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100% GMing
Treasure Tables is dedicated to game masters, offering GMing advice and ideas since 2005. I'm Martin Ralya, and I've been GMing since 1989 and writing for the RPG industry since 2004.
When in Doubt, Take Five (July 2007)
Sat. December 8, 2007
Treasure Tables is in reruns from November 1st through December 9th. I’m writing a novel as part of National Novel Writing Month, and there’s no way I can write posts here while retaining my (questionable) sanity. In the meantime, enjoy this post from our archives.
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Few arrows in your GMing quiver are as versatile, valuable and powerful as the five-minute break. If a problem arises, whether it’s on your side of the screen or not, taking a short break is nearly always a good idea.
It gives everyone a chance to hit the bathroom, refill the snack bowl, grab a drink or stretch their legs, and it gives you a few minutes to clear your head and find a way to solve the problem.
Here are seven common situations in which stopping the session for five minutes will help you keep it from grinding to a halt (usually for a lot longer than five minutes):
- Your players are stuck.
- Something is about to happen that could derail the whole session.
- You realize you’ve forgotten to address something vital (create an NPC, adjust a monster’s stats, etc.).
- One of your players is pissed.
- A PC was just killed (or more than one PC).
- Your group looks bored.
- You need to improvise an encounter.
Breaks are a good idea every couple of hours even if everything’s going smoothly, especially after long battles or scenes with lots of intense roleplaying — but if something is amiss, taking five is always a good place to start.
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Normally there’d be a discussion going on in the comments below, but due to time constraints I’ve turned off all comments during reruns — sorry about that! You can read the comments on the first-run version of this post, and if you need a GMing discussion fix, why not head on over to our GMing forums?
More posts about: Reruns