Obligatory philosophy tie-in:
Henri Bergson, the oft forgotten mega star of philosophy of the early 1900's, has a very interesting conception of time. According to him, we have been falsely trained to understand time in spatial terms, i.e. as something you can measure and that is only ever different in degree (you can have more or less of it). Instead of thinking of time in terms of something that differs in degree, Bergson asks us to consider time as something that differs in kind: That time I was angry is followed by the time I regret getting angry, which is not different in degree (how long it takes) but different in how you experience that moment (the heated flush of anger compared with the ruminating grind of regret).
Very simply put: time feels different in different moments. The easiest way to see that there is merit to this idea is to compare time when you are bored, from time when you are distracted: the former crawls while the latter seems to fly.
Bergsonian time in RPGs
Some RPGs try to capture this differing experience of time by having a different duration for 'turns' depending on what you are doing. During combat rounds take seconds, while exploring an adventure location they take minutes and while traversing the wilderness they take hours. You might argue that this isn't because these RPG makers tacitly agree with Bergson and are trying to do justice to differing experiences of time, but are instead trying to abstract away to interesting moments of decision making and though you might be right this isn't always the case.
Some dungeon crawling RPGs expect players to be very meticulous in their discriptions of how they traverse the environment: it is assumed that if you don't explicitly mentioned looking at the ceiling, that your character didn't bother to do so, that if you don't say you're character is tapping every flagstone with a 10' pole that means they aren't. Yet these RPGs often still have 10 minute dungeonering turns.
So I would argue that at least in part, these RPGs are taking the difference between the experience of fighting a tense battle and that of exploring a vast space into account, even if they are doing so implicitly.
The different time scales are there to help react to what players are doing, if players attack the monster, it damn well gets to make an attack of a similar time frame against the players, and if players are going to barge around a dangerous place there is damn well going to be a chance they are going to encounter something nasty while doing so.
Against Rigid Time Scopes
However, codifying it in this way does have its limits. A lot of the best advice to prevent combats from becoming a slog tells you to wrap up a combat that NPCs clearly cannot win anymore. Those last three goblins don't have to wait their turn, they just attempt to flee after the players kill four of their friends. And no GM will continue with the flagstone by flagstone discription, if this hallway doesn't have anything interesting going on.
In short, it seems that the very argument for why these turns seem to want to capture something of the different experiences of time is also an argument against clinging to these rigid procedures.
Don't get me wrong: I think keeping track of time is an important aspect of running games that have timers and timelines going on in the background and games that focus on resource attrition. But if we are already going to play fast and loose with slowing time down during dungeon exploration and speeding it up during combat, we might as well look for a more fluid system.
An attempt at a more fluid system:
The action description made by players determines the time scope in which the action is going to be resolved. Narrating a situation can imply a certain time scope (you have 1 day to prepare before the ship leaves, what do you do?), but it still allows the players to suggest actions that slow time down (I want to talk to the ship's captain about our coming voyage).
You maintain this time scope until it is changed by the players, again using narration to suggest a change in the experience of time (the soldiers attempting to bar your entree surrender themselves), but ultimately leaving it up to the players to decide to suggest one thing or another (I attempt to shoot one of them in the leg, to prevent her from running).
This might seem like something of a cop out. After all, traditionally it is one of the GMs responsibilities to pace the session. However, by allowing the players to determine (in part) when they slow down and when they speed up, allows them to pick and choose what they think is interesting enough to examine more closely, and to make that decision at every step in the game!
Rather than the GM having to gauge the level of engagement of their players, the players themselves can change the pace and make clear they want to end the combat that went on for too long, examine a room more elaborately if they think it seems particularly interesting, or limit decision making to weeks if they want to speed up travel.
To elucidate what I mean, some examples (normally I would also tell my players the expected results based on the odds, but all that stuff is dependent on the system you are using):
Example 1: an Ambush with 3 different player responses
GM: As you walk down the road, you hear a rustling in the brush. A robber jumps out, sword at the ready, and yells 'Now!'. A volley of arrows flies towards you from the western side of the road, what do you do?
(This suggests a moment to moment engagement. Players can now choose to react in such a time scope, or they react with more abstracted actions).
