I'm new to GMing and take notes where I can. One thing that makes no sense to me in adventures is the time penalties or bonuses, especially for actions occurring during non-structured gameplay.

A specific example is in Beyond the Rim, when searching for Cholganna, identifying the correct quarter hemisphere is supposed to take 30 minutes and is reduced for each success, and then 5 hours to scan the quarter. If I'm reading correctly, it is also possible for the PCs to lose time by identifying and scanning the wrong quarter. But there doesn't appear to be any reason for a ticking clock.

So what is the purpose of these times? I don't imagine I should have the players wait any amount of time before proceeding with the story. If there is no purpose, then why even have the players roll and be penalized at all.

More generally, time can have other meanings in your game as well. If you want to track how many days the PCs have been on a given planet so you can advance time for other people 'back home', it can help to know how long each thing takes. The differences between something taking 1 hour and 5 hours could mean the difference between a stay of 1 day and a stay of 2 or 3 days, if you added it up.

If I recall correctly in that adventure, aren't there some other groups like the Imperials and the Rodians who are also doing things? So how long you take at one thing could determine whether you get there before the Rodians do, etc.

In our latest adventure , I had the PCs make a couple of Perception checks to find a secret door which they had reason to believe existed in an ancient cave. It was more about how long it took them to find it. They failed on one check which took a couple of hours, then they slept and in the morning they found it.

If they'd found the door the previous evening, they could have started traveling through it, and things could possibly end up differently because they reached their destination faster.

If I recall correctly in that adventure, aren't there some other groups like the Imperials and the Rodians who are also doing things? So how long you take at one thing could determine whether you get there before the Rodians do, etc.

This is how I think those types of things (also talents) are supposed to work.

Time is purely relative, but if a PC was able to reduce his time to find information and be on his way, he might gain a benefit later on as a result.

Say your group is going to rob a hospital on Ariel. The Doctor makes his Education and Medicine checks; so he knows how to get in and out quickly without being noticed, and he knows what drugs are worth taking to sell later. You make your way inside, get the goods, and as you are leaving notice some Imperials show up for an inspection. Now, because your Doctor knew his business, you are flying away in your speeder as the Imperials are docking. Maybe your party only has to manage a quick chase scene to escape. Maybe a failed check not only leaves the crew with less valueable stuff to sell, but you are trapped inside as the inspection starts and you have to either bluff or fight your way out of a pretty tight spot. Maybe a Despair locks down the exits and this isn't just an inspection. It's a pair of blue-gloved Imperial Agents looking for the Force Sensitive in your party. I hope you've got a stimpack because **** is about to get real. All because nobody spent the measly 10XP to get the Researcher Talent.

Thanks! Once I'm done reading through it I'm sure I'll have many more questions. This would only be the third adventure, but they all appear to be rigid on when and where things occur, so being this specific about elapsed time seemed like a pointless exercise. That makes sense to look at it from a technical perspective. Charging a docking fee per day and actually calculating the cost to the group will help. I have a mechanic in the group who is able to repair the ship cheaply, so I'll need more effective ways of keeping the group hungry.

A lot of the skills and talents have aspects that relate to how long a skill check takes. Some talents speed them up, and sometimes advantages or successes can be spent on speeding them up.

In the middle of combat, this could mean the difference between it requiring 3 turns to slice the blast doors and escape from the enemy and it taking 1 turn.

Out of combat, it could mean that a certain Knowledge check takes 3 hours, as the PC has to cross-reference a bunch of different sources or go to different locations to do research. A Streetwise check likewise could take an entire evening of bar-hopping to find just the right scum who knows what the PC is looking for.

Also keep realistic concerns in mind as far as repairing your crew's ship.

If your ship has a hull trauma threshold of 20 and sustains 10 or 15 points of damage in a fight, this is probably not going to be something that one person can repair with a toolkit.

I'd rule that it could be serious hull damage which requires dedicated starship facilities to repair. Even the use or rental of those facilities would be expensive.

Just because the Mechanics check can repair X amount of hull trauma doesn't put it beyond GM fiat in terms of what has narratively happened to your ship.

In our campaign, the PCs' ship crashed on a planet and in addition to applying hull trauma and critical hits, I ruled that some of the ship's landing gear had been torn off in the crash. That's a specific aspect of the damage which will need to be fixed. They'd need some kind of replacement landing gear, and you can't just get that by rolling a Mechanics check.

Ooh yeah that's good. It only came up due to many screw ups on my part and theirs. The ship took 14 dmg while escaping the TIEs in the beginner game and by the time they needed to take off after Bandon Dobah they still didn't have enough to repair the ship even at the price stated in the CRB. I ruled that the mechanic could repair at half price which got them to an acceptable hull threshold but I've been wondering when that will come back and bite me. In hindsight I should have caught that during my prep and given them a way to make some money. Or perhaps take on more Obligation? I still haven't gotten the hang of that yet.

That's stuff you can work into the campaign, depending on how much detail you want to use.

If they're in a civilized place, it makes total sense that the Mechanic could work with somebody or a facility to repair the ship at half price. Maybe that's renting out a bay in a shipyard or something. Or just finding some spare parts from a junk shop.

If you catch the PCs in such a spot on a planet far from civilization, or a planet that has no resources or just primitive life, then it might not be so easy. You could say the Mechanic can get a few points of hull trauma repaired and get the ship running, but maybe they'll have to find a better planet to get better work done.

And if they're out of money completely, more Obligation is a great way to do it! Maybe they find a crimelord who's got resources and in exchange for Obligation to the crimelord, he'll repair their ship!