Controlling Pacing - How do you?

[Abraxas]

In a few months I will begin DMing a new campaign. Currently, I've been DMing the Savage Tide adventure path. The problem I have been having is one of pacing. The PCs are leveling too fast in game time. I don't mind the characters leveling every 2-3 sessions - but I want those sessions to cover larger amounts of in game time.

I've tried hand-waving it by saying 3 months, 6 months or even a year have passed - but that seems too artificial. It also runs into a problem when using the published adventure paths - the APs have timelines with events happening too fast.

I've also had the seasons have an impact on adventuring - in northern areas, people buckle down for the winter, in tropical or coastal areas the rainy season puts a hold on activities. But after a certain level, weather doesn't impede the PCs, so taking 4 months off for it to warm up or dry out doesn't make sense.

At higher levels, item creation takes up time - but not much.

What I would like is a 15 - 25 year in game time frame for going from level 1 to level 20 (3.5E) or 30 (4E). The characters would then start at an age of 19 - 25 and be at the top when they are between 34 and 50.

How do others handle in game pacing?
Do you not sweat it and have 20 th/30th level PCs who are 19-22 years old?

 

[amerigoV]

Do you not sweat it and have 20 th/30th level PCs who are 19-22 years old?

I don't sweat it myself. In life, you tend to peak at something quickly then move on to something else.

Lets take the closest thing in our world to adventures from an athletic point of view (to compare to fighters/rogues) - professional athletes. They start young (late teens - late high school/early college) and peak in their twenties (late college/then pro). There are some in their 30s that are just too wiley for the youngsters. All are done by 40. For example running backs in the NFL just fall off a cliff when they hit 30.

Sure, that does not work for wizards, but I look aback at my own job. My peak in technical skills was late 20s/early 30s. Then I moved on to more management things (ie, bigger picture vs. tactical problem solving).

The PCs get caught up in something and they peak their skills. Their story gets told and they move on to have a family, get old, fat, and unmotivated. Sounds like life to me.

 

[Abraxas]

Lets take the closest thing in our world to adventures from an athletic point of view (to compare to fighters/rogues) - professional athletes. They start young (late teens - late high school/early college) and peak in their twenties (late college/then pro). There are some in their 30s that are just too wiley for the youngsters. All are done by 40. For example running backs in the NFL just fall off a cliff when they hit 30.

While this may be true, I guess I'm looking for something that mirrors fictional characters - swordsman that study for decades and are still tough as nails in their 40s and still out fight the youngsters. Pacing the game to make this happen is where I'm having difficulty.

 

[Jacob Marley]

Consider the scale of the map you are playing on, the speed in which the PCs move, the type of terrain the PCs are crossing, and the frequency in which encounters occur.

In my current Pathfinder campaign the map is scaled at 25 hexes by 25 hexes with each hex equaling 2 miles. The terrain is mostly forests, hills, and mountains with a few areas of farmland. With the exception of one small area overland movement is either by trails or trackless. The slowest PC is the party fighter with a 20 foot movement. Random encounters occur at a 10% chance per hex.

Applying the appropriate modifiers means that the PCs are moving between 8 and 16 miles per day -- depending on terrain -- and averaging about 12 miles (or 6 hexes per day) overall. With a 10% chance of encounter per hex they should average just over 1 encounter every two days. (Note: party tactics and strategy will effect the actual rate) As it takes roughly 13 encounters (fast experience chart) at APL to reach the next level; I can expect the PCs to level every 26 days.

My PCs are currently part of a military organization (Cheliax); a lot of their quests tend to be things like scout this ridge, deliver this message to the General, escort this shipment of foodstuffs to a nearby unit, etc. Being part of the military they are also given furloughs from time-to-time. In addition, they are required to spend a lot of time in the castle training. These activities add to the average from above. They also give me a nice in game justification as to why the fighter just acquired a spellbook and learned magic.

My expectation is for the party to reach level 5 in about 1 year game time. At this point, the campaign world will begin to expand for the PCs. At this point they will be asked to undertake more dangerous quests which are further away from their home base than they previously have been. Here I plan to change the scale of the map so each hex equals 12 miles while leaving the frequency of encounters the same. In game justification being that the PCs have done a good job making the area safer to travel.

Now, this pacing may still be too fast for what you want -- it satisfies my problems with zero to hero in three months -- however, the underlying principles remain the same. Changing the scale of the map, frequency of encounters, and types of terrain the PCs must deal with can have a large impact on how fast (in game time) they level.

Happy gaming!

 

[Doug McCrae]

In Pendragon there's only one adventure a year. In winter it's too cold and in the autumn the PCs are busy with the harvest. Pendragon pays a lot of attention to land and family, eventually players are expected to switch to their children as their PCs. Having more gives you a better selection.

 

[amerigoV]

While this may be true, I guess I'm looking for something that mirrors fictional characters - swordsman that study for decades and are still tough as nails in their 40s and still out fight the youngsters. Pacing the game to make this happen is where I'm having difficulty.

