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Hello fellow GMs,
I was wondering if I could get everyone's thoughts on how to pace a PF scenario well, what the standard pacing should be (and how to track it), and how to get things moving back on track if you're late.
I think starting the session quickly is the most important thing, to get and keep momentum. However, many things conspire against this. For example, your gaming sessions starts at 9am. You know how it is... mustering, people arriving at your table late (home or convention game), players fumbling around. Maybe the table is technically read by 9:15am? When do you actually start the session? When do you feel the mission speech section should be complete? How do you speed up the answer / question part of that (or do you bother)? How do you control item purchases (5 minutes tops?)?
For home games, what do people feel is the best way to start the game? When you give a start time, is that the time you actually start or do you start 30 minutes after? What about late comers? And chronic late comers?
And then of course there's the middle section. Do you work out beforehand that the final encounter needs X amount of time? And then look at your watch?
Personally, I run rich games (and I like to talk a lot as GM), which is good immersion / roleplay, but things tend to run longer. So the question (for immersion GMs) is "What should we speed up?" (if anything).
PS. Also, how do you handle players that have to leave early? What if they technically do 3 of the encounters but aren't there for the final encounter? What if they don't complete a faction mission but someone at the table (of the same faction) completes it for them?
I am interested to hear responses from more experienced PFS GMs. Timing is the toughest part for me.
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This is hard to reply to, because every scenario is different. you may have one scenario where the 'mission text' is a page long and you may have one where it is this guy went missing in this region, find him. Depending on your group the second mission might take longer than the first to get out of the mission text phase, as it causes people to think and ask questions.
There's at least one scenario that the middle battle has taken my group 2 hours, where the rest of the module took them only 90 in total...
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Timing is completely determined by you, as the gm. If you have a player that is always late, tell them you start a half hour earlier than you actually start. Someone who has to leave early is a larger problem: I would attempt to power through the scenarios a bit faster so that person can have at least a chance of completing the mission. If you are just running things as a home game, however, time concerns can fall into the background. I have had home games last seven hours before!
The main thing is to try and make sure everyone has a good time. It really seems to me that people showing up late or leaving early are missing out on a lot of the fun. I don't think checking your watch every few minutes is a good thing, as that is a distraction to you and your players.
After reading the opening text, I always add: "Any questions?". That seems to speed along the q and a a bit. Also, the better you know the material, the less you have to refer to the text. My first year GM'ing at Paizocon, I was so concerned about messing something up that I pretty much memorized the scenario. Every time I ran that scenario, it was done in about 3 and 1/2 hours. Familiarity smoothes things out considerably.
Hope this helps some!
j
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Pacing is something every GM has to do. Yes, it's a very general question, yes it's a difficult question. But surely with all of the experience we have here we can talk about tricks, situations they've encountered or resolved, or something of value.
Unless of course every GM here has never run overtime and finishes all of their sessions in 4 hours "naturally".
I think I roleplay more than most DMs (I've seen) and this is part of the problem (as well as my strength).
Timing is completely determined by you, as the gm.
Sometimes everything is not completely in your control. For example, when faction missions start eating up the session. The PC won't budge until they complete it. I guess you can hand wave success (to move things along), even if the PC is saying/doing everything completely wrong, is that what GMs do? Personally, I tell the person to wait until other people do what they want to do (so they're not hogging the spotlight), but then it turns into a revolving door of faction solo missions potentially. I suppose only one scenario (Mermaid) has this problem though.
If you are just running things as a home game, however, time concerns can fall into the background. I have had home games last seven hours before!
I can't really do that though. Part of the reason we're playing PFOS is because we all have families, things to do, and limited time. Going overtime is what caused the player to leave early (he left after 4 hours). 5 hours is about our limit, then it's time to shut it down. So pacing, for me, even in a home game, is incredibly important.
Anyway, thanks for your answering, hopefully we can have some more thoughts on this, especially since it's so important.
I'd at least like to get people's thoughts on starting the session. Starting a home game is very different than a convention game though, start time is more blurry but still important.
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Here's my few little bits of advice.
1) Make sure you know the amount of time you have available before you start. People have lives, early starts in the morning, children to pick up... whatever. If you know you only have 3.5 hours at the beginning, then it is easier to stick to than being told half way through. And do try to stick to it. There is nothing worse than the players getting restless because you were supposed to finish half an our ago. This goes for double in a con setting. I have been at a table before where we the players have lost interest in an otherwise perfectly enjoyable game because it has overrun, the next slot starts in 15 mins and you haven't had the chance to get any lunch yet.
