I have been GMing my friends for about a year now and we do like the game very much, but the players do tend to get off track at the end of every session. They begin to forget rules and I do to a little. The hardest thing I have trouble with is keeping track of time when in non-combat mode, or adventure mode. In the campaign we are in now the acolytes have to investigate a house and Identify and rescue three people whom they know the names. On the map I have, 1 inch squares, I have circles where all the dead bodies lay around the house. There about twenty I think. Anyway, when they entered they see all these bodies and they don't know what to do. So they grab there own figure, on the table, in real life, and start dragging it across the board passing over all the bodies and they tell me, "I'm walking". They keep an eye on me waiting for me to say something like "STOP! you fall in a booby trap!" I am not familiar with this playing style and dont know what to do about it. Do your players do this? Another one is when they have to go somewhere like across the room or across the planet, all they say is "I go there". I say, "You begin to walk there" and while I am resolving something else with other players they might just blurt out, "Am I there yet?
" and I will just say yes, not knowing what happend on the way there or how long it took. Does anyone else have this problem?

Outside of combat, I never try to keep track of time or even movement like I do in combat. I never use maps outside of combat either. It's all just free-form and judgment calls.

In my games, the player says "I walk across the room" and I say "OK" and that's that. I don't bother keeping track of how many rounds or even minutes things take. If it matters, say because they have to be somewhere in an hour, I just make an educated guess how long their actions would take.

Only if something strange is happening that requires me to know exactly where the characters are each second do I bother the keep track on that level of detail... and the only time that happens for me is in combat.

Outside of combat, time doesn't matters: things will happen when the GM considers things should happen (if your players can guess something is coming up, then you are either horrible at poker, they know you very well, or both them and you are "tuned" to the conventions of the genre. This last one happens in my group, and it's quite satisfying when the GM tells you at the end "I was going to let the genestealer hybrids to attack you once you set a foot inside the catacombs, but you turned right in the limit").

So, if they have to find the body quickly, but you want to press them, tell just that they can hear footsteps coming their way. If they fail a roll to find the body, you can tell them they can try again (but the steps are closing). If they fail again... well, they can risk being caught and try a third time, they can try to ambush the incoming Arbitrators (who are going to check some strange noises that were reported a little earlier... but the acolytes are trying to not reveal they are Inquisitorial agents, do they? And to explain how they are in a room filled with corpses...), or they can run away.

Some tension is needed. Some fun is needed. Some measure of accomplishment is also needed (no matter what happens), but also a lot of futility has to shown up from time to time, and it's up to the players to know when their GM is kindly suggesting them to run for their lives (it happened to me in the last campaing: a Xenos-order acolyte dissapeared invetigating in a refinery station in a frozen world... with Orks closing by. It was necrons waking up, so we didn't even try to fight: we evacuated everybody and let all the combustible to fill the catacombs, to later ignite it).

Talking "Maps out of combat":
I normaly only use them to "double check" my descriptions: first, i describe the room/surrounding and then I pull out the map and hand it to the players. IF the exact layout of the surrounding is that importat..

Tlaking "Time out of combat:"
I normally try to figure out the "time" a task takes ahead, if time is relevant (like "hours of investigation" or "minutes of searching an area"). This time is often "fused" to dice roles for an extended test ("every search test you role equals 15 minutes").

If pc start to "split" I have similiar problems. I normally try to have a kinda guess and opt for "getting them back together when it is important" rather then "realistic time".

Important thing: if the group splits, I start to split "attention" and make it clear that the time line is broken. Even if one player finshes his "action" (asking around for someone, finding him and talking to him) earlier, it took hours just to find the guy and get back. The ambush on their camp takes longer to play out, but is finished long before he returns.

MOST IMPORTANT: Do not allow the players to dictate them your GM style...if they start moving figures over a map saying "I am walking" say "no, we will solve this in another way" and tell them how you planned it to be played out.

Gregorius21778 said:

Very much agree with this statemnt, never let the players get away with switching the gameplay modes for you like this. Either what Gregorius said, or alternately do something like give them a blank stare when they pick up the figure and say "put that down, you look silly playing with the minis out of combat" or "I don't recall announcing combat starting."

As for keeping track of time out of combat, just wing it in general, but clearly communicate to the players that it's taking a while. When switcing from the guy announcing his cross-planet journey to a different character, make the segue beginning "ok, while you're taking the time travelling, Josh here is going to..." and then begin the other resolution.

If they pipe up with the likes of "am I there yet?" at that point, you're either taking to long, or dealing with someone who's disruptive/spotlight hogging or just plain adhd. give a few firm reminders that you're dealing with something else at this point, and save the smackdown for repeated and persistent disruption.

I use miniatures and maps/tiles for everything, so usually I'll put into the scenarios how long they have to do things, how long things take (roughly) and when they're running out of time. More work for me, sure, but it stops the story running away from me.

BYE

From the sound of things, I have a very different style to you, so not sure how it will help. I never use minis or maps, even in combat. For the scene you described I would run it like so:

I would describe the scene verbally

GM: “The house is full of bodies lying on the floor, they are clearly dead. There are bullet holes and blood splashes up the walls.”

Its now up to the players to decide what to do

Player 1: “I look over all the bodies, I want to see if any of them are these guys we’re looking for”
Player 2: “I’m going to look for any evidence as to why they were shot”
Player 3 “I’m going to try and work out the turn of events of the crime”

As GM, I decide what rolls need to be made and how long this will all take, as Gregorius21778 does, I may modify the time things take depending on die rolls.

GM “Player 1, you search the house for bodies, none of them are who you are looking for”
GM ”Player 2, make a Challenging Search Roll”
GM “Player 3, make a Difficult Search Roll”

Player 1’s action needed no die roll, and their “turn” is finished, they may be tempted to muscle in on other player’s activity.

Player 1 “ok, when I’m finished, I’m going to help Player 3”
GM: “ it takes you 20min to go over all the bodies, you can help after that”
Player 3: “Sweet I rolled a 04, I get 3 successes!”
GM: “ok, you quickly deduce that a team of professional hit men stormed the place and shot everyone with silenced autoguns.”
Player 3: “since I wasn’t needed for the investigation, I loot the corpses”
Player 2 “I only just passed”
GM “It takes you over an hour, but eventually you find The McGuffin”
Player 3 “While that’s going on I loot the place too”

After an hour of game time, the PC's have the McGuffin the were supposed find plus a haul of low denomination notes, gold fillings and shoes.