Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 09, 2024, 06:17:50 PM
Over in the Twatter someone told me 1:1 time is good because you need it to run several gaming groups in the exact same world, at the exact same period of in-world time and in the exact same in-world location.

Else you'd need to put the game time on hold until next session...

Now, I might be missing something but doesn't that mean that some asshole PC/NPC could just kill my PC between gaming sessions?

Also, if that's why people are using 1:1 time then it's a "solution" for a problem of their own making, one that has several other solutions, from the top of my head:

Run different worlds for each group
Run the same world but really distant locations/time periods for each group
Run different instances of the same world, multiverses where each group is in the same world in a different universe so they don't interact with each other ever.

There might be other solutions beside those that don't involve having the PCs atg risk of being killed while the player isn't there.

Do people really find that play style fun?

If you do, care to explain exactly where is the fun in having your PC murdered while you're not there?

Or having the GM run YOUR PC as an NPC while you're not there so it can get killed?

"Do people really find that play style fun?" Yes, in fact. I do because it's basically playing Survival Mode: TTRPG Edition, and I like that style of play.

I'm guessing you were talking to Jeffro Johnson or someone like me who has noticed the BROSR and likes their ideas, so I'll post with that in mind.

Most of what you're implying in general is false or easily solved with a different way of thinking, not just from the players but the DM as well.

Your claim that a PC can die between sessions? Sure, if you purposefully stop playing in a dangerous area. You may not have a choice when traveling the wilderness, sure, but in the AD&D books, there are six times when a check is made for an encounter per day, those chances being 1/20, 1/12, or 1/10 depending on how many people live in that area, and the times to check for an encounter depend on where you are. Plains, Hills and Deserts have 3 checks, Mountains have 2, Scrubs have 4, and Forests and Swamps have 6.

If you're following the rules in a compacted sense, you just make those checks again and again until you reach your goal or something happens. If you're using 1:1 Timekeeping and something happens, then it's up to the DM to let the players know and get their inputs. That can be done with social media or group text chat systems these days.

Running several campaigns at once? It's possible, but difficult if there are very few Downtime activities that a PC can partake in that don't eat up lots of that downtime. Crafting magic items, running part of a guild, etc. If that's an issue, stick with one campaign with the 1:1 rules in play.

EDIT: The 'running multiple campaigns' reminds me a bit of the RPGA (Role-Playing Gamers Association) from when I heard Spoony talk about it. It's a shared world setup, though far as I know, there's no intermingling between groups, just general progress along the campaign at set times.

As for the 1:1 Timekeeping System itself, those days when you're doing nothing? So long as you have a handful of minutes to spare, you can make plans for multiple days, contact the other players and make plans with them, tell the DM you're using some Downtime to shop for supplies, etc. Like I said before, we have social media and group chat services galore these days. Doing stuff like this is child's play compared to when Gary and Dave were designing D&D and had to use phone tag and snail mail.

Just because you're 'away from the table' doesn't mean you can't control your character in some small ways, and when you are at the table, 1:1 Time is not absolute. If it takes two hours to get to a location, and you fast forward that during a session, that's fine. Time is flexible then. It's when you're away from the table and something similar happens that you no longer have the leeway to zip ahead. You have to wait.

Example from my own game system: One of my players is working their in-game job, a Downtime thing, for 8 hours, say 8-4, on the same day when the other two players have in-game days off. Those two go scouting a location at 1 pm, which is a mini-session that the DM oversees. When everything is done, the player who was working gets filled in on what they found or achieved.

He couldn't take part with them because he was working at the same time they went scouting. That could change if he walked out mid-shift, but if he did do that, he'd be punished for it.

I think the idea comes for a war-game mentality.

Things like 1:1 time (in all its forms) and the idea that "you must end the session in town" are typical meta-game concerns. The players are asking themselves if they can play next week or if they have to finish in a couple of hours, instead of how many torches the PCs have.

This thinking is not typical of "pure" RPGs, but come from earlier formats.

On the other hand, metagame challenges are often fun to include in RPGs (for example, using a stopwatch for random encounters), especially when they help the players to get into the PC's mind.

