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?

1 hour ago, Archlyte said:

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?

I have had entire sessions of "slog", but that is usually due to things such as real-world issues: everyone just having an-off night after a long, exhausting week in the real-world kind of thing. Maybe that's what he means by "inevitable"? There have been nights that I've felt that coming on and either rescheduled the game, or we played board games instead. I've had other nights where I tried to "power through" but I just didn't have the energy and the flow and session suffered for it. I think a necessary part of keeping a good flow is knowing that this might happen, acknowledging it, and then deciding on the best course of action (Reschedule? Board Game? Another player runs a one-shot? Power through?).

With all things being equal, and my batteries fully charged, I try to keep every player engaged. One trick I used when running larger tables of 4e combat was reminding a player when they were next-up in the initiative ("Okay, now it's Flynn's turn. Gabe, you're up directly after Flynn"). They tended to pay more attention and be more prepared. Otherwise, some players check-out and don't assess the board state of combat until they are asked for their action. With open-initiative slots (and me running less combat oriented games these days), that doesn't translate to 1:1 advice in this context, exactly, but I think it's an example of keeping the players engaged so they know what's happening and can make quick, well-informed decisions regarding their actions.

I'll think on this and maybe be back with another example.

Thanks for your post. That's a great point, and I think that some Slog Sessions were situations that probably should have been called off. You don't know for sure it will go bad though, and then again for some people the desire to play is so strong that a bad night of gaming is better than a good night of watching TV etc.

I do have to say that I think the battle board slows things down and gives too much of an overhead perspective to the action, and it contributes to overall game slowness. I think constantly checking in with the players is a good tip, thank you

I think that sometimes also there is a situation that happens where the GM and Players are basically leaderless, and no one knows if there is a direction to something or if it is supposed to be happening or what. I will say that I think this happens more often with Emergent Play GMs than Railroad GMs because the RRGM is usually taking the onus.

Example-

GM: You enter the Maintenance Shop and see a skyhopper sitting under a tarp. Several workbenches and fabrication units are in the shop along with containers of raw materials and things like machine oils.

Player A: Ok I look around and see if I can find something valuable.

GM: Ok you look around and see that the farmer who owns this shop has some things in here that would be considered of value but also necessary to keep a homestead like this operating.

Player B: I am going to look around for some extra Astromech parts to make sure that if the droid's playback system malfunctions again we can fix it.

GM: By the way you haven't seen that Astromech droid since you woke up.

Player A: Hmm, I look around in the shop for the Droid Remote, or if it's not there, I'm going to see if I can craft one from the parts in the shop.

Player B: I'm going to ask the Farmer if he has seen the Droids.

GM: Ok you start assembling the parts you need to make a Droid Caller...[10-15 minutes of description and rules consultations results in the crafting of the Droid Caller]. The Farmer comes into the shop and actually gets really mad at you when you ask where the droids are, "You don't know where the droids are? I told you to be out repairing those units this morning and you not only haven't done it but you also lost those droids!"

Player B: Ok as he is yelling I start to ease my hand toward my blaster pistol and unsnap the stay on my holster.

GM: Are you making a show of this?

Player B: Well, um no. I just kind of do it like I'm nervous. But I'm not really nervous.

GM: OK...

GM continues to spend time in the shop resolving the argument with the Farmer and it does not result in combat. The Droid Caller is used, and the Protocol Droid stands up in the shop. The droid tells them that the Astromech left on his mission.

Players then OOC plan on what to do about the droid and decide to go searching for it, but have to devise a plan for how they will conduct the search. The scene is now well into an hour of real time.

The players and the GM have what many would consider to be legitimate exploration/interface with environment activities to pursue, but the effect is that the scene is static and way too long. Time is not being respected as a commodity, and things like Droid caller production and attempts to make "better mousetrap" plans that can't fail are not good uses of time and are attempts to insulate characters from risk.

The awesome people on this forum helped me to see that without time pressure you get these really meandering and ineffective scenes, and I think that's a great lesson. That scenes need to have a time pressure if at all possible or appropriate. That is unless the whole game is moving at fast pace and a contrasting period of a breather is needed. I rarely see this though and if you have fast-paced games like that then to me the GM and players are doing something right.

