Duration

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#1

Discussing Duration after the great thread started by @Delusions and the Great Worksheet provided by @KaneDriscol on Disruption.
Disruption Thread

Disruption Worksheet

Now ICRPG has Timers built into it, so Duration does not appear as exotic to us at this point. So I am not sure we need the workup that @Delusions made for Disruptions…But I am more than willing to be wrong.
Video in question starting at the Duration point: Key Mechanics: Challenge Tuning!

My understanding of Duration is that you confine players to survive a certain amount of time (might be flexible, but they don’t know yet) at a point where they only have access to their current resources. No rest, No help, Solve the obstacle in a given time or Die!!!
The Difficulty of the Duration is actually difficulty of accomplishing the task, not how long they have to do it, as short is hard in some cases, and long is hard in some cases.

Please add other Versions and Examples Below, I’ll attempt to Curate the list.

Duration Types:

We have to get out of here!!! -your surroundings are trying to kill you, and your time is limited.
Key examples:
Room is locked and the walls are closing in!!!
Ship was hit by a Torpedo and is taking on water!!!
Deep in the Dungeon, you remove the artifact from the Statue of the King, you notice the King Statues Eyes Glow red, and the little dog shakes itself discarding it’s statue fasad…the bigger statues are taking longer!!!

You Shall not Pass!!! -Player Characters must defend a location until a set time, dawn, reinforcements, or many others will parrish…Set time is relative in game mechanics.
Key Examples:
This Portal to the Underworld is open, and we can’t let anything get past us, only the Sun Rise will close the portal!!!
Enemy can not evacuate for 2 hours, we have to find her and take her down!!!

We control this Mountain Pass…we won’t let the Enemy Army through here!!!

Tacking Down a Mad bomber who plans on destroying a high rise apartment complex…You discover a Large refrigerator at the bottom of the building with a digital display, with the reading 2:01, 2:00, 1:59…

No Escape!!! -Classic movie Trope where you cannot escape any other way than killing the Big bad!
Key Examples:
The heroes knock on the door of a large abandoned house to get out of the rain. The door opens, once all are inside the door closes never to open again!!!
The Princess is in the Highest Tower of a Castle the heros make it over the walls just as all the surroundings are engulfed in eldritch fire reaching 40 feet into the sky, you hear the deep Bwahahaha emanating from the Keep, as what before seemed discarded clothes strewn around now begin to animate and stand…Undead!!!

Impending Doom from @KaneDriscol

  • you know something really bad is going to happen but all you can do is hope you’re fast enough to stop it. You may not even know when that doom would happen.
    Key examples:
    The encroaching moon from Majora’s Mask
    Armageddon from Good Omens
    The Fire Nation drill breaking into Ba Sing Se in Avatar the Last Airbender

The Global Timer. From @Shadymutha

  • While the good guys are doing their thing, the bad guys are still at work bringing about their agenda. This has to do with the overall game itself rather than a scene or room.
    Key Examples:
    Almost any of the Die Hard Movies.
    Rogue One
    Any Longish Campaign I have run, so I can’t think of other examples.It’s how I think.

All Aboard!!! from @Andreas

  • Get on the the last train out!
    Options are closing and PCs need to get to the last form of transportation before (calamity, police catch them, sun implodes…)

  • Not let NPCs escape!
    Not let the NPCs or McGuffin get to the last transportation out.

  • Solve situation before situation changes!
    The Next train stop, transport gets out of hyper space, run out of fuel!!!

  • Escape Situation Before Calamity!
    Ship headed into the sun, runaway speeding train and broken bridge…
    Confined PCs must take control or disengage after getting needed info, person, item before getting caught, or death becomes unavoidable.

You Shall not Pass!!! Variant Waves From @Delusions

  • Wave of creatures come out every D4 rounds.

  • Wave of ever more powerful creatures come out every Dx rounds with the timer dice going up every wave. I recommend D4, D6, 2D4, 2D6, 3D4, 3D6, 4D6…If you have not killed your PCs yet…they deserve Victory!!! or at least a Boss Fight!


List of Timers
List of distinct room dynamics
Examples of timers
Altered State and DC
Disruption Worksheet
#2

Ooh! This is just too good. Thank you @Paxx for kicking this off.

For me, I always understood Duration as how time-sensitive a situation or encounter might be. For example, a low duration encounter might mean that players have all the time in the world to mill around. There’s no harm in spending a few rounds investigating and looking around for LOOT. On the other hand, a high duration encounter might mean that time is of the essence. If one player so much as misuses a single turn, we’re all doomed! Orvald’s Tower from MAGIC is a great example of this.

Here’s an idea on Duration Types:
Impending Doom - you know something really bad is going to happen but all you can do is hope you’re fast enough to stop it. You may not even know when that doom would happen.
Key examples:
The encroaching moon from Majora’s Mask
Armageddon from Good Omens
The Fire Nation drill breaking into Ba Sing Se in Avatar the Last Airbender


#3

The global timer. While the good guys are doing their thing, the bad guys are still at work bringing about their agenda. This has to do with the overall game itself rather than a scene or room.


#4

Oh man I really like the idea of a party fighting waves of monsters that are pouring out of a portal every X rounds. Would be fun to do a multiple wave encounter with 1d4 rounds in between waves. Kind of reminds me of Violet Hold from world of warcraft. Hold back the invaders! Would be an exciting way to start a campaign. Demon portal opens up in the players’ town.

Duration is kind of tricky. It isn’t as straightforward as disruption. It is the hardest one for me to wrap my brain around.


#5

How about this:

All Aboard! A ship, train, caravan, messenger, or some other important thing is leaving soon, with or without the PCs. Obstacles stand in their way of getting there on time.

Abandon Ship! A ship or some such is sinking or deteriorating, and the PCs must get to safety. Perhaps getting to safety isn’t the hard part, but getting the Macguffin before it sinks with the ship is the main goal.

They’re Getting Away! Catch the criminals before they ride off into the sunset. Or, flip it: escape the Star Destroyer before it gets you in its tractor beam!


#6

Great topic!

My players are going to a town next session and its a relatively safe situation.

So the start of the session I make a 12 ROUND timer for them to meet npcs and roleplay it out in town for a bit till I trigger the night event and the action kicks off again.

I’m sure this falls into the Global Timer portion but just wanted to chime in that your timers can be more than 4 rounds. I mean you could make a session end timer at like 20 at the start of the session.