I think we've all been there: games sometimes start late, sometimes portions of the game take longer, etc. Either way, you can't quite finish the game in the time allotted.

It happened to me last night; the players were all ready to confront the big bad in the next room, but there was absolutely no way they could finish the fight in the 8 minute window left to play. There wasn't enough content to do a "To be continued..." cliffhanger for next time. So, when the players stormed the room, rather than confront the dangerous villain, they came face to face with a time bomb about to explode and the bad guy escaping to be fought again another day. They unfortunately also missed out on the reward for completing the mission.

So, what are the ways a GM can cut down a session without it feeling incomplete? When it happens, I don't feel like I should reward the players with the planned spoils, but should I inject some sort of consolation prize later?

In our group, we just say “Okay, let’s hit the pause button here, we’ll pick up again next time”.

Leave the awarding of XP to the next session, leave the collecting of loot to the next session, etc….

You have to trust that the GM will do his job of making that final scene appropriately epic, and will have time to figure out what the next steps might be.

In the old movie serials, they would always end on a cliffhanger, and make you wait until the next installment to finish that story and then start the next one.

In my experience, the same mechanism works well in this environment. Of course, YMMV.

I think you handled it just about perfectly.

A rule of thumb could be have the next thing the party does turn out 180 degrees from where they had planned it to turn out. If they think they're going to fight the big baddie, have them come across his corpse. If they're just about to break into a safe, have it be unlocked and empty. Whatever they're about to do, someone has beaten them to the punch. Now they have to figure out who did it, how, and why.

Alternatives could be the target is actually friendly and wants their help; everyone recoginzes the target and he's personally involved with every party member (he's my uncle -and- Tom's father's best friend -and- Susan's grade school teacher!?); there are innocents in the room and the BBEG is using human shields; etc.

Try to think up a quick twist so that the players have to deal with something that came out of left field and can think about it between sessions.

If a session does not suffice to complete the whole story arc, I always try to end it on a cliffhanger. But I do not change the plot too much for that. No escaping big bads for example, just pausing before the fight, if possible in some dramatic way.

I always write detailed logs of all our RPG sessions, so that we can continue right at the spot we left. I operate a RPG wiki for my campaigns and groups. All players have an account and can access the logs and NPC lists and all the other stuff at any time, even adding stuff or correcting mistakes and so on. It works fairly well (but also takes some work).

Were your players upset with the escaped adversary? Did this create a let down for the evening that would have normally ended on a good note? If the answer is yes, then the pause button described above may be better for your group.

How long between sessions? If it's just a week, I again think the pause may be better. If you may not be playing again for a couple months for some reason, then I would go with the great escape you used. If the players can barely recall where the action paused, that could be a problem when you start it back up unless you took lots of notes to get them back up-to-date.

For me, it depends on the reason for running out of time. I run EotE at my local game shop, and we have a little flexibility with closing time, but we sometimes run too long.

Sometimes it's distractions (Like the Armada game going on at the next table) or too much joke telling. (What Monty Python is to D&D, Spaceballs is to Star Wars)

I also run a basically ongoing campaign, so I have no problem ending at time, and picking up next time. It's usually 2 weeks, but I also keep a log.

I still give out xp at the end, and usually don't have a problem with Session re-sets. (Destiny pool, Strain, per session abilities).

If the reason for a delay is that the players spend a lot of time going off track (D&D example, looting every bad guy they defeat along the way) then there's a very good narrative reason for the main objective to elude them.

I'm not big on the escape clause, but I always prefer to end on a cliffhanger if any way possible. You could have had them open the door, describe the scene and make it moody. Ending with "We'll roll initiative next week!" I will say, this is one of the things I love about playing in living rooms. We've never once had a moment of "Oh... we've only got 8 minutes left before we have to end..." Our flexibility is in half hours and we have no set finish time. As a GM, you just have to keep a beat on the pulse of the night and sometimes push through to a better climactic moment, or end early building suspense.

I prefer the cliffhanger as well.

Adds more suspense to the game. If done well enough the players are itching to resolve the moment in time.