I wish I could remember which thread it was that someone here wrote in a post about the way they keep the players from lingering and looting by having a time crunch. That is so brilliant, and so simple that I can't believe I wasn't using it to full effect. The idea was that this GM keeps the action moving by having the pressure of time be nearly Omni-present. This achieves a Star Wars feel and pacing, while also (I would imagine) keep scenes from bogging down. I normally use screen wipes for ending scenes, but the idea of having pressures to keep moving or keep acting had not occurred to me beyond what was just sort of naturally happening in the story/play.

If you are one of these GM's (or THE GM ) who uses this tactic, could you explain a bit how you keep that constant time pressure up? What are some of your standard mechanisms or story elements that you use to keep the players moving? Thanks for any help.

I'll second this.

Didn't one of the books throw out guidelines for an action track or something that does exactly this?

17 minutes ago, Swordbreaker said:

Didn't one of the books throw out guidelines for an action track or something that does exactly this?

I don't know but I would love to see it. Was it one of the adventure books?

I had something that was for any particular scenario, but not an overarching timeline for the entire campaign.

It was the Doom Track, where you roll a Challenge die, and if it comes up Despair, you increase the danger/difficulty of things that are going on in that scene.

Is that what you are thinking of?

6 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

I don't know but I would love to see it. Was it one of the adventure books?

First Age of Rebellion adventure book, I think.

15 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

I had something that was for any particular scenario, but not an overarching timeline for the entire campaign.

It was the Doom Track, where you roll a Challenge die, and if it comes up Despair, you increase the danger/difficulty of things that are going on in that scene.

Is that what you are thinking of?

It might have been you Ferret, in one of my threads one of you heavies said something like keeping things moving because, paraphrasing "there is never enough time," or "time is against the players," or something like that. But a Doom Track sounds like something that would do the job. Is it like a social combat chart? A series of boxes linked vertically that has a star and an end or a Good to Bad scale? Each box gets a roll triggered by something?

Ok so Friends like These or Escape from Arda or whatever that is.

13 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

It might have been you Ferret, in one of my threads one of you heavies said something like keeping things moving because, paraphrasing "there is never enough time," or "time is against the players," or something like that. But a Doom Track sounds like something that would do the job. Is it like a social combat chart? A series of boxes linked vertically that has a star and an end or a Good to Bad scale? Each box gets a roll triggered by something?

It's not that concrete in how I made it, but you could do that if you wanted to. I basically just thought of the situation in a narrative way, as opposed to a turn based way. Given that films and tv shows never actually work time correctly, and you will have things like a 5 minute countdown, take 20 minutes of screen time, I figured trying to track turns just makes things too busy worky for my tastes. And since things get dramatic in movie/tv, when the story dictates, and not an actual clock, I made the Doom Track.

Basically you just create a series of stages, where Things Get Worse. As the players are reacting to the situation, whatever that is, and are doing actions, you roll a Challenge die as well. If it comes up Despair, you move to the next stage of the Doom Track. What this entails, is up to you the GM. The scenario I used it in, was a starship that was crashing to earth, due to catastrophic damage. Each step on the Track, reflected more environmental effects. They hit atmosphere, so the air friction was causing heat buildup, so now they were inside a pressure cooker...-1 Strain per turn, Track 3, the ship starts to rotate violently....+1 setback to all actions (on top of -1 Strain), etc etc. The final stage of the Track was "the ship crashes". Now this doesn't mean "Rocks fall everyone dies, game over", but it should represent a significantly BAD THING happening.

To use Empire Strikes Back as an example, the final Doom Track stage, would be the total destruction of the Hoth Rebel Base. Full Imperial invasion, troopers, storming the tunnels, killing everyone they see, and Vader stalking through like a harbinger of Death. The heroes are still alive, but the situation has changed from "Defend the Base!" to "GTFO Now!" And then you transition to the next scenario, which can have it's own Doom Track to provide ever increasing tension and drama.

