How do you pace a game for different play styles and adventure types? If it’s an investigator game, I try not to rush the players but will have countdowns for major events that come. But how should you pace for a dungeon crawl or a sandbox, if you should at all? I feel like players get lost unless you throw something at them every hour or so. Some of the worst games I had were too slow.

>>95997130 (OP)
Lack of direction isn't the lack of pacing. Shit gets boring once you don't know what you're gonna do next. The idea is to leave enough incentive for them to do something.

My Call of Cthulhu group has really put the screws to the bad guys, and are close to rescuing the hostage they need to rescue. The bad guy isnt PLANNING on sinking Arkham or causing a major natural disaster, but if he needs to scatter, he will. They're on the run, he's got the cops running around chasing dead leads, he has a whole carnival full of nutcases to throw at any problems, along with two monsters running amok.

The first session was them collecting info and getting slowly closer to the truth before glimpsing the sinister nature of everything and nearly being killed. The second session was them closing in on the hostage and slowly getting the info needed to spring him, causing chaos in the carnival before they escape. The third session is the moment the bad guy finally pulls out all the stops to end this nuisance, setting up road traps and sending the monsters to eat them in their sleep. Truly life or death situations that will be the word of the day, and the players will need to truly push themselves to their limits.

>>95997130 (OP)
Pacing is one those things that are over emphasized within this hobby. You arent writing a novel or making a tv-show. As long as players have some kind of idea of what they are doing it is going to be fine. Just relax and play the game. Trying to force thing to happen at a certain point is just going to lead to disapointment and burnout.

>>95997929
But I literally am a failed novelist story shitter. I have heaps of novel manuscripts piled up. I think in terms of narrative and pacing is a big part of it.

>>95998445
Judging by what book you think is worth caring about, you were doomed from the start.

>>95998457
What books do you read? I don’t rate McCarthy that highly but I do like Suttree and Blood Meridian as stylistic pieces. My favourite novels would have to be Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man and Moby-dick. But my favourite poems arr The Cantos and Pearl.

>>95998445
Sorry man. You are in the wrong hobby.
Read appendix n stuff from adnd 1e dmg. Might help.

>>95997130 (OP)
Sandbox pacing is (in my experience) less 'putting the screws' to the players and more minimizing the irrelevant fucking around. If something has no reason to lead anywhere interesting, either open up the possibility to be interesting, or speed through the minor details. Conservation of detail is key; unimportant detritus gets the barest of details, things that can shake the foundations of the PC's world get more emphasis.
As far as players getting lost in regards with what to do next, I remind them of their own plans and what they've accomplished so far to that effect. They can either abandon their plan (with a variety of effects, depending on the stage at which things were aborted), or they can continue with whatever they were doing.

>>95997929
>Pacing is one those things that are over emphasized within this hobby. You arent writing a novel or making a tv-show. As long as players have some kind of idea of what they are doing it is going to be fine.
I'm not so sure about that. Of course it's not a novel, but players will certainly sometimes pigeonhole themselves into doing drawn out, boring things—yes, boring even to themselves—if all they're doing is going along with the motions.

A better word in the context of RPGs would probably be managing "engagement", but pacing has useful connotations of balance in regards to the progression of the adventure.

>>95997130 (OP)
You observe the people you're playing with and respond to them. Talk to them, even. If they aren't engaged then something is wrong and ought to change. That doesn't mean the GM is a performer that has to keep everyone amused, but he's the one with the most control over the game and focus of most attention.
Trying to plan or schedule everything will be wrong more often than not, like a novel in a book whose pages turn on a timer rather than when the reader is ready.

Why do zoomies shit their pants over the OP image?

>>95997130 (OP)

The trick is to have a Forever DM in the group who is thrilled to be a player for once.

That's basically what I am and I'm constantly pushing the cart from behind. I have zero patience for other players dodging obvious adventure hooks, wanting to rest or return to town after every fight, wanting to hunt down some stray mob who slipped away instead of going to the next room, etc.

>>95999329
Quick archive search shows it gets spammed a lot and is attached to a lot of shitpost threads.

>>95999329
Wendigoon made a video on blood Meridian

>>95997130 (OP)
>I feel like players get lost unless you throw something at them every hour or so
if your table spends an hour without getting anything done, it's either time to just call the night done or time to deploy ninjas/gunmen/orcs/orcish ninjas with guns, because the only thing worse than the session ending is the session stalling out.
pro tip: make shopping and character math be homework, in my experience shopping and character progression math are the absolute worst for the game's momentum, assuming everyone at the table has the rules knowledge to work their character (if they don't, you should kill that player).