Staffing Time Management

[StormWolfe 557]

- or - Let's not do the time warp again....

 

How do you manage time in your RPG? This has been an ongoing bear for me. I do not do well on sites that have multiple timelines running simultaneously. I confess to being a linear thinker and having a marked preference for telling my character(s)' stories in chronological order. But this can become a boggle too as people wait for an event to conclude so they can write the next segment.

 

At one site, we're moving things forward in monthly clumps. For example, we send out a notice that writing in early July should be concluding and we're starting Mid-July events. The goal is to continue with telling the stories in a linear chronological fashion but also give everyone the option to keep their characters active while events play out.

 

In my experience, there is not a perfect way to manage in-game time flow. I would love to hear back from people about how they go about managing this. I'm always looking for better solutions to make writing and participation in the stories better for my players.

 

Thanks!

~ Stormwolfe

[Kit the Human 759]

I don't believe there is a perfect system either. I think it's always going to be a bit of a muddle because it depends on how fast your writers are (or how busy) and how sandboxy your forum is.

 

I state when the forum time is (Year, Month) and let it sit there for about two months. I'm not strict about that however, I can respond to where the majority of people are with their plots and speed up or slow down the passage of time accordingly.

[Sadrienne 242]

We tend to run in a "current time or there-abouts" system. Generally players have an idea of what threads occurred to their characters in what order, and if an event needs to be dated (for whatever reason), we usually go by date of the first post... unless otherwise stated. RP moves too slowly to stick strictly to real-time passing.

 

I've never really had a problem with it. Sometimes staying to real time feels very slow, and other times, stupid fast. I used to do a 1 day = 3 days thing, but that was just.. messy. Very messy. Did not enjoy. 

 

This works far better for me (and my inability to maintain a timeline outside of the real world).

[Verridith 66]

This is generally a pretty difficult thing to manage if you don't find the right system that works for your board; it took me a long time to figure out what was the best, admittedly, for mine haha. xD I run on a very linear timeframe on my board's sitewide plot section with some semi-liquid time rules (your thread can't be more than 60 days ahead or behind current time - unless it's in the Historical section, which can be any time beyond that in the past; your character can't be in two places at once or risk non-story time paradoxes; stuff like that). It works incredibly well and has for years!

[Elena 546]

We run on months, and on fluid time. Now it's August 1720. Telling a story exactly linearly is impossible, due to various speeds of threads. Taking into account the agreed ending of the current thread (and avoiding mentioning finer details which weren't written yet) can help with writing other threads both in the next days and in the month before (without changing the already agreed story, ie someone who is alive and fighting on the current latest event, couldn't be wounded severely 2-3 weeks before).

 

We have a board calendar where the threads are listed in the chronological story order, according to the timestamp at their beginning. People are encouraged to look in the calendar before dating the thread they are just starting, in order to correlate it with the right events.

 

You can write in the current month (sometimes up to a current event which is meant to change things for your faction) and in any month before if it makes sense for the plot (ie people meeting at certain festivals or when the ship was in x port). You can't write in the next month. Each thread is timestamped and included in the board calendar in the right place.

 

 

Edited December 29, 2017 by Elena

[Dusty 55]

I've done a lot of different game time methods and all work if the players work with it.

 

It depends on the story I think. I started out on an RPG set on the Titanic, so time management on that one was crucial. Stories had to run to a strict timetable that would be announced by the staff.

e.g. Boarding at Southampton, Cherbourg and Queenstown. Then an announcement would come through about going into the open sea.  Iceberg warnings would be posted etc ... and each day would be announced, right up until the final day and the sinking. Lifeboats being loaded would be posted etc. It was very carefully choreographed, and it needed to be.

 

In other games, we played within about three days to a week of the game date. This was a PBEM game, and it was very busy, and most posts were about three lines max, so it turned over quickly. (black in the day when people would sneak online at school, uni and work to post. This method too forever to do anything significant, like a female character having a baby. In this format, it would take years in RL for nine months to happen.

 

So saying, it did take me a while to adjust to a time frame that was far more expansive, but it can be done. It's just a matter of changing to posting the essential parts of a character's story rather than every detail. I remember thinking and having others think "But what did my character do in the week between?"  The answer is, what they always do. Get up, go to work, do the mundane daily routine and go to bed lol. Once I got past that, it was much easier for me to be more fluid with RP time.