3 hours ago, Archlyte said:

I think that sometimes also there is a situation that happens where the GM and Players are basically leaderless, and no one knows if there is a direction to something or if it is supposed to be happening or what. I will say that I think this happens more often with Emergent Play GMs than Railroad GMs because the RRGM is usually taking the onus.

Example-

[...]

GM continues to spend time in the shop resolving the argument with the Farmer and it does not result in combat. The Droid Caller is used, and the Protocol Droid stands up in the shop. The droid tells them that the Astromech left on his mission.

Players then OOC plan on what to do about the droid and decide to go searching for it, but have to devise a plan for how they will conduct the search. The scene is now well into an hour of real time.

The players and the GM have what many would consider to be legitimate exploration/interface with environment activities to pursue, but the effect is that the scene is static and way too long. Time is not being respected as a commodity, and things like Droid caller production and attempts to make "better mousetrap" plans that can't fail are not good uses of time and are attempts to insulate characters from risk.

The awesome people on this forum helped me to see that without time pressure you get these really meandering and ineffective scenes, and I think that's a great lesson. That scenes need to have a time pressure if at all possible or appropriate. That is unless the whole game is moving at fast pace and a contrasting period of a breather is needed. I rarely see this though and if you have fast-paced games like that then to me the GM and players are doing something right.

I mean, when I GM I feel like it is my role/responsibility to not necessarily be the "leader", but to know the direction of the plot/story and adjust that based on the players. I played Primetime Adventures many moons ago. It is very much a collaborative storytelling RPG. The session and scene structure is very much like that of a TV show, and I took a lot of lessons away from it that have helped me with my GM-ing, storytelling, and pacing. When a player requests a scene, they must declare the focus and agenda and location, and the GM uses that to create the scene. I don't use the mechanic of "scene requesting/declaration" in my own games, but I organically gather the focus, agenda, and location from my players when crafting scenes.

Using that model in the scene above, the focus would be "advancement of the plot" and the agenda would be "the farmer has asked me to repair the droids, but they are missing". That would help me inform the pacing. Like, it does not serve the focus, agenda, plot, or pacing to spend 10-15 minutes on a droid caller.

If you can find a copy of PTA, I suggest grabbing it. It's a quick read, and has a lot of great GM tools you can use in any game.

3 hours ago, panpolyqueergeek said:

I mean, when I GM I feel like it is my role/responsibility to not necessarily be the "leader", but to know the direction of the plot/story and adjust that based on the players. I played Primetime Adventures many moons ago. It is very much a collaborative storytelling RPG. The session and scene structure is very much like that of a TV show, and I took a lot of lessons away from it that have helped me with my GM-ing, storytelling, and pacing. When a player requests a scene, they must declare the focus and agenda and location, and the GM uses that to create the scene. I don't use the mechanic of "scene requesting/declaration" in my own games, but I organically gather the focus, agenda, and location from my players when crafting scenes.

Using that model in the scene above, the focus would be "advancement of the plot" and the agenda would be "the farmer has asked me to repair the droids, but they are missing". That would help me inform the pacing. Like, it does not serve the focus, agenda, plot, or pacing to spend 10-15 minutes on a droid caller.

If you can find a copy of PTA, I suggest grabbing it. It's a quick read, and has a lot of great GM tools you can use in any game.

I haven't read the material yet but the idea of a declaration of focus agenda and location is super interesting and cool at first blush. It also makes me think that plodding scenes are likely to not have a coherent Focus, Agenda, or Location and that can be because no one is making any of that happen.

Leader was something I used to indicate initiative and action along a vector, and not a role or agreed upon set of fiat capabilities, etc. and I am grateful you were able to take my description and parse it into something useful

A crawl-heavy game isn't necessarily a slog. What turns crawls into slogs are the mechanics by which resolutions to tasks are determined. Dungeons & Dragons - especially 3.5 and Pathfinder - turn crawls into slogs because they require each active participant to make multiple rolls in order to resolve a task that would take a split second in a movie or in real-life. Compound that with a table of 5 - 6 participants and it's a recipe for boredom; unless you just really like watching people push miniatures around on a battle map.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Burning Wheel's Torchbearer game is very much a love-letter to D&D that focuses on dungeon-style adventures but resolves encounters much more quickly by eliminating a lot of the rolls and focusing more on choices that are committed to early on in the encounter.

