Hey all! ive been fortunate enough to have fallen into DMing for a particularly fabulous group whose players all seem particularly invested in the story I’ve put together. As follows from such a scenario, they often want to mingle with each other or with other NPCs one-on-one or in small groups during downtime moments in towns and their base of operations, and I’d like to give them similar opportunities coming up soon.
However, recent attempts and player requests for such scenes have me feeling less than confident in my own ability to manage time and the table during these scenes. Some players won’t say much at all, others really dig into minutiae or random asides, and all in all, I fret over making people wait an eternity for the chance to have something to do. Two players didn’t get to do anything at all last session and I was really dispirited and disappointed at how a constant stream of, “Just one more little thing”-s edged those players out. At least one was furious, and I fear the other may be as well. I DO NOT want a repeat performance ever again.
So, my question for all of you is, how do you go about things like this? Have you run scenes or arcs like this? I played a prior campaign as a PC where we were investigating a murder mystery while on a caravan, and that arc was almost exclusively one-on-one scenes with NPCs. I can’t remember how the DM structured it, and maybe it WAS just a lot of waiting around, but I remember it being my favorite arc of that game and remember it containing the meat of our character development and role playing as a party. I’d like to give my players now a similar experience.
Advice? Tips? Things to steer clear of? I should note that, given the pandemic, this is of course an online campaign, so that does limit some approaches.
I think we've all dealt with the party splitting up and some people go do something that takes forever while other people just sit around. Most recently for me one player wanted to go back to the inn and take a short rest, so the other members decided to go venture off for a bit and ended up getting into some combat that took awhile IRL, leaving the other player sitting around doing nothing and I felt bad for her. So I've told the players to just try not to split the party if you can and I am ok with "metagaming" when it comes to making sure the party sticks together (obviously with exceptions) for the sake of fun at the table.
I'd start out by talking to the players that are very social in game, and suggest to them to maybe get some of the other people involved in their social interactions that don't normally do that. I forget who I saw post this, but I saw it put nicely on the forums here recently, D&D is a cooperative game and when the cooperative aspect is compromised the game falls apart and I tend to agree with this.
As far as your concern, unfortunately I have no idea how you would run a whole arc that was heavily focused on 1-on-1 scenes while making it feel like everyone is involved the whole time without waiting around. I'm sure there is a formula that can work. Maybe from your perspective as the DM/NPCs, really focus on those players that are feeling left out, and make sure you have preparations for them since they seem to be less of the initiative takers, and the other ones you don't even have to worry about, they'll just take care of it themselves. That's the best I got, good luck!
That’s exactly what happened to one of mine! She wanted a long rest after kicking ass in a boss fight at the tail end of the last session, which shouldn’t have been a huge issue, but scenes I’d expected to take no more than a few moments wound up stretching into like an hour each. I couldn’t just tell them what to do and wanted the NPCs to behave believably, but goddamn, it felt like a total failure on a level I’ve not felt since I started DMing. I’m hoping she forgives me. As for the other player who is much more unhappy, they were a new recruit who was SUPPOSED to hop in after our midpoint break, when I’d hoped they’d have gone to a new town (it was the only location that made sense story wise). Thing is, they never made it to the be town, even with me like flat-out cutting them off on other NPC interactions for the night. Idk if I need to talk to people about giving each other airtime, if I need to have, like, a non-combat encounter initiative order, or what. I think I’m going to start giving some NPCs things they need to do elsewhere so they’ve/I’ve got outs if players are super chatty or up to some shenanigans that may take awhile
If you're trying to get to a certain point to introduce new PCs, tell your players.
As for focusing on solo scenes, it isn't a problem as long as the scenes are interesting to the other players. This is one of the few times when a TRPG can engage in the spectator sort of fun. If the scenes are boring or only interesting for the one involved, you should try to avoid them or keep them short.
That’s been my hope, that the others will listen for lore being snuck in, will take an interest in each other’s stories, and won’t just want to do boring and ordinary things when it’s their turns. I think part of the problem is that there’s not enough tension with some NPC interactions, and that’s on me. I’ll have to note that going forward. I think I’m gonna start using initiative for these sorts of things, and/or I’m gonna ask for a synopsis of what they want to do. The DM I mentioned originally would do that, now that I think of it, and I recall it being helpful. Initiative order takes pressure off me and puts it on whatever they all rolled.
