My "musts":
- spells/extracts prepared/known must be written in ink on index cards or typed up and modifiers penciled beside static values
- weapons used must be written down as if they were spells (see above)
- dice rolls must be called out by a nearby player (occasionally I get players that will lie about every single roll)
- I keep a stack of index cards handy so that players aren't digging out books or tablets every three minutes
- I keep track of how much gold the characters have so there's no second guessing.
- I keep everyone's character sheet and email copies as requested.
- no books are kept at the table; no one wants their books covered in crumbs and we're not digging up generic monster manual stats every time someone "wonders" something
- no pdas/phones at the table; we're adults and we know to avoid distractions
Index cards are the single greatest time-saver a GM and player can use. Great for keeping track of conditions and spells and bonuses. Also good for initiative.
Pacing is always tricky it just takes experience but remember you don't have to finish an adventure each session let the players set the pace
Sometimes players will spend ages on something that you thought would only take 5 minutes just go with the flow
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I've had the pre-adventure shopping trip in town take close to 2 hours before because my players just love to shop and sometimes they just get chatty with an NPC. As long as the group is being entertained I just roll with it.
As Tony says above, you don't need to finish in one session unless it's a one-shot. Just keep an eye on your players for signs of boredom or apathy. If someone is getting restless it may be time to move onto the next scene.
I also try and think one step ahead of my players when we're getting close to the end of a session. If I know someone has to leave in 30 minutes and the next encounter is a long one that will take longer than that to finish then I'll call a night before we reach that encounter.
If you're GMing one-shots you may want to check the PFS forums for advice. From what I understand these are games that are set to finish in a set time frame and you may find advice there about how to stay on track.
Another tip is if the first half of the session went slower than expected look for an encounter you can cut from the second half without hurting your story too much. You can always recycle that encounter for a future play session.
For as prepared as I am at the table, I usually go by my internal clock for pacing; my players have made comments to the effect that it feels either high octane or foreboding. I probably have two ways of describing events: visceral or emotive; and that's the cards I play, it's frenetic fight-for-your-life combat punctuated by a dread of the unknown. I usually write out read aloud texts beforehand but sometimes I can embellish on the fly. The thing is that I as a GM don't really keep a clock on what time we stop, and leave that to my buddies by how long their personal time constraints allow them to play; I usually have far more prepared than is necessary thankfully. Thing is that I only do a small amount of high level games and the players get real slowed down if we do play high level; my last game was 14th level and lasted two encounters during the whole play session, minus the backdrop and inn stuff.
It often does end mid-fight in my experience, and man I've had to retcon entire fights because of bad book-keeping or some other issue, and just start the thing over. I love the creative aspect to writing and even approaching writing adventures; it's good to see that others do as well, I look at table-time as sort of an unveiling of the mad creation I came up with. Over the years I've had some good, others not so much, but it's fun to see the players interact. The time constraint is somewhat of a bummer from time to time, but we always plot and scheme for next time.
I really do need to invest in some index cards just to try them out while it is back to school season; I've never tried them but it sounds so essential to so many that I feel like I'm missing out.
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I dont formally use any system to manage time. If its going to take all night to RP out a situation than it takes all night. Our sessions run about 5 hours so we manage to get in a few combats now and then. Some nights we RP it all away.
When it comes to combat though I run a tight game as GM. I never let the players track initiative. They never keep up or move along timely IME. I pretty much say "ok what do you do, thats great, now what do you do, etc.." to make sure the combat doesnt drag and eat up all our time.
So yeah combat is run like a clock but everything else gets done when it gets done.
I run my game on a weeknight, 7:30 PM to 11:00. We play weekly. I generally allow the first half-hour for out-of-game chit-chat, late arrivals, food, etc, and then I try to get to brass tacks by 8:00. That gives us a three-hour game session. I have four players, of varying levels of experience with PFRPG.
I try my darndest to keep combat running smoothly. I make sure my players have their common attacks calculated in advance. We use Buff Cards and Status Cards to keep track of things like that. (Actually, our Status Cards are homemade by me; one of the players bought a Buff Deeck.) I post combat initiative on a small whiteboard that everyone can see.
A player has two minutes to declare an action (I use a smartphone app for that). If s/he doesn't declare, then the PC is holding action until an action is declared.
For non-combat encounters, we try to play it first-person, and I let it take as long as it needs to take. I will jump in and speed things up, summarize, or move things along if the players seem to be flailing, confused, and/or bored. I try to include at least one role-playing encounter and at least one combat encounter in every session.
To get a sense of timing, if I run a PFS scenario (non-sanctioned, and usually modified somewhat to fit my campaign plot), it usually takes two sessions to complete it.
