The Passage of Time

For those of you keeping track of time in your campaigns...
How do you do it? I find that there is a lot players want to accomplish during down time between sessions, and I'm struggling with a way to standardize the time mechanic without shafting anyone. (i.e. "Ok,

One possibility I'm working with is revamping the whole system to integrate ArsMagica-like preqrequistes for making magic objects and research, along with new rules for healing (makes it much harder), some rules for running communities (Testament maybe?), rules for domain actions (Birthright), training & mentorship & apprenticeship rules, and travel rules (not sure about these yet). Those players whose characters aren't doing some normal job or running a business, traveling, delving into magic tomes, or healing wounds have the option of developing the community, one of their followers or animal companions. :\

I hope this isn't an exercise in futility... Any bright ideas out there? Or references worth checking out?

Things take time and I don't shy away from that. If the Wixzard wants to craft and item that is going to take a month and the rest of the players want to go do something, then the poarty has to work it out themselves. IMC they have gone through a few decades because of down time and travel time.

If your worry is people not having things to do I wouldn't worry about it. Unless you are spending hours in game on this not everyone needs to have something to do.

The rules I use for this kind of thing is as follows (this is pretty much a cut and paste from a document I wrote for my campaign):

The Campaign Turn
Going forward, I will be introducing the concept of Campaign Turns (CT) to my game. One CT represents a season of the year and will focus on the events surrounding a particular story-arc or group of linked adventures. During those active days of adventure, calendar time will be tracked as normal. Once completed, I will end the turn (though I will allow for some role-playing time as all of you decide on the next course of action). If the story-arc seems uncommonly short for a given CT, I may allow for other side adventures. Likewise, if a story-arc seems to be running long it may take more than a single CT to complete. This may or may not include transition time based on events.

Transition Time
Between turns, each character will receive 40 Transition Points (TP) to spend during the transition between CTs.

Creation
After speaking with various players and considering what I’d like to spend our time on while playing. It isn’t fun for the wizard to be excluded from general play as they try to work on spell creation or crafting. Other than when concerning Scrolls or Potions, I am moving all creation and research to the transition time. However, I have included Potion and Scroll creation. This should free up actual game time for more role-playing and adventure.

Activity: Cost*
Spell Research*: 1 tp per spell level
Craft Staff or Wand**: 1 tp per 2,500 sp
Brew Potion or Scribe Scroll: 1 tp each

* The normal monetary cost and experience loss are still applied
** Incomplete work will be levied against continued efforts during the next transition period

Experience
I will tally the experience earned during the previous CT (including any lost from recent item creation) and determine which, if any, characters have earned a new level. For easy reference, I have included my experience award modifiers here. I expect that characters will not level during every transition. This also supports a fundamental desire of mine: to have characters age as the level. Though it doesn’t have a tp cost, it is assumed that characters spend some time training.

1st - 5th: 100% experience
6th - 10th: 75% experience
11th - 15th: 50% experience
16th+: 25% experience

Journey
Characters can journey to other areas of the world and back. This is to allow for characters who want to visit family members back home or visit other places for various reasons. Cost is 1 point per 100 miles distance. Assuming that each character will want to return, it will cost 2 points per 100 miles roundtrip. I may rule, in some instances, that the journey is not possible during transition. Characters that have access to fast modes of travel (i.e. druids who wild shape into a bird, or spells such as phantom steed or wind walk) pay one-third the cost (rounded-up). Characters with access to teleportation pay nothing.

Investigate
Characters can investigate specific topics with the use of their Knowledge skills. Once the topic is chosen, I will determine the appropriate DC. I will assume the character takes 10 if that result would be sufficient, otherwise the player will need to roll a d20 to determine success. The following can add bonuses to the investigation and all modifiers stack. Please note that there a character cannot retry a Knowledge skill test normally, though access to a new library or sage may warrant an additional attempt. Otherwise, the character will need to increase the number of ranks he or she has in the appropriate skill before further investigation can take place.

