A question about time.... [Archive] - Wizards Community

A question about time.... [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
DarkLord93
02-27-06, 11:12 PM Hallow fellow DMs... I have a question about time...

When do the PCs have to sleep? When do they have to eat. Does the DM makes up these stuff?
How
long is one hour... How long is one day? I know 1turn is 6 secs.. but that doesnt help. Please help me out. Oh.. and some good adventure ideas would be great too.
Bryarr
02-28-06, 04:35 AM Hallow fellow DMs... I have a question about time...

When do the PCs have to sleep? When do they have to eat. Does the DM makes up these stuff?

Sleep: 8 hrs per 24 hrs (4 if you're an elf)
Eat: I'd say at least twice a day.
Yes, yes I do.

How long is one hour... How long is one day? I know 1turn is 6 secs.. but that doesnt help. Please help me out.

Actually, it does. Let me introduce you to a little something called grammar school arithmetic.
1 round = 6 seconds = 1/10 of a minute. Therefore, 10 rounds in one minute.
60 minutes in one hour, therefore 600 rounds in one hour.
24 hours in one day, therefore 14,400 rounds in one day.
Lets take it a bit further, shall we?
(assuming you're not using forgotten realm's tendays) 7 days in a week, therefore 100,800 rounds in one week.
I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Bry
Achinca
02-28-06, 09:21 AM When do the PCs have to sleep? When do they have to eat. Does the DM makes up these stuff?

It all depends on your adventure. If it is a pure dungeon crawler and they do not leave it until they finish the quest or get killed, assume they ate and rested prior to entering the dungeon.
If it is more complex (i.e. travelling time, hanging in the town, etc), you need to have this figure out before (e.g. going from the town to the ruins takes a day).
As the DM, it is your world so you need to thin in advance about these rules. DMing is not just coming up with a random generated map with a random generated monsters dispatched because of dice rolls (unless you are a wargamer). It is a bout creating a world and all the rules that govern this world (that will apply to your story). If it is too much work, then do not DM.
Canned Man
02-28-06, 09:39 AM I, for one, use the ten-day-calendar. Whether you use this or not, is up to you. You end up with 365 days a year anyway. My group has a great way to keep track of time. They write a log as we play, as a diary. In this log, they keep track of time as I tell them what happens, and the next time we have a session, this log is used to give a quick roundup of what happened the last time. Another benefit of this, is that the player's more easily get a feeling of the weather and climate this way. For the time being, we're in "The Time of Flowers" (blomsterverv in Norwegian). Since we're playing in a temperate climate, the PCs expect warm summer days, I make sure to remind them how green the grass is, remind them of bird song, so that the days they wake up freezing cold, due to rain, and hear nothing apart from the wind and rain, they more easily imagine how this impairs their arrow-shooting, spotting, and so on. When we close to autumn and winter, they will expect rain, wind, and all that, moving on to snow, and the impairment that impacts on movement.

So keep a close track of time. It greatly improves your game.
Sereno
02-28-06, 10:18 AM Timekeeping is one of the DM's most difficult chores. I highly recommend that you develop a proper calendar for your campaign to keep track of days (and when things happen ... it adds realism if things occur regardless of what the PCs are doing).

You need to estimate how much time the PCs are taking, and let them know (roughly) how much time passes each day. Even in the dungeon. Keeping track is easier if you write it down as you go along; 20 min. searching, 1 hour walking, 2 min. fighting/recovering, etc....

People, in general, have a decent sense of time even without day and night ... not to the second or the minute, but close enough for gaming.

There's nothing wrong with telling them, "You've been walking and fighting for about twelve hours now. You're starting to get tired and should think about making camp, somewhere."

IMC, I don't worry about the consumption of food and water ... I just assume they have or can find enough or at least have a cleric or druid with a Create Food and Water spell or wand.
mike_beavers
02-28-06, 11:04 AM A calender is important. It sets a sense of passage of time within a campaign. You could have holidays, holy days and all would have effects on the campaign setting. I use a 365 calender and have the phases of the moon listed on it. Other races could have slightly different calenders. I use a 12 month calender for the humans. The gnomes have a 13 month calender. The elves use seasons to mark passage, etc.

