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Stop Plotting GMs and Start Pacing

47K views · Oct 16, 2025 · Education

Comments · 115

  • @soptop1641 · 10 months ago

    Ive been playing/dming for close to 15 years now and have been watching videos like this nearly as long and this video is easily one of the best ive ever seen

    6

  • @Enn- · 11 months ago

    100%! Story beats. Win a little, lose a little. A few steps forward, then a stumble or setback. If you have too many setbacks, the game feels unproductive. If you have too many wins, they start to lose value. But when you mix them together, it's a delightful dish of balanced flavours.

    102

  • @alexdlocoa · 10 months ago

    Because of this, my campaign improved 100 fold, and I found out that the original climactic ending I had planned... was just the beginning.

    17

  • @DMStraylight · 11 months ago

    The best part about mini-arcs is that they're fractal all the way down. The same structure works for every campaign, every story arc, every session, every scene, every turn, every roll. It's all the same loop, the only difference is scale.

    29

  • @billthecanuck · 11 months ago (edited)

    definitely a tactic i've done.  Not only do i try to do mini arcs that span 4-5 sessions culimating in some sort of boss or major social encounter, I also don't really plan out more than 1 or 2 sessions ahead and by planning out i mean i have a couple bullet points of where i'd like to go, but i give my players the freedom to go and do whatever they want so i may not even end up getting to what i was aiming for, but thats fine i encourage that lol.   I also keep an eye on the clock every session, our sessions always try to end at a specific time and i always have that time in my mind and as it's getting near i try to set up some sort of a cliffhanger or gacha moment to end the session on.   When i hit the right moment i just hit them with "and we'll see what happens.. next week" and i close my laptop.

    8

  • @Jorlax0 · 9 months ago

    Add time stamps to your videos and you'd be a top tier channel.

    162

  • @jayteepodcast · 11 months ago

    My group was in a room for 2 real hours and we were so frustrated. The DM refused to help us find a clue of how to get out. This is the same advice I was thinking about as I was grinding my teeth

    29

  • @laboredbreathministry · 11 months ago

    This is crazy. This is exactly the issue i was facing in my prep rn. Thanks a ton man

    8

  • @kyuu452 · 7 months ago

    I f$%king loved this video. Out of all your past DM advice, this one clicked with me the most.<br><br>I run a TTRPG set in the Project Moon universe (good games, check it out)<br>and I have all these ideas set up for critical character moments, and can make a scenario around them fairly easily.<br>But linking them is the hard part.<br><br>This just made everything click for me.

    1

  • @dasantaitano1355 · 11 months ago

    Can’t get enough of this channel so clear to understand and always helps me come up with ideas when I’m stuck in my games

    7

  • @romabaninja · 8 months ago

    It is literally like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th edition is meant to be played by the book and mechanics. You go through an adventure, than you have some endeavours to cover which types you chose from the book and do things like creating a magical staff, painting, saving money for future, or visit your homeland. After some time passed you find yourself in the begging of a new adventure arc.

    3

  • @aaron9524 · 10 months ago (edited)

    Wow! I’ve been using a technique similar to this for my campaign that’s about to end! This is definitely much more refined though and I’ll be picking some pieces of it to add on for my next one! I was a brand new DM when we started my current campaign &nbsp;7 years ago and I drew a lot of inspiration from reading monthly comic books and the way they would have 5-6 issue arcs that added up to a larger overarching story or “run” written all by the same writer.

    7

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