Do you miss the Turn?
- Thread starter MerricB
- Start date
Thanee
First Post
Tracking time in a dungeon: I generally make rough estimates.
If time is critical because of events happening in the background, I'd probably mark off time segments (of 1 min or 10 min each, as appropriate) to do this properly, but otherwise I trust in my own ability to keep track of what happpened and how much time has passed. It's usually not important to know exactly, except for spells, that only have rounds of duration.
Bye
Thanee
If time is critical because of events happening in the background, I'd probably mark off time segments (of 1 min or 10 min each, as appropriate) to do this properly, but otherwise I trust in my own ability to keep track of what happpened and how much time has passed. It's usually not important to know exactly, except for spells, that only have rounds of duration.
Bye
Thanee
Henry
Autoexreginated
Plane Sailing said:
It's not uncommon. Yesterday, I ran an 8th level party of six against approximately 5 separate fights with dozens of low-powered level-draining undead, two flesh golems, and a half-dozen animated armor creatures and it took all of 3 hours. (Dungeon Crawl, heavy). Only the most complicated fights (the ones I plan tons of strat. and tactics for) take a couple of hours, and that at most.
The way I keep them so short is pre-planning (notes and having minis/counters ready ahead of time), and limiting players to no more than 30 seconds of "ummm-ahhh" time when it's their turn.
Dr Simon
Explorer
hong said:
That's "Faffing" time, for when the players want to fiddle about working out elaborate ways of doing simple things like opening doors.
I'm never accurate with timings anyway - in a Fantasy setting the PCs are unlikely to have a second-accurate time piece of any sort (although I think one should give spell-casters a fair idea of how long their spells have left, but only to the degree of "not much longer").
I like (and use) the time and distance descriptions that Fritz Leiber uses - "The fight lasted ten of Fafhrd's heartbeats, and fifteen of the Mouser's(*)", or referring to distance in "Bowshots".
(*)May not be an accurate quote, but Grey Mouser's heart was always beating faster than Fafhrd's whihc may be (1) it's because he's smaller (2) he's more nervy in a fight than Fafhrd. Nice economy of description, that Leiber!
Li Shenron
Legend
???
I actually see the point even less after this example...
All the groups of actions take from a few rounds to a couple of minutes, and the result is about one turn of something less.
How the notion of Turns can improve the situation in this case? What's the improvement in saying "ah! it took you a full turn!" instead of "it took you 10 minutes"?
It could even be just more confusing when the times are long, you're not going to make it easier for the players if you tell them "the travel took you 17 turns", which they have to think about for a while how much time it actually is... Once it takes more than an hour or two I doubt turns make more sense.
IOW, you don't use turns when the time is too short, you don't use turns when the time is too long, you don't use turns when you need exact time (in case you do).
MerricB said:
I actually see the point even less after this example...
All the groups of actions take from a few rounds to a couple of minutes, and the result is about one turn of something less.
How the notion of Turns can improve the situation in this case? What's the improvement in saying "ah! it took you a full turn!" instead of "it took you 10 minutes"?
It could even be just more confusing when the times are long, you're not going to make it easier for the players if you tell them "the travel took you 17 turns", which they have to think about for a while how much time it actually is... Once it takes more than an hour or two I doubt turns make more sense.
IOW, you don't use turns when the time is too short, you don't use turns when the time is too long, you don't use turns when you need exact time (in case you do).
Henry
Autoexreginated
I am very indifferent to Turns - usually it's best to me if I just guesstimate how much time certain non-combat actions to take. For instance, I estimated that it took the PC's (several of the party) about 5 minutes to carefully search several 10-foot wide empty cells; while this was going on, others were scaring up trouble elsewhere, and I ruled that they wouldn't be able to come to aid, since they were out of earshot.
francisca
I got dice older than you.
When it gets to be a problem, I assume everything is done is character, including blank vacant stares and idling on other distractions.diaglo said:
I also have a 30 seconds sand timer that I flip over noisily to prod players along. Note that I only do this in combat. The rest of the time is free form.
I don't miss the turn at all, even though I got used to it in the previous editions. It may have had some purpose there, but in 3E there's just no reason to bother with it.
When some combination of actions takes ten minutes, I say "it takes ten minutes." When it takes a little while but the actual time is not important, I say "it takes a little while." If a player wants to know the exact time taken, it's really not the slightest bit difficult to track it in rounds or minutes.
When some combination of actions takes ten minutes, I say "it takes ten minutes." When it takes a little while but the actual time is not important, I say "it takes a little while." If a player wants to know the exact time taken, it's really not the slightest bit difficult to track it in rounds or minutes.
Last edited:
