Once upon a DMG, one Gary Gygax went on pretty extensive near-rants about how important time was to DND. And that made sense in his DND, given how much of what he wanted to run was balanced out by FOMO and what have you.
But in 5e, time only sort of matters, and its very DM dependent, as the rules are wishy washy in how important time should be.
The most egregious example is that many spells have an explicit casting time, and yet we have no explicit mechanics to account for the passage of time at any scale.
The game was originally designed around Exploration turns, which gave you a mechanically defined way to track time, but these were chopped up and scattered to the winds during the Next transition, and while restoring them works, you'd have to go digging for out of print PDFs to even really understand that much of that system is still there, or do the even more rigorous and piece it together from whats left in the PHB and DMG.
And of course, theres the ever contentious question of the Adventuring Day, a time based measurement thats perhaps too overly emphasized by DMs, which suffers just the same. Short rests and long rests take time, but as far as most tables are concerned these may as well just be buttons.
So the question becomes, is time important, and should there be more of an emphasis on it given the state of 5E?
Personally, I agree with Gygax. At least in spirit. Time is everything, and Id even go as far as to say it should be the absolute core of a well functioning system. Which all makes sense to me, given I tend to prefer sandboxy open-world style play, which without time becomes very...unoptimal.
But even for the more modern, story emphasized playstyles, time I think is pretty crucial. Time gives context to stakes, and what stakes are there if the apocalypse can wait until tomorrow or the profane ritual rescheduled for Tuesday?
I do not think Gygax's idea of the gameworld ticking along in real time even when the players aren't actually playing is very ideal (and especially so outside of West Marches style play), but keeping a consistent clock going does a lot for the game not just narratively but also mechanically.
With well tracked time, skills become more valuable than spells as they cost less and take less time. Rests aren't so easy to abuse, and spell durations actually matter. Survival has more of a backbone, and seeking faster transports is encouraged, letting for more ways to spend gold. And so on and so on.
Just becomes a question of how best to track time, and Ive always been a fan of AngryGMs Time/Tension Pool.
It just makes a heck of a lotta sense for a mostly system-agnostic mechanic, and the mechanical benefit of sharing some of the control of complications and random encounters with the players is pretty substantive.
Lot easier to justify shaking things up in an adventure when the players have some meaningful choice in the matter. Play risky and risk a complication, or play it safe and lose out on the potential rewards of success. Its really great, and Ive enjoyed using it in 5E, PF2E, and DCC
But in 5e, time only sort of matters, and its very DM dependent, as the rules are wishy washy in how important time should be.
The most egregious example is that many spells have an explicit casting time, and yet we have no explicit mechanics to account for the passage of time at any scale.
The game was originally designed around Exploration turns, which gave you a mechanically defined way to track time, but these were chopped up and scattered to the winds during the Next transition, and while restoring them works, you'd have to go digging for out of print PDFs to even really understand that much of that system is still there, or do the even more rigorous and piece it together from whats left in the PHB and DMG.
And of course, theres the ever contentious question of the Adventuring Day, a time based measurement thats perhaps too overly emphasized by DMs, which suffers just the same. Short rests and long rests take time, but as far as most tables are concerned these may as well just be buttons.
So the question becomes, is time important, and should there be more of an emphasis on it given the state of 5E?
Personally, I agree with Gygax. At least in spirit. Time is everything, and Id even go as far as to say it should be the absolute core of a well functioning system. Which all makes sense to me, given I tend to prefer sandboxy open-world style play, which without time becomes very...unoptimal.
But even for the more modern, story emphasized playstyles, time I think is pretty crucial. Time gives context to stakes, and what stakes are there if the apocalypse can wait until tomorrow or the profane ritual rescheduled for Tuesday?
I do not think Gygax's idea of the gameworld ticking along in real time even when the players aren't actually playing is very ideal (and especially so outside of West Marches style play), but keeping a consistent clock going does a lot for the game not just narratively but also mechanically.
With well tracked time, skills become more valuable than spells as they cost less and take less time. Rests aren't so easy to abuse, and spell durations actually matter. Survival has more of a backbone, and seeking faster transports is encouraged, letting for more ways to spend gold. And so on and so on.
Just becomes a question of how best to track time, and Ive always been a fan of AngryGMs Time/Tension Pool.
It just makes a heck of a lotta sense for a mostly system-agnostic mechanic, and the mechanical benefit of sharing some of the control of complications and random encounters with the players is pretty substantive.
Lot easier to justify shaking things up in an adventure when the players have some meaningful choice in the matter. Play risky and risk a complication, or play it safe and lose out on the potential rewards of success. Its really great, and Ive enjoyed using it in 5E, PF2E, and DCC