Time and effort: +2 per 10 TPs
Access to appropriate library or sage*: +2 or more

*May require a Journey (see above)

Yeah, I tended to be pretty free-form about it before, Crothian. That is, before players felt that wizard had unfair advantage during in-between time (i.e. making magic objects and researching spells). Thus, the idea was I would create ways for the other classes (though not necessarily class-specific) to be kept equal.
I didn't feel comfortable saying, "well tough luck, that's the good thing about being a wizard, you get to use all that spare time making stuff." Similarly, I thought it invalid to say the fruits of the wizard's labor over months yielded what appears to be a relatively fast effect: the object/spell in question. This doesn't feel right because it begs the question:
Well, what about the other PCs hard work?
Surely they're not just training, because the wizard is doing that in the background too...

Which brings me to your system, Hjormir...What do the non-wizards get to spend their Transition Points on?

Travel, investigation, and training for the most part. I like how the system removes a lot of the more boring bookkeeping from the table and lets us focus on more dramatic stuff.

Seeing how this always happens between sessions, none of non-spellcasters are put out about missing any opportunity and they don't have to sit around while wizards are making wands n' such.

Hey! I live in north county, brah!

Well, I guess my real concern is how to handle players wanting to do non-traditional things during so-called downtime without RPing it. Probably, I'll need to make a Seasons of the Campaign document looking at new rules for time, and new uses for old skills. Some examples are...

hiring spies, using Gather Information to counterspy, developing contacts, rabble rousing the people against their ruler, spreading rumors, building estates, seeking out an apprentice/mentor, overland or sea travel, crafting times for the Craft skill (i.e. it takes a season to make a masterwork sword, or four common swords could be made in the same time), operating a trading company, breaking in and training horses, training for a specific encounter or against a specific opponent (i.e. when leveling up, sacrifice 1 point increase in base attack to gain +3 versus their chosen target...for skills a similar trade-off), putting those Knowledge skills to work to gather information before the next game (DM handouts, character gains knowledge from a supplement book), attempting to heal a grievous wound or injury, spending time with their family (uses rules for lineages), plus a host of others that are much more specific to a character's archetype.

What else would you want to see on this list?

IMC every PC can take the Aristocrat NPC to gain an Influence score (Cha + level) which determines the degree to which they can influence their 'faction'

A Faction is a distinct 'character' and represents a 'group of people' that can range from a family to a guild to a Church congregation to a Village or Barony and maybe beyond (untested)
Each faction has four parameters determined using 3d6 being

• Authority
• Economics
• Culture
• Might

A PC can try and influence a faction to do anything he chooses with DCs set accordingly. PCs can also invest 'influence points' to add additional modifers to their faction.

Okay taking Quickleafs list and applying it to my system I'd get something like this
ACTIONS per Parameter

AUTHORITY hiring spies, using Gather Information to counterspy,
developing contacts, rabble rousing the people against their ruler, making a deal with the local theives guild, gaining favour with the local Lord, seeking Patronage of the Church

CULTURE spreading rumors, seeking out an apprentice/mentor, gain a feat, putting those Knowledge skills to work to gather information before the next game, spending time with their family (uses rules for lineages), extending influence, gaining patronage of an Expert (ie Increase Faction skill)

ECONOMICS building estates, overland or sea travel, crafting times for the Craft skill, operating a trading company, breaking in and training horses,

MIGHT responding to civil emergency, defending home against raids, police actions, conduction a raid, saboutaging a rivals orchard.

SOLO attempting to heal a grievous wound or injury, gain a feat (eg training for a specific encounter or against a specific opponent )

Basically I say that each Adventure and Faction Turn takes a Season (between 1 and 3 months) - same idea as the CT sans TP - Crafting time I set DC as follows

basically the Craft DC = Cost/Labout/Time

so if I wanted to make a Longbow (75 gp) using 2 workers over 5 days the DC = 75/2/5 (DC = 7+modifiers)

If one PC wants to spend downtime making something I allow non-involved PCs to earn 10xp per day through general practicing of their skills. It's not much, but it helps to offset the fact that they are giving up their time while a companion manufactures something for himself.

Additionally, I allow anyone to participate in crafting magic items - the xps don't have to come from the wizard, they can come from anyone. As such if making party items, party members are involved in the process and contribute xp so passage of time isn't too much of an issue.

I actually made a calender for my game. I would keep track of how long the traveled. I had festivals marked down and other fun stuff. They were always stuck in some god fosaken part of the land for every single holiday.

The cleric would make magic items and such, spend a month or so. The drunken master said "I just drink for a month and get in bar fights."

The bard performed and made a name for himself in the city and the shadow dancer was stealing to keep his skills up there. It also paid the rent.