Sage Advice D&D

hello and welcome to GM tips I’m your host sateen Phoenix co-creator of Mazur Khanna and a dungeon master on Fury’s reach today’s theme is keeping pace most of the questions I received from the hashtag asks a teen how to get players to do a thing during the story to keep it moving the honest answer is slow pacing isn’t just a player’s fault it’s part gamemaster too let’s look at some of the things that slowed down a game on the players side of the table metagaming rather than making a decision based on your character and their interactions you and your fellow players look at each other sheets make out of character suggestions to players during their turn use knowledge from outside of the game to influence the decisions of your character or your fellow players character choices in game and decision the fear of making the wrong choice in the story or worry that your choice might upset the other players not knowing your character not knowing your abilities powers spells not knowing where items are in your character sheet not remembering all the actions you can take until halfway into someone else’s turn not paying attention to what the players are doing around you you’re so busy with your character you’re not paying attention to what your fellow players have done since your last turn even though it could affect what you do next on your phone chatting via text Twitter answering work emails this prevents you from being present and it’s only okay if you discuss why you need to be doing this with your group ahead of time not hearing what the game master is explained maybe this is because another player was whispering something to you or you were on your phone or trying to figure out what your powers do now let’s look at some of the things I could slow down a game from the Gian side of the screen generally being unprepared having to look up bad guys stats having to look up locations having to tell players what their characters abilities are and how they work having to walk players through things they can do during an encounter setting up or drawing maps not having minis prepared ahead of time remember some of these things can’t be held I’m just pointing out the culprits as the game master there are a few things you can do to help your players be more prepared let them know ahead of time what you expect from them this pregame speech will resolve a lot of pacing issues sometimes the players don’t know what’s okay and what’s not okay at the table so tell them all as a collective what you expect and answer questions up front there are three major issues that need to be addressed upfront metagaming nomadic gaming or light metagaming or no mini gaming but Bobby can you help sally because she’s new and only for today’s game phones at the table no phones at the table ever or no phones at the table unless you’re using it as your players handbook here’s a big one don’t interrupt the game master when you interrupt the game master you might lose information they thoughtfully put together or make the GM lose track of items that might have helped you making a GM repeat themselves is incredibly frustrating as a player I raise my hand when I want to ask the GM a question or if a group of players seems to be losing their way and discussing things loudly and I want a chance to be heard but I’m not good at being loud enough to break into groups aggressive discussion asking my players to do this ahead of time allows even the quietest of players to feel that they can be heard here are things that you as a GM can do behind the scenes to prepare the game’s pace before the game starts prepare if you present a bad guy or monster to the group how their stats ready to go either in print out or in a tab in your book characters don’t randomly wander into the next town or village you know the area they’re in and what surrounds it make sure you write down what these locations are and what kind of folk they contain you don’t have to over prepare details you can improv your way through NPCs and some shops but no the lander in keep a timer or clocked pre-plan one event should hit during the game no matter what stick to them within 10 minutes pre draw maps pre pick minis pre named NPCs or have books on hand that will assist here’s one test your adventure not many people have the time to do this but if you test your session on a different group ahead of time you get to find out where the sessions weaknesses and timing issues are before you get to your main group here’s the things that you can do with the players to prepare them so that they have what they need to keep the game moving long term game player help assist your player in building their characters and their character backstories walk them through where items are on their page and most used parts of the sheet HP AC saving throws skills weapons etc color code things for them if it gets confusing only lately of icing character sheets where human factors have been a part of its design find designs that work best for your player the more they’re prepared and connected to their characters details the faster their decisions of what to do in any given situation are short term game player help walk them through pre-made characters if it gives people pre-made characters