Finding a Stopping Point

Closing out a session can sometimes be tricky, especially if you're trying to meet a particular stopping time, as this campaign does. This week when our time rolled around, our party was just cleaning up from a firefight and interrogating the survivors. There is often disagreement within the party on how much more should get done in the current session when closing time comes around, and this session was no exception; Bert wanted to push forward with the interrogation and figuring out what to do with the survivors, whereas Anthony needed to get home to his wife.

In times like this, I think it is important for the GM to be sure to support closing the session quickly; remember that even once you're done with character actions, there is still XP to assign and cleanup to do. Even if some players want to continue, if not everybody can it is the GM's job to be the "bad guy" and the session. Although positive relations between the party and the GM are important, intra-party cohesion is more important, so when ending session (or other points of structural strife with game) try to place the stress on the GM/Party relationship, rather than between players.

Of course, I'm not beyond running an extra hour or two when everybody is available and having fun; these comments are only about when there is disagreement on whether to end session on-time.