Question for everyone: Does campaign time pass between your game sessions?
For my last couple of D&D campaigns I've been using Uncle Gary's suggestion from the DMG that when nothing particular is going on then time passes at one campaign day per real day since you last played.
I've combined this approach with an assumption that loitering in smelly dungeons is sort of a 'weekend warriors' type of affair. Everybody is assumed to have some sort of day job: the thieves are petty bandits and poachers, the warriors are knights protecting/oppressing the poor, the magic-users putter around trying to turn lead into gold, etc. Day-to-day expenses are normally handled by whatever you do during the two weeks between outings to the dungeon, at least to a subsistence level that the PCs find insufficient for the rock and roll lifestyles they truly crave.
Here's an unintended upside of this policy: given the small size of my campaign map, two weeks is sufficient time that I could start any new adventure off in pretty much any hex I please.
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Posts
Re: the rule about campaign time passing - where is that in the DMG?
ReplyDeleteWe've been using a vague "a few days later" between our game sessions - but only because there are NPCs that the players are working against and longer than that (we only get together every month or two) would mean too much time has passed.
ReplyDeleteFor my games it depends. If it is a short campaign it is possible that each time we play is the next day or even just the next hour. For games that span years such as the Nightlord Saga that I am running right now there can literally be years that pass as adventurers go in and out of various realms, planes and dimensions.
ReplyDeletenieltown: somewhere around page 37 or 38. I don't have a copy handy to give you a quote.
ReplyDeleteWe've recently started having a week of game time pass between our weekly sessions, but I hadn't thought much about the PC's day jobs- for one reason or another, they aren't so much interested in rock-and-roll lifestyles, so they can generally support themselves, and their civic projects (building a temple and a fighter school) on what they've earned in the last few months but didn't spend. Some of the more altruistic/thrifty PCs have been spending the weekdays helping to build a village wall in exchange for some meals each day. I'll have to make sure they think about engaging in a trade during the week- they may choose not to, but they should at least consider the option. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteNah -- the game is frozen at the moment we end the session, often in the middle of a dungeon or dungeon-like environment. Hopefully I've taken enough notes to resume next session, often months afterward.
ReplyDeleteWe play standard D&D, so the accumulated wealth is sufficient to support the PCs as career adventurers.
Hmm. On second thought, this idea of having weekday jobs would fit in nicely with the character history tables in Monsterous Civilizations of Delos that assign trades to most every PC… I've been considering beginning to use those, but this gives me even more reason to. Cool!
ReplyDeleteI tend to run my sessions as discrete adventures, designed to last only for the three or four hours we play a week. The next adventure could take place a day later, or years, as is the case with my current Savage Eberron game.
ReplyDeleteI do like the idea of the continuing straight on into the next, but I like to save it so that the multi-session adventures feel special, like a two-parter in a TV show.
We use a combination. If the characters are in a dungeon or right in the middle of Something Important (TM), then we tend to freeze the action and resume right at the point we left off, even if we go a few weeks or a month between sessions.
ReplyDeleteIf the characters have just finish something major and are trying to figure out what to do next, then we tend to go onto our campaign message boards between sessions and figure things out, and in cases like that, days, weeks, or months can pass in the game world before we get together to play again. In these cases, the passage of time is usually based on what the characters want to do - "I want to return home to visit my family" or "I want to spend the next month or so crafting a magic suit of armor."
I use the same method mentioned in the DMG which I have always felt was a great idea. If there's a break in the action, campaign time passes as real time. It helps move the campaign calendar forward, changing seasons and all that. It also depletes the characters financial resources due to lodging and meals (2 weeks of which adds up quite a bit). That keeps them hungry for more adventuring. Also, events can pass during that time that can lead to adventure hooks or long term plot points. Without something like this, players just tend to jump right back into the dungeon after they get out and 'sell' their stuff.
ReplyDeleteA combination. If the players are in the middle of a dungeon then they stayed there, the same if they were negotiating or there's a timed campaign feature going on. Otherwise, it depends on what feels right.
ReplyDeleteDepends on where the game left off. If the PCs are in the middle of an adventure, usually, either no time passes, or "The next day..." or "An hour later..". If a major story arc has completed, days, weeks, or sometimes months may pass. Uusually, I will bluebook this, asking what players do during downtime, and feeding that in to what's happening in the world. I find that having a lot of time pass between major adventures helps keep the world real -- the characters all have lives and responsibilities, they're not just "adventurers". Even when they are -- in some worlds, "Adventurer" is a known and recognized job description -- they still have families, friends, a home, and life goals -- they're adventuring for some REASON, and what they do when they're not adventuring is usually related to that.
