I can think of few things more important than this in how you run your game. A great scene or section of your game can be ruined by having it linger so long it becomes boring, or by shutting it down too early despite player interest in the situation. The mean attention span these days is quite short, and if you are of a generation after X especially you are likely to have an even shorter attention span. Add to this a bountiful garden of media and video game pursuits tempting the average imaginative person, Family & Kids, your job, and any other hobbies, and there is a lot to compete with for TTRPG.
I find that when I play in community groups you can nearly always count on pacing problems to occur in the game. It's endemic of games that use tactical maps and minis, and of games that are normally thought of as "crawl-heavy" such as D&D. Matt Coleville, whom I think is generally very good on describing these issues, goes so far as to say that an entire session of "slog" as he calls it is inevitable from time to time.
I say BS.
With the right attention to pacing and with players and GM working together to start, convey, and most importantly end scenes when they are in a good spot to be ended, the Slog can be avoided. Some things I think are necessary to have a good flow:
- Shared Narrative Control of Descriptions - When the onus is on the GM the game revolves around the GM's pace at nearly all times. I feel that this is especially bad with a GM who acts like Sigourney Weaver's character from Galaxy Quest, Gwen . The GM parrots every thing the Players say in the form of a description, making it necessary to wait for the same things to be said over and over again. Especially in this game the Players should be able to do a lot of description without it being modified by a GM version 2.
- Reading Player Attention - I find that players will tell you if they are interested in a scene by how they interact with it. If you try to go to fast players will let you know they wanted to stay in the scene. If you end a boring or slow scene they will usually be fine with the move and focus on the next situation.
- Be a Scene Terminator - Don't let scenes drag on and on. As a player I hate this more than anything I think: having to sit through scenes in which nothing is being accomplished and the description is going on ad nauseum. Ending scenes is one of the best ways to keep the game moving, and the Screen Wipe in Star Wars is such a great tool for this.
What are some other ways to keep the pace of the game going strong?