I don't really fret about it. Unless there is some self-imposed timer by the party (they need to finish something clever within the 10 minute duration of a Silence) or the party have fallen into a time-sensitive trap (a pit trap which triggers the roof falling down ~two rounds later), I let the players take their time to discuss, plan, and act.
Mostly everything else (travel, transition from one scene to another, etc) takes as much in-game time as makes sense, but typically an hour within a city (unless they get lost) or half a day to a nearby location in wilderness.
How do you mean "handle time"? Time passing in the session ( pace management ), tracking how much time has passed in the game world, or how time and seasons flow by in the game world?
Pace management is a tough skill to pick up, and could be a thread all on its own. You need to judge the excitement level of the game, the reactions of the players, the general flow of the story - and learn how to speed it up or slow it down ( with an allotment for Player discussion time ). If things are too slow, throw in something happening in the game world. If it's going to fast, stop throwing events at your Players so fast, and/or introduce something that will give the action pause.
In game time - I just guesstimate how much time it would take in "real world" terms: you travel along the east road for 3 days ... after waiting leisurely in the Inn for 3 days ... after an hour, your contact still hasn't shown up ...
As for large scale world time, I do recommend tracking how much game time has passed, and track time/seasons on a fictional calendar. That allows you to change seasons, and descriptions, and makes your world come alive: you spend a leisurely 3 days in the Inn you prepare to head out again, but the season has definitely cooled, and caravans coming in from the North have started to take about the first snows falling in the highlands ...
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Time in D&D is both arbitrary and imposed, learning how to handle both is also a mix of intuition and practice.
Time as a metric for Pacing (how the story unfolds during the session):
This is the trickiest one for almost every DM, even the most experienced. First you have to give the players enough time to figure out what they want to do and how they're going to go about it. There are sessions where I've literally spent the entire time with my players running around a town talking to various people, shopping, and other "fluff" activities. Sometimes this is needed, as the players get to explore their characters and group dynamics. There are other sessions where the plot of the story is the focus and the players will advance the story a great number of "story bumps" in quick succession. This is also needed, otherwise the story becomes stagnant and the players, as well as DM, become frustrated that "nothing is happening".
For this type of thing I'll generally have a few (3-5) things I'd like to see during that session and try to use the players' actions to help prompt when those "beats" happen. When the players seem to have hit a point where there's little progression, in character or in story, I'll prompt a story beat. When the players are trailing off into side chatter or just being silly, I'll prompt a story beat. When the players reach a location, talk to an NPC, or when they perform an action, I'll introduce a story beat. All of these things allow me to keep the players engaged, usually, and keep the story moving forward at a decent pace. This also allows me to hit important pieces of the story so I can mimic the passage of time for story development.
Time as an imposed mechanic:
This is the easiest form of time management and can also come in many forms but generally refer to the resolution of action. Some actions, and their time frame, can be waved off; "You spend the next 4 hours digging through a book looking for information on the best way to court a Banshee". Others can be handled with the use of a die; Flaming Sphere lasts 1 minute, which is 10 turns, use a d10 to track the rounds. Some DMs use a sand timer or the stopwatch app on their phone to track "Doom Clocks", using this type of timer can give a sense of urgency to combat rounds, getting into/out of a dangerous situation, stopping the BBEG from activating the Fish Ray of DOOM! These types of time management approaches have a visible part which helps players, and DMs, create tension or track game states.
There is a secondary aspect to this which is tied to actions that have the ability to either pass without incident, or have a chance to be interrupted. Things like picking a lock, kicking down a door, searching for traps, resting. With these it's a matter of understanding how to use the tension of the situation to use time effectively. A Rogue is picking a lock and there's nothing to stop it from happening, it takes as long as a die roll. Take the same situation but there are wandering patrols, each time the Rogue fails you could say a minute passes and, behind the scenes, the patrols get closer. The group takes a rest in an abandoned farmhouse, barricade the door, and set up a watch, the rest passes but you have each watch roll for a random encounter to simulate time passing. Where as if the group pays for a room at the local tavern, you wave off the night with "You wake fully rested", unless there's a night time incident you want to introduce.
Just some thoughts on how I manage time, I hope they help you get a grasp on how you want handle it. Good luck DMing, and welcome to this side of the screen!
Whether or not you handle time at all comes down to your personal DM style. I for one, love timekeeping. I have a calendar, as well as a sheet that I use to track time during the day. It's something I care about for DMing, so I do it, and I ensure it has impact on the game.
