D&D General Younger Players Telling Us how Old School Gamers Played

[UngainlyTitan]

So, I have finally found the time to watch the video that kicks this off and I think people are being a bit harsh. He found out about this rule from another YouTube video by another youtuber Questing Beast

Who seem to have picked up on initially from a blog by the Alexandrian but has done enough research to confirm the presence of the rule in the texts. It is a more nuanced video than SuperGeekMike's (the one whose video kicks this off) but I think that people have been a little harsh. I do not believe that he is trying to preach a "One True Way" or tell us how it was but has discovered this element of the game he thinks is really neat and trying to figure out how it might work.
I think that both SuperGeekMike and Questing Beast are looking this as a neat piece of old rules that could be interesting implement, particularly in a "West Marches" type campaign.

 

[seebs]

I don't remember any rule about real-world time, and I can't imagine why anyone would want one.

 

[Clint_L]

There were tons of rules in 1e that were effectively optional, and seldom used. For example, go look at the zillions of rules about weapons that were often cheerfully ignored.

The "real time" thing really only made sense in the context of groups of very devoted players who could run day or weekend-long sessions that didn't end until the objective was complete, and that met very frequently, like weekly. A player might be absent here or there, but the campaign was one story that maintained its own momentum. That's basically what Gygax did with his Lake Geneva group for a few years as the game was developing, so a lot of those ideas were brought in as rules that were really "rules." It just wasn't feasible for most groups, even if you wanted to run a real time campaign.

We'd be mid-battle and Eric would have to leave because his mom needed to pick him up early, and then Steve was getting a ride with him and...we'll just pick it up next session. Obviously we weren't going to say that a week had passed in the middle of the fight. The "real time" rule was only ever an "optional, and maybe in an ideal world" kind of rule.

Everyone understood this.

 

[overgeeked]

What time period are you talking about? The video seems to be talking about Arneson & Gygax's play assumptions, which I think were likely prevalent among their circle of Midwestern gamers in the early to mid 1970s, say a couple years either side of 1974. They certainly were no longer common to D&D mass market players of the late 1970s, and especially not the peak years of the early 1980s.

Considering how divergent Gygax and Arneson were in playstyles and assumptions, it’s probably a bad idea to lump them together. Arneson was more a Free Kriegsspiel style referee while Gygax was more a set and solid rule for everything referee. Accounting for varying degrees of solid.

 

[overgeeked]

So, I have finally found the time to watch the video that kicks this off and I think people are being a bit harsh. He found out about this rule from another YouTube video by another youtuber Questing Beast
Who seem to have picked up on initially from a blog by the Alexandrian but has done enough research to confirm the presence of the rule in the texts. It is a more nuanced video than SuperGeekMike's (the one whose video kicks this off) but I think that people have been a little harsh. I do not believe that he is trying to preach a "One True Way" or tell us how it was but has discovered this element of the game he thinks is really neat and trying to figure out how it might work.
I think that both SuperGeekMike and Questing Beast are looking this as a neat piece of old rules that could be interesting implement, particularly in a "West Marches" type campaign.

Exactly. It’s being talked about as a means of tracking in game time for large-group games or rotating players and characters. How do you know when group A went into the dungeon compared to group B? Keep strict time records, have each group head back to town at the end of the session, and have in-game downtime match real-world time. It’s not meant for a single party game with a set group of players and characters. That’s the bit of context people are missing, which Ben talks about in that video. It’s a means to keep people engaged by introducing a ticking clock time element to play. Group A wants to keep coming back to the table so they can get the loot before group B. It works great for that.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't remember any rule about real-world time, and I can't imagine why anyone would want one.

Its there in some of the older books. I do recall some tables making use of it. I have used it myself, and the main reason I would suggest doing so is if you have a campaign world where you are running different groups of players and their actions share an impact on the setting (i.e. if group A kills Strahd, Strahd is dead for group B too). This gets even more thorny if your groups of players can have an impact directly on one another. I've run these kinds of campaigns using real time, and run them not doing real time. Doing it the latter way is a book keeping nightmare because you are not just tracking details but tracking them across time too. If you simply go with real time, suddenly it is much more manageable (though going real time obviously introduces its own difficulties). It is also good for managing downtime.

Another area I've used this is in a modern horror game I've been running that is monster of the week like X Files. By doing real time, it provides a nice break between adventures and allows us to assume the characters spent a week doing stuff between the session. It also makes tracking stuff like weather easy. In addition it kind of adds a surreal element that I just like. But again, it does also present some challenges (i.e. what happens if you want to do real time, but the players are in the middle of a scenario at the end of a session and it doesn't make sense that a week could pass between the moment you ended and when you pick up next session).

Like a lot of tools and techniques, its something worth looking into and see if you can extract any value from. I would file it under one of those tools that is useful for specific needs, and so it is good to know about should the need for it arise in anything you are running. But it is probably not a good tool to get dogmatic about (say insisting that all games always use real time).

 

[S'mon]

I don't remember any rule about real-world time, and I can't imagine why anyone would want one.

If you have 20+ players in multiple groups in a single campaign, it works REALLY well to minimise book keeping and keep things progressing at a sensible rate. I use it for all my sandbox settings - Wilderlands, Faerun, Primeval Thule etc. The only campaign I don't use it for is the 'Adventure Path' one - Odyssey of the Dragonlords.

 

[S'mon]

Considering how divergent Gygax and Arneson were in playstyles and assumptions, it’s probably a bad idea to lump them together. Arneson was more a Free Kriegsspiel style referee while Gygax was more a set and solid rule for everything referee. Accounting for varying degrees of solid.

Hmm. I don't think this is a point of difference though. At least I've not seen any indication they differed on this.

 

[S'mon]

Exactly. It’s being talked about as a means of tracking in game time for large-group games or rotating players and characters. How do you know when group A went into the dungeon compared to group B? Keep strict time records, have each group head back to town at the end of the session, and have in-game downtime match real-world time. It’s not meant for a single party game with a set group of players and characters. That’s the bit of context people are missing, which Ben talks about in that video. It’s a means to keep people engaged by introducing a ticking clock time element to play. Group A wants to keep coming back to the table so they can get the loot before group B. It works great for that.

Exactly. I have two rival PC groups in my Arden Vul Wilderlands game(s), the rule is vital to keep the timeline straight.

Edit: I have multiple PC groups in my Faerun (1361 DR) setting too; two of them are exploring Barrowmaze. Game time = real time avoids a ton of bookkeeping headaches I had previously.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The one that gets me is people thinking we used every rule in the AD&D books. “Have you seen all the rules for initiative in AD&D? It’s a monstrously impossible game. It’s unplayable!” No, we just went with the simple rules from the PHB or we cribbed from B/X and/or BECMI.

Part of that is that some people will claim straightfaced that they played AD&D1 "by the book". What this means is vague a lot of the time, and when pressed hard, its usually the case that either their understanding or memory of what "by the book" was is faulty, but its still the claim that gets made.