 

The last game I was on did things by seasons, but we found that there would be fast-paced posters that would be chomping at the bit for the season change a good month before it was due, and there were others that were always really behind the season due to having a lot more RL commitments. 

 

So the current game I am running is based on a game year.  We leave it to some common sense that writers don't place their characters in December and look at the dates others are posting within and ease in somewhere within the general mix. Our game does rely on a bit of communication among players, and we have a Cbox, PM system and Discord for that purpose. Some play by the seat of their pants, others micromanage their characters, and the rest are somewhere in the middle, it's a real mix. 

[CovertSphinx 710]

I run Liquid Timelines (and multi-threads for the most part) all the way, and generally won't join a site that requires me to "clock in" to meet the schedule of Father Time. To me, personally, being confined to some semblance of "real" time is no different than having an activity requirement. Generally speaking, I've never really had anybody who needed their hand held by staff in keeping their character's personal story in order so RPing in any other fashion never occured to me as necessary. 

[Bezyle 31]

So I recently came up with a way that makes time flow kind of... reasonably satisfying? So for one its an original setting, so we can play with things like months days, and the like. It's entertaining because the months in our world play a substantial impact on each character and the kind of divine essence they are born with. (Created with, in this case) So it being in an old-timey primitive setting our days are days and our nights are nights... however we can tell how many hours pass with watches, clocks, and the like. So a full day/night cycle can last an infinite amount of hours. (We have Red moon events that need to continue for a relatively long time so that everyone can get everything done) The Seasons and months can have an infinite amount of days but a minimum of 3 which is fun when we conclude that no one wants to have anything to do with a particular month/season. Additionally, in Malice, we have Years... (which are a total of 365 days), and then we have cycles. (A complete cycle through the months/seasons) Months/Seasons all flow in a linear pattern regardless of how long or short. Looking at this now it does get pretty convoluted, but the gist of it is. Everything makes sense because we can always increase the total number of days in a season for things to make sense and if anyone wants to be a certain age and a specific season then there are 0 limitations as we can have an entire cycle circle around to scoop them up in a timeline. 

[Elena 546]

8 hours ago, CovertSphinx said:

Generally speaking, I've never really had anybody who needed their hand held by staff in keeping their character's personal story in order so RPing in any other fashion never occured to me as necessary. 

 

The problem, as I see it and why a board calendar is necessary, is that your characters don't live in a bubble. They need to co-ordinate with other characters' stories, sometimes people you have never written with (or never written with individually, but only in collective threads) but whose stories influence yours. At the moment x in the story, you need to know what has already happened and your character can reasonably know, and what he doesn't know yet, but you as a writer should know it would happen next, in order to make a reasonable decision about your character's story course.

 

You can't say your seafaring character is brawling in a tavern with the governor's bodyguard on the day when another story written by a crewmate of yours shows the ship at sea already for 3 days. Unless, of course, yours had a reason to be left behind and not be aboard that ship anymore... but in that case, again, beware of putting him in the battle next day!  (Or assuming that the brawl happened aboard the ship, not in a tavern, if you have him severely hurt, he can't do his duty in the battle next day, but he'd be in the sickbay instead...)

 

And if there was a fire in your neighbourhood or a brawl between crewmates aboard the ship, it is impossible for the neighbours to not have seen it or heard about it...

Edited December 30, 2017 by Elena

[Quell 249]

We run a linear-liquid, dated timeline up to the present season.

 

In other words, if you want to follow three different ships, you can do so at the same Time ooc. Assuming your character does not cheat, you would just set them at 3 different points in the character's lifetime up to the present. These three ships would all be board canon, and could be played out at the same time ooc, but could be years apart in character. You could even play a character who is divorced on site meeting, falling in love, and then the huge fall out with their ex, while you plan the wedding for their current relationship, since threads are required to be dated (and the start date is irrelevant).

 

Hopefully that explanation made any sense.. 

[CovertSphinx 710]

58 minutes ago, Thyme said:

We run a linear-liquid, dated timeline up to the present season.

 

In other words, if you want to follow three different ships, you can do so at the same Time ooc. Assuming your character does not cheat, you would just set them at 3 different points in the character's lifetime up to the present. These three ships would all be board canon, and could be played out at the same time ooc, but could be years apart in character. You could even play a character who is divorced on site meeting, falling in love, and then the huge fall out with their ex, while you plan the wedding for their current relationship, since threads are required to be dated (and the start date is irrelevant).