First off, the calendar. This is my campaign calendar. My world isn't fully analogous to the real world, so I do my own. This one is for my players, so it tracks the events of each day, and I put in future events that they care to track, currently they were waiting on a hunter's guild to return with some ingredients for a potion, so that is marked on there. I have a personal calendar that I use to track things that occur outside of the PC's knowledge, like gains the villain has made, or changes happening in the world that may effect their progress.
Then I also keep track of time. This has more impact directly, since I firmly believe in 'failing forward'. For example, a failed thieves' tools check to unlock a door doesn't fail outright-- It instead takes longer than a single action. A bad failure might take a half hour or more to succeed, but they'll get there eventually. If they fail, I'll ask them the maximum time they'd spend on it, and if it's within that, they succeed and the time is counted. This especially has effects on intrigue sessions where they have 'one night' to get in and get out. How long do you spend on that door before you go somewhere else? What times do the guards change their shifts? Tracking time for this makes the scene more tense, and with higher stakes.
To track time I simply have a page marked with 10 minute increments for the day. Most of it goes unfilled, or you'll see something like ("Long Rest") with a line that goes down for 8 hours. I just made a simple spreadsheet and I have about 10 days worth in my DM binder at a time, and print more as needed.
In general I'm a fan of time limits for tasks, since it keeps the party from resting constantly, which makes challenges that much harder. It also adds weight to the players' decision making. Choosing to take shorter or longer paths matters when you track time. Choosing to stop and rest matters. Choosing to spend time learning guard patterns matters. Giving player decisions power, I find, makes players more invested.
As a side note - and a possible hijack ( sorry ) - I know you've said you concentrate a lot on pacing control MellieDM . I'd be interested in hearing what techniques you use for that. Maybe in a separate thread or PM if it's hijacking this thread.
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As a side note - and a possible hijack ( sorry ) - I know you've said you concentrate a lot on pacing control MellieDM . I'd be interested in hearing what techniques you use for that. Maybe in a separate thread or PM if it's hijacking this thread.
Thanks,
Sure thing! This is honestly a mess of thoughts, but hopefully you can pull at least one thing out of it that's helpful to you.
I find that whenever I feel a session went poorly, it's because the pace was bad; and when it was great, the pace was, too. I think it's one of the hardest things to do, but when you do it right its the most rewarding all the way around. It is the constant struggle of the DM. My pacing comes down to a few things:
1) Never realism. But inspired by realism.
It is not fun for the players to be having fun, and me stopping their fun because I've scripted something to happen. It is fun for me to interact with that fun, and build on it. There's nothing fun about slogging through and tracking minutiae, but there is fun in resource management. A lot of times I see DMs posting these comprehensive documents where they have built an amazing 10-page mechanic for something in the game, and... I love reading them as a DM, but I can't imagine implementing them. That's for my table, though, and each is different.
For me, I prefer to take realism, and make a simple mechanic that takes the interesting piece of it, and gamifies it. This, to me, is part of pacing. If my players are having fun organizing watches and locating safe campsites and tracking food and water and what-have-you, then I would pace around them getting to do that. I find that most players, at least the ones I DM for, aren't interested in that. So instead, you take the parts that either make for fun, interest, or tension, and you gamify it.
Overland travel will be my example here. My system is designed around four travel roles, and choosing a path. The party chooses a path, four of the party assume the role, and for each day they make an ability check for that role. There are a couple of different choices to make in that, they can change roles each day if they want, and they can change path. The result of their role for the day determines different things. They might roll for encounters (more on that later), gain or lose their rations for the day (which is one party count, and combines all food-water as one ration item), shorten or lengthen their travel time, or leave them open for ambush.
2) Creation, Build and Relief of Tension
Much of the fun of games comes from tension. Even in the simplest roll-to-win games, that tension comes in the form of not knowing what a die result will be. In D&D, you can create it there, and in many other places. Tension is where pacing lives, breathes, and does its laundry. When there is no tension, you pacing is slow and uncontrolled. When there is high tension, you pacing is fast and highly controlled. There are many places in between those two points that you can live within.
