Im a Beginner DM. Ive already DM´d a few games, but I´ve realised the main problem is my pacing
I´d really love to know what others are planning to achieve a session and how long a session is. For example: how many encounters? how often level ups? etc etc
Well the first thing to note is that you're not going to have a perfect arc of rising tension culminating in a climax every session. It would be nice and you can plan for it, but when you actually sit down and play things usually veer off course unless you're really railroading things. So perfect pacing is not something even veteran DMs can often achieve.
One thing you can do is nudge things faster or slower when you need to. If the party is floundering around town with no clear purpose, you can step in with an NPC and give them one. If the party is blazing through the dungeon without stopping to do any investigations or searching, you can drop a trap or a puzzle in their path. If they want to long rest after every fight, you can introduce time limits or wandering monsters or a competing adventuring group that spurs them on. It's just about identifying the tools you have to speed things up or slow them down and then using them when needed.
Encounters per session is just going to take some experience with your group. Sometimes a group can avoid a 90-minute combat or turn it into a 10 minute social encounter. Sometimes they will spend the entire session haggling for equipment in town.
One easy pattern to start with is to have a home base - usually a city or town - and have the party make excursions from there. So each adventure might be planned to be two sessions long, starting and ending in town. If it goes over or under budget, that "town time" is a nice buffer you can use to reset the start of the next adventure . It's always fine to end early if you hit a good spot to do so. These sessions might have 4 encounters each, and encounters may entail combat, social encounters, or an extended exploration scene so their length can vary.
So you do two of these two-session adventure arcs - "clear out the bandits operating out of the ruins of the old tower", "rescue the blacksmith's daughter from a band of kobolds", etc. - and when they return to town after the second one, the party levels up. As the party grows in experience, their home base may move to a larger city or to their own stronghold and they will range out farther and farther with each excursion, but you can keep the general pattern the same.
This is not the "right way" or even the way I do it most of the time anymore, but I think it's a good structure to start with and once you get comfortable you can modify it from there.
Thanks a lot! I´ve never really considered milestone level ups but it seems very helpful and manageable. Also, the idea of using a home base and doing one shot quests from there, will be what I´ll use next. Thanks again!
Alright, this helps!! I´ve considered using the 1gp = 1 XP system but I wasn´t really in the clear of how to make it entertaining. So I´ll use your XP system as inspiration now and hack em. Tnak you!
I'm ore a player than DM, but most of the posters here have given you solid advice. You are a beginner DM. Use Milestone Experience. Then they level when you feel they should. Make it easier on yourself! Use a base town or city for the group to start from. Then you have recurring NPC's, build a story from previous adventures, and give the group a reason to care about the area. It also lets you have maps for that area that can be used multiple times.
As for the pace of a session; communicate with your players. Ask them for feedback after each session, and be okay if they have some negatives. If they like RP, encourage it! Give them combats that are fun, but challenge them. And don't forget skill challenges. Our group plays four or five hours per session. We have a combat, a puzzle\skill challenge, and either a strong RP or a second combat per session on average. Your table may be different and that's fine. As long as everyone is having fun, then it was a good session.
My advice on pacing is to make sure the story moves each session. Sometimes that requires a nudge from you as the DM; other time the players will push the action. Make them feel like they control the narrative and you aren't spoon-feeding the answers (even if you kind of are). But every session is not goin to be some epic combat. And it does not have to.
ill try and learn both xp and milestone leveling, so that i find what fits best. but i can definetly see how both milestone and xp leveling can become a problem
ill try and learn both xp and milestone leveling, so that i find what fits best. but i can definetly see how both milestone and xp leveling can become a problem
Milestone I find just to be easier to manage. If you build an encounter that needs the group to be a specific level, you can ensure they progress at the rate you expected. It eliminates calculating XP (which can be a chore), as well as not underestimating treasure hauls and they level too fast.
One thing I am learning is to make a note on your plan (if you've a rough plan for the session for the players to find their way along) of where the the session can stop without disruption.
EG, if you have a plot for a oneshot or sidequest that's along the lines of:
meet NPC and get quest
travel to dungeon (encounter 1)
enter dungeon (encounter 2)
puzzle
dungeon guards (encounter 3)
final boss (encounter 4)
escape the dungeon (encounter 5)
then you can work out where are good places to close the session out. With a oneshot, you need to aim for near the middle (EG at the puzzle), and with an ongoing campaign then you can aim for the session time limits, if there are any (EG "I need to be done by 11"). Making stopping partway part of the plan is better than suddenly realising you're mid-fight and the session is running out of time! It's better to have the session end 20 minute early with the puzzle door starting to creeeak open, than having it end on time when the party are partway through fighting the dungeon guards that came out of it!
For general pacing, +1 on saying "whatever the players want". I made a fair for them to meet at, and they spend the first hour of the 3 hour session enjoying going around and findign all the stalls, and the roleplay it brought out was pretty good for getting them to interact with each other, particularly as they were all fresh characters for the oneshot. We had a good dynamic going by the end of session 2, and I think that hour of roleplay and dice games was a great driver behind that!
One extra thing to consider if there is a lot of RP, such as staying around town meeting NPCs, you need to ensure that all players get their fair share of the session time. It is no fun to be sitting at the table while one or two players hog the session by RPing with every single person they meet.
