Given the variety of clever game mechanics around, I was wondering whether there are any games that use a timer as a mechanical component? I’ve not heard of it being done but it feels like the kind of thing that would turn up on small or experimental games that would probably have passed me by- does anyone know any games like this? I was brainstorming a few ideas with a couple of friends and it got me to thinking about how something like this might work and whether it would be fun or frustrating in practice.
RPGs using a timer as a mechanic?
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The game Alice is Missing, which recently finished its kickstarter, uses a timer. As I understand it, you flip cards that give clues and suspects at predetermined times.
From the kickstarter game description:
Once the timer starts and the game begins, you’ll flip your Clue Card when the number on the timer hits the number on the Clue Card’s back. This will often result in you drawing a card from the Suspect or Location deck and combining it with the prompt on the Clue Card to create the information your character uncovers.
At this moment that’s the only game I’m aware of that has a timer built into the game.
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Some other examples:
“Our Mundane Supernatural Life” by the storybrewers has exactly d4 + 1 minute long scenes.
“Community Radio” by Quinn Murphy alternates between an untimed host and timed slice-of-life scenes to get a radio show vibe.
“Tumbling” by Sydney Icarus has an explicit design goal of a game taking less time than a load of laundry.
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There’s A Scoundrel in the Deep that uses a lit match as a timer for the descriptions given in an otherwise dark place.
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These are really good suggestions, thank you. I knew there must be some around.
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I seem to recall that Sherpa by Stefan O’Sullivan (creator of Fudge) uses a stopwatch to mimic a d10: you run it for a few seconds and the last digit of the milliseconds is pretty much random, so you can use it as a randomizer.
In Jason Morningstar’s The Skeletons, you have a phase where you sit in darkness for a set amount of time silently contemplating the soul crushing passage of eternity.
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Haha, I just now learned about Dungeon Thief, which uses a deck of cards and a stopwatch for solo play dungeon delving! 
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6e: The game where everything is a problem has a timer when it’s time for the party to face a challenge.
Danger Patrol, Pocket Edition, uses a counter (Danger Meter) that goes to ten. After players have made their moves, the GM rolls for each threat still in play. A “hit” advances the Danger Meter. If it reaches 10 the threats succeed at whatever terrible thing they were doing. It’s sort like a timer.
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every game played at a convention…snare drum please 
It’s a pretty cool idea though.
Certainly there are a ton of games that use PbtA clocks nowadays. Not so many that use a real timer. I played use a timer in a D&D 1e style game to solve a puzzle before the trap killed us. That was fun. I think if I ran it, players with smarter characters would get a little headstart and lowered characters with a lower Inteligence or equivalency would get less time.
Added: Come to think of it, I have a dungeon crawl themed board game 5 minute dungeon which as the title suggests gives you 5 miinutes to play enough damage / and protection cards to beat the baddie on each level. It’s pretty manic fun. I kind of like the idea of combat rounds being timed with the rest of an rpg being slow played.
Nice! A like from CrudelyDrawnSwords. I enjoy your podcast!
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What do you mean with an actual timer? A stopwatch, or just a pacing mechanism?
If it’s just measuring the time, I come to think of games like Puppetland, where it’s stated in the rules that the game ends after an hour.
I’ve come across a Swedish game (Starchallenge) where you had to spin a d10 and decide what to do before it stops spinning.
Another Swedish game (Västmark) had the magic execute as soon as the player were done fiddling with the magic rules. So the wizard declared that she wanted to cast a spell, and had to look up the rules while the other players continued with their turns.
We got clocks (as a pacing mechanism) in all the Powered by the Apocalypse games, or rolling to gain Franchise Dice in InSpectres, where the game master set a limit, on beforehand, of how many FD the players need to earn before the session ends.
Hit points is a kind of pacing mechanism. Low hit point results in the combat ending faster, compared to having lots of hit points in the same system.
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Like a stopwatch. The spinning die is a clever idea !
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My friend was talking about a game about time travel where you could travel to the past but only through a short (eg ten minute) window and how this could open the door to frantic and funny gameplay. I was wondering whether it had been done. On the one hand it might be hard to play, on the other desperately seeking quick solutions and the consequent disasters could be very funny.
I like the idea of having a timer set to 10 minutes and then a roll-under/over type mechanic that makes things easier or harder as time runs out.
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"My friend was talking about a game about time travel where you could travel to the past but only through a short (eg ten minute) window and how this could open the door to frantic and funny gameplay. I was wondering whether it had been done. On the one hand it might be hard to play, on the other desperately seeking quick solutions and the consequent disasters could be very funny.
Curiously, this thread inspired me to a very similar idea for a 24hr rpg supplement contest on rpggeek.com. It’s pretty much like this for Mothership. Characters start outside in space, tethered to the ship, disoriented. They have about 30 minutes to solve the crisis / puzzle OR to get to the time travel machine AND get back out of the ship to try again (because the time travel machine pulses massive short distance radiation), otherwise they will take a very large amount of damage. I think by explaining the dire consequences upfront, it could add real tension.
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There is a French RPG in Fanzine format called “Sombre” (meaning “Dark”), which means to emulate “horror like in the movies”.
It is designed to play victims in the horror flicks from 70s-90s : Halloween, Nightmare on Elm street, Alien …
In Sombre n°3, there is a scenario called “Deep Space Gore” them emulates “Alien”, with only 15 minutes remaining before the ship autodestruction!
More on Sombre: https://www.terresetranges.net/sombre.html
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Wilderness of Mirrors has the difficulty of gaining narrative control go up every 20 minutes, which would make things practically impossible at some point.
Dusk City Outlaws gives you Day and Night cards. You have a certain amount of time before it’s too late to do the heist so you have Planning and Footwork phases use up that time before you have to go.
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