2)Pre-game chats are a good thing. They are a very good thing in fact. If your players haven't seen each other for a week or so they will want to catch up and chat about the news, sports, or that their wife as left them for the milkman. This stops these hot topics from distracting the players during the game and causing you to need to repeat things. The amount of time these pre-game cats take is fairly organic within the group so as long as it is not ridiculous and you're not pushed for time I like to let it happen.
3) Late players can cause problems. But as mentioned above, we all have lives and everyone will be late once in a while. If they estimate then are going to be late beyond 15 minutes of the start of the game then I would start and let them join in when they arrive. If someone is constantly late with no good reason then that is just rude and a gentle reminder that they are delaying the game for everyone might sort it out.
I've got to head off to run Throaty Mermaid now. I've post some thoughts on actual pacing later, after I attempt to put it into practice. Wish me luck.
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Preparation and direction
Preparation:
Preparation is about not creating gaps. Gaps are where the off-topic conversations start and concentration wanders.
- Have most locations pre-drawn or printed out or appropriate flip mats - this saves more time than you think as you get straight on into the next scene – it keeps the action flowing and stops the conversation wandering.
- Have the stats of all the creatures to hand and make sure you have looked up any special abilities and know the tactics they will use.
- Visualise the encounter in your mind to spot any issues and potential fun twists you can add.
- Know what figures you will use for each scene and have them to hand, not have to go searching for them.
- Read the GMs notes from the scenario on these forums – then you will be prepared for common contingencies without having to scour the scenario text.
- Be aware of the optional scene and don’t kid yourself you can fit it in unless you are way ahead on time.
- Know the key characters and assign them a personality (perhaps a TV character) and have 3 lines that they will say prepared
- Create a player quick reference sheet if the mission is complicated – or has several key names in it - to avoid having to refer back to the mission text.
- Have the chronicle sheets filled in with event, scenario and GM details. Just leave the XP, PA and signatures blank.
- Have pre-gens and organized play guide to hand. Often one or more of the players are happy to give newcomers the PFS intro. Encourage that as it is team building.
Direction
- Encourage pre-game intros and chat as this gets them connected and more likely to act as a party.
- Set the scene up front that there is a time limit, and that sometimes you will have to keep the action moving. Say that you plan breaks between scenes.
- As has been mentioned expect to start 15 minutes late - that’s fairly typical.
- Keep the scenario moving. As soon as intro given, missions distributed and shopping done - jump into the scenario. Give late comers just seconds to go shopping.
- After each scene take a short break or just let the conversation wander for 5 minutes. Then jump back into the action.
- Note the time taken/remaining at each scene break. Then you know how you are doing for time. Tell the players how you are doing so they can factor that it in too.
- Always keep an eye out for a fun twist or the right speech that could play off a particular character.
- If they ever seem to be lost for something to do, drop subtle hints or remind them of the mission key points.
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Just a quick note. I appeciate your responses and I agree that preparation is extremely important. Having said that, I have "Murder on the Throaty Mermaid" memorized at this point and could run it with just dice... and pacing could still potentially be a problem.
For example, everything in Zomb's prep list I did before my Mermaid game, the action was fast (time went by too fast without me noticing), and we still went overtime. So obviously pacing is more than just prep.
Pacing is probably not a problem after the first time you run a scenario, because you have experience with it. I know I'd do several things differently, now that I have experience. Like:
- Tell the early players the scenario is (on a ship, in a desert, underwater) and if they want to buy anything, do it now (as opposed to after the intro speech).
- Push the intro quickly, get into the action as fast as possible.
- Look down at my watch or timer after selected scenes.
- I think I'll write an approximate pace we should be at after each encounter now.
Explaining the time limit to the players up front is a good idea, so the players at least have some sort of sense of urgency now (instead of later).
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Timing is a hard thing to do, I haven't GM'd a whole lot.
On the GM side prep, prep, prep. I for one like to highlight a printed scenario, have a peice of paper with personal notes. Pre made map or maps, some scenarios I use 2 battle maps. For dungeon crawls I will create my own tiles to lay out. Perhaps the best make SRD spell cards printed of for the whole mod, as well as having my bestiary handy and marked with page numbers.
For players cross talk, followed by spell cards for spells. Letting a player know he is up next for initiative also helps.
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One thing I think helps me is having npc cheat cards for initiative .. use notecards that you can write out the basic information -- AC, Hp, init mod, melee weapon w/damage, ranged weapon with damage and then number how many there are on the card .. easy reference and rarely should you have to go into the mod during a combat unless you have an NPC with spells.
Don't be afraid to say "Hey guys, we're running short on time, let me cinematize the rest of this section for you so we can move on" .. then give a glowing description that, if you're prepped well, you'll know the information and can storytell them into the next area.