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Hi everyone! I'm in the middle of writing and playing a cozy campaign with my group based on Stardew Valley. In developing this campaign and its subsystems I've encountered quite a few game design thoughts that I think would be fun to discuss. Here's one:
Time as a Resource, But, Like, In a Stardew Valley Way
We all know by now that using time as a resource is a great tool in a GM's toolkit, allowing you to put pressure on your group, encourage them to use other resources when otherwise they would be conservative, and make efficient performance in combat (even trivial ones) matter. It's gotten to a point where I regularly recommend GMs keep track of the world's tick rate in 10 minute intervals, because even in a dungeon with no big bad planning a doomsday clock, you can generate time pressure by having each tick of the world have a chance for some new threat to arise, or otherwise change the game state.
One of the problems with a ticking clock, however, is that now you've got players worried about two high stakes: threats to their characters' lives and limbs, as well as a constant dread of time running out. It's not very relaxing, even if it's more compelling moment to moment.
Something interesting happens when you shift the consequences away from the dire; when failure in combat doesn't mean permanent death, and running out the clock is mostly just a matter of losing out on something you would have done in that time. Players start to think of time as a currency that they can afford to spend on things they want, rather than as either an infinite resource that the GM better handwave or they'll riot, or as a nail biting countdown to the Bad End.
Resting for ten minutes between encounters starts to stack up and they wonder if they'll have enough time left in the day to get back home, or if they'll have to camp out. Coming out of a combat unscathed means they can move onto the next without taking a break, and maybe fit in a visit to a friend's house in the evening. Going back and forth to the cave to fight slimes means spending travel time that could be used to plant more crops, so it's a great idea to go as far as you can on each trip. Downtime activities like crafting can be mixed into day-to-day adventuring, making Downtime a regular thing rather than a "between story arcs if the GM remembers" type of thing. Time passing feels more realistic, when each hour of each day matters tracking days passing, and keeping the calendar is easy and natural.
We're still only a few sessions in, but running Time like Stardew Valley does, as a limit to just how many things you can achieve each day for you to either strategize and optimize or as an outside means of forcing you to make in-world priority choices, has felt quite refreshing! Obviously, a lot of this goes into other elements of the Stardew Valley campaign and its homebrew elements, but I'll save talk about those for another post.
TL;DR:
When players have many optional things they want to do in a day and a limited amount of time to do them, spending time feels meaningful but not overly dire.
How have you experimented with different approaches to handling time expenditure, especially in a sandbox game?
What's the finest time increment you find yourself regularly paying close attention to outside of combat?
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I think this is a cool idea, but it only works when everyone in the party has things they're interested in besides the main plot/combat.
If no one is interested in doing stuff outside the main plot, then there are no "side quests" so to speak. There are no crops to plant. There's no visiting friends. And you can have the issue that the main plot feels too important and urgent to bother with these side quests. You can plant crops and visit friends when the world isn't in danger. And in my experience with group dynamics, basically if not everyone has something they want to do, they're going to push for the plot to move forward or sit there on their phone waiting for that to happen.
I feel like this kind of thing could work in a low stakes sandbox campaign, but probably not outside of it.
Stardew Valley is a farming game, right? That's all I know about it, so WatersLethe's analogy went right over my head.
I have run three campaigns in which time mattered on a long scale, but it mattered differently in each campaign.
My Iron Gods campaign had almost no time pressure. The 1st module, Fires of Creation, had a search for a missing wizard who could have needed immediate help, but safety and regularly reporting back were more important than speed to prevent becoming yet more missing people. Later the party was unraveling a evil plan that had been in motion for over a hundred years and would probably require a few more years. The players had selected Iron Gods to play with crafting high technology, so they often took off two months for crafting, because the deadline was so far away.
In contrast, Ironfang Invasion was in the middle of a war. The PCs felt that if they took a few days off for crafting, then the Ironfang Legion would conquer another village in that time. The 1st module, Trail of the Hunted, had a timeline of several weeks. Instead, the party finished all of that module's goals in several days.