ReplyDeleteYes, at the rate of 1 campaign day per 2 real days. This maps out to allowing mages to make a scroll or 1st level magic item between games, but also doesn't advance the calendar too quickly to make events seem odd. I think Uncle Gary found it easier to host games more often that we are these days.
ReplyDeleteThe specific quote is from pg 37 in the "Time In The Campaign" section:
(and it is best to use 1 actual day = 1 game day when no play is happening)
My players start in town/civilized area and end in town/civilized area. If they don't, I use the famous Rients Dungeon Escape charts to determine their fate. None have taken that chance.
Time passes at whatever pace I need it to pass. If we're in the middle of an adventure, no time passes. If we're between adventures, it depends on where the PCs go and what they do.
ReplyDeleteThe old Chaosium book for Runequest, Cities had a great catch up table.
ReplyDeleteDepends on where we stop at the end of a session. If we have to stop on a cliffhanger (which I try to avoid at all costs), then the next session picks up right where we left off...I guess that's obvious, eh? But I really am a big believer in time passing between sessions. One big reason is that it makes more sense when characters level up. Otherwise, it becomes a case of "you character started out at age 20 at first level, and now he's tenth level and he's 22"! I hate that...
ReplyDeleteI've tried both methods over the years, but for my current game each session picks up exactly where the last left off (66 sessions down). However, its not uncommon for us to end a session with the party camping and then pick up the next session the following morning, provided there are no encounters that night. I like to keep an accurate and detailed calendar of events - some kind of personality disorder, no doubt!
ReplyDeleteI started doing it more in 3E D&D to give the crafters time to make stuff without interrupting a session for it. I've pretty much adopted it as a standing rule for any ongoing campaign.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDeleted comment was from me under the GF's handle.
ReplyDeleteAfter having sessions end mid-delve and finding it to be unsatisfactory, I have instituted the "every session must end back in town" rule and real time passes between sessions. The PCs don't have day jobs, they live it up during the week off (paying 1% of their XP total in GP for expenses), recover from wounds, make scrolls (ala Holmes), and research leads on new places to investigate, people to sell exotic Faberge eggs to (my replacement for gems).
I like games that have some time pass between adventures. My current game du jour, Pendragon, is, of course, famous for its assumption that one "adventure" will occur per year, the rest of the time being taken up with knightly duties.
ReplyDeleteThat was also something I always liked about GURPS. I can't remember if it's in 4th edition, but the 3rd edition rulebook explicitly discussed setting a ratio of real days to game days passed, and every PC was assumed to have a job that they'd collect income from and have to roll on a Job Table once a month and so forth.
Like I say, I've always liked this approach, and as time goes by I find myself enjoying it more and more to the point where, now I think about it, it's pretty much my default way of running things.
I just wanted to post a slightly off-topic comment... the variety of responses here show, once again, that there isn't a one-size-fits-all, always-right, this-is-how-it-must-be answer to game style, even within the same game system or group of systems. Different people prefer different styles, and even the same group playing the same game can run one campaign one way and one another.
ReplyDeleteBack in the back of the wayback days, I ran my game such that time only passed right there at the game table. Then one night everyone realised that our 10th level priest of Hades, in the process of getting his stronghold and followers and generally being a massive force of Big Thumping Destiny in the game world.. was a 19yr old kid. Doh!
ReplyDeleteNow I have time pass 1for1 in days between sessions, as long as we don't leave a session in the middle of a dungeon/fight/etc.
I just wanted to post a slightly off-topic comment... the variety of responses here show, once again, that there isn't a one-size-fits-all, always-right, this-is-how-it-must-be answer to game style, even within the same game system or group of systems. Different people prefer different styles, and even the same group playing the same game can run one campaign one way and one another.
ReplyDeleteExcellent point, Lizard.
The Cities supplement that was made for RuneQuest (well, it was supposed to be generic, but it was really just done for RuneQuest) has an excellent downtime generator. I've thought to adapt it for my game to reflect what goes down when PCs are not present for adventures. I actually blogged about it a bunch last summer.
ReplyDelete