All this adds depth to a campaign IMO
R2
02-28-06, 11:28 AM In the Gregorian calendar:

One year is the time it takes for the planet to make a full revolution around the sun.
One month was originally the time it takes for the moon to go from New to Full and back again. There are about 28 days in a "moonth", this was changed to synch it up with the changing of the year in the Gregorian calendar.
One day is the time it takes for the planet to revolve on its axis.
One week is one quarter of a "moonth", or seven days -- a pretty convenient point between the short period of one day and the long period of one month.

Most methods of keeping time are based on the movement of heavenly bodies, but not all. Hours and minutes were more or less arbitrarily invented by monks who needed to keep track of what time of day it was so they could pray properly.

So basically, it all boils down to the cosmology of your gameworld -- the actual movement of planets and moons and suns. If you've got two moons on your gameworld, that's going to wreak havoc with timekeeping (and tides and all sorts of other natural phenomena beyond the scope of this post).

D&D offers some interesting options. Maybe planar cosmology affects the Prime Material plane. There are four elemental planes (plus Positive and Negative) and a whole slew of Higher Planes spinning around the Prime Material plane on a wheel. Maybe planes get "closer" and "farther" from the Prime Material plane during certain times that may or may not match up with mundane timekeeping.

For instance, perhaps during Vilemoon, a nine-day period, the Abyss is "closer" to Prime Material. Maybe you go so far to say that during Vilemoon, summoning Evil creatures and summoning Lawful creatures are at +1 caster level, while summoning creatures from the Abyss proper is at +1 caster level and affected by the Extend Spell feat. After nine days, the bonuses end -- until Justicemoon, the nine-day period when Mechanus swings closer to Prime Material, and only Lawful summons get the bonus.

Just last session the PCs were talking to some NPC dwarves, asking how long a particular mine shaft had been shut down. The dwarf spokesman turned and conversed in Dwarven with his subordinates for a minute before answering "Probably four or five of those whaddyacall'em... years. Yeah. Four, five years." Dwarves live underground, so measuring time by the movement of the sun would be foreign to them.
gregg0rz
02-28-06, 12:02 PM does anyone know where i can get a faerun 10 day calendar? Just the template, i can add the holidays and such in myself as per the FRCS manual ... but a nice excel sheet or something to start with would be awesome.
Canned Man
02-28-06, 08:22 PM The system is simple:
The year is divided into twelve months, each containing thirty days. The days of the months are divided into three ten-days, named new-moon, mid-month and old-moon (norw.: nymåne, midtmåne og nemåne). When referring to a day of a month, one simply uses the number and the week, for example "the second day of the mid-month", or one could say "the twenty-second day of The Time of Flowers".
Here's a list to make it simple:

Year: 12 months.
Month: 3 tendays.
Tendays: Named Newmoon, Midmonth and Oldmoon (nymåne, midtmåne og nemåne).
Days: Referred to by their number in the tenday, not by name (no Monday, Tuesday etc.).
Holidays: Midwinter, after Deepwinter.
Greengrass, after The Claw of the Storms.
Midsummer, after Summertide.
Highharvesttide, after The Fading.
The Feast of the Moon, after The Drawing Down.
Shieldmeet, each fourth year after Midsummer.

Source: EbonWolfs Realm: FR Calendar:
The day has 24 hour cycles, and each hour is 60 minutes. Each minute consists of 10 segments called clicks (a segment is 6 seconds).

The calendar can be found at the Meadhall (http://www.meadehall.org/calendar.shtml).

For those of you who are Norwegian, below is the translation we use. It's not a direct translation, but rather an attempt to find corresponding Norwegian/Norse names.
Credits go to Cordelia Buckenback the halfling sorceress, for completing the collaborate work in our group.