I run 10 players. I have since 5E came out and we are on our 6th consecutive campaign. It's not to say that I have a more viable or better approach, but the number of players at my table might add some weight to my words.
See, if I go off the path with any player, 9 sit there. At 10 players, it's not about game flow or pacing. It's about herding cats. It's management of people and their time rather than in-game stuff. If a table of 5 loses half their players, you need to yank 2-3 players back in. When I lose half my players, the table is gone, as 5 are on their phones or away from the table.
Here's what I do:
At the extreme end, use a stopwatch. Set your phone for 30 seconds. 1 minute. Whatever suits you best. When that time is up, tell the player to finish their sentence/thought and move on. If you're speaking, wrap it up. Go around the table in clockwise order - with a clock. It's perhaps excessive but a great exercise to track the sort of player time your giving. It doesn't have to be 1 minute. It can be 10 minutes, as that might be necessary to get things done. When done running Conan through shenanigans for 10 minutes, ask Batman what he wants to do. Now Batman gets 10 minutes. Write it down in your journal. At night's end, if it says, Batman: 1 hour 10 minutes and Conan: 3 hours, you have a problem.
Another option is to run your ROLEplay in rounds. Use combat timing. (You don't need to actually roll initiative, but keep the narrative at combat pacing.) Point to your immediate left, and say, "what do you want to do?". They do that thing. Go to that place. Give a brief description of what happens - as you would when they swing a sword at a goblin. Then move on to the next player - "what do you want to do?". All the way around and back to the player on your immediate left. You say, "so you arrive at the dwarven merchant, so on and so forth. In a gruff voice, he ushers you into his shop and says, what can I do fer ya?" Ask how the player responds, elaborate on it very briefly, then move to the next player.
These don't have to be things that continue in your game. They simply create awareness. Do it enough, and let's just say - I've run 10 players at my table, I've hinted at what will happen when 6th edition comes out, and so on. All 10 expressed GREAT interest in coming back. They wouldn't have it any other way they say. They'd be pissed if I reduced it to 5 or 6 players.
The time keeping isn’t a shabby idea. I wish I had a little hourglass or . . . is it an egg timer? The cranked ones that tick back, for kitchen use usually I think? That’d be handy
Jacked_Goblin hit the nail on the head. I don’t think you need to keep track of the time, but after a couple minutes or whatever with a player say “alright we’ll come back to that in a second” look to someone else “what are you guys doing?” Rinse and repeat around the table. Kinda like a conductor leading a beautiful symphony......except it’s D&D lol.
This is why I love these forums, it’s a constant refresher course on DMing, now I’m prepared if I’m ever in that scenario too.
You can just take a couple minutes in your head and then switch to another scene.
You could use an hourglass and then switch scenes.
Or you could develop a habit of handling these away from the table between sessions.
But one way of making them shorter is to get a sense of how the player does RP and then come up with a modifier that is appropriate for the situation. Straight up ask the player, "What do you want?" Then roll for success or failure and move on. It kills RP, but the session moves along.
I have a problem related to this in my game. I am playing a Bard so I am often the face of the party. I use a lot of small talk to help me decide how I am going to pose the real question, and then, when I ask my question the DM usually gives me advantage. However, this takes longer and other non-RP players get 'bored.' If the DM would decide up front, OK Bardy gets to roll with advantage because he knows how to negotiate, now what's your question? OK roll with advantage. [Pow!] things can move along, but I just don't get to enjoy the RP.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
another thing I do (and of course you can as well) is invest more time into your PCs outside of game time. Through email, I go back and forth with my players all the time. They tell me what they want to do, I respond, etc. In this manner, they feel like I'm not ignoring their requests and wishes while obviously, not taking the spotlight from anyone at the table.
After all the 1-on-1 emails, I look through it all and figure out what I need to consider during my preparation for the next session. The stuff I include (from the emails) makes it into the next session. When that stuff comes up at the table, the player glows and is excited - yet the other PCs don't have to sludge through the 45 minutes of 'how we got there.'
We do group chat and one-on-one IM stuff for precisely that purpose, Jacked_Goblin, but damn if they didn’t all just seem kinda out of it and lost last weekend. Idk if I wasn’t bringing the energy levels or what, but I kept trying to nudge things in directions they said they wanted to go in, and it never happened.
