Avoid splitting HOURS into MOMENTS

#1

Hey shields,

I struggle with keeping the tension when being in HOURS, because my players are so used to combat rounds and MOMENTS, that they try to boil hours down into lots and lots of moments to “do more”. For me that drags spotlight (if a single players is going in moments and others stay in hours), kills tension and makes the game crawl.

Thing’s they love doing which splits hours into lots of moments:

  • Making CON-rolls recover in multiple MOMENTS
    (rather then getting a single turn of recovery without a roll, ICRPG 2E R.A.W.)
  • Looking for clues/hints/etc. in multiple MOMENTS
  • “I’m using spell XY, then I sneak, then I …”
  • “I’m going here… I’m going there… I’m doing X… then Y…”

I haven’t found a good reasoning why not to let them divide into moments. Going with “we are in hours because I’m the GM” isn’t my way of handling things. It’s kind of a metagame issue, too.

Part of the issue may be a lack of “vocabulary” (not knowing what can be done in hours compared to moments, like identifying a new magic item could be a hours-task which isn’t possible in moments). Maybe that’s also a lack of “offered options” on my side. Any recommendations?

Greetings
glocke

PS: I already consulted Hank’s YT-video on time

#2

Hey @glocke, without watching you DM, it’s harder to triage what might be happening, but to me, there are only two game states: 1) Players are threatened; or 2) Rest.

When players are threatened (either directly or indirectly, eg, innocents in peril), they are in moments, and they simply don’t have time to pull off tons of things. When an encounter is over, depending on the environment, the general threat doesn’t subside. If they beat back spiders, then they have maybe one round before more show up (eg, you can’t just rest in a dungeon or wild forest).

Two things can help keep the pressure up. 1) Give them more to do in each scene; add a consequence if players tarry from scene to scene (the world doesn’t stop because they do); and use a timer to show that they only have moments. 2) As the DM, you need to control the table, and that includes keeping the spotlight moving. One example might be below:

Player 1: “I want to recover, cast a spell, then loot these chests….”
GM: “okay, you can make that recovery roll right now. Let’s see it.”
Player 1: “Aw man, a failure.”
GM: “yeah you’re still catching your breath. Player 2, what is Brian the Fist up to this round? (Note, the GM just moved the spotlight after Player 1 did one action).

Part of your role as a DM is to help propel characters into events as they go, and then keep them ragged until they can get to that coveted safe spot to rest. Once they are able to rest, then they have all the time in the world to pull off all the things they want to do.

#3

TL;DR The rule is, everything is almost always an ACTION.
What changes is how long that ACTION takes. In MOMENTS time, ACTIONS usually take only 1 ROUND. IN HOURS time, ACTIONS take 1 HOUR.

Supplementing what @Alex said, I always say that MOMENTS are the EXCEPTION, not the rule, even though MOMENTS come up more often in the game than any other time frame (mostly due to combat or combat-like intense encounters).

In the heat of combat or danger, adrenaline kicks in to keep you alive and your perception of time ‘slows down’. Someone can do an intense fighting for a couple of minutes and can swing their sword multiple times each minute but they can’t do it the whole day. It is simply not possible. Therefore MOMENTS cannot happen all the time. No matter how heroic and/or powerful they are, people still need rest (that’s what Alex is saying) between intense moments (hence MOMENTS, if you catch my drift).

Again, connecting this to what Alex said, if you frame MOMENTS like this then MOMENTS only happen when players are threatened / in peril / in danger. Otherwise they are back to MINUTES, 10 MINS, HOURS or whatever time frame that makes sense (your call as the GM).

In Alex’s example, Player 1 wants to recover, cast a spell and then loot the chests. Since there is no threat/danger, you say “Gentlemen, combat is over and we are in MINUTES time while you are catching your breath”. Recovery, casting a spell and looting the chest each take 1 MINUTE this way, instead of 1 ROUND.

Keep note that you could have said “Gentlemen, we are in 10 MINUTES time / HOURS time while you are catching your breath” instead. How do you determine this? It is your judgement call, depending on how much fight had already happened, how tired the characters are, where they are in the adventure etc.

Keeping the tension when being in HOURS doesn’t occur in my games because HOURS time means rest, exploration, hunting and similar stuff. If something exciting or dangerous is happening, I drop down to 10 MINUTES or MINUTES. Anything more exciting than this is usually combat and the like.

In addition to all this, sometimes I don’t even keep track of time. This usually happens when resting at night. Players say “I want to do this, I want to do that” and I go in order to keep the spotlight on them evenly and they do whatever they want to do, one by one.

Edit: My suggestion is, don’t let them split a given time frame. If they are in HOURS, they are in HOURS. Everything takes an HOUR, period. No more, no less. Looting a chest takes 1 HOUR, casting a spell takes 1 HOUR etc. You get the idea.