find a way to simplify the information so they only use what’s needed in a one shot they can make up their own backstory or use a sentence to quickly convey at a kind of person the character is highlight the main abilities make things easy to read one shots are usually only a couple hours so it’s better to get the information across to the player as fast as possible so they don’t spend the little hours they do have to play overwhelmed with 100 abilities player cheat sheet give them a sheet that quickly tells them what they can do can be a flash card think of things people ask the jam for how far can things move what’s advantage what happens when you’re prone what actions can I take on my turn making sure you and your players are prepared ahead of time are just two of the many ways you can keep your game moving forward I could roll on but let’s talk to Steven channel the man behind troll or games and castles and Crusades Steven thank you so much for coming thank you for having me we are talking about ways to keep pace you have a lot of ways to keep pace I know you from all of the convention game rush and you are pretty amazing at keeping the game moving even though you don’t know any of the players yeah well thank you for that and even if I have 25 odd people like I guess my biggest game is 25 people and I’ve added and I try to keep the pace going all the time but you actually design that into your games right generally speaking the first thing I do is that kind of avoid dungeons when I’m running most con games it is harder to keep pace in dungeons but in environment you know outdoors mountains what having paces much much easier and it if you get your pace right you can engage all the players around the table all the time and keep them engaged yeah can you explain that a little for well you know one of the things I do any kind of environment can be challenging whether you’re climbing a cliff going up or down whether you’re lost in the woods crossing a river you know whatever it is and because environment changes so quickly when you’re moving you can be in a flat you know prairie for a little bit and then a few minutes later you’re a gulps that you got to go down and there’s a creek to the bottom of the goal of just God you know the headwaters were springing it so there’s so many things that you can do so very fast if the game slows you can change your terrain at the end of the day they don’t know what’s beyond that hedgerow can you just make it up that’s true so how do you keep pace with in the environment for the different kinds of players that you have and that that’s it gets a little bit more challenging and it’s easiest to do well I shouldn’t say easiest it’s more complicated but easy to do with monsters because then you can get into the action and the blood and the grid but it’s better to do it with terrain because you can control the terrain so very very much they’re slipping down the cliff face there’s a root system they can grab you know there’s all kinds of things you can do if you’re aware of terrain a little bit if you’ve been out hiking or anything you know how what’s out there and you can just keep throwing that at them time and time again it’s pretty much anyone whether they’re heavy role players are heavy mechanics guys or whatever it is will either have to react where they will react to the terrain where is if you’re doing monsters it may not you know they may not like ant fight this monster I don’t have the ability yes you’re going down the cliffs you got to go down a cliff I mean no matter whether you’re a paladin or a thief it doesn’t matter well how do you make it so they don’t feel railroaded well that’s kind of a the other nice thing about terrain because they don’t know what’s going on beyond that hedgerow you can just change it as you go and they really don’t know and if you use keywords like I’m always we did a book called carry Gog axes world building years and years ago a fantastic book and it’s just filled with lists of stuff that Gary and I fell on a damn cross had put together and it’s just filled with so much information about three types of bushes types and anything and if you’re if you’re describing something and you say the aspen tree is on the other side of the hedgerow no one knows what an aspen tree looks like but they envision something in their head so it kind of engages them you know immediately to go into that so terrain just gives you all of these opportunities to engage just about anybody very very quickly so some characters take to it really easily but son or have that weird indecision freeze up thing that happens how do you handle those kind of players in a game where the environment kind of moves things along that’s tricky because you don’t want to put them in a situation that they can’t get out of you know regardless and so that the knee-jerk reaction is to have the terrain change quickly beneath them the cliff begins to give way the water starts to rise you know whatever so they have to do something but once you’ve done that you’ve committed yourself on a path of possibly killing the gardener if they stay in das’s and decisive they’re going to slide down the cliff you know and and die but them generally speaking when I’m trying to to engage them without