It wasn't designed to remove the screenwipe, and I'm pretty certain I didn't say those things you quoted about "never enough time" or "time is against the players", but that's my thoughts on the "time" system. If a GM is up for micromanaging that much of the events of the game, tracking all the various factions and groups, and having them all progress as the PC's do things, that's great. But I personally, don't want to invest that much mental effort into GMing. And, I personally just don't like doing that. It feels too much like spreadsheet work to me, instead of playing the director of an improvised stage performance, which is how I tend to GM things.

Yeah I am not wanting to have a mechanical tool for it like that but I was just wondering what you meant exactly. I think a narrative theme of progressively worse scenes is awesome, and much easier to deal with than a mechanical scale. I guess if it is a meta device that the players can observe then it would be different, but I personally would rather avoid that, unless I am playing AoR and it's mass combat and I want the players to have a stake in the overall success or failure. Even then the idea of progressively worse things happening builds excitement and tension.

Thanks for the explanation Ferret

NP, and you can allow the players to take actions that can negate the Doom Track. For example, a plucky speeder pilot might come up with a way to trip the AT-AT's, and thus slow the advance of the Walkers (Move Doom Track down from 3 to 2).

Or a scoundrel of a freighter pilot might score a critical hit on the Nemesis pilot, removing him from the space combat, allowing the plucky bushplane pilot a free shot on the Weak Spot of your Big Bad Weapon (Move Doom Track from 5-3, reducing a LOT of dice penalties perhaps), etc etc.

It doesn't have to be an ever advancing thing of doom, but it shouldn't be easy to reduce things too

2 hours ago, Archlyte said:

If you are one of these GM's (or THE GM ) who uses this tactic, could you explain a bit how you keep that constant time pressure up? What are some of your standard mechanisms or story elements that you use to keep the players moving? Thanks for any help.

I have a couple tools for this:

1. real-time counters like kitchen timers or miniature hourglasses - great for keeping the table action moving. I like to use carrots instead of sticks here, and if I find the action is dragging I will offer up a Boost die for a PC that is able to execute their turn quickly. I stole this outright from a DM pal running D&D4E.

2. in-game timers, which actually operate more like countdown timers. This is often more common, but I think people wonder if they should let the players know about the countdown, or that one exists. It really depends on the scene but generally I find it good form to let the players know in most cases, even if they don't know just how long , they at least know the clock is ticking.

The reason I really felt this was going to be most useful is that I don't like it when the scene bogs down or crawls because the players are getting involved in little details or hanging around in situations that would be better if they weren't static. That they are static is my fault, but I need to be able to push things along. Maybe a good way to help to do this is to have a Doom Track that also combines with Environmental stuff (the things that give Setbacks or otherwise define what may be present in the scene as a hazard etc. ).

5 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

The reason I really felt this was going to be most useful is that I don't like it when the scene bogs down or crawls because the players are getting involved in little details or hanging around in situations that would be better if they weren't static. That they are static is my fault, but I need to be able to push things along. Maybe a good way to help to do this is to have a Doom Track that also combines with Environmental stuff (the things that give Setbacks or otherwise define what may be present in the scene as a hazard etc. ).

That's one way to handle it, but you touch upon some things worth addressing:

1. getting bogged down in details

2. lingering in a scene too long

For #1, how is this coming about? Do they latch on to everything you describe or invent their own? Neither is inherently bad, but the principle of Checkhov's Gun implies less is more and perhaps paring down the descriptive elements that cause confusion and stagnation can help. I'm reluctant to offer up advice that says "describe less" but a little here and there might help.

For #2, sometimes you just have to star-wipe to the next scene. I'm also reluctant to advise stopping a group from enjoying a lingering scene but it sounds like you don't enjoy it so that violates the Rule of Fun. I like to pull the whole change of camera focus trick, "meanwhile, in space...." This doesn't always work but if the scene is in fact drawing to a lazy close and the table mood is ready to move on, just interjecting that with a loud voice at an Dramatically Appropriate Moment™can sometimes get things moving again.

These are just a couple examples and by no means the only way to accomplish the goal of Keeping The Story Moving.

