My Life As A Gamer: Time Levels All Characters

Timekeeping is the cornerstone to an effective campaign for a clear, concrete reason: it forces players to make trade offs that matter in actual play.

Years ago I went to the Palladium forums. I posted in a thread about campaign management, in response to someone complaining about mecha pilots and cyborgs dominating his campaign, a simple question: "Are you enforcing the time requirements to repair, refuel, and rearm?"

I might as well as have published cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed, given the reaction I got.

The reason these players chose those character types is because--absent the engagement with logistics that timekeeping forces upon them--they enjoy a power disparity that allowed them to dominate play and sideline others in their party trying to compete on raw power.

Change the context to a high-level spell-caster in AD&D 1st Edition. What is now known to have been routinely ignored? Spell components and memorization times. What acts as a real and effective check? Spell components and memorization times.

Powered armor, giant robots, cyborg bodies, armored vehicles- all of them require time spent doing repairs and maintenance, have parts and consumables (fuel, munitions, parts, etc.) that need to be sourced, delievered, and secured. Spells (in AD&D) need material components much of the time, some of which are immobile or costly, and demand that the caster spell hours or days to memorize one copy in his mind before casting it. This is on top of nigh-universal issues of injury, illness, and recovery therefrom.

Waiving these demands of time and resources upon highly-effective characters is removing very real checks on their ability to dominate a campaign.

Is it inconvenient? Yes, it is, and that is the point.

RPGs are extended wargames. #EliveLevel gamers that #winatRPGs are those with what it takes to become professionals: they deal in logistics.

"But-"

Bright, front and center.

You have to insist on the timekeeping. It's the core of what makes the medium work.

If Bob complains that his cyborg is out of action due to repairs, tell him to roll another character or do something else. Reasonable players just roll a new guy and get on with it.

Jack's pilot has his prefered robot in the shop undergoing repairs and a refit? The pilot switches to another robot, or Jack swaps characters.

Tom's Magic-User is locked down in research? His Cleric is still memorizing spells? His Thief still in training? His Monk is still on that slowboat to Ricelandia? His Ranger is still laid up after getting mauled by a dragon? Time for the Fighter to come off the bench.

Strict timekeeping is worth the effort. It is the balancing tool across all RPG play. We have disdained and ignored this for far too long. Yet once it is put into practice , as with everything else we've ignored, the experience of play greatly improves because the dynamic is forced to change to create the conditions actually promised by Gygax and company back in the day.

This is before accounting for long periods of time, such that aging would matter. Imagine rolling up a fresh-faced Human Male Fighter and playing him into a Old Man without needing supernatural aging or other such time effects. Timekeeping makes this far more likely to happen.