My current campaign, Strength of Thousands, barely mentions time. I invented academic classes and set up a class schedule at the Magaambya Academy, because my players wanted to roleplay being students, which restored a sense of time to the adventure path. The Magaambya called its semesters "seasons," four per year, so that was 1 week of orientation, 11 weeks of classes, and 1 week of vacation each season. The 1st module, Kindled Magic, covered Spring Season 4721 AR, the related module Pathfinder Quest (Series 2) #18: Student Exchange covered Summer Season 4721 AR, the 2nd module, Spoken on the Song Wind covered Fall Season 4721 AR, homebrew material about Kassi Aziril covered Winter Season 4721AR, and 3rd module Hurricane's Howl covered Spring Season 4722 AR and will extend into Summer Season 4722 AR. Spoken on the Song Wind had 12 distinct missions, enough to fill the 12 weeks of Fall Season, but I moved one earlier to summer break and one later to Winter Season, so they had two weeks of no adventure, just classwork. One player arranged Winter Solstice gift-giving in that free time.
As for every ten minutes mattering, I recall in Valley of the Brain Collectors, 4th module of Iron Gods, the party decided to run through a 14-room alien stronghold, the Dominion Hive, nonstop, to get the most out of their spells with 10 minutes duration. This was PF1, so no 10-minute Treat Wounds; instead, the skald had Greater Skald's Vigor so that her bard song granted fast healing.
In PF2, in Vault of the Onyx Citadel, 6th module of my PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion campaign, they did a similar nonstop run in the Onyx Citadel. But Strength of Thousands has not yet offered a multi-room challenge which the players wanted to tackle nonstop. Maybe the 17-room Prison of the Vacant Eye in Hurricane's Howl will inspire another nonstop run.
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I think this is a cool idea, but it only works when everyone in the party has things they're interested in besides the main plot/combat.
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I feel like this kind of thing could work in a low stakes sandbox campaign, but probably not outside of it.
Making sure everyone has something outside of combat that they're interested in is definitely a requirement! I had to spend a lot of time developing content that's both mechanically and narratively interesting enough to make sure people who voted to play a Stardew Valley game *actually* followed through with engaging with noncombat stuff.
I *think* there are ways to make such things viable in more traditional adventure games, as long as it's a sandbox. But once you have a main plot line I do suspect that will suck the air out of the room for the rest of the optional content.
Stardew Valley is a farming game, right? That's all I know about it, so WatersLethe's analogy went right over my head.
Stardew Valley is a popular farming game with cave exploration, combat, mining, and loot in addition to the farming, villager interactions, and holiday events. It gives you a glut of options for what to do each day, and the day's clock ticks by fast, so you can never do all you want to, and it also provides a bunch of different short and long-term goals that give you something to strive for. I highly recommend looking into it if only as reference for its craftsmanship and gameplay design (and music!).
Strength of Thousands barely mentions time
I know! This Stardew Valley themed game I'm running is coming right off the back of finishing Strength of Thousands. Our group didn't get any of the cozy vibes we were hoping to experience in a magical school game. I had pulled together a calendar and side content and all that jazz, but I came to realize the "main plot" was a huge reason why it just couldn't do what we wanted it to do. We wanted more sandbox, and NPCs to interact with, and options, and down-to-earth gameplay, but everything I came up with to add in that department had to fit into the pacing of the linear adventure.
I could very much see us going back to a school with a day-by-day approach like I'm using now, with studying and classwork being some of the optional daily activities.
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I know! This Stardew Valley themed game I'm running is coming right off the back of finishing Strength of Thousands. Our group didn't get any of the cozy vibes we were hoping to experience in a magical school game. I had pulled together a calendar and side content and all that jazz, but I came to realize the "main plot" was a huge reason why it just couldn't do what we wanted it to do. We wanted more sandbox, and NPCs to interact with, and options, and down-to-earth gameplay, but everything I came up with to add in that department had to fit into the pacing of the linear adventure.
I did the same, yet it worked in my campaign. I wondered about the difference, so I asked my wife, the most sandboxy of the players, though two other players out of seven come close. She says that the GM cannot create a sandbox alone. The players have to actively contribute to pushing the narrative and expanding beyond the plot.
A major appeal of Pathfinder over Dungeons & Dragons is that Pathfinder offers more character customization. As a GM I have learned that my characters also want customization of the story.
