One of the most complicated aspects of online role playing is knowing what time it is. You could be confused about the time in someone else’s thread, or you could even have lost track of time in your own.

We’ve all been there, I’m sure.

Some players say that time doesn’t matter, that you should go with the flow – but what happens when you want your character to interact with that character over there? Are they in the same time zone? Is it even possible to interact? Or are they hours apart?

And what time was it again, anyways?

Then of course, there’s the perception of time – we each see the world and events in our own way, but that can become problematic…

Jason: I’m confused- you had Biff join our thread after killing the Dervish, but that killing happened after lunch and the thread our characters are in is still before lunch.

Sarah: I don’t think so. Remember Arnor said that your group was stopping to eat just before the giant mollusks from Ecuador attacked? I figure about an hour for the battle, which puts us in the same general time frame.

Jason: What? No way. We were stopping for a second breakfast, not lunch, and the battle was only fifteen minutes… how did you figure a whole hour?

You get the idea. Even after the “who’s right/who’s wrong” discussion gives way into the “does it matter/let’s split the difference” compromise, you’re still looking at time problems. The time estimate is still off, a few feathers have been ruffled, and someone invariably walks away unsatisfied with the outcome.

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

Well, yes, actually, someone does. There are probably one or two players in your group who are pretty good at keeping tabs on time in at least their own thread and possibly the other threads as well.

There really is one in every crowd

One of them might even be willing to help track time for the game. What a noble soul.

But let’s say there is no noble soul who rocks the stopwatch in your group. How do you keep track of time in a fluid game? It’s all in the clues.

Watch for Markers

Markers are a timekeeper’s delight. Here are two examples, inserted unwittingly into the game by various players:

He glanced at his watch. 10:15, it read.

She walked into the diner just as the sun began to dip below the horizon.

In the first example, the reference point is obvious – the player wrote exactly what time it was in his post. The second example is less obvious, but it does give a good indication of the time of day. With a little Google help in regards to what time the sun sets, the timekeeper can narrow down that clue into nearly precise minutes.

The important thing about is that it gives a reference to jump off from, and all else that follows relates to that moment in time.

Extra Time Factors that Count

There are extra clues you can watch for to help you stay on time-track:

A good jog to the castle would help her work out her anger.

He threw the spaghetti on to boil as he opened the can of sauce.

Richard showed her around the house before offering her a drink.

Activities take time. Again, Google is your friend: The average person walks about 3 miles an hour, so if the castle is about three miles away, you can craft a decent estimate of the time of arrival. An average takes 20 to 45 minutes to prepare – spaghetti even less. And how big could the house be? Say 15 minutes to do the tour, tops.

Don’t get too caught up in other factors that influence time, like how fast she was jogging or whether her legs were long or short. That sort of attention to detail doesn’t help keep the game moving, and it becomes a frustrating task to calculate every little factor into the clock.

Too, you could save yourself some time by figuring out “time blocks” and slapping them up each time you see a trigger. For example, decide that every meal takes 30 minutes to prepare, then each time you see a character start to prepare a meal, slap that 30 minutes into the game.

The important thing here is that you can establish some known factors to use in your time keeping.

When All Else Fails… Guess

Yes, yes, if you want to be picky, even Markers and Factors are still guesses. But what we really mean by guessing are those moments when you really need to take a shot in the dark.

She fell asleep on the couch and started to dream…

They sat on the dock and looked out over the bay…

He loaded his guns and waited…

These are the bane of a timekeeper. How long did he wait? How long did she sleep? How long did those people sit on that damned dock?

Throw me a bone, people!

You really only have just a few choices, here. You can take a stab at it, throw some arbitrary minutes at the clock, or ask, “How long are you two your characters going to make out for?” Or, you can sit and wait until characters come back to life and interact to give you a Marker or a Factor.

This actually happens often – just leaving the timeline alone until something happens to help pin down the clock on the action.

Ultimately, that offers a lot of freedom, too. If a player wanted to interact in a thread that was several hours ahead, who’s to say that in his current thread, he didn’t sit there waiting with his gun loaded for hours before hopping right over?

No one can argue it, and off the character goes to join the group.
The bigger fact is that time-keeping in a game is not about enforcing or creating limitations. It’s about offering a service to players that allows the game to stay organized, flow well and move along smoothly with no hitches.

Does Anyone Really Care?

If time-keeping isn’t about enforcing limitations and telling people what they can’t do, and it’s all generally good at the end of the day, does it really matter? What difference does it make what time it is?

Sometimes time does matter.

If you play a vampire and it’s close to sunrise, that time could have significance to the character’s life expectancy. Or, there may be an in-game event scheduled at a certain time, and if you want your character to participate, you’d better not have him off in a dream sequence when the time to be off comes around.

Or perhaps your character has a rendezvous with a special someone. While it’s perfectly acceptable (from a gaming perspective) to miss that date, your character is certainly going to have some ’splaining to do!

So how do you know if the time of your thread really matters? Ask yourself these two questions:

• Do your character’s current actions influence the environment of the game?
• Do outside events in the game influence the environment of your character?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, you might want to glance at a clock. Otherwise…

You Risk Unbalancing the Game

The key to all time is balance. Players want a balanced game, one where they feel there is at least enough predictability that what they do matters and that they can plan their characters’ next actions without feeling they’re at the whim of the gods. We expect some level of predictability, too. (Vortexes and chromos anomalies the exception of course.)

If you’re a game master or a storyteller and your players spend too much time arguing over the hour or if your character showed up at the graveyard just a little too late for the stakedown, consider adding a timeline thread to your site.

Look for a volunteer willing to take notes on the other threads. Giving a nice title to the person helps for morale. Cash is even better

But mostly, just be supportive. Pay attention to the timeline once in a while and make sure it syncs with your perception of time in the game. There is nothing worse for a volunteer Time Lord to have a player catch a three-week old mistake, which requires calculating reconciliation.

And if you’re the volunteer keeping time? Be flexible, flexible, flexible. Don’t defend your timeline calculations to the death, or the good-natured game might just go down with the ship.

It doesn’t matter if you’re 100% confident that Arnor did stop 15 minutes for a late snack. So what? Relax. Check with the gamemaster or storyteller for approval and set back the clock to keep peace.

Don’t be afraid to confirm your thoughts with other players before updating the game clock, too. Just ask, “Did Joan stay out of it for about an hour, you think? Or more like two?”

For those very rare times that it does matter who’s right, time stamp each version of your timeline and keep an archive to help you sort out the issue. You never know when you might have to refer back to the records you originally had.

Most of all, though, remember you’re offering a service to other players, and that the main goal of it all is to facilitate the fun and help create a better game.

About the Author: When not creating chaos as the Time Lord over at Escaping Reality, Ed Thompson works as a J2EE Software Architect in Charlotte, NC, where he lives with his wife and two teenage sons. He doesn’t Twitter, though, and saves all his reallygood one-liners for his Facebook friends