Nestor the Just, servant of Torm and the Hand of Righteousness, stood before his foe. Over hill and dale, through deepest cavern and under foreign skies had he chased Kalyxstraz the Lichwyrm. Across the months and long years had he harried the wretched creature, only to come up short time and again; often missing the ancient evil by mere days as it fled before him. His kingdom was in ruins; his family dead in the wake of Kalyxstraz’s minions. Now, at long last, with his mighty companions at his side, Nestor would slay the foul thing. He would cut out its desiccated, corrupted heart and thrust it into mighty Torm’s light— ah crap. It’s 10:00pm already; I gotta jet. Can we pick this up next time?

I’ve been playing roleplaying games for a long time; I started playing when I was twelve, and was soon running games for my friends. That’s more than twenty years, for anyone keeping score. In that time, I’ve run some awful games, some good games, and one or two great games. But, it was only recently that I started running short games, and that’s what I want to talk about today.

Historically, when my friends and I would get together to slay goblins or blast stormtroopers, it was over the course of four to six hours on a weekend. We’d all show up at the host’s place, snacks or beer in one hand, dice in the other, and hunker down. This, I think, is the usual perception of how an RPG session runs. Even the most popular Twitch RPG streams are blocked into four hour increments. For me, however, this is no longer the case. Over the last two years, my sessions have had to get shorter, and that’s required me to change the way I run them.

These days I run two games a week; one online with Roll20, and one with a local gaming group. Both of these groups are made up of people with families, jobs, and other hobbies; in short, real-world obligations that keep most of us from playing for hours at a stretch. As a result, these games tend to run between two and three hours, or roughly half as long as what I had been used to. Adding a further restriction, my in-person game group likes to rotate games, so people get exposure to all kinds of systems, and so we tend to limit campaigns to no more than eight sessions or so.

Shorter sessions, and limited session counts, present challenges and opportunities for a GM who isn’t used to having their timelines compressed. As I’ve gotten more used to running these bite-sized games, I’ve noticed a few key things that can help or hinder shorter play; the system being used, the scope of the session and story, and the pacing.

Systems Check

When I started running these short sessions, the first thing I had to take stock of was which games we would be able to play in order to tell the stories I and my players wanted to explore. I’m going to be frank here; some systems just aren’t built for quicker play. That’s not to say they can’t be made to fit that style; it just means that you will have to work harder to make them do so.

I got lucky in this respect; neither of my groups is particularly interested in “tactical simulation” style games like Dungeons and Dragons, nor are they interested in the crunchier “story-driven” games like Burning Wheel. Instead, the priority for both groups is on games which keep the rules light and easy, and the story front and center.

Of course, both D&D and Burning Wheel can be played in shorter bursts, but doing so requires the group to prioritize what’s important more than it would for longer sessions. If that’s not something you and your players are interested in or good at, it’s probably time to look at changing games to something that lets you tell the same stories with fewer hurdles.

For my groups, that means sticking to games such as Apocalypse World and its derivatives, or even looser games like Fate Accelerated. These games have great systems for managing play, which also get out of the way when we don’t need them.

Of course, the system you run won’t mean much if you can’t reign in your ambition.

Breadth Attack

It is my ambition to slay in ten encounters what others slay in a whole campaign. Also, Franz, could you please pass the Cheetos? — Friedrich Nietzsche

I’m a web developer by trade, and one of the constant real-world battles of my life is something called scope creep. For the uninitiated, scope creep is when a project is started with an agreed-upon set of parameters, but those parameters keep getting changed or expanded after the project begins. Scope creep is one of the things programmers loathe most, and it can quickly bog down or kill a project. But scope creep isn’t limited to decidedly non-fantastical, real-world pursuits; it can, and does, crop up all the time in RPGs. If you’re going to run shorter, snappier games, you’re going to have to deal with scope. Luckily, this means telling more focused stories, not smaller stories.

Did you know that the Viking epic, Beowulf, is just under 3200 lines* long? By contrast, the Hobbit, a story which is heavily influenced by Beowulf, can run more than 300 pages, depending on the edition. Which of these stories is more “epic?” Personally, I’d argue that they are both epic, just in different ways. The point is, Beowulf tells of a grand, sweeping adventure filled with monsters and dragons, in a fraction of the space it takes the Hobbit to do something similar. Sure, the Hobbit has more opportunity to explore its world and characters, but if you’re going to run shorter gaming sessions, this might not be a luxury you have. Instead, you should narrow your scope, and keep the spotlight on what matters.

Are your players on an epic quest to slay the dragon who lairs in a trans-dimensional fortress? Great! Instead of spending hours in the preamble to get to the mountain, start the characters nearby. Let them live through an attack by the dragon or its minions, so that they see the destruction the wyrm has wrought. Set the stakes high, and set them early. Make it personal, so that the party has a clear idea of why slaying the dragon is important. In other words, keep the focus on the main thread of the plot.

