Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 20, 2024, 01:09:27 AM
So, I clean the first 5 rooms of the dungeon and go home...

What magic is preventing the monsters of the lower levels to move to the cleared rooms?

Nothing. But then they wouldn't be in the later rooms or lower levels. What magic are you relying on to fully respawn the monsters in a dungeon if you don't kill them all at once?

Partially clearing and then returning to dungeons has been part of the game forever.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 20, 2024, 01:09:27 AM
Are you trolling?

Not yet.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 19, 2024, 10:52:33 PM
Right, so why would the party need to be back at home at the end of the session? Adventuring continues, we remain in stasis inside the dungeon and time resumes next session.

If you have multiple groups in same setting you may need a rule like that. When I had 3 groups in my Faerun Adventures game I definitely encouraged it. But nothing should be absolute - only the Sith/BrOSR believe in absolutes.  Eg my Faerun Barrowmaze group would go home to the village at end of session delve 19 times in 20. It's very much in their interest to rest & heal up. But at the climax of the campaign they were trapped in the dungeon and time froze between sessions.

Quote from: Zenoguy3 on February 20, 2024, 01:20:34 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 20, 2024, 01:09:27 AM
So, I clean the first 5 rooms of the dungeon and go home...

What magic is preventing the monsters of the lower levels to move to the cleared rooms?

Nothing. But then they wouldn't be in the later rooms or lower levels. What magic are you relying on to fully respawn the monsters in a dungeon if you don't kill them all at once?

Partially clearing and then returning to dungeons has been part of the game forever.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 20, 2024, 01:09:27 AM
Are you trolling?

Not yet.

You mean besides the magic of the BBG?

Quote from: Zenoguy3 on February 20, 2024, 01:20:34 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 20, 2024, 01:09:27 AM
So, I clean the first 5 rooms of the dungeon and go home...

What magic is preventing the monsters of the lower levels to move to the cleared rooms?

Nothing. But then they wouldn't be in the later rooms or lower levels. What magic are you relying on to fully respawn the monsters in a dungeon if you don't kill them all at once?

Partially clearing and then returning to dungeons has been part of the game forever.

Indeed. No one clears a megadungeon in one delve. They always need to rest between delves and resume. Areas may restock, though immediate restock is much more a feature of organised lair zones within the dungeon. And like you said, it's a reshuffle, monsters usually don't spawn out of nowhere. A zone with infinite spawning monsters that needs to be cleared in one go would be a specific challenge.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 20, 2024, 02:10:05 AM
You mean besides the magic of the BBG?

What BBG?

I'll say there are a few nice features of 1:1 time. There are the typical features others have already mentioned for specific styles of play (like Westmarches/open table), but even in games without the need for that structure, you get some benefits.

• A natural sense of seasonality - as the winter holidays approach IRL, you get to experience the in-world winter celebrations and roleplay that in a more immersive way. I find it hard to play during the summer IRL and roleplay as if it's winter and everything is supposed to be cold and dark.
• Time is an actually limited resource. In more standard play, paying a 1-2 month downtime tax is mostly about affording the downtime costs so you don't feel the impact to the same extent as 2 months of real time.
• Downtime forces a rotation of characters that produces potentially more interesting and varied party compositions with their own dynamics.
• Forcing downtime encourages players to engage with that aspect of play. It also compartmentalizes downtime so it doesn't detract from the session time better spent crawling the dungeon.
• If you care about the aesthetic weirdness of D&D characters leveling from zero to hero and stopping the big bad guy in the span of like 3 months in-world time, 1:1 time makes it much more likely that the same story will transpire over the course of years and feel more natural.

There are, of course, downsides to the approach and I think it's important to know when it can or cannot be applied, just like any tool. I plan 2 game sessions into the future, and they're usually 1-3 weeks apart depending on everyone's schedule. That makes it easy to allow one session to take those 1-3 weeks up at the table doing whatever people want to do. All that matters is that time doesn't transpire such that we bump into the next session's start date and it will be fine. This avoids the problem with everything having to fit into a day or another arbitrary timeframe - it still needs to fit, it's just no longer arbitrary.

My biggest problem with this approach is that I personally like long overland treks through the wilderness and if two sessions are on adjacent weeks, that can pose a timing problem. I also don't like the de facto requirement to end up in a safe place at the end of each session. It just doesn't always work out that way. It can be accommodated though by just suspending 1:1 time rules in those cases where there's a good reason for ending the session before reaching safety. I don't like the idea of just rolling on a table to determine someone's fate.

I'm mostly curious how these people have the free time to do these 1:1 "must be home in time for bed" games?

I have family and a job and church... my gaming is once a week online for 3 hours and once every other week in person for 4 hours.

Even when we're focused that's maybe three rooms of a dungeon in a session. For bigger more elaborate fights some of the online ones take two sessions just to resolve. We won't even be through a fraction of our resources by then.

Short of being someone with zero social life or adult responsibilities I don't see how 1:1 time can even work as a play strategy; you'd need regular 6-8 hour sessions to accomplish anything meaningful and I don't know anyone except the catpiss men with that type of free time.

Quote from: Chris24601 on February 20, 2024, 07:52:13 AM
I don't know anyone except the catpiss men with that type of free time.

I do think you're trolling us now. 

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 19, 2024, 10:55:12 PM

Quote from: Ruprecht on February 19, 2024, 11:12:18 AM
So much for the end game of building a castle. 2-10 years? never mind.

I get where you're going but your example doesn't work, your PC isn't going to build the castle himself, he's going to hire people to do so.

Seems by the time you are ready to build a castle, adding another 2-10 years to your campaign in real time (even if the PC lets others build the castle) seems like a campaign thats a bit overly-long.

It is probably worth posting the full quote of the section in question as a lot of the discussions only post short snippets. I would be very interested to see how different people interpret it.

I love the 1E DMG, and I do employ 1:1 time (as I understand it) from time to time in campaigns. But it is also very obvious this section is a bit chaotic and unclear. And there is tons of advice like this sprinkled in the DMG. Treating it as some kind of holy decree is silly. Saying it has no value at all, also is silly. If it works for you, it works for you, if it doesn't, it doesn't.

For me what works is using 1:1 time between sessions when I have multiple groups in a campaign setting.

On dungeon time, I have found the ten minute increment works pretty well. I don't think one needs to be as rigid about it as the text suggests. What I use it for is eyeballing the passage of time and managing random encounter rolls (i.e. a lot of activities you might perform in a dungeon feel right at about a ten minute increment, so it is a handy unit to use, and rolling for encounters every ten minutes can give a dungeon a strong sense of being inhabited).

As to whether strict records must be kept. Most people playing AD&D now have a lot more experience with it than Gary had when he wrote this. I think it pretty obvious the hobby is one where people form their own opinions, ideas, techniques, tools and procedures over time that work for their group. Some people like to keep strict records, some don't. The sky isn't going to fall if you do one or the other. If you don't keep records, and you start noticing inconsistencies, then you might consider keeping more accurate track of the passage of time.

Also just as a general observation, there are way, way more