Scales of Time

Over the course of your story, the speed to of time at which the story is told will vary from scene to scene. When you are battling a foe or running from a monster, every second matters. When you are travelling or waiting for a research to complete, days can pass by in a sentence. The Fates will need to be able to understand at which time scale the story is currently operating in and resolve actions accordingly.

In Home Defiant, the game can run if four primary time scales:

• Default Time. This is the standard timescale the game usually operates in. In this time scale, order of smaller actions being resolved don't really matter. Only those taken an hour or more is really taken into account.
• Encounter Time. This is a timescale used when every second matters. To confirm cause and effect, a timeline is kept track in at this timescale to determine which creature acts first. Actions that matter in this timescale resolves in seconds. Longer actions are usually not worth performing in this timescale. Encounter Time can be used in combat, during a chase or even a debate.
• Danger Time. This is a timescale used when time matters, sequence of individual actions matters less but the time spent performing those action matter. In this time scale, actions are usually resolved in minutes. Danger Time is used when you are exploring a dungeon, performing a heist, or even preparing for an assault.
• Down Time. This is a timescale used when time only matters in long stretches. Actions performed in this timescale are often condensed actions from shorter time scales where actions will take days or even weeks to resolve. Down Time is used during travel, timeskips or performing a long term project.