A lot of social media posts are following a fad started by idiotic cultists, and don't understand the REAL reason for time-keeping in your game.
#dnd        #ttrpg   #osr 

QuoteOne of the things stressed in the original game of D&D was the importance of recording game time with respect to each and every player character in a campaign. In AD&D it is emphasized even more: YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT.

So...did these dudes read that and decide it means something it really doesn't? Are they actually advocating for a 1-to-1 relationship at all times? This sort of thing makes sense in the context of D&D where you have a massive game world with 20+ players who all play at different times, and a DM running nightly sessions for whoever decides to show up. It makes zero fucking sense for a regular gaming group that meets weekly (or less). How would this sort of thing even work if you had to stop a session at the start/middle of a combat?

The more I hear about this BrOSR crap, the more I wonder if it's just an elaborate ruse meant to attack legitimate RPGs in yet another way.

EDIT: To say nothing of stuff like C&S and Pendragon where "off screen" might be literally years, handwaved over a weekend.

Remember that campaigns in the 1970's often tied adventure time to real world time. If constructing a magical item took 6 weeks then you wouldn't get it for six weeks on the actual calendar. That's why it was so important to keep track of time back then.

Quote from: finarvyn on September 20, 2023, 08:24:19 AM
Remember that campaigns in the 1970's often tied adventure time to real world time. If constructing a magical item took 6 weeks then you wouldn't get it for six weeks on the actual calendar. That's why it was so important to keep track of time back then.

We, nor anyone else in our area ever played that way.  Those would have been outliers.   SOME people did the one to one time when NOT playing as advised in the DMG.  NEVER saw anyone not use game time during game time like you wrote.

Quote from: Brad on September 20, 2023, 06:01:12 AM
So...did these dudes read that and decide it means something it really doesn't? Are they actually advocating for a 1-to-1 relationship at all times? This sort of thing makes sense in the context of D&D where you have a massive game world with 20+ players who all play at different times, and a DM running nightly sessions for whoever decides to show up. It makes zero fucking sense for a regular gaming group that meets weekly (or less). How would this sort of thing even work if you had to stop a session at the start/middle of a combat?

   The contention of the most vocal elements of the BrOSR is that:

   1. You never 'freeze time'--if the PCs don't make it back to home base by end of session, then so much the worse for them.
   2. The traditional method of doing RPGs is Wrong and Does Not Work, and most of the products designed for such gaming are bad and not worth your money.

This discussion about time keeping crossed my feed a bit on twitter and I was curious about it. I agree. I mean time keeping is important. There isn't one way to do it and really the different approaches all serve different needs. I have done 1-1 time and real world time, and the main reasons I would every do something like real world time would be 1) I have two groups in the same campaign and having real world time (i.e. a week between sessions is a week in the game world) makes it easier to keep track of players impact on the setting when they cross paths, 2) to create a sense of the surreal in the setting.

For 2, this is a point against using it for all your campaigns. I have a setting that is set in purgatory and I wanted things to feel 'off'. So I use real world time because I just found that in practice having it be the same time in the game as it is outside (regardless of how much time seems to have passed in the game) produces a weird feeling of things not quite being right and of being dreamlike.

In terms of strict time keeping. I think most people eyeball it, or they find a method that works for them. Or they take it on a case by case basis. I have been gaming since '86 and time keeping has been all over the map according to the style of the group. I tend to focus more on having a calendar where days are tracked and keeping the players informed about how much time has passed (and also having general rules for myself as GM for what that means (i.e. in this location, there is a chance of an encounter every X amount of time).

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on September 20, 2023, 08:31:43 AM
   The contention of the most vocal elements of the BrOSR is that:

   1. You never 'freeze time'--if the PCs don't make it back to home base by end of session, then so much the worse for them.
   2. The traditional method of doing RPGs is Wrong and Does Not Work, and most of the products designed for such gaming are bad and not worth your money.

So they're just retards. Got it.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on September 20, 2023, 08:31:43 AM
   The contention of the most vocal elements of the BrOSR is that:

   1. You never 'freeze time'--if the PCs don't make it back to home base by end of session, then so much the worse for them....

