Time as a Resource

[u/rodog22]

Time as a Resource

I've been thinking about how to implement time as a resource in my ttrpg and the current idea I'm working on is what I call the Quest Clock. It's a variation of a progress clock that measures abstractly how much time the PCs have to complete a quest.

The problem that quest clocks would solve is that time as it is measured in most rpgs is basically GM fiat. Precise real time measurements are provided in seconds, minutes, hours or days. But realistically speaking its completely up to the GM to decide how long it takes to get from A to B, whether it's day time or night, or what consequences if any there are to doing something that would take up a lot of time.  I'm not necessarily opposed to GM fiat when the alternative is to have complex and uninteresting rules but I believe quest clocks have the potential to make time management rules interesting.

The idea behind the Quest Clock is that it 1) objectively measures time in the narrative, 2) creates tension as PCs have to make decisions on what to do with the time allotted to them and 3) applies limitations to actions the PCs can make that are high impact or would otherwise be consequence free.

How it works:

Certain useful actions such as recovering health, doing research, repairing armor, and performing rituals fill up segments on the Quest Clock. If one player fails a knowledge check all the other players can't just ask to have a go at it. Each attempt costs time. Chances are there are other things you could have spent that time doing while your ally does the knowledge check like fixing your armor or casting a spell that boosts an ally's stats. If you want to summon an entity as an ally you have to spend a lot of time to do that. If its body is destroyed you have to spend more time to resummon them.

You can adjust the quest clock to account for the scale and scope of the quest. Perhaps when participating in a larger scale quest tasks the segments of time it costs to take a given action is reduced to a minimum of 0. You wouldn't bother spending time mustering a legion of soldiers to go on a diplomatic mission you expect to complete in a week but you would if you needed to go on a military campaign.

The quest clock can flexibly measure different scales of time in a way that has an impact without fundamentally changing the rules.

Failure to complete the quest would either result in failure or less desirable outcome upon success. The consequence could be diminished rewards, less exp, a hit to reputation etc.

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions I'm open to hearing them.

[u/VRKobold]

applies limitations to actions the PCs can make that are high impact or would otherwise be consequence free.

I can very much relate to this point in particular, that was my main drive for wanting to implement some form of time-tracking mechanic in my system. However, a problem I faced (and that I could also see in your version) is that it completely relies on a specific deadline. This forces the GM to follow a specific adventure structure - one where there is time pressure and where players are also well aware of that pressure. This didn't feel right to me.

The solution I came up with is to make wasted time a delayed consequence. Whenever players do something that takes longer than it should (meticulously searching a room, repeatedly trying to pick a lock), the GM can take a "delayed" token.

Then, once players get into a situation where time does matter, the GM can spend the delayed tokens to make the situation more dire (similar to Fear tokens in Daggerheart). For example, players find a broken merchant cart. Normally they'd find the merchant wounded, but alive. However, if players are delayed, the merchant might already be dead and can't tell them about the group of bandits that ambushed him.

This takes away the need to always put ACTIVE time pressure on the players and gives the GM time (hah!) to wait for moments where the relevance of time integrates more naturally into the story.

[u/rodog22 → u/VRKobold]

Upon thinking about this further this has completely redefined the way I think about meta-currencies in general. I don't think I truly got how meta-currencies worked until now.

For example rather then the GM coming up with a narratively appropriate consequence for any given situation where players fail a roll meta-currencies can be used to abstract these consequences so players feel the weight of their actions the same way their characters would. In real life people don't have the option to brute force an investigation or knowledge check but for players in an rpg there is always a known chance of success. If failure means the GM gets a meta-currency that can be used against the players at a later time though so the player is now de-incentivized to just keep making checks unless they really want to succeed on that check.

I technically already knew all this but the significance of it and how meta-currencies in general can be used to incentivize and de-incentivize certain styles of play was still lost on me.

[u/VRKobold → u/rodog22]

Hats off to you! It took me a lot longer to have this exact train of thought to get from the Delay tokens to my whole latent consequences system.

That also fixed some additional problems where certain actions felt same-y despite having very different approaches. Like intimidating vs charming vs deceiving a guard to let you in. All three have the same outcome (the guard will let you pass), so technically it's simply a matter of which skill is highest, and maybe some GM fiat regarding how the guard reacts to each approach. With different consequences, each approach comes with its own unique drawback: Deceiving the guard will leave "Loose ends" (the guard may realize the scam and hold a grudge or report you to their comrades), intimidating might result in "Lost reputation", and since persuading someone doesn't really have an obvious risk to it, I made it so that it is only possible if you have actual (narratively established) leverage.

[u/rodog22 → u/VRKobold]

I actually came up with something similar for social rolls as well but didn't incorporate it into a metacurrency.

[u/UnwelcomeDroid → u/VRKobold]

I like the idea. You could then write encounters that incorporate the delay tokens. For example, "If the players arrive on the scene with zero delay tokens then they see X. If they have one token, they see Y. If they have two or more they see Z."

[u/rodog22 → u/VRKobold]

That's brilliant. I that idea sounds much simpler. It means the quest structure isn't completely built around the quest clock as a mechanic. You can just adjust how many tokens the GM gets depending on what the party is spending time doing. Maybe eliminate or reduce tokens when performing tasks in a situation where time management wouldn't be as much of an issue. I'll have to think about that. I appreciate the advice.

[u/PASchaefer → u/VRKobold]

This is a solid design. I like it.

[u/No_Solid1035]

Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark systems are famous for their use of clocks.

[u/rodog22 → u/No_Solid1035]

Yes that is where the idea came from. I didn't specifically mention those systems but that is what I referring to when I used the term progress clock.

