Pacing Your D&D & Pathfinder Games ( 

Ran my first Five Torches Deep today, had a blast, it felt like a "Express 5e", combat was always exciting and it didn't bog down the session.

Prof DM, are you actually an English professor? You cite a lot of literary works and it’s refreshing to hear your tips are grounded in something besides “I think it’s cooler this way” ...which is basically my default :)

I love this channel, watched every video at least twice!

As a Grizzled Geek, I really love the old school approach to the rules here. I don't understand the desire for such strict rules and the term "DM cheating". What does that even mean? Back in the day we practically made up most of the stuff on the spot. As long as the story is good and people are having fun, that is the reason to game. You want rules, play a tabletop game.

Group size is exactly like a party out leveling threat. Resources increase and throwing monsters at it doesn't work. I believe that the closer you can get to rolling only when it's fun is the goal. You're basically a gypsy fortune teller/shaman. You read your audience, reach out to each of them on a personal level and show them, one at a time, that it's ok to let their imagination run. I love your channel. It's like my best friend and I talking shop about the table

Since I knew the professor, I have never missed a class. Great hints!

Your insight has profoundly changed the way I run my gaming table. Through most episodes of the series you reference books you've taken inspiration from. I spend a lot of time on the channel trying to find works I remember you mentioning. I would love to see you do an episode just looking at some of the best books and resources you have encountered, and briefly describe how they have helped you to shape your tabletop experience. Thanks for the awesome content.

This video is probably the most useful advice for DMs that I have seen after months of watching TTRPG guids

I'm running a one-shot (ish) campaign tonight in Harn using slightly modified 5e rules. Haven't done this in 40 years (and I can't believe that I am really this old). I've been enjoying your videos, they've helped me with my prepping.

Great video, but every time you said Alexa my Alexa flashed blue saying "Sorry, I didn't catch that..." Hahahahahahaha

This. I needed this video. This is probably my greatest sin as a DM, I almost always overextend my adventures way past the point of yawning. I will practice these advices, Professor.

10:08 YES

Conscious alteration between hope and fear - simple and brilliant! Thanks Professor!!

Roll for Disadvantage is a good way to handle when the enemy is behind any cover.

Liking the thumbnail! Simple, but explains the video without need for much text. Great advice too!

I keep saying it: this channel deserves more recognition

Dramatic Beats: that is pure gold! About intiative: Even better than ditching initiative, do away with "turns" altogether. The "camera" follows the whom it needs to follow, from moment to moment. At any time any player character might need to react to what is happening, meaning everyone is involved at all times -- even if the camera is not on you, you need to pay attention so you can react to what is going on. It is the DM's job to make sure everyone is involved and gets roughly "equal participation". There is no "I take an attack action, I swing at the giant". Instead there's "I inside inside the swing of the giant's hammer, between its legs, and shove my spear up its butt!" "OK, roll to see how successful that is" (you might do one roll for the "duck", and another roll for the attack. Or a single roll for the entire maneuver. There is no "the dragon breaths fire on you, roll to save". Instead there is "The dragon inhales deeply, clearly about to exhale a jet of flame in your direction. What do you do?" "I dive into the pool of water and hold my breath!" "OK, roll to see if you can hold your breath longer than the dragon can exhale... and I'll roll to see whether the water reaches scalding hot temperatures..." You will encounter many situations not covered in the 5e rules or any other rules. Make up the both the die roll required, and how to interpret it, on the fly.

I've been playing for decades and I learn something new with every one of these videos.

11:10 This is an aha moment for me! “Each scene is a room, and the clues are like passageways.“

The most valuable video I have watched this year. Shared it and switched to my RPG account so I could leave this comment "in character" while I let it play a second time silently so you can have that watch time!

12:00 omg I never thought of how crazy I must seem to strangers practicing character bits!!!

I'm promoting the channel !! Thank you Professor Dungeon Master !!

This is legit my favourite youtube channel! Keep doing what you're doing!