Leaderlessness can be a problem with gaming groups but, like all primates, human beings eventually fall into social orders and someone eventually becomes the table leader, either through smarts or aggressiveness - even if their character, in game, isn't the PC leader. Typically, leaderlessness is a result of overpoliteness - often in new groups where people are still getting to know each other - or general distraction.

Unfortunately, the nature of traditional TTRPGs is that the game does run at the GM's pace as the GM is basically the biological XBox that responds to player choice. There are tricks that GMs can learn to pick up the pace, primarily not being overly-reliant on box text when setting scenes and being well prepared (easy to find notes, cheat sheets, cards, etc.). Where players can engage in shared narrative control is adding flourishes to a scene that help their character. For example, saying something like, "My character finds a crate near the stormtroopers to hide behind. He's going to spring out at them with a vibroknife on his next turn." The GM may not have mentioned crates but in a setting of something like a military encampment, it's not unreasonable to think that such an item would exist. This approach puts the onus on the players to create their own advantages rather than asking the GM to create a list of advantages for them to pick through. This speeds up play and helps avoid analysis paralysis. This is also why using miniatures and battle maps both slows game play and limits player contribution; what's on the map is all that players will be willing to consider.

My useful tool for avoiding drag is, when there's a lull in player action, I ask, "Okay, what are you doing now?"

On ‎6‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 7:19 AM, Concise Locket said:

A crawl-heavy game isn't necessarily a slog. What turns crawls into slogs are the mechanics by which resolutions to tasks are determined. Dungeons & Dragons - especially 3.5 and Pathfinder - turn crawls into slogs because they require each active participant to make multiple rolls in order to resolve a task that would take a split second in a movie or in real-life. Compound that with a table of 5 - 6 participants and it's a recipe for boredom; unless you just really like watching people push miniatures around on a battle map.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Burning Wheel's Torchbearer game is very much a love-letter to D&D that focuses on dungeon-style adventures but resolves encounters much more quickly by eliminating a lot of the rolls and focusing more on choices that are committed to early on in the encounter.

Leaderlessness can be a problem with gaming groups but, like all primates, human beings eventually fall into social orders and someone eventually becomes the table leader, either through smarts or aggressiveness - even if their character, in game, isn't the PC leader. Typically, leaderlessness is a result of overpoliteness - often in new groups where people are still getting to know each other - or general distraction.

Unfortunately, the nature of traditional TTRPGs is that the game does run at the GM's pace as the GM is basically the biological XBox that responds to player choice. There are tricks that GMs can learn to pick up the pace, primarily not being overly-reliant on box text when setting scenes and being well prepared (easy to find notes, cheat sheets, cards, etc.). Where players can engage in shared narrative control is adding flourishes to a scene that help their character. For example, saying something like, "My character finds a crate near the stormtroopers to hide behind. He's going to spring out at them with a vibroknife on his next turn." The GM may not have mentioned crates but in a setting of something like a military encampment, it's not unreasonable to think that such an item would exist. This approach puts the onus on the players to create their own advantages rather than asking the GM to create a list of advantages for them to pick through. This speeds up play and helps avoid analysis paralysis. This is also why using miniatures and battle maps both slows game play and limits player contribution; what's on the map is all that players will be willing to consider.

My useful tool for avoiding drag is, when there's a lull in player action, I ask, "Okay, what are you doing now?"

Thank you for this Locket I found it interesting and enlightening.

Totally agree about the social order thing. Some people seem to find the very idea repellent but I don't understand why to be honest.

I love the part about active players who fill in the descriptive blanks in interesting ways.

I also feel like in addition to the reasons you mentioned that once the battle map and minis are out the first person or even personal 3rd person view is gone in place of the tactical map, and the information that this presents. If you are in a battle or an exciting situation part of the excitement is not having that complete view, and it also seems to take people out of their character.

I think also for the purposes of the discussion it should be said that not all slow scenes are bad. I am specifically referring to situations in which the game grinds to a virtual halt for no good reason.

One of the best antidotes for breaking out of a "slog" or a infusing some life into a boring session comes from the hard-boiled pulps:

Quote

"...the demand was for constant action and if you stopped to think you were lost. When in doubt have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand. This could get to be pretty silly but somehow it didn’t seem to matter. A writer who is afraid to over-reach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong. --Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder, 1950.