To go back to my overland travel, here's how I create tension while travelling. Depending on results from different travel roles, the party may be rolling one or many of the same die. Currently, that's a d6. That d6 represents the 6 different overland encounters that I've built for their 3 days of travelling. Each encounter is more or less rare than another, which I represent with stacks of index cards. Each time the value of a card is rolled, I pull it. When the final card is pulled, an encounter is generated. This adds a minor tension to travelling and a purpose for their rolls, as the party knows what will happen when a pile is empty. But the don't know if the encounter will be good or bad. They might run into some kind paladins who will give them a boon. Or they might run into a dragon that wants to 'relieve' them of their spoils.
For combat, I stole from Drunks and Dragons where he rolls a die in public and says "In this many rounds something happens". Sometimes they know what that something will be -- in (d4) rounds, that fire will reach the barrels of gunpowder. Sometimes they don't-- In (d4) rounds, something is going to happen. In the latter case I'll usually let them make checks to figure out what it is. It creates another layer of something that they are invested in. Oh no, we have to make sure that tree doesn't fall on the orphanage! In game terms, these are like a 'spidey sense'.
I do the same thing with quests. On the next full moon, the murderer will strike again. If the magistrate reaches the courthouse before noon, he can hamper the villain's plans...
The relief of that tension - when the players succeed - is where the memories come from. It's that flow of endorphins (I think? I'm not a scientist) that makes them say "Remember that time we...." And that response, to me, makes the game.
I don't do this all the time, though, because variance is important to my game, too. Choosing to raise the tension will speed the pacing-- So you have to decide carefully when to do it.
3) Choosing When to Have Low Tension, and Knowing Your Players
No one wants to be moving at 100% all the time. Downtime is just as important, and if it's balanced well with timers your players will enjoy something as silly as a beach trip where nothing really happens except for RP as much as they enjoyed that last boss battle. Literally my players spent almost a full session hanging out at the beach, making sand castles, and swimming with dolphins -- and they still remember it.
The best way to know when low tension (pace) is needed to to know your players. D&D is a social game. I've learned how they act when they're excited or invested. I know how they act when they're bored. I know which of them likes to physically act like their character, so I know the difference between bored player and bored character. I also just ask them what they want. I know some DMs think its taboo, but it's a game. Your players know its a game (or they should) and they should be involved in the game. If you ask them what they want, and at some point their answer comes up, they'll know that they have an impact on the game, and might implicitly care more for it.
Pacing and tension, for me, is pretty much all about reacting to my players. When they are happily having an IC conversation, I'm letting them have that conversation. When they want to move on from this NPC, I'm either going to let them do that, or make the NPC more annoying to generate a more defined reaction. Letting them have a reason to make that Intimidation check can be fun, too.
My final, and biggest note on pacing is that you can't fall in love with what you've written. You just can't. Kill your darlings, as they say. I might think this combat I designed is freaking great-- But it might fall flat at the table. If it does, I need to be able to separate myself from my authorship of it, and rip it apart to make it exciting. If I don't, I end up with (and have ended up with) things that should have been epic that are completely unmemorable and disappointing.
Now I say all of this as if I'm some kind of expert-- But I'm far from great at it. Like I said, its the hardest thing you have to do as a DM. My last session on Monday I wasn't feeling 100% and it showed. My pacing was awful, the game was still fine but there wasn't that same 'buzz' that's at the table after a good session.
I like your philosophy of "Never realism. But inspired by realism" - I do something like that with wealth levels in my own campaign. Players can buy a wealth level, and automatically gain all goods and services available at that level, without having the track the minutiae of accounting for every copper piece in treasure. I only tell the party about the major items of treasure, things of note, and excessive amounts of high-denomination money. Minor treasure, selling bad guys' equipment, etc. is just assumed to be harvested and funneled into maintaining their wealth level. High end treasure can be converted into buying items outside their wealth level, or used to upgrade their wealth level. They can even downgrade their wealth level to finance purchase of high end items ( like a ship ) outside their current level.
I hadn't considered the rising tension of cards system, or the "something dramatic will happen in X turns" idea before. It seems kind of meta-gamey to me - but I can't deny it sounds effective! I'll have to give that some thought .
I agree 100% you need to read your players, and adapt accordingly.
I don't have any problem "killing my darlings" as I don't believe in having any darlings. I try and concentrate on having the world and the plot events be dynamic and created in the moment, based on what just happened, and made possible pre-creating highly detailed situations, NPCs, and factions - so I know how so-and-so would react and what they would try and do next based on their abilities, knowledge, and personality. But I think you've hit upon something I don't do - and that's holding a number of possible reactions - and selecting amongst them based on whether or not I need to ramp up the pacing & tension, or cutting the players some slack.