For example, one mission in Spoken in the Song Wind was named "Busker Woes." Some robbers were stealing the musical instruments and cash donations of street performers. The module expected the PCs to track down the robbers by Gathering Information with a DC 20 Diplomacy, Performance, or Society check after contacting the musicians, or a DC 18 Diplomacy or Society check after contacting the Chime-Ringer police, or a DC 22 Deception, Intimidation, or Thievery check after contacting any criminals they know. Instead, my players roleplayed talking to the musicians. One directed them to other musicians already working on tracking down the robbers. I found images of three dark-skinned fantasy musicians on the internet, Dandelion, Ellie Culper, and Mara Angelo (the last two are named after the artists), and formed them into a band called the Dandy Girls. The PCs teamed up with the Dandy Girls to hold a sting operation to lure in the robbers and identify them. Further details are at Virgil Tibbs, Playtest Runesmith, comment #8. Ironically, using my Strength of Thousands campaign to playtest the Runesmith class added more combat, but my players still made time for non-combat roleplaying.
It sounds like the Stardew Valley campaign is offering players choices with neither the plot nor urgency pointing out one optimal choice. The time constraint prevents them from selecting all choices, which would avoid making a real choice. That means that the players control the narrative, and they push the narrative in a direction they like.
Strength of Thousands is a leisurely-paced railroad, at least in the first two modules. The teachers give service projects to the PCs, and the PCs do them. I have made a list of 30 classes each season and each PC selected three classes to attend (one day I will post the lists, after I straighten out the notation). Whenever three or more PCs selected the same class, I created class events, such as a Rivers of the Mwangi Expanse class having a field trip down the Vanji River (River into Darkness Revisited), or a Sailing class having a boat race (Building Mkosa from War of Immortals), or a Theater class letting them present a play they wrote themselves (and their dorm-mates made costumes for it), or a class in the undead leading to a field trip, too (based on Dead Man's Debt.). This let the players customize the narrative around the interests of their PCs.
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This is an interesting topic. I'm also running Strength of Thousands, and Sky King's Tomb for another part of my friend group. Both of them start with lots of "slice of life" scenes, pretty fun. But I've noticed the main story line is capturing a lot of our attention.
The sandbox thing is pretty interesting, players have to want it. And it's not a bad thing if they're not that interested in it. Our current mood is a bit more towards main story, which is also because we tend to have one session per month. Everyone is busy having kids and such. So I focus a lot on having every session being a pretty complete standalone thing, that has a good tension curve and completes something by the end of the session.
So I still wanna do a sandbox for real one day, but I guess it's not happening right now.
The "cosy" angle to it is really interesting to me though. One of the things I feel has always held back games like Pathfinder and D&D from having nice indie-style fail-forward mechanics is that the combat model nudges you toward a victory=survival mindset. Fail forward requires that failure doesn't mean death.
So yeah, really interested in this angle.
I'm very glad this topic is getting discussed, as I've been trying to use clocks in my games to create time pressure where none exists and didn't consider how time could be used as a form of reward as well. I very much like the idea of framing efficient time management as a key to greater rewards, rather than a necessary component to prevent bad stuff from happening, and shifting an incentive from a stick to a carrot tends to make players feel better about being pushed to do something: World of Warcraft has a classic example of this where the developers initially wanted to discourage grinding with XP penalties, but players complained about this. When the devs instead granted players XP bonuses for logging off in inns or cities, players instead felt a lot better about the mechanic, even if the incentive and end result were the same.
I do think that with clocks or time pressure of any kind, though, there will always be an element that will be opposed to cozyness: to me, a cozy atmosphere is all about taking one's time, and not having any need whatsoever to do anything in that moment. When you're trying to be as productive with your time as possible, that to me is the opposite of cozy, and taken to an extreme you get stuff like speedrunning, which even in Stardew Valley isn't at all relaxing. Thus, while Stardew Valley does strike a balance between its coziness and its time pressure by letting players choose how much to lean into either, I do think the two sit in tension with one another.
Where I think part of the coziness can be inserted is by having upcoming events that are beneficial to the players: this doesn't need to replace time pressure, but instead, players could have incentives to make smarter decisions within the day, while always having something to look forward to at the end of the adventuring day, or the week, or some other span of time. If you wanted, you could even tie the two together, where the harvest festival might be more bountiful if you spend the extra time helping the locals tend the crops, but having good things that are guaranteed to happen I think could also help contribute to the feeling of a world that's cozy and welcoming, at least in part.
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I did the same, yet it worked in my campaign. I wondered about the difference, so I asked my wife, the most sandboxy of the players, though two other players out of seven come close. She says that the GM cannot create a sandbox alone. The players have to actively contribute to pushing the narrative and expanding beyond the plot.
