How do you handle time in your game?

[beldar1215]

Hello All,
I was wondering how people out there handle the passing of time in thier games. I'm guessing most people just kind of wing it, but I was wondering if anyone had another ways of dealing it. One of the reasons I'm asking is because I have some players who are always worried about the time of day so they can get their spells back. I always have a hard time figuring out how long things should take. This is hard for me when they are moving through a underground dungeon. Any ideas would be great.

Thanks in Advance for your help.

Beldar

 

[Shallown]

I use a calender to keep track of the days and such. Its great fro reminding me how fast time is passing so I can make sure the world develops in places the PC's are not at. Make notes about holidays and such. Also set events that will happen at X time and then have them happen only changing it if the PC's infulence that change. I use it to plan out what the bad guys are up to as well.

Dungeon time I made a sheet marked in 10 minute increments and keep track of things with that. It helps a lot when time is an issue.

Later

 

[Thanee]

Just use the guidelines in the book and some guesswork.

For example, searching a room might take a couple minutes for a quick search or even half an hour for a very thorough search. Combat usually takes a minute or two. Careful exploration is at 10'-15'/round maybe (half-speed) and thus 100'-150' per minute. Talking about strategies and how to proceed, thinking about riddles, etc, will take a couple minutes usually as well.

So, you can quite easily say, when an hour has passed, if you just keep an eye on this and make notes (it's surely easier that way).

For overland travel, the PHB has guidelines about how much distance you travel in an hour or in a day's worth (8 hours of travel).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Nine Hands]

It all depends on the campaign for me. With my elven game, since they all have such long lifespans I can skip years with the wave of a hand. Generally the PCs determine what things they do and I tweak things just a little. They plan to meet up at some point in the future. This allows me to advance the plot enough.

In the Robotech game I play in the GM runs it as episodic (just like a TV show), this means that the meat of the adventure (what happens at the gaming table) is intermixed with glossed over things that happen inbetween game sessions. Each adventure is self contained with possible plot running between the adventures, but the adventure itself has a beginning, middle, and end. For a good example of running these types of games, check out Now Playing available from Carvnivore Games Although the book is not d20, the section on running games in episodic format is quite useful, and its a good system for one shots at parties.

For instance, if my character makes adjustments to her Mecha, that is handled via e-mail and usually not at the table. Of course the consequences of her changes take place in game.

As for tracking time, I use DMGenie DMGenie as it has an awesome time tracking/weather tool. I keep all of my campaign notes on it too.