Re: 1:1 time between campaign and real world

Alex Schroeder <alex@alexschroeder.ch> wrote:

In rec.games.frp.dnd 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?
[...]
I was thinking lately that esp. Traveller might have been intended to
be used with something like that, as every jump between different
worlds is
exactly one week long. (allowing for players to jump into a system and
jump out at the end of the game, safely back on their ship)

yes, I am convinced it's just like that. Also finding a patron
takes one week (or rather the group is allowed one roll to find a
patron per week). Thus the referee should usually get one weeks worth
of time to dream something up, and present the group with a nice
patron encounter when next weeks session starts.

As one of the persons running a game with 1:1 time in a multi-referee
setup, I agree that there are sometimes very long breaks where you'd
think that people would do something. The party beats the Set cultists
and the session ends so there's no time to secure a power base and by
the time you get back, weeks have passed. Fair or unfai?

In these cases, I would allow the group to drop back in time. And
continue where they left off last time. Same thing if we have to end the
session in the middle of a dungeon crawl. It happens, and it shouldn't
be disruptive to the player experience.

In another multi-referee setup, each referee is responsible for a region
of the setting, each region has a Discord channel and a bot keeps track
of the current in-game date for each channel. Advance the calendar as
you see fit, with the long term goals of both using 1:1 time if possible
, and catching up to the channel who's furthest ahead. Now the the
problem in AD&D is that training and travel to trainers takes more than
a week. In some cases, finding a high level magic user means travelling
to the magic university, the whole trip takes 29 in-game days. So next
session, there is a little pressure to just advance the calendar by +29
days. Do this once or twice and your region plays in the future of every
other region and travel of player characters between regions becomes
impossible, making the unique premise a problem.

"YOU CANNOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE
NOT KEPT!"

So, what to do? In a best-effort hybrid approach I think we would prefer
1:1 time passing. Then there's no discussion between the referees of the
setting. In addition to that, in a particular location, a referee can "l
ock it up" by not advancing the time between sessions for an extended
dungeon exploration. The consequences are: the location is "off limits"
for other parties while this is happening. If, at a later date, the
first party "gives up" or is slain or imprisoned, any rescue attempts
must start in real-time, so many weeks later, even if that is also
problematic. Essentially the feature is: When the camera leaves the
dungeon, time catches up.

I try to avoid it however as much as I can. Having a group that has
dropped back to the past catch up, can be much more complicated then
having characters in the future wait until campaign time catches up
with them.

Also a group in the past is prone to lock up larger areas of the campaign
map, just as you describe. We can not know what will have happened
... gives me headaches!

When the group is in the future it's much easier to see.

cheers,

lkh

--
Laurens Kils-Hütten
PGP: 487E D5A5 41A1 E9A7 07AD  4990 E34F 096D 35DE 0A86