Quote from: Lunamancer on August 10, 2023, 12:51:42 AM
I've been doing it for about 30 years. And it does work.
...

Then you are the man to ask.

Irregular game days induced by running the brosr interpretation of virtually all travel occurring on 1:1 downtime are a non-starter for me.

But I would like to run 2-3 domain level players that act during downtime, and a regular weekly group.

I'm probably just overthinking the whole thing; my original idea doesn't seem any more complicated that what King tyranno has described.

PC's must end in a safe space, Domain players get treated like NPC's during session time, and then are free to act during the 1:1 "downtime" with the previous session "days" added to that at whatever point I judge paradoxes won't happen. At most a 30sec think...

Just want to keep the calendar moving forward on downtime; running a campaign with long time passages that naturally occur.

Quote from: Jaeger on August 15, 2023, 05:32:01 PM
Then you are the man to ask.

Irregular game days induced by running the brosr interpretation of virtually all travel occurring on 1:1 downtime are a non-starter for me.

But I would like to run 2-3 domain level players that act during downtime, and a regular weekly group.

I'm probably just overthinking the whole thing; my original idea doesn't seem any more complicated that what King tyranno has described.

PC's must end in a safe space, Domain players get treated like NPC's during session time, and then are free to act during the 1:1 "downtime" with the previous session "days" added to that at whatever point I judge paradoxes won't happen. At most a 30sec think...

Just want to keep the calendar moving forward on downtime; running a campaign with long time passages that naturally occur.

1) I'm not a BrOSR guy myself. I *think* I know how they do their 1:1 time. But I could be wrong about how they do things.
2) I don't think I have ever run a game with domain-level players acting between sessions.

The Rules as Written is a lot looser and more flexible than BrOSR 1:1 time.

In the Rules as Written, there is a degree to which you jump forwards and backwards in time.

For example, suppose your regular weekly group consists of Amy, Ben, Carl, Doug, and Eva, but Doug doesn't show up this week, and when you ask the rest of the players "What do you do?" their answer involves something like travel that takes up a lot of game time. By all means play that out then and there. Even if they suck up 2 months of game time. But when you meet next week, and Doug shows up, only one week of in-game time has passed for Doug's character (due to 1:1 downtime), so rather than picking up on the timeframe where you left off last week, you would go back in time to where Doug's character is.

The way it works is, of whichever players are available in the moment, whoever's character left off at the earliest frame of time gets first say on what they want to do. But the other character's won't be available to help them. They can choose to just wait until the other characters are available, in which case control then passes to the next most retarded character as you fast-forward to their place in time, and so on.

This is something I thought was worth pointing out because it wouldn't ever come up with BrOSR 1:1 time as I understand it. But this IS something that any group could face--a player missing a session--making 1:1 time relevant even if you aren't playing with multiple groups, domain level players, or any kind of fancy stuff.


It gets trickier for Domain level players. Let's give then names. Frank, Gretta, and Hank. How do you determine who's present? Is it just whoever is texting you in the moment? So Frank blows up your phone and ends up like 2 years ahead of everyone else in game time? Or perhaps all domain players are considered constantly present between sessions. But then if Hank ghosts you, Frank and Gretta have to wait until 1:1 time pushes Hank up to their respective time frames before they act again.

It's not impossible to work this out. It just requires some thinking things through. One of the stated purposes in the section of the DMG where 1:1 time is mentioned is so that more active players are rewarded, but not allowed to get too far ahead of everyone else. Whatever you do, that's what you need to accomplish.

So if I were doing 2-3 domain level players plus a regular weekly group, I would not allow any domain-level player to act if their character is further along in the timeline than the furthest ahead members of the face-to-face group. So going with the initial example, when session 1 ends, Amy, Ben, Carl, and Eva's characters are on day 61 of in-game time. So Frank, Gretta, and Hank can text me all they want with what they want to do until they hit day 61. Then they're in "time jail" though free to play a second domain level character if they want to keep playing.


The BrOSR (as I understand it) side-steps this issue by being more stringent in the correspondence between real time and game time. For what they do, it probably is the best way to do it. For me, keeping time flowing forward is more important.

Hate to say it but alot of this "1:1 time" harping sounds ruthlessly stupid. Can loOSR NOT fuck everything up somehow?

