How would I handle time-strained encounters?

[Paixar]

Hello all, first time posting here!

I'm currently running my players through Carnival of Tears, and from what I understand, the results of how my players do reflects on how many people were killed during the carnival. The question is:

How do I gauge how much time has passed to calculate how many people have been killed, provided that certain amount of people are killed each hour? The way it is explained is very vague and I could only assume is that the time is abstract (DM's judgement), in which case, what would be the best way to gauge it?

This is just one specific situation, but I'd like to know for any other future encounters I may broil up for my players that are like this.

Thank you for your answers ahead of time!

[Rycaut]

In the past (and when I played this very module) we tracked time directly at two basic rates:

1) we tracked how long we spent outside of combat (guestimating but roughly tracking time we spent role playing/interacting/playing games/searching/traveling etc

2) we tracked time in combat and added it to the running total

3) the interim times post combat we also tracked as carefully as possible (time spent healing everyone/waiting for effects to clear etc)

If you get started doing this even when things aren't on a clock it becomes somewhat second nature - and remember it doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough to help you gauge how much time the players at taking and for the players to decide whether tradeoffs are worth it (spend more time searching but people may be dying or rest fully but spend a lot of time putting npc's lives at risk etc)

I generally do this with my regular games so players can track how much time remains on buffs etc.