Professor...to be honest I thought this week was a crafting video. So when I saw it was on pacing, I immediately settled in for the lesson. All I can say is just...wow. You really out did yourself. This video as many others of yours is just gold. I think all the other DM's giving advise on D&D on you tube should really watch this video and learn from the real D&D professor. You crammed so much meaningful info in one lesson/video, I'm just blown away. Two thumbs up. I think there is a lot of valuable info, I'm gonna have to watch a few times for sure. I hope you don't mind if I throw a few questions at ya on facebook. This is one of those big subjects that improves THE game as a DM, so important. I think pacing can make or break the game short of the players not doing their part. Ok, I'm gonna get off it, I could go on, I'm just really excited you put this out for us. Dan your experience really shows in this video, rock on man and many thanks. Cheers!!

I'll soon start using a timer when running DCC. Like a chart that when a PC first interacts with a Faction, a pie chart timer, and a timer for said Faction's opposing/friendly Faction or Factions, will start getting colored in. Each session, the next layer of the pie chart we'll be colored in. The pie chart represents said Factions immediate goals. Once the chart is full, the Faction achieves one of it's objectives. A sort of count down against the PCs. The world is always moving when the players are playing.

Another great video Professor! You bring up a lot of excellent points. So many that I'm going to have to rewatch this video a few times and make notes!

Keep 'em coming, Professor! I love your videos. I run a game with 7 to 10 players per session and having your house rules to speed up combat is great.

Yes I always sit like a poker dealer - center of the table.

This is my new favorite of your videos.

Best DMG + on RU-vid I swear to gods. Good solid stuff.

In our Pathfinder game, you get 10 words per combat round.

The best advice, which is saying something as the minutes explaining up and down beats is something everyone should pay attention to, is the advice about just having a wondering monster. Save the session, engage the players, and figure it out afterwards. Usually, your players will give you idea why he was there with their own wondering about it.

Excellent video! I hope many new students are seeing how the many ideas and fantastic bits of advice you teach can help them dungeon master with confidence!

I don't usually LIKE videos by clicking on LIKE (or by commenting on them), I like them by watching them over and over again. Since you keep asking so nicely, I've clicked. Count this as a vote for continuing the CAMPAIGN UPDATES, lol. Thanks, PDM.

Great video as always. Thank you.

Just want to say I love your videos and while I don't agree with everything you put out I will say the advice is spot on for stopping a session too soon rather than letting it drag on just so you can have you final fight. I have been guilty of this and would always leave the sessions I DMed feeling like I failed, because I forgot to include an important plot point, or I messed up a ruling and I thought I just sucked as a DM. Until I realized all these blunders would happen in the last hour of the session. Since then I just have a hard stop time regardless of where the players are and everyone seems to be having a much better time including me.

This is exactly why i watch this channel

Very cool and informative as usual. Your content and episodes continue to be excellent and helpful for my continued development in this game.

impeccable as always

You referred back to other videos regarding combat, I've been wondering if you could show a scenario with the no initiative/ no turns combat. I've wanted to try that out, but don't know how I would implement it

Hey I talk to myself too bro! People think I'm nuts when driving. Great video. I love LOVE the idea of time limits and flowcharts. Even if all directions they choose eventually and subtly leads them on a more linear path with short rabbit trails. I feel like this kinda forces players who like the RP to make sure the story moves along. You HAVE to get this item, retrieve those, assemble the machine, solve the mystery, kill the baddy, etc. These players WANT the story to advance because it's stressful. No matter what the players choose to do, the same (kind of, but different) encounters occur in those locations. Even choose your own adventure books had minimal number of endings. The villain either lives or dies along with heroes. Thanks Dan. Again, great vids dude.

Another thing that can be done for Initiative... Players roll initiative at the beginning of the game. DM rolls or assigned initiative before the game even starts and marks them in their notes. Maybe even while they create the encounter. As far as players, feats, spells, ANYTHING that is self explanatory, should be part of a booklet or flash cards or something. Something they can reference without going to a book or something. Just my two coppers, though.

