Let’s say it isn’t a no-brainer whether to block or not. But imagine that your opponent has a single critter that you can block. You could just cycle through your deck, even begin your turn while your opponent was still doing his. Yeah, it’s not likely to happen but let’s pretend what would happen: the game would devolve into a solitaire race of who draws the best cards. Imagine playing a game of Magic the Gathering between two unblockable, no interaction, non-optimized critter decks. Plan time exits when there’s a possibility of achieving something, or of planning for the future, or there’s a lot riding on what your opponent does. Rest time is the opposite: you can’t do anything but you can step away from the table (either physically or mentally). Plan time is the positive aspect of dead time: you can’t do anything, you can’t step away from the table but you’re still engaged in the game. You can’t do anything, you’re not engaged in the game and yet you can’t step away from the table either. I’ve taken the liberty of naming them plan time, dead time and rest time.ĭead time is what most people think about when they think about downtime, a period of time that’s dead. I’ve always thought there was but one but in retrospect it’s easy to see that there’s always been two and, if one draws the analysis a step further, three, and I hate only one of them.

Sequential gaming