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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GQuail" data-source="post: 3052412" data-attributes="member: 30709">Well, every game I've played has always been a "one group" thing: so time is tracked, but it's impossible to kill the BBEG at different times because everyone is together.  Alternate PCs are an oddity reserved for high-fatality games or people who had to retire PCs for misc reasons but get them back.The idea of a game with one major dungeon but multiple groups exploring it and the area around it (some different players, some alternate characters of other players) is one that was common in Greyhawk and the older editions of D&D, but definatly feel out of favour a bit in recent times.  If you still do it, then hey, go you: but I don't think it's anywhere near as common as it used to be, and since it's the way Gygax used to do it, "old school" seems justified.  (It is, however, an idea this thread is making me reconsider for future campaigns to make player absences less of a factor: though as the OP notes, it only really works with more episodic campaigns)Unless you're misunderstanding his "tracking of time" idea just to mean "observing the flow of time in the game world": because, yes, I consider my in-game calendar quite important, and often joke about how in 6 months real time they've only gone through three weeks game time or what have you.  ;-)Yeah, you've got to be careful with it.  If you have a sidequest they have to be "out of time" to an extent until they finish, and then catchy up: so they get to finish the quest, but on return they find themselves hanging about for two weeks before returning to the dungeon.Alternatievly, they finish the side quest, come back and go dungeon crawling in some limited capacity, but can't do anything in a certain area because that's where "the other party" did something in the fortnight that passed: but it would take quite metagamey assumptions to make that work and avoid the "Killing people twice" thing.  The 1E DMG discusses time units and how to keep multiple parties matched up in the same world, does it not?  Heh, I am reminded of my own game in which an absent PC was left behind at a boat and the rest of the group ended a session pinned down under enemy fire: they tried to peek out and signal for help with a mirror, but it got shot.  THe next session that absent PC was back and he played his characetr hearing trouble, running to help, trying to take a shot at the villains..... but he critically missed and ended up shooting past the villains and hitting a mirror one of his pinned down colleagues was waving.  That confused people for the whole session.  ;-)</blockquote>

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