Side or team Initive is amazing. I have each player roll a D20 Plus their bonuses. (So they still feel like those Class features or feats still matter.) And give me the total. I roll the equal amount of D20s plus any bonuses the mobsters may have. Then highest number goes first. On the players turn they can choose who goes first or if they want to break up there turn that is fine too. This encourages team work and some really cool and fun combos happening. This also allows my monsters to dish out some seriously dangerous things as they combine their attacks and spells aswell. Also use average damage for Monsters. Nothing whose than waiting for the DM to roll a bunch of dice.

On initiative: It might not take long when combats are compact and don't go past 8 combatants (including monsters). However for people like me that like throwing hoards at my party to give them that conan feel of hacking through a ton of dudes then two things have helped the most. Firstly, group up your monsters into squads. Move those squads on the same initiative and have them work fairly cohesively. One of these monsters might not be terribly smart, but if you have enough of them in a squad they can probably understand something basic regarding tactics. Secondly, use the modified initiative system from index card RPG. The basic method suggested is to go around the table starting to the immediate right of the dungeon master and then continuing counterclockwise. I personally prefer something more akin LotR's camerawork. The heroes do something, then the monsters do something. After all the heroes have done something then the commander of the monsters does something. If the hero doesn't have a response, move on to one that does. While my players have difficulties with this because they're quite old fashioned, we've gotten several rounds in before one noticed we'd never rolled initiative due to how much more quickly paced this can lead combats to being. We also use roll20 so, in that case I go in the order their names are displayed.

You are giving me much entertainment. Thank you!! good stuff.

Great video as always Professor! At first, when you made those controversial videos, I always thought that it was cool, but that I didn't need it. A little bit ago I was literally in the middle of a game and the combat was going so slow, so I just decided to get rid of HP and use the hit system you made. It is so much better not calculating damage that the players deal to monsters. Your ideas make my dnd games so much better!

im so glad you mentioned lowering the AC of an enemy and buffing the HP a little to add that feeling of power and progress. ive often thought that unless something is heavily armoured, really small or fast then it should be a reasonable expectation that a player can hit it. the damage it takes is still down to player rolls so nothing is lost and people feel heroic.

Glad to see Alexa and D'uvel turning up in the videos! Really liked their stories and your writing!

Professor, excellent gaming advice. I’ve been playing AD&D for almost 40yrs and DMing for nearly as long. Group Initiative is something I’ve been using since the late 80s. I take each players Dex reaction bonus into account and average it out over the party. This still gives the high Dex PCs a bonus but it greatly accelerates combat.

Nice approach. May you never run out of topics!

You know, when I was a kid playing D&D, splitting the initiative between players and monsters then proceeding left to right was the way to do it. It worked really well. We also adjusted it by rolling initiative every round. It was possible then that if a party lost initiative, they could essentially take a round after theirs, but so could the monsters. It created a unique tension at times, especially when a spell took X number of rounds to go off. There were cheers and there were at times tears! Never the less we always came back for more.

I use team initiative. Whoever gets the jump on the other side acts first. If it isn’t clear who got the ambush then a member of each side rolls an opposed dex check and the winner goes first. Once a team is gone they can go in whatever they want.

This was quite helpful! Thank you!

I would just replace initiative with marching order. The party determines who is going first, second, and so on, and that applies for whatever encounter they find themselves in. Any time they aren't in an encounter they can switch up the marching order.

Prof DM! I'm not going to lie but this content is not something i would normally have looked up but the youtube black hole took me down one day and i have sense been hooked. I have taken a few bits of advice from your videos and incorporated the group initiative and player facing rolls and it was the best possible change to the game, table, and my style i could have asked for. I no longer find myself getting lost in notes or stats or order, and just have the person who the effect is happening to roll the dice for the monster then i narrate what happens. To an extent, while not being a player, i actually feel like one and its great never rolling a dice. Please, keep doing the great work. You have my subscription. (i have never played dnd. i actually came from shadowrun and jumped ship to starfinder)

Yes reading your players is a good point. Keep the game moving is key.

