Time
Time is a crucial portion of any adventure. Every character is working with finite time throughout their moments of adventure, so consider time to be a limited resource in encounters.
The scale that the Players use should vary from situation to situation. In combat, a turn is about ten seconds, so seconds are the most reasonable scale.
For searching rooms, talking to townsfolk, or working on mechanical contraptions, minutes would be the better scale. In many cases minutes are best tracked via the actual real time the role-playing takes, like during a conversation with a guard for example.
For tracking, searching, and travelling through the environment, an hour scale works best as a search over a large area is time consuming. A few examples of situations where hours would be the best method of scale would be:
searching through a swamp to find a lost caravan,
navigating through a mountain pass where obstacles litter the path and must be moved, preparing fortifications and townsfolk for an upcoming attack.
Days are best used for travel or large-scale preparation, such as travelling from town to town by horse, foot, or boat. Creating an item would also be best we tracked in days.
Months and years should rarely be used for things that require constant engagement from the Players. These scales work best for events not directly requiring the Player, like construction of buildings or full-scale wars.
Chases can vary based on the location of the chase. In a pursuit on foot, seconds or minutes would be the most reasonable scale, while a chase tracking a group across the wilderness may be hours or even days.
Time Tension Mechanic
Time can be the definitive component to tense moments. For an encounter, sometimes the Dealer will use cards in a count-down type mechanic to track how long until. First an amount of time is set and everyone is informed. The Dealer then sets one card from the Adventure Deck, face down for each “round” of the encounter. Each round lasts the time scale set for the encounter, for a standard encounter, this would be 1 minute per round.
Then each Player will explain what their character is doing in this “round”. The Dealer will set the real time between each card pull and can pull a card whenever they feel an appropriate amount of time has been given to respond.
If the card is a diamonds or clubs, time passes at 1 of the current time-scale, one minute, one hour, one second, etc. On hearts, two of the time-scale passes, so the Dealer removes another card from the deck. On spades, time feels like it is moving slower and the time-scale does not move so the Dealer adds another card from the Adventure Deck. The Red Joker acts as spades while the Black Joker acts as a hearts.
When the time allotted at the beginning of the draw ends, the predetermined event happens whether the you and your character are ready or not.
Example:
Emily, Jace, and Tasha sneak into a noble's house and just make it to the bedroom when they hear the front door open. The Dealer decides a reasonable time until the action occurs and states it to the group. The Dealer does not always need to state what will occur exactly, only that something will occur. This builds tension as the clock ticks down.
In this case the Dealer decides 4 minutes. Emily searches the desk for the documents they need while Jace goes to check the hallway to see how much time they have left. Tasha also begins her search starting with the bed, chest, and bedside tables. The Dealer feels like these actions would take about a minute and draws a card: it’s hearts, meaning the group took 2 minutes and now only 2 minutes remain. Tasha abandons her search and starts unlocking the window. Emily finds the documents and begins copying the signature. Jace returns and pockets some jewelry. The Dealer draws again, this time clubs, 1 minute left. Emily finishes her forging job and applies the noble house’s seal to complete the look. Jace starts tossing the room to make it look like a regular burglary. Tasha doesn't decide what to do in time and the Dealer draws again: spades, the team got lucky. They all make a bolt through the window and begin the climb down. The dealer draws the final card, clubs, and therefore the timer ends. The noble enters the room, and the event is complete.