Ye Olde Inn

Sketching an adventure for HeroQuest, I came across the problem of Time in game terms.

In my outline for the Quest, the Heroes have to accomplish their task (entering a Chaos stronghold, finding and defeating the Warlock) before a given hour (either full moon stands in zenith or something like that).
Do you have any ideas how this can be made workable in game terms?

I came up with some ideas, but am not satisfied with them.

First (and probably easiest) is to predetermine a fixed number of rounds: Heroes have to get their hands around the Warlock's throat before round X ; "X" is not easy to be settled when planning the Quest - difficulties are how many rounds will take the Heroes through the stronghold, how long will unavoidable fights take on their way, and so on.

Second is rather an indirect way - to teach the Heroes that when time is pressing they should not look for coins and trinklets on their way, when they insist on searching for treasure, they have to roll a combat die rather than draw a treasure card. In case a skull is rolled, a (strong) patrol turns up out of the blue and beats the crap out of the Heroes.
....

Do you have any other /better ideas or experience with this kind of dilemma?

my first thought is to figure out (roughly) how long the time is (for argument, we'll say 4 hours). Then take a look at you map and divide it into 'quarters'. As the get to a certain room or corridor, you can announce that the heroes have 3 hours remaining. the next section of the board is reached and "you have two hours remaining", etc.

Depending on your time scale, when the get into the last quarter of the board, you can make mini-announcements, 15 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 minutes, etc.

Alternatively, in the last 'quarter' of the board, instead of 'time', you could then suggest that they have XX number of rounds to complete their task.

Not neccessarily a perfect system, but something...

...also too, it might not be a bad idea to take a dry run through and see how "long" it will take and how plausible it is. Make sure and make it a tight window (if you're a mean GM, such as myself) so that they don't get side-tracked and start searching for treasure (as greedy players have a tendancy to do).

(Which on a side note, is a little outside the realm of the game, because they're supposed to stay focused due to the time limit)

Phoenix wrote:my first thought is to figure out (roughly) how long the time is (for argument, we'll say 4 hours). Then take a look at you map and divide it into 'quarters'. As the get to a certain room or corridor, you can announce that the heroes have 3 hours remaining. the next section of the board is reached and "you have two hours remaining", etc.

Depending on your time scale, when the get into the last quarter of the board, you can make mini-announcements, 15 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 minutes, etc.

Alternatively, in the last 'quarter' of the board, instead of 'time', you could then suggest that they have XX number of rounds to complete their task.

Not neccessarily a perfect system, but something...

This idea I like. If Heroes take time to do extra searching during a previous 'quarter' of the board, you can cut some of their time and/or warn them that time is of the essence.

I kind of like that idea too - dividing the board into quarters.
At least that way, you can look at each section on its own and decide how many
rounds it should take to get through a quarter on its own. THEN, you can give them
a specific number of rounds on the last quarter - it gives them just a little bit of
wiggle room on the first three quarters (and saves you some trouble), but still
keeps that window tight on the last quarter. good thinking pheonix

another alternative i thought of would be to use the number of monsters (as opposed to rooms/corridors) as your primarily calculating number.

Say 20 monsters originally intended? then when the get to five (or whatever) then the clock REALLY starts ticking......

You can do it by assuing the average movement roll is 7 squares. Just divide the number of squares between the stairs tile and the goal by 7 to figure out how many turns it will take. You add a fair margin for deviations (say 50%).

The problem is that monsters and wild goose chases will use up turns, however the team need to realise that in order to accomplish the task it may be necessary for them to split up. eg:

1)They encounter an orc, so the dwarf engages him while the others continue.
2)They have the choice of going 2 ways, so the barbarian goes one way and the wizard and elf go the other.

Counting turns is definitely the best way to go, in my opinion.

In many fantasy/action films there's a bit at the end where the baddies lair self destructs (Krull, Indiana Jones, The Mummy) I think it might be possible to have falling block traps going off each turn when the time runs out/when the boss is destroyed, that can fall on heroes or block their escape. But it's possibly a bit harsh and there aren't that many rubble tiles available. Just an idea.

Phoenix wrote:my first thought is to figure out (roughly) how long the time is (for argument, we'll say 4 hours). Then take a look at you map and divide it into 'quarters'. As the get to a certain room or corridor, you can announce that the heroes have 3 hours remaining. the next section of the board is reached and "you have two hours remaining", etc.
Alternatively, in the last 'quarter' of the board, instead of 'time', you could then suggest that they have XX number of rounds to complete their task.

Phoenix wrote:...also too, it might not be a bad idea to take a dry run through and see how "long" it will take and how plausible it is. Make sure and make it a tight window (if you're a mean GM, such as myself) so that they don't get side-tracked and start searching for treasure (as greedy players have a tendancy to do).
(Which on a side note, is a little outside the realm of the game, because they're supposed to stay focused due to the time limit)

Phoenix wrote:another alternative i thought of would be to use the number of monsters (as opposed to rooms/corridors) as your primarily calculating number.
Say 20 monsters originally intended? then when the get to five (or whatever) then the clock REALLY starts ticking......

I like these ideas, thank you!

It will be a bit harder still to calculate, though, especially when (as will be intended for this planned Quest) the Heroes will have to split up into two groups (fighters -- thinkers/magic users). Anyway, it is a good starting point, thanks again!

Our DM says "well, you finished the quest, there's nothing left. So if you want, just roll for a thorough search of each room..."
(Which is basically what Richard Marchinko says about his raids - they clean out the trash, then they do the searching.)
We don't even roll to move our men around from room to room; that just takes up time, we just roll to do the search if everything in the maze is dead. If there are traps in the way then we have to roll for them, but 95% of the time we've already sprung/deactivated them. If they are traps in the furniture then we roll to see damage, etc, but it doesn't really matter since any of the other heros could help the one that's searching. The one who's searching is usually the char that has a bonus to searches or else has been rolling with a horshoe up his arse all night.

Just a random thought on this, what you are really attempting to do here is give the players the impression of a time constraint, of pressure, of the clock ticking (even if they actually have plenty of time), so to get that effect without having the hassle of counting every single turn, and worrying about the quest being wrecked by some bad rolls, instead just use real-time, tell the players that they have 90 minutes or 2 hours to achieve the objective, until the moon rises or sets or whatever, and then provide them with a reminder at increasingly frequent periods.