Another enjoyable video and good information

Even though it was implied in the video, I think it pertinent to explicitly state that non-combat sequences, i.e. RP "turns", can tinker with the players' Hope and Fears as well. Talking to a foreman about the construction of a castle? Hope! Getting visited in their sleep by an agent of the Big Bad? Fear!! Meeting that charismatic and funny merchant replete with the eccentric voice and mannerisms? Hope! Learning that their NPC friend has been taken prisoner by ruthless cut-throat bandits? Fear!! In short: things that make players "feel good" and "crap their pants" should be alternated. But don't be afraid to string 2 - 3 small Hope encounters or 2 - 3 small-to-medium Fear encounters together before alternating. The drop or rise - depending on the direction your PCs are going - is worth it.

Yeah, I know what you're talking about with the players surrounding a monster and the combat drags on for three rounds because it's:"Roll!" "Miss!" "Roll!" "Miss!" But I think that dice checks are a tool of tension and, as such, I think that lowering the AC of monsters might not be the best way to go at it: I think that as GMs we should give players more/better options than just hit the monster over and over again. In fact, just to encourage my melee attacks to spread out or manage their movement I give Big Swing Attacks to my bosses so swarming him is a bad idea. It starts with this, but after that, I give the players items or moving objects in the room to lower the monster's AC or to weaken him before slashing at him a couple of times and killing him!

More amazing advice! Thank you.

The initiative method keeps coming up. I discussed alternatives with my group and the result was one of them writing a program to do the dice rolls for us. It’s funny because we have this one player and she has a running joke that she never rolls middle numbers. The first few uses of the program had her role either really high or really low so my players are convinced it’s legit.

I lower the AC for multiple attackers on a single attacker and for position (being behind or on the flank). The modifier is usually -1 AC per additional attacker and -1 to AC for a flanking attack. Striking from behind nets you a 2 reduction in AC.

ATM My group enjoys "bulky" Initiative system. D20 Fantasy game. Standard 3.5 Initiative rules + Weapon Speed Factor (S&S studios) + Fluid Initiative (SpyCraft RPG, taking damage lowers your initiative count). It offers a tactical element as well as opportunities to increase drama & add to the description of the battle.

Excellent as always Sir! You cover one of my homebrew rules I call "Master of your own character." If you don't know the range, or the stats, or the save...then I make one up By the way, I get a render problem around time index 11:17.

This is really good info

Another great video as always

Please keep sharing alternatives rules. I find it very useful and informative 👍👍👍

Great advice as always. Love the idea about beats.

My players started with HeroQuest because it's so much simpler. We've moved into a sort of modified Dungeon World since that also uses 2d6 for checks. I've noticed that there's an inherent symmetry with DW's 7+/10+ system that meshes nicely with D&D's 10+/15+/20+ targets for easy/medium/hard, as well as DCC's spell checks. Basically if they roll a 10+ it's a conditional success, 15+ is an outright success, and 20+ is a critical success, with a 1 a crit fail. Starting to see the matrix behind it all... thanks prof!

Prof. dungeon-master and the DM's of the round table!

The dexterity for initiative come from 1977 Eric Holmes Basic Dungeons and Dragons and is how I run combat.

Thank you so much for this perspective. There were a lot of pretty major flaws with my dms first campaign, but it always seemed like there was something inherently flawed with his storytelling that I, as someone who intends to dm in the future, have wanted to understand for a long time. Now I realize a lot of his storylines did not have this rollercoater structure of “beats”. The final arch where the world was being conquered by a big bad that came out of nowhere that caused me to quit out on the game felt like 3-5 negative beats for every one tiny positive one. It was extremely grating and made everyone feel hopeless.

