Each episode or gaming session is exactly one hour long. I use an alarm clock to time it. The game is in "real time" meaning that as one hour passes in the real world, so does one hour pass in game time as well. The entire campaign is what happens in one day - 24 hours/24 game sessions.
While I wouldn't recommend this style of play for most adventures (indeed, most of the time I will DM a regular style of pace), it has been kind of cool for a change. It really forces your players to think and act fast. They can't stop to dwadle at some blacksmith to buy weapons or haggle with the stablemaster over the price of a horse. They can't stop to think and ponder what the puzzles mean, or make strategies on how to handle their enemies. They need to keep things MOVING. If they waste time, then the clock keeps moving and events spin out of their control. This has made for some intense gaming sessions. I allow 2 "timeouts" for the group per session for bathroom breaks, eating, or other non-game activities.
The only downside is that there are not too many great opportunities for roleplaying when you're keeping everything moving so fast. But there have been a couple of hours in my game when it's been all about "talking" with NPCs or other non-combat, running around scenes. It's also hard to time yourself. You've got to make sure you're not taking too long to explaining things to your players or the clock gets away from you too.
Anyone ever try something like this? Did it work for you?
I haven't watched 24 but I get the concept, and I can see it adding a little flavor to the campaign as long as the plot is justified, in that one shot adventure kind of way.
A murder mystery that maybe evolves from a dinner party gone bad, leaving all the guests, barring the errand boy, locked in the host's home until the boy can retrieve the local authorities and bring them to the scene of the crime. But with the weather worsening (frickin' Dark Powers!) and another guest found dead, the mystery might just have to be solved more out of self-preservation than by the actual authorities...
Cliche, but then again, 'cliche' is just another word for 'classic'. ;) All you as a DM have to do is put a right good spin on things, and make it a classic moment in and maybe of your campaign.
And to keep yourself on-time as a DM, I'll offer ther suggestion to keep things simple; restricted to the five senses and of 'the now' of the moment. What a character tunes in to is what they focus on, and that is something that you as a DM control. :D Just be fair to the individual nature of each PC (example: their skill ranks) and you'll do just fine.
I also decided that there wouldn't be a major battle in every "episode." There is always some kind of action, but it's not always nessecarily a fight scene. And when fights did occur, they would never last forever. We've only had one real fight so far, and there will only be about 3 more big fights later in the campaign, but not until towards the 9th hour (we're only up to our 5th hour so far).
Finally, this is a mostly low-magic group. Nobody is casting spells and we're not using the 10,000 combat rules that 3e has to say about every little thing that clog up this style of game. They have to tell me what their character does in a matter of seconds, in one sentence, we roll the dice, and it's done. They can't start babbling about their feats and skills in a fight scene, because if you do, you might lose your turn (and possibly get attacked next).
My favorite comment from one of my players compared it to a football game. He said it's like being behind in the 4th quarter. You don't want to run the clock down and the team (PCs) can't stop to huddle and discuss what their next play is - you've got to make your plays as fast as you can and score before the time runs out!
It's not all about the action anyway (or it wouldn't be Ravenloft ;) ). A couple of episodes have been more about mystery, spookiness, and learning who our villian is. The basic plot is about stopping an arsonist in the city of Levkarest. So far, there is only one villian (as far as they know!), so battles have been scarce thus far.
Like I said, the thing I miss the most is the lack of roleplaying. In a regular style of game, you have those scenes where roleplaying takes over. Those subtle, seemingly inconsequential interactions with NPCs that don't seem that important (but actually are since they define who the PC really is). In this kind of campaign, some of that is missing, because they just don't have the time to chat with everyone. But this is a one-off campaign, so it's not going to be lost forever. ;)