On reviewing various guides and tips and tricks articles online for Dungeons and Dragons—targeting DMs and players alike—it seems to me that the most common complaint of either demographic is often how sessions can drag on in certain spots.
This can be especially troubling given how infrequent it can be to marry up everyone’s schedules and find the right time of the right week of the right month where everyone can get together and play. I can’t speak for everyone, but for me I sometimes feel a bit of latent pressure as the DM to make sure the session is a positive one that is enjoyed by all, given the effort it can sometimes take to get everyone to the table.
That said, I’ve looked at ways to try to streamline my own tables in order to “cut the fat”, so to speak, so there is more time for meaningful play. It’s worth noting that the cheerful and social aspect of D&D cannot, and should not be cut; there should always be time for jokes, teasing, and social anecdotes. Unless you’re playing or hosting in a professional setting, that is partially why we are all getting together in the first place, right?
I’ve come up with a list of some areas that players can look at if they want to help streamline a session of D&D, and will begin with the first on that list below. If everyone makes an effort in these areas I believe that can have a cumulative effect on the table as a whole: and that means more D&D for everyone (and, in some cases, can be the difference between life and death. Read on further to find out how!)
Study Your Character Sheet
This is top of the list because it is, by far, the most single important thing you can do as a player that is part of a D&D campaign, and for many reasons.
First of which, studying your character sheet means you will, over time, become more and more familiar with everything that is important about your character, such as:
- What does my character look like? (the NPC doesn’t like people with red hair, should I cover it?)
- How tall is my character? How much does my character weigh? (The DM said that the rope doesn’t look sturdy, should I climb it?)
- Can I use healer’s kits? (My party member is unconscious and just failed a death saving throw)
- Is my character any good at lying? (I just attempted to deceive this guard, what’s my deception skill at?)
Some of these questions are more geared for roleplay/story reasons, and not being aware of certain areas of your character sheet could have implications for how you decide to approach a situation. You, the player, may think you can pull off a little white lie, but if your character has a miserable deception score… well, perhaps there is another way.
This is part of the roleplaying part of Dungeons and Dragons. You have a character that you’ve built; they have strengths, weaknesses, certain abilities unique to them: by knowing these you will, over time, play to your character’s strengths and, by and large, be more successful with everything that you do.
In some cases, knowing your character sheet can actually save lives: the skills you choose to use can positively affect the outcomes of combat in a myriad of ways. If you have five tools in your toolbelt and you only try to scrape by using one or two, that can have devastating consequences in combat. The DM, and the ruleset has balanced/scaled combat encounters based on your combined potential as a party: if I design an encounter with a creature that is susceptible to radiant damage, and the paladin never decides to use their divine smite, characters may be permanently killed because they didn’t dispatch the creature fast enough.
In terms of (a) saving time, and (b) smoothing out combat and gameplay, knowing your character sheet is the single-most potent way to improve this area of play.
Taking combat, for instance. There will sometimes be weeks between gaming sessions. It’s pretty well established that when learning a new skill if that new skill is not applied regularly you will simply forget it. Our human brain is designed to prioritize new skills and ideas based on the amount of time we invest in them; if they are more regularly used, then we will retain that information.
It goes without saying that regularly reviewing your character sheet, your skills, your abilities, and where they exist on your sheet will invariably contribute to you retaining that information. If you find yourself struggling with finding certain skills or areas of your character sheet in the middle of combat, then try this:
- If you are an experienced D&D player, review your character sheet and skills the same day before a session. Preferably an hour or so before, so it’s fresh in your mind.
- If you are a moderately experienced D&D player, review your character sheet the same day before a session, and perhaps the day after a session as well, to cement/retain any new knowledge learned.
If you are inexperienced, new, or uncertain about D&D and your character sheet, I would recommend taking the time once every few days to just review your character sheet. Do this before and after a session, and maybe take some time in the weeks you’re waiting for the next session to do so again.
The more you do this, the less you will need to do this.
What does reviewing look like?
If you check out Drezek’s tips on how the PHB (Player’s Handbook) is tied into the DnDBeyond sheets, you’ll learn that by left-clicking on anything on the sheet it will pull up a tooltip. Here’s a link to Drezek’s tip here.
I would start by reviewing first your actions available to your character in combat (what melee/ranged attacks), that includes any spells your character can cast (are they to-hit spells? do they force a creature to pass a saving throw? are there additional consequences to failing a saving throw? do they require concentration? are there material components that cost GP needed to cast it?)
If you don’t know the answers to these questions, the DM will need to look them up to ensure the rules are being interpreted correctly. That will tend to slow things down.
It’s okay to be new to D&D, and there is no such thing as a perfect player. Slow-downs, slower play, and questions about rules and interpretation of the rules are going to happen, regardless of whether everyone is prepared or not.
What counts ultimately at the end of the day is that everyone is having fun; if everyone, however, takes a bit of time to review their sheet prior to play, sessions can become more streamlined, you will feel more confident about what your character can accomplish, and I think that can make a difference with how much fun you can have!
Curse of Strahd 