Small units of time - in game

[Quasqueton]

How is small-unit time measured in your game? Do the characters, in game, know and understand and acknowledge hours, minutes, seconds?

If seconds, minutes, and hours are not known time units in the game, how do characters refer to short amounts of time? Using in-game terms, how long do 1 round/level, 1 minute/level, 10 minutes/level, and 1 hour/level spells last?

Quasqueton

 

[Orm]

There´s the water clock in the PHB. So, there is a concept of small time units in DnD. Maybe they know about sundials as well. There are lots of rather simple ways to measure time known for ages.

Concerning spells I don´t know. Maybe it´s kind of experience that you more or less know how long an effect will last, depending on the arcane or divine power you can use to fuel up a spell. Remember, "1 round" is just a technical term for the players, not for the characters.

Orm

 

[hong]

Microfortnights.

 

[Gez]

Do the people, in the real world, know and understand and acknowledge hours, minutes, seconds?

 

[Old One]

Like Grains of Sand...

IMC, I just renamed everything a bit...

I use "grain" for second (as in grain of sand)...and have minuteglasses and hourglasses...all holdovers from the once-powerful and well-ordered Emorian Empire.

My description of time passing tends to be:

* round - "a few grains"
* minute - "1 turn of the minuteglass"
* 5 mintues later - "5 turns of the minuteglass later"
* 15 minutes - "1/4 turn of the hourglass"
* etc...

I also use fortnights, moons and winters to describe longer periods of time.

~ Old One

 

[Arnwyn]

There´s the water clock in the PHB. So, there is a concept of small time units in DnD.

Yep, that's what we use. So, for simplicity's sake, small units of time are known in-game by the characters.

Good enough for us.

 

[Vanye]

I even came up with an "in game" explanation for the reason six seconds are referred to as a "round" - it's about how long it takes to cook a pancake-type breakfast food on a properly prepared griddle. Said cakes are caled....rounds.

 

[Starglim]

Do the people, in the real world, know and understand and acknowledge hours, minutes, seconds?

Hours were known throughout the mediaeval period due to the requirement for monks to pray at set times, and for warriors to stand watch. A water clock or time candle is quite capable of recording minutes, which are important for odd chemical processes and precise navigation, so wizards, alchemists and the like would know about them. edit: A minuteglass sounds realistic as well.

I would guess, though I don't know positively, that seconds are a much more recent invention and were probably a unit of angle before they were used for time. No rule in the rulebook uses a period of seconds.

 

[Gez]

Hours, minutes, and seconds are very, very, very old. IIRC, we've inherited this sexagesimal (base 60) standard from the ancient Babylonians. (4000 years ago...)

That's why we have 24 hours of 60 minutes of 60 seconds each, rather than 10 of 100 of 100 (it would make shorter seconds, BTW), or something like that.

Of course, for a long time, there were two set of times -- a solar one for the common folk, making daylight hours longer, and nighttime hours shorter, in summer ; and a more precise one for the rich few who had waterclocks or (later) mechanical clocks.

In fact, it's through the train that people really started to have an official, unified, precise tracking of time. Later, telephone and radio increased even more this unification.

 

[diaglo]

yes, in game, time is known. but not anymore so than you or i can tell time now without staring at a watch or clock. so it can be slightly off.


10 segments = 1 round

10 rounds = 1 turn

6 turns = 1 hour

24 hours = 1 day