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<blockquote data-quote="Libramarian" data-source="post: 7563197" data-attributes="member: 6688858">Does anyone have any experience or advice running an open table campaign where many players drop in and out of the same sandbox campaign setting? This has been a bucket list experience for me for a while and I know enough players now who would be interested.One issue is whether time is synchronous for all PCs, or is allowed to proceed asynchronously. E.g. one group of PCs decides to travel overland, ignoring most encounters along the way, and a week passes that session. Does a week also pass for the PCs of absent players? This makes time-tracking much simpler but it's a bit weird that the amount of game time that passes between your sessions depends on what the other players do during theirs. I would need to have an unwritten rule that players can't rest for lengthy periods during play without good reason.The alternative - which I think Gygax advocates on p.37-38 of the AD&amp;D DMG, although the passage is confusing - is to allow time to pass asynchronously for the PCs. This causes many problems. E.g. on Tuesday (real time) a group of PCs heads out on day 1 (game time) and clears rooms 1 and 2 of a dungeon, rests overnight, then clears rooms 3 and 4. On Friday (real time) a second group heads out on day 1 (game time) to the same dungeon, and heads straight to room 4 - what happens? If the monster is absent now because it's &quot;destined&quot; to be killed here by the first group on day 2...might as well keep everything synchronized, IMO.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Libramarian, post: 7563197, member: 6688858"] Does anyone have any experience or advice running an open table campaign where many players drop in and out of the same sandbox campaign setting? This has been a bucket list experience for me for a while and I know enough players now who would be interested. One issue is whether time is synchronous for all PCs, or is allowed to proceed asynchronously. E.g. one group of PCs decides to travel overland, ignoring most encounters along the way, and a week passes that session. Does a week also pass for the PCs of absent players? This makes time-tracking much simpler but it's a bit weird that the amount of game time that passes between your sessions depends on what the other players do during theirs. I would need to have an unwritten rule that players can't rest for lengthy periods during play without good reason. The alternative - which I think Gygax advocates on p.37-38 of the AD&D DMG, although the passage is confusing - is to allow time to pass asynchronously for the PCs. This causes many problems. E.g. on Tuesday (real time) a group of PCs heads out on day 1 (game time) and clears rooms 1 and 2 of a dungeon, rests overnight, then clears rooms 3 and 4. On Friday (real time) a second group heads out on day 1 (game time) to the same dungeon, and heads straight to room 4 - what happens? If the monster is absent now because it's "destined" to be killed here by the first group on day 2...might as well keep everything synchronized, IMO. [/QUOTE]

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