Now, I hear you uttering that most dreadful of phrases; “It sounds like you want me to railroad my players.” That’s not the case at all. Instead, I want you to talk to your players. RPGs are a collaborative effort, and everyone involved needs to agree on what the goals of the game are. If your group decided that they wanted to kill an inter-dimensional dragon, but then starts devoting time to exploring the history of the amulet needed to kill said dragon, pause the game for a bit. Ask your players if they want to change the focus of the game. Remind them that the group’s time is limited, and see what’s more important.

Also, don’t let them go on shopping trips.

Stay on Target

Roll the dice to see if I’m getting drunk! — That One Guy

Full disclosure; I used to be a pretty terrible GM. I mean, if we’re honest, we all were. Very few people start out being good at something new, especially when we’re twelve. That being said, one of my worst offenses as a new game master was to let my players go on shopping trips. I would let the group spend hours talking to NPCs, making appraise and persuasion checks, and trying to filch the items they needed. If we started a new adventure at noon, we’d be lucky to be leaving town by 2pm, and this was with a group of three or four players. At one point in college, I was running a game with seven or eight players on average, so you can imagine how grueling that was.

The lesson here is a straightforward one, and it can apply both to short and “regular” length sessions; keep the bullshit to a minimum, and make pacing your priority. Sure, you love throwing on your best Scottish accent to voice the local blacksmith while the players haggle, or sticking your nose up as the town magistrate when the players ask for the gold they’re owed. But you know what? There’s a dragon in that mountain behind you, and she doesn’t give a rat’s ass about how much the players are going to pay for a new longsword, or how many coppers the magistrate is going to screw them out of. If she’s not dead soon, this whole town, hell, the whole duchy, is going to be burning slag. What is the party doing about that?

Diversions can be fun, and they are useful tool when utilized well. Think about any really good TV show or movie. In between moments of high drama or action, there are lulls; moments of comedy or intimate character development that let you, the audience, breath and get ready for the next big scene. You should absolutely include these kinds of lulls in your sessions, short or long, to let the players regroup and re-energize. But these diversions should be in service to the scope of the game. Instead of letting the players haggle with the smith before the adventure begins, give them a moment during the dragon’s first attack, when the smith is helping them defend the town. Wouldn’t it be more interesting to have the magistrate argue with the players about their plan to kill the dragon (and potentially further endanger the town), then to make him a tight ass about their pay?

Pacing isn’t just about managing diversions, either. Often times, it’s about knowing when to engage with the systems of the game, and when to ignore them. Vincent Baker said it best: “Say yes, or roll the dice.” This phrase gets tossed around a lot these days, but it nearly always bears repeating. If something the players want or need isn’t important to the plot, just give it to them. You’ll be amazed at how often this simple mantra, and it is a mantra, can short-circuit those diversions I wrote about above, or keep the scope of a session or story from ballooning out of control. By saying “yes” to trivial things, you communicate to the players that something isn’t important enough to engage the consequences and rewards of the system, and thus, isn’t worth diving into. Of course, if your players decide it is important, it’s time to have one of those conversations I mentioned.

Know When to Fold’em

Almost inevitably when you run shorter games, things are occasionally going to end in a weird spot. This actually happened during my group’s last session of the Sprawl; the mission hadn’t been completed or failed, and we’re going to have to pick that thread up mid-stream next time. Luckily, by keeping the points I made above in mind, I was able to end on what felt like a natural cliffhanger. While we hadn’t come to the end of a “chapter,” for lack of a better term, we had ended at a critical point in the action, and my players were excited to see what would happen the next time we played.

Like everything I’ve mentioned today, this isn’t just an issue unique to shorter sessions, but it tends to come up more frequently with them. Luckily, as with anything you’ll do as a GM, the more games you run, the more you get better at knowing what the story beats are. Once you have a handle on when the beats are coming, you can usually predict when to best end a session.

These days I end at least half of my sessions at moments like these, even if I don’t have to. Keeping the group on the edge of their seats means that they stay engaged with the game we’re playing, and it gives me a natural high point to start things up the next time around. See? Keeping the scope focused, and limiting diversions!

My liege, and madam, to expostulate

What majesty should be, what duty is,

What day is day, night night, and time is time,

Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time;

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,

I will be brief. — Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2

I hope you find some of the points I’ve made here useful. I’ve found running shorter, more focused to be a great experience, and the lessons I’ve learned doing so will carry over when I can start playing longer games again. I’d love to hear feedback and suggestions from my fellow gamers, so hit me with it.

Until next time, stay jacked-in, cowboy.

*My copy of Beowulf is 3182 lines long, but I’m sure that can change depending on the translation.