Quote from: Lunamancer on August 15, 2023, 09:22:03 PM
1) I'm not a BrOSR guy myself. I *think* I know how they do their 1:1 time. But I could be wrong about how they do things.
2) I don't think I have ever run a game with domain-level players acting between sessions.

The Rules as Written is a lot looser and more flexible than BrOSR 1:1 time.

In the Rules as Written, there is a degree to which you jump forwards and backwards in time.

After a long think; to make things easier I'd want to minimize that as much as possible.

Quote from: Lunamancer on August 15, 2023, 09:22:03 PM
For example, suppose your regular weekly group consists of Amy, Ben, Carl, Doug, and Eva, but Doug doesn't show up this week, and when you ask the rest of the players "What do you do?" their answer involves something like travel that takes up a lot of game time. By all means play that out then and there. Even if they suck up 2 months of game time. But when you meet next week, and Doug shows up, only one week of in-game time has passed for Doug's character (due to 1:1 downtime), so rather than picking up on the timeframe where you left off last week, you would go back in time to where Doug's character is.

I would not go back in time in this case.

If Doug doesn't show, then his PC is chilling out.

Doug can let me know what downtime activities he wants his PC to do for 2 months, but that's it. You snooze, you lose.

IMO: Going back in time as illustrated in the DMG is only needed if you are running multiple PC groups that are not in regular contact with each other.

i.e. I'd enforce All the PC's of a given group staying in sync in game time.

Quote from: Lunamancer on August 15, 2023, 09:22:03 PM
It gets trickier for Domain level players. Let's give then names. Frank, Gretta, and Hank. How do you determine who's present? Is it just whoever is texting you in the moment? So Frank blows up your phone and ends up like 2 years ahead of everyone else in game time? Or perhaps all domain players are considered constantly present between sessions. But then if Hank ghosts you, Frank and Gretta have to wait until 1:1 time pushes Hank up to their respective time frames before they act again.

I'd apply 1:1 time the same as I would with the PC groups...

If a given domain player doesn't let me know their moves that week, then they sit idle, or I run any interactions as if they were an NPC faction should the need come up.

Also; No one gets to go further in time than the next weekly session for the PC's. Ever.

Makes it easier to stay synced.

Quote from: Lunamancer on August 15, 2023, 09:22:03 PM
It's not impossible to work this out. It just requires some thinking things through. One of the stated purposes in the section of the DMG where 1:1 time is mentioned is so that more active players are rewarded, but not allowed to get too far ahead of everyone else. Whatever you do, that's what you need to accomplish.

Yeah, I think I was imagining things to be more complicated than they are.

I think reducing the complication of domain players and PC's going back and forth in time is key: Keeping 1:1 tracking as K.I.S.S. as possible is the way I want to go.

PC's always stay in sync, Domain players have some wiggle room after a PC session, but stay in sync with the PC's downtime between sessions. To me that seems a good way to keep time flowing forward...

Is the way I see doing things AD&D1e DMG RAW? No, but IMHO there is a lot of wiggle room on how it could be implemented anyway.

Quote from: Jaeger on August 24, 2023, 03:10:13 PM

Quote from: Lunamancer on August 15, 2023, 09:22:03 PM
1) I'm not a BrOSR guy myself. I *think* I know how they do their 1:1 time. But I could be wrong about how they do things.
2) I don't think I have ever run a game with domain-level players acting between sessions.

The Rules as Written is a lot looser and more flexible than BrOSR 1:1 time.

In the Rules as Written, there is a degree to which you jump forwards and backwards in time.

After a long think; to make things easier I'd want to minimize that as much as possible.

Quote from: Lunamancer on August 15, 2023, 09:22:03 PM
For example, suppose your regular weekly group consists of Amy, Ben, Carl, Doug, and Eva, but Doug doesn't show up this week, and when you ask the rest of the players "What do you do?" their answer involves something like travel that takes up a lot of game time. By all means play that out then and there. Even if they suck up 2 months of game time. But when you meet next week, and Doug shows up, only one week of in-game time has passed for Doug's character (due to 1:1 downtime), so rather than picking up on the timeframe where you left off last week, you would go back in time to where Doug's character is.