overdoing it i soften the terrain a little bit if you slide down the cliff you can see there’s mud down there you may you may not hit it what do you do you know that meant something you just change it a little bit and that’s the joy of terrain is you can change it so long as they don’t know what’s in front of them you can change it very very fast and they’re not going to know they’re being railroaded because they don’t know they don’t know what’s coming ahead here’s a question how do you keep pace without leaving people out some characters are quiet and maybe aren’t making a lot of decisions and other characters are kind of taking the reins and moving things along and that’s what I happen in your game you run you’re someone’s going to take charge it just always is the way it is and what I try to do and this is again where pacing becomes so important I try to do rapid rounds so that when I’m going around the table and I always start on my right hand side so everybody knows how I’m going to run the game I start here I don’t linger on any one person even the person who’s like I’ve got a guy at the table every time he takes charge he doesn’t want to but he just gets naturally done but I just like salute them what do you do he tells what it and I go to Nashville I don’t give him time to pontificate or and he appreciates that because he wants everyone you know engaged so if you’re going fast those people who don’t really want our little nervous or shy whatever the case may be they don’t feel put upon because it’s fast they’re in and out you know and they’re done and that helps I think a lot in engaging those people with health overly engaging them and spooking them from the whole getting yeah I’ve noticed that a lot of people have been getting they’re so indecisive that I’m having to just say well you took too long now we’re skipping your turn and I kind of feel rude for doing it but at the same time because they’re taking so long during their action it’s rude to everybody else because you know then they’re waiting and also slows down the entire game how do you do it so you don’t feel rude well I got two things it non-game I’ll tell people quite jokingly now my regulars know this is where I game if I’m doing the lightening actions you know very very fast round I got a five-second rule and I’ll do the because and I’ll explain in the beginning some of these encounters are you know it’s all built around what’s happening right now so I want instantaneous reactions some of our classes are even built that way you can’t use your ability if you don’t react inside yeah so I’ll do this I’ll let everybody know this isn’t so if you see my hand coming up you’re slowing too much but I always do it as a joke you know joking around but then when you’re wrapping around against someone excuse me doing this they get so invariably they’ll say something whether it’s you know – or not hold it hold my action that’s actually frequently which is always it’s a legitimate action great you’re holding for this ramp to go to the next guy don’t it’s too easy to say really you really want to hold you don’t want to catch the spell you don’t want to do any of it so that’s actually a dungeon master issue right there yes absolutely almost catering to and convincing a metagaming it’s sort of it is kind of meta coordinated and i catered to players a lot in that in that regard but I don’t ever sing on the Mount average white you’re being too slow you’re being too in descent you can never believe it because everyone’s there to play and once you start singling people out then they get self-conscious and then they’re not having fun and the whole point is that we’re there to have fun that’s the key to the whole thing is to have fun and you don’t want to make someone uncomfortable and all you don’t want to do any of it and that’s either that’s always going to go bad they’re either going to stop playing and it’s going to get worse where they’re going to get mad and it’s going to get a lot worse so there’s just no good and it’s calling someone out for do it and if they don’t do anything you just roll to the next person and just okay got it you know you know just don’t sing all of it let’s talk a little bit about bringing players back and how to engage them oh if you’ve lost someone it’s tough because once they start going down that road it can get bad you know with the phones and all of the business so generally what I try to do is break my stride I’ll be over here talking to this person now immediately pivot mid-sentence and say okay the grant the cranes are falling out beneath you or the river source what do you do and in that person’s the caught off guard but they want to react the phone is going to go down and they make a Dix chain you know whatever whatever they’re doing I do this I try to do this and everyone else jumps up because they’re engaged to right and it’s and and they’re also wondering why are we out of order what happen why their wives chaos suddenly entered the game yeah and it really does engage everybody and it doesn’t matter if something’s actually happening I will have people making attribute checks for nothing they will be sitting there just thinking I’ll go give me a deck scare what what what and then they’re sitting there