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2024/02/wargames-storygames-and-rpgs.html

Quote from: RPGer678 on February 11, 2024, 09:50:18 AM

Quote from: yosemitemike on February 11, 2024, 04:02:45 AM
If the PCs do something that takes an hour, do we sit here looking at each other for an hour or make in-character small talk?  If they sleep for the night, do we hang around for 8 hours?  If we end a fight and then stop for the week, have the PCs been hanging around at the scene of the battle for a week?  Doing what?  Do you have to end every session in town?  They just hang around?  What if there is a time crunch in game?  It just doesn't really make any sense to me for an ongoing campaign.  Maybe for one-shot tournament style scenarios.  I don't run those though.

Yes, every game session starts and ends in town. Also every game session takes place within a single game day. 1:1 does not apply to time within the game session, only outside of it (and since the game session covers a single day of activity and is run in one RL day, 1:1 is preserved in the overall scheme). The 1E DMG covers what happens if one or more PCs decide to do something that takes many days (travel a long distance overland, craft a magic item, etc).

Obviously this only really works with a base ('town') and one or more dungeons a short walk away so the various parties can get to the dungeon, walk around inside it and get back to town all in the same day.

So no mega dungeons, wilderness travel (or handwaving it) or any other adventure that would require multiple game sessions?

Am I understanding this right?

Quote from: King Tyranno on February 10, 2024, 05:03:14 PM
I'm actually writing a post about my experience with 1:1 time over the last year. Why I recommend it and who I recommend it to.  I doubt it will convince people who don't like it but I think there are interesting things to say. No matter how much idiots like me try to explain how it works and importantly WHY it works, there are going to be naysayers who don't want to understand or discuss it in good faith. If you don't want to do it, don't do it. And stop trying to tell people who actually have experience with it that it somehow doesn't work immediately after we tell you several times how it does work with examples. Move on.

Who are you talking to/about?

Something else I missed:

20 weeks to crat a mcguffing... Okay, no problem with that

So, let's see if I understood correctly:

I need 20 in-game weeks to craft it, since absolutelly NO ONE wants to spend 20 game sessions with me explaining HOW I'm crafting it a solution is needed, that's crystal clear.

Now, on game day what? my PC stops crafting to go adventuring? doesn't that add a day to the crafting? so it would be more like 23 weeks of IRL time?

How come he can just stop crafting for a day (or more if he gets injured) and nothing ever happens to the mcguffin?

I'm sure there's something I'm missing somewhere.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 18, 2024, 02:59:50 PM
I'm sure there's something I'm missing somewhere.

Multiple PCs per player.

1:1 is a troll 9/10.  It adds nothing to the game and creates all manner of issues. It is also deeply impractical as it leads to the sort of issues brought up in the OP.  The very early D&D groups that did this  A) were running dozens of simultaneous groups and it was a nightmare to coordinate, and B) it was the early days of the hobby and it was all new ground. They tried a lot of things, many of which proved to be stupid in retrospect.

People who preach this are just dick swinging and shit-talking. I'd bet 95% of them don't really do it and the 5% that do run the most crap games imaginable.

Example of 1:1 play:

GM: "Okay, you board the ship and set sail for the new world!  See you guys in six months."

Quote from: Ruprecht on February 18, 2024, 03:16:04 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 18, 2024, 02:59:50 PM
I'm sure there's something I'm missing somewhere.

Multiple PCs per player.

in the same party?

What guarantees the party still has a spellcaster?

Quote from: DocFlamingo on February 18, 2024, 03:56:17 PM
1:1 is a troll 9/10.  It adds nothing to the game and creates all manner of issues. It is also deeply impractical as it leads to the sort of issues brought up in the OP.  The very early D&D groups that did this  A) were running dozens of simultaneous groups and it was a nightmare to coordinate, and B) it was the early days of the hobby and it was all new ground. They tried a lot of things, many of which proved to be stupid in retrospect.

People who preach this are just dick swinging and shit-talking. I'd bet 95% of them don't really do it and the 5% that do run the most crap games imaginable.

Example of 1:1 play:

GM: "Okay, you board the ship and set sail for the new world!  See you guys in six months."

Except you have to end the session at home base... So no sailing to the new world or you handwave travell time, it was always perfect weather, no pirates and good winds.

I mean, multiple dungeons within a couple hours of home town? I can see that, what happens once any party cleans one? At some point all dungeons will get cleared, then what?