The months/månedene:
Deepwinter – Dypfrosten
The Claw of Winter – Vinterhold
The Claw of the Sunsets – Solfall
The Claw of the Storms – Stormgrep
The Melting – Smeltingen
The Time of Flowers – Blomsterverv
Summertide – Høysommer
Highsun – Høysol
The Fading – Skumringen
Leaffall – Løvfellingen
The Rotting – Høsthell
The Drawing Down – Nyvinter

The holydays/helligdagene
Midwinter – Vinterfesten
Greengrass – Gressgrønt
Midsummer – Midtsommer
Highharvesttide – Slåttefest
The Feast of the Moon – Månegilde
Shieldmeet – Skjoldating
IceStella
02-28-06, 08:33 PM Man that seems so complicated...If i was more awake, it'd prolly make sense.

Here's how we do it...

Rations..One a day should do...Use the survival Skill to work out if you manage to preserve resources.

As for sleep...Our Dm is pretty easy going...If we wear out quite quickly, he lets us rest until the next day (rolling for wandering monsters). As long as we make sure one person is always on watch...People mostly sleep in two six to eight shiufts depending on if they are a spellcaster.

I have to say tho...I find that many players and some dm's don't really bother with that at all...And just assume that unless you decide to stay awake...that you get some sleep and wake up reinvigourated.

Edit -- BTW...Thanks Canned Man. I'm interested in Norwegian stuff...And that was a little bit f interesting info, Thanks!
Canned Man
02-28-06, 08:46 PM Sure, no problem, and I'm glad you're interested in Norwegian.

I've updated the post with a small list, to make it simpler.
PSchirf
02-28-06, 10:46 PM My game world, Erda, has a 364 day year divided into 13 months, each containing 28 days (4 weeks of 7 days each). The New Year Festival Day falls on the winter solstice. The first day of the month is always the first day of the week and is also a new moon. The full moon is always on the 15th.

I often side-cut large blocks of time passage between sessions. Examples have included everything from having the group winter at a friendly noble's castle to having several years pass so that children may mature, stuctures can be built, or wars can be fought. I don't do this to penalize short lived races... I always negotiated these time-advances with the players.
DarkLord93
03-01-06, 03:03 AM Well then... If the PCs are traveling through grasslands... or to somewhere, to a far away place. Does that mean that the traveling could take only a few seconds in the real world by just saying "you`ve been walking for some hours and.." you get the idea. It may be simple to you guys but its upsetting my ming so much. And the ideas above my reply has helped quite a bit. But I`m still not sure.
Sereno
03-01-06, 08:49 AM Well then... If the PCs are traveling through grasslands... or to somewhere, to a far away place. Does that mean that the traveling could take only a few seconds in the real world by just saying "you`ve been walking for some hours and.." you get the idea. It may be simple to you guys but its upsetting my ming so much. And the ideas above my reply has helped quite a bit. But I`m still not sure.

Depends on how you want the adventure to go. Keith Baker wrote a really good Dragonshard article about travel (for Eberron, but valid in any game).
Here's a link: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20040719a

Depending on what's important, you can treat travel like the "red line" in the Indiana Jones movies, or make the Journey the Adventure, in and of itself.

If PCs are going to spend several days crossing uninhabited grasslands and the only purpose is to get to city of Durbon, you can do just that, "It takes three days to cross the GrassSea. You arrive at the walled city or Durbon without encountering anything more sinister than prairie dogs and soaring eagles."

The adventure begins in the city, and the lengthy travel is just a distraction; especially if it just boils down to a bunch of pointless "wandering monsters."

On the other hand, if the PCs are crossing dangerous terrain, have actual encounters planned out and make sure that "getting there" is the whole point. Make sure there are ruins to explore and other travelers to interact with. Monster encounters should be planned and connected to the main plot (or side plots).
Nom
03-01-06, 09:07 AM Emphatically yes.

Think of a movie or a novel. Interesting stuff gets a lot of attention, while less interesting stuff gets "They stayed in Lord Folget's castle for two weeks, before resuming their trek to Little Winding as autumn was turning into winter. Two weeks later they arrived at the gates of Little Winding under a threatening sky. Three days later the snows came." Four and a half weeks gone in 3 sentences.
R2
03-01-06, 10:18 AM "Winter changed into Spring. Spring changed into Summer. Summer changed back into Winter... and Winter gave Spring and Summer a miss and went straight on into Autumn."

