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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tlantl" data-source="post: 5807432" data-attributes="member: 55225">At one time it was much easier to cause characters in a campaign to age. Some spells and monster effects could do it. The default healing and research rules could do it too. If a character is seriously injured and has no access to magical healing they needed to take time to rest. If the magic user or cleric wanted to research spells or to create a magic item then they needed to remove themselves from the game for long periods of time. If they were part of an established group the group's time scale had to match that of the missing player character when the research was done. Weeks and months would pass between adventures even if the Dm decided to abstract that time it was still real game time.I usually like to have a little time pass between adventures. I also like to use real time  as game time when we aren't playing, unless we were unable to complete a mission before the end of our gaming session.  I also like to advance time a year or more on a whim.I have never designed a campaign where the characters will gain lots of levels and have it take a few weeks or months to play out. Most of my stuff could be done with only one or two level ups. I also like to run several different groups of characters concurrently. Different combinations and different levels. The idle characters don't sit in a vacuum waiting to be used though. Time passes for them at the same rate as the active characters. Over a period of years with the same group characters are retired or pass into a place where they are no longer player controlled.  But that's me. I like my game world to feel alive and ever changing. At some point I need to open new frontiers and invent new cultures for the group to discover. The ideas available through game settings and fiction make for a rich source of different ideas. Sometimes the new ideas don't mesh with the established lore and I will move to a new place, usually adding time to the campaign in the process.</blockquote>

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