The monsters attack the town? No can do cuz it "must be safe"... How come no monsters ever attack the town?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 18, 2024, 02:59:50 PM
Something else I missed:

20 weeks to crat a mcguffing... Okay, no problem with that

So, let's see if I understood correctly:

I need 20 in-game weeks to craft it, since absolutelly NO ONE wants to spend 20 game sessions with me explaining HOW I'm crafting it a solution is needed, that's crystal clear.

Now, on game day what? my PC stops crafting to go adventuring? doesn't that add a day to the crafting? so it would be more like 23 weeks of IRL time?

How come he can just stop crafting for a day (or more if he gets injured) and nothing ever happens to the mcguffin?

I'm sure there's something I'm missing somewhere.

1. I use the 5e XGTE 'work weeks' where a week is 5 days of crafting etc, 2 days of anything else you want, including adventuring.
2. In my example this is the human Fighter-20 (Battlemaster) deputy leader of the Temple of Yig, his boss the Yuan-Ti Fighter-20 (Eldritch Knight) high priest of Yig also a PC. They're basically Rexxor & Thulsa Doom. They have a vast temple complex across the upper reaches of Stonehell, with dozens of snake monsters and hundreds of human cult fanatics. They're not too worried about theft (until Conan shows up, I guess!).

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 18, 2024, 04:18:22 PM
Except you have to end the session at home base... So no sailing to the new world

I think 1:1 time is probably not suited to really long range exploration, though I'm not certain. With a week between sessions, an adventure per week of travel time is basically the Wagon Train/Star Trek way. Or 'Monkey' - I can certainly see a game like Paizo's Green Regent functioning with 1:1, though I'm not sure it would add enough benefit to be worthwhile. The greatest benefits are in relatively small scale sandbox games with a more or less static home base.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 18, 2024, 04:18:22 PM
The monsters attack the town? No can do cuz it "must be safe"... How come no monsters ever attack the town?

While West Marches makes the town safe, this is not an inherent feature of 1:1 time.

Quote from: S'mon on February 18, 2024, 04:48:39 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 18, 2024, 04:18:22 PM
The monsters attack the town? No can do cuz it "must be safe"... How come no monsters ever attack the town?

While West Marches makes the town safe, this is not an inherent feature of 1:1 time.

So, in general, monsters can attack the town...

How come they never attack while the party is there? (meaning the players aren't) We've established that the PCs are in town only between sessions, so any active party isn't there.

Is this why YOUR game makes the town safe?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 18, 2024, 05:02:49 PM

Quote from: S'mon on February 18, 2024, 04:48:39 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 18, 2024, 04:18:22 PM
The monsters attack the town? No can do cuz it "must be safe"... How come no monsters ever attack the town?

While West Marches makes the town safe, this is not an inherent feature of 1:1 time.

So, in general, monsters can attack the town...

How come they never attack while the party is there? (meaning the players aren't) We've established that the PCs are in town only between sessions, so any active party isn't there.

Is this why YOUR game makes the town safe?

I've had the town attacked while the PCs are there. I don't understand why this is even an issue. By default if it's 2 weeks since we last played, the monster attack on the town also happens two weeks later in game time. Occasionally for some reason it has to happen earlier, in which case 1:1 time is suspended, same as during a session, only to catch up later.

Quote from: S'mon on February 18, 2024, 06:21:29 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 18, 2024, 05:02:49 PM

Quote from: S'mon on February 18, 2024, 04:48:39 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 18, 2024, 04:18:22 PM
The monsters attack the town? No can do cuz it "must be safe"... How come no monsters ever attack the town?

While West Marches makes the town safe, this is not an inherent feature of 1:1 time.

So, in general, monsters can attack the town...

How come they never attack while the party is there? (meaning the players aren't) We've established that the PCs are in town only between sessions, so any active party isn't there.

Is this why YOUR game makes the town safe?

I've had the town attacked while the PCs are there. I don't understand why this is even an issue. By default if it's 2 weeks since we last played, the monster attack on the town also happens two weeks later in game time. Occasionally for some reason it has to happen earlier, in which case 1:1 time is suspended, same as during a session, only to catch up later.

So you only use it when and if it's convenient/the right tool...

Care to expand on situations where it is and it isn't?