If it isn't going to be fun for the players, gloss over it. The six-second turn is only for combat -- it'd be tedious to plot out every standard action and move action to get up, break camp, hike all day, and make camp again at nightfall.

If the characters have some "down time" between adventures, just ask them if they have anything they want to attend to. Most players will tell you they want to fix some armor or buy some new gear, and once they're done, you skip forward until the next interesting plot hook happens.
Canned Man
03-01-06, 12:28 PM Well then... If the PCs are traveling through grasslands... or to somewhere, to a far away place. Does that mean that the traveling could take only a few seconds in the real world by just saying "you`ve been walking for some hours and.." you get the idea. It may be simple to you guys but its upsetting my ming so much. And the ideas above my reply has helped quite a bit. But I`m still not sure.

I prefer rolling the d% and make a table to see if anything happens that is noteworthy during the travel. Being level 10 goody-good characters and meeting a band of thieving kobolds, can actually be a bit fun. It gives the players a feeling of having risen in power, which they have, and most players like that feeling.
When creating the encounter tables, I look at how the terrain is where they travel, and choose which monsters are likely to meet. If travelling through a rocky valley, giants are not unlikely to encounter. Likewise, when travelling through a heavily travelled forest, you can count on a tribe of goblins camping somewhere near the road, trying to kill and loot those who pass by. When they rise in level, the goblins might have an orc as their leader. When the characters are even higher leveled, it might be a large band of goblins, split into teams lead by orc captains, who answer to noone but the ogre mage. Or they just meet lowsy kobolds.
This, however, is how my groups like to play. If your groups just don't want all the more-or-less random encounters, base your decision on what's fun.
Feriin
03-01-06, 03:33 PM Well then... If the PCs are traveling through grasslands... or to somewhere, to a far away place. Does that mean that the traveling could take only a few seconds in the real world by just saying "you`ve been walking for some hours and.." you get the idea. It may be simple to you guys but its upsetting my ming so much. And the ideas above my reply has helped quite a bit. But I`m still not sure.

After reading this guys first and second post here, I have to ask myself this. Are people really this stupid?

I mean come on someone can't take 1 minute to calculate out how many turns there are in 1 minute, or how many turns in 1 hour? Nor can they make that leap that unimportant events can be skimmed over? Watch a movie ANY movie, does everything happen in the 92~240 minutes really happen in that same amount of time? No, take LoTR for example I believe the timeline was 13 months (give or take) but the movie was done in about 9 hours of real time.
Feriin
03-01-06, 03:47 PM Hallow fellow DMs... I have a question about time...

When do the PCs have to sleep? When do they have to eat. Does the DM makes up these stuff?
How
long is one hour... How long is one day? I know 1turn is 6 secs.. but that doesnt help. Please help me out. Oh.. and some good adventure ideas would be great too.

Going to answer this for you since you can't seem figure it out yourself.

PCs need to sleep 8 hours (4 if you an elf, and then only rest) a day. Try someting like the time when most people head to bed, you know about 10 at night then wake up at about 6 in the morning. People need roughly 1 hour of rest per 2 hours they are away. What this means if you stay up for 16 hours you need the next 8 hours for rest.

PCs should be eating ( taking small breaks about 30 min long) 3 or 4 times aday. These times should be soon after waking up, again around the noon hour , agian when it starts to dark , and 1 more time just before they head to bed. Again it isn't any different from when you should eat in the real world.

As for if the DM can make up the times that they eat and sleep, they should have a set time during the day when these events SHOULD take place. If they ( meaning the events) are skipped then the PCs start to take penalities on actions they do. Seriously this stuff is in the DMG, and ALL of it very logical to follow.

The amount of time in an hour,day,week,ect has already been answered.

