Turns and Rounds - relooking at exploration

[Kynn]

Because Hours & Days are already in there. & 1d6 Turns fits on a normal die.

1d10 would be cool too, but I think the 6 minute turns don't lend towards easy math when working upwards.

1d12 5 minute Turns might work, especially with Rounds that are much smaller than 1 minute. But do we really want to give that much credit to the d12?

As always, finer granularity has more to it, but is more tedious to track. OTOH skipping from Rounds to Hours is probably a PITA for most DMs too.

You know, a lot of people around the world, in real life, manage to keep track of time using minutes and hours, without the need for "turns."

Why do we need "turns" -- which is a terrible abuse of jargon, by the way -- for tracking fictional time?

Can't we just rely on players' and DMs' natural familiarity with the hours:seconds system that they use every day of their lives?

 

[Kynn]

Zustiur:
For the same reason you say 1 square instead of 5 feet.

Except that the game (in 3e and 4e) doesn't allow you to take actions in less than 5' increments, so there's a reason for that existing.

 

[Zustiur]

You know, a lot of people around the world, in real life, manage to keep track of time using minutes and hours, without the need for "turns."

Why do we need "turns" -- which is a terrible abuse of jargon, by the way -- for tracking fictional time?

Let me reflect that back at you...

You know, a lot of people around the world, in real life, manage to keep track of distance using feet and yards, without the need for "squares."

Why do we need "squares" -- which is a terrible abuse of jargon, by the way -- for tracking fictional distance?

The answer to both questions is - We don't, but they can be easier to use in certain circumstances.

With 'turns' it partly boils down to how abstract you treat time.
When we say a round is 6 seconds, we don't grab a stop watch and make sure you don't speak for more than 6 seconds on your round.
When we say a turn is 10 minutes, we don't necessarily mean that it's exactly 10 minutes.

Which strikes you as easier? Tracking time when 4 actions take 9 minutes + 7 minutes + 13 minutes + 10 minutes; or tracking time when actions each take 1 turn?
It's basically a form of rounding off the numbers.
In the first example the party has used up 39 minutes. In the second, they've used up 40 minutes (4 rounds). Was that missing minute really worth the heartache of trying to calculate exactly how many minutes an activity takes?

The other thing you deal with is player mentality.
"I search the room"
"Ok, that takes 1 turn"
This example works, players will accept it.

"I search the room"
"Ok, that takes 10 minutes"
This example, may or may not, work depending on your players. Some players, in some groups will say:
"But it's a small room, I should be able to search it in 8 minutes"
To which the DM should say, 'who cares' and just move on. However in most groups, a comment like that will result in several minutes of real time conversation while the group tries to reach some sort of consensus.


On the other hand; in yet other groups, with different play styles, it would instead go like this:
"I search the room"
"Ok"

Because in those groups, time is irrelevant in explorer space. Days are important, combat rounds are important, but the guff in between is irrelevant to some groups.


With all that said; I don't like calling them 'turns'. I do like 'turn = player's go' and 'round = every combatant has a go'. I like that very much indeed.


On a related topic: I'm not a huge fan of 6 second rounds. I can see why 1 minute rounds bother people, but the slow movement WAS explained. It's not that you can only walk 30 feet in 1 minute, its that you're in combat and you are moving cautiously lest you get stabbed.
1 minute rounds go well with the abstract combat of 1E and kin. I'm not sure that 6 second rounds are the best fit for DND. I'd quite like to see 10 second or 12 second rounds myself. Keep all the other rules the same, just call it 10 seconds per round so that you get 6 rounds per minute. I personally think that's a better fit for the level of abstraction in 3E and 4E.

 

[howandwhy99]

You know, a lot of people around the world, in real life, manage to keep track of time using minutes and hours, without the need for "turns."

Why do we need "turns" -- which is a terrible abuse of jargon, by the way -- for tracking fictional time?

Can't we just rely on players' and DMs' natural familiarity with the hours:seconds system that they use every day of their lives?

We can rely on natural reference and no game needs to adopt the term Turn. Why it is part of the D&D lexicon however is that it allowed an easy reference for actions taking longer than a few minutes and shorter than an hour.

Turns filled a blank space for dungeon scale time exploration. Longer stuff, sure, we have no problem with days, weeks, months, years, decades, etc. It all breaks up into Small Numbers, which is the concern here. Hours break up into 60 minutes.

If a DM were to assiduously track all actions by time behind the screen (which I do and the old DMG emphasized heavily to do too), then Turns helps that DM for simple, easy tracking. The players don't need to refer to Turns. They need only say what they are doing and perhaps for how long.