I don't know Savage Tide AP at all, so I can not point to specifics. But I would just look for breaks where you can insert time. If you can break it out into several periods where time can logically pass, then you have a good starting point. They will level fast in chunks, then hold steady for a number of years (they keep in shape and train, but nothing is really pushing them to get better between the adventures).

You then just have to work in why PCs that were adventuring at 20 would then get back together at 30, 40, etc, or why wouldn't younger PCs take their place.

If that does not work, perhaps an AP is a bad choice. You might need more self contained modules that you string together to control the time passing aspect. If you think about the value of the loot that PCs get, it is not unreasonable that they would semi-retire between adventures and enjoy the fruits of their labor (maybe let them build a stronghold or organization - something they can fiddle with conceptually).

 

[fba827]

(snip)
Currently, I've been DMing the Savage Tide adventure path.
(snip)
I've tried hand-waving it by saying 3 months, 6 months or even a year have passed - but that seems too artificial.

I don't know anything about that adventure path, so I don't know what the ramifications are, but I generally find that with published adventures, I just try and suspend some of my DM desires, which includes the stretching out of time, since they often depend/assume rapid or somewhat rapid pacing. And so things like stretching out time is best used for custom done things.

Having said that, when I do get to stretch out time, frankly, hand-waving it is the easiest way to do it BUT with a caveat -- describe what is going on during that time, don't just say "3 months pass" it should instead be stuff like "you spend the next 3 months helping the town harvest and prepare for the winter, and by night you stay locked in your room studying the tomes you liberated from the dragon's horde. By the end of the 3 months, the town feels its supplies will last them through the winter, and you've heard several rumors and stories about ..."
(Or, alternatively, make it more participative "Since traveling around in the coming snow will be futile, the locals have convinced you to rent out a room at the inn and stay in Fallscrest for the winter. This gives you 3 months to relax and train. (Now go around the table asking everyone what they would be doing for 3 months of downtime, and add a little narrative cause and effect from what they do.. i.e. they go around town talking with the locals might result in hearing some rumors or just making some friends, and so on.)

 

[ExploderWizard]

As long as you are following a predetermined adventure path that features events happening at certain rather tight intervals that also requires PC's to level at a certain pace to meet the challenges as they occur you are kind of stuck.

The thing about pacing in this situation is that the adventure has already determined it for you. Something has to give here. The events? The challenge levels ? Followiing these closely means game world pacing takes a back seat. Actual adventure pacing might be fairly good depending on the AP but that isn't the same thing.

 

[Beginning of the End]

What I would like is a 15 - 25 year in game time frame for going from level 1 to level 20 (3.5E) or 30 (4E). The characters would then start at an age of 19 - 25 and be at the top when they are between 34 and 50.

A few options:

(1) Make the world a less interesting place. IOW, the breaks in the action aren't about the PCs choosing to take time off. It's because there isn't another adventure to be had. It was decades between the dwarves questing to kill Smaug and the dwarves questing to reclaim Moria. Beowulf, too, had a decades-long wait between Grendel and the Dragon.

(2) Talk to the players and see if they're interested in a similar structure. Then have them create characters who have motivations in life other than "adventuring because I like adventuring". This can be "I have non-adventuring priorities" or it might be "there are very specific adventures I will go on". For example, the PCs might be dragon hunters. Dragons don't come along every day, so there'll be long periods of down time between dragon sightings. (And you can get a lot of variety out of that: Dragons can run slaver rings. They can run organized crime syndicates. They can run rampant through the country side. They can try to raise themselves up as dark lords. Dragon hatchlings can zerg a village. Et cetera.)

(3) Find a mechanical way to enforce down time. For example, maybe magical healing creates a physical debt that you have to pay. In the short term you can load up, but when the immediate adventure is done your body will shut down. You'll find yourself bed-ridden for the number of days it would have taken you to heal naturally.

Also: See if you can track down a copy of Shiki from Gold Rush Games. It was designed for the Sengoku system, but it's easily adapted and is exactly the sort of scenario you're looking for.

 

[Jhaelen]

While this may be true, I guess I'm looking for something that mirrors fictional characters - swordsman that study for decades and are still tough as nails in their 40s and still out fight the youngsters. Pacing the game to make this happen is where I'm having difficulty.

You're looking at the wrong fiction, I guess

In addition to Doug McCrae's mention of Pendragon, Ars Magica is also using a relatively slow pacing: it uses seasons as the most important time unit. I think, the key is to offer plenty of ways to spend your downtime in interesting ways. Building, expanding and maintaining a castle, ruling over your own piece of land takes plenty of time. Likewise, lab work, researching, inventing, and learning new spells or rituals can be so time-consuming that mages eventually start looking for ways to extend their lives.

Advancement could also require training. Runequest is one such example.

I don't think there's anything wrong with fast advancement if a pc is not interested in anything except adventuring, though. If someone is very talented and does something to the exclusion of everything else, it's not unreasonable to become perfect in a relatively short time.

I think, D&D 4e offers natural break-points at the start of the paragon and epic tiers. You could use them to advance the time-line several years.

If you're using an AP, though, there's no need to worry about pacing at all. The AP will dictate it, anyway. If you don't like an AP's pacing, don't play the AP.