How to create short scenes/rooms?

#1

First, ROGLOM (and all others of the Dakaerischer Bund game), don’t read further! :wink:

Hey guys,

I’m running a group with up to 6 players (depending on the personal schedule, oddly sometimes everybody can make it). This runs me into a problem I’ve already encountered with other groups: My prepared scenes/rooms lead to very long playing time each. The players already try to take their turns quickly, so there’s no issue with that.

Why is that a problem for me?
I’m going with a 5 room dungeon approach to weave a story arc around each single session. That’s my personal goal as a GM; I want to “deliver” a coherent experience each game night. Especially because of the here-and-there-dropout of characters for some sessions.
Rearranging content (aka no content is left behind) isn’t always working well (at least for me), because one session ends without resolution and the next one starts with the resolution and needs to move into the next story bit… meh!

What do I mean by “very long playing time”?
For my players, 3.5 to 4 hours of gameplay is the sweetspot (concentration, staying attentive and awake). That means I’d like to split the game night into chunks of 40ish minutes, each with another scene to “fit” everything in. I don’t mean “fit” as “I want to play everything” but more than “I don’t want to skip things to go from the first encounter directly to the climax because of time”.

How does my prep look?
Regardless of group size, my prep contains of 5 blocks (each a scene) with 3-4 bullets each (including loot). That works perfect for my main group (2-3 players) within the given time frame … at least 80% of the time (in the remaining 20% I’mm delaying things into the next session… meh)

Prep for my yesterday game “The Ra’Hil-Temple” (as far as we went playing):

Ritual of Storms (Target 15)

  • phylacteries feed magic storm
  • magic storm destroys village of Felsbucht
  • Cultists :heart: +2 to checks, dagger, magic missile
  • Sarech-amulet (WIS +1)

(meant as “Guardian Room”, because it’s about the destruction of Felsbucht, which forces the heroes to move on with their initial goal)

That scene was meant to be the previous session’s climax and we quit that session after the heroes charged the ritual spot. It took as around 1.5 hours to resolve that scene. A couple of heroes went down (one died, but the player is used to that). There were some cool things going around and finally the heroes won the upper hand.

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Ruins of Felsbucht (Target 12)

  • village elder ISAARO burried under debris
  • recogniced TANERO-Cultists
  • Ra’Hil-Temple is “gateway to the desert”
  • Wineskin (3 uses, heal 1D4 HP)

(meant as “Challenge Room” to offer some knowledge how to get back on their track to the desert)

Compared to the combat scene, this small interlude was meant as a pure RP moment. The heroes dug out the guy, got some information and went to the abandoned mine, where the Ra’Hil-Temple was excavated. This turned out to be a quick one, just around the 40ish minutes mark. Everything fine here except for … see below resumee.

The Abandoned Mine (Target 15)

  • shredded mine workers and mining gear
  • Tunnelcrawler :heart::heart: +4 to checks, claws, acid pockets (destroy gear)
  • dynamite (3 uses, gun effort)
  • crates with 3x shabby loot

(meant as “Setback Room” before the climax of the adventure, making them face immense danger)

Some players really went nuts here: they played on their heroes’ fear about the abandoned tunnels after seeing the maimed corpses. When the timer hit down, crawler spawned and quickly revealed their acid property. To ramp up the danger and push them deeper into the mines, crawlers spawned from various tunnels. The heroes decided to stand firm and fight them one by one. As the session hit its lets-quit-threshold, we used the next spawn timer as a session end die, leaving the players(!) with the idea: “Maybe we should go instead of staying here”.

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Resumee:

  • My combat scenes take veeery long, because I’m either running many or spawning enemies. I have to find a way to keep the difficulty without extending the combat itself; basically they enjoy combat.
  • Scenes without combat (like rescuing the village elder) are way easier on the time, but for me they feel without tension, because none of the heroes lives are at stake. It’s just like the “swamp” Hank mentioned a couple of times. I haven’t found “my way” of doing it. Also I fear, that they may take longer then. So I’m kind of happy with my way prepping them, but I plan on moderating them a bit differently (spotlight, staying in strict turns etc.)

What are your thoughts? Any ideas?