You've given me a lot of really good stuff to think on.
Thanks :)
And apologies Mother_Coconutsfor hijacking your thread for a bit.
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I like your philosophy of "Never realism. But inspired by realism" - I do something like that with wealth levels in my own campaign. Players can buy a wealth level, and automatically gain all goods and services available at that level, without having the track the minutiae of accounting for every copper piece in treasure. I only tell the party about the major items of treasure, things of note, and excessive amounts of high-denomination money. Minor treasure, selling bad guys' equipment, etc. is just assumed to be harvested and funneled into maintaining their wealth level. High end treasure can be converted into buying items outside their wealth level, or used to upgrade their wealth level. They can even downgrade their wealth level to finance purchase of high end items ( like a ship ) outside their current level.
I really, really like your idea of wealth levels! How do you handle purchasing of magic items, or can magic items be purchased?
I really, really like your idea of wealth levels! How do you handle purchasing of magic items, or can magic items be purchased?
Thanks :) I'm sure I stole it from someone ,or some other system, but I don't remember where.
My campaign world is pretty low-magic, where each magic item ( apart from consumable items ) is a unique artifact. There are no generic +1 weapons, each is a named blade ( even if mechanically it's just a +1 weapons ).
However, if I did have purchasable magic items, I would probably have that purchased explicitly out of the high-end notable treasure. Same with high-end items such as ships, or property. Finding unusual items and equipment, and haggling, or questing, for them is still fun. Figuring out how many copper pieces I need to set aside from the treasure to pay rent, probably isn't.
To me, wealth levels are meant to absorb the mundane day-to-day costs and monthly living costs. Typically the cost is 10-years worth of a particular lifestyle. A Character can buy a Comfortable wealth level for 7,300 g.p. From that point on they can stay in middle class Inns, consume food and drink in such Inns, maintain their equipment, and socialize ( and have contacts ) within that level of society, etc. without any book-keeping. If they want to stay in a high-end luxurious Inn ( outside their wealth level ) they'd have to pay out of pocket.
They could upgrade their wealth level to Wealthy by ponying up an additional 7,300 g.p.
If they needed to free up capital, they could downgrade to a Modest wealth level, and gain 3,650 g.p, but now they're restricted to only the goods, services, and social contacts available at that level, without paying out of pocket.
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I'm working up to being a DM, so I'm trying to gather as much knowledge possible. Please tell me how you handle time. Thanks!
I don't really fret about it. Unless there is some self-imposed timer by the party (they need to finish something clever within the 10 minute duration of a Silence) or the party have fallen into a time-sensitive trap (a pit trap which triggers the roof falling down ~two rounds later), I let the players take their time to discuss, plan, and act.
Mostly everything else (travel, transition from one scene to another, etc) takes as much in-game time as makes sense, but typically an hour within a city (unless they get lost) or half a day to a nearby location in wilderness.
I am one with the Force. The Force is with me.
How do you mean "handle time"? Time passing in the session ( pace management ), tracking how much time has passed in the game world, or how time and seasons flow by in the game world?
Pace management is a tough skill to pick up, and could be a thread all on its own. You need to judge the excitement level of the game, the reactions of the players, the general flow of the story - and learn how to speed it up or slow it down ( with an allotment for Player discussion time ). If things are too slow, throw in something happening in the game world. If it's going to fast, stop throwing events at your Players so fast, and/or introduce something that will give the action pause.
In game time - I just guesstimate how much time it would take in "real world" terms: you travel along the east road for 3 days ... after waiting leisurely in the Inn for 3 days ... after an hour, your contact still hasn't shown up ...
As for large scale world time, I do recommend tracking how much game time has passed, and track time/seasons on a fictional calendar. That allows you to change seasons, and descriptions, and makes your world come alive: you spend a leisurely 3 days in the Inn you prepare to head out again, but the season has definitely cooled, and caravans coming in from the North have started to take about the first snows falling in the highlands ...
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Time in D&D is both arbitrary and imposed, learning how to handle both is also a mix of intuition and practice.