Hey all!
ive been fortunate enough to have fallen into DMing for a particularly fabulous group whose players all seem particularly invested in the story I’ve put together. As follows from such a scenario, they often want to mingle with each other or with other NPCs one-on-one or in small groups during downtime moments in towns and their base of operations, and I’d like to give them similar opportunities coming up soon.
However, recent attempts and player requests for such scenes have me feeling less than confident in my own ability to manage time and the table during these scenes. Some players won’t say much at all, others really dig into minutiae or random asides, and all in all, I fret over making people wait an eternity for the chance to have something to do. Two players didn’t get to do anything at all last session and I was really dispirited and disappointed at how a constant stream of, “Just one more little thing”-s edged those players out. At least one was furious, and I fear the other may be as well. I DO NOT want a repeat performance ever again.
So, my question for all of you is, how do you go about things like this? Have you run scenes or arcs like this? I played a prior campaign as a PC where we were investigating a murder mystery while on a caravan, and that arc was almost exclusively one-on-one scenes with NPCs. I can’t remember how the DM structured it, and maybe it WAS just a lot of waiting around, but I remember it being my favorite arc of that game and remember it containing the meat of our character development and role playing as a party. I’d like to give my players now a similar experience.
Advice? Tips? Things to steer clear of? I should note that, given the pandemic, this is of course an online campaign, so that does limit some approaches.
Thanks folks!
I think we've all dealt with the party splitting up and some people go do something that takes forever while other people just sit around. Most recently for me one player wanted to go back to the inn and take a short rest, so the other members decided to go venture off for a bit and ended up getting into some combat that took awhile IRL, leaving the other player sitting around doing nothing and I felt bad for her. So I've told the players to just try not to split the party if you can and I am ok with "metagaming" when it comes to making sure the party sticks together (obviously with exceptions) for the sake of fun at the table.
I'd start out by talking to the players that are very social in game, and suggest to them to maybe get some of the other people involved in their social interactions that don't normally do that. I forget who I saw post this, but I saw it put nicely on the forums here recently, D&D is a cooperative game and when the cooperative aspect is compromised the game falls apart and I tend to agree with this.
As far as your concern, unfortunately I have no idea how you would run a whole arc that was heavily focused on 1-on-1 scenes while making it feel like everyone is involved the whole time without waiting around. I'm sure there is a formula that can work. Maybe from your perspective as the DM/NPCs, really focus on those players that are feeling left out, and make sure you have preparations for them since they seem to be less of the initiative takers, and the other ones you don't even have to worry about, they'll just take care of it themselves. That's the best I got, good luck!
That’s exactly what happened to one of mine! She wanted a long rest after kicking ass in a boss fight at the tail end of the last session, which shouldn’t have been a huge issue, but scenes I’d expected to take no more than a few moments wound up stretching into like an hour each. I couldn’t just tell them what to do and wanted the NPCs to behave believably, but goddamn, it felt like a total failure on a level I’ve not felt since I started DMing. I’m hoping she forgives me.
As for the other player who is much more unhappy, they were a new recruit who was SUPPOSED to hop in after our midpoint break, when I’d hoped they’d have gone to a new town (it was the only location that made sense story wise). Thing is, they never made it to the be town, even with me like flat-out cutting them off on other NPC interactions for the night. Idk if I need to talk to people about giving each other airtime, if I need to have, like, a non-combat encounter initiative order, or what. I think I’m going to start giving some NPCs things they need to do elsewhere so they’ve/I’ve got outs if players are super chatty or up to some shenanigans that may take awhile
If you're trying to get to a certain point to introduce new PCs, tell your players.
As for focusing on solo scenes, it isn't a problem as long as the scenes are interesting to the other players. This is one of the few times when a TRPG can engage in the spectator sort of fun. If the scenes are boring or only interesting for the one involved, you should try to avoid them or keep them short.
That’s been my hope, that the others will listen for lore being snuck in, will take an interest in each other’s stories, and won’t just want to do boring and ordinary things when it’s their turns.
I think part of the problem is that there’s not enough tension with some NPC interactions, and that’s on me. I’ll have to note that going forward.
I think I’m gonna start using initiative for these sorts of things, and/or I’m gonna ask for a synopsis of what they want to do. The DM I mentioned originally would do that, now that I think of it, and I recall it being helpful. Initiative order takes pressure off me and puts it on whatever they all rolled.
I run 10 players. I have since 5E came out and we are on our 6th consecutive campaign. It's not to say that I have a more viable or better approach, but the number of players at my table might add some weight to my words.