#4

As written…this is how it should be played. Hours a turn takes an hour, days a turn takes a day…

Assuming threat is not eminent, game is still in turns, player 1’s character , player 2s character and so on…they do one thing per turn.

Most things that might require rolls in moment time, don’t require rolls when they have hours…eating, pissing, bandages can just be assumed unless there in danger or they all split up. Breaking down a door isn’t an issue…looking for evidence of anyone sacrificing frogs in that 4 story manor would require effort rolls.

Breaking into a warehouse that has an alarm…that requires a couple of rolls.

That is my general take on it, but my feeling is you are not giving timers, or ending scenes.

Players kill all the Knolls in a cave…then what??? They return to the Duke. They don’t proceed to skin, butcher, and loot everything from the Knolls…or perhaps they do. Up to the GM…I suggest changing scenes. If they want to stay give everyone one thing each character can do. But move things along.

In short (one to three session games) just go scene to scene. Keep timers up and push the characters with the risk of death.

#5

Don’t roll, then! :grin:

I know this seems like a very simple answer, but @Alex is right about “threatened or resting”.
During “rest period” your players don’t need to roll since there are very little chance of failures and most likely no consequence for those failures. :man_shrugging:

#6

I somehow forgot to say that. During rest, any activity that has no meaningful consequence (good or bad) can succeed automatically. Normally, opening a chest is exactly like this but if the chest is trapped or has a locator beacon, then I’d require a roll for example.

If somebody is crafting an item or learning something, maybe EFFORT is enough.
If someone wants to cast a single spell, it can succeed automatically (depending on the circumstances) during HOURS time.

As always use your judgement and try making things easy and streamlined. Rolling dice is fun but rolling stupid dice is a waste of time.

#7

Thanks for your replies.

Basically, “threatened or resting” is also the way I see things. But I struggle to combine “threatening” and “hours”. Any tips on that combination? :slight_smile: e.g. keeping the tension without “I roll recovery a thousand times in that hour to be at full hearts”-like behavior?

Threatening works best in moments where time is brutally short and danger is very close. In moments I tend to lose those “brutality” and proximity of danger. If danger is too far away, sure, as @Alex said it’s fitting the “resting”-situation.

To get to my point: If I’m only threatening players in moments, there’s no need to discuss hours and days because then they are just different levels of resting. But I feel like there is more to the concept that just that just resting when we leave moments.

#8

Again, we’re back to amusement park method. You’re free to wander around the park all you want. Get a funnel cake, buy a stuffed animal, drink a water, use the restroom, and feel refreshed. But once you get on a ride, you don’t have any of those luxuries. That terrifying roller coaster is going to take you places, and you don’t have time for any of that stuff that takes hours.

Gaming is the same way. “We’re trying to track down the kidnapped princess!” “Yep, you literally don’t have time to stop and get a funnel cake and play mindless recovery games over and over. She will die if you don’t slog your way through the kobold horde right now!” But once you reach the end of the ride, time to rest again.

And if your players want to take recovery after recovery roll, the bottom line is you are not throwing enough at them on the ride. Time to make your roller coasters scary.

#10

I think I understand your problem.

If players can say “I roll recovery a thousand times” in an hour, it means that they are not actively doing anything. Which comes back to resting (as per threatened or resting mode). In such a situation I let my players heal 1 HEART or heal fully anyway.

Your issue is, your players have nothing meaningful to do in that hour. They are not chasing anyone, they are not solving any puzzle, they are not breaking pursuit, they are not hunting, they are not spending supplies and so on. Basically they are not doing anything exciting or dangerous, therefore they are in a state of resting.

An example to break this: Players must reach a town before midnight and navigating the wilderness is not so simple. Some rolls must be made for navigation itself or no progress will be made and that hour will be lost, some rolls must be made to avoid dangerous predators or there’ll be combat (or abstract HP loss), some rolls must be made for hunting or they’ll lose supplies (and if they don’t have any, they’ll take HP damage) and some similar things.

In such a situation, if your players want to roll recovery then it means that they forgo all of this stuff. They make their rolls and hopefully gain HP but they lose 1 HOUR of progress. If they complain “Hey, I have 1 hour, so I can roll recovery a million times” you simply say that “That’s not how it works” and tell them that MOMENTS are exception like I said somewhere above. This is simply because the characters are under a time pressure and they have to navigate the terrain. They are not idle and if they what to recover HP, then they have to stop.

Again, if there is no danger and no pressure, characters are kinda resting. Also HOURS and DAYS aren’t simply different forms of resting; there are different kinds of activities done there. In my games learning something/crafting stuff/solving big puzzles takes HOURS or DAYS.

