Actual play examples - balance between fiction and mechanics

[Stormonu]

This seems very much an argument of "choose an action and explain how it worked in the game" vs "fit your action to the situation in a way that makes sense". I find myself preferring the latter.

And did I read correctly in the Water Wierd encounter that psionic actions were disallowed but come and get it was? That's frankly bizarre to me.

 

[Mallus]

This seems very much an argument of "choose an action and explain how it worked in the game" vs "fit your action to the situation in a way that makes sense". I find myself preferring the latter.

The question becomes: how to we determine what makes sense in a given situation? Especially when the given situation is something that is, frequently, outside our practical areas of expertise, if not altogether impossible, or absurd, or insane, or all three at once, kinda like a Neapolitan made of irrealism.

Sometimes rolling the dice and fitting some kind of barely plausible explanation to the result is the best we can do! It certainly worked back in the pre-3e era.

And did I read correctly in the Water Wierd encounter that psionic actions were disallowed but come and get it was? That's frankly bizarre to me.

Come and Get It works via metafiction and makes no attempt to explain why or how operates. It's all showing, no telling. This makes it universally applicable in a fictional construct like a game world. Note: I'm not kidding...

 

[Victim]

EDIT: Also, in a "fiction-first" system, the players could attempt to avoid a combat because that offered their best chance of success. If you design the challenge of avoiding said combat "To keep the XP and pacing about the same as I'd planned", then you undo the value of that choice.

RC

I strongly disagree. Wide variance in difficulty or rewards based on player strategy doesn't preserve the value and meaning of player choice, it destroys that value - essentially, you create a single correct choice.

In a sort of in combat sense, think of 3e giants. They have pretty good stuff in general, especially in melee combat (and doubly so if specced to use combat maneuvers like Disarm or Sunder), and then really awful Will saves. Even if your wizard doesn't emphasize enchantments - let's say we're talking about an evoker - using Will based spells (Confusion, Slow, etc) is still the way to go even if your normal Spell Focuses don't apply. What the player/character would prefer to do; what they've chosen to be good at doesn't really matter, because taking advantage of giant's weakness provides such an overwhelming advantage.

Similarly, if a diplomatic approach is just as hard as a fight, whether or not the PCs have good CHA, skill trainings, etc means something. The fact that the characters chose a non violent means of resolving the problem even if it wasn't any easier tells us something about their values. If talking is easy, then PCs can get through without strong social skills, and all that their choice tells us about the characters is that they're expedient.

When one choice is obviously superior, going for it is a pretty trivial decision.

 

[pemerton]

Similarly, if a diplomatic approach is just as hard as a fight, whether or not the PCs have good CHA, skill trainings, etc means something. The fact that the characters chose a non violent means of resolving the problem even if it wasn't any easier tells us something about their values.

I agree with this. The player of the paladin actually said, after the bear had been pacified, "I feel really good about not having killed that bear." (He was the player who, in the one previous bear encounter in the campaign, had also initiated non-violent means then.)

 

[pemerton]

This seems very much an argument of "choose an action and explain how it worked in the game" vs "fit your action to the situation in a way that makes sense". I find myself preferring the latter.

I don't think this is quite fair. I've described in some detail the way in which the players are trying to make sense of their situation, and have their PCs respond to that situation in ways that make sense.

And did I read correctly in the Water Wierd encounter that psionic actions were disallowed but come and get it was? That's frankly bizarre to me.

As Mallus said, and as I explained in the OP, Come and Get It is like a "fate point". It's a metagame play. By playing it, the player of the fighter gets to determine that on this occasion, for this action, his poise and response to the movement on the battlefield is not in question. In the context of the actual encounter, it meant that there was no question that, when the water surged up, he was able to perfectly time his response of trying to push the stones into the holes at the base of the pool.

As a side comment on 4e: it's often said that all the classes have same-ish powers. Leaving aside the fact that, from the tactical point of view, there's a big difference even beteen wizard and sorcerer powers, let alone wizard and archer-ranger powers, this encounter drove home another point of difference. Magic-using classes don't have many metagame powers. Fighters have quite a few. That's a real difference, with implications for play (as this encounter showed).

 

[Krensky]

Here we see that, while mechanics are important, engagment with the fiction is permeating the whole episode, and shaping the way that mechanical resources are deployed and that deployment adjudicated. In particular, it was in virtue of the fictional situation that the wizard player needed to find a mechanical means of using Nature at range, and that the sorcerer player needed to find a mechanical means of using Intimidate while backing away.

