The Campaign: Time Matters Because Life Goes On Without You

(Following from this post.)

More than food, water, spell components, ammunition, Morale, or finances the resource that effective campaigners make the most out of is time.

The best campaigners will take time into account when deciding upon the plan to achieve strategic decisions. This factor will force decisions on what options to pursue, and who to dispatch to pursue them.

Time Is Money

In play, we do this with an accounting method: 1:1 Timekeeping.

This is best understood by thinking of it as a line of credit. The amount of time you spend at the table can be as much, or as little, as you want; you can go as hard you wish, but when the session is over the bill comes due- and there is no way to pay it off but to cool it on the bench until real life catches up to your man. You can call this "Time Jail", but it's better considered "Time Debt" and your man is in the kitchen washing dishes (i.e. compelled downtime) because there's no alternative way to pay it off.

You want to go delve the dungeon? You spend time to get there, time delving, and time returning to the base camp. Scored big and you are eligible to level up? You spend time to travel to the trainer, time training, and (usually) time travelling back to base camp. Want an item made? Spend time doing it. Research a spell? Recruit hirelings or Henchmen? Go consult a Sage? All of that has a price measured in time- time you must pay back.

The Cost Is Opportunity

Your man can't be in two places at once.

Strict timekeeping, tracked to both travel on the map and to the progress of the calendar, ensures that while your man delves the dungeon and then goes to train to level up (a) he can do nothing else nowhere else and (b) no one else anywhere or at any time therein can interfere.

As there can be multiple people running sessions for the campaign, each running different parties doing different things (including working at cross-purposes with other players), the need to ensure that contradictions do not occur is necessary. This is because, especially after campaigns expand beyond the launch, they stop resembling anything out of literature or mythology and start looking and feeling a lot more like the historical wargames that they are derivatives of.

No, you can't do all the things. No, you can't kill all the bad guys. No, you can't loot all the treasures. No, things will not wait for your man to show up. All of the monsters, rulers, merchants, religions, etc. are independent actors--as much as possible, played by other players--and they are under no obligation to wait for you or your man. You are forced to decide what to do and what not to do, forgoing one opportunity in favor of another, because time pressures force that choice early and often.

You Are Not Your Man

Okay, your man is out of action for six months because in the last two hour session he sacked a city, looted a temple full of big treasures, and then went on a Summer-long raiding spree up and down the coast before returning home. He got mangled near the end, but survived; he has to recuperate first, and then he's in training for several weeks- all of which drain most of the gold he just earned.

And now you're told you can't play him for six months.

You have a choice. You can either not play for six months, or you can roll up a new man to play while he's out on Injured Reserve.

Either choice is valid This is a hobby, not your day job. The Referee won't mind if you take a break, even for far less than six months; go grab the wife and kids and take that family vacation you'd been thinking about- the one where you rent a cabin for two weeks in Peak Summer and go hiking, fishing, etc. all around the lake there and leave the mad world behind.

Or maybe you want to play in a different area. You hear that Bob's running a campaign where all the Oriental Adventures is in play, and rat ninjas (that are totally not Skaven, really, honest) are invading from Elsewhere so the Glorious Son of Heaven. Playing a Samurai for a while sounds like fun, and you haven't been at the Little Tin Soldier for years so it's an excuse to stop over.

Whatever it is, no one will care. Your man, and your seat at the table, will be there when you can play him again. This is a hobby- not a lifestyle, nor a cult. You can come and go as you like- and this timekeeping practices makes this easier, not harder, to execute because it is impossible to have Main Character Syndrome in a campaign where no one cares if neither you nor your man are available to play.

Certain Secret Kings who can't live up to their self-image as Internet Shitlords would do well to accept this wisdom and reform themselves, and their lives, accordingly.

Conclusion

A proper RPG has all of these wargame components because it is one. Tourists and Storywankers object because they don't comprehend that the campaign milieu exists independent of them and their men; Referees make this worse by not exploiting these facets of the game to (a) expand player participation in size and scope to (b) maximize both quality and quantity of play.

Time, distance, supplies- all of these are practical (i.e. real) economics that too many people playing RPGs suck at because they are not compelled to handle them. A lot of the suck in the hobby goes away upon maintaining hobbyist disciplines like this, and the #BROSR has--and has shown, repeatedly, for years--the recepits proving it. Now that message is hitting a critical mass, and the Preference Cascade has begun.

You too can #winatrpgs. You will suck at first--everyone does--but you get better over time. Soon you'll be winning, and that will be the breakthrough you've wanted all along but never had until now.

You're welcome to join us. But, whether you do or don't, life goes on without you.