Once more, swinging a sword can be done in a single MOMENT (but cannot be repeated a thousand times in a DAY) whereas crafting an armor needs thousands of hammer blows and that is abstracted away as HOURS or DAYS.

I hope this makes sense.

#11

Any season of the TV show 24.
Scene for this explanation = decision/choice points not a playable scene, but when action slows down…but not drama.

Scene 1.
Something bad happens or is discovered.

Scene 2.
Get the team together.

Scene 3.
Discover that the bad from scene one isn’t the worst thing.

Scene 4.
Everyone panics cause they can stop the bad, but not the worst.

Scene 5.
With questionable morals and sacrifice the team stops the worst from happening or having the impact it may have had.

In between scenes lots of drama and combat. Pull on player motivations and values. (With Role Players this would be character motivations).

In your explanation you don’t seem to want the characters to heal/recoup resources.

In my opinion this depends on genre.

In hours, Heal and rest…I would just give the team full health. Info gathering…an effort roll. (Let them explain why a D6, or d8 vs a d4. ) and so on.
But the Big bad is also doing something…
Necromancer is summoning more undead, mob boss is searching for the heroes, black hole is swallowing another star system, evil mastermind threatens a city with annihilation. Have the players roll a d20 for the bad guy, have them roll effort…don’t tell them why, unless the deserve to know. Are tracking or have an insider…

Now if playing as written, ICRPG…you still have timers going, earthquakes, attacks, people succumb to illness…personally I like to gift very clinical information, and let the players draw their conclusions and choose a course of action. (It’s a moment to make a choice) it’s the calm before stepping back into the storm.

Let the players choose among themselves but when giving you what they “do” it’s in turns. And it is one thing.
Player 1: I heal and rest
Player 2: I study the sigil on the wall
GM: give me an int or wis roll…you know it means something…but you can’t make heads or tales.
Player 3: I heal up and loot the corpses
GM: player 3 do you heal up, or loot the corpses?
Player 3 and the GM negotiate a bit…
Player 4: I loot the room
GM: give me a roll for that…I’ll let you get everything from the rest of the Corpses…but the rest of the room requires more…
Players 2 and 3: oh we loot the room as well…
GM your turns are done, next hour you can also loot the room…

Now if one healer is healing 30 people…roll and give me effort, every point heals someone to full, but lowers 1 point of your HP. And I’ll give you a hero coin if you heal more than 6.

This is all about telling a collaborative story, if it fits, give the players plenty of rope…but it has consequences.

#12

Thanks for your even more in-depth replies :slight_smile:

I’ll try to implement your ideas and deep-think about it.

#13

To add to what has already been said, another way to address this is in the meta.

GM to players: You are on Hours Time while you travel/ camp/whatever. You may do a lot of things in that time, but only one will have a chance of creating a lasting game benefit. Feel free to narrate all the cosmetic actions you carry out during this montage of Hours, but make sure it’s clear which is the one thing you do in this time you’d like to make some kind of roll on, to secure some kind of benefit.

Framing it in meta a time or two makes it easier for both the highly simulationist and highly narrativist players to meet in the middle ground DMZ of gamist. With this understanding in play, things will likely go smoother.

It’s really just another way of reinforcing that this is a Role Playing Game, not a Role Playing Simulation or Role Playing Story. There’s no difference in my mind here between asking the above question, and forcing a player to choose whether she focuses more on being fast or quiet as she runs across that open courtyard at midnight. You can’t have all the benefits and no risk without it just becoming an awkward and cringy kind of Role Playing Fan Service.

Hope this helps.

ETA: Another way to handle it would be giving 1 Free Recover, and then If they want more they’d need to use their single action during the Hours Montage.

#14

Glocke,

Alright looks like the usual suspects already chimed in. I’ll offer my perspective for posterity if nothing else. Here’s the thing - when you are going in hours or days you are ripping your players off - period.

ICRPG is a game where your turn really counts - like do I find some rare ingredients to make potions - do I make a potion, or cast a spell into a crystal, or summon a fire elemental, learn a new spell, improve a stat, find some loot, etc it completely rips the characters off to rob them of those chances that they would get in combat but for some reason can’t as they are traveling.

Here’s how I do it:

First frame why you are in that time. Are they traveling, exploring, diligently searching something?

Then have them name one thing to focus on secondarily if they are doing the hours or or a few things for days time

Subjectively up to the DM but weigh what they are doing primarily and what they doing on the side - which one is tougher, demands their attention more, which one is really just something they can do at the camp site at night

If days - they just do it over the time period - if they are searching for something then hit the target number maybe make it easy.

If hours - this is where your judgement comes in, they again either get it done or make an easy/regular/hard roll depending on how complex the side job is over the primary.

Abstract it into a single roll or just auto-success - keep the game moving.