#2

Hej, here’s some thoughts on your two bullet points in the resumee:

  • If you feel that your combat takes very long, you could reduce the number of enemies and make the remaining ones more memorable or more difficult to beat (throwing in a concealed cultist priest or something that heals the enemies). I like to roleplay even my mook enemies, because it’s more fun and immersive that way, but I know that this might not be for everyone. Endlessly spawning enemies might feel like a grind after some time.
  • Do your players want constant tension or are they fine with non-combat encounters?
    One way to increase the tension in social encounters is to give certain events a timer as well and increase the danger for NPCs. If your heroes’ life is not at stake when rescuing someone have the one being rescued in danger of dying.
#3

Here are a few things that I would consider to help speed things up, wether or not this would work for you is entirely up to you and your group.

  1. Reduce the room targets and implement HARD rolls to increase tension. I have found a room target of 12 to be the sweet spot and I typically run with that with everything. I find it quicker and more appealing for players to be able to actually hit/do things and I simply adjust the HEARTS if I want more difficulty (even on the fly).

  2. Run fewer adversaries with more strength/abilities/interest. This makes it WAY more easy to run things on your end. If you are set on lots of critters make them 1 HP with strong rolls knocking out multiples, run it loose and make the characters shine as they wade through the mooks. You can even make the TN for these EASY right on the spot.

  3. Consider running fewer than 5 rooms. I find that 3 rooms is a good number and it allows for a nice easy, medium, difficult ramp up between rooms. More is not always better or extra interesting. If you find that you have extra time start a new room and leave it as a cliff hanger, players love cliff hangers.

  4. Add a timer for the rooms. When the timer ticks down to 0 the room is simply done. Make it a D4 or D6 or just pick a number but make it just doable if possible. This can also add tension even if it is a non-combat room. It could be as simple as collect the treasure or find out valuable info before the ceiling collapses. This could also mean that enemies decide that enough is enough and they leave the scene (there’s no reason why enemies have to stick around to get killed off), plus, they can be added to future rooms for more difficulty if desired.

  5. Make the characters MOVE from one room to the next, do not let the stand firm and fight one by one thing to happen. Make the characters chase the bad guys down or push through the room because of some environmental condition. Making the enemies move is the key here!

#4

@rpgerminator has given you excellent advice, particularly in point #3.

Sometimes, usually for a guaranteed one-session one-shot, I like to combine Rooms 1&2 and Rooms 4&5 from the 5-Room Dungeon concept to condense the adventure down to just three encounter areas.

Combining the “guardian” with the “puzzle” (1&2) leverages a very natural encounter economy. The gateway to the goal can have both a guard and a trick. The purpose of Room 2 is to support the exploration/investigation pillar of play, after all, so dropping environmental clues that help the party either defeat or circumvent the guardian and pass through the gateway kills both birds.

This leads to Room 3, the “setback,” as a nice, clean, often atmospheric or thematic way to soften up the party if they’re not on their toes as well as create some tension and tease the boss fight.

The finale is the final encounter condensing the “boss fight” (4) and the “reward/resolution/reveal” (5). Room 5 already usually serves multiple purposes when the 5-Room Dungeon is part of a longer campaign, since it often delivers plot hooks for the next session. Putting the Room 5 reward/reveal out in the open when the Room 4 boss fight begins can really highlight the stakes for the adventure when the two rooms are combined. As long as you don’t make it easy for the PCs to skirt the big bad and “skip to the ending”, you’ll get efficiency of play time without too much trade-off. You may not be able to deliver a serious gut-punch plot reveal as you could if Room 5 remained separate, but you can still deliver a very satisfactory conclusion within a single session of play.

PS: BTW, @glocke, I just wanted to mention that in my weekly Alfheim games over the last year or so I have run mobs of bad guys frequently in 5RD scenarios. Hordes are some of my favorite encounters—maybe because I like the look of a bunch of speed-painted goblins or kobolds on the tabletop as much as I like the looks on the players’ faces when they appear—and they don’t have to bring on a boring slog. Horde sizes from 20 to 40 are not uncommon, such as the 27 zombies my players has to fight off last weekend. The various optional rules for mooks and minions work well to cut down the time it takes to run any horde encounter. Also, you can maintain player interest and keep things fresh by setting a clear but challenging task before the players to cut off a spawning horde; dropping a portcullis or dispelling a portal makes a great challenge for players under threat of being overrun.

