Fantasy calendars vs. Gregorian calendar

[Quasqueton]

I just recently created a calendar to track time through a year for my campaign world. Dividing up the 365 days of a year into logical months and seasons was very easy to do. I've seen the yearly calendars for a few published campaign settings, and they seem easy to follow. And I know some DMs with homebrew campaign worlds have also created logical calendars to track time through the year.

As easy as it has proven to be to create a logical and easy to remember calendar for a fantasy world, using the same number of days and seasons as in our real world, why is the Gregorian calendar of our real world so completely stupid?

A "month" is supposed to be 4 weeks long. But only one month out of the 12 actually has 28 days---all others have 30-31 days. And seasons start and end in the middle of months rather than at the beginning. And leap-year day, that day we have to add every 4 years to take into account the actual year length of 365.25 days, is added to February, the only month that is exactly 4 weeks long. The only month that actually followed the "pattern" is the only month we screw up every 4 years.

I mean, after thinking on how to arrange my campaign world calendar to make sense, the Gregorian calendar drives me bonkers. It makes no sense.

Granted, I know that our world is too set in the current calendar pattern to make any kind of change to it now. But what were the early calendar makers thinking when they arranged it in this illogical pattern? I know some of the history of our calendar, how it kind of evolved out of less accurate methods. But come on, how can someone look at the finished product and say, "OK, this works perfect. Publish it and enforce it."

<end insane rant>

Quasqueton

 

[Chroma]

Dividing up the 365 days of a year into logical months and seasons was very easy to do.

Well, there was no logical DM running things, obviously...

Here's some more info that might help you. It explains some of the purpose behind the calender, more than just "keeping time"...

http://astro.nmsu.edu/~lhuber/leaphist.html

 

[Eolin]

and besides, if you do 28-day months, then you end up an extra day and .. 13 months. At least how I've always seen it done.

And come on, we can't have a 13-month calender. The scaredness would exist.

 

[adwyn]

In a time without clocks people have to set calenders to trackable events. Unfortunately most of them don't sync. Months were originally set to the moon, years to the seasons. Two different things, so no wonder they don't match.

If you want yours to, then fine. Just think it through.

 

[DMScott]

I just recently created a calendar to track time through a year for my campaign world. Dividing up the 365 days of a year into logical months and seasons was very easy to do. I've seen the yearly calendars for a few published campaign settings, and they seem easy to follow. And I know some DMs with homebrew campaign worlds have also created logical calendars to track time through the year.

As easy as it has proven to be to create a logical and easy to remember calendar for a fantasy world, using the same number of days and seasons as in our real world, why is the Gregorian calendar of our real world so completely stupid?

There are basically three consistent ways to measure large-scale time:

- the time required for the Earth to rotate once
- the time required for the Moon to orbit the Earth
- the time required for the Earth to orbit the Sun

The first one became the basis for our "day", the second was the original basis for the "month" and "week", the third is the basis for the "year". In the real world, none of them are properly in sync with each other, so over time they get out of sync. The weirdnesses in our own calendar are mostly caused by dealing with those synchronization problems before people knew what caused them. Usually, fantasy calendars are constructed so day, month, and year are perfect multiples of one another (for example, 13 months of 28 days each gives a 364 day year) so they avoid that messiness.

Seasons are an inconsistent measurement, because they vary from place to place according to climate. Many historical cultures measured time by seasons (and this in fact was probably the most useful way for an agricultural society to keep time on a large scale), but the start and end dates are only valid in a particular location.

By the time Europeans could make the necessary orbital measurements to figure out why the calendar was out of sync, there was too much inertia behind its use to change it. It's hardly unique for more logical measurement systems to be rejected because the population is familiar with a traditional system - the US rejected metric for pretty the same reason.

 

[Scribble]

It's hardly unique for more logical measurement systems to be rejected because the population is familiar with a traditional system - the US rejected metric for pretty the same reason.

Nah... That's just cause we're rebels.

 

[Felix]

Nah... That's just cause we're rebels.

That, and the English system paddles the behind of the Metric system!

The English should never have listened to the continentals and given up that beautiful, beautiful system... but we'll carry the torch!

 

[Vlos]

One that I stole from a fellow GM a while back uses 12 four week months with 4 one week festivals.

Festival 1 Winter
Mon1
Mon2
Mon3
Festival 2 Spring
Mon4
Mon5
Mon6
Festival 3 Summer
Mon7
Mon8
Mon9
Festival 4 Fall
Mon10
Mon11
Mon12


Now obviously not all races are going to use the same calendar, but you can map them to the one above as needed.

 

[Desdichado]

If this really is another world, why does it have to have 365-day years? Just pick another number that's relatively close (so ages don't get all wonky) yet is easier for division, and off you go.

That said, although I like custom calendars well enough, in actuality the statement -- "It's the 15th day of Ches, Claws of the Sunset" (to use a FR example) -- may sound flavorful, but in general it means very little to the players.

Typically it goes something more like "It's the 15th day of Ches, Claws of the Sunset," and then everyone sits around staring blankly at the DM for a few seconds. Who then says, "Y'know, mid-March, more or less." Then everyone understands and can move on.

 

[J_D]

That said, although I like custom calendars well enough, in actuality the statement -- "It's the 15th day of Ches, Claws of the Sunset" (to use a FR example) -- may sound flavorful, but in general it means very little to the players.

Typically it goes something more like "It's the 15th day of Ches, Claws of the Sunset," and then everyone sits around staring blankly at the DM for a few seconds. Who then says, "Y'know, mid-March, more or less." Then everyone understands and can move on.

You mean your group is too lazy to learn such things about the setting?

I have DM'ed in the past, but currently I'm just a player. As a player, I view it as my duty and responsibility to learn something about the world and setting I'm going to be running characters in. In fact, that's half the fun of playing RPG's, learning about new worlds! I guess I'm just a setting-whore! The DM does a whole lot of work in learning the setting (or creating it himself as a homebrew), so the least the players can do is learn about it so they can play characters who feel like they're from that world.

When I am the DM, I expect from my players — and hold them to — the same duty and responsibility I automatically assume as a player. If my players can't be bothered to learn the basics of the setting — i.e. learn that the month of Ches in Faerûn is equivalent to the month of March on earth — then I can't be bothered to run that setting for them.