For the idea of a good adventure. Have everyone at a town ( about 3000 population) , let the bad guy be an evil wizard that has unleashed some kind of plague that is killing the people of the town. Have the same Evil Wizard keep on making Zombies from the corpses of the dead people. ( his motives are to build up an army and take over a kingdom or something). The PC's ofcourse are going to try and stop this guy. Also have the town sealed off by some kings army, you know to try and contain the plague in the town. Anyone tries to leave they are killed, anyone tries to enter they are denied.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
DarkLord93 02-27-06, 11:12 PM	Hallow fellow DMs... I have a question about time... When do the PCs have to sleep? When do they have to eat. Does the DM makes up these stuff? How long is one hour... How long is one day? I know 1turn is 6 secs.. but that doesnt help. Please help me out. Oh.. and some good adventure ideas would be great too.
Bryarr 02-28-06, 04:35 AM	Hallow fellow DMs... I have a question about time... When do the PCs have to sleep? When do they have to eat. Does the DM makes up these stuff? Sleep: 8 hrs per 24 hrs (4 if you're an elf) Eat: I'd say at least twice a day. Yes, yes I do. How long is one hour... How long is one day? I know 1turn is 6 secs.. but that doesnt help. Please help me out. Actually, it does. Let me introduce you to a little something called grammar school arithmetic. 1 round = 6 seconds = 1/10 of a minute. Therefore, 10 rounds in one minute. 60 minutes in one hour, therefore 600 rounds in one hour. 24 hours in one day, therefore 14,400 rounds in one day. Lets take it a bit further, shall we? (assuming you're not using forgotten realm's tendays) 7 days in a week, therefore 100,800 rounds in one week. I could go on, but I think you get the point. Bry
Achinca 02-28-06, 09:21 AM	When do the PCs have to sleep? When do they have to eat. Does the DM makes up these stuff? It all depends on your adventure. If it is a pure dungeon crawler and they do not leave it until they finish the quest or get killed, assume they ate and rested prior to entering the dungeon. If it is more complex (i.e. travelling time, hanging in the town, etc), you need to have this figure out before (e.g. going from the town to the ruins takes a day). As the DM, it is your world so you need to thin in advance about these rules. DMing is not just coming up with a random generated map with a random generated monsters dispatched because of dice rolls (unless you are a wargamer). It is a bout creating a world and all the rules that govern this world (that will apply to your story). If it is too much work, then do not DM.
Canned Man 02-28-06, 09:39 AM	I, for one, use the ten-day-calendar. Whether you use this or not, is up to you. You end up with 365 days a year anyway. My group has a great way to keep track of time. They write a log as we play, as a diary. In this log, they keep track of time as I tell them what happens, and the next time we have a session, this log is used to give a quick roundup of what happened the last time. Another benefit of this, is that the player's more easily get a feeling of the weather and climate this way. For the time being, we're in "The Time of Flowers" (blomsterverv in Norwegian). Since we're playing in a temperate climate, the PCs expect warm summer days, I make sure to remind them how green the grass is, remind them of bird song, so that the days they wake up freezing cold, due to rain, and hear nothing apart from the wind and rain, they more easily imagine how this impairs their arrow-shooting, spotting, and so on. When we close to autumn and winter, they will expect rain, wind, and all that, moving on to snow, and the impairment that impacts on movement. So keep a close track of time. It greatly improves your game.
Sereno 02-28-06, 10:18 AM	Timekeeping is one of the DM's most difficult chores. I highly recommend that you develop a proper calendar for your campaign to keep track of days (and when things happen ... it adds realism if things occur regardless of what the PCs are doing). You need to estimate how much time the PCs are taking, and let them know (roughly) how much time passes each day. Even in the dungeon. Keeping track is easier if you write it down as you go along; 20 min. searching, 1 hour walking, 2 min. fighting/recovering, etc.... People, in general, have a decent sense of time even without day and night ... not to the second or the minute, but close enough for gaming. There's nothing wrong with telling them, "You've been walking and fighting for about twelve hours now. You're starting to get tired and should think about making camp, somewhere." IMC, I don't worry about the consumption of food and water ... I just assume they have or can find enough or at least have a cleric or druid with a Create Food and Water spell or wand.
