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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7284939" data-attributes="member: 20323">How long does an encounter take generally?With a group of 4-5 players & 1 DM who are fairly conversant in the rules, not distracted by children/cell phones/side talk, facing a "medium" difficulty encounter without major crippling conditions (e.g. fighting in darkness) and not engaging in protracted guerilla-style conflicts, and assuming there's no "short cut" taken to resolve the encounter prematurely so it plays out "until all monsters are dead"? About 30 minutes.My tongue-in-cheek provisos are intended to make you aware that there are a lot of "what ifs" to this question that are going to vary from table to table. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />How many encounters for one session?That varies. I plan for ~5 "encounters" for a 4-hour session, and by that I don't mean combats but encounters where there's something at stake, where there's conflict, and which the players are likely going to spend some time with.However, be prepared to run fewer encounters (or ad lib entirely) because the players are an unknown quantity. They're going to surprise you, they're going to break your structure. It will happen. And that's fine. Doesn't mean you're a bad DM. On the contrary.Any examples online?There are TONS. Look at most recent Chris Perkins session at PAX Unplugged: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-xsA-xK-D8" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-xsA-xK-D8</a> You'll notice he nips "rules debating" in the butt fast and without compromise. That's very important for a time-slotted game, especially if you have any older D&D players used to longer-term campaigning with lots of side talk & rules lawyering & navel pontificating. Nothing wrong with that style, but for a time-slotted game you can't waste time on getting into a debate about line of sight rules, or whatever. Embrace "rulings not rules."</blockquote>

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