#5

Hey @glocke, I run roughly three rooms a session. They are each about one hour, for a total of three hours for the night. And while I have had one room be the whole night, and while we have also breezed through six rooms in a night, in almost five years of playing ICRPG almost every week (sometimes twice a week), the formula of 1 hour per room has held pretty true.

I think, as others have mentioned, if you are throwing lots of bad guys at your players, you might be grinding away at them and turning your game into a slog. So, I have four suggestions:

  • Fewer enemies who are glass cannons. Your damage dial is your friend. Hank is great at putting us up against only two creatures that feel like we are battling ten.

  • In your rooms, consider imposing a dilemma. Cultists are destroying the yog crystals on the far left, and others are killing innocents on the far right. Now, the players have to move quickly, or doom is guaranteed on both sides.

  • Put innocents in peril to spur them on. It always works.

  • In an RP heavy room, you can still have some sort of threat or time pressure. ie, you don’t get a ton of time to parley down in a dungeon. Drop a timer and then spawn another wave of spiders or trolls at the door.

Beyond those things. Keep your target around 12, and rock on. And if you reach a climax for the night, just call it and resolve next session. Or throw your session end die and don’t be afraid to stop the final frame right then and there at the end of the evening.

#6

Hey Glocke,

There is a lot of great advice above. The first thing I would do in your situation is ask your players how they feel about the game. It sounds like they are having a great time, and I would recommend caution when changing the formula that is working for them. Your fun is important too, just be aware that your players don’t have all the information you do. They don’t “know” when they get a complete story in one session or not - only you have that data.

Combat: If combat takes too long, follow advice above about reducing number of opponents or give many of them 1 HP, and let your heroes defeat a number of foes equal to the damage they roll after a successful attempt. (Fighter rolled 7 damage, player describes hacking down 7 goblins, etc)

Sans Combat: I do not believe you always need tension. That is a new-school idea in the gaming community and in my experience often doesn’t work out well. If everything is always pressure pressure pressure pressure there isn’t any time to appreciate the pressure! Just like in grimdark campaigns that have no light or respite, we need the cycle.

The only times you really need tension are (1) the scene demands it like rescue elders before tentacle thing is summoned, or (2) the players are waffling. If those two things aren’t happening, let them enjoy talking to NPCs, roleplaying amongst themselves, and investing in your game.

The final suggestion I have is to just take a breath, relax, and realize that your players are probably having fun. If you are too, there is no problem. :slight_smile:

AC

#7

Everything I wanted to say has been said by many great ICRPG minds before me.

I just want to emphasize one thing, which @Anthony_C brought up: Things you see as “problems” are usually only problems for you, not for the group. Do not change a thing before getting feedback from them, and at the same time, do not ever hesitate to toss a feedback if you are sure it is wrong (but always think before doing so).

These suggestions seem contrary to each other; and indeed they are, but for a good reason. As the GM, it is your responsibility to create and maintain an enjoyable game. Without proper direction, games turn into boring, aimless slugfests. Only you have the power to guide the game to glory.

Let’s return to what you are feeling. Don’t your feelings matter? Of course they do, and more so than your fellow players. Since you are the one putting the most effort into the game, everything should satisfy you first. Otherwise you are doing disservice to yourself. This obviously doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t listen to your players at all and be a tyrant, as we discussed above.

What you are doing is, you want to squeeze the game that is happening at the table into a predetermined formula, rather than letting it to be played out organically. Like it was mentioned many times above, you don’t have to run 5 rooms a night. Also you don’t have to complete them all, and the game night doesn’t have to end at a specific predetermined point. If your players want to “waste time” RPing more than “needed”, and they are having fun, let them.

Long story short, do not try to predetermine anything, let the game unfold at the table and go from there. If a session isn’t what you expected, lower your expectations and improve whatever you can before the next session. Nobody says that each night has to have a climax, or has to have a boss fight.

Our group just spent the last 3 sessions in a row doing only rp, because it was what the story demanded and what they wanted. I could have introduced “rooms”, or “3-5 room dungeon design” principles into the game, but a) there was no need, and b) it was against the internal logic of the game.

Like a famous movie pirate once said, “The Code is more what you call guidelines, than actual rules”.

Just let it, and yourself, be.