If we're not tracking time in combat, we don't need rounds. If we're not tracking time outside of tactical-level encounters, we don't really need any of the other terms for time either.

All this stuff can be per game, but I expect exploration in 5E will have the option for focusing on out-of-encounter resource management play for those who want it.

Like a lot of stuff in games, if it's not making your life easier as a DM, you can just ignore it, don't use it, or whatever.

 

[howandwhy99]

For the Squares deal, I treat them like hexes. For the most part they are for tracking movement indoors (hexes outdoors). Are the Players telling me how long or far they are moving down a corridor? Sort of, yeah, but it usually isn't in precise feet or something. They are more descriptive saying "to the corner, but not around as I listen around it being as close as possible"

The players do not need to refer to moving in "squares" (or "hexes"). They say what they want to say and I measure on the map behind the screen. Squares and hexes help me do this quickly A LOT. No kidding. It really speeds up my end.

What about battlemat play? That's really mostly for spatial configuration for the players. Their marching order or combat positioning is clearly laid out in front of them for easy reference. It helps for pointing lots of other details out too, like "the titan can reach out 2 squares from where he is" and the players know that's up to 20 feet.

The Players can move a fraction of a square. They can stop on a line or an grid intersection. I have rules for that. They can even bunch up in a square or group of squares, be flat against a surface, or be airborne too.

Like I said before, stuff like this is supposed to aid a DM, not limit him or her or, especially, the players in what they decide to do. If 5E has rules like these, I might just use them. But it isn't something I'd expect they make mandatory.

 

[Lord Zack]

I'm currently looking for a reference in my 1st edition DMG, but at least in some modules you would roll for random encounters every turn. So that's one possible reason for there existence, measuring how often you roll for random encounters.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm currently looking for a reference in my 1st edition DMG, but at least in some modules you would roll for random encounters every turn. So that's one possible reason for there existence, measuring how often you roll for random encounters.

1e DMG AFAIK never states any fixed frequency for wandering monsters in dungeons. The 'Adventures in the Wilderness' section DOES talk about overland encounter frequency, but nowhere is it ever stated what die to use, frequency of checks, or which numbers would produce an encounter in a dungeon.

I don't know if that was intentional and the idea was that you'd decide that for yourself, or what, but even the sample dungeon doesn't state this information. It has an encounter table, and the appendices have extensive level-based tables for general use, but that's about it.

I seem to recall SOP was there was a check every turn and if the DM tossed a 6 on a d6 there was a random encounter. I don't know if this is somewhere in the DMG which I've forgotten or if it was carried over from earlier rules where it was stated, or if it was just part of the unwritten 'lore' of 1e.

 

[nomotog]

Can people think of some encounters or adventures where using turns would be useful. Ship combat or mass combat would be one. Sneaking into a building might be another, that can also work well with normal rounds. Exploration would work with this, but at the same time exploration rarely has any time limit on it or much of a reason to keep track of time.

How about monsters? I can see kobolds making use of turn time to set up traps.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

The answer to both questions is - We don't, but they can be easier to use in certain circumstances.

With 'turns' it partly boils down to how abstract you treat time.
When we say a round is 6 seconds, we don't grab a stop watch and make sure you don't speak for more than 6 seconds on your round.
When we say a turn is 10 minutes, we don't necessarily mean that it's exactly 10 minutes.

This, but even more so. If a turn is exactly 10 minutes, or a square exactly 5 feet, all the time, no exceptions, then we've killed most of the value of the abstraction. The value in it is some modest precision, but not lots of precision. "I need to know that you've spent about 40 minutes doing this, instead of 30, but that's close enough. I need to know that you ran about 10 feet instead of 5, but I simply don't care if it was closer to 8 or 12."

This is especially true in a fantasy game where, absent special magic, the characters are unlikely to have precise measurements of time or distance, anyway. The abstraction can, if used properly, reinforce that the measurements are approximations.

 

[howandwhy99]

This is especially true in a fantasy game where, absent special magic, the characters are unlikely to have precise measurements of time or distance, anyway. The abstraction can, if used properly, reinforce that the measurements are approximations.

Y'know, back in the day...

Right, well we did measure off paces for characters and basically just chose our own within a race's norm (12 or 6 movement). Then the DM would say something like "50 paces and a door to the right, 20 more and a passage to the left".

But that's really too detailed for most folks now. I just assume players are measuring by some means and relate distances in feet or finger width inches. Not telling makes mapping detrimental, but if they're not mapping I don't see a reason to relate distance anyways.