9 hours ago, themensch said:

That's one way to handle it, but you touch upon some things worth addressing:

1. getting bogged down in details

2. lingering in a scene too long

For #1, how is this coming about? Do they latch on to everything you describe or invent their own? Neither is inherently bad, but the principle of Checkhov's Gun implies less is more and perhaps paring down the descriptive elements that cause confusion and stagnation can help. I'm reluctant to offer up advice that says "describe less" but a little here and there might help.

For #2, sometimes you just have to star-wipe to the next scene. I'm also reluctant to advise stopping a group from enjoying a lingering scene but it sounds like you don't enjoy it so that violates the Rule of Fun. I like to pull the whole change of camera focus trick, "meanwhile, in space...." This doesn't always work but if the scene is in fact drawing to a lazy close and the table mood is ready to move on, just interjecting that with a loud voice at an Dramatically Appropriate Moment™can sometimes get things moving again.

These are just a couple examples and by no means the only way to accomplish the goal of Keeping The Story Moving.

Thanks for the response themensch. Yes I am referring to scenes that are not going anywhere, lack inertia, and are just basically the Role-Playing equivalent of sitting around doing nothing. I have really pared down description to the important elements precisely because of Chekhov's Gun (not putting in a lot of stuff that won't or can't get used) and I try not to use a lot of 1 to 1 description where the real time type thing connects scenes. I did use to do too much description but I stopped that quite a while back.

I have an example from a recent game I was a player in, but not GMing that time around. The GM spent about 20 minutes of real time with another player haggling over an energy drink at a cart kiosk on a space station. They didn't discuss happenings on the station, or anything dealing with the story or characterization, just this drink and what it tasted like and made the character feel like. The player was playing an alien, so of course anything is exciting when you do it as an alien (sarcasm) and I decided to try and work on a mental project while they played out this giant scene about nothing. It was like Star Wars Seinfeld but not funny or entertaining.

I really want the game to have that frenetic pace and tension of the sense of a ticking clock so that things are pared down to the more exciting elements with only infrequent lulls just for contrast. It's tips on that that I am really after.

18 hours ago, Archlyte said:

Ok so Friends like These or Escape from Arda or whatever that is.

Dead in the Waters Act 3 is a timed event. Take to long and you are all dead.

5 hours ago, Archlyte said:

I have an example from a recent game I was a player in, but not GMing that time around. The GM spent about 20 minutes of real time with another player haggling over an energy drink at a cart kiosk on a space station.

I can't say I haven't fallen into this trap, sometimes giving one player the spotlight makes this happen, but... this circumstance? I agree, I'd probably be less entertained after about 5 minutes of that. Every group is different though, and I'm not opposed to a little monologue-ing if it's entertaining.

To drive directly to what you're asking for, I think a combination of in-game countdown timers and at-table timers are your best time management tools. If you're not the GM then you're kinda out of luck, but perhaps the GM and the rest of the group feels that the time management is off and it's worth discussing. I would say, though, that I don't know that everyone can handle a story where the action constantly ramps up, there have to be some periods where it lulls to allow a contrast, at least in my mind. The book Hamlet's Hit Points was good for helping me learn about and use story beats but they are not the be-all-end-all tool, just a way to visualize the action in a quick form. In looking at the classics it makes it easy for a GM like me to follow an expert's story manipulation and slap a new coat of paint on it.

Yeah all of these points have been helpful to me. I welcome more though, as I really want to hear how other people keep the flow going through the game. I need to see this book Hamlet's Hit Points, as it sounds like it will surely be a boon to me.

I too enjoy a good dialogue and just a calm exploration of the world, but what I don't like is when that goes on and on. I am not playing in any games at the moment so I do have control, but I want to mainly do it to have a fun and exciting session. I also have one player who cannot stay for as long as the rest of us and so I have to be efficient in bringing the session through on the nights we play. So far so good, but I always try to improve.

It sounds like there are a few ways to do this.