mike_beavers 02-28-06, 11:04 AM	A calender is important. It sets a sense of passage of time within a campaign. You could have holidays, holy days and all would have effects on the campaign setting. I use a 365 calender and have the phases of the moon listed on it. Other races could have slightly different calenders. I use a 12 month calender for the humans. The gnomes have a 13 month calender. The elves use seasons to mark passage, etc. All this adds depth to a campaign IMO
R2 02-28-06, 11:28 AM	In the Gregorian calendar: One year is the time it takes for the planet to make a full revolution around the sun. One month was originally the time it takes for the moon to go from New to Full and back again. There are about 28 days in a "moonth", this was changed to synch it up with the changing of the year in the Gregorian calendar. One day is the time it takes for the planet to revolve on its axis. One week is one quarter of a "moonth", or seven days -- a pretty convenient point between the short period of one day and the long period of one month. Most methods of keeping time are based on the movement of heavenly bodies, but not all. Hours and minutes were more or less arbitrarily invented by monks who needed to keep track of what time of day it was so they could pray properly. So basically, it all boils down to the cosmology of your gameworld -- the actual movement of planets and moons and suns. If you've got two moons on your gameworld, that's going to wreak havoc with timekeeping (and tides and all sorts of other natural phenomena beyond the scope of this post). D&D offers some interesting options. Maybe planar cosmology affects the Prime Material plane. There are four elemental planes (plus Positive and Negative) and a whole slew of Higher Planes spinning around the Prime Material plane on a wheel. Maybe planes get "closer" and "farther" from the Prime Material plane during certain times that may or may not match up with mundane timekeeping. For instance, perhaps during Vilemoon, a nine-day period, the Abyss is "closer" to Prime Material. Maybe you go so far to say that during Vilemoon, summoning Evil creatures and summoning Lawful creatures are at +1 caster level, while summoning creatures from the Abyss proper is at +1 caster level and affected by the Extend Spell feat. After nine days, the bonuses end -- until Justicemoon, the nine-day period when Mechanus swings closer to Prime Material, and only Lawful summons get the bonus. Just last session the PCs were talking to some NPC dwarves, asking how long a particular mine shaft had been shut down. The dwarf spokesman turned and conversed in Dwarven with his subordinates for a minute before answering "Probably four or five of those whaddyacall'em... years. Yeah. Four, five years." Dwarves live underground, so measuring time by the movement of the sun would be foreign to them.
gregg0rz 02-28-06, 12:02 PM	does anyone know where i can get a faerun 10 day calendar? Just the template, i can add the holidays and such in myself as per the FRCS manual ... but a nice excel sheet or something to start with would be awesome.
Canned Man 02-28-06, 08:22 PM	The system is simple: The year is divided into twelve months, each containing thirty days. The days of the months are divided into three ten-days, named new-moon, mid-month and old-moon (norw.: nymåne, midtmåne og nemåne). When referring to a day of a month, one simply uses the number and the week, for example "the second day of the mid-month", or one could say "the twenty-second day of The Time of Flowers". Here's a list to make it simple: Year: 12 months. Month: 3 tendays. Tendays: Named Newmoon, Midmonth and Oldmoon (nymåne, midtmåne og nemåne). Days: Referred to by their number in the tenday, not by name (no Monday, Tuesday etc.). Holidays: Midwinter, after Deepwinter. Greengrass, after The Claw of the Storms. Midsummer, after Summertide. Highharvesttide, after The Fading. The Feast of the Moon, after The Drawing Down. Shieldmeet, each fourth year after Midsummer. Source: EbonWolfs Realm: FR Calendar: The day has 24 hour cycles, and each hour is 60 minutes. Each minute consists of 10 segments called clicks (a segment is 6 seconds). The calendar can be found at the Meadhall (http://www.meadehall.org/calendar.shtml). For those of you who are Norwegian, below is the translation we use. It's not a direct translation, but rather an attempt to find corresponding Norwegian/Norse names. Credits go to Cordelia Buckenback the halfling sorceress, for completing the collaborate work in our group. The months/månedene: Deepwinter – Dypfrosten The Claw of Winter – Vinterhold The Claw of the Sunsets – Solfall The Claw of the Storms – Stormgrep The Melting – Smeltingen The Time of Flowers – Blomsterverv Summertide – Høysommer Highsun – Høysol The Fading – Skumringen Leaffall – Løvfellingen The Rotting – Høsthell The Drawing Down – Nyvinter The holydays/helligdagene Midwinter – Vinterfesten Greengrass – Gressgrønt Midsummer – Midtsommer Highharvesttide – Slåttefest The Feast of the Moon – Månegilde Shieldmeet – Skjoldating