That would lend a lot of credence to Brad's "elaborate trolling" theory. That contention is so impractical on its face that I have a hard time believing anyone has ever run a successful campaign that way.

Yeah, that's why I find things like the torches in Shadowdark so ..... I don't know how to say it.....just not that inventive.

No shade on Kelsey, but I get there's loads of gamers who are saying that type of thing in the next big thing.....when actually, the cycle is just coming back. Cause there's been a strict form of timekeeping in games in the past.

It's just not that new or inventive or game changing. And if the BrOSR want to play that way.....fine....I guess I'll keep playing wrong LOL

Quote from: ForgottenF on September 20, 2023, 11:09:04 AM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on September 20, 2023, 08:31:43 AM
   The contention of the most vocal elements of the BrOSR is that:

   1. You never 'freeze time'--if the PCs don't make it back to home base by end of session, then so much the worse for them....

That would lend a lot of credence to Brad's "elaborate trolling" theory. That contention is so impractical on its face that I have a hard time believing anyone has ever run a successful campaign that way.

  Most of my knowledge of this comes from disputes on Twitter and Bradford Walker's blog so it's possible I'm misinterpreting or misrepresenting it, but there is definitely an assumption that 'good play' involves ending in a safe zone to avoid this kind of issue.

This whole debate makes me wonder...

The DMG has rules for aging.

If you always play 1-to-1, most YOU AND YOUR PLAYERS will be dead before you ever get to play a venerable dwarf...

(yes, I know, unnatural aging, which also improves your wisdom. Makes perfect sense. )

As far as personal experiences go, I've tried:

- Fast-forward for years and create heirs using Pendragon, which was fun.

- Real time ENCOUNTERS, and they worked really well in dungeons.
https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2022/04/real-time-dungeon-exploration.html

In addition, I've heard of working campaigns that used the "get back to town by the end of session or die" approach and seemed to work well enough. But I think this is a very specific play-style that cannot be generalized.

In short, I think these little mechancis are TOOLS to be used to improve campaigns, not commandments from Mount Sinai.

"The game is the thing, and certain rules can be distorted or disregarded altogether in favor of play."

Time is another tool in the box.  I'm not entirely sure all of the time ideas are seriously pushed, either. 

Some of the more arcane uses reminds me of the Dragon Quest rules for a healer regenerating a severed limb.  The GM is instructed to measure the player's limb and use its length in the formula to determine how long the regeneration lasts.  Never mind a game with horrible diseases that can require amputation and a critical hit system that can take the limb straight off.  Then we go to heal the thing, and there is this bit of monkey business where the GM takes a tape measure to the player.  It's all, "Ha Ha, Johan lost his left arm from the elbow down to the troll's axe.  Now that we are back in town and Johan hasn't died, and you've paid the healer most of your silver, come over here Sean and let's see when you can get Johan back in play ."  It's dark comedy.

People can do timekeeping in whatever way they feel is fun for them. I use timekeeping in a few different ways:
-during adventures, time is kept in turns (10 minutes) for exploration. This has little to do with time in the real world as it can go by in just a minute if they move their move rate and find nothing of interest or take a while in real time if they find something such as a door or area that they wish to search carefully for traps or something else. This is for tracking resources such as torches & oil, and also spell durations. It is also important to determine when a rest is needed.

- while in town doing whatever time is more freeform. How many hours do they want to spend shopping for gear, drinking in the tavern, sleeping, etc. Time is marked off for how much time is spent on these activities.

-overland travel is measured in days. Sometimes, many days of travel occur in a single game session.

The primary purpose of this time tracking is for resource management and to give context of player activity with everything else occuring in the game world. NPCs and other things are moving and doing things so knowing where the players are at what time determines how they may intersect.

Time in the real word has no bearing on any of this. If the campaign were an open one with several groups of players playing at different times then real world time might be considered, but play by a single group doesn't need to use real world time at all. 

BrOSR whoever that fuck that is are trolling or they are morons. Reminds me of those idiots who tried to tell everyone they were rolling d% wrong. Hint: If nobody does it your way and someone must be labeled "wrong," it's you who is wrong.