Odd. I see a purely gamist construct from start to finish with the mechanics defining the fiction. You choose the version of the bear based on what would make for a good game encounter, not what made sense in the context of the world or what would generate an interesting story or plot beat. Then when the players decided to deal with the bear without attacking it, you converted it from one mini-game (combat) to another (the skill challenge), while retaining the same (more or less) level of risk-reward. Then when the players declared their actions, you and they bargained back and forth to find some fictional cover for allowing their mechanical actions to have the desired effect regardless of the realism or the dramatic concerns of the game or the story conventions it's trying the emulate. The fiction is being manipulated to fit the mechanics used.

The water weird

The PCs were investigating a hot spring inside a temple bathhouse, and were attacked by a water weird. I had already decided, in my prep notes, to resolve this as a complexity 2 skill challenge ie 6 successes before 3 failures.

Wait, why does the temple bathhouse have a monster in the hotspring and why is it attacking the PCs? Has the temple been abandoned and it's moved in by chance? Or is it some sort of guardian there to protect the holy spring? Or is it there because you want to run a encounter and give a chunk of XP out? What's the goal of the scene for the player characters?

The PCs quicly discovered that psychic/Will attacks had no effect - the weird was animated water, with no discernible mind or body. So they decided to (i) try and destroy/move the water, using radiant and thunder attacks, and (ii) to try and plug the spring, by knocking stones down into it and using the thunder attacks to drive them home. (In my prep notes I'd expected the PCs to try and expunge the spirit, and had made some notes on how Religion and Arcana checks might play out. The idea of plugging the spring instead came as a surprise to me.)

None of this makes sense beyond a game construct. It's immunities seem somewhat arbitrary, and allowing holy power (if I understand radiant right) and noise (unless thunder means electricity, which also doesn't make much sense) to effect the water seems equally arbitrary. Although your comment about expunging it with a Religion check implies it was some sort of demonic possession, so maybe radiant makes sense. That plugging the spring would work is hard to value, since you haven't explained why plugging the spring would have an effect.

A question to other GMs - especially those who don't like structured non-combat resolution (whether 4e skill challenges, HeroWars/Quest extended contests, etc): How would you adjudicate an attempt by your party to defeat a water weird by plugging the spring at the bottom of the pool containing it?

Well, I'm not clear from your description why plugging the spring would stop the water weird. It's also depends on the point of the scene. For simplicity's sake, I'll assume the NPC is just there in the bathhouse of an abandoned temple as a risk of exploration. Similarly, I'll assume the players have gotten a Hint (capitalized for a reason, it's a mechanic in my game of choice) from me about how to overcome the NPC and haven't just entered 'F-it mode' and bought a Flash-Forward.

From there, it depends on the player's actions. If the player asks if there are suitable rocks to block the spring, without spending Action Dice to declare said rocks exist, I'd decide if there are any lying around via a simple die roll, a roll on the Fate Chart (from the Mythic Game Master Emulator), or my whim. I'm currently a fan of the Fate Chart for this though.

If there are rocks, I'd make a quick assessment of how the fight's going and how many rounds I want it to take based in the needs of the scene and how much of a pounding the PCs are taking. A quick check about it's weight might come up to see if it's lift-able or has to be pushed, or I might decide it based on dramatic priorities for the scene and what feels more interesting. The map and description of the scenery would probably strongly inform my choice of location. From there, I know the PCs ability to shift rocks and they can make Athletics checks to increase their effective strength for doing so. If they're just looking to knock it over (again, it's hard to say without looking at the map or being in the moment) I'd either just have them push it 5 ft or so, or figure out how hard a challenge it is and grab the Sliding DC for that difficulty and call for an Athletics check from whoever wanted to try. This would most likely fall to a strong PC, since the spellcasters really only have Gust of Wind to shift it and casting Brawn on the strong man would probably be more effective.

If there aren't rocks and the PC wants to make some, I have rules for damaging scenery, then see above.

As for reward, well assuming the NPC is just there and they didn't achieve any goals beyond defeating the elemental, they get the Elemental's XP (which they would have gotten by any means they rendered it hors de combat or even by talking to it and coming to some accord other then surrendering or fleeing). Treasure depends on too many factors, but just playing vanilla they don't get any either way since Elementals don't have treasure.

