you reach the points you want to reach?
First, look at how much time you play as a DM that leaves you energized, and that's the max time you should play. Second, look at the encounters you build and do a rough guestimate of the players can do in a session and when its coming to the end, then figure out a way to link to the next encounter. Maybe drop a NPC on them to talk toand end the session or state "Roll initiative, next session".
You might try timing your games, noting how long it takes the players to settle into the story to get it moving, how long of a combat keeps them engaged, etc. Once you have an idea of what you're working with, you can attempt to start adjusting details to more consistently end sessions on the note you want to end on.
Most of the skills I value as a DM are skills I get better at the more I do them. I'm talking about storytelling, improvising, roleplaying, knowing the rules, combat, ...ect. But the one thing I struggle with the most is the pacing of the session. I would love for my sessions to start off strong and end at a satisfying moment or a cliffhanger of some sorts but I find it very hard getting there in a session.
I find that many times, the timing and pacing of the session is determined by how engaged the players are to get to the next thing. If my group doesn't have a clear mission given them by their patron they can easily lag and flounder about in making decisions that lead to story beats. And beats are important checkpoints to hit. Not all will be up-beats, some will be down. The vertical distance separating them is as important as the frequency that they happen. Practice makes balance. Kinda. Sorta. A-little-bit.
During the session preparation I know which possible scenes might occur but I find it difficult predicting how long my players will actually need to go through them. I've read a lot about cutting parts out of the middle section of a session instead of the start and end but how do you actually do that? This is especially a problem during one shots where reaching the end should feel satisfying, yet I nearly always reach the end scene with only 20 min left, which is often not enough time for an exciting battle and some storytelling to finish the story off nicely.
In order to cut from the middle, there has to be something to cut from. You have to be critical of the bits you cut so as to not remove the pertinent chunks, but there is usually something there to cull. Even if it means front-loading the cut information to the players as part of your intro to the one-shot. Giving them information without the requirement to spend time digging it out of an NPC can clip a good 15-30 minutes out of a potential social encounter. Depending on the group, limit the enconters that they don't enjoy as much. They tend towards combat, slim down the exploration and social bits. They like the talky-talky parts, shorten the combat encounters.
Is game pacing something you get better at the more you do it or do you use tools to make sure you reach the points you want to reach?
Maybe run through your prepped material and compartmentalize it so that you can pull bits out as needed. Set a timer for the 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 marks of your session. Two things - Bio breaks and assessing progress. A 5 minute break to refresh drinks/snacks, take care of bio issues and then back at it. While you're at a pause, you can pick out the portions that you need (or don't need) to cut to get you to where you want for the big finale.
You're already on a good start in knowing where you are, knowing where you want to be and the awareness to ask for feedback. You'll do fine, you already are.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I am currently strugglign with session pacing, my last oneshot ended with one encounter to go due to tiem constraints and now I need to come up with some more plot to give my players, as we meet at a club every tuesday so I don't want them to only get an hour of d&d before the session ends!
I think the big thing is awareness of it - you're clearly thinking about it, which is how you improve on this sort of thing. I know I spent too long on the preamble, it took an hour just to get things falling into place to get started and so I ran out of time for the climax!
I might just contact the players and ask if they want to finish it off (which will be short) or play something else - they finished the plot, it was just the twist left to go!
Is game pacing something you get better at the more you do it or do you use tools to make sure you reach the points you want to reach?
It is definitely a skill that you can improve on over time. That doesn't mean you can't also use tools though to assist with pacing though!
One good tip is to not have perfectly set session lengths. If you're always trying to end perfectly at the 4 hour mark, then you're setting yourself to rush scenes or have awkward endings. If the table knows a session could run between 3 to 4 hours, for instance, then you have a lot more wiggle room to pace out the session. I'm fortunate in that my group plans for anything between 3 to 6 hours, which really enables us to end at solid story moments each time.