Everybody should read and play or watch play any powered by the apocalypse game like dungeon world to understand you don't need initiative at all. It's the GM job to pass around the spotlight so that everyone gets equal "screen time".

I've tried the no initiave thing and it absolutely fixed combat for me, so thanks

17:57 a thought here. If in this situation a player has had a near miss or a enemy has rolled low. Build the decrease in ac into the story.

I have always been a fan of a lot of lethal minions with very few hit points .

thanks for making these videos. i greatly appreciate the advice

So it's like King Arthur and the round table? I do like the "a monster attacks" to bump things along. I have the two Characters facing the attack roll initiative, generally. They fight the monsters fight, people at the back fight. Yeah if it's all ,interwoven I do give each individual a chance. One of our favourite early combats had the kobolds dropping on players from the trees near the Caves of Chaos. Kobolds tried to knife, bite the players they had dropped on but they missed. Players tried to hack smash off the kobolds, they missed. They were all rolling about in a little frantic ball of cascading failure. The fighter swung his two handed sword missed the Kobold with a 1 but then with second roll hit a team mate with an 18 and 6 points of damage. Took about ten minutes to finally rout the Kobolds and put the party back together, but it was one of our more memorable combats.

We tried your method and it didn't work for us. It wasn't terrible, but my players were too scattered and I couldn't manage the structure. We're going to try the following; I Roll a 15 and a 9 for initiative. Enemies are in 2 groups of 5. "Who beats 15? You go first. Now the enemies. Who beat 9? You go now. Second enemy group. Now everyone else"

Thank you

Hi Professor. No idea about PATHFINDER. Never played it. As a DM, I just think it best to ALWAYS ask questions of the Players. The Players make the pace. I always have 3 - 5 options for every scenario that Players will face. I can make up an encounter on the spot. These are often the most fun ! 😊 But the mission "clock" ticks or does not. I never kill PCs for time failures. Well, not in their first 3 missions...... M 🦘🏏😎

Excellent video as always!

Was on vacation; checking out European ossuaries! Catching up, great vid!

What about "What 1917 Can Teach Us About D&D?" Personally, I can't think of much, other than littering the landscape with narrative props to make every step interesting. I just saw that movie and thought, "I want my games to be THIS immersive."

Great stuff! May the almighty algorithm approve this video!!!

I love this channel! Here is a comment to stimulate youtube's algorithms to help this channel out!

I almost never say "you missed" i just count it as fencing. A clash where no hits were scored. That way its not that the player is clumsy or incompetent. Its that the enemy is skilled or ferocious!

FYI, I found this video because one of your fans shared it to FB.

I've been DMing for AD&D and Keeping for CoC for over 30 years and I'd certainly agree with most of your points. I'd be inclined to make the hope and fear phases a little more organic than scripted - and I think that sometimes giving them a long session of fear is good for them ;-) But it's useful to analyise it in that way to an extent. I certainly always use group initiative - I never learned the stupid individual initiative system, so I never had to unlearn it! And I don't even go round the table clockwise: I expect my players to decide among themselves who's going to do what when. It adds to the co-operative spirit and I've NEVER seen an argument about it. I'd like to pass you one small tip; it's not about pace, just flavour: It's this: try to strip out some of the modernisms/americanisms in your game vocabulary and take from the best high fantasy and from mediaeval literature itself: Why refer to a wizard's "safe house" when you can refer to a "place of sanctuary"? Thank you for making this video.

Another great one!