Reaction 1 (moment to moment): We try to take cover and assess the situation, can we see where the archers are hiding and if there are more melee troops nearby?
GM Response to 1: Between the salvos or arrows you can make out that the archers seem to be hiding behind a fallen tree, up on the hill on the wester side of the road. With a dedicated sprint you should be able to make it to them.
What seems to be there leader has two bodygaurds with her, armed with heavy clubs. They look strong but slow. How do you proceed?
Reaction 2 (minute to minute): Our ranged units take cover and attempt to return supressing fire, as the rest of us tries to capture what seems to be their leader.
GM Response to 2: The ranged opponents outnumber the ranged characters, but because some of you are specialised in archery it is an even shot. The odds are [insert system dependent odds].
Meanwhile, their leader did not expect this response from what should be a routine stick up. She retreats, while her bodygaurds place themselves between you and her. The odds are [insert system dependent odds].
Do both groups want to proceed?
Reaction 3 (single resolution): We fight off the ambush by having our competent fighters engage while the rest supports by shooting or hurling whatever they can find.
GM Response to 3: You are outnumbered, but they didn't expect you to put up a fight. The odds are [insert system dependent odds], do you want to proceed?
Example 2: a Strange Office with 2 different player responses
GM: Once you climb the ladder out of the catacombs, you seem to have entered what looks to be the office of some wealthy person, through a hidden hatch underneath the desk. Had you not just come from the catacombs, the skeletal decorations on the woodwork and some of the book covers might not have seemed so suspiscious as it does now. What do you do?
(to me this doesn't suggest a very paricular time scope, though it might to you.)
Reaction 1 (moment to moment): I examine the desk up close, first looking at the skulls to see if there are any visual odditities or anything like that.
GM Response to 1: The skull decorations are smoothly hacked out of the wood. With just a visual examination, nothing obvious presents itself. What do you do?
Reaction 2 (minute to minute): I examine the desk, looking at it up close before running my hands over it, checking all of the drawers, seeing if it will move, the whole shebang.
GM Response to 2: After a thourough examination of the desk that lasts about 20 minutes you find that one of the eyesockets of the decorative skulls gives when you press on it, opening a secret hatch underneath the desk. In it you find a journal covered with magical glyphs. What do you do?
Reaction 3 (single resolution): We examine the room to see if we find anything of note, carefully examining all the furnature for secret switches and all the books for suspicious titles.
GM Response to 3: Depening on how much time you want to spend on this, your chances of finding something will increase, but the chances of being found by whomever owns this office will increase as well. The odds are [insert system dependent odds], do you want to proceed?
Concluding remarks:
Did this have to be an explicitely formulated system? Probably not, though I think it helps. I've heard some people run their games like this somewhat intuitively, but I think formalizing it does two things: it helps communicate this idea to the players (making them aware of the temporal control they have) and it makes the idea more discoverable for those who might otherwise not have considered running their games this way.
I have yet to see how my own players react to this more explicit way of them deciding the time scope for their actions, though playing somewhat fast and loose with time is something they do seem to generally enjoy.
Tangentially related ramblings:
If you think Bergson's conception of time is interesting, I urge you to look into his understanding of Memory (as a metaphysical concept) and the virtual-actual distinction. The gist is: Memory is like a resevoir where our past present-moments go. Without it you wouldn't be able to read this sentence, as you would register every single word in isolation. These past present-moments are clearly no longer in existence, yet they still influence the present (look again at the example of reading a sentence: the past informs our understanding of the present). Thus Bergson says that the past is virtual: something that is real but isn't actual, i.e. happening right now.
I love this understanding of Memory in the broader sense as a metaphysical place for past present-moments to go to, as it makes our understanding of the present and how it is informed by the past so much more salient. Honestly, it is the best way to explain why jokes that make generalizations about marginalized people and jokes that make generalizations about people in priviledge positions aren't the same.
For those who want to go even more wild consider reading Deleuze and Guattari's understanding of the virtual actual distinction, where they give possible futures a similar virtual reality as Bergson gave to the past. Which means that yes, they are arguing for a form of backwards causation which is a way of thinking that might be interesting within the concept of RPGs in its own right.
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