 

[Nagol]

A question to other GMs - especially those who don't like structured non-combat resolution (whether 4e skill challenges, HeroWars/Quest extended contests, etc): How would you adjudicate an attempt by your party to defeat a water weird by plugging the spring at the bottom of the pool containing it?

That would strongly depend on the life support required by the water weird.

In all likelihood, attempting to plug the hole in the bottom of the pool would have limited effect on the weird -- the pool intake would stop so the water level would drain off until it hits equilibrium -- probably not much below where the level is normally because that's the natural drain-off point anyway. It may restrict its reach and allow passage around the pool without further combat.

It's unlikely restricting the supply of new water would kill or otherwise seriously impede the weird otherwise.

Now if there is a particular reason the weird required direct access to the intake (for example, the weird is a manifestation of something deeper in the water supply) then the weird would cease upon the blockage.

How to adjudicate the blockage? It depends on the water flow. For the case described where the water flow was shifting in waves, probably either Dex or Wis check to catch the flow at an ebb (giving +5 to the Str roll following) and a Str check (assigned probably somewhere DC 12 to 20 depending on water pressure determined for the flow) to ram something to block the intake -- all while figting off the weird's drowning attempts, of course.

 

[pemerton]

Wait, why does the temple bathhouse have a monster in the hotspring and why is it attacking the PCs? Has the temple been abandoned and it's moved in by chance?

The temple is in ruins. The water weird is an elemental haunting.

I see a purely gamist construct from start to finish with the mechanics defining the fiction. You choose the version of the bear based on what would make for a good game encounter, not what made sense in the context of the world or what would generate an interesting story or plot beat.

Tell me more about the difference between "a good game encounter" and "an interesting story or plot beat".

If there are rocks, I'd make a quick assessment of how the fight's going and how many rounds I want it to take based in the needs of the scene and how much of a pounding the PCs are taking.

What is the difference between "a gamist construct" and making a judgement about "the needs of the scene"?

 

[pemerton]

That would strongly depend on the life support required by the water weird.

<snip>

It's unlikely restricting the supply of new water would kill or otherwise seriously impede the weird otherwise.

Fair enough.

In my game I'd described the bath as being fed by a hot spring. I described the weird as surging out of the bath and trying to drag the PCs into the bath and drown them. They came up with the idea of blocking the spring. It seemed reasonable to me (I didn't have very detailed notes on the metaphysical nature of the weird) and let them run with it.

How to adjudicate the blockage? It depends on the water flow. For the case described where the water flow was shifting in waves, probably either Dex or Wis check to catch the flow at an ebb (giving +5 to the Str roll following) and a Str check (assigned probably somewhere DC 12 to 20 depending on water pressure determined for the flow) to ram something to block the intake -- all while figting off the weird's drowning attempts, of course.

I'm not sure yet if this is radically different from a skill challenge.

Would you set the DCs higher or lower depending on the level of the party (perhaps reasoning that the water weirds in the more exotic locations are tougher)?

You've said two (or three) checks - DEX &/or WIS, and STR. Are there retries? Unlimited retries? How do you work out what sort of failure rules out any retries? And what would be the ingame story to explain that?

 

[Nagol]

<snip>

I'm not sure yet if this is radically different from a skill challenge.

Would you set the DCs higher or lower depending on the level of the party (perhaps reasoning that the water weirds in the more exotic locations are tougher)?

No. The DCs would be the DC regardless of who was present and tried. If the location were more exotic then that location may have a higher or lower DC, but nothing with relation to the characters present.

You've said two (or three) checks - DEX &/or WIS, and STR. Are there retries? Unlimited retries? How do you work out what sort of failure rules out any retries? And what would be the ingame story to explain that?

I'd give one try per round for as long as the character was able to hold position. A try would be either a Dex or Wis check (player choice -- intuition vs. reaction time) followed by the Str check. The combination would be a standard action. Depending on the positioning, probably only one character could take position each round.

The only failure is the weird is successful in distracting the PC either through drowning him or otherwise convincing him to stop. If the fight took a very long time (20+ rounds, shorter if the water was deemed to be very hot) I'd probably check to see what sort of heat protection the character had running and start applying penalties for the environment.

