Using long passage of time successfully...examples?

Hand of Evil · Oct 12, 2012

I like to storytell it to my players and also try and set it up as a possible side adventure I can jump back to. To do this I do the following in a discription.

1) Provide some rewards from the journey - a level, gold or equipment.
2) Provide NPCs for the players to know.
3) Some type of embassment, it is a road trip.

Example...
...The trip is over, three months on the road and you have come to the Crack of Doom, kind of anti-clamatic as it is just a hole in the ground. You think to yourselves was it worth the sore feet. Ranger Bob told you, it was a big #$%^ hole but Ranger Bob was a bit crazy, him and his crabs...best not to think about those, but the elder knife, wand and cloak, now that was worth the trip alone and the knife is humming now that you are at the Crack of Doom...

Later if I want, I can go back and have a side adventure or can have them meet back up with the NPC.

jasper · Oct 12, 2012

I jumped 8 years when I switched between 2 nd and 3rd editions. My players were okay with it.

Mathew_Freeman · Oct 12, 2012

I'm in a Legend of the 5 Rings (L5R) game at the moment and each gaming session in the real world is covering between 3 and six months of in-game time.

We're running a city as a collective (the Emperor created a new clan and we're it). It means the events that take place in-game are the most important stuff - talking with important visitors, getting married, going to summer tournaments or Winter Court. It's working out really well at the moment.

We've covered about two years of game time already. My character got married early on and now has a child growing up. Eventually the plan is to play him as a successor.

Matchstick · Oct 12, 2012

mmadsen said:
You should look into a Pendragon-style Winter Phase.

The One Ring has this as well, called the Fellowship Phase. It may be that the designers liked the idea from Pendragon.

Nytmare · Oct 12, 2012

Matchstick said:
The One Ring has this as well, called the Fellowship Phase. It may be that the designers liked the idea from Pendragon.

Doesn't Mouseguard have something like this as well?

Viking Bastard · Oct 12, 2012

I have often done variations of this. In my current campaign I have jumped ahead in time three times:

After a brief one session excursion into a hell dimension, the PCs discovered that six months had passed in the material world and everyone thought them dead. I mostly did this to quickly jumpstart some world development.
After the PCs saved their city from a goblin army, we fast-forwarded (rather than outright jumped) through the fallout from that, establishing with the players a new status quo for further adventures.
After finishing the Heroic tier the PCs all went their seperate way for a year, each starting on their paragon path.

am181d · Oct 12, 2012

mmadsen said:
You should look into a Pendragon-style Winter Phase.

I've never read the Pendragon rules, but I HAVE stolen this mechanic!

I ran a campaign a few years back called "Generation of Heroes" that (with a few detours) took place over the course of 20 levels spread over 20 years. Every adventure was 2-4 sessions long and a year of game time passed between sessions.

This was 3.5 so characters were able to "acquire" treasure between adventures based off the leveled starting gold advancement chart. (Players were assumed to still be adventuring but not on "important" adventures.)

If they want to create magic items, they could pay for the experience cost in gold.

Players volunteered what they wanted to do, and I'd generally just let them do it, if it wasn't game breaking. (No "and I'd like to have killed the Evil Lich who's building at army in the north.")

This was a wonderful mechanic to allow the characters to grow and mature and change in more credible and more meaningful ways. The PCs got older and started families. Older NPCs died. Babies grew up. Kingdoms rose and fell. Etc. Etc.

Yes, you CAN squeeze that into a few years of game time, but this felt much more satisfying. It also gave every adventure a certain freshness as the PCs were continually forced to rediscover each other. Good stuff.

Razjah · Oct 13, 2012

am181d said:
I ran a campaign a few years back called "Generation of Heroes" that (with a few detours) took place over the course of 20 levels spread over 20 years. Every adventure was 2-4 sessions long and a year of game time passed between sessions.

Did you really have a year of game time pass between each session or did you mean each adventure? Also was each adventure worth a level?

I really like this idea, and I'd love to try something similar. I just want clarification because taking 50-80 years to reach level 20 seems a bit long. 20 years I could handle, the PCs can go from young rookies to middle aged characters who have greatly shaped their world.

Quickleaf · Oct 13, 2012

[MENTION=1645]mmadsen[/MENTION] [MENTION=217]Matchstick[/MENTION] [MENTION=3576]am181d[/MENTION]
Can someone explain what you mean by the "winter phase" mechanic? Or just the word "mechanic" in general as it applies to the passage of time? I did follow the link given to another thread on the subject but that seemed geared toward people already familiar with Pendragon or such systems. *What* actually happens in play at the table in your game that's different from "normal game time"?

mmadsen · Oct 13, 2012

Quickleaf said:
Can someone explain what you mean by the "winter phase" mechanic? Or just the word "mechanic" in general as it applies to the passage of time? I did follow the link given to another thread on the subject but that seemed geared toward people already familiar with Pendragon or such systems. *What* actually happens in play at the table in your game that's different from "normal game time"?

Here's what I said in the other thread:

mmadsen said:
In Pendragon, the Winter Phase comprises nine steps:

Perform Solo -- Participate in a solo scenario, maybe administering your own estate, serving your lord in some manner (escorting someone, border patrol, etc.), starting (or continuing) a romance, challenging all who pass a particular bridge (for "love of battle"), etc.

Experience Check Rolls -- Characters improve between adventures.

Aging -- Pendragon campaigns don't squeeze dozens of adventures into a year or two.

Check Economic Circumstances -- Pay cost of living and collect income.

Stable Rolls -- Horses age and injure themselves, and they're very important to a knight.

Family Rolls -- There are rules for marriage, children, and family events (births, deaths, marriages, scandals).

Training and Practice -- Players can direct some of their characters' progress.

Compute Glory

Add Glory Bonus Points

Some of those steps are very game-mechanic-specific (Experience Check Rolls, Training and Practice, Compute Glory, and Add Glory Bonus Points) and would probably get rolled up into one D&D step: Level Up. Others would carry over quite easily: Perform Solo, Aging, Stable Rolls, and Family Rolls. Either they'd use the same rules (Stable Rolls and Family Rolls), or they'd use D&D equivalents (Aging). The solo scenarios are obviously quite open ended. Checking Economic Circumstances might take some work, but you can start with the Upkeeps rules.

For a D&D winter phase, you would need to compose your own "random encounter" tables for adventurers' non-adventuring lives.