I think in my case a big contributing factor was my feeling that each addition I made to the game should have a good mix of magical-school content, player background engagement, and exciting encounters. I ended up wedging apart the AP content and getting limited by what sort of rewards I could offer. I didn't want to out-level or out-gear the AP stuff with too much of my custom content.
With my experience now with cozy content, I could have devised alternative reward schemes that engage the players' need for mechanical incentives beyond *just* having fun roleplaying. While we do like some good roleplaying opportunities, we also like game structure (which is why we like PF2, now that I think about it), and building relationship points and earning a grade in class would make a big difference. I actually took a look at Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs to see if I could make mechanical hooks to each layer for the players to latch onto and strive towards.
Our current mood is a bit more towards main story, which is also because we tend to have one session per month. Everyone is busy having kids and such. So I focus a lot on having every session being a pretty complete standalone thing, that has a good tension curve and completes something by the end of the session.
That has been my situation for many prior years. It has taken a toll, in my opinion, on the feel of the game, because watching the real world clock and making sure they make progress in today's story to reach a satisfying conclusion absolutely burns through swathes of opportunities to stop and smell the roses in-game. It's almost unavoidable, though. We had lots of fun, but now I'm hoping to get a more frequent, more bite-sized game going where they run through maybe 7 in-game days in a session, note how they're meeting their targets, and get ready for next time.
When you're trying to be as productive with your time as possible, that to me is the opposite of cozy, and taken to an extreme you get stuff like speedrunning, which even in Stardew Valley isn't at all relaxing.
Yeah 100%, there are plenty of conversations online about whether Stardew Valley actually counts as a cozy game when so often you'll find yourself fighting your way out of the caves as the clock turns red and your heart rate goes through the roof. I think a key is that it's not happening *all* the time. It occurs in spikes, and even when the clock runs out the consequences aren't life and death so it's more of a "Eustress" situation than it could be.
I think you're also right that having positive outcomes they work toward is key. I have a few of those, but I might want to beef up my festival rewards based purely on your suggestion. It sounds like a great idea.
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I think this is a cool idea, but it only works when everyone in the party has things they're interested in besides the main plot/combat.
...
I feel like this kind of thing could work in a low stakes sandbox campaign, but probably not outside of it.Making sure everyone has something outside of combat that they're interested in is definitely a requirement! I had to spend a lot of time developing content that's both mechanically and narratively interesting enough to make sure people who voted to play a Stardew Valley game *actually* followed through with engaging with noncombat stuff.
I *think* there are ways to make such things viable in more traditional adventure games, as long as it's a sandbox. But once you have a main plot line I do suspect that will suck the air out of the room for the rest of the optional content.
Exactly! I think your idea is very viable in a kind of sandbox game with only a loose overarching narrative to.
A kind of kingmaker style game, but with even less time pressure.
A thought I had was kind of how I felt the very first time I played Fallout New Vegas. My character had just be shot in the head and lived, and presumably didn't remember much about what I was doing. Aside from a Robot Cowboy reminding me I had a chip to obtain/deliver, I didn't know what I was really doing. So I took a lot of time simply exploring the wasteland around, strengthening my character, and looting. Yes, I had a goal to recover/deliver the chip, but it honestly didn't seem time dependent (or personally important) at all. All the other couriers were shot, so if I didn't show up...well it wouldn't be that surprising.
What you're proposing (a game where the side quests are more important) works well in this kind of scenario. A game where the campaign is simply exploring and becoming familiar with the world and letting the players build their own narrative.
Actually, I think I'd quite like such a game.
In a game like this, there's no overall plot to miss, derail, or fail.
But, to continue to lean on New Vegas, there are other factions at work (biggest of which being NCR and Caesar's Legion). They're primarily after the Hoover Dam, but the Legion is also occupying "neutral" settlements to gear up to fight the NCR. In this kind of game, the players could choose to team up with either, or become their own major faction vying for control, or avoid/ignore the whole thing letting it unfold as "fate" would dictate. As a GM, I would likely implement some sort of faction "point" system and have timelines battles would occur on to acquire settlements, that the players could influence if they chose.
But the game doesn't start being specifically about the NCR or Legion winning or losing. It's not a "game over" if either or neither wins. And the players could potentially undo the actions of either faction, though at greater effort to accomplish.