See, if I go off the path with any player, 9 sit there. At 10 players, it's not about game flow or pacing. It's about herding cats. It's management of people and their time rather than in-game stuff. If a table of 5 loses half their players, you need to yank 2-3 players back in. When I lose half my players, the table is gone, as 5 are on their phones or away from the table.
Here's what I do:
At the extreme end, use a stopwatch. Set your phone for 30 seconds. 1 minute. Whatever suits you best. When that time is up, tell the player to finish their sentence/thought and move on. If you're speaking, wrap it up. Go around the table in clockwise order - with a clock. It's perhaps excessive but a great exercise to track the sort of player time your giving. It doesn't have to be 1 minute. It can be 10 minutes, as that might be necessary to get things done. When done running Conan through shenanigans for 10 minutes, ask Batman what he wants to do. Now Batman gets 10 minutes. Write it down in your journal. At night's end, if it says, Batman: 1 hour 10 minutes and Conan: 3 hours, you have a problem.
Another option is to run your ROLEplay in rounds. Use combat timing. (You don't need to actually roll initiative, but keep the narrative at combat pacing.) Point to your immediate left, and say, "what do you want to do?". They do that thing. Go to that place. Give a brief description of what happens - as you would when they swing a sword at a goblin. Then move on to the next player - "what do you want to do?". All the way around and back to the player on your immediate left. You say, "so you arrive at the dwarven merchant, so on and so forth. In a gruff voice, he ushers you into his shop and says, what can I do fer ya?" Ask how the player responds, elaborate on it very briefly, then move to the next player.
These don't have to be things that continue in your game. They simply create awareness. Do it enough, and let's just say - I've run 10 players at my table, I've hinted at what will happen when 6th edition comes out, and so on. All 10 expressed GREAT interest in coming back. They wouldn't have it any other way they say. They'd be pissed if I reduced it to 5 or 6 players.
Something must be going right.
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
The time keeping isn’t a shabby idea. I wish I had a little hourglass or . . . is it an egg timer? The cranked ones that tick back, for kitchen use usually I think? That’d be handy
It's D&D. Just get this
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
Ha! I was gifted one rather like that a few years ago but gave it up in a cross-continent move.
Jacked_Goblin hit the nail on the head. I don’t think you need to keep track of the time, but after a couple minutes or whatever with a player say “alright we’ll come back to that in a second” look to someone else “what are you guys doing?” Rinse and repeat around the table. Kinda like a conductor leading a beautiful symphony......except it’s D&D lol.
This is why I love these forums, it’s a constant refresher course on DMing, now I’m prepared if I’m ever in that scenario too.
You can just take a couple minutes in your head and then switch to another scene.
You could use an hourglass and then switch scenes.
Or you could develop a habit of handling these away from the table between sessions.
But one way of making them shorter is to get a sense of how the player does RP and then come up with a modifier that is appropriate for the situation. Straight up ask the player, "What do you want?" Then roll for success or failure and move on. It kills RP, but the session moves along.
I have a problem related to this in my game. I am playing a Bard so I am often the face of the party. I use a lot of small talk to help me decide how I am going to pose the real question, and then, when I ask my question the DM usually gives me advantage. However, this takes longer and other non-RP players get 'bored.' If the DM would decide up front, OK Bardy gets to roll with advantage because he knows how to negotiate, now what's your question? OK roll with advantage. [Pow!] things can move along, but I just don't get to enjoy the RP.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
To piggyback onto all of this -
another thing I do (and of course you can as well) is invest more time into your PCs outside of game time. Through email, I go back and forth with my players all the time. They tell me what they want to do, I respond, etc. In this manner, they feel like I'm not ignoring their requests and wishes while obviously, not taking the spotlight from anyone at the table.
After all the 1-on-1 emails, I look through it all and figure out what I need to consider during my preparation for the next session. The stuff I include (from the emails) makes it into the next session. When that stuff comes up at the table, the player glows and is excited - yet the other PCs don't have to sludge through the 45 minutes of 'how we got there.'
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
We do group chat and one-on-one IM stuff for precisely that purpose, Jacked_Goblin, but damn if they didn’t all just seem kinda out of it and lost last weekend. Idk if I wasn’t bringing the energy levels or what, but I kept trying to nudge things in directions they said they wanted to go in, and it never happened.