Time as a metric for Pacing (how the story unfolds during the session):
This is the trickiest one for almost every DM, even the most experienced. First you have to give the players enough time to figure out what they want to do and how they're going to go about it. There are sessions where I've literally spent the entire time with my players running around a town talking to various people, shopping, and other "fluff" activities. Sometimes this is needed, as the players get to explore their characters and group dynamics. There are other sessions where the plot of the story is the focus and the players will advance the story a great number of "story bumps" in quick succession. This is also needed, otherwise the story becomes stagnant and the players, as well as DM, become frustrated that "nothing is happening".
For this type of thing I'll generally have a few (3-5) things I'd like to see during that session and try to use the players' actions to help prompt when those "beats" happen. When the players seem to have hit a point where there's little progression, in character or in story, I'll prompt a story beat. When the players are trailing off into side chatter or just being silly, I'll prompt a story beat. When the players reach a location, talk to an NPC, or when they perform an action, I'll introduce a story beat. All of these things allow me to keep the players engaged, usually, and keep the story moving forward at a decent pace. This also allows me to hit important pieces of the story so I can mimic the passage of time for story development.
Time as an imposed mechanic:
This is the easiest form of time management and can also come in many forms but generally refer to the resolution of action. Some actions, and their time frame, can be waved off; "You spend the next 4 hours digging through a book looking for information on the best way to court a Banshee". Others can be handled with the use of a die; Flaming Sphere lasts 1 minute, which is 10 turns, use a d10 to track the rounds. Some DMs use a sand timer or the stopwatch app on their phone to track "Doom Clocks", using this type of timer can give a sense of urgency to combat rounds, getting into/out of a dangerous situation, stopping the BBEG from activating the Fish Ray of DOOM! These types of time management approaches have a visible part which helps players, and DMs, create tension or track game states.
There is a secondary aspect to this which is tied to actions that have the ability to either pass without incident, or have a chance to be interrupted. Things like picking a lock, kicking down a door, searching for traps, resting. With these it's a matter of understanding how to use the tension of the situation to use time effectively. A Rogue is picking a lock and there's nothing to stop it from happening, it takes as long as a die roll. Take the same situation but there are wandering patrols, each time the Rogue fails you could say a minute passes and, behind the scenes, the patrols get closer. The group takes a rest in an abandoned farmhouse, barricade the door, and set up a watch, the rest passes but you have each watch roll for a random encounter to simulate time passing. Where as if the group pays for a room at the local tavern, you wave off the night with "You wake fully rested", unless there's a night time incident you want to introduce.
Just some thoughts on how I manage time, I hope they help you get a grasp on how you want handle it. Good luck DMing, and welcome to this side of the screen!
Whether or not you handle time at all comes down to your personal DM style. I for one, love timekeeping. I have a calendar, as well as a sheet that I use to track time during the day. It's something I care about for DMing, so I do it, and I ensure it has impact on the game.
First off, the calendar. This is my campaign calendar. My world isn't fully analogous to the real world, so I do my own. This one is for my players, so it tracks the events of each day, and I put in future events that they care to track, currently they were waiting on a hunter's guild to return with some ingredients for a potion, so that is marked on there. I have a personal calendar that I use to track things that occur outside of the PC's knowledge, like gains the villain has made, or changes happening in the world that may effect their progress.
Then I also keep track of time. This has more impact directly, since I firmly believe in 'failing forward'. For example, a failed thieves' tools check to unlock a door doesn't fail outright-- It instead takes longer than a single action. A bad failure might take a half hour or more to succeed, but they'll get there eventually. If they fail, I'll ask them the maximum time they'd spend on it, and if it's within that, they succeed and the time is counted. This especially has effects on intrigue sessions where they have 'one night' to get in and get out. How long do you spend on that door before you go somewhere else? What times do the guards change their shifts? Tracking time for this makes the scene more tense, and with higher stakes.
To track time I simply have a page marked with 10 minute increments for the day. Most of it goes unfilled, or you'll see something like ("Long Rest") with a line that goes down for 8 hours. I just made a simple spreadsheet and I have about 10 days worth in my DM binder at a time, and print more as needed.
In general I'm a fan of time limits for tasks, since it keeps the party from resting constantly, which makes challenges that much harder. It also adds weight to the players' decision making. Choosing to take shorter or longer paths matters when you track time. Choosing to stop and rest matters. Choosing to spend time learning guard patterns matters. Giving player decisions power, I find, makes players more invested.
As a side note - and a possible hijack ( sorry ) - I know you've said you concentrate a lot on pacing control MellieDM . I'd be interested in hearing what techniques you use for that. Maybe in a separate thread or PM if it's hijacking this thread.