IceStella 02-28-06, 08:33 PM	Man that seems so complicated...If i was more awake, it'd prolly make sense. Here's how we do it... Rations..One a day should do...Use the survival Skill to work out if you manage to preserve resources. As for sleep...Our Dm is pretty easy going...If we wear out quite quickly, he lets us rest until the next day (rolling for wandering monsters). As long as we make sure one person is always on watch...People mostly sleep in two six to eight shiufts depending on if they are a spellcaster. I have to say tho...I find that many players and some dm's don't really bother with that at all...And just assume that unless you decide to stay awake...that you get some sleep and wake up reinvigourated. Edit -- BTW...Thanks Canned Man. I'm interested in Norwegian stuff...And that was a little bit f interesting info, Thanks!
Canned Man 02-28-06, 08:46 PM	Sure, no problem, and I'm glad you're interested in Norwegian. I've updated the post with a small list, to make it simpler.
PSchirf 02-28-06, 10:46 PM	My game world, Erda, has a 364 day year divided into 13 months, each containing 28 days (4 weeks of 7 days each). The New Year Festival Day falls on the winter solstice. The first day of the month is always the first day of the week and is also a new moon. The full moon is always on the 15th. I often side-cut large blocks of time passage between sessions. Examples have included everything from having the group winter at a friendly noble's castle to having several years pass so that children may mature, stuctures can be built, or wars can be fought. I don't do this to penalize short lived races... I always negotiated these time-advances with the players.
DarkLord93 03-01-06, 03:03 AM	Well then... If the PCs are traveling through grasslands... or to somewhere, to a far away place. Does that mean that the traveling could take only a few seconds in the real world by just saying "you`ve been walking for some hours and.." you get the idea. It may be simple to you guys but its upsetting my ming so much. And the ideas above my reply has helped quite a bit. But I`m still not sure.
Sereno 03-01-06, 08:49 AM	Well then... If the PCs are traveling through grasslands... or to somewhere, to a far away place. Does that mean that the traveling could take only a few seconds in the real world by just saying "you`ve been walking for some hours and.." you get the idea. It may be simple to you guys but its upsetting my ming so much. And the ideas above my reply has helped quite a bit. But I`m still not sure. Depends on how you want the adventure to go. Keith Baker wrote a really good Dragonshard article about travel (for Eberron, but valid in any game). Here's a link: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20040719a Depending on what's important, you can treat travel like the "red line" in the Indiana Jones movies, or make the Journey the Adventure, in and of itself. If PCs are going to spend several days crossing uninhabited grasslands and the only purpose is to get to city of Durbon, you can do just that, "It takes three days to cross the GrassSea. You arrive at the walled city or Durbon without encountering anything more sinister than prairie dogs and soaring eagles." The adventure begins in the city, and the lengthy travel is just a distraction; especially if it just boils down to a bunch of pointless "wandering monsters." On the other hand, if the PCs are crossing dangerous terrain, have actual encounters planned out and make sure that "getting there" is the whole point. Make sure there are ruins to explore and other travelers to interact with. Monster encounters should be planned and connected to the main plot (or side plots).
Nom 03-01-06, 09:07 AM	Emphatically yes. Think of a movie or a novel. Interesting stuff gets a lot of attention, while less interesting stuff gets "They stayed in Lord Folget's castle for two weeks, before resuming their trek to Little Winding as autumn was turning into winter. Two weeks later they arrived at the gates of Little Winding under a threatening sky. Three days later the snows came." Four and a half weeks gone in 3 sentences.
R2 03-01-06, 10:18 AM	"Winter changed into Spring. Spring changed into Summer. Summer changed back into Winter... and Winter gave Spring and Summer a miss and went straight on into Autumn." If it isn't going to be fun for the players, gloss over it. The six-second turn is only for combat -- it'd be tedious to plot out every standard action and move action to get up, break camp, hike all day, and make camp again at nightfall. If the characters have some "down time" between adventures, just ask them if they have anything they want to attend to. Most players will tell you they want to fix some armor or buy some new gear, and once they're done, you skip forward until the next interesting plot hook happens.