Honestly, now I kind of want to run a campaign based loosely on Fallout New Vegas game.
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One GM I used to play with had an approach of NOT having a main plot at first, but picking one after a while when it became clear which of all the stuff players came across in the sandbox the players got most invested in.
This is of course completely different from the X-book AP approach where you can't really have a "path" without it being a bit locked in where it goes.
You could maybe do something like in Strength of Thousands where the party gradually starts ranging farther afield as they get stronger and can function outside the protective umbrella of the campus. Especially with the circular map design of Nantambu, you could see it as going a circle out every time they reach a new threshold of seniority in the school.
This aspect is one of the primary drives behind my love for the Mutant YZ system.
Yes theres timepressure in the fact that the base rules assume the settlement will eventually collapse if the players litterary do nothing, But theres rarely any guide or plot set out as a start but rather it will be found through exploration.
I've come across "there's consequences for dawdling but we won't decide what those are or when" when I was playing the Kingmaker CRPG and it was implied that taking too long would be seriously inadvisable... so I ended up save scumming to the max to make as little time pass as possible. I guess I imagined that the consequences would be dire and I would have to restart the whole game. I wonder if I would imagine such a sword of damocles in Mutant YZ as well. If I had a GM who knew to reassure me in Kingmaker or Mutant, maybe that would have made the difference.
In my campaign I have a gradual early warning system that something is going wrong if they try to game the system with years doing one repetitive thing with the intention of breaking something else. I haven't mentioned it, and I have no idea if it'd come up.
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In my campaign I havea gradual earlywarning system that something is going wrong if they try to game the systemwith years doing one repetitive thingwith the intention of breaking somethingelse. I haven't mentioned it, and I have no idea if it'd come up.
I have a similar thing. I like to call, "Oh, so that's what you think you're doing? Would you like to reconsider that activity?"
Said in a tone that implies their character will soon die if they do not.
Anyways, to your real point, I think an important thing to let players know in such a game is that the world will progress without them taking action. But it will take place relatively slowly, and generally with the players aware of the general timelines it's going to happen on so they can choose how to approach things. Although I will tell them there may occasionally be two things happening at the same time that will force them to choose between to courses of action. But I would also let them know that I will provide a way to "undo" whatever activity they can't do, but that it will be harder to do than if done now and may still have other consequences that make the results less desirable.
Continuing my thoughts from Fallout New Vegas. Let's say the players have the Battle for Hoover Dam coming up, but also want to travel into the wasteland bunker to get the army of Securitrons. And lets suppose that for whatever reason the timeline ends up that the battle will happen when they're away if they choose to get the Securitron army.
The outcome may be the the Legion wins the battle for Hover dam, the players come back and decimate a weakened legion with the robot army. But the players were friendly with the NCR, and they let the NCR take control. However they're very weakened from the lost battle and likely to need additional help to maintain control over their territory in the Mojave. And even more help if they actually want to route the Legion and force them out of the Mojave territory more permanently.
There might even be a situation where the players don't get the Securitron army and miss the Battle for Hover Dam. And then decide they want to help the NCR anyways. So they infiltrate the Dam and blow it up. Because the NCR can't hold it, and they decide that it's better to not have the Dam at all, than to let the Legion have it.
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In my campaign I havea gradual earlywarning system that something is going wrong if they try to game the systemwith years doing one repetitive thingwith the intention of breaking somethingelse. I haven't mentioned it, and I have no idea if it'd come up.I have a similar thing. I like to call, "Oh, so that's what you think you're doing? Would you like to reconsider that activity?"
Said in a tone that implies their character will soon die if they do not.
Lol!
My consequence is basically "that Cozy label on the campaign? it's starting to peel off at the corner"
FAFO!
I'm running a game like this at the moment. My friend is the solo player, though another friend joins occasionally and I have a DMPC who acts as a sidekick. He's exploring the world as a newly forged Exemplar figuring out his place in the world, a cluessless fool kind of character. He started with one of the PFS quests and then moved onto the Beginners Box. He has moved onto Troubles in Otari now and is more keen on getting his base set up and dealing with the surrounding activities.
As a cozy activity his character likes cooking and he's going to be a cook for the local town. We shall see where he wants to go from here. I'm avoiding any overaching plot yet until he's grounded on what he wants to do with the character.
Love the idea of using time in an effective timed manner though. Definitely going to borrow that.