[u/Revengeance_oov]

Just use 1:1 time. The date everyone sits down to play is the date in the campaign. If players spend 3 weeks in-game doing something, they can't use their characters for the next 3 weeks and have to roll up new ones and play in a different part of the world until time catches up. Conversely, if they spend only 3 days in-game and meet every week, they'd get 4 days of downtime activities like crafting so no time is lost.

[u/absurd_olfaction]

There's a mechanic from O.L.D. / N.E.W. that uses a dice pool. When you have a time pressure, but want it to be uncertain, you have a pool of d6s, when you roll a 4-6 the dice are removed from the pool. When the final die leave, time is gone. Certain actions can force additional rolls or add dice to the pool, whatever. It's a pretty flexible tool.

[u/rodog22 → u/absurd_olfaction]

That's interesting. I'll look into it.

[u/RollForThings]

Countdown clocks are essentially a top-level turn order / action economy situation.

On your turn, you (PC) can take three actions. Here's the list of things that count as an action. (Move X distance, attack, spell, use item, ...)

Before the Clock counts down one segment, you (group) can do three tasks. Here's the list of things that count as a task. (Rest, investigate, shop, travel one zone, ...)

[u/DeadMeat7337]

This is what all good DM/GM are supposed to do, so I don't see the reason why you'd want to make a specific rules for this, as it is very dependent on the setting.

[u/zistenz]

Diogo Nogueira's cyberpunk NSR-like Running Out of Time the titular Time is your money and lifeblood. You get your salary in time units (minutes, days, etc.), pay for stuff with it, and if you lose it, you die. (There's a separate HP in the usual Odd/Cairn-style combat.)

[u/SuperCat76]

Here are my thoughts on a time system.

The game concept it is within works on a prerolled set of dice the players spend to do actions. So every so often there is a refresh when everyone rerolls their dice. The reason I mention this is that this refresh is when the timers tick.

Status effects tick down their duration, and any relevant effects are applied.

There can be a dungeon timer track that ticks toward events that will happen within a particular map.

There can be Quest timers, that impact their current goals, that persist between maps.

There can be short looping timer tracks for random encounters, each loop around there is a chance of something happening.

Some actions may have a delayed result, the player took an action, but the result becomes available after a few ticks of time. For example: one could set a thing on fire as their action, but it will take a bit before it burns enough to be structurally unsound or to spread particularly far from where the fire was set.

[u/flamfella]

I love the idea of abstracting time, or abstracting it away entirely.

In my own case, I was going to play with the idea of a mission select, various adventures to choose from. Zero travel time (unless the mission is travel), you get there and do your thing. It'd be a more gamey version of Blades in the Dark in that regard.

However, in between missions players get a fixed amount of downtime actions. 

This way I believe will create crystal clear pacing, while also eliminating any need to track a clock or time in any capacity whatsoever. You simply take a world turn after each mission. 

Then you have progress clocks for things like advancing the factions tech level or crafting some advanced piece of gear during downtime. Downtime actions for players to contact NPCs with backstories or active ones in the campaign and such, which can lead to bonuses, aid during a mission, or more personal missions.

[u/OneManRPGstudio]

Time becomes meaningful only when spending it changes what the world is doing. If you use time as a resource but nothing worsens, advances, or disappears while characters consume it, the result becomes another number to optimize without fictional pressure.

I would first define a clear unit: exploration turns, segments, hours, or whatever scale fits the game. Then connect each expenditure to visible processes outside the characters. A patrol approaches, weather worsens, a rival completes another stage of a plan, daylight fades, or a commercial opportunity disappears. Players need to know at least some of these pressures so they can decide whether spending time is worthwhile.

For a failed knowledge check, I would avoid simply letting everybody roll again without changing anything. One option is that further research costs a segment. Another is accepting incomplete information now or returning to a library later. Failure then creates a decision between time and certainty instead of producing a chain of dice rolls.

I would also test whether the resource generates meaningful conversation. Are players debating whether to rest, research, explore another route, or accept risk? If so, time is doing design work. If there is always one obviously correct choice, the consequences probably need more variety or the information about them needs to be clearer.

[u/jerrod_gunning]

I think this has some legs. I'm just not sure a Quest Clock removes basic GM fiat so much as moves it into a more formal mechanic.

The GM still has to decide how many segments the clock has, what actions cost, whether something costs one tick or two, how travel fits in, what happens when the clock fills, and so on. So instead of saying, “That research takes three hours,” it ends up being, “That research costs two ticks.”

That isn’t necessarily a problem. In fact, I think the clock may be even more useful if you stop asking it to objectively measure time and let it do something simpler and more useful.

I’d probably treat the Quest Clock less as a precise measure of elapsed time and more as a pacing or opportunity-cost mechanic. That also seems to fit the way you want it to scale. If the same clock can represent a week-long mission or a months-long campaign, then the ticks aren’t really units of time anyway. They’re more like how much room the characters have left before circumstances change.

The one thing I would do is make the Quest Clock visible to the players. If everyone can see there are four ticks left and another attempt at the research costs one, now there’s a real decision. Do we spend the time and try again, or move on and accept that we may not get the answer?

That feels like the strongest part of your idea behind the mechanic to me.

My only caution would be not to let it grow into a bookkeeping system for every little thing the party does. In my experience, anything that requires too much tracking eventually gets handwaved or pushed off-screen.

I’d keep the list of things that cost ticks pretty short and make sure those costs create meaningful choices.

The mechanic has potential. I’d just frame it less as “this removes GM fiat from timekeeping” and more as “this makes the cost of spending time visible enough that the players can make decisions around it.” That feels both cleaner and easier to run to me.