Above ground, time is the currency. Every day you get a pool of Time Points (TP), split into Day and Night. You never have enough for everything — choosing what not to do is the game. A dungeon delve is billed in this same currency, which is why "should we go in today?" is always a real decision.
The DM sets the budget based on what kind of day it is:
| DAY TYPE | ☀ DAY | ☾ NIGHT |
|---|---|---|
| School / work weekday | 2 | 2 |
| Saturday or off day | 4 | 2 |
| Special day (break, holiday, snow day) | 5–6 | 2 |
| Summer vacation | 4 | 2 |
Your home life adjusts it. Examples:
Most activities use thresholds: you declare how deep you're going, and more points = more result. You can stop early — plan for 3, spend 2, and you get the 2-point result.
| ACTIVITY | 1 PT | 2 PTS | 3–4 PTS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visit an NPC | Check-in: a quick beat, stay on their radar | Real talk: relationship progress + meaningful info | Extended: bigger progress, a favor or revelation |
| Investigate a place | Glance: confirm/deny one fact | Search: 1–2 finds | Comb through: everything there is |
| Do Research | [OK outcome] | [Good outcome] | [Great Intel] |
(note: this is not an exhaustive list, you can describe where you want to go & what you want to do, and the DM will adjudicate TP Investment vs. Checks/Success from there)
So the question is never just "do I talk to Mrs. Devereaux" —
it's "do I really TALK to her today, or just check in?"
Depending on the circumstances, you may want to have all/multiple party members invest TP in the same activity. In many cases (ex. pouring through library archives for info on a key piece of lore to help with the current quest) putting more bodies on a task will improve odds and degree of success.
However, this may not always be the case. Perhaps you need to have a conversation with an NPC to get info, and this NPC really dislikes ONE of the PCs. In that case, it'd probably be best if that character spent TP elsewhere.
In any case, group TP spend is never required or assumed as the default. The default assumption is that each PC has their own bank of TP to spend as they see fit — and it's up to each PC to decide whether they want to do their own thing, or tag along with other PCs while in-town.
Whether your family expects you home between the Day and Night blocks is a per-character, per-day thing — it depends on your home life and what's on the calendar that day. Some nights the house is empty and Day and Night flow together freely; other nights a planned family dinner makes a "late" return a problem even if you're back before nine.
Every rule here bends in the fiction — with a trade-off. The classic move: all of you tell your parents you're at a sleepover at someone else's place, so nobody's expecting anyone home — freeing up the whole night. The catch is the delayed fuse: if two sets of parents compare notes, the cover unravels retroactively, and the consequences will likely be worse for everyone than if you just came home late one night. Workarounds are earned through roleplay; the trade-off is the point.
The town opens up as the story unfolds — and as you explore it. There's no pre-printed full map of Mercer Falls at the start of the adventure — over time, story elements & investigation will introduce new locations around town. And once found, a place is available to spend your Time Points on at any point from then on. Early Mercer Falls is small; by the time school starts, you'll find it's much more wide open.