DMing, at which I am kinda new.

Comahawk

So, I picked up some D&D books the other day and told some coworkers I may be willing to run a campaign. Having some good ideas in my head and currently reading through the DM's guide, I am a little confused.

I used to play the WoD line of games, so I have an idea of what I am getting into here. My main issue is the length of play, my initial thought was to run a campaign in two hour sessions in a weekly/bi-weekly/whenever everyone can get together sort of arrangement. But having no real experience playing D&D, I have no clue how long everything will take. The game I want to do is going to have an ongoing story with plot twists and such things to add interest (because, frankly, dungeon crawling with little reason seems meaningless to me), so going on my previous experience in WoD I can accurately guess how long that will take. I am mainly interested in how long the combat takes, I was under the idea a crawl can be done in an hour or two, but the gm book seems to indicate one fight can take an hour.

So, can anyone give me an accurate timeline of how your average two to three hour D&D game can go? Or at least anything along those lines, because I want to have an idea of what to try to fit into a session before I start writing everything up. Also, any tips would be appreciated!

Aegis

It depends upon how fast you resolve each individual combat thing, whether you have the individual players manage their rolls or whether you do it for them, the general complexity of the encounter, and how long the players take to get through the encounter.

Depending on the size of your 'dungeon' (I'm assuming a moderately sized dungeon) I'd be very surprised if getting through the entire thing (with dialogue and the rest combined) doesn't take 2-4 sessions due to the very fact that the players will generally lengthen things out. You also have to take into account the time spent searching for hidden things, examining treasure or odd things, looking at the scenery for background/roleplaying purposes, talking to resident NPCs, knocking unconscious the NPC you had planned to have them just kill but instead they want to extract information from him, etc.

In anything I've DMed, I've generally fudged the numbers here or there a bit if time's an issue or combat's dragging too much. If an attack would have reduced the enemy to maybe a few hp, I just kill the NPC off. If there's only a few of them left, have the rest of the NPCs die/run/etc. It helps if your players know what to roll, when to roll, and have everything ready when their turn comes up so you're not wasting time asking for rolls.

Kevdog

It's also going to vary a lot based on familiarity. When I started out with my group (which had 2 experienced players and 4 newbies) a typical combat encounter would run 60-90 minutes, simply because people were still figuring out how to control their characters, what powers to use, which modifiers to add when, etc. Now that we're well into it (and we have one less player) an average encounter is running about 45 minutes.

Smug Duckling

If they're newbie players (and you're a newbie DM), fights taking an hour is not at all uncommon. It will speed up a bit with experience, but reasonably scaled fights will always take a while.

I usually solved this by just not having that many fights and having the fights be for only major plot points, rather than fighting "trash mobs" (to borrow an MMORPG term).

CelestialBadger

Some groups take longer than others. For me, most combats take an hour. To work out how long a campaign will last, estimate a time, and add 50% more for faffing, chatting, and rules-looking-up.

Have some encounters that can be seamlessly dropped if you are running short of time.

mspencer

It helps to remember there are many different personality types within the "D&D gamer" subculture. People will want to play games in different ways.

This next part is debatable and many will disagree with me: if your players care more about the social experience and play experience then the "D&D ruleset experience" then try to run combat swiftly. This is a Paranoia GM tactic, but play fast and loose with the rules, and go for flow. Be confident, even if sometimes you are confident and technically wrong.

Do: think of DM think time as "lag" and try to minimize it. There should be minimal delay between player action and your flowery, suspenseful depiction of the results of their actions.

Don't: try so hard to minimize "lag" that you get nervous and apologetic when you take too long.

Do: be straightforward with your players about your limitations and your goals as a DM. "A good DM knows the rules really well, delivers quick and fair decisions, and has enough literary and prosaic flair to make things entertaining. I, on the other hand, am this way and not so much this way. I'm trying, guys -- be prepared to forgive me for mistakes."

Don't: be so caught up in being true to the authorial intent of the ruleset or the module that you forget what makes games fun. For example: risk/reward balance, amplification of input, and social interaction. Risk/reward balance also means players must have free agency, and they must be free to be chickens without unfair punishment. Riskier behavior might be punished, or it might be richly rewarded. Amplification of input is handled mostly by you: small player action, big response from the game world. Social interaction is by far the most important part of a D&D gathering: you are gathered together to play with ways your personalities work together to produce awesomeness. Hopefully.

(Anybody agree? Or am I just making things up?)

Smug Duckling

^ this

Playing fast and loose with the rules has made every game I've run much more fun. Whatever you do, DON'T let anybody rules lawyer you up (i.e. argue with you about the details of the rules). Never let any decision take longer than 5 - 10 seconds. If you don't know the answer, make up something reasonable and carry on.

If someone is about to die and you don't think it would be a good time, fudge it so they don't die. If combat is taking too long, reduce enemy hitpoints. If you think an enemy spell would be cooler if it operated slightly differently than the rules say, just do it.

Think of the rules as guidelines to give some structures to you and the players about what is possible. Don't let them be constraints. Breaking the rules is not breaking the law, it's just bending some guidelines.

That said, don't go so overboard that the player's feel like the rules don't matter anymore. They ARE important, but they are not the be-all end-all. If you fudge rolls, NEVER let your players know for at least that session, and even better for the whole campaign. It helps to maintain their suspension of disbelief if they believe that their characters are completely subject to the random and cruel will of the rules.

Thundyrkatz

Make sure you have all your kobolds in a row before the game begins. As Mspencer said...

"There should be minimal delay between player action and your flowery, suspenseful depiction of the results of their actions."

Make sure you have all the resources you will need for the session, and some more. For me, I liked to have the notes for the planned session all made up ahead of time with planned encounters, optional random encounters, dialogue bullet points and optional sub quests.

It’s a fluid situation and the players will react to your story in unexpected ways at first. So, try to be flexible. You need to walk the line between having a prepared story and being able to move away from that story if the players take interest in something you had set up as an inconsequential piece of background noise. However experience with your group will make things much easier. Once you understand what interests them and how their thought process works, you can use that to your advantage by anticipating how they are likely to react in a given situation. i.e., John always attacks first, or Jill is usually suspicious and untrusting of new things. Then use that to gently guide them back into your planned story arc.

Being the DM is awesome, have fun. Remember it’s a game.

PaperPritt

1)Plan out what you will be doing for every session you hold as a DM and prepare contingencies plan as well.

Example: your players are supposed to visit the haunted mines, but for some reason, it really doesn't interest them/they flat out don't want to, and instead are ridiculously focused on an obsucre subplot point because you inadvertantly gave some random NPC an actual name.

Solution: time for the ol' DM switcheroo ! So they prefer to visit the mansion outside of town (that you just made up) instead of the haunted mine? Well here you go, haunted mansion!

2)Try to minimize railroading, because players will try for HOURS to figure a way around that bridge you just declared "has collapsed". This can be entertaining but doesn't help the "plot". NOTE: if you ever run into OCRAPWHATDOIDO now moment, this is actually a very good bait.

Example: there's a shiny light insided the building. But there appears to be no doors. Cue in 2 hours of imagining the weirdest ideas to get a door appear.

3)Memorize key combat rules. Be prepared to argue with your players (at least one of them will read them differently than you). Compromize if needed since you aren't here to discuss all day about what the writer meant by "falling down" but be prepared to overrule at any time if you figure it's going to be abused.

In short : don't hesistate to say "okay i actually made a bad judgement call, so here's what we gonna do instead". Players appreciate honesty.

Err, this post is longer than what i intended. Oh well