Timekeeping
From Age of Intrigue Wiki
With permission from its designer, we use the Timekeeping system developed at Cherveaux: The Palace of Light.
Contents |
Dating Threads
In Age of Intrigue, dating your threads is a very important aspect of the game. When entering game play the mods will give you the date upon which your character arrives. When you begin a thread you should indicate the day it is occurring, and also the approximate time of day.
You must maintain a logical and forward moving timeline.
Example of a timeline
As example, lets say when you join the game current threads are being dated 11-13th May.
Your first post might be your Arrival on the Evening of the 11th May. Because you are enjoying the game you decide to start another thread, and so post ‘A walk in Hyde Park’ and date it the 12th May, Morning. And then you join the Ball Thread for 12th May, Evening.
At this point you notice a thread in the House of Lords dated for the 12th May, Afternoon. You cannot join this thread since it would involve your character going back in time. You can only move forward. All of your threads must follow in a sequential sequence, this is referred to as your timeline.
Moving Forward
One of the common pitfalls players experience is trying to account for every day in their characters life, which means they linger in older threads and do not move forward in time. A lot of mundane things happen in your characters lives that do not need to be played out or even accounted for on the board.
It is in your interest to move forward and embrace the movement of time. Generally moderators will post plot hooks at the end of the current time blocks to encourage you to move forward. Posts that are started for dates earlier than the advertised time block will receive very little moderation and plot development unless a moderator for has approved it prior to posting for plot purposes.
An example: If the current time block is 10-17th December:
- A moderator might post an adventure hook for the 16th rather than on the 11th to encourage you to move forward.
- If Louise and Edward were talking on the morning of the 10th and wished to meet again soon, they should arrange their next thread to be dated for the 14th rather than the afternoon of the 10th.
- A thread started on the 9th looking for information will result in little success because it is behind the current time block.
When asked to report information back to a NPC you do not need to linger back in time so that the report is made at your earliest convenience. We want you to move forward and will not penalize you for doing so. If a moderator wants information by a certain date that will be made clear to you at the time and you will usually be given a date to report back by (usually well in the future.)
Impassable Threads and Time Syncs
When a large social event is occurring the current time block may become 'frozen' to prevent you moving beyond it until any plot developments or revelations have might affect how your character reacts after the event have occurred. Similarly, if a life threatening danger looms in a thread you are in, the moderator may log it as :Impassable. This means you cannot create new thread beyond that date, until the threads outcome is resolved.
At times we may hold up the entire game, telling the community not to move beyond a certain event. This is called a Time Sync and helps everybody catching up before we once again move forward. It will be used very sparingly as it can be frustrating.
Other Reasons not to move forward
If you are in a group of people and one person is not posting for some time you can choose to ignore that person, engage in chatter etc. However, if that person was about to engage in an important action or even reply to a question to do so would be rude. Several game minutes would pass without giving the other player chance to react. You also render him suddenly shy and reclusive or even insulting when perhaps he did not want to be.
As a rule of thumb give players two days to respond to a post and if it not resolves by then, contact a moderator to take over the PC for a moment so that everybody can move again. Especially hyperposters should take this to heart. Do not render people in a different timezone obsolete by posting a storm while they are sound asleep.
Suggested Time window
On top of the forums there is an announcement box in which we will try to list what time window the game is operating in, including which threads are slowly winding up, which ones are in the thick of fun and on which dates most new threads are made. While you can deviate from this, to do so might isolate you from the rest of the players so be careful.
If you are too far ahead of anybody else your fun will be through before another player even reaches that time frame. If you are too far behind you are the one that comes too late to all the fun.
Time Knots
A time knot occurs when there are illogical things happening due to your character being in two points of time at the same time. For instance being introduced to a lord, when you are meeting him for the first time the next day. Usually you can deftly avoid such situations by some improvisation. If that doesn't work contact the moderator.
Continuation Threads
If you are in a thread and something logically follows from that but in a different location, you may create a so called continuation thread. For instance if you attended the Ball, you may have a ride home as a Continuation Thread. A midnight assignation to which you've been invited at the ball might also be a continuation thread.
This rule of thumb however is not to be abused by creating endless continuation upon continuation. Separate threads should be separate threads.
People calling on you beyond your timeline
An exception has been made for people calling on you room while you logically could have been there but you posted beyond it. You may answer your door and live out that moment in time provided it does not create a time knot.
