Passing the Time: In-Game Chronology

In most tabletop RPGs, combat encounters take very little in-game time. They represent swift bursts of action, separated into rounds of a few seconds apiece. With this system, and a natural tendency to focus on the action alone, it is easy to forget about the time in between, the chronology that determines how many days pass over the course of your adventure. This can result in weird idiosyncrasies such as adventurers spend an hour or two exploring a dungeon between making camp, or heroes leveling up twice within a mere couple of days.  Basically, if you want to build a true epic that spans days, months, or years, you have to remember to step the clock forward.

This is something both players and GMs should keep in mind, and it needs to be performed on both the short-term sense as well as in the big picture. By short term, I mean that you should be sure describe the passage of time whenever you can. When a player takes an action, consider how much time it will take to perform, and don't be afraid to make it a substantial. Explain that it took a few minutes to pick the lock of the next room, a few hours to find the contact the party needed in town. Don't be shy about implementing these passages of time, it's how you fill up a day of a PC's adventuring so it actually seems like a march of progress rather than a sprint to each thirty second encounter.

On a macro level you want to include opportunities for long term story progression... maybe instead of hours, it takes days to find that contact that the party needed. Maybe they have some downtime between missions, and it lasts a week or two. A journey to the capitol might take a day or two to complete. It's probably not a good idea to spend a lot of time having the players act out this passage of time, but the point is to let the time pass in-game. Allow the characters to grow over time, to live and exist in the imagination even if it is "off screen." Events can also occur during this period that don't immediately involve the player characters. It allows for more opportunities for new adventures and plot developments as the world grows and changes.

If you follow these simple principles, you will have adventures that describe the events of years rather than a few days, and the days of adventuring will seem more packed and productive. Just remember that sometimes even slower actions can be compelling. A long-term investigation of a crime can be as cool and suspenseful as disabling a ticking bomb. This doesn't mean you should slow down your game, forcing players to sit through tedious descriptions of every day in a week. Nor should you make players meticulously describe their entire process of searching every single mundane nook and cranny of a dungeon.

Include the description of time passing in broad strokes. Keep things moving ahead. You'll have so many more story opportunities. NPCs will be able to change and grow, players will be able to plan and execute long term strategies, and their will be a greater sense of scope and progress. When you spend so much time building an imaginary world and playing in it, why not give its inhabitants a chance to experience and live in it? These things take time, so be sure you have given it to them!

Happy ventures!