Officially, it isn't popular I guess. If not, we'd see all the triple AAA companies insert time limits into every single game as much as they do DRM. Programming might be another issue. It is after all, a feature that has to be worked into a game, with planning and resources dedicated to it.

The thing with video games, is that they are an interactive medium. Ideally, every gamer can play and toy with a videogame the perfect way that you'd desire, filled to the brim with everything you could possibly want, and nothing you wouldn't want to see. However, that is rather impossible. So, on the technical side, a good developer should try to imbue as much mechanical variety as they can. Like, for example, several difficulty options, where you can allow lax exploration, easier combat and no time limits, to a more challenging level, where most obstacles are enhanced, and a time limit to a go along together with it, plus greater rewards for fulfilling them.

For myself, I dislike time limits, as I play RPGs for escapism. The want to immerse myself in the world, it's gorgeousness, the myriad happenings I can experience within, and enjoy everything there is to offer at preferably my own pace. I also have to confess to be being the sort of gamer who deems a game of a greater value, if there are plenty of areas where I can traverse, scavenge and complete lots of quests and stuff.

One RPG that I've come across which has a very real time limit, for nearly every segment that you undertake, is "Nights of Azure" or "Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon" (it's sequel). It should give anyone a high sense of urgency/saving the world.

Yeah, that is my point, game with a time limit should be short with a high replayability value. Maybe like a rouglike game - you are not suppoused to succeed on the first try nor on your second or third, and you won't see all the content in one playthrough. And some randomness would be necessary otherwise retrying it will get boring. Just adding time limit to already existing game (like Witcher 3) will end badly of course.

RPGs are about whatever the developers want them to be about.
Preconceptions like these are exactly as needlessly limiting as saying "fantasy stories are about good versus evil". They don't have to be. A tightly-focused survival RPG with a strict time limit wouldn't be any less an RPG because it lacks a focus on exploration.
"RPG" is nothing more than a[n extremely vague] set of mechanics. The setting, tone, intended gameplay style, and length of game could vary quite wildly from something like an Elder Scrolls or a Final Fantasy. Take a look at the tabletop RPG scene for a truer idea of the breadth of possible experiences.

Also, the issue being discussed is not limited to RPGs. Story missions and cutscenes stating or implying urgency, despite the utter lack of any evidence corroborating that -- either mechanically or in the "ambient" story occurrences outside those sequences -- is a type of story-gameplay disconnect which can be present in any story-oriented game that also has some sort of non-modal "free-play" possible outside of story missions. (For example, The Saboteur, which I'm currently playing though, and which is definitely not an RPG.)

Do FTL and Spelunky count as having a time limit? You can't stay on any screen too long. In Spelunky the ghost will get you and in FTL you have the rebel fleet chasing you.

Yes, but the time limit is a VERY generous one. It intrigues me how plagren could surpass that. Perhaps, he's even more of an explorer than I am (no square left unturned!). And I play games like really slowly. :D

I'd rather see less games with a "save the world" plot.

Urgency often translates to linearity, and exploring worlds is more fun to me than urgently running along corridors. And games that give you huge interesting worlds to explore but punish you for exploring them are evil.

Yeah, like medkits giving you health instantly it's just another reality sacrifice you make to the game being fun. What I will say though is that as games get more and more real and story-driven these kinds of things do stand out more and more. Not sure what the solution to that is.

From what I hear, the Mooncrash DLC for Prey (2017) might be such a game. Apparently it has a time limit that encourages you to play the game differently than you would in the main campaign.

I think you're conflating issues and then providing an incorrect solution to them.
You say "RPGs are all about saving the world!"
Your solution is "There should be time limits for RPGs!"

So yeah, a lot of RPGs are about saving the world. That can get boring and generic. Every RPG shouldn't have to be about that. But then the solution is better stories or better game design, not time limits.

For example, the story of the Hobbit, although it takes place in a full and rich world with loads of stuff going on, isn't about saving the world. It's just about a heist. An adventure. An RPG can be about that.

But even if an RPG has to be about saving the world, that doesn't mean it has to be time sensitive. For example, I think the events of the Lord of the Rings takes place over the time-frame of an entire year, but even before that, the time from the "rebirth" of Sauron to his coming out into the open is 2000 years, and it's still another 70 before Gandalf tasks Frodo with doing anything about the ring.

So don't design your game so that 20 hours on from screaming after the escaped wizard Morlack with your dead baby's corpse in your hands, you find yourself collecting herbs so that you can make the best pie in the cooking contest at the village 4 stops over. Have your sidequests be optional content that flesh out the main thrust of the story.

So yeah, fun things in CRPGs:
Exploration
Mucking about with the different systems
Gaining power step by step so that by nearly the end game you're basically a god

Things that work against these fun bits of RPGs:
Time limits


An idea I had was that instead of having a time limit, your actions would have an opportunity cost. And technically, that would play very well into an aspect of roleplaying that is almost never explored in games: the actual consequences of the actions you take and the roles you play. Doing X fundamentally readjusts your story, and you can never do Y in that playthrough. I know that people say that the Witcher games do this, but from what I've seen of them, that's more a fork in the road where both paths eventually lead you back to the same path.
So like...joining the Thieves' Guild would mean you cannot progress in the Fighter's guild, thus you may eventually become an expert sneaky thief and locksmith, but you'll never have the most powerful weapons, or do the most damage.

The problem even with this idea is immediately apparent. I play RPGs as a hodgepodge of character traits that aim to eventually become the best at almost everything, and the idea of missing out content unless I replay the whole game can be frustrating.

One way to deal with these problems: Include something like a New Game + feature, or a restart time feature. Basically, provide a way of resetting the world without resetting the player, so that the player can take the other route.

Zelda: Majora's Mask does this, though that game did also have a time limit (which is reset when you reset the world).

Hah, but both are examples of quests with a time limit, the first more strict and the second more fluid.

In Hobbit they need to arive before the day of Durin or the secret door won't open and the whole operation would end badly (they would have to wait whole year or just come back emptyhanded).

And in Lord of the Rings 70 years pass, because Gandalf doesn't know that Frodo's ring is The Ring. When he learns that the existence of the time limit becomes very clear - ring has to be secured before Sauron's servants find it and destroyed before he regains too much of his old power.

Technically, it isn't really a time limit; for the quest to fail, something needs to happen with Frodo.

If Frodo were somehow able to avoid his ring bing taken (and if the ring kept being passed on to further defenders), the quest could be continued indefinitely.

Similarly, in games without time limits, if the player is able to survive indefinitely, the villains will never succeed (unless the game softlocks and you count that as the villains succeeding).

aye

Dead Rising has a time limit, and quests occur based on a defined schedule. You're not expected to beat the main quest on the first pass, and you keep the levels and skills you've gained.

It's not the main quest, but Black City/White Forest in Pokémon Black and White have an unadvertised time limit for completing the game which affects the population of the area. It's a terrible mechanic, especially for people like me who love to savour Pokémon games and rack up hundreds of hours before finishing the main quest.

This is what I mean by "fluid" or "soft" time limit. This is what happens in strategy games with active AI and it's considered to be normal there.

But the council in Rivendel decided that there is no way to hide the ring and they are not able to just turtle defending it, and sooner or later it must be destroyed. And it sounds like the time limit.