Timers and Tension
How time constraints create drama and stakes
Timekeeping has been a hot topic for RPGs over the past few years. Whether it’s Jeffro Johnson’s insistence on 1-to-1 time or Alex Macris’s recent videos on timekeeping (Part 1 and Part 2) there have been a lot of conversations around how and why GMs should keep records of time. Even old Gygax quotes have been dusted off and brought back to people’s attention over the course of these conversations. The discourse has been interesting, but there are still a number of gamers who don’t understand why timekeeping is so important. Much of the conversation has been built around the logistical reasons for timekeeping but I would like to put forward an argument for the dramatic necessity of strict timekeeping. I have often argued that a key part of roleplaying is resource management and the fact of the matter is that time is not just a resource to manage, but it may be the most important resource.
Let’s talk about Fox’s hit drama 24 for a second. These days, most people remember it for basically being CIA propaganda, but they seem to forget why the show was popular. It wasn’t the ra-ra post-9/11 patriotism or the badass All-American protagonist Jack Bauer. Those things certainly helped but 24 mania was primarily fueled by the sense of tension that was built by the omnipresent timer. The sound of that timer beeping still lives inside the heads of people who were invested in that show and the sense of tension that gripped them as each hour went by. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, 24 was a show where the events of each season all took place within a 24-hour period with each episode being a 1-hour slice of the day. The show played fast-and-loose with time on occasion, but the tension created by the scenario of “Can Jack Bauer save his family and foil an assassination attempt against a presidential candidate all within 24 hours?” made for gripping TV. The show lasted for 10 seasons as well as a TV movie, spin-offs and a revival season. It was a massive hit in the 2000’s and it was all based on the premise of timekeeping as tension.
Even on 24 where time was sometimes manipulated for narrative purposes, there were still hard limits on what Jack could do given the time crunch. Wasted time could mean failure and the death of innocent people. This is the kind of tension that time-keeping can put into your game. As I discussed last week with Jon Mollison, this kind of tension creates situations where there are only bad options to choose from. To dust off one of Thomas Sowell’s greatest quotes, “There are no solutions. Only trade-offs.” When you keep strict track of time, your players won’t be able to put out every single fire or go to every single blip on the map before things pop off. That will mean consequences in-game that could be either good or bad for the players depending on what else they have done or left undone.
The primary objection to this is that players are “missing content.” This criticism is not unfounded, but it also misses the point. Yes, by choosing to do one activity over another, you miss out on the activity you didn’t select. It’s not reasonable to expect to be able to do everything you have the opportunity to do in real life though. To use my own life as an example, my wife and some friends of ours are going to an escape room the same weekend that two friends of mine are getting married in another state. I cannot be in two places at once so I have to choose. I can’t go to the escape room and then head over to the wedding. They’re in different states and the timing does not work out to allow me to do that. If that’s the case in real life, why shouldn’t it be the case in an RPG? The only difference is that in an RPG the dilemma will be between saving an ally from a dragon and stopping a ritual to summon a demon both during the full moon. The stakes are much higher and therefore the tension is higher.
The only way to give players agency is to make their choices matter and the only way to make their choices matter is to have logical consequences, either good or bad, for the choices they make. One of the most critical choices they will have to make in a campaign with strict time records is between two critical actions when there’s only time for one. What the ramifications of that choice will be as well as whether or not the players even have the time to complete their chosen course of action create perpetual tension. It makes the game all the more interesting at the end of the day. Use this wonderful tool known as timekeeping if only for that reason.