Something that 4e's designers overlooked? -aka is KM correct?

[I'm A Banana]

Part of me would really like to see time become a codified, valuable, expendable resource in D&D. Maybe call it "Riverine Design": you're always flowing to the goal, constantly in motion, and you can't always go back to take an option you missed. Sometimes, you're rapid, sometimes you meander, sometimes you stop for a while at a lake, but you are never truly still. Time is always being used up.

Not sure if that would be a totally positive addition to the game, though.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Part of me would really like to see time become a codified, valuable, expendable resource in D&D.

That's very old school. OD&D measures time carefully, both at the dungeon level - 10 min turns, wandering monster checks, etc - and the campaign level. PCs that go on journeys are supposed to be unavailable for adventuring during that time. Crafting magic items not only costs money but a lot of time - it takes 1 year(!) to make a Ring of X-Ray Vision.

I think the idea is that time in the game-world passes at the same rate it does in our own, but it's assumed that you are playing D&D a *lot*, almost every day of the week. So if a PC goes on a 20-day trip, he could be missing out on a lot of adventures.

 

[AllisterH]

I still disagree with the assumption that 4e PCs are "superheroes" out of the gate. It ignores the fact that the rest of the world is NOT assumed in 4e to be made up of 99% 0-2HD humanoid NPCs

(Personally, I always thought this assumption did not make much sense in published material..for example, in 2e there was a supplement for the FR region of the sea of fallen stars - the fluff/flavour text talked about how dangerous it was from pirates to sahaugin to even mention of a kraken....yet 99% of the sailors are described as 1 HD humanoids that somehow survived these excursions for MULTIPLE years - same problem I had with the "From the Ashes" boxed set for Greyhawk - pretty much EVERYONE had been fighting in that war but the assumption is still that most of the people are 1, or 2 HD at best)

re: Time as a resource.

Isn't the entire Ritual system using "time" as a resource? That I think is the balancing factor for rituals since money, while initally being a factor, eventually becomes a non-issue but time remains.

Thus, rituals don't exceed skills that they directly compete with.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Part of me would really like to see time become a codified, valuable, expendable resource in D&D.

That something's you can do in adventure/world design. If something bad happens every X days the PC spend in a dungeon, they'll have a reason to keep track of time. Of course, you'll also need to have things that will eat up time as well.

 

[Dausuul]

Part of me would really like to see time become a codified, valuable, expendable resource in D&D. Maybe call it "Riverine Design": you're always flowing to the goal, constantly in motion, and you can't always go back to take an option you missed. Sometimes, you're rapid, sometimes you meander, sometimes you stop for a while at a lake, but you are never truly still. Time is always being used up.

This has some interesting possibilities.

Here's one way of doing it: Say you have a Gothic-themed campaign, in which the powers of evil rise with the setting of the sun. Monsters in this setting are mostly quiescent during the day - they'll fight back if attacked, and might go after prey that walks right up to them, but they don't go out and actively do stuff. Night is when they come alive.

In such a setting, PCs in a "trouble spot" after sunset can expect to endure a siege of terror until dawn. Even if they quit the field during daylight, the monsters will either spend the night preparing traps and ambushes, or else leave the dungeon and hunt the PCs into the wilderness. So there's a major incentive to go in, do whatever you've got to do, and get out while the sun is in the sky.

You could appoint a party member as timekeeper, or do it yourself, and have set "time costs" for various activities (30 minutes to search a room of 16 squares or less, or 1 hour to search a larger one; 1 hour to cover a mile while staying alert for ambushes and danger signs; 1 hour to make or break camp; et cetera).

And, of course, the dungeon could contain traps and hazards that would have the effect of slowing the PCs down. Dump them into a lower level of the dungeon so it takes them longer to get out. Have traps inflict injuries designed not to kill the PCs but to make them waste time - poisons that reduce movement speed, hypnotic effects that target PCs' Will defense and make them stand entranced while the minutes and hours tick by.

 

[Scribble]

Part of me would really like to see time become a codified, valuable, expendable resource in D&D. Maybe call it "Riverine Design": you're always flowing to the goal, constantly in motion, and you can't always go back to take an option you missed. Sometimes, you're rapid, sometimes you meander, sometimes you stop for a while at a lake, but you are never truly still. Time is always being used up.

Not sure if that would be a totally positive addition to the game, though.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this?

Could you give an example that is closer to an in game concept? (And not so Zen monkish...)

 

[MerricB]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this?

Could you give an example that is closer to an in game concept? (And not so Zen monkish...)

One of the best examples I know of Time as a Game Resource is the boardgame Thebes. The game works like this:

Each of you is an archaeologist. Assuming a 2-player game, you have 3 years worth of time to play the game, split into weeks. (So, 156 weeks). The board shows the map of Europe and the dig sites around the Mediterranean, connected by lines.

