Something that Needs More Consideration - Pacing

[radmod]

"I've come to the opinion of late that the single biggest element in a successful campaign is pacing."
I stopped reading there and said a hearty "hear, hear". Then I read the rest.

Wow, 5 encounters in three hours? That seems extremely fast paced to me. If you use standard initiative in 3.5 a serious combat encounter alone can take two hours.

Whenever I think of pacing and such, I remember what my wife asked me: "Aren't people there to have fun?" Forcing a high pace can take the fun out of things. As a DM, you have to lessen your own desires for the good (fun) of the players.
That said, yes, they do have to be prodded. As a sort of service, I am DMing a group of kids. Whenever they get side-tracked anyone can call 'Push' and I force them to move on.
The campaign I'm playing in (older, experienced players), everybody spends alot of time joking around so forcing an arbitrary pace takes away from the fun. Yet to get a sense of accomplishment I do help to move things along (it lasts for about 10 minutes).

I forgot to add that I played in a world where I would spend 30 seconds on my action then go outside for 15 minutes waiting for the other four players to do theirs. That sucked but it was just a bad DM.
I think one has to read their players and work from there.

 

[radmod]

The above sentiment also is one of the reasons I GM more than play these days. The pace as a player can be dreadfully slow sometimes. As a GM, I am near constantly engaged for the evening.

Shh! It's a secret, don't spread it around.

 

[pemerton]

You might be under the impression that a DM who wants players to be in control of these seemingly fiddly operations expects a detailed account of each instance and wants to spend an inordinate amount of game time describing them. This isn't the case. Most groups that have been together for a while will develop a standard UNODIR operation for things like watches, camp setup, opening a typical door, etc.

I'm completely familiar with standard operating procedures. I just agree with Hussar that they don't add anything to my game.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I'm completely familiar with standard operating procedures. I just agree with Hussar that they don't add anything to my game.

If your players are fine with the idea of decisions being made for them then there isn't really a reason that they would add anything.

 

[Jhaelen]

A wise woman once said that D&D looks like 20 minutes of fun packed into 4 hours.

I just realized that this is quite similar to my opinion about football (or rather (watching) sports in general): 5 minutes of fun packed in two hours. What could be more boring than watching a whole game?

 

[ExploderWizard]

A wise woman once said that D&D looks like 20 minutes of fun packed into 4 hours.

If this holds any bit of truth for someone then it's way past time to find a better game.

 

[Hussar]

"I've come to the opinion of late that the single biggest element in a successful campaign is pacing."
I stopped reading there and said a hearty "hear, hear". Then I read the rest.

Wow, 5 encounters in three hours? That seems extremely fast paced to me. If you use standard initiative in 3.5 a serious combat encounter alone can take two hours.

Whenever I think of pacing and such, I remember what my wife asked me: "Aren't people there to have fun?" Forcing a high pace can take the fun out of things. As a DM, you have to lessen your own desires for the good (fun) of the players.
That said, yes, they do have to be prodded. As a sort of service, I am DMing a group of kids. Whenever they get side-tracked anyone can call 'Push' and I force them to move on.
The campaign I'm playing in (older, experienced players), everybody spends alot of time joking around so forcing an arbitrary pace takes away from the fun. Yet to get a sense of accomplishment I do help to move things along (it lasts for about 10 minutes).

I forgot to add that I played in a world where I would spend 30 seconds on my action then go outside for 15 minutes waiting for the other four players to do theirs. That sucked but it was just a bad DM.
I think one has to read their players and work from there.

Just as a point, I did state pretty strongly that encounter does not equal combat. While, when we did play 3e, we occassionaly tipped into 5 combats in 3 hours, that was very, very rare. Although, OTOH, the 2 hour combats was something that made me grind my teeth and I put a serious stop to it.

Player dithering during combat sucks ALL the joy out of it. I'd actually seen players spend over ten minutes deciding the combat action for a third level fighter. BOOM, little bits of my brains all over the walls.

For a while, I went with shot clocks - you had one minute to be well into your turn or you lose your turn. I didn't cut people off in mid action, and of course rules adjudication could stretch out a turn, but, if I was staring at a blank screen for more than about twenty seconds, I'd just move on to the next player.

Do that once or twice and suddenly everyone starts paying a LOT more attention.

I'm currenly in a very new group place with my current group, we've just picked up three new players and no one in the group is very proficient with the tools we're using (Maptool with frameworks can be a bit... finicky at times), so, I'm keeping my cool.

I think things will pick up in the near future once everyone gets sort of settled into how to use the tools and what their character can do.

 

[ExploderWizard]

For a while, I went with shot clocks - you had one minute to be well into your turn or you lose your turn. I didn't cut people off in mid action, and of course rules adjudication could stretch out a turn, but, if I was staring at a blank screen for more than about twenty seconds, I'd just move on to the next player.

I think that it's harder to mimic the sense of urgency and tension during an action sequence in an online format. The players are not connected by the group energy that physical presence brings. It must be a tough job to maintain any level of engagement in that format.

 

[S'mon]

I think that it's harder to mimic the sense of urgency and tension during an action sequence in an online format. The players are not connected by the group energy that physical presence brings. It must be a tough job to maintain any level of engagement in that format.

I haven't had any trouble with that - even running 4e online, though I prefer simpler systems like B/X-Labyrinth Lord or 1e-OSRIC.

 

[Hussar]

I think that it's harder to mimic the sense of urgency and tension during an action sequence in an online format. The players are not connected by the group energy that physical presence brings. It must be a tough job to maintain any level of engagement in that format.

To be honest, EW, I find immersion to be much better in online games. Group presence can bring the energy, it can also bring WAY too many distractions that deflate things just as badly.

Six of one, half dozen of the other.