To answer the cliff hanger question specifically, bring in the unexpected and give it some weight. If someone or something shows up in an unexpected way or does something unexpected and with the implication that how the party handles it will have consequences, it will usually work. Adding it as a surprise or something sudden works well. Just off the top of my head:
The bad guys stop fighting and run in terror because something bigger and scarier has shown up The town guard shows up in force because the local lord has accused the party of murdering his family An exhausted old man bursts into the camp/tavern/inn/room and says that in the next town over the children are murdering all of the adults A huge orc warrior runs up suddenly and tells the party that there is sickness on the air spreading from town to town, he then collapses and dies at the party's feet
You can work out a few ideas based around your campaign and just have them ready or you can improv it in the moment. If you're really in a crunch, you can rarely go wrong with the old, "Suddenly, behind you, you hear a deep, powerful rumbling..."
I find that many times, the timing and pacing of the session is determined by how engaged the players are to get to the next thing. If my group doesn't have a clear mission given them by their patron they can easily lag and flounder about in making decisions that lead to story beats. And beats are important checkpoints to hit. Not all will be up-beats, some will be down. The vertical distance separating them is as important as the frequency that they happen. Practice makes balance. Kinda. Sorta. A-little-bit.
I'm here to relay some experience and hopefully give insight. I run a game with 6-8 people on average. Sessions tend to last 6-9 hours. This many players, I get this issue that Kaavel has described. Things I've been doing to improve this dilemma is spoon feeding clues and trying to shorten "split scenes". I don't rely on the players for their rolls anymore just their passive investigation, however if they prompt it I will oblige. Not every session will have good pace or beats and not every session needs combat to feel compelling.
I believe the cause behind the length of the sessions is because the story is completely player driven and only moves when they decide to go certain places/or interact with certain NPCs in a limited Sandbox area. For the longest time I gave subtle hints or even mention other entities through lore or paths they can take. Depending on the type of players you have this can go poorly and the pacing of the game will come to a grinding halt.
I have on multiple occasions placed a timer and just said "bad event abc will happen if you don't complete xyz within X minutes". Not only did this got players more engaged in what was going on but some even mentioned being more fun/thrilling. (This honestly won't budge the combat only player)
I've been recently throwing my notes out the window. They are nice to have if I forget a small detail but if the session if falling behind then I drop it. I've also pushed aside rules to help reduce overworld venturing if it stops serving a purpose.
Speculation: some amount of railroading is to be had if you want the story to move. If the players do complain then back off and let them make their choices. At the end of the day you can collide multiple planes that sink various worlds into darkness while the players escape into the phlogiston as a cliff hanger, or let the them have their fun. Feedback from them is what's crucial.
You can always end a session early if you feel you've hit a good stopping point. If you intend on making the session longer to hit a resolution then make sure to plan a break in between to fight-off game fatigue. Sometimes that 15-30 minute break does wonders.
You can also do more one-shots on the side to help practice pacing.
If you don't care about analog dice then speed/digital dice rollers can really help.
Digital encounter trackers help. If you plan on doing straight from the book then this site's encounter tracker is fairly decent. If you have a lot of custom elements to your creatures then look elsewhere, I'm sure someone know a few.
I run a session once a week for 7 players. We start 7-7:30 and end at 10:00 - 10:15
I don't plan out "sessions" exactly, I plan out adventures and simply allow them to run, I try not to have a session end mid combat but sometimes it does and the "Resume" functionality on the encounter builder now helps track this between sessions. If a combat isn't going to end within a session then I will always make sure I end at the top of a round.
In terms of story pacing and "cliff hanger" moments, I improvise 80% of my sessions and while I might have some bullet points marked out I tend to follow but I largely create most of my story on the fly so I can slow story beats down or speed them up to make sure the session ends at a suitable point.
For a typical 4 hour session you can usually get in 1-2 combats, depending on how big they are. Short combats can be over in 30 minutes, big story ones maybe 2-3 hours.