Ergo, if you plot is flagging or you find yourself stuck, do something dramatic, shake things up, and give the players something they must react to right them and there. Insofar as its not too crazy you can always retcon a rationale or do something down the road that will make it appear more sensible. Your players will often rationalize it for you themselves. My players often rave about my intricate plots and brilliant twists, but the truth is I'm usually running games by the seat of my pants, retconning my plots along with the players reactions, and inserting unplanned crazy-rumped-shenangigans to keep things interesting. "Oh, I see you've copped to my master plan you clever players, you!"

Quote

As I look back on my own stories it would be absurd if I did not wish they had been better. But if they had been much better they would not have been published. --Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder, 1950.

Those stories he wishes were better were the ones starring iconic hardboiled private eye Phillip Marlowe and are regarded as classics of the genre and were highly regarded and beloved in their day. Many of the sessions I wish had been better, and in which I made a radical (only semi-logical) course corrections mid-stream in, are among those my players find most memorable.

Quote

"When in doubt, heap more trouble on the hero." --Douglas Adams.

I've found this to go hand in hand with "have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand." Keep doublng-down on your players and ramping up the stakes and problems until the final denoumant / big boss brawl / epic showdown / final dance fight / lovers quarrel ala Mr. and Mrs. Smith, etc. Just make sure there really is light at the end of that long dark tunnel.

5 hours ago, Vondy said:

One of the best antidotes for breaking out of a "slog" or a infusing some life into a boring session comes from the hard-boiled pulps:

Ergo, if you plot is flagging or you find yourself stuck, do something dramatic, shake things up, and give the players something they must react to right them and there. Insofar as its not too crazy you can always retcon a rationale or do something down the road that will make it appear more sensible. Your players will often rationalize it for you themselves. My players often rave about my intricate plots and brilliant twists, but the truth is I'm usually running games by the seat of my pants, retconning my plots along with the players reactions, and inserted unplanned crazy-rumped-shenangigans to keep things interested. "Oh, I see you've copped to my master plan you clever players, you!"

Those stories he wishes were better were the ones starring iconic hardboiled private eye Phillip Marlowe and are regarded as classics of the genre and were highly regarded and beloved in their day. Many of the sessions I wish had been better, and in which I made a radical (only semi-logical) course corrections mid-stream in, are among those my players find most memorable.

I've found this to go hand in hand with "have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand." Keep doublng-down on your players and ramping up the stakes and problems until the final denoumant / big boss brawl / epic showdown / final dance fight / lovers quarrel ala Mr. and Mrs. Smith, etc. Just make sure there really is light at the end of that long dark tunnel.

really brilliant stuff Vondy, thanks for this. I think your method of running the game sounds awesome, and I appreciate what you said about those half-cocked improvisations that later combine with other elements to make a story. I don't like trying to concoct a denouement but I love when one happens on its own.

11 hours ago, Archlyte said:

really brilliant stuff Vondy, thanks for this. I think your method of running the game sounds awesome, and I appreciate what you said about those half-cocked improvisations that later combine with other elements to make a story. I don't like trying to concoct a denouement but I love when one happens on its own.

Thanks. In terms of end-points and final scenes (e.g. "the denoument") I usually have a basic idea of where the high-level plot will go and a few ideas for memorable scenes, but I don't get too specific with the details because how we get there is often a whiplash inducing rollercoaster ride that lays wreck to all but the most general of plans. One of my players (and very dear friends) has been gaming with me for twenty-six years now, so he's on to most of my secrets. He once observed, "We're the ball in your giant ping-pong ball machine, aren't we?" He pretty much nailed it.

A great tool for pacing is the fast combat resolution system described in the GM section of Edge of the Empire (for some reason it isn't in any of the other books). Perfect for mopping up the mooks once the tide has turned in the PCs' favor.

I myself play with a slight house rule there, because the fast resolution system as written doesn't really simulate the likely outcome of the combat... instead of having wounds come from (successes minus failures), I have the PCs take wounds equal to total failures rolled on the negative dice.

22 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

A great tool for pacing is the fast combat resolution system described in the GM section of Edge of the Empire (for some reason it isn't in any of the other books). Perfect for mopping up the mooks once the tide has turned in the PCs' favor.

I myself play with a slight house rule there, because the fast resolution system as written doesn't really simulate the likely outcome of the combat... instead of having wounds come from (successes minus failures), I have the PCs take wounds equal to total failures rolled on the negative dice.

This is a really great point and I love your take on it Thank you for sharing this I will try to use it in my next game.