I would not go back in time in this case.

If Doug doesn't show, then his PC is chilling out.

Doug can let me know what downtime activities he wants his PC to do for 2 months, but that's it. You snooze, you lose.

IMO: Going back in time as illustrated in the DMG is only needed if you are running multiple PC groups that are not in regular contact with each other.

i.e. I'd enforce All the PC's of a given group staying in sync in game time.

Quote from: Lunamancer on August 15, 2023, 09:22:03 PM
It gets trickier for Domain level players. Let's give then names. Frank, Gretta, and Hank. How do you determine who's present? Is it just whoever is texting you in the moment? So Frank blows up your phone and ends up like 2 years ahead of everyone else in game time? Or perhaps all domain players are considered constantly present between sessions. But then if Hank ghosts you, Frank and Gretta have to wait until 1:1 time pushes Hank up to their respective time frames before they act again.

I'd apply 1:1 time the same as I would with the PC groups...

If a given domain player doesn't let me know their moves that week, then they sit idle, or I run any interactions as if they were an NPC faction should the need come up.

Also; No one gets to go further in time than the next weekly session for the PC's. Ever.

Makes it easier to stay synced.

Quote from: Lunamancer on August 15, 2023, 09:22:03 PM
It's not impossible to work this out. It just requires some thinking things through. One of the stated purposes in the section of the DMG where 1:1 time is mentioned is so that more active players are rewarded, but not allowed to get too far ahead of everyone else. Whatever you do, that's what you need to accomplish.

Yeah, I think I was imagining things to be more complicated than they are.

I think reducing the complication of domain players and PC's going back and forth in time is key: Keeping 1:1 tracking as K.I.S.S. as possible is the way I want to go.

PC's always stay in sync, Domain players have some wiggle room after a PC session, but stay in sync with the PC's downtime between sessions. To me that seems a good way to keep time flowing forward...

Is the way I see doing things AD&D1e DMG RAW? No, but IMHO there is a lot of wiggle room on how it could be implemented anyway.

You're absolutely right.

If there was ever a rule 0 for 1:1 time it should be this in my opinion:

"From session 1, your game world and everything put in it exists and progresses in real time. Regardless of sessions and attendance by players. There is no off button. The world never stops existing. You do not skip, or go backwards through time for any reason. Time simply progresses as it does in the real world.  "

Once you realize this. Everything becomes so much simpler. As you said, if someone doesn't show up they stay behind. If they don't message you, they do nothing. Same for patrons. What ends up happening is even if you're just doing this with one group you end up with multiple parties in this wonderfully dynamic world. And your job as GM becomes much easier. You're not making complex and overwrought plots and NPCs.  The players all do that themselves. You just facilitate their actions in the sandbox. You can still be creative as a GM. But you're much more of a Games Designer than a storyteller. And frankly I think we need people with game design skill in addition to the storyteller skills as GMs.

When it comes to multiple other groups. I see no reason to go back in time either. They exist and do things in the game world. They are given relevant info as their characters uncover it. If they meet up with another party that's a happy coincidence. But it doesn't really matter. Each group plays the game and reacts to their immediate surroundings. It's pretty simple. Group 1 has a session on Tuesday the 9th in the Northlands, Group 2 has a session  on Friday the 18th in the City of Citytown. Their games are separate but part of the same game world occurring in real time. And things that happen in one group may affect the other group. Or not.

It's real time, the world exists and progresses regardless of what players do. That's it. That's 1:1 time.   

I dunno, I feel like the last two replies got a little overly obsessed with the whole going back in time thing, to the point where it makes me wonder if what I said hasn't been misunderstood. I mean maybe it was a bad way to express it. The campaign has NOT in any way shape or form really gone BACK in time. The issue in the example I gave is that the active participants blew through 2 months of game time in-session. And in that example, it's fully resolved that way without anyone going into time jail because, in the broader campaign, there is nothing else to do, nothing else to switch to. The people who showed up to play should get to play. Time in the campaign has actually advanced according to 1:1 time, not gone backwards, when the missing player finally shows up. And it's at that point those PCs who got ahead are placed into time jail. The most behind PC has the choice whether to adventure or to fast-forward to a point when the rest of the party is out of time jail.

