Post/Author/DateTime	Post
mmockus 09-17-07, 12:33 AM	First off I'm not looking to start a 3rd TU thread :P , and the topic, though inspired by it, seemed different enough to warrant discussion. Currently in Living Greyhawk, the campaign world advances at the same rate as the real world. This is convenient and makes it easier for people to keep track of where in time the campaign is. But in looking back over the past 7 year, WOW… Multiple wars, region threatening event, regimes toppled, and characters globe-trotting all over Oerth with little time to catch their breath. While it was an easy mechanic to maintain, it does lack a certain degree of reality. It could takes\ years for a medieval society to prepare for war, recover from war, or for that matter for the succession of a ruler to even complete. With the 1-to-1 year pace, we can’t always depict this. Now realism is not always necessary to maintain, but this slow progression of time does limit us a bit. In a home campaign you have the luxury to pace the campaign as you see fit. An entire gaming month might only move the campaign world forward a few days, but then the heroes return to civilization, rest, spend their loot, etc, and years may pass. In a Living campaign, one could not so haphazardly advance the timeline, because the entire campaign needs to stay on a consistent timeline. What if the campaign were to advance 5 years for every real world year, or 10? It would have some challenges, but would also create some possibilities.
Reneshat 09-17-07, 01:15 AM	They would probably have to coordinate the passage of time with the novels and supplements. If both the campaign and the books are supposed to affect the world, they need to progress at roughly the same rate.
Skerrit 09-17-07, 12:53 PM	Yes, this is a discussion the Global Admins and Chris will likely have with the Brand and Novels guys. The mods will likely progress as fast as the FR storyline does, since there are plans to have some overlap.
UMiskatonic 09-17-07, 03:35 PM	I've played in a number of homegames where time advances in quick bursts. It was usually an opportunity to do things off-camera, like start businesses or families. Interesting idea...
amysrevenge 09-17-07, 09:40 PM	I'll admit that it hadn't occurred to me, but the idea of advancing the game timeline is an appealing one to me. I like it. Big Mike
cetiken 09-17-07, 09:41 PM	Time progresses in sequence? I find that theory hard to swallow especially when its possible to play some series in reverse order. I could care less about time, as the only suitable format for the story of my character is that of his retired and aged self recanting past adventures in the order they occur to him. However, some of you I'm sure can't suspend disbelief so well and want some rational structure that won't actually make sense for the individual characters (probably - I guess you could theoretically play every adventure in the order its published), but will seem reasonable to the overall campaign.
KoboldChieftain 09-17-07, 11:32 PM	... While it was an easy mechanic to maintain, it does lack a certain degree of reality. It could takes\ years for a medieval society to prepare for war, recover from war, or for that matter for the succession of a ruler to even complete. With the 1-to-1 year pace, we can’t always depict this. Now realism is not always necessary to maintain, but this slow progression of time does limit us a bit. ... What if the campaign were to advance 5 years for every real world year, or 10? It would have some challenges, but would also create some possibilities. Medieval society didn't have fireball. or Druids. or Demons. or ..... you get the idea.... This does have interesting possiblities. I feel the way LG handled things was a bit rushed but that comes from people wanting to participate in a story from start to finish in a reasonable timeframe. Having a compressed game time frame would accomplish that without seeming to weird. The problem comes in the lifetimes of the scenarios. Say each scenario was good for three years and we had a 5:1 time ratio. That means you could play a scenario set at the current time and then one 15 years earlier. That gets a bit much. The current concept of being three years earlier is also a bit of a stretch but much better than 15.
MatteBlack 09-18-07, 11:13 AM	My gut tells me anything much past 2 to one would sort of be a waste of years. How many months, weeks or days in a Faerurnian year? If their year is longer it could be a good excuse to get more into our real time year. Maybe even give a few more TUs if that system survives into LFR.
jhorred 09-18-07, 11:32 AM	My gut tells me anything much past 2 to one would sort of be a waste of years. How many months, weeks or days in a Faerurnian year? If their year is longer it could be a good excuse to get more into our real time year. Maybe even give a few more TUs if that system survives into LFR. I agree. Anything faster would make things seem to happen too slow. The OP is right that it historically took years for things to happen, but at the same time, the same things currently don't take nearly as long due to advancements in science and technology. I see magic as a rough equivalent to this technology so I think that using the historical basis as being too slow. I think that time should be kept at 1:1 or even 2:1 at the fastest to maintain somewhat of a fantasy novel feel as we are dealing with fantasy world. Granted some story lines would be of the more long term type needing years to develop, but I'd just have most of the buildup happen 'offscreen' to concentrate on the main part of the story line. I think most story lines don't need the long germination time. Given the time to write edit and publish mods, it could be a challenge to write a multiple adventure story and publish it in a timeframe matching the in game passage of time to the story line.
Vamroc 09-23-07, 10:50 AM	How about we just age charactors and TU's consititute one week with no limits on how many we have. Your charactor could age any where from one to five years. With adaptables like RHOD and Fane of the Drow and more multi part high TU mods coming. This way when you get older they could set retirement at an age rather than a level. With thirty levels a charactor is just going to start getting interesting at level fifteen.