#8

Hey guys, thanks for all your good answers :slight_smile:

I think I miss phrased some parts: My goal is not to force a specific event to happen or force my players to do something specific. My emphasis on 5-Room-Dungeons is because I’m still struggling with improving my mental framework for game prep. I’m not forcing a climax or a boss fight, but I want to string scenes together in a meaningful way. Tbh I absolutely enjoy when they RP “around”, because it shows how invested they are!

I’ll probably go away from the 5RD-approach for a while to try out different things and see what works best for me.

And yes, this is a problem exclusively for me. None of my players reported any issues with my games. But being my hardest critic on my own is imho a good thing to avoid ending myself in a I-am-a-flawless-GM-and-every-game-is-awesome-mindset. My goal is to get an even better GM over time while constantly poking myself with a stick.

What I’ve learned so far:

I’m kind of trapped in a 5-scene-mindset and have to break out. Having rooms last for an hour is fine if everybody has fun. Some session-arc can be created over less scenes, hence I’ll experiment with something like 3 rooms a night (like e.g. Alex suggested).

Greetings
glocke

#9

These are some great insights. I’m struggling with a lot of these questions myself so it’s really encouraging and helpful to see all of this.

I’m usually trying to shoot for about 1-hour sessions. I don’t think I’ve successfully hit that mark yet. But everyone I play with has kids so time is a huge factor for us. I had gotten the feeling that 1 hour per room was about right, so my plan from here on out is gonna be to prep 1 room or encounter per session and see how it goes.

I also love the idea of condensing the concepts of the 5RD into fewer rooms, so you can still use the cognitive tools for keeping things interesting and building tension, but make it a little quicker to play through.

#10

IMHO one-hour sessions are pretty hard to pull off, for any group with any full-fledged rules system (as opposed to a “micro-RPG”), especially if the session is part of a larger campaign. Generally, after herding the players through any bookkeeping (and any brief recap), one hour is barely time to set the scene and bring the players by some facsimile of their own will and actions to the inciting event with any reserve left to resolve your scenario.

Your obvious options are:

  1. Hot Start—Drop your players into the action almost immediately (AKA Matt Colville’s “Orcs attack!”) and then build the scenario around them with measured doses of significant information dropped turn by turn.
  2. Pre-Game Show—Save time at the table on game night with advance e-mail or social media correspondence that delivers all the preamble, description, and encounter set-up before you gather in person. You can even do a solo RP mini-session with each player in your game to pose them specific questions or let them resolve specific desires/goals for the PCs in the timeline leading up to the encounter, and if you’re willing to allow one more iteration of telecommunication in advance of the in-person game, you can describe the individual actions of each player and their ramifications in an update—right down to the status and starting positions of every character right as the game night encounter begins, so when you finally gather together, the first thing that happens after drinks and snacks are served is a roll for initiative… (Then default to your aforementioned hot start.)

Hope this helps…

#11

That does help! I’ll have to see what I can figure out. I like the idea of the hot start with details that come out during play, but it’s possible that I may need to roll with slightly longer play time. I think the question is one of keeping up the action, so everyone pays attention, versus letting the scene breath, so the players don’t feel like they’re dragged into stuff. 2 hour sessions are probably very doable as well. Thanks!

#12

Just a random thought, as a way to break out of the 5-room/scene paradigm, you present your players with a small sandbox - a town, a castle, a city quarter, and a ticking clock with maybe 3-5 scenes set to go off as time counts down. That way any RP that happens has tension, because the clock is still ticking, and PCs still have a thing they need to accomplish, but there’s no order to the way the PCs interact with what’s happening in the environment. I think this is a heavier load, and probably harder to prep, but it would be different.

#13

As an addition to this thread, but not directly aimed at anyone, I feel the need to address an important issue.

Criticizing oneself is fine, trying to improve and grow is fine. However, losing one’s way while trying to self criticize is a dangerous path because when left unchecked, it will take over and will lead you to self worry and doubt. This will only cause trouble for you and will not solve anything.

Remember that there is a huge chasm between “I suck as a GM” and “I am a flawless GM” and trying to avert one will not make you go the other way, at least not all the way. Try not to beat yourselves too much while trying to avoid being “flawless”.

Like I said, just let it and yourself be. That’s when the game becomes most fun for everyone involved. As long as everyone (including you) is having fun at the table, everything is great and everything is correct. No changes to be made, no improvements to be done. Nothing else matters.