Canned Man 03-01-06, 12:28 PM	Well then... If the PCs are traveling through grasslands... or to somewhere, to a far away place. Does that mean that the traveling could take only a few seconds in the real world by just saying "you`ve been walking for some hours and.." you get the idea. It may be simple to you guys but its upsetting my ming so much. And the ideas above my reply has helped quite a bit. But I`m still not sure. I prefer rolling the d% and make a table to see if anything happens that is noteworthy during the travel. Being level 10 goody-good characters and meeting a band of thieving kobolds, can actually be a bit fun. It gives the players a feeling of having risen in power, which they have, and most players like that feeling. When creating the encounter tables, I look at how the terrain is where they travel, and choose which monsters are likely to meet. If travelling through a rocky valley, giants are not unlikely to encounter. Likewise, when travelling through a heavily travelled forest, you can count on a tribe of goblins camping somewhere near the road, trying to kill and loot those who pass by. When they rise in level, the goblins might have an orc as their leader. When the characters are even higher leveled, it might be a large band of goblins, split into teams lead by orc captains, who answer to noone but the ogre mage. Or they just meet lowsy kobolds. This, however, is how my groups like to play. If your groups just don't want all the more-or-less random encounters, base your decision on what's fun.
Feriin 03-01-06, 03:33 PM	Well then... If the PCs are traveling through grasslands... or to somewhere, to a far away place. Does that mean that the traveling could take only a few seconds in the real world by just saying "you`ve been walking for some hours and.." you get the idea. It may be simple to you guys but its upsetting my ming so much. And the ideas above my reply has helped quite a bit. But I`m still not sure. After reading this guys first and second post here, I have to ask myself this. Are people really this stupid? I mean come on someone can't take 1 minute to calculate out how many turns there are in 1 minute, or how many turns in 1 hour? Nor can they make that leap that unimportant events can be skimmed over? Watch a movie ANY movie, does everything happen in the 92~240 minutes really happen in that same amount of time? No, take LoTR for example I believe the timeline was 13 months (give or take) but the movie was done in about 9 hours of real time.
Feriin 03-01-06, 03:47 PM	Hallow fellow DMs... I have a question about time... When do the PCs have to sleep? When do they have to eat. Does the DM makes up these stuff? How long is one hour... How long is one day? I know 1turn is 6 secs.. but that doesnt help. Please help me out. Oh.. and some good adventure ideas would be great too. Going to answer this for you since you can't seem figure it out yourself. PCs need to sleep 8 hours (4 if you an elf, and then only rest) a day. Try someting like the time when most people head to bed, you know about 10 at night then wake up at about 6 in the morning. People need roughly 1 hour of rest per 2 hours they are away. What this means if you stay up for 16 hours you need the next 8 hours for rest. PCs should be eating ( taking small breaks about 30 min long) 3 or 4 times aday. These times should be soon after waking up, again around the noon hour , agian when it starts to dark , and 1 more time just before they head to bed. Again it isn't any different from when you should eat in the real world. As for if the DM can make up the times that they eat and sleep, they should have a set time during the day when these events SHOULD take place. If they ( meaning the events) are skipped then the PCs start to take penalities on actions they do. Seriously this stuff is in the DMG, and ALL of it very logical to follow. The amount of time in an hour,day,week,ect has already been answered. For the idea of a good adventure. Have everyone at a town ( about 3000 population) , let the bad guy be an evil wizard that has unleashed some kind of plague that is killing the people of the town. Have the same Evil Wizard keep on making Zombies from the corpses of the dead people. ( his motives are to build up an army and take over a kingdom or something). The PC's ofcourse are going to try and stop this guy. Also have the town sealed off by some kings army, you know to try and contain the plague in the town. Anyone tries to leave they are killed, anyone tries to enter they are denied.