Slice of Life: The Rule of Three

Scenario: the PCs find themselves as the crew of a Spelljammer vessel. In order to provide some grounding in the setting there should be some sort of play dealing with the mundanities of running the ship, but the truth is that much of that is largely routine and therefore of little interest. So, what to do?

Musing on this, I have come to the conclusion that you want to cover this three times, but with a different experience and emphasis each time.

The first time out should occur pretty much right away. The PCs should encounter each of the key parts of running the ship, should have a scene involving each, including the relevant rolls, and should gradually accumulate XP for doing so - just as with any other challenge. These are likely to be short and fairly dull scenes, but that's okay. But be sure to intersperse them with more interesting events.

The second time should come a level or two later, but certainly in the next few sessions. This one should take the form of a cut scene, highlighting that the PCs are now expert in running the ship and all this is now second nature. The idea here is to highlight progression, while also noting that all that stuff hasn't just gone away.

Then the third (and subsequent) time(s) should be those rare occasions when something interesting happens. Perhaps the crew has to manage the ship when the helm fails, or in the teeth of a storm in the Flow, or while under attack, or... In a campaign of a decent length you probably do want to include at least one such scene, given that you're running this type of campaign and not some other, but it should also be reasonably rare.

And that, basically, is that - the rule of three.