Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Campaign World Problems/ Questions/ Considerations
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="AFGNCAAP" data-source="post: 3185609" data-attributes="member: 871"><p>I'm on the fence about this. A new calendar for the setting would be nifty, though it'd need to be frequently accessible for players & DM alike (for proper reference). As it is...</p><p></p><p>If you do make a new calendar, consider something rather mathematically simple & straightforward. If you don't care missing a couple of days a (Earth) year, then consider 12 30-day months (for a 360-day calendar), <em>or</em> 13 28-day months (for a 364-day calendar).</p><p></p><p>The 12 30-day month calendar may still have specific days shift around each year (i.e., 1/1 being a Sunday 1 year, then a Tuesday the next year, etc.) The 13 28-day month is actually fixed, so if 13/7 is a Saturday, it stays a Saturday (which makes it easier math-wise). And, if folks get nitpicky about time passage, just say that the campaign's solar year is the exact same amount of time as an Earth solar year, but the time units just divide up a bit neater in your campaign than here on Earth. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>Or, if you want something more in line with the 365x3+366 days-sort of time scheme (like on good ol' Earth), but not just have a renamed calendar, make things relatively easy: in a normal year, 7 months have 30 days, and 5 months have 31 days (these months each have a notable day, like new year's, summer/winter solstice, or spring/autumn equinox). Each fourth year has one of the 7 30-day months gain a day (representing the leap year's day).</p><p></p><p>To add "sense" to the use of the leap year day, simply state it's a quick fix by human culture to account for time correctly, adopted from the elven or draconic calendar (or discovered by a pioneering diviner). One idea I'm using is that an elven calendar year is equivalent to 4 human years (including leap year's day). Elven ages are normally stated with this year system: so a self-proclaimed 30-year old elf is actually 120 human years old.</p><p></p><p>Or, if you want, just rename the Julian calendar days/months, and use old calenders (or even current ones) to keep track of time. However, with the irregular layout of such calendars, you'd need to keep track of how the months change each year.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>For the most part, yes. Now I say this with a homebrew campaign that has a fair number of humorous town names, like Yewhall and Redwharf. However, since I intend to have a bit of a humorous undercurrent in the game, it's OK by me. But, if you want serious, stick with serious.</p><p></p><p>That being said, for the benefit of all around, use English (or antiquated English) for place names. Assume that the names of towns & the like have been translated into Common (for the most part) by Common speakers, or possibly corrupted/slurred into a Commonish pronunciation (like many place names "adopted" into English). If "Gharakala" means "Stonewall", then just call the place Stonewall.</p><p></p><p>As for names of people, I'd say keep things simple, yet go with/promote a theme with names. However, I'd recommend using broader language ranges for naming conventions, & not just specific languages: for example, maybe Germanic-language names for dwarves, Romance-language names for halflings, Slavic-language names for gnomes, English (and it's bit-&-piece-language-adopting, mixed-up goodness) for humans, Finno-Ugric-language names for elves, etc.</p><p></p><p>However, be careful about this: specifying certain cultural-style names for a group may lead players to also assume that other cultural traits from the same Earth source are also valid for that group (like flamenco-dancing, toga-wearing, or beret-wearing for the Romance-language-named halflings, for example).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Generally, yes--but I'm crazy like that. Magic can explain much, but just saying magic's responsible for everything screwy kinda pushes it (esp. since what can be done by magic could be undone by magic, given the right circumstances). It takes a bit of work, though.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AFGNCAAP, post: 3185609, member: 871"] I'm on the fence about this. A new calendar for the setting would be nifty, though it'd need to be frequently accessible for players & DM alike (for proper reference). As it is... If you do make a new calendar, consider something rather mathematically simple & straightforward. If you don't care missing a couple of days a (Earth) year, then consider 12 30-day months (for a 360-day calendar), [I]or[/I] 13 28-day months (for a 364-day calendar). The 12 30-day month calendar may still have specific days shift around each year (i.e., 1/1 being a Sunday 1 year, then a Tuesday the next year, etc.) The 13 28-day month is actually fixed, so if 13/7 is a Saturday, it stays a Saturday (which makes it easier math-wise). And, if folks get nitpicky about time passage, just say that the campaign's solar year is the exact same amount of time as an Earth solar year, but the time units just divide up a bit neater in your campaign than here on Earth. :) Or, if you want something more in line with the 365x3+366 days-sort of time scheme (like on good ol' Earth), but not just have a renamed calendar, make things relatively easy: in a normal year, 7 months have 30 days, and 5 months have 31 days (these months each have a notable day, like new year's, summer/winter solstice, or spring/autumn equinox). Each fourth year has one of the 7 30-day months gain a day (representing the leap year's day). To add "sense" to the use of the leap year day, simply state it's a quick fix by human culture to account for time correctly, adopted from the elven or draconic calendar (or discovered by a pioneering diviner). One idea I'm using is that an elven calendar year is equivalent to 4 human years (including leap year's day). Elven ages are normally stated with this year system: so a self-proclaimed 30-year old elf is actually 120 human years old. Or, if you want, just rename the Julian calendar days/months, and use old calenders (or even current ones) to keep track of time. However, with the irregular layout of such calendars, you'd need to keep track of how the months change each year. For the most part, yes. Now I say this with a homebrew campaign that has a fair number of humorous town names, like Yewhall and Redwharf. However, since I intend to have a bit of a humorous undercurrent in the game, it's OK by me. But, if you want serious, stick with serious. That being said, for the benefit of all around, use English (or antiquated English) for place names. Assume that the names of towns & the like have been translated into Common (for the most part) by Common speakers, or possibly corrupted/slurred into a Commonish pronunciation (like many place names "adopted" into English). If "Gharakala" means "Stonewall", then just call the place Stonewall. As for names of people, I'd say keep things simple, yet go with/promote a theme with names. However, I'd recommend using broader language ranges for naming conventions, & not just specific languages: for example, maybe Germanic-language names for dwarves, Romance-language names for halflings, Slavic-language names for gnomes, English (and it's bit-&-piece-language-adopting, mixed-up goodness) for humans, Finno-Ugric-language names for elves, etc. However, be careful about this: specifying certain cultural-style names for a group may lead players to also assume that other cultural traits from the same Earth source are also valid for that group (like flamenco-dancing, toga-wearing, or beret-wearing for the Romance-language-named halflings, for example). Generally, yes--but I'm crazy like that. Magic can explain much, but just saying magic's responsible for everything screwy kinda pushes it (esp. since what can be done by magic could be undone by magic, given the right circumstances). It takes a bit of work, though. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Campaign World Problems/ Questions/ Considerations
Top