Re: 1:1 time between campaign and real world

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 16 Jun 2024 12:59:10 -0000 (UTC),
<smaug@ereborbbs.duckdns.org> wrote:
 

What do you think about using a straight up 1:1 time between real world
and campaign in a game?
[...]

We tried that a few times in our various campaigns. It ended up
feeling more like a gimmick than anything that made the game feel more
fun and playable.
 
In-session, it just added unnecessary pressure both on players and the
DM. And it didn't really make much sense, anyway, since PLAYING an
action (announcing actions, rolling dice, etc.) take more time than
actually doing them in game. And because a three-minute-in-game battle
took fifteen-minutes-in-session, the players had to rush everything
else to try to make up time.

Ah, I think here's a misunderstanding of the concept. As far as I
understand it, 1:1 is a concept for campaign management. In each
individual session it's also important to keep time records, but
things may well move in slo-mo, like a battle, or skip ahead, like
when travelling over land.

While I'm firmly in the 1:1 campaign time camp, thinks take whatever
time they need in the sessions I'm running. Thus 1:1 time shouldn't
feel disruptive but add some extra realism to a campaign. It does become
crucial, when there are more then one adventuring party roaming around
the same game world.

For example in a game I ran this last saturday the group skipped ahead
somewhat, and covered 5 days of campaign time. Right now (today) they're
still three days in the future. That's when they're session ended. On
their way they met another character how is taking part in the campaign
in play by post fashion. So this character has gotten an update, about
how he met the group, and where they wanted to go, but cannot know what
will happen to them until they return. Which will only be on thursday this
week.  Lots of time for other shenaningans to happen in the meantime.

*If* the players who played on saturday, would want to play tonight, they
could only play other characters, because their saturday's characters
are already in the future.

Characters can skip to the future for significant amounts of time if
they decide to go on some lengthy but rather unadventurous errants.
Time to develop a new character and maybe start another story line.

Out-session was slightly more interesting but, again, hard to keep
synchronized. We'd take a break for a week from playing and the PCs
had a week off too; cool! But then Paul would cancel and Mary had to
go the doctor, and before you know it that next session was a month
later... what have our characters been doing all that time?

Real life things happen to characters, too?

An obvious answer for that last question would be: working! GURPS
sort of implies that characters also have a job apart from being
adventurers.

I feel 1:1 time done right rather helps in synchronizing multi-threaded
campaigns.

There are times when, as GM, I put pressure on the players -"You have
five minutes to solve this puzzle!"- but those are exceptions.
Normally there's a distinct separation between game time and real time
because it's just more fun that way.

These things *can* be fun though. I've got a ten minute hourglass I
sometimes put on the table visibly to remind the group how turns are
passing (of course they do know that each new turn triggers a roll
for random encounters). It only works for realtime activities, like
when the group is discussing or arguing in character, or as in your
case solving a puzzle.

Cheers,

lkh

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