There is one widely advocated position you take in that video that needs to be pushed back against: NPC foes should have lower ACs and higher hit points. While I may be true that for many groups this makes combat feel better, by generating a perception of effect and progress, it has some additional consequences that are under appreciated and problematic. First, it lowers the effectiveness of damaging attacks by the PCs that do not rely on test versus AC effect. Spells from Vicious Mockery and Magic Missile to Meteor Swarm, as well as abilities like dragonborn breath attacks, have their effectiveness reduced relative to attacks that check against AC. This is a negative because more esoteric attacks should not be weakened relative to the most common. Second, this changes has the effect of making combat more predictable, as it reduces the amount of statistical variation likely to occur in a given fight, compressing the curve of possible outcomes. This further aggravates what I see as one of the most significant problems within the current, most popular incarnation of the game, the predictability of combats. This increase in the predictivity of combat should be enough to outweigh the advantage of the feelings of effectiveness and progress. In the OSR, this should still be a concern, but not as pressing. The opposite approach, raising AC and lowering the HP of opponents will yield combats with more tension and excitement, so long as it is not overdone.

In my DnD campaign that I play, not as the DM, but roll-play, the minimum amount of players is 8, but we usually have 10-14 players every week. We use to have 2 groups, in 2 separate campaigns, but we lost a DM due to a change in a DM's work schedule, and now we all play in just one big clusterfunk. You think your rolls for initiative and everything else takes forever?! Hmpf... try 14!!! For us, bad DnD is better than no DnD, so we endure the excruciatingly slow pace. Another player and I are making our own campaigns to try and have 2 or 3 groups branch off. Love the channel Professor and have for a while, I really only watch you and the Dungeon Dudes for tips and info... Critical Roll if I wanna laugh.

so true about the superhero movies. I was yawning by the End of Endgame

I can't believe people still have a problem with getting rid of initiative. Don't sweat it man, I took your advice and it took a couple sessions but it's amazing. Whoever is ready, its their turn, if theyre not ready or they need to count dice, I can come back to them. So much faster, and an added bonus, the monsters get to fight back before they get killed. Better for balance, better for real time spent fighting, just better all around, so if people are still knocking you for advocating dumping initiative, then they should try it first, because I can tell you first hand, it works and its faster and it just works better. I should also say, its really more realistic because everyone should be deciding what theyre doing before the round starts, and that's what getting rid of initiative does. It shouldn't be that the monsters or players stop their sword mid-swing to move across the map and hit a different target, in that 6 seconds they had a target in mind, and started swinging. That's the way it should be. Decision, then result, not delayed reaction followed by tactical sprint to clean up what's left. I hope the next edition of d&d takes this into account, I really do.

Yep, that was a good 'un. Wish my brain retained these tips when writing/running my games though...

Another fantastic video Professor dungeon master. I hate to go against the grain but I wasn't a huge fan of the initiative system. I'm not saying it's bad and I'm not staying there in situations where could be really interesting. Always happy to see you post new content

Great video

All hail, Professor Beatnik!

Hi, wanted to say that I changed the way I run my games so that I use hits to kill rather than health points for monsters. Even bosses, I make them 10 hits to kill or more depending on if they are a super big monster (With a party of 5 and some of them having multiple attacks, ten isn't too bad). My players still roll for damage and get the satisfaction of seeing the large number but, for me as the DM, it has made combat a lot more simple and quicker along with other small changes. Part of my problem related to pacing is whenever I give my party time to set up for combat (they manage to sneak up on a bandit camp or such) they spend way too long planning. I try to give them a minute or two for preparation but will begin explaining changes that happened such as guards changing positions or someone is unsuspectingly approaching them since they happen to be near crates of food. I feel bad cutting their tactical planning short because I am super happy for them to be working as a team. But, each time they have gotten a surprise round, they seem to just blast away the enemies with comboing damage. It is a hard to balance between: Letting the party work together to tactically deal with combat, and watching my combat get blown away, even if I adjust hits to kill.

If you don't have spell cards, make them. Index cards are cheap, and just one can easily list the range, duration, DC, and damage of every single one of your spells, which is probably like 3/4 of the stuff you're looking up in the book every time Another thing you can do is print out spell descriptions, and then insert them into a card sleeve with any old playing card. One thing I really can't stand about playing D&D is waiting around for people to look up their spells. It's like playing a board game and having to look up the rules every turn