• Real Timer: a chess clock or other timer used to count down and add real time pressure.
• Meta-Timer: something that the players are aware of OOC but could be either not a real clock, or is based in some other way of measuring the time.
• Scene Timed Events or Ticking Bombs: Environmental Features that make action urgent
• Pursuit: The players are aware that they are being pursued by forces in game, if they dawdle they may get caught. The players might also be the ones pursuing.
• Story Beats: using events programmed for an emotional response to help steer the pace of the game.

59 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

I need to see this book Hamlet's Hit Points, as it sounds like it will surely be a boon to me.

It's by Robin D. Laws, a name that requires no introduction. To be honest I didn't find this to be as much a framework as I'd hoped, it's more of a sideline tool I used on occasion. There's a couple other related works that are useful as well, but I think that there's probably more effort due on my part to make it all "click."

On 2018-02-08 at 12:55 PM, Archlyte said:

If you are one of these GM's (or THE GM ) who uses this tactic, could you explain a bit how you keep that constant time pressure up?

I believe that might have been me, since I reference "the clock" a lot. Some helpful hints I've received here to make it happen start with "in media res" and continue with "cliffhanger". An adventure will start in media res, with an agreed goal/destination from session zero. Starting in media res means you can introduce whatever complications are necessary to keep the scene moving. I also try to end on cliffhangers, at least for sessions within an adventure arc, eg: "you open the door and two bucketheads are staring at you...my, my, look at the time! See you all next game." A good chase is the ultimate localized clock, and allows you to leverage every skill in the book.

At the end of an adventure arc I'll try to pace it so that by the end of the last session the party gets home and somebody starts making tea while the rest head to the showers. That way, no session time is spent on mundane stuff like shopping. If the PCs want equipment, we deal with it between sessions.

Aside from those basic ones, each adventure has one or more clocks. To me, that's what makes stories work. Every movie of every genre has one. If there is no urgency, what is the point? At the minimum every mission will have a timeline, and not meeting the timeline means: not getting paid; the opportunity is lost because the quarry is fled; angering a patron; the bomb goes off; etc. Also, I often use threat/Despair to invent one on the fly if I need one. Anything you use for setback can turn into a clock with enough Threat or Despair: you just broke your flashlight and it's getting dark; a storm is coming; the air on this planet is toxic, and your re-breathers can only handle so much; that guy over there looks like an undercover agent; etc.

At the campaign level, the NPCs are all on a clock, right from the beginning. By "clock" I mean that they have motives and goals of their own. The players might not know about them, but they will impact what the PCs have to deal with. The GM secret here is that I'm pretty flexible with those NPC clocks, this allows me to leverage them when I need to. Sometimes I'll leverage an NPC clock, and it might feel pretty random to the players (the old Raymond Chandler thing of "two guys burst in with guns"), but I do my utmost to make sure I have a way to tie it back to the larger plot, so when the players unravel it all there's a nice "aha!" moment. It should give a sense of continuity while suggesting a bigger picture.

Hope that's useful.

19 minutes ago, whafrog said:

I believe that might have been me, since I reference "the clock" a lot. Some helpful hints I've received here to make it happen start with "in media res" and continue with "cliffhanger". An adventure will start in media res, with an agreed goal/destination from session zero. Starting in media res means you can introduce whatever complications are necessary to keep the scene moving. I also try to end on cliffhangers, at least for sessions within an adventure arc, eg: "you open the door and two bucketheads are staring at you...my, my, look at the time! See you all next game." A good chase is the ultimate localized clock, and allows you to leverage every skill in the book.

At the end of an adventure arc I'll try to pace it so that by the end of the last session the party gets home and somebody starts making tea while the rest head to the showers. That way, no session time is spent on mundane stuff like shopping. If the PCs want equipment, we deal with it between sessions.

Aside from those basic ones, each adventure has one or more clocks. To me, that's what makes stories work. Every movie of every genre has one. If there is no urgency, what is the point? At the minimum every mission will have a timeline, and not meeting the timeline means: not getting paid; the opportunity is lost because the quarry is fled; angering a patron; the bomb goes off; etc. Also, I often use threat/Despair to invent one on the fly if I need one. Anything you use for setback can turn into a clock with enough Threat or Despair: you just broke your flashlight and it's getting dark; a storm is coming; the air on this planet is toxic, and your re-breathers can only handle so much; that guy over there looks like an undercover agent; etc.

