so I'm relatively inexperienced when it comes to running games and one of the first things I noticed about running a face to face group was how different pacing can be to what I originally expected. Especially when it comes to players who are relatively new to the game. The first face to face session I ever ran I created a home brew adventure designed for a single three or four hour session. The party made it to the first room and spent almost the entirety of the three hours set aside for the game resolving the first encounter. Then they died!! I fudged rolls to the point it became obvious then had to let the fate of the dice have its way. Since then I've learned a lot and the games have become steadily smoother. However, I am planning on running a one shot single session adventure for another group next month and am currently writing an adventure for it. Anybody got any tried and tested advice on how to run an adventure from start to finish in a single session for a group of new players? So far I've decided to do a five room dungeon with two main encounters. I'm trying to strip it down without losing depth. Any advice?

P.s I have no idea how the thread ended up being called Tom. Moderators if you could change the title to "single shot adventures that would be jusssssstttttt great!"

Depends on what your encounters are. If the dungeon is pretty linear, I'd suggest doing the rooms in this order:  Room with trap -> Easy Encounter-> Information (Flavor) Room -> Puzzle Room (maybe using info from previous room) -> Boss Room (Hard Encounter)

Sprinkle treasure to taste.