 

Hopefully that explanation made any sense.. 

^ What Thyme said. Just because the threads happen at the same time, doesn't mean they have to take place at the same point IC-ly. I just don't "Date" any of my threads unless its an OOC marking with another Player as we hashout together what order to put some of the scenes in based upon whats needed for any over-arching plots that they might be involved in.  Some events will obviously read linear in story as the RP moves forward, but because the sites I play on are Semi-Sandbox, Semi-Storyline, there's plenty of "smaller" threads that can get moved around as needed while people interact with each other. 

 

Little Bragging Moment - I once singlehandedly mapped out for 5 RL players with 10 characters between us events that happened to these characters over the course of 3 sites (some chars were on all three sites, others on one or two of them) and 6 years worth of RPing together into one mega-timeline that they all managed to agree on. Full Disclosure - The only reason I even had to do this was because a few people started dating each other, and then IC relationships got kinda sticky, and then breakups happened, and then dating OTHER people in the group....yeah RL Drama sparked the greatest GM moment of my forum career lol

[Quell 249]

17 hours ago, CovertSphinx said:

Generally speaking, I've never really had anybody who needed their hand held by staff in keeping their character's personal story in order so RPing in any other fashion never occured to me as necessary. 

 

As a hilarious, but pathetic side note, I date my threads even on sites that don't require it because I can't keep timelines straight at all -- and it drives me nuts, especially when I have multiple characters trying to figure out if so and so knows so and so yet in this arbitrary past thread that occurred "last year" (Maybe it's because I like doing past threads so much that I get so confused??

I never ask staff to help or need my hand held, but I do make insanely detailed trackers like a little sweet crazy person. and often get super stressed out trying to figure out what the heck the timeline is.

[Uaithne 543]

I haven't set a specific time frame on my site. It pretty much moves as the plot and member posts require. Because we were a little slower for a few months and the plot didn't advance, I didn't bother moving time forward more than a few weeks. We're still in September 2017.

 

I hate, hate, hate when plots move as fast or faster than real time. I will join sites where RL and RP time are the same even though I don't like it, but I really can't stand sites that move too fast.

 

One of the lamest things about the Hunger Games genre is that often you have one Hunger Games each IC year, but you need to keep Hunger Games going because it's a major draw to the site, so you end up with each IC year being like 3 or 4 OoC months. It kills me, and that's why I won't join any Hunger Games sites even though there are some cool ones out there. You loose so much character development by speeding through time, and the characters age quickly, and it seems like I'm wasting my time investing in a character. (Especially when people post only a couple times a week at max.)

 

/Tangent

[Rune 1,099]

Players should know when their own threads take place. They can work out their own timeline. 

 

For site wide events, I try to give the period of time they occurred ic so that can be sorted but beyond that I let them manage things. Ain't no one got time for micromanaging!

[Kit the Human 759]

On 30/12/2017 at 7:52 PM, Elena said:

 

The problem, as I see it and why a board calendar is necessary, is that your characters don't live in a bubble. They need to co-ordinate with other characters' stories, sometimes people you have never written with (or never written with individually, but only in collective threads) but whose stories influence yours. At the moment x in the story, you need to know what has already happened and your character can reasonably know, and what he doesn't know yet, but you as a writer should know it would happen next, in order to make a reasonable decision about your character's story course.

 

You can't say your seafaring character is brawling in a tavern with the governor's bodyguard on the day when another story written by a crewmate of yours shows the ship at sea already for 3 days. 

 

I'm gonna steal this idea but try it with a literal calendar. When you're talking about confined spaces, like a ship, the entire crew needs to know where the ship is and where there's been a battle, because it will impact on them. 

 

It isn't so important for a town, for example, because you're not so up in each other's businesses whilst your physical 'home' is moving around and being attacked. 

 

My intent is that any member can add to the calendar and they can add whatever they want, link to relevant threads, add a plot summary + pictures and change the date, if need be. 

 

So it ought to be a tool to help keep track of what is happening (could double as a thread tracker). Maybe it will help you 'see' how your character's actions fits into the patchwork of the entire forum? 

 

So I'll hunt around for a nice bit of freeware (google calendars probably) that let's me do that. We'll see if it works as intended!