D&D 5E Advice on lunch-hour games

[rogermexico]

So four of us are standing around at work today and for whatever reason, the conversation turns to D&D. And it turns out all of us have played at some time in our lives. Two people play occasionally but haven’t been in an ongoing regular game for a while. Two of us used to play way back when, but haven’t had the time to commit due to various life stuff.
Naturally we wondered out loud if we should start playing together, at work on our lunch breaks.
In my case I haven’t played in more than twenty five years. But I’ve had the itch ever since the 5E books came out (I talked about it here – thanks to everyone who gave me suggestions on reading material!) and because I used to DM as a teenager, I’m leaning towards volunteering for that.
Before I put myself out there, I wanted to poll the group here to see what kind of experience folks have had running games over lunch hours with co-workers. What do I need to know here? What are the challenges and what should I keep in mind to make sure everybody has a good time?

 

[Ancalagon]

Immediately the short duration of the session springs to mind. You will need something you can set up and put away quickly. Interrupting fights will be almost guaranteed... so take photos with your phone so you can quickly re-set the map (if needed).

On the *good* side, each session will be *very* fresh in the mind of the players, so no need for a recap - what happened 2 weeks ago?

 

[Unwise]

If your work is a bit on the slack side, run a choose your own adventure via email for all of the less important stuff. Just to get the PCs to an interesting scene for the next session.

E.g. "So what do people want to do in town before heading out to the ruined tower?"
"On the way you meet an orcish hunting patrol, they seem to have little interest in you initially. Do you A) Talk your way out B) Sneak C) Fight? <Make appropriate roll...> OK that sneak check was terrible, next session starts with the orc patrol raising an alarm and hunting you down"

A good old fashioned dungeon crawl can be handy. The room by room nature of it lends itself to sessional play, as does the railroady nature of most dungeons. Also, puzzles/riddles are cool, but only if you can introduce them near the end of a session. That way people have something to think about until the next game.

Is staying back after work once a week an option? I know that would work better for me. You could try the lunchtime thing to get people hooked, then try an after work session.

 

[DRF]

A good old fashioned dungeon crawl can be handy. The room by room nature of it lends itself to sessional play, as does the railroady nature of most dungeons.

Seconded.

D&D is just a slow game; I most often can't be bothered to play unless the session is at least 4 hours. Running a dungeon is a great idea. There's lots of dungeons out there of any size, and they don't have to be combat-only. "Tales from the Yawning Portal" might be a cool place to start (I'm currently running "Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan" from Yawning Portal and it's awesome!), or even smaller beginner dungeons. With so little time to play, going room-by-room will offer necessary structure in the type of game you're planning. You cannot reasonably run an open-world adventure with 1-hour sessions.

Edit: Maybe check out the book that's coming out soon: "Keep on the Borderlands" by Goodman Games. I never played the old module myself, and I think the new book seems unnecessarily big, but it might offer what you're after. It seems to offer a good newbie adventure with a base at the Keep, and then lots of dungeon crawling in the nearby caves.

 

[delericho]

Having just started a lunch-hour game, with some new players no less, some thoughts:

First up, strip everything back to basics: use the core 3 only (no Xanathar's Guide or other supplements), and no house rules if you can bear it.

Next, strip out everything from the game that you don't need - tracking encumbrance, ammunition, rations, spell components, etc etc. You want to get the best bang for your buck, so don't waste time on trivia. (And yes, I know that would technically count as house rules. I don't claim to be totally consistent.)

Third, play at very low levels, and keep the combats small. I'd also note that theatre of the mind seems to be a good bit quicker than using minis, so I'd recommend that. (That said, your experience may not match mine there - do whatever is faster for you.)

With new players (or players who haven't played in a long time), I'd recommend starting with pre-gen characters and getting playing as quickly as possible. Spend just a few minutes at the start of each session going over a few key rules, which means you can probably cover most of the basics over 6 weeks or so. And point your players to the Basic rules - those don't include all the options, but they pretty much cover all the general rules of the game.

Finally, one thing we've strongly considered, and I something I think I'd recommend: we're starting with pre-gen characters in "Lost Mine of Phandelver" and running for a few weeks, after which we're going to start over (at which point we'll do character creation). That way, everyone gets to make their mistakes and then gets a clean slate - they also get to create their own, custom characters once they're in a position to make somewhat-informed choices.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I don’t have experience running for coworkers, but I do with shorter sessions. The players really need to know what their abilities and spells do, and need to know what they’re going to do when their turn comes around. Any amount of delay, whether from looking up a rule or trying to figure out what you’re going to do, eats up the time. On the DM’s side, if there’s a question over a ruling, I tell people “I’ll allow it this time, but I’ll do some research and come back with an official ruling next session.”

As I’ve said before, I’m a big fan of calling for votes if the group isn’t sure on a course of action. Some discussion is fine, but after so long the game has to get moving again.

Chances are, you’ll have time for one combat encounter, and maybe one non-combat encounter. Depending on what your players like, it’s perfectly okay to go without a battle, to focus on role-playing or exploration.

 

[alienux]

The biggest thing that comes to mind is set-up time. So I agree with the suggestions to do TotM. If it takes 10 minutes to set up and 5 to tear down, that leaves you with only 45 minutes to actually play.

Make sure everyone knows the rules well, both for the game and for their class and race. And make sure you prep enough to not have to flip through books as much to keep from slowing the pace down when possible.

Other than that, don't take it too seriously if it does get bogged down once in awhile, or if you can't finish something on a given day. Keep it fun and light when you can.

 

[delericho]

Oh, there's a thought...

I'd recommend setting some sort of an alarm for 5 minutes before you need to end. That gives you a little notice before the end of the session, so you know you need to start wrapping up, get the status recorded, etc.

That's especially true if the room is needed for another meeting immediately after the session, or if people need to leave promptly.

 

[iserith]

For a lunch-hour game, I'd probably do something like one big scene with an opportunity for combat, exploration, and social interaction. Then maybe string a few of those together into a three-scene arc that each play into a larger storyline that unfolds. So I'd probably run a Mon, Wed, Fri game. Or maybe Tues, Thurs. The days in between would no doubt be times when everyone's talking about what's next which should give you some ideas on what to prepare.

A dungeon is also a good choice as was mentioned previously.

Check out some of my short-form scenarios. Many of them can be played in an hour's time and are complex enough to provide opportunities for the players to engage with combat, exploration, and social interaction challenges as they see fit. This may give you an idea of how you might think about and prep your scenes.

 

[jgsugden]

If you have an hour, you need 10 minutes to get set up and 10 minutes to put everything away. That leaves 40 minutes which is not enough time to get into the flow. That is tough - even in 5E combats can go much longer than 40 minutes, especially for people getting back into the flow.

I'd suggest starting with a special session one night after work to get people into the flow and then try supplementing with lunches and the occasional evening game.

Be careful of work policies, though - A group of people working for me were using their chat to play D&D as they worked. It ... did not go over well.