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Message: <blockquote data-quote="steenan" data-source="post: 5381969" data-attributes="member: 23240">I won't answer the questions stated in the OP, because it would be completely uninformative. I could try to calculate average times we spend on various things - but what is important is that there is a lot of variation. And the variation is not random; it depends strongly on the system used and the style of the game.Things to consider:1. Travel may be skipped in one sentence. Or it may be used to build mood through colorful descriptions. It may be full of rolls if characters need to overcome various obstacles and avoid getting lost. It may be the time when PCs talk, learn about each other and build relations. None of these is better or worse than others. Each has its place.2. Combat may be hard, but not important to the story as a whole, and play in 20 minutes. Or it may be a minor engagement that does not need rolls, because the opponent is no challenge at all. Or it may be the final confrontation, with many enemies, the BBEG in three forms, a lot of cinematic stunts, in-combat talk and surprising personal reveals - two hours at least, if not four. Once again, each has its place and a good campaign needs a little of each. Here, I have a personal preference, though. Both as a player and as a GM I don't want any unnecessary combats. And by "unnecessary combats" I don't mean random encounters. I mean combats that are played with detailed mechanics while nothing important is at stake. If, barring an extremely unlucky string of rolls, there is no chance of defeat, such combat should be skipped. If the only thing the encounter is to achieve is using up some resources, even more so.3. Preparing food is, usually, something that is summed up in a few sentence description, maybe with a single roll to decide how good it was. If the game is of the high action type, I won't waste any time speaking of food. On the other hand, if the characters come from different backgrounds and cultures, and it ia an important part of the game, preparing a meal will be a perfect opportunity for them to talk about tastes, eating habits and taboos. And if the game is rather gray fantasy, just finding and preparing something edible in a harsh environment may be a challenge no less than fighting monsters.4. Some games use a conflict resolution mechanics for more than just combats. For example, in a game I ran not long ago we had a conflict representing tracking and pursuing someone through a desert (a few days of travel, a sandstorm, a poisoned oasis, negotiations with desert spirits) and a conflict representing looking for treasures in an ancient city, home to a chaotic spirit (navigating the ever-changing streets and maze-like dungeons, finding strange books, confronting the host and trying not to get insane through the process). The system we used allowed us to resolve them in a way very similar to how it resolves combat and made them much more fun than a few skill rolls would be.5. In the similar vain, it is possible to wrap a long travel into a single description or, if there are real difficulties on the way, into a single mechanically resolved conflict. There won't be any correspondence between each single day of the travel and the session time, though specific obstacles, combats and other activities may be used as parts of the description or the conflict. Thus, we spend an hour of play on a travel that takes several months: monsters, raging rivers and mountain snowstorms are GM's attacks; finding good paths, taking shortcuts by boat and negotiating with local tribes to hire guides are players' attacks; good meals eaten and stories told by the campfire are actions taken by players to replenish PCs' stamina.</blockquote>

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