ebb and flow

The pacing of your game is important and should reflect the style of play you have chosen for your table. Finding a good compromise between social interactions and battle is always a struggle, especially if you have multiple players with different interests. Even beyond that, keeping from getting bogged down during battle or pushing through decision paralysis among the players is typically the responsibility of the GM. So how do we do this, how do we keep it moving?

Well, I don’t know. There are several tips and tricks many great GMs use, and some I try to implement myself, but there is no one-size-fits-all cure for this. It is very situational and dependent upon your players to accept whatever decision you may make in the moment to push the story forward. In some cases, require your players to take it upon themselves to help with this.

Battle is the worst at “hurry up and wait” mentality. Players will check out between turns, then have to catch up with what is happening in order to make a decision about their actions. One way I try to mitigate this is to let the next player know their turn is coming up (they are on deck). This is especially helpful if you are running a large party as it allows the players to check out for a bit, but focus enough to catch up while watching the player before them. Often they decide what they will do during their turn as well. If you are a good narrative story teller, allowing a bit of time for descriptions of what happened can also be a way to get players more engaged during battle, but I’m not good at this and often just skip over any narration in battle.

When the party gets stuck in a decision paralysis, pushing them forward can be tricky. Some players will appreciate a clearer directive or clarification of the goals. Others can be a bit more of a purist in that they want to come up with the ideas and will feel “railroaded” if the GM intervenes. On the flip side, if the GM just pushes forward with an encounter, or action, that causes the players to have to reassess, this can also create further issues. Players who are pushed too quickly can feel disjointed as they have not had the time to process or think through their actions or options.

Most importantly, when you feel stuck in the story, whether through player inaction or inattentiveness, you must remember this is a game. We are all here to have fun playing pretend without running through the yard with sticks (I’m too old for that these days). AND, just like any board game, you can homebrew timers into the game for turns in battle or for the party to plan, but it does need to be accepted by all at the table.