I try not to start with a big combat, unless we've just left the game there last time. If you start big, the rest of the session can feel a bit anticlimactic if the PCs spend it all recuperating, shopping and otherwise not advancing the plot much.
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Most of the skills I value as a DM are skills I get better at the more I do them. I'm talking about storytelling, improvising, roleplaying, knowing the rules, combat, ...ect. But the one thing I struggle with the most is the pacing of the session. I would love for my sessions to start off strong and end at a satisfying moment or a cliffhanger of some sorts but I find it very hard getting there in a session.
During the session preparation I know which possible scenes might occur but I find it difficult predicting how long my players will actually need to go through them. I've read a lot about cutting parts out of the middle section of a session instead of the start and end but how do you actually do that? This is especially a problem during one shots where reaching the end should feel satisfying, yet I nearly always reach the end scene with only 20 min left, which is often not enough time for an exciting battle and some storytelling to finish the story off nicely.
Is game pacing something you get better at the more you do it or do you use tools to make sure you reach the points you want to reach?
First, look at how much time you play as a DM that leaves you energized, and that's the max time you should play. Second, look at the encounters you build and do a rough guestimate of the players can do in a session and when its coming to the end, then figure out a way to link to the next encounter. Maybe drop a NPC on them to talk toand end the session or state "Roll initiative, next session".
You might try timing your games, noting how long it takes the players to settle into the story to get it moving, how long of a combat keeps them engaged, etc. Once you have an idea of what you're working with, you can attempt to start adjusting details to more consistently end sessions on the note you want to end on.
To simply answer your questions: Yes, and Yes.
I find that many times, the timing and pacing of the session is determined by how engaged the players are to get to the next thing. If my group doesn't have a clear mission given them by their patron they can easily lag and flounder about in making decisions that lead to story beats. And beats are important checkpoints to hit. Not all will be up-beats, some will be down. The vertical distance separating them is as important as the frequency that they happen. Practice makes balance. Kinda. Sorta. A-little-bit.
In order to cut from the middle, there has to be something to cut from. You have to be critical of the bits you cut so as to not remove the pertinent chunks, but there is usually something there to cull. Even if it means front-loading the cut information to the players as part of your intro to the one-shot. Giving them information without the requirement to spend time digging it out of an NPC can clip a good 15-30 minutes out of a potential social encounter. Depending on the group, limit the enconters that they don't enjoy as much. They tend towards combat, slim down the exploration and social bits. They like the talky-talky parts, shorten the combat encounters.
Maybe run through your prepped material and compartmentalize it so that you can pull bits out as needed. Set a timer for the 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 marks of your session. Two things - Bio breaks and assessing progress. A 5 minute break to refresh drinks/snacks, take care of bio issues and then back at it. While you're at a pause, you can pick out the portions that you need (or don't need) to cut to get you to where you want for the big finale.
You're already on a good start in knowing where you are, knowing where you want to be and the awareness to ask for feedback. You'll do fine, you already are.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I am currently strugglign with session pacing, my last oneshot ended with one encounter to go due to tiem constraints and now I need to come up with some more plot to give my players, as we meet at a club every tuesday so I don't want them to only get an hour of d&d before the session ends!
I think the big thing is awareness of it - you're clearly thinking about it, which is how you improve on this sort of thing. I know I spent too long on the preamble, it took an hour just to get things falling into place to get started and so I ran out of time for the climax!
I might just contact the players and ask if they want to finish it off (which will be short) or play something else - they finished the plot, it was just the twist left to go!
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It is definitely a skill that you can improve on over time. That doesn't mean you can't also use tools though to assist with pacing though!
One good tip is to not have perfectly set session lengths. If you're always trying to end perfectly at the 4 hour mark, then you're setting yourself to rush scenes or have awkward endings. If the table knows a session could run between 3 to 4 hours, for instance, then you have a lot more wiggle room to pace out the session. I'm fortunate in that my group plans for anything between 3 to 6 hours, which really enables us to end at solid story moments each time.
