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Session time budget

Divides the evening you actually have by the scenes you actually intend to run, weighting set pieces against conversations, and says when the answer means there are too many scenes.

The question this answers: “I have prepared six scenes and three hours. How long does each actually get, and is that enough for anything to happen?”

From when you start to when people have to leave.

Arriving, catching up, recap, breaks. Rarely under twenty.

Fights, chases, anything with a structured resolution.

Your system and your table. Raise it if fights overrun.

Result

Playable time
155 min
180 minutes at the table minus 25 of overhead.
Per talking scene
26 min
4 of them.
Per set piece
52 min
1 of them, at 2× a talking scene.
Scenes budgeted
5
Prepare more situations than this. Budget only what you mean to run.

Worth knowing about this answer

  • This budgets the scenes you intend to run. It is not a schedule to enforce — a session that abandons the plan because the players found something better is usually a good session, and the budget is there to tell you what it costs.
Show the working
  1. Playable time180 − 25155 min
  2. Scenes, weighted4 + (1 × 2)6
  3. Per talking scene155 ÷ 626 min
  4. Per set piece26 × 252 min

Playable time: 155 min. Per talking scene: 26 min. Per set piece: 52 min. Scenes budgeted: 5

How it works

Playable time is the session less the overhead. Set pieces are counted as several talking scenes each, so a single division covers both: playable time divided by the weighted scene count gives the talking-scene budget, and multiplying by the weight gives the set-piece budget.

What it assumes

  • The overhead is a real figure for your group rather than an ideal one. Arriving, a recap and one break is rarely less than twenty minutes for a three-hour session.
  • The set-piece weight is a judgement about your system and your table, which is why it is an input. A tactical fight in one game is an hour and the same fight elsewhere is ten minutes, and baking in a multiplier would be a guess presented as arithmetic.

Where it stops being reliable

  • It budgets the scenes you intend to run and says nothing about how many to prepare. Preparing more situations than you use is correct — the waste is in preparing outcomes, not options.
  • It is not a schedule to enforce. A session that abandons the plan because the players found something better is usually a good session; the budget exists to tell you what that costs.
  • It cannot know that one scene will run away with the evening, which is the normal case rather than the exception.

Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is sent anywhere. Last reviewed 2026-08-14. More on Game mastering.