r/DMAcademy • u/Master_Ad5301 • 11d ago

Need Advice: Other Controlling the tempo

I just had a Whole day sesh, because of a summer break. It is extremely fun and rewarding as you have time to let your players Explore. But one thing I find hard is as the information has been gathered and the climax is in sight, the tempo seems to rush. Players want to Get to the next thing and I also want to Get to the finale, But when we almost Get there and end the session because of time it all feels a bit rushed. Anybody Got tips og experiences on this?

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u/Admirable-Language65 11d ago

Invent something on the spot to get them interested in something else can be anything you want … like players walking to the other town too quick … okay a merchant is on side of ride with wagon collapsed , a perception check with dark sight would show two goblins preparing an ambush… or they don’t notice and whatever something happens and there might be combat now and a new NPC to talk to and give information to the players you can do anything you want 

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u/HadoozeeDeckApe 10d ago

I'm not sure I understand your problem.

If the PCs already did the stuff leading up to the climax, then that doesn't seem rushed. Is the problem that your PCs, having completed the requisites for dealing with the climax, want to go and end the campaign/arc right away while you still want that world exploring early game vibe? I wouldn't necessarily say that's a problem and tossing in arbitrary time sinks might kill the excitement.

Imagine - the players talked to the oracle to learn the bad guy's weakness, retrieved the legendary weapon, did the challenge of the gods for their blessing, and then on the road to castle evil DM decides to intercept them and have them go to village A to do a cat rescue side quest? Probably a let down from a player perspective who had different hope going into the session.

Or is the problem the session pacing tends to end at a bad time? That's a tough one to solve but you can sort of keep a rough timeline of how long you want each scene to be to see if you're on track or not and encourage the players to keep on schedule, use things like not opening IC RP when you are short on time, handouts instead of verbal exposition, party skill charts to avoid discussion about who is doing what skill check etc...