As a DM, your #1 job is to get your players to the table, first and foremost.
Because there is no D&D if there’s no one there to play D&D, and there won’t be anyone to play D&D if your players aren’t excited to come back for the next session.
I’ve seen it happen before. The adventuring party is wandering across a bleak and dreary landscape, having just bested an Owlbear that caught their scent. Bloodied, the Fighter suggests a short rest to regain some strength. The party agrees.
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Back in the real world, the DM looks at the clock. It’s been about three and a half hours (did combat really take that long?), and it’s getting pretty late. They decide to call it at the start of the short rest, figuring it to be a reasonable “save point” of sorts for the party.
Everyone goes home with plans to play next week.
So what’s the problem with that?
While ending sessions at the end of the day, or at the start of a short rest, makes for an easy way to pick things back up, it doesn’t exactly leave your players pondering for the week what will happen next. They’re probably assuming that it will just be more travel, maybe an encounter or two, and then end the next session off at the start of a long rest.
That doesn’t exactly make them enthusiastic about the next session, right?
Instead, I like to end my session on cliffhangers whenever possible — even if it means cutting the session short by half an hour or so.
Doing so gives the group an idea of exactly what situation they’re being dropped into at the start of next session (be it combat, RP, or the start of a deadly dungeon crawl) and they can spend the week thinking about how they’re going to handle the upcoming threat. By the time next session rolls around, they’re stoked to finally carry out that plan they’ve formulated, or to find out that crucial piece of information you withheld at the end of last session.
So here are a few ways to end sessions on a cliffhanger to keep your party coming back for more:
At the start of a fight
This one is probably the easiest to do, because DMs know that fights will generally take at least an hour (if not much, much longer). If the party rolls up on a threat nearing the end of the session, don’t roll initiative and play out just one round of combat before realizing it’s getting late; you should instead detail the threat, make notes of the landscape, and riiiiight when your party is all ready to roll that initiative, hit them with the “and that’s where we’ll end our session.”
Their groans of anguish are exactly what you want to hear, because they’ll be raring to have at the baddies right at the start of next week’s game. You can be sure that no one will be arriving late for that particular session.
When they’ve arrived at a new location
This is especially great if it’s a place that they’ve been working their way towards for some time. Be it a hometown, a bustling city, or a temple that may very well contain a crucial artifact, ending a session right when they arrive makes for some serious excitement about what next week will hold.
The key here is to give a detailed description — a taste, if you will — of the architecture, sounds, colors, and inhabitants of the location. Peak the players’ interests with notes about a guard eyeing them warily, or a bell chiming in the distance as if signaling some long-held ritual. Riiiight before anyone can say what it is that they plan to do first, hit them with the end of session line.
Believe me, they’ll have some plans ready for the start next session.
Right after dropping an important piece of information
This one could be anything from the location of the big bad that the party has been tracking, to the revelation that a party-member’s long dead family member is still alive, to the town mayor presenting them with a brand new quest.
The key here is to end the session on a hook without allowing the PCs the time to talk about it in-game, which means that the start of next session will jump right into the RP of figuring out what the Nine Hells to do with the information they just got.
The introduction of a new NPC
Maybe there’s a dangerous looking loner sitting in the corner of the bar, or a fraught mother approaching the party on the street in distress.
Give a detailed description of these NPCs, explain that they approach the party, have them introduce themselves, and then end things there.
The party will be left wondering what it is that this person wants from them, and they’ll be more than excited to come back next week to find out.
During some important death saves
The Rogue, having failed a Hide action and been peppered with enemy arrows, lies bleeding out on the stone bridge. Another arrow hits, sorry, that’s an automatic fail, while two more clang against the stones — the archers are shooting with disadvantage due to the PC being prone.
The Rogue’s allies are on the other end of the bridge, clashing in a melee with some armored knights.
Gimme a save.
Damnit. A nine. That’s two fails. Someone come help me!
The Barbarian is closest, and he luckily has a heath potion in his pocket — exactly what the Rogue needs to avoid an untimely death. He begins to run to his friend’s aid, but he’s low on health, too. The knight notices, and slashes down with an attack of opportunity to stop the Barb from making it to the bridge, just as two more arrows shoot down from above… and that’s where we’ll end our session.
Your players will hate you for it, but damn will the start of next session be something.
And they’ll get to spend all week worried about what the hell is going to happen — especially if you let that Rogue know to bring their back-up character sheet to next session… “just in case.”
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