What would happen in a sufficiently massive campaign is, if you've got enough people involved, there's always going to be one jerkoff who's holding the whole campaign up, and so what will almost certainly happen in that case is if you play a campaign for exactly one year of real time, then exactly one year of game time will pass. Personally, I do not like that. I actually like to see a campaign we invest in for a few years real time traverse through a full 20-year active career. And in smaller games on the scale of a typical campaign--1 group, with perhaps the occasional side group for special missions, and some amount of no-shows--I usually find the flow of time to fall within the 5-10x range.


But anyway, that's not even the reason I came back to this thread. I came to mention that there is actually another official 1E publication written by Gary Gygax that mentions 1:1 time. I'm running Tomb of Horrors again for Halloween, and it pops up there. And this is an example that is spot on for the topic of the thread. It states upfront in the module that completing the adventure will likely take multiple sessions. And the reason it raises 1:1 time again is to have time indeed pass, even mid-delve, for the sake of giving the characters the 7 days of rest, or however long it was between sessions, to allow them to recover some hit points and spells.

In other words, it's used to help the PCs out. This is not a, "Oh, we packed up and went home when you were in the middle of the dungeon, well after a week's worth of wandering monsters you're all dead, LoL, next time plan better to be out of the dungeon dummy," which is a sentiment that's come up. Yeah, very clearly not the spirit of 1:1 time at all.

If I can, I like to have an in-game week pass between sessions. This allows PCs to have healed up a bit, and had a chance to in AD&D1e do various bits and pieces like sell off gear, buy new gear, look for new patrons or cargoes in Classic Traveller, that sort of thing. The stuff which their characters may need or want to do, but we don't necessarily want to roleplay through in detail.

It also gives me as DM a chance to tell them other things happening in the game world. Everyone has a sense of things happening as time passes, the world changing etc.

It's not vital, you don't have to do it, but it's something worth considering.

I know I'm late the the party with this one but here is the text from the unreleased manuscript version of Empire of the Petal Throne. It was written in the spring of 1974 so reflects Dave Arneson's influence more than Gygax.

"The referee will establish a table with the names of regular players and divisions into weeks and months. As a player character embarks upon adventures,
spends time resting in Jakálla, etc. etc., the referee will mark off passing weeks and months against his name. Players are not permitted to participate in adven­tures
together unless they are at the same time in the game: i.e. a player at Week 11 cannot join a party now passing through Week 21, for example. In order
to join the latter party, the player at Week 11 would be required to sit in Jakálla for ten weeks -- or go on adventures alone or with other players of the same time
frame.
In general, it may be said that an adventure into the Underworld requires one week, while an outdoor adventure requires one turn per day (cf. Sec. 821). Time
spent waiting in Jakálla, in one's fortress, etc., is adjudged by the referee in consultation with the player involved"

The second paragraph is almost identical to one in OD&D. But this idea that each adventure takes a week and players usually play once per week, is the foundation of 1:1 time. So it really isn't necessary to track day by day as their is enough slop in the rest of the week to catch everyone up. But they are keeping track of where each player is in the general timeline of the campaign.

There is a curious paragraph is The Complete Warlock (1978) which is a reflection of the gaming traditions of California (which eventually birthed Runequest).

"One real day (noon to noon) = one Game Week. This allows you to play more than one expedition or adventure in a real day and also allows expeditions that take more than one day of the characters' time without having to come back the next real day to continue.

The idea that players would have to stop playing at the end of a game day and come back the next real world day is so bizarre that someone, somewhere, had to be playing that way in order for this warning to be applicable. Note that this is 7:1 time that they are recommending.

Not surprisingly, Runequest also recommends this 7:1 time and even says that 1:1 time "makes the game drag unless one is running a campaign by mail."

I've had a draft campaign for a while where the players are sent out to establish a new settlement on the marches, and a season passes for each game session. So there'd be a game year every 4 sessions, which we'd normally expect to be every real month.

It's based on that idea of you're name level now, go build a stronghold and clear the surrounding hexes of monsters - except that rather than waiting till 9th level and then looking for your place, you just start there at 1st level. By the time you reach 9th you might actually have built a castle and cleared out the monsters.

But then, I like games with building elements in them. Ars Magica was fun for that, even if it was a bit thespy.