(Planning to make this a series of posts over time, welcome to the first installment)

Folks, if you have ever read those stories of folks getting upset about the murderhobo killing someone that the rest of the party had more questions for, or the folks who get fed up with the shopping episode and are running low on patience, or the immense number of folks who talk about the problem of having their prepared monologues interrupted, I want to offer this piece of "New GM Advice" that I realized came to me from my Theater background.

As the GM (in those RPG systems that have an All-Powerful Narrator GM), you have the control over the flow of time. Timing is everything, and that also means that you can avoid these sticky situations by controlling how fast things resolve or how much time particular things take.

In the movie The Matrix, Neo is able to dodge the bullets on the roof, because suddenly he is able to move faster than ever before and at a speed at which no human could possibly have moved. Keanu Reeves, amazing as the guy is, cannot actually dodge bullets in real life. We all know this, it was special effects and camera tricks. You as the GM can be the editor in the booth controlling how fast the bullets move. If you go to a cutscene for narration, people can understand that you're doing a thing for a moment, and then will jump as soon as they get the chance.

So, in example 1, When the murderhobo says I kill the guy, you can either jump straight to 20 minutes later when they are all at the tavern discussing what they learned, or you can go into bullettime and say "as you raise your axe, stride towards the snivelling coward, and the battlecry starts to rise in your throat, what does the rest of the party do?" Which gives them a chance to say 'wait wait, I want to ask about...' And then the murderhobo can still follow through with the axeswing soon after that. When you notice that patience is wearing thing, you can move things ahead a lot faster or slow it down when the party needs more time to think through a puzzle.

You are more powerful than Arthur Aguefort and his Chronomancy. You control the flow of time itself in the game world, so remember to hit fastforward when the fun feels a bit frayed, and pause when the moment calls for it. Your table will appreciate it the more you master this particular tool.

I hope that'll be as useful for you all as it was for me when I first realized it. Til next time, good rolls and good friends make for great games!