Explaining Liquid time

[Ice 0]

How have you found to be the best way to explain liquid time to someone who is new to role playing?  How do you make sure that it is not abused by dating posts in the past?

[Kazetatsu 263]

for me, liquid time is based on Now. If its being roleplayed out its happening now in the present for any characters involved. What makes it liquid is that time moves at the pace that best fits each individual rp. A fight scene may need only a few in-world minutes, while another rp might span multiple days. now maybe both sets of ocs meet directly after. Even if they've been apart by a few minutes and several days respectively, the time they are meeting is still Now.

I explain this in my discord Rp's information like this.

"RP here is liquid time, meaning that any scene can be happening at its own pace and does not hinge on time moving forward in other places. This is helpful because sometimes scenes need to go faster or slower depending on player's availability, or the events happening in the scene. A good rule of thumb is for any given scene time only moves when players post and time freezes when they don't. this way everyone can keep up." Some official events may override this, effecting all rps equally."

its possible to have more than one rp with liquid time, but players are encouraged to keep a sense of their own characters' timelines, knowing the order of events. players are encouraged to not engage in multiple rps if a character is in a situation that could void one or more of them, such as being in a fight, or other high-risk scene where the character would not make it out unscathed.

Edited June 21, 2020 by Kazetatsu

[ThriftStoreTeeth 78]

As a direct quote from my own site's rules, "its assumed that a character's threads are all taking place at different times that fit into a singular timeline." and we left it at that. If a newbie needs more explanation than that, I'd explain it as time passes in each thread at whatever rate you and your partner say it does, and that each thread takes place at different times so that events don't overlap for that particular character's own timeline. Think of threads/scenes fitting together like a zipper or something. Side note: I kind of suck at explaining things concisely. 

 

As for abusing liquid time, you can't really prevent it, only respond once its happened. So long as members aren't retconning huge parts of either the site or their character's histories/plots, then I honestly wouldn't worry about minor inconsistencies or changes. Its very much a case of either allowing people to make posts dated in the past and being okay with the potential, or not allowing it at all. In my experience, however, people who are going deliberately abuse a 'no retcon' type of rule are going to be problematic long before that, and is kind of the same as worrying about your shoes being wet from the rain when your basement is under 3 feet of water. Most cases of retcons are accidental/not deliberate and minor things like stating in the thread it happened on a Tuesday but later saying it was a Thursday.

 

Just as a side note, I've noticed from your posts that you seem a bit anxious about making rules 'unbreakable' or preventing abuse (though I could be reading this wrong, and if so, my apologies. Just offering some general advice, and I mean no offense/harm). I get the desire to want to make your rules abuse and loophole proof as much as possible, but if its going to happen, its going to happen. Much like the idea of a lock only stopping an honest thief, a rule is only going to stop a member who was going to follow the rules in the first place. Barring rules that can be enforced by site/software settings or going to the extreme of setting it up where every single post requires staff approval, your role as an admin is primarily reactive to rule-breakers and setting a good example for your members. Getting bogged down in the minutia and potential "what if" situations isn't sustainable in the long term, and will do more harm than good because you're eventually going to burn yourself out with stress, or even grow to resent your site. Just give your rules, remember that they're more of an example of what a good member does and doesn't do, and keep an eye out for problem members. Again, I mean no offense or harm with this. I've just been doing this adminning thing for a decade now and seen a whole lot of shit, and mean this purely as well-intentioned advice. 

[CovertSphinx 710]

I usually explain it as each individual thread existing in its own "time bubble", but the player being responsible for keeping track of which threads happen before or after each other for that character and where they may overlap. 

 

For example, on my site a couple of us are still RPing out an Event made for Christmas/Yule of last year - but we are aware of certain major points that allow us to continue other stories and plots without the Event interfering and vice-versa.