waiting and there’s another absolutely nothing going on back there just just so they’re doing the joy of dice they love rolling dice I love rolling dice we all love rolling dice and then they pay attention because it away didn’t refocus and everyone else like wanted to make that check what is happening and you’re just sitting back he didn’t say anything is there something good good and you another thing you can do to actually prepare for that is I frequently have everybody make checks or wisdom check before the game starts everybody give me with something Oh add all your stuff to it and I’ll write it down and then later I’ll say what was that wisdom check you made at the beginning of the game and I’m like oh 14 oh yeah and then for something else it doesn’t mean anything but it engages with me makes you think oh there’s a bigger picture going on here there’s something happening here what is your pregame house rule well beside the five want to hold up my hand think generally speaking I tell players whether I’m at a convention and my local gamers know it did anything goes I don’t want people to think I don’t have this ability I can’t try something try anything and I’m going to have you make an attribute check whether you succeed or not that’s a whole different discussion foot try anything that’s that’s generally my my go-to rule I know you’ve gamed it for a really long time what is your favorite jam moment I was at a con and a Carbondale Illinois and there’s these two brothers and they were young at the time I’ve known these guys so long they have since joined the army served in Iraq and come back oh wow I mean so these two young guys were had to rip my river crossing the thing that I do and they couldn’t get across the river and they were two dwarves so what they did is they cut a tree down and they limbed it and they put all of the other players on the tree now they’re both have plate mail and chain and they tied themselves together and they hung themselves over the tree as ballast to keep the trees but it’s awesome there’s no way and it’s just delicious but I had to make a bunch of after he checks and survive and get across the river because it was so cool it’s just so often watching these two Douglas I mean it was it was so funny that has to be one of my my favorite year sent it quick tip to the audience yeah you know go back to what we’re talking about just keep your pacing if you keep you keep everybody engaged I think you’ll keep your table pretty happy people want to be there to gain and like you said they want to have fun and they’re not having fun if they’re just sitting there listening to someone else or listening to you drone on about some villages history it’s cool to you yeah I know what you’re talking about though and that is our show for today thank you all for joining us here on geek and sundry thank you Steve for coming all the way out to LA to join us thank you for having me where can we find you on the Internet WW trollwood no it’s www Lord comm and from there you can find all of this you know Facebook Twitter and all this and other four castles in Crusades amazing adventures victorious you can find all of that stuff from that portal and get you everywhere you want to be fantastic I’m setting Phoenix you can find me at sateen Phoenix you can catch me every Sunday on twitch.tv slash maser kana in orphan echo and Tuesday is dungeon mastering furious reach on twitch TV slash D and E and on sagas of sundry dredge on project alpha comm Steven will ugm us out of here you’ve come to a river it’s the Powder River you’ve been here dozen times you know the bridge spans the river but you also know what’s the range water’s up the apex of the bridge you can see it halfway across the river but it’s going to be a dangerous trip no reason to cross the river right just wait and go down in a few days but on the other side you see a mule it’s got a rope hanging from the tall Tory’s got some packs on its back but there’s no owner in sight clearly beyond that you hear the noise something coming through what’s what is it you do you hide if you hide whatever comes through those those woods is going to get the mule I wait slowly you see the woods part a large giant comes out he’ll giant he’s looking around clearly looking for something – what is it you did it I wait he crosses the road he sees the mule the mule Bray’s clearly scared he starts to run his tether gets hung up in some roots and Trunks or pulling is trying to pull itself away science miles long are you going across no way man the mule guys and feed the time I didn’t die you survived us absorb fuel you [Music]

Sage Advice D&D

Questions on Dungeons & Dragons answered by designers

Widgets

Any one city in Forgotten Realms that you feel should get more attention?

One of my players is proposing a Celestial Warlock for an Eberron campaign

“We are adventurers, we seek all who pain us”

Satine Phoenix DM Tips: Keeping Pace

When some goon hits your guy, and you barely survive… that’s Armour eh!

It’s a decent distance, did they have particular knowledge of Aerenal or did they just sail away and bump into it?

Which is the most Lankhmar-style city in the Forgotten Realms?

Awakened animals

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: