Do you feel like you never have enough time in your gaming session to get to “the good stuff?” Does every combat last three hours? Do you feel like the entire session was spent making decisions about unimportant things? Has your adventure been hijacked by crafting, purchasing supplies, or pursuing one PC’s pet project?

I have experienced this feeling many times. And I had a recent experience that had me thinking very hard about how to keep the gaming moving along.

Only 2 hours to game???

A few weeks ago, I was going to be GMing a game for the first time in forever. I was beyond excited but I knew I had to keep the session extremely short. I was looking for a way to hang out with a couple of friends from my old game group. And I was introducing a couple of other buddies to 5e. Three of the six of us have young kids back home so we had to sandwich our session between their bedtimes and ours. That left us with a scant two hours of game time!

Seriously, only 2 Hours?

There was part of me that wondered if it was even possible. But I was determined to make it happen because I wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity to game with my good friends. So I blew the dust off my 5th Edition Starter Set and brushed up on my Lazy DM skills.

Fast and Furious

My basic approach to this short session was to run the game twice as fast as I thought was possible. I prepared to cover about twice as much content as I had seen covered in the Wizards of the Coast live play videos.

Why did I do that? For a couple of reasons. The first reason was that I really just wanted to experience as much of the adventure content as possible. I had heard many times that the Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure from the Start Set was a great adventure.

More Adventure

And that is exactly what we were looking for from the evening: to experience an adventure. To be drawn into an epic story. To be heroes. Running the game super fast provided more opportunities for each hero to shine.

How?

So how did I run the game as fast as I could? First, I took advantage of all the great online resources for running this specific adventure, like this and this. Then I talked to a couple of my close gamer buddies and went on social media to find the keys to running a fast game. Here’s what I came up with.

7 Easy Ways

1. Just Tell A Story

Whenever possible, just stick to narrating the scenario and asking other players what their actions and reactions are. This keeps the focus on the story and the adventure. Save all the complex game mechanics for the handful of situations that will provide compelling and interesting results with either a success or failure.

2. Hand Wave

When it comes time to make a decision or resolve some sort of conflict, we need to learn it is okay to just hand wave. In many cases, you can make a decision on the fly and move on to a more interesting conflict. I don’t think I utilized this technique nearly enough in our first session. We made way too many perception checks about uninteresting things. Just be careful that you don’t overuse the hand wave. If there really is tension in the situation, let the rules and the rolls decide.

3. Use simplest rule available

When it is appropriate to let the mechanics determine the result, start with the most basic rule available. You will quickly be able to determine which way to take the story and get moving in that direction. For many systems, that might be a simple attribute check.

4. Delegate the ruling

If someone wants to attempt an action that is a bit of a stretch, you may want to let the rules decide. That’s what they’re there for! But if you aren’t feeling confident with the mechanics for that specific action, take advantage of the shared knowledge around the table and delegate the ruling to a specific person. If you have a “rules lawyer” in your group, a player with vast knowledge of the system mechanics, let him do some quick research and report his findings a bit later. Even then, don’t let him or her go down that rabbit hole for more than a few minutes before reengaging in the story. (And, as always, make sure to mention that the GM has the final call.)

5. Utilize player aids

Player indecision is a challenging problem to overcome precisely because they are the heroes of the story. So it is difficult to feel heroic when you’re being forced to rush into a decision. It may be worth the investment to find or buy player aids, quick references, or ability cards that can help in organization and quick decision making. One of our new players was running the wizard. He had a steep learning curve that would have been even steeper if one of the experienced players had not brought the Wizard Spell Cards. We grabbed the appropriate four cards and his decisions were much easier.

7. Take a break

It may seem counterintuitive, but taking a short break will allow everyone to release the tension, grab a bite, take a bathroom break, and check electronic devices. It will also give the players and the GM a fresh sense of focus. You can take a step back and set the stage for the next event in the story.

6. Set a timer

One sure way to make the game move quickly is to use a timer. This should be used as a last resort so that you don’t kill the atmosphere of casual fun in your game. However, in certain situations, it may be necessary to bring the game back from the edge of boredom. An especially creative way to do this is to introduce a ticking time bomb. If things are bogged down in indecision, quietly place a paper with six circles in a row and a skull and crossbones in a starburst at the end. Roll a d4 and place it in the first circle to determine how many minutes will pass before the next die is rolled. Hopefully they pick up on the clues soon enough to defuse the situation before it blows up in their face! This trick would work one or two times but could be kind of gimmicky after that. But hopefully they will think about it the next time they are tempted to get stuck in unproductive discussions.

Conclusion

Hopefully these quick and easy ideas will help your next game be a bit more exciting as the story moves along at breakneck speed. Have you experienced a particularly slow game? What slowed it down? Have you seen any of these strategies at play in your game? Leave a comment below!