Telling time and distances.

[garhkal]

Over on one of my adnd sites, there's some good discussions going on about whether you as a DM (GM), tell players things like
Exact time, or rough time [you think you've spent four hours milling around, vs you know its 3 hours and 20 minutes you've been here].

Exact distances "its 330 meters to the turret, what do you do"?

So how do you folks do it in your SW games??
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[CRMcNeill]

Is that level of detail really necessary to the story?
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

Time may be, if the story calls for it.. IE you have set off the imperial bio weapon, you have x time to reach minimum safe distance.
Or distance may be, in combat terms.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Ziz]

[S-Foil]

My core conceit with running games is answering the question "is this fun?". Everything else should stem from that question. Rules, details, story elements, or whatever that aren't fun should be avoided. People have limited amounts of time to get together to play a game. They also have a lot of other things they can do besides play a tabletop RPG that are just as entertaining. So a game should be fun for everyone including the GM.

So are fine details fun? Are they even useful? Because if they're not even useful they definitely aren't going to be fun. If they're not useful they're just eating up time and space in people's minds for no practical application.

Unless the exact numbers of hours spent on a thing is useful, and capable of being tracked and used by the players, they're probably not worthwhile to track or even mention. Even if you think they're useful, they can only be as useful as their representation at the table. If you say a turret is 300 meters away is that line of sight distance or terrain distance? Is the terrain mapped in enough detail that the player can navigate the exact distance and the slope of the ground and all that? Likely not.

I'm more interested in the narrative time (or whatever constraint) for an action.

For instance slicing an electronic door lock. Taking ten minutes to do it with no externalities isn't even worth a check. So long as it's something a character can be considered reasonably able to do, no problem. Do the same thing with some sort of constraint like trying to be extra quiet or leave no trace the lock was sliced? That's a Difficult roll. Doing the same thing but under a serious constraint like Stormtroopers coming down the hall and are right around the corner. It can happen but with a Very Difficult or Heroic roll.

I definitely wouldn't want to play at a table where ever minute or meter was tracked. It would be so tedious and not fun. It is a lot of extra effort with no meaningful reward.

[ThrorII]

So I don't really do exact distances, unless the PCs use microbinoculars. Otherwise I just use 'range bands' (we play a 1e/MiniSix simplified mashup); i.e. "The tower is at Medium Range away", meaning it is about 10-30 meters away.

As far as time, unless it is super important (detonators are set with a timer) I just 'best guess' it. I had a session last weekend with my kids and their friends, which involved setting detonators at an Imperial facility prior to a Rebel stirke. I did keep track of time then, in 5-10 minute increments. Again, we didn't have a map (theater of the mind), so it was still 'best guess' for me.
_________________
"The internet is a pathway to many abilities, some considered to be unnatural." - Sheev Zuckerberg

[Whill]

In my game, exactness is often not needed, and even when precise numbers are provided, they may turn out to only be approximations anyway. That makes it more like real life - We aren't always correct about judging distances and times. There already is such a meta element to roleplaying as it is, so a partial lack of reliable exactness is realistic and thus makes the game a little more immersible.
_________________
*
Site Map
Forum Guidelines
Registration/Log-In Help
The Rancor Pit Library
Star Wars D6 Damage

[pakman]

Specific times?

Only bother if it matters to what they are doing.

Like local time for what businesses may be open, etc.

Now - the past adventure - was on a very detailed timeline (it was part of the story - the players had a lot of agency in the adventure - but many choices had an opportunity cost).


But current adventure - only bother for setting the scene when landing on a planet etc. "you arrive in the dead of night...." that kind of thing.


Campaign Dates
I DO let them know the date, in the game.

That helps with long term events etc. especially in a long running game.

There have been a ton of formats over the years - but I use the YEAR.DAY OF YEAR.HOUR Of day format.
The years is based on coruscant, and the year has 360 Days.

I found it a while ago, and a date in Andor gave a decent ref (and we all love Andor in our game) so I use that.

For example - that time sensitive adventure - they set down on the doomed planet at 7968.170.10

Current adventure it is somewhere around 7968.200 or so.

Now, the party keeps adventure logs - (one guy keeps a set of very fun running notes during the adventure - and publishes them) and they like having the dates in them - as it makes the campaign feel more connected to them.

but in general - as others said - what ever the story needs.
_________________
SW Fan, Gamer, Comic, Corporate nerd.
Working on massive House Rules document - pretty much a new book. Will post soon....

[raithyn]

I tend to focus more on a cinematic experience than detailed tracking. When time matters, I still tend to talk in hour or 30 minute chunks because what I'm communicating is "you have X actions before the thing occurs" without using game mechanic language.

I'm going back and forth on distances but lean toward range bands that I apply standard numbers to. "The control panel is just down the hallway, about 20 meters from the doorway you're in." If someone has an item that requires specific distances, I tend to favor the players from my estimates. "Your Medium range is 25 meters? Sure use that to shoot at the panel." I do the same thing with features of the space. "Are there and containers you can climb to get to the ceiling duct? Sure. There are some sturdy looking crates stacked high enough to get you close but not quite high enough up to pull yourself in. (Restacking requires a *lifting* check to restack.) There's also a couple fuel canisters. Those are tall enough that if you're on top you can reach the duct, but look more precarious."

I generally stick to theater of the mind but will use generic tokens and a dry erase mat to represent where things are if my narration isn't clear enough for the players. I generally stress that the representation is not fully to scale.

[cheshire]

Generally I keep things loose. If you're talking about getting away from ground zero of something terrible happening, I take the "Alien" approach. "You have t-minus five minutes to reach minimum safe distance."

Ripley knows what that distance is. The computer knows what distance that is. The viewers don't, they just know that Ripley needs to full burn out of there to keep from getting vaporized.
_________________
__________________________________
Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.