At the campaign level, the NPCs are all on a clock, right from the beginning. By "clock" I mean that they have motives and goals of their own. The players might not know about them, but they will impact what the PCs have to deal with. The GM secret here is that I'm pretty flexible with those NPC clocks, this allows me to leverage them when I need to. Sometimes I'll leverage an NPC clock, and it might feel pretty random to the players (the old Raymond Chandler thing of "two guys burst in with guns"), but I do my utmost to make sure I have a way to tie it back to the larger plot, so when the players unravel it all there's a nice "aha!" moment. It should give a sense of continuity while suggesting a bigger picture.

Hope that's useful.

Very! I do think it was you but I just couldn't remember. As an overarching dynamic I think this is so important that I wish they would have put it in the Core Rulebook After I read that post you had made in another thread the next day I was driving around just thinking about how great that was. But I also feel equally dim for not consciously managing it holistically before. I love how you put that with the NPCs being "on the clock" as well, meaning the world and the NPCs do their thing regardless and keeping track of this is beneficial. Thank you very much.

While in-combat, if my players start discussing or debating too much on what to do next or who goes next in the initiative order, I simply tell them they lost the next IP this round due to time wasted.

In some ways I find your question to be too broad. Take this as an observation.

During a combat scene the threat of additional opposing force should be a constant threat unless it's the boss battle. If it's the boss battle evac is likely waiting for them and they can't be late.

If this is happening on planets and EVERY body is being looted, make it so there is no useable equipment left. Those advantage your PCs roll can be used to destroy weapons, armor, etc. If it's on a planet depending on your era, law enforcement is a thing and they can do the same as generic bad guys.

Planning state I'm with Sturn, I've been on the giving as well as receiving side of this. Too much talk, my guys go first UNLESS there's a pre-plan. EG the group stealths up to a hiding spot and can take a minute or few to plan (See beginner game when entering the ruins).

As far as actual timers are concerned if you leave it out for everyone to see, that can break the crunch the party feels. **** start rolling dice but not announcing why or make them roll some dice (this works well if your group is vocally loud you can take advantage of that HARHAR).

Yeah I think the looting every fallen body is a symptom of a deeper sickness.

I would hope to always have a player group who is looking for something more than the Video Game on Paper experience that is served by having every item accounted for and catalogued. I love to do gritty detail on equipment and static equipment possession (ok well did you buy a comlink?), but I will admit that the down side of that is that the players begin to feel that the world is a 99 cent store that needs to be nicked of all the necessary goodies. If they feel they won't be able to handle challenges because they are under-equipped they will solve that by becoming equipped. To me, if players are happy to do menial stuff for a few credits I see it as a problem unless it's in context (starting out poor, fallen on hard times).

I try to remember to take care of the players so that they feel like they don't need to steal or hoard goods. Unless you want Stuff to be the main focus of the game, you had better make Stuff something that is not their #1 problem.

As much as I dislike it, sometimes you really have to allow for the magic bag of tricks, and the narrative dice work well for this. Something they didn't buy could be available to them incidentally for the purpose of the task.

I like the idea of having an evac that they can't miss, that is an extra layer of urgency in an already dicey situation. My challenge is that because I run emergent games (that the players actually lead), I can't often engineer big set pieces like that. I have some players who are very much offended by railroad or pre-made stuff, and get unhappy when they detect a script.

There was also the EotE GM-screen adventure where the players are on a mining colony where something's happened (don't want to spoil too much), and one of the things going on is that someone is sabotaging the shield emitters that protect the colony from the deadly environment.

When they arrive they get a "shield emitter 5 has malfunctioned, please send a repair crew" type automated message.
They'll most likely think nothing of it, but you're supposed to place further warnings whenever the pace slows down.
When the fourth one goes down the message changes to "shield emitter X has malfunctioned, shields will reach critical failure if more shield emitters fail" or something like that.
It should become very obvious to the players right quick that they are under time duress.