TimeBetweenTurns

Usually, shorter turns are considered better, with constant engagement of all the players a kind of 'holy grail' of game designers.

A different opinion comes from Andrew_Looney?, who actually prefers games with lots of down time so he can go do something else (such as playing another game with some down time.) The exception is games that are true real-time.

• Puerto_Rico? breaks what might have been phases in another game into a series of roles, which all players do at the same time, but still in order around the table. The net result is a lot of little turns without large down times between them.
• Chess players, among others, use the time that their opponent is thinking to plan their own next move. Chess, of course, is only a two player game, so you don't multiply the single turn down time by the number of other players...
• Icehouse? and Ice_Towers? are real-time games, where a player can act whenever he sees a good move.
• In Zendo? or Clue?, players take turns, but other players must pay attention to gather information.
• In Deadwood, players have fairly frequent turns, but most of them are "roll the die - oh, nothing happened" and then on to the next player. Perhaps "time between MeaningfulChoices" would be a better rule.

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