 

[Krensky]

The temple is in ruins. The water weird is an elemental haunting.

Ok, so there's no story tied to the weird, it's just a monster there to be overcome. Is there a MacGuffin beyond the elemental, or is it just a danger of exploration?

Tell me more about the difference between "a good game encounter" and "an interesting story or plot beat".

"You know, I think I'll stick a water weird in the bathroom because it sounds cool, is level appropriate, and it fills out my XP track for the rate of advancement I want. Oh, and making it so the players need to use a skill challenge, sounds nifty too." I realize this probably is not the exact design path taken, but from what you presented (ie, striped of all context) it fits just as well as anything else. It is also the impression I get from you discussion about making it up as you go and treating adventure design issues in a more or less purely metagame fashion.

"Hmm... Well the temple is abandoned. I know it used to be inhabited by depraved aboleth worshiping cultists who slaughtered themselves through backstabbing and poor impulse control. The players have come to expect normal cultist things, so what sort of things might depraved cultists in a dormitory type environment come up with to kill off their roommates, or at least to get a sick laugh? I know, elemental assassins in the bathroom!" A little contrived, but I needed something that fits the conditions of water elemental in the bathroom.

"Ok, the PCs have been getting pretty roughed up so far in the Temple of Unpleasentness. It's been one down beat after another as the PCs survive, but haven't done much else. Ok, so let's through something simple with some humor to it. Ok, so as they explore this area they'll find a securable bathing complex. The PCs could use a rest. After some R&R roleplay, something in the water should jump the bathing PCs. Well, a water element makes sense and would be flavorful. Let's start with that." A bit weak, but again, I'm working with a odd (to my typical play) target condition.

Either the simulation (cultists using weird assassination methods) or the narrative (gratuitous hot springs scene goes bad) ones would be my typical methodologies, largely depending on how 'serious' the game I'm running is.

What is the difference between "a gamist construct" and making a judgement about "the needs of the scene"?

The gamist construct is centered around mechanical challenge and driven by mechanical priorities over dramatic ones. In this case, I'd determine about how long I want the PCs to have to take to move the rock in place based on the dramatic motivation of the scene and the layers goals relative to how long the encounter's taken, how much longer the player's will remain interested, and at what point I think the players will say: "Aw F-it. We want to get past this thing. Here's 4 action dice. We're buying a Flash-Forward. Let's move on to something else."

Now, typically I wouldn't stick them in a situation where something is trying to kill them while they have to flail around looking for the right set of conditions or actions (even if I choose one of their flailings on the fly rather then making them stumble onto the 'right' ones) in order to overcome the NPC I tossed into the scene.

 

[pemerton]

Nagol, thanks for the replies.

 

[pemerton]

"You know, I think I'll stick a water weird in the bathroom because it sounds cool, is level appropriate, and it fills out my XP track for the rate of advancement I want. Oh, and making it so the players need to use a skill challenge, sounds nifty too."

As I said in the OP, I was using a 3E module by Eden Odyssey Studios called Wonders Out of Time. I followed the module more-or-less as written - it had the bear, the water weird, a hidden stash of liturgical scrolls, and some ghosts.

The liturgical scrolls are key to my game, in two sense: first, 4 of the 5 PCs are divine class or multi-class, and the 5th (a sorcerer/cutthroat) is a member of a secret Corellon cult; second, they provide a solution to a question that came up in a previous encounter.

The ghosts are also fairly central, because 3 of the PCs are Raven Queen worhsippers.

I left in the bear - everyone likes an encounter with a bear! - and added some stirges for fun. And left in the water weird, to fill out a room and because I was curious to see how the players would handle it. Also, because it had the potential to flood out the whole temple, it added a bit of dramatic possibility to the temple exploration as a whole.

The gamist construct is centered around mechanical challenge and driven by mechanical priorities over dramatic ones. In this case, I'd determine about how long I want the PCs to have to take to move the rock in place based on the dramatic motivation of the scene and the layers goals relative to how long the encounter's taken, how much longer the player's will remain interested, and at what point I think the players will say: "Aw F-it. We want to get past this thing. Here's 4 action dice. We're buying a Flash-Forward. Let's move on to something else."

I don't especially feel that the water weird was driven by mechanical priorities over dramatic ones. If the module hadn't mentioned it I wouldn't have added it. But given that it was there, I thought it might make for an interesting encounter (as described above). And I think it did. The player of the dwarf, in particular, got to develop and reinforce a few more aspects of his PC and his role in the party as a whole.

