July 27, 2024: Time Is Of The Essence?

I've made no secret that I'm a long-time Doctor Who fan. One of the fascinating elements I remember from watching An Adventure in Space and Time – the biographical television film about the genesis of the show – was that the BBC had an extreme aversion to overtime . . . to the point where the lights went out in the middle of filming a scene. ("Them's the rules," the cameraman helpfully explains.)

The pressure the director and crew must have gone through to get episodes done in time must have been enormous; "close" doesn't count if a few seconds late means everyone is plunged into darkness.

I've always wondered to what extent games could have a similar time-crunch pressure. Obviously some already do, such as Five-Minute Dungeon or myriad at-home escape rooms. But what would (say) Illuminati be like with a chess clock? How would a game of Munchkin play out if you knew it was going to end no later than 10:00, exactly? (In that case, you'd need to implement some kind of maximum time per turn, to keep players from "running out the clock.")

Outside of just doing something different, I imagine this might be most interesting at conventions, where players often must be done and out of the room by a certain time.

If anyone's done something like this, I'd be curious to hear how it went on the forums . . . if you have the time, of course.

-- Steven Marsh