A Game Timer

One of the things that came up in a session last night and which might be interesting is the concept of a game timer.

I think it would be interesting if, as a DM, I had something like a "spinner" control or some other mechanism so that I could set a certain amount of real life time equal to equivalent game units.

In other words...

When we are just roleplaying and chatting back and forth, real time might equal game time and I indicate that in the DM control.

When the party is wandering along a path and they know that the place they are trying to get to is a day's walk, perhaps every real minute equals 15 game minutes, or something like that.

Its not something that everyone would want and it may just be clutter, but it was something that seemed interesting when it came up and appeared to be worth "throwing out there."

:D

Nice idea msd, I definatly support that. Also useful for the coffee making brakes.

Just for reference (and maybe an interesting story :) ), this is the situation in which the idea came up.

The party, while traveling toward a small hamlet, is engaged in ranged combat with a pair of Orcs that have emerged from a treeline to the side of the path that they are on.

In approximately the second or third round of combat, the party's bard (2nd level) casts Sleep. Both Orcs fail their Will Save and succumb to the effects of the enchanting melodies of the bard's fiddle.

The party now has two minutes (10 rounds/level of bard I believe) and they decide to try and tie the Orcs up.

They must close the gap between the path and the treeline, grab a rope from their pack, succeed on a Use Rope check, etc.

From my perspective, this was a time where I thought it would be great to have a game timer available actually assisting in building the tension so that the players have a real sense of the fact that the Orcs are about to awake...

Again, just a point of reference to perhaps help understand how the issue came up. :D

There are a lot of good ideas out there. I wish the developers would implement an API so that users could create custom plugins like what you had mentioned. It would take the burden off of the developers and let them concentrate on the game itself and not so much on minor enhancements. Not to say that what you mentioned isn't a great idea, but like you said it may not be for everyone. I personally think that what you mentioned would add to the realism of the game and could probably be handled with a plugin. Plugins would add an entire new dimension to FG.