And "determining about how long I want the PCs to take" sounds to me like a similar pattern of reasoning to deciding that a 6/3 skill challenge will get the pacing about right. Or have I misunderstood you?

 

[CuRoi]

The newer editions didn't make us less creative. They simply gave us some extra tools with which to run our campaigns.

I agree...to an extent. I must say though that the more solidified the rules, the more I see players at the table telling DMs how things "must be" or DM's who are frightened to move outside the rules for fear of breaking something else (this is probably even more of a problem with 3e than 4e.)

From a 3e - 2e perspective (I haven't played much 4e) In the example above, as a DM, if I have three people trying to calm a bear, one's firing off spells, the other is approaching it with disembodied hands, and one is a wilderness "expert" trying an approach...all I can say is the bear will be eating good tonight. I don't think I need a degree in biology to figure out the bear will feel threatened by all the players trying to "rule it" into submisison. I refuse to suspend comon sense in my fiction just to cater to a rule

I do get the OP method of approach and I think it was creative, and very possibly a stellar example of 4e DMing (I haven't gotten into 4e much). It sounds like the whole group was enjoying it so it was probably the absolute best way to run the whole thing.

However, it seems from the description that while 4e may have solidified "combat roles" for the various classes (strikers, controllers, etc.) it has mostly erased "story roles" for the various classes in the spirit of "everyone can do anything".

 

[Krensky]

As I said in the OP, I was using a 3E module by Eden Odyssey Studios called Wonders Out of Time. I followed the module more-or-less as written - it had the bear, the water weird, a hidden stash of liturgical scrolls, and some ghosts.

That it was a module (rather then a book of encounters or something else) wasn't clear. In hindsight, it is, but that's always the case. Of course, I often find modules don't make much sense outside of their own weird set of rules.

And "determining about how long I want the PCs to take" sounds to me like a similar pattern of reasoning to deciding that a 6/3 skill challenge will get the pacing about right. Or have I misunderstood you?

Not really. It's a more immediate sort of pacing. If it takes too long, one of three things will happen:

The player characters will all die. - This is a problem because it's hard to have the whole party Cheat Death (also a mechanic) without resorting to really cheesy explanations. Granted, if it was a Dramatic Scene, that's one thing, but from what you're saying there's nothing there that justifies that.

The players will get really bored and scrape up the Action Dice to buy a Flash-Forward, skipping over the entire encounter. Forfeiting the rewards, but also escaping and getting the boredom over with.

The players will tell me its stupid and leave the game.

So I'm literally talking about how many rounds I think the players will tolerate balanced against how few rounds it will take for the appropriate dramatic tension. A good bit of this is predicated on that the encounter isn't working right (the PCs are walking all over the NPC because I designed it wrong or it's slaughtering them, because I designed it wrong) and I, for whatever reason, can't adjust the NPC on the fly or fudge it.

Granted, since they're not important scenes I probably would just pull the stats for a grizzly bear out for the first and a Water Elemental IV for the second, spec them to the party's Threat Level and run them as Special NPCs so they can stand up to a whole party with out much tweaking. The bear's an average threat, so the party shouldn't have much problem with it but it should have a good lick or two. The Elemental is at the low end of being a serious threat, so they'll have to pull some good tricks and work together, but should still come through. Bloodied and battered, but intact.

 

[pemerton]

Krensky, your comment about immediate pacing is interesting.

With the 4e skill challenge rules, it's fairly easy to compress the complexity of a challenge on the fly, provided that narration of the successes has left room for this. It's a bit harder to expand it, because success in a more complex skill challenge relies on the player's engaging the situation in a more sophisticated way, to build up advantages using secondary skills and the like, and the GM will have been less likely to cue this sort of engagement if s/he launched into the scene thinking it was only going to be a complexity 1 or 2 challenge.

4e doesn't have an official flash-forward option. If you wanted to introduce that sort of option, then the relevant currency would probably be healing surges.

You say that a flash-forward means the PCs miss out on the rewards. Does this include eg status and treasure rewards? And if so, does this mean that the resolution of the flash-forward has to be described in such a way as to rationalise the PCs not getting those rewards?

