Time?

[NuttsnBolts]

Quite simple, what's the best way to control time in any Roleplay? It's the one thing that I find seems to break the immersion when players write about different events at different times (morning, afternoon or day, night), or in a different scenario one player is able to do a list of 50 projects all in the same time that another player has a cup of tea. Understand that there's no perfect answer but knowing how someone would avoid mentioning "time" is something I've been wondering.

[Ellri]

One system we've used and plan to use again is timestamps. First time we used it to a large degree, it was simply in the post headers, but not in all posts. Next time we use it, we plan to have it both at post start and post end. Or at least have the timestamp say both when the post starts and ends in IC time.

[NuttsnBolts]

Ah, I think I understand. So as an example: Player A Plans to meet up with Player B, deliver a package, then both meet for dinner later that day.

10:00 - 10:30 Player A waits for the person and delivers package to Player B 10:15 - 10:45 Player B receives package and travels elsewhere 5pm Player A writes about their dinner experience 5pm Player B writes about their dinner experience

If so, that seems like a pretty nifty system and with the options for general time like Morning, Evening, etc it would allow for less precise timing. Also would be good for time based events within an RP. :)

[Ellri]

tying a timestamp system into an RP can be harder than merely using one that is tied to post headers. Especially when the RP isn't set in "our" world. But the general rule to follow for implementing clear time into an RP is to have it simple and easy to understand. It'd be fun to make an RP that didn't operate on a 7 days/24 hours/60 minutes/60 seconds basis, but making a system that doesn't confuse the players is harder than you 'd think.

[Dinh AaronMk]

I restrict the passage of time to posts. In Precipice this is measured by pages to a month, with five equal to a full month. With some math you can break it all down to days and with a little awareness you can can get off with figuring out the time of day that post will occupy.

Once upon a time I had the time greater to the point you can calculate the day passed on seven blocks of time to a day. But the RP was moving too slow and we booted it up faster.

When situations arise that realistically may span only a few hours but they stretch out over several pages then we can use context to re-assign/fix the date in the timeline so it doesn't break anything. Otherwise they're RP'd off to the side in PMs to draft joint posts which any one of the relevant persons can post.

[Lillian Thorne]

This is such a tricky topic and something that is such a pet peeve of mine. When one character can take his leave of two other characters, go shopping and stop for a cup of coffee while two others are having a conversation and then the third returns to interrupt said conversation that was less than five minutes IC is enough to make me batty. I've tried time stamps and they worked ok, As a GM I was sort of the control time and seeing it at the top of my posts made people more aware of the passage of time. But we still ended up with people in a collab that took maybe five minutes IC having to sit out over a month OOC because the meeting they were supposed to attend IC took so long. It got frustrating for all.

If you think about it, without time skips, IC time passes so slowly OOC. People take days to post, conversations that could be minutes IC take weeks OOC. I think that's one of the many reasons people wind up with Love at first sight and other awkward plot progressions. Just think about reading a novel at the pace most RPs move. But if people are having fun *shrugs*

I think my preferred method is just lots of OOC communication about time passage and everyone trying to be on the same page. And maybe, just a few timestamps... just a few.

[BlackBishop]

It depends on the RP, but speaking for myself, I tend to gravitate toward the NRPs. When GMing an NRP, I typically do weekly updates, where the actions of players are summed in a post, with each update moving time forward by one season or a quarter year.

[Crimson Flame]

In my experience, time in RPG's move as slowly or as quickly as we need it to. Depending on the story.