Gaming: 24-style

[Nareau]

24 also handles the "escalation factor" of the threats really well. You know:
Little Sally has gone missing; go save her!
Look, she was kidnapped by goblins
Oh, but the goblins are being controlled by weird cultists
And the cultists are worshipping a nasty demon
And the nasty demon is just the minion of the lich who wants to destroy the world!

So the BBEG's plan becomes increasingly apparent (and important) throughout the story.

Spider

 

[Banshee16]

I just watched the first few episodes of 24. It's one of the most amazing shows I've ever seen. A single episode is about as exciting as 3 normal, full-length action movies.

The premise for the show is that all events happen in real-time. There are 3 or 4 stories happening simultaneously, and each episode flips between them. With each episode lasting 1 hour, and with 24 episodes in a season, each season is 1 day.

As with anything I watch, I've been thinking, "Hrm...how can I translate this into gaming?"

Our group has had a few sessions in various campaigns that take place in "real-time". By that, I mean there's barely a moment of time that we hand-wave. It can be a lot of fun (more fun for the DM, I think) to press the characters to their limits, not allowing any down-time to identify, heal, rest, level up, prepare spells, etc. Usually, these things last 3 or 4 sessions, and they resolve 12-24 hours of game-time.

I would love to figure out how to set these up intentionally. I wonder if it would even be possible to do. My fear is that such a story would have to be highly scripted to work flawlessly. But I could see doing something like this with higher-level characters (so spellcasters don't run out of juice), and a goal of "the world is ending in 17 hours unless you can find out how to stop it."

What do you all think? Ever done something like this?

Spider

There's a scenario in AEG's "Rapier's Edge", a super module for Swashbuckling Adventures that is exactly that. 24 sessions or encounters taking place in one day, with each taking an hour. Something along those lines. Haven't played it yet though.

Banshee