 

[pemerton]

However, it seems from the description that while 4e may have solidified "combat roles" for the various classes (strikers, controllers, etc.) it has mostly erased "story roles" for the various classes in the spirit of "everyone can do anything".

I guess this is a YMMV situation. I personally feel that there's a pretty big difference in "story role" between a ranger who "talks" to the bear, a wizard who uses cantrips to calm it down, and a sorcerer who intimidates it by wreathing his body and weapons in lightning. I'm not feeling the sameness.

 

[CuRoi]

A question to other GMs - especially those who don't like structured non-combat resolution (whether 4e skill challenges, HeroWars/Quest extended contests, etc): How would you adjudicate an attempt by your party to defeat a water weird by plugging the spring at the bottom of the pool containing it?

Well, if my players move outside the scope of the rules, I gladly follow. Sure, we will incorporate skills / powers that fit within a loose structure of rules, but since they are wanting to operate mostly from their own creativity and don't want to be to overburdened by rules at the moment we play it loosely. The group will generally talk it over together, come up with an idea of group resources made available by character sheets, the plot, the environment, and act out a plan. I adjudicate what happens and not every idea is a winner or will effect the ultimate outcome. There's very little difference to the approach you took, except I place "fiction first" as it were and weigh in my mind whether the outcome will be successful before I decide how long or how effective the various implementations will be.

I can't give you guidelines mainly because none exist Frankly, I don't want them in those instances. The buzz of people puzzling their way through some outside the scope of the rules challenge is music to my ears. If they ever got completely stuck in a rut trying to figure out how only the numbers on their sheet will always save the day, I'd need new players cause theyd HATE my games!

Bottom line is though - do what works for your group. Did your group like the outcome? Did they enjoy things? Well, stick with it if they did!

 

[Krensky]

Krensky, your comment about immediate pacing is interesting.

With the 4e skill challenge rules, it's fairly easy to compress the complexity of a challenge on the fly, provided that narration of the successes has left room for this. It's a bit harder to expand it, because success in a more complex skill challenge relies on the player's engaging the situation in a more sophisticated way, to build up advantages using secondary skills and the like, and the GM will have been less likely to cue this sort of engagement if s/he launched into the scene thinking it was only going to be a complexity 1 or 2 challenge.

This is one of the issues I have with the structure and presentation. My game has rules structured tasks of multiple sorts. Some are based on just breaking a large task down into smaller chunks of the same skill use. Some superficially resemble 4e's skill challenges, but can be both more complex and more free-flowing since they can be defined on the fly or pre-scripted with no real difference as long as the GM is up for it. Adding new steps is trivial, as is skipping over steps. These aren't structured as 2X successes before X failures, rather they are timed in some way. If the players have more successes then failures at the end of the time limit, the PCs win. Some of the parts may be mandatory, some optional and they may or may not have consequences of failure of each part. Lastly (and admittedly this involves pulling from an older version of the game) there are lead based skill conflicts like chases, seductions (romantic or otherwise), interrogations.

They all have different feels in play, and serve different dramatic purposes. Typically speaking, I run the first two as they happen, maybe a few minutes prep. The last I can run off the cuff too, but it's relatively obvious they're happening.

None of them provide XP though. Accomplishing them may acchieve objectives, which give you XP. There may be NPCs to overcome, which gives XP. The skill task by itself doesn't get you squat, other then what you get (in game) for succeeding in the task.

4e doesn't have an official flash-forward option. If you wanted to introduce that sort of option, then the relevant currency would probably be healing surges.

You say that a flash-forward means the PCs miss out on the rewards. Does this include eg status and treasure rewards? And if so, does this mean that the resolution of the flash-forward has to be described in such a way as to rationalise the PCs not getting those rewards?

Not necessarily, it depends how much the GM cares. Basically when the players get bored and tell me they don't care and want the scene over with, they give me (as GM) the right to narrate them out of it however I want. But since there's no risk, there's no reward. So no Reputation rewards, no XP, and no Treasure. Their reward is that they get to basically skip the rest of the scene and get to something interesting, without having to deal with any of it. So, yeah, the players can use it to save themselves from a TPK, but they don't get anything for it other then their survival.

 

[pemerton]

Krensky, another question: when you say that encounters/situations/challenges (I'm not quite sure which noun I should be using for your game!) "are timed in some way" do you mean real world time? Or in game time? I'm getting the impression of real-world time, but am not sure.