This subject is going to be super obvious to a lot of people. Yet, I swear there are players and GMs that do not get it. I really believe if everyone fully understood what I am going to talk about, it would make the gaming community better. Here is the concept:

In-game time is different from real-life time. And that the real-life time is more valuable than the in-game time.

Obvious, huh? But still, there are enough players and GMs out there who seem to forget this while role-playing.

I am going to present two terms.

World Time How long something takes in-game to happen.

Let’s say we want to travel to a city on the map. We ask the GM, “How long to get there?” He says, “Two weeks.” Great! This is all World Time.

The Clock This is the real-life time it takes for something to happen in game.

It comes to the question of how many minutes of my real life will it take to get my Hero to that city on the map?

This is a much more complicated question.

Some of those factors are out of your control. Is the GM going to make us role-play the trip? Will there be encounters? Will Bob stop talking about a TV show he saw last night and say, “Yeah we go there.” These all affect the Clock.

Getting to that city can be as fast as the GM saying, “You get there.” To it being an entire campaign taking six months of the Clock.

Your Clock time is limited. I personally often have as little as three hours to play. Some people have less time. Whatever Clock time you have, it is always burning down. When you are out of the Clock, you are out of the game. So the most valuable commodity to a player isn’t gold or levels, it is the Clock.

Everyone at the game must take in the Clock into account when playing. It should be on the back of your mind. In the RPG community, preserving the Clock should be like good manners. Like saying please and thank you. It is just something you do to be polite.

Sometime solo-ing adventuring is needed.

There is this old idea of “do not break the heard.” It is good advice. There are times when a Hero needs to go off by themselves or as apart a smaller group. When this happens, it better be worth it.

They must be trying to accomplish something meaningful for the party or story. Because during that solo adventure they are burning the Clock by themselves. The rest of the group is watching.

As GM, you need to be aware of the Clock. Forcing players to role-play out the mundane and uninteresting is just not being respectful. Making players go through extra meaningless steps is not being respectful of the Clock.

In the end, the attitude of the players and GM should be the following:

We want to accomplish the most we can while consuming the least amount of Clock.

This isn’t to say if your group is really into the role-playing you cannot do this. But role-play out your meeting with the King, your plots to defeat the villain, and when bargaining to save the city. Don’t role-play out, what you eat for lunch, what shoes you are buying, or how much you are going to tip a barmaid. Especially if it excluding other players.

I was a player in a group, and we were divided.

The Rogue was ahead of the party by 20-minutes in World Time. Once the party united, we were going to ambush some villains. All the Rogue had to do was say, “I wait for them,” and we get to have an epic fight.

Instead, he thought he would “help” the party by making a roadblock. Afterall he had 20-minutes of World Time to kill. He thought he might slow down the enemy an hour of World Time. In his mind, his intentions were good. In reality, the extra hour of World Time was meaningless. It didn’t hurt or help the party in any significant way.

The player of the Rogue told the GM that he was going to chop down a tree in the path. But the GM asked him about if he had a hatchet. After going over all the different tools he thought he could use and the GM rejecting them, he had a new idea. He would start a fire. The GM told him that was impractical. They argue about that for a few minutes. So he went back to the idea of chopping down a tree. He wanted to break some branches and drag them into the road. Finally, it was allowed. But then he had a new idea and wanted to use his rope between the trees. The GM asked him about the idea. They finally agreed. It was done.

This event took 10-minutes of the Clock. It had at best a minor impact on the enemies. But more importantly, it excluded the other 4 players from playing for 10 minutes of a 3-hour session! When the whole time, he could have just said: “I wait for the party.”

Be mindful of the Clock in your game. It is the most important commodity you have. By doing this, you will be a better player and GM.