All that being said, I think this is a really good article with tips on pacing: https://thedicedungeon.co.uk/blogs/adventure-log/dm-tips-pacing-your-d-d-game
Happy DMing!
To answer the cliff hanger question specifically, bring in the unexpected and give it some weight. If someone or something shows up in an unexpected way or does something unexpected and with the implication that how the party handles it will have consequences, it will usually work. Adding it as a surprise or something sudden works well. Just off the top of my head:
The bad guys stop fighting and run in terror because something bigger and scarier has shown up
The town guard shows up in force because the local lord has accused the party of murdering his family
An exhausted old man bursts into the camp/tavern/inn/room and says that in the next town over the children are murdering all of the adults
A huge orc warrior runs up suddenly and tells the party that there is sickness on the air spreading from town to town, he then collapses and dies at the party's feet
You can work out a few ideas based around your campaign and just have them ready or you can improv it in the moment. If you're really in a crunch, you can rarely go wrong with the old, "Suddenly, behind you, you hear a deep, powerful rumbling..."
I'm here to relay some experience and hopefully give insight.
I run a game with 6-8 people on average. Sessions tend to last 6-9 hours. This many players, I get this issue that Kaavel has described. Things I've been doing to improve this dilemma is spoon feeding clues and trying to shorten "split scenes". I don't rely on the players for their rolls anymore just their passive investigation, however if they prompt it I will oblige.
Not every session will have good pace or beats and not every session needs combat to feel compelling.
I believe the cause behind the length of the sessions is because the story is completely player driven and only moves when they decide to go certain places/or interact with certain NPCs in a limited Sandbox area. For the longest time I gave subtle hints or even mention other entities through lore or paths they can take. Depending on the type of players you have this can go poorly and the pacing of the game will come to a grinding halt.
I have on multiple occasions placed a timer and just said "bad event abc will happen if you don't complete xyz within X minutes". Not only did this got players more engaged in what was going on but some even mentioned being more fun/thrilling. (This honestly won't budge the combat only player)
I've been recently throwing my notes out the window. They are nice to have if I forget a small detail but if the session if falling behind then I drop it. I've also pushed aside rules to help reduce overworld venturing if it stops serving a purpose.
Speculation: some amount of railroading is to be had if you want the story to move. If the players do complain then back off and let them make their choices. At the end of the day you can collide multiple planes that sink various worlds into darkness while the players escape into the phlogiston as a cliff hanger, or let the them have their fun. Feedback from them is what's crucial.
You can always end a session early if you feel you've hit a good stopping point. If you intend on making the session longer to hit a resolution then make sure to plan a break in between to fight-off game fatigue. Sometimes that 15-30 minute break does wonders.
You can also do more one-shots on the side to help practice pacing.
If you don't care about analog dice then speed/digital dice rollers can really help.
Digital encounter trackers help. If you plan on doing straight from the book then this site's encounter tracker is fairly decent. If you have a lot of custom elements to your creatures then look elsewhere, I'm sure someone know a few.
I run a session once a week for 7 players. We start 7-7:30 and end at 10:00 - 10:15
I don't plan out "sessions" exactly, I plan out adventures and simply allow them to run, I try not to have a session end mid combat but sometimes it does and the "Resume" functionality on the encounter builder now helps track this between sessions. If a combat isn't going to end within a session then I will always make sure I end at the top of a round.
In terms of story pacing and "cliff hanger" moments, I improvise 80% of my sessions and while I might have some bullet points marked out I tend to follow but I largely create most of my story on the fly so I can slow story beats down or speed them up to make sure the session ends at a suitable point.
For a typical 4 hour session you can usually get in 1-2 combats, depending on how big they are. Short combats can be over in 30 minutes, big story ones maybe 2-3 hours.
I try not to start with a big combat, unless we've just left the game there last time. If you start big, the rest of the session can feel a bit anticlimactic if the PCs spend it all recuperating, shopping and otherwise not advancing the plot much.