Scenes, Rounds, and Mission Time

During play, three special measures of time are used: scenes, rounds, and mission time.

Scenes

A scene is a time measurement used to determine how often certain abilities or actions can be taken. Some cyber can be triggered only so many times per scene, while some special abilities only work once per scene.

A scene is one particular fight, event, activity, or effort that usually doesn’t take more than ten or fifteen minutes. A fight is a scene. A chase is a scene. A tense backroom negotiation is a scene. So long as the PCs are doing the same general activity in the same general location, it’s probably one scene. Most scenes don’t last more than fifteen minutes, though a GM can stretch this if it seems logical.

During mission time, as described below, a scene automatically refreshes after every fight or after every ten minutes of mission time.

Rounds

Combat is made up of rounds, each one lasting approximately six seconds. A single combat may involve multiple rounds of action. A round begins with the actions of the side that wins initiative and ends after the actions of the side that lost initiative.

Mission Time

During infiltrations, chases, or other periods of extended action where timekeeping is very important, time is measured in mission time. Mission time begins at minute zero and then ticks over every minute as the PCs infiltrate a facility, flee the corp security, or escape the night club riot. Most activities during mission time are assumed to take one minute, such as searching a desk, picking a lock at normal speed, hotwiring a car, engaging in a fight, or so forth. Some tasks may take longer, such as five minutes to apply first aid to anyone who needs it, or ten minutes to thoroughly search a room. The GM decides how long an activity takes when it’s ambiguous.

The minute-by-minute tracking of mission time is important because there is a good chance of a team’s discovery by patrolling security, or a steadily-escalating response by an alerted facility’s guards. The longer the PCs take to do their job, the more likely it is that something will go wrong.