'Fuzzy Time' in long-term rpgs

[moradrel]

spike369 put out a call for submissions the other day, and there was something that I wanted to raise, but it's big enough to warrant an entry of it's own, and I would welcome thoughts and/or wild ideas from fellow GMs

Comments

Re: Tired rambling on time

[moradrel]

The Al Capone glass thing was fudged, but more happily than the other fudging. Because it was interaction with the world, I could prescribe a timeframe of 'in a while', and have it sorted when enough time has felt like it has passed. I'm grateful for Mish not pushing me too hard on the exact timing of this, but she could have, and that would have made things tricky, because saying that it's going to take a couple of weeks IC time (which I think I did, originally) to arrange will mean it drags on for ever.

That's one thing I reasoned out when talking to Mish last night: that the PCs playing off the world is fine, because I determine how quickly, say, the bigwigs at McGowan-Buttermore organise hitsquads, or how fast Bored Issues Clerk at the museum gets the Capone Glass paperwork to Bored Archivist and back again. Such things will happen either 'soon', 'later', or 'now', depending on, ultimately, how I want to pace it. When the players start playing off each other (Terrible! They must stop this at once!) things become very real, and sadly out of my omnipotent control.