D&D Pacing Tip: Think from the Ending

A focus on endings improves pacing

Every session of D&D has a beginning and an ending. However unpredictable the events of the game might be, we can rely on beginnings and endings to improve our pacing when we’re running D&D. During game preparation, we can plan a strong start for our next session. During the game itself, we can structure our pacing by continually thinking about the ending of the session.

There might be a powerful villain whom the characters are trying to reach. We can plan for the final encounter with the villain to occur an hour before the end of the session. The characters might need to break into a mansion to steal an ancient artifact. The heist itself might take up to an hour of game time. So, we keep an eye on the clock. We can steer the game in a way that we begin the heist sequence with enough time left in the session.

Pacing for one-shots and campaigns

Pacing is an essential skill to run engaging D&D games. It is doubly important if we only have a single session to complete an adventure. For a satisfying conclusion to a one-shot, pacing by thinking from the ending is crucial. But for longer-running campaigns, this same technique can help us keep players interested and engaged.

Improvising towards the ending

When we’re preparing our game, we don’t plan plots. So how can we ensure our group reaches a certain ending scene? And how do we do so without railroading them along a fixed sequence of events? By improvising the beats of the session, cutting from the middle, and working with the players.

Improvising beats of the session

Instead of running the characters through a pre-planned sequence of scenes, we can keep the general situation of the game in mind, and think about emotional upward and downward beats (an idea from Robin D. Laws’s book, Hamlet’s Hit Points) to pace the game.

The characters are traversing the domain of a cursed archfey to find a magical crystal. We don’t plan a sequence of events. Instead, while we’re running the game, we can try to alternate positive and negative emotional beats in the scenes we improvise. Have the characters had an easy time navigating the wilderness? Maybe in the next stretch of the journey they run into a corrupted forest that pushes the characters to the brink of madness.

We improvise these upward and downward beats as the characters interact with the fictional situation. By not planning scenes, we eliminate the risk of feeling obliged to run through our list of scenes before we reach the ending. If we instead rely on upward and downward beats to improvise the session, we can easily move the game forward at a pace that suits our time schedule.

Cutting from the middle

When we think about pacing from the ending of our D&D sessions, we cut from the middle to get there. We want to avoid a situation where we have to anticlimactically rush through the end of an exciting encounter just because our game time is up. Therefore, we keep an eye on the clock. We plan for 45 to 60 minutes for the ending of the session, and cut from the rest of the session to get the game to that place.

We can turn travel into a story montage in which we narrate the characters’ journey across the fey realm. Random encounters don’t have to be cut entirely. Instead of cutting them, we can roll randomly for an encounter but determine that the monsters of that encounter are already dead and the characters only find their scavenged remains. If we have to, we can avoid time-consuming combat that way. Alternatively, we can reduce the number of monsters in encounters to turn them into easier battles. The characters will feel like the mighty heroes they are, and we can move the game along towards a satisfying ending.

Working with the players

For pacing with this technique to work, we as the DMs need to work with the players. When we’re moving the game along towards an ending, we can rely on character skills more heavily. Instead of players poking around an empty dungeon room for half an hour in order to make sure that they did not miss any hidden treasure, we can tell the players, “Your characters feel confident that they have searched this room thoroughly. There is nothing left to find.” Characters know the situation better than the players. We can explain the world through the eyes of the characters to help players keep up with the pacing of the game.

Continuous pacing with flexible endings

We don’t plan the conclusion to a session. The outcome of any adventure depends on the players’ choices and the character’s actions. In our heads and during prep, we should keep the ending of any given session flexible. Nonetheless, we can have a general idea of where a session is going.

Let’s say we planned a big battle in the treasure hoard of the archfey. But midway through the adventure the players decide to abandon their search for the lost magical crystal. That’s ok. We follow the characters’ lead. In these situations, we can stay flexible and abandon this particular ending. We can try to come up with an alternative ending while we’re running the session. Maybe the cursed archfey has already noticed the characters trudging through their domain. The archfey sends its right hand to drive the party away, letting the session end with an exciting encounter without railroading the players towards a particular outcome.

When things go into unexpected directions, we can still pace the game by thinking from the ending. It’s just not going to be the ending we had planned when we prepared for or started the session.

Giving D&D sessions focus by pacing from the ending

Keeping an eye on the clock when we’re running the game lets us plan for enough time to reach a satisfying conclusion. We can use pacing techniques to improvise the events of the game, and reach a “finale” with about 45 to 60 minutes left in the session. That way, both one-shots and individual sessions of a campaigns will feel more focused. With a strong start and pacing that is structured with the ending in mind, we can create sessions that feel like self-contained dramatic arcs.