Im a Beginner DM. Ive already DM´d a few games, but I´ve realised the main problem is my pacing
I´d really love to know what others are planning to achieve a session and how long a session is. For example: how many encounters? how often level ups? etc etc
Thanks in advance.
Well the first thing to note is that you're not going to have a perfect arc of rising tension culminating in a climax every session. It would be nice and you can plan for it, but when you actually sit down and play things usually veer off course unless you're really railroading things. So perfect pacing is not something even veteran DMs can often achieve.
One thing you can do is nudge things faster or slower when you need to. If the party is floundering around town with no clear purpose, you can step in with an NPC and give them one. If the party is blazing through the dungeon without stopping to do any investigations or searching, you can drop a trap or a puzzle in their path. If they want to long rest after every fight, you can introduce time limits or wandering monsters or a competing adventuring group that spurs them on. It's just about identifying the tools you have to speed things up or slow them down and then using them when needed.
Encounters per session is just going to take some experience with your group. Sometimes a group can avoid a 90-minute combat or turn it into a 10 minute social encounter. Sometimes they will spend the entire session haggling for equipment in town.
One easy pattern to start with is to have a home base - usually a city or town - and have the party make excursions from there. So each adventure might be planned to be two sessions long, starting and ending in town. If it goes over or under budget, that "town time" is a nice buffer you can use to reset the start of the next adventure . It's always fine to end early if you hit a good spot to do so. These sessions might have 4 encounters each, and encounters may entail combat, social encounters, or an extended exploration scene so their length can vary.
So you do two of these two-session adventure arcs - "clear out the bandits operating out of the ruins of the old tower", "rescue the blacksmith's daughter from a band of kobolds", etc. - and when they return to town after the second one, the party levels up. As the party grows in experience, their home base may move to a larger city or to their own stronghold and they will range out farther and farther with each excursion, but you can keep the general pattern the same.
This is not the "right way" or even the way I do it most of the time anymore, but I think it's a good structure to start with and once you get comfortable you can modify it from there.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Thanks a lot! I´ve never really considered milestone level ups but it seems very helpful and manageable. Also, the idea of using a home base and doing one shot quests from there, will be what I´ll use next. Thanks again!
Alright, this helps!! I´ve considered using the 1gp = 1 XP system but I wasn´t really in the clear of how to make it entertaining. So I´ll use your XP system as inspiration now and hack em. Tnak you!
I'm ore a player than DM, but most of the posters here have given you solid advice. You are a beginner DM. Use Milestone Experience. Then they level when you feel they should. Make it easier on yourself! Use a base town or city for the group to start from. Then you have recurring NPC's, build a story from previous adventures, and give the group a reason to care about the area. It also lets you have maps for that area that can be used multiple times.
As for the pace of a session; communicate with your players. Ask them for feedback after each session, and be okay if they have some negatives. If they like RP, encourage it! Give them combats that are fun, but challenge them. And don't forget skill challenges. Our group plays four or five hours per session. We have a combat, a puzzle\skill challenge, and either a strong RP or a second combat per session on average. Your table may be different and that's fine. As long as everyone is having fun, then it was a good session.
My advice on pacing is to make sure the story moves each session. Sometimes that requires a nudge from you as the DM; other time the players will push the action. Make them feel like they control the narrative and you aren't spoon-feeding the answers (even if you kind of are). But every session is not goin to be some epic combat. And it does not have to.
thank you! already working on the town
ill try and learn both xp and milestone leveling, so that i find what fits best. but i can definetly see how both milestone and xp leveling can become a problem
Milestone I find just to be easier to manage. If you build an encounter that needs the group to be a specific level, you can ensure they progress at the rate you expected. It eliminates calculating XP (which can be a chore), as well as not underestimating treasure hauls and they level too fast.
alrigh! seems logical
One thing I am learning is to make a note on your plan (if you've a rough plan for the session for the players to find their way along) of where the the session can stop without disruption.
EG, if you have a plot for a oneshot or sidequest that's along the lines of:
then you can work out where are good places to close the session out. With a oneshot, you need to aim for near the middle (EG at the puzzle), and with an ongoing campaign then you can aim for the session time limits, if there are any (EG "I need to be done by 11"). Making stopping partway part of the plan is better than suddenly realising you're mid-fight and the session is running out of time! It's better to have the session end 20 minute early with the puzzle door starting to creeeak open, than having it end on time when the party are partway through fighting the dungeon guards that came out of it!
For general pacing, +1 on saying "whatever the players want". I made a fair for them to meet at, and they spend the first hour of the 3 hour session enjoying going around and findign all the stalls, and the roleplay it brought out was pretty good for getting them to interact with each other, particularly as they were all fresh characters for the oneshot. We had a good dynamic going by the end of session 2, and I think that hour of roleplay and dice games was a great driver behind that!
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This helped a lot!! Now watch me get immersed in writing stupidly detailed worlds in hopes of this happening
One extra thing to consider if there is a lot of RP, such as staying around town meeting NPCs, you need to ensure that all players get their fair share of the session time. It is no fun to be sitting at the table while one or two players hog the session by RPing with every single person they meet.
true!