Story time, routines and pacing

Story clock

In simulated mode, time advances by the duration the GM records for rounds and explicit skips. In real mode, story time follows the wall clock in the configured IANA time zone. Once a simulated story has its own dates, it cannot be changed back to real time.

Memory age, deadlines, routines and off-stage work use story time, not turn count or elapsed real time. A hundred rapid turns can occupy one story minute; a single skip may move several days.

Routines and off-stage action

Routine windows describe where a character normally is and what it does. They provide a default, not a rail: an ongoing commitment, interruption or story event can override the routine. When the way to the place a window names has a travel time on every exit, a character away from you is on the way ("on the way to the Market") until that long after the window began, and only then there; with no timed way it arrives at once.

Authors can limit a routine by weekday, month, recurring or one-time date, date span, day of the month, season or a holiday declared by the world. Exclusions make cases such as “weekdays except Founder's Day” deterministic. The first window of the list that fits a day applies, so a one-day change is a window dated with on (for example "on": ["1912-10-05"]) placed before the usual ones. In play, the record keeper does the same with routine_exceptions when the story establishes that one character's day differs on one date (ill in bed, away on an errand): it puts a window for that date in front of the routine and leaves every other day alone; setting the same date again replaces it. Seasons follow the hemisphere in the world's calendar.json; see Calendar and day rules.

After a turn, a bounded number of off-stage characters may act when commitments or deadlines become due. Their consequences enter the same record system as on-stage action.

The people of one off-stage commitment decide one after another, each told who has already meant to come, so that a meeting is between them rather than two guesses (setting offstage.joint). Organisations act on their own too: after a message, up to factions.perTurn organisations that have a goal in hand and whose last decision is factions.everyDays of story time old decide one concrete thing they do. It changes their state and goals and is recorded as a deed that no character knows until someone is told.

Nothing runs while you are away from the chat, and each message you send lets only a few characters act, once each, so leaving a session open never spends tokens. Those characters also tell, in the same request, what came of it in one line; with who moved by routine, it appears as a Meanwhile card beside the story until your next message. The card is not in the conversation log, so it costs nothing in later turns.

Pacing

Plots contain optional beats and pressure, while the pacing system decides whether the current moment needs a nudge. It considers recent movement, cooldown, introduced beats and explicit rejection. The objective is to restore direction, not finish plots quickly.

Triggers are different: they implement deterministic reactions when conditions become true. A trigger should be used when authorial intent requires the reaction every time; a plot beat is material the GM may adapt or defer.