To move from Moscow to Warsaw (which are adjacent) requires you to travel over one line - one week. From Moscow to London requires 3 weeks.

At the locations, there are various things you can do: 5 dig sites allow you to perform a dig (1-12 weeks long) where you draw tiles from a bag hoping to find treasures and not sand. Various cards appear at locations giving you resources that will help you find treasure: knowledge, assistants, etc. These cards take additional weeks to acquire.

On your turn, you move and then take a card (or do a dig). This takes a number of weeks according to distance and the card, which is marked on a time tracker. After your turn, the next player is the one who has the most time remaining! So, you can take consecutive turns if the other players have spent a lot of time already.

All of this is set against the limited time you have in the game. There's this continual pressure: Can I afford taking so long to travel somewhere? Do I look for more knowledge or go for a dig?

It's perhaps the best example I know of using time as a resource. (Great game; best with 2 or 3 players, though 4 is still fun. Takes about 60-90 minutes for a game).

You can see Gary describing something like that in the AD&D DMG in his discussion of keeping track of Time. However, his discussion regards having several active groups in the game - something most D&D games don't have. The idea of time as a limited resource? It isn't there.

For time to truly be important, either it must be limited, or there must be other groups that have actions that take time and who can adversely affect the players if they complete their actions first. (Which is another way of saying the available time of the players is limited.) In AD&D, this has seen use in "The Assassin's Knot" by Len Lakofka, which has a timeline for the adversaries, against which the PCs must race. The James Bond RPG also uses villain timelines in its adventures.

AD&D 1e is interesting in that there are several activities that take up a lot of time, in particular training, wilderness travel and recovering from being revived from negative hit points. However, the game really doesn't have any structure in it that makes this lost time meaningful. Yes, there are aging effects, but most campaigns don't last that long. To get from 1st to 15th level may only really consume a couple of years of game time. Meanwhile, if you add in a villain's timeline, it actually adversely interacts with those aspects, especially training.

Honestly, to use Time as a Resource in D&D requires a much more strict structure than currently exists in the game. I'm not really familiar with Birthright, but I dare say that would have such a structure, likewise with the Dominion rules in the Companion ruleset of BECM D&D. However, both these rulesets are at odds with the regular activities of D&D play; it's not just a case of adapting one.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

I think the biggest change was with regard to items. With items with charges, scrolls, and uses per day items gone it reduces that resource management.

It's worth noting that a bunch of consumable items were introduced back with the Adventurer's Vaults; however, certainly the "multicharged" wands are a thing of the past.

Cheers!

 

[Bluenose]

One of the best examples I know of Time as a Game Resource is the boardgame Thebes. The game works like this:

snip...

I think one reason it works in a boardgame is because of the competition between players with comparable starting positions. In an RPG the players aren't generally competing with each other - they're cooperating and if they're competing with anyone it's the GM. That's a competition they can only win if the GM allows it, since the GM is also the person setting the parameters of the competition and can always twist those parameters to create the result he/she wants. Note that Time as a strategic resource is also something that appears in computer games - the RTS genre is noted for it.

Honestly, to use Time as a Resource in D&D requires a much more strict structure than currently exists in the game. I'm not really familiar with Birthright, but I dare say that would have such a structure, likewise with the Dominion rules in the Companion ruleset of BECM D&D. However, both these rulesets are at odds with the regular activities of D&D play; it's not just a case of adapting one.

Cheers!

In Birthright, they used the concept of the Domain Turn. Basically a period of three months, in which a player could take three actions. Which might include going on an adventure, starting the construction of a castle, and stirring up trouble in a neighbouring country, as examples. They might also have a Lieutenant who could also take an action, from a restricted range compared to that of the PC.

Where problems developed was if the characters acted as your typical adventuring-party-turned-rulers. A party of five characters, all with lieutenants, could get through twenty actions in a Domain Turn. Some actions cost money, so it's unlikely they'd do many of those, but there were others which were effectively free and which had significant effects. If they operated that way, it was effectively essential to create comparable groups for neighbouring countries if you didn't want to see those being overwhelmed trivially.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I think one reason it works in a boardgame is because of the competition between players with comparable starting positions. In an RPG the players aren't generally competing with each other - they're cooperating and if they're competing with anyone it's the GM.

I think there was quite a strong element of competition in Gary's early games, to see who could get the most powerful character.

Consider that OD&D assumes 20 players for every 1 DM, games played several times a week, and also that different groups of players would be assembling, under the same DM, at different times. It's an advantage to play more frequently, so your PC(s) can level up faster.

It's actually a lot like a group of friends playing WoW, where some people can end up playing a lot more often, out-levelling those who spend less time on gaming.

Time as a resource - but you're actually spending real time.