D&D 5E Creating a Calendar

Trit One-Ear

Explorer
I hadn't actually thought about having to use on the fly table-side honestly. [MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION], you bring up some very good points there; I'm not sure my players (or even myself if I'm being honest) would be able to use the made up days and months in the moment. I was planning it more for my use doing prep work, dropping it in in key plot moments etc.

I think I'm going to pick some semi-arbitrary year number and attribute it to the start of an age/era. Anyone have any favorite year numbers? I'm thinking less than 1500 but more than 750.

Trit
 

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JamesonCourage

Adventurer
I gave up.

I had a Calendar that was Six days per week, 30 days per month, 12 months and a five-day "new years festival" with very simple names (Sun's Day, Moon's Day, Wind's Day) and each month superficially similar to the real months (Januar, Febron, Marx).

In nearly 10 years, no player has ever described anything in terms of this Calendar. Even giving them a copy of it didn't help. People still said "Saturday, April" and the like.

So I gave up. Julian Calendar it is. I even lifted real non-Christian holidays (Imboloc, Beltane, Llamas) to filter in. And it works a LOT better because everyone instantly knows what "Next Satuday" means, as opposed to "Next Fire's Day"

So I wish you luck, but I found most players aren't invested enough to really notice. If yours are, more power to you. It was good enough for Tolkien, its good enough for me.
Weird. I used our calendar, but my players commented (not really complained) that it pulled them out of immersion, so I renamed some stuff and they were happier. So, yeah. I was happy with "April 5th" but they wanted something else.

Weird how groups differ :)
 

Ed_Laprade

Adventurer
I hadn't actually thought about having to use on the fly table-side honestly. [MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION], you bring up some very good points there; I'm not sure my players (or even myself if I'm being honest) would be able to use the made up days and months in the moment. I was planning it more for my use doing prep work, dropping it in in key plot moments etc.

I think I'm going to pick some semi-arbitrary year number and attribute it to the start of an age/era. Anyone have any favorite year numbers? I'm thinking less than 1500 but more than 750.

Trit
Yeah, I had the same reaction as Rem, now that I think about it. As for a year, something memorable, like 1066 or 1492, might do the job.
 

bmfrosty

Explorer

jgsugden

Legend
This level of detail is often fun to create, but tends to fall into the cracks and never really have significant impacts on the game. As such, I would not worry about it too much.

I actually found that it worked quite well to just tell PCs that they have no idea what month or year it was and explain it isn't something the common person knew. If it became relevant for the game, they'd go to a priest, sage or someone else charged with knowing such things (for reasons that didn't impact the common person).
 


Trit One-Ear

Explorer
I'm not particularly planning/expecting the calendar or dates to be a huge factor in the table. I am, however, rapidly becoming seduced by the charm of world-building, and this kind of detail was mostly fun for me to create. If I can give the players a lot to sink their teeth into, then I'm going to let them decide what details will make their way into the game more centrally.

Just had a thought; the largest county on this continent for a long time was a dragonborn empire, which has over the past 100 years or so fallen into decline. It would make a lot of sense if the other countries still used the founding of the empire as a calendar, as they were so dominant for so long. I think that means the year is going to be 983 (very randomly chosen, but within reach of the monumental year 1000 if I choose to play with time a little).

Trit
 

Skyscraper

Explorer
I've tried having a unique calendar for my game world during decades of DMing, and although the players tried to use it, it's mostly a hastle and a waste of time and it doesn't reach the intended result of immersion.

So now, like @Remathilis, I gave up a number of years ago. And honestly, I'm all the better for it. Using the usual Julian calendar feels like unloading a pack-sack full of rocks (or other useless load you might think about).

@Kikuras: to me, accepting an invented calendar is not about playersmanship. It's about where do you wish that your players (and yourself) put their attention and energy during the game sessions? By using a unique calendar, it requires some degree of energy and time. For what? I've never found it really gave off a true return for the investment in the form of in-game immersion. On the contrary, whenever reference to calendar elements is required, it stops the role-playing to get everyone to the same page. One problem being that reference to the day of the week or the name of the month is not common enough for anyone to ever learn them by heart. Heck, players need to learn city and kingdom names, NPC names by the score, they need to learn the history of the world, the names of important artifacts, gods, foes, ... and then, add 7 weekday names and 12 month names?

DM- We shall meet on the first Bearday of the month of Ungust.
Player- Wait, what did he say?
DM- First Bearday of the month of Ungust.
Player- Hold on, let me take out the calendar... Just a sec, it's just here in my papers... Okay, got it. So, month of... Redmoon... Wolfpelt... Marust, that it?
DM- No, Ungust.
Player- Marust... Ungust, got it. What was the day again?
DM- Bearday.
Player- OKay, that's Tuesday, got it. (To the other players: ) that would be the first Tuesday of the fourth month. We're now in the month of Wolfpelt, so we're meeting in two months. So I reply (back to the DM, now in character) "Alright, Count, we will meet on the first Bearday of Ungust".

Note that the eventual reference of "Bearday is Tuesday" or "Bearday is the sixth day of the week", is pretty much unavoidable, because again players do not know the names of the weekdays by heart, so they need some reference (such as real day weekday names or weekday numbers, e.g. sixth day of the week) that can make them understand what they're talking about when they discuss time references amongst themselves. So, what is supposed to increase immersion, actually forces meta-conversations to occur.

I think that using invented calendars is popular at least in part because of books where authors do this. But, books are different: as a reader, you don't need to refer to the calendar, nor to count how many days are left before the meeting with the Count. You just read the book, period. The author does all the work for you. Not so in a D&D game.

As a side note, I likewise do not use very complex names for my locales, be them towns, cities, taverns, etc... I use names that are easily remembered, except in rare circumstances where I wish to truly convey a foreign connotation by using a weird-sounding name. For example, I'll have the city of Blacklake, or the small village of Hightower. Names like the city of "Kalikur'azastarhhhh'Ber'manek in the province of Kor'thura, which is right next to the provinces of Rek'thura and Barekin'thura" (DM has fun imagining some kind of similar-sounding names) are reallly fun to write down on a piece of paper, but when you have two dozen of those, your players only remember, like, very few, if you're lucky.

Anyway, whatever floats your boat is fine really. If using invented time references increases immersion and the quality of role-playing, or otherwise allows you to improve your gaming experience, go ahead! I'm just sharing my experience with you from the perspective of my gaming groups: it plays better with the Julian calendar.
 

Mallus

Legend
DAYS:
Mon - Day of the Moon
Tues - Day of Glory
Wed - Day of Hunt
Thurs - Day of the Storm
Fri - Day of the Mother
Sat - Day of the Father
Sun - Day of the Sun
I was --probably luckily-- never bitten by the 'homebrew calendar' bug, but let me try.

The days are a bit generic & dull-sounding. Liven them up with contractions (and a side of punning).

Moonsday - this also gives you an excuse to add a few more moons to the planet.
Glorday - ugly-sounding, but in an appropriately awkward fantasy/sci-fi way.
Huntsday
Stormsday
Madderday
Fodderday
Sunsday -- while your at it, add another sun!

As for the months, drop the 'Month of...' and go with 'Hare 15th, Moonsday', etc.
 

Kikuras

First Post
@Kikuras: to me, accepting an invented calendar is not about playersmanship. It's about where do you wish that your players (and yourself) put their attention and energy during the game sessions? By using a unique calendar, it requires some degree of energy and time.

Understandable, you make a good point. Still, in my group no one really memorized the calendar or anything like that, and certainly not the names of the days, but each player had access to a basic calendar, and would take the few seconds to look at the month, and be able to convey the passage of time, or mark important days within the session. It's really not hard to keep track of what day it is if at the beginning of the session everyone gets a reminder. And I'm still not sure I can buy the idea that using the Julian calendar is more immersive than a custom one, even with the confusion.
 

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