D&D General Time in RPGs

[el-remmen]

I have always tracked hourly time ad hoc. I judge based on PC activities and/or travel and warn players if something they are considering doing will take a significant amount of time - like "Digging through that earthen wall is possible, but would take three or four people with shovels working at if for five or six hours to make a hole big enough for folks to go through one at a time."

I do keep a detailed calendar of all events and travel times, during which I might narrate several days of travel at a time or slow things down if there are features or events that might draw their attention and they can decide if they want to investigate or move on (if it is in their power to choose).

I have been working on a "random encounter" system for traveling but have only implemented it loosely as I test it out. But I feel like it amps up the tension when players are rolling for possible encounters without exactly knowing what they are rolling for.

 

[Nefermandias]

In my view, time is so important. The game doesn't work all that well without tracking it and thinking about it as a resource that creates trade-offs and meaningful choices.

I think what @clearstream has listed here is exactly right and is in line with what I do in most D&D 5e games.

That's what I believe too.
I take Gygax's words to the heart when it comes to time.

 

[turnip_farmer]

I used to be really diligent in tracking time. I have a little piece of paper where I could move counters along in different increments (there's a combat round section, a minute section, a minute section etc depending on what was happening). I fell out of the habit because, a lot of the time, it didn't matter.

But I'm resolved that, as of today, time tracking is coming back. The party recently spent considerable time underground (over multiple sessions), and I had no idea what time it 'should' be when they emerged. I'm not sure how many weeks they've been away from their home base, I'm not even certain whether it should still be summer or not.

Maybe that's all irrelevant. The players are probably not counting so they're not going to notice any discrepancies. But it feels off to me. Somehow dissatisfying.

 

[Weiley31]

I mean, The Wild Beyond the Witchlight seems to have a Time Tracker for it. I wonder if its good enough to be used for 5E time tracking during the campaign to begin with. Especially since WoTC has various Subsystems appearing in different books.

 

[Musing Mage]

For dungeon crawling, I use a tally counter and click off the rounds and turns they spend, noting the count where they light torches or spells are cast etc.

Random encounters in the dungeon occur based on the appropriate frequency of the encounter for the dungeon.

For date keeping, I have a calendar sheet I use to track time in the campaign world. Any time that passes at the table is played out. Time away from the table equals time passed in game - so two weeks between sessions means two weeks pass in game. Now, in the case where it doesn't make sense to advance the calendar (we leave off on a cliffhanger with a battle about to start, for instance) I 'bank' the time and apply it during the next bit of downtime the characters have. Historically, I have often forwarded time by several months. This ensures time passes in-game at a commensurate rate.

I don't use a strictly defined system such as the OP noted.

 

[jgsugden]

Time does not require more labels. When something happens in a game, we either track or figure out how much time it took and then adjust accordingly. Usually, there are a lot of gaps between events that allow us to be pretty fluid. Time usually comes up when people are worried about when something has expired or recharged. I'm usually of a mind to interpret things in the way most beneficial to the PCs to keep the fun rolling.

 

[R_J_K75]

I just wing it unless it really counts. I run games by scenes regardless if its 5 minutes or 2 days. No one in our group is overly concerned anymore when were only playing for 3-4 hours at a time.

 

[Deset Gled]

IMNSHO, this topic is a great example of when GNS principles are useful in modeling how a game is played.

When multiple characters are attempting to act at once to achieve goals, time is handled with the gamist method of rounds. When the story takes precedence, the game will travel at the speed of the plot/narrative (respect to Babylon 5). When strict timing is needed for realism, the DM can enforce simulationist methods for keeping track of time as a resource.

 

[generic]

I tend to use a very rough sense of what's "real" in the fiction when I describe the passage of time.

Usually, it's only noted when the party expresses a desire to take a long rest. At that point, I'll arbitrarily decide the time which has passed since their last rest and take note of the hour.

Because a long rest is around 8 hours, I'll add 8 to that time, describe the sights and sounds of the time that results, and then not worry about the time until the party stops for another rest.

 

[clearstream]

Time does not require more labels.

Possibly labels and units of division means the same thing here. Do you mean you prefer to use the normal division of days into hours, minutes, rounds and turns? Do you use work weeks and ten-days, or normal months?

Part of what drew me to less precise, chunkier divisions is with the aim of more diurnal and seasonal progression. I find the default too precise and too finely sliced, which in part is a consequence of the normal elision of mundane action: all the stuff happening around the more intense segments that goes unnarrated. I'm bringing this into world as

Morning march

• Dawn watch
• Noon watch

Evening march

• Afternoon watch
• Dusk watch

Night march

• Midnight watch
• Grave watch

Seeing as I'm using FR, I use a slightly modified Calendar of Harptos (I make the 5 extra days part of the 30-day months, so I can just use twelve 30 day months as a year, which makes it easier to manage ten-days and downtime 5-day work-weeks). To attempt to summarise the general benefits, I can't recall a time it mattered to know in my fantasy campaign that it was 14:30 hours, but we often want to know "Is it the afternoon yet?" I find it satisfying that such time divisions contain things that matter in a ludonarrative sense.