Thanks,
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Sure thing! This is honestly a mess of thoughts, but hopefully you can pull at least one thing out of it that's helpful to you.
I find that whenever I feel a session went poorly, it's because the pace was bad; and when it was great, the pace was, too. I think it's one of the hardest things to do, but when you do it right its the most rewarding all the way around. It is the constant struggle of the DM. My pacing comes down to a few things:
1) Never realism. But inspired by realism.
It is not fun for the players to be having fun, and me stopping their fun because I've scripted something to happen. It is fun for me to interact with that fun, and build on it. There's nothing fun about slogging through and tracking minutiae, but there is fun in resource management. A lot of times I see DMs posting these comprehensive documents where they have built an amazing 10-page mechanic for something in the game, and... I love reading them as a DM, but I can't imagine implementing them. That's for my table, though, and each is different.
For me, I prefer to take realism, and make a simple mechanic that takes the interesting piece of it, and gamifies it. This, to me, is part of pacing. If my players are having fun organizing watches and locating safe campsites and tracking food and water and what-have-you, then I would pace around them getting to do that. I find that most players, at least the ones I DM for, aren't interested in that. So instead, you take the parts that either make for fun, interest, or tension, and you gamify it.
Overland travel will be my example here. My system is designed around four travel roles, and choosing a path. The party chooses a path, four of the party assume the role, and for each day they make an ability check for that role. There are a couple of different choices to make in that, they can change roles each day if they want, and they can change path. The result of their role for the day determines different things. They might roll for encounters (more on that later), gain or lose their rations for the day (which is one party count, and combines all food-water as one ration item), shorten or lengthen their travel time, or leave them open for ambush.
2) Creation, Build and Relief of Tension
Much of the fun of games comes from tension. Even in the simplest roll-to-win games, that tension comes in the form of not knowing what a die result will be. In D&D, you can create it there, and in many other places. Tension is where pacing lives, breathes, and does its laundry. When there is no tension, you pacing is slow and uncontrolled. When there is high tension, you pacing is fast and highly controlled. There are many places in between those two points that you can live within.
To go back to my overland travel, here's how I create tension while travelling. Depending on results from different travel roles, the party may be rolling one or many of the same die. Currently, that's a d6. That d6 represents the 6 different overland encounters that I've built for their 3 days of travelling. Each encounter is more or less rare than another, which I represent with stacks of index cards. Each time the value of a card is rolled, I pull it. When the final card is pulled, an encounter is generated. This adds a minor tension to travelling and a purpose for their rolls, as the party knows what will happen when a pile is empty. But the don't know if the encounter will be good or bad. They might run into some kind paladins who will give them a boon. Or they might run into a dragon that wants to 'relieve' them of their spoils.
For combat, I stole from Drunks and Dragons where he rolls a die in public and says "In this many rounds something happens". Sometimes they know what that something will be -- in (d4) rounds, that fire will reach the barrels of gunpowder. Sometimes they don't-- In (d4) rounds, something is going to happen. In the latter case I'll usually let them make checks to figure out what it is. It creates another layer of something that they are invested in. Oh no, we have to make sure that tree doesn't fall on the orphanage! In game terms, these are like a 'spidey sense'.
I do the same thing with quests. On the next full moon, the murderer will strike again. If the magistrate reaches the courthouse before noon, he can hamper the villain's plans...
The relief of that tension - when the players succeed - is where the memories come from. It's that flow of endorphins (I think? I'm not a scientist) that makes them say "Remember that time we...." And that response, to me, makes the game.
I don't do this all the time, though, because variance is important to my game, too. Choosing to raise the tension will speed the pacing-- So you have to decide carefully when to do it.
3) Choosing When to Have Low Tension, and Knowing Your Players
No one wants to be moving at 100% all the time. Downtime is just as important, and if it's balanced well with timers your players will enjoy something as silly as a beach trip where nothing really happens except for RP as much as they enjoyed that last boss battle. Literally my players spent almost a full session hanging out at the beach, making sand castles, and swimming with dolphins -- and they still remember it.
The best way to know when low tension (pace) is needed to to know your players. D&D is a social game. I've learned how they act when they're excited or invested. I know how they act when they're bored. I know which of them likes to physically act like their character, so I know the difference between bored player and bored character. I also just ask them what they want. I know some DMs think its taboo, but it's a game. Your players know its a game (or they should) and they should be involved in the game. If you ask them what they want, and at some point their answer comes up, they'll know that they have an impact on the game, and might implicitly care more for it.
Pacing and tension, for me, is pretty much all about reacting to my players. When they are happily having an IC conversation, I'm letting them have that conversation. When they want to move on from this NPC, I'm either going to let them do that, or make the NPC more annoying to generate a more defined reaction. Letting them have a reason to make that Intimidation check can be fun, too.
My final, and biggest note on pacing is that you can't fall in love with what you've written. You just can't. Kill your darlings, as they say. I might think this combat I designed is freaking great-- But it might fall flat at the table. If it does, I need to be able to separate myself from my authorship of it, and rip it apart to make it exciting. If I don't, I end up with (and have ended up with) things that should have been epic that are completely unmemorable and disappointing.
Now I say all of this as if I'm some kind of expert-- But I'm far from great at it. Like I said, its the hardest thing you have to do as a DM. My last session on Monday I wasn't feeling 100% and it showed. My pacing was awful, the game was still fine but there wasn't that same 'buzz' that's at the table after a good session.
Awesome! Thank you MellieDM :)
I like your philosophy of "Never realism. But inspired by realism" - I do something like that with wealth levels in my own campaign. Players can buy a wealth level, and automatically gain all goods and services available at that level, without having the track the minutiae of accounting for every copper piece in treasure. I only tell the party about the major items of treasure, things of note, and excessive amounts of high-denomination money. Minor treasure, selling bad guys' equipment, etc. is just assumed to be harvested and funneled into maintaining their wealth level. High end treasure can be converted into buying items outside their wealth level, or used to upgrade their wealth level. They can even downgrade their wealth level to finance purchase of high end items ( like a ship ) outside their current level.
I hadn't considered the rising tension of cards system, or the "something dramatic will happen in X turns" idea before. It seems kind of meta-gamey to me - but I can't deny it sounds effective! I'll have to give that some thought .
I agree 100% you need to read your players, and adapt accordingly.
I don't have any problem "killing my darlings" as I don't believe in having any darlings. I try and concentrate on having the world and the plot events be dynamic and created in the moment, based on what just happened, and made possible pre-creating highly detailed situations, NPCs, and factions - so I know how so-and-so would react and what they would try and do next based on their abilities, knowledge, and personality. But I think you've hit upon something I don't do - and that's holding a number of possible reactions - and selecting amongst them based on whether or not I need to ramp up the pacing & tension, or cutting the players some slack.
You've given me a lot of really good stuff to think on.
Thanks :)
And apologies Mother_Coconuts for hijacking your thread for a bit.
Back to time management :)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
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I really, really like your idea of wealth levels! How do you handle purchasing of magic items, or can magic items be purchased?
Thanks :) I'm sure I stole it from someone ,or some other system, but I don't remember where.
My campaign world is pretty low-magic, where each magic item ( apart from consumable items ) is a unique artifact. There are no generic +1 weapons, each is a named blade ( even if mechanically it's just a +1 weapons ).
However, if I did have purchasable magic items, I would probably have that purchased explicitly out of the high-end notable treasure. Same with high-end items such as ships, or property. Finding unusual items and equipment, and haggling, or questing, for them is still fun. Figuring out how many copper pieces I need to set aside from the treasure to pay rent, probably isn't.
To me, wealth levels are meant to absorb the mundane day-to-day costs and monthly living costs. Typically the cost is 10-years worth of a particular lifestyle. A Character can buy a Comfortable wealth level for 7,300 g.p. From that point on they can stay in middle class Inns, consume food and drink in such Inns, maintain their equipment, and socialize ( and have contacts ) within that level of society, etc. without any book-keeping. If they want to stay in a high-end luxurious Inn ( outside their wealth level ) they'd have to pay out of pocket.
They could upgrade their wealth level to Wealthy by ponying up an additional 7,300 g.p.
If they needed to free up capital, they could downgrade to a Modest wealth level, and gain 3,650 g.p, but now they're restricted to only the goods, services, and social contacts available at that level, without paying out of pocket.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I make them spend game time in real time. RP casting Detect Magic for 10 minutes as a ritual!
You take a long rest? See you in eight hours, people!
Blood Frenzy. The quipper has advantage on melee attack rolls against any creature that doesn't have all its hit points.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage.