Escape Room: Game Masters Needed

All versions

Every live room needs someone watching the cameras, running hints, and resetting between groups. Divide the rooms running at once by how many one game master can cover, round up, and you know how many to schedule.

Quick formula: Concurrent rooms divided by rooms-per-game-master, rounded up:

=ROUNDUP(B2/C2,0)

Five rooms at two per game master needs three on the floor — two of them cover two rooms each and one covers the fifth.

Functions used (tap for the full reference guide):

ROUNDUP

The example

Three shifts, each with the number of rooms running at once and how many one game master can watch.

	A	B	C	D
1	Shift	Rooms	Per GM	GMs
2	Peak	5	2	3
3	Slow	2	2	1
4	Mega	8	3	3

The formula

The ratio rarely lands on a whole number, so round up to keep every room covered:

=ROUNDUP(B2/C2,0) // rooms / rooms-per-GM, rounded up so nothing is left unwatched

How it works

A ratio and a safety round:

B2/C2 divides the rooms running at once by how many a single game master can handle.
ROUNDUP(...,0) rounds up to the next whole person — you cannot staff two-thirds of a game master.
Rooms-per-GM depends on the game: a hint-heavy room needs closer watching than a hands-off one.
Round up, never down — rounding down leaves a live room with no one on it.

Add a floor supervisor on top of the game masters for peak shifts by adding 1 to the result.

Try it: interactive demo

Interactive

Enter the concurrent rooms and how many one game master can watch.

Rooms at once

Rooms per GM

Variations

Add a supervisor

Put a shift lead over the game masters on busy nights.

=ROUNDUP(B2/C2,0)+1

Labor cost per shift

Multiply the game masters by hourly pay and shift length.

=ROUNDUP(B2/C2,0)*18*6

Pitfalls & errors

Rounding down understaffs the floor — 5 rooms at 2 per GM is 2.5, and 2 game masters leaves a room with no one running hints or watching for safety.

Set rooms-per-GM by the hardest room in the mix, not the average. One demanding room can pull a game master's attention off everything else they are covering.

Practice workbook

📊

Download the free Escape Room: Game Masters Needed practice workbook

Edit the yellow rooms and per-GM cells; the game masters needed recalculates.

Frequently asked questions

Why round up instead of to the nearest whole number?

Because a fractional game master still means a room is running that nobody is fully covering. Rounding up guarantees every live room has staff on it, even if the last person is only watching one room.

How many rooms can one game master really watch?

It depends on the game. Hands-off rooms with automated hints let one person cover three or four; hint-heavy, story-driven rooms often need one game master per room. Set the ratio to your hardest room.

Stop fighting formulas. Learn them in a day.

This recipe is one of hundreds of real-world formulas we teach. Our Excel Formulas & Functions class covers lookups, logic, text, and dynamic arrays hands-on — live in Dallas–Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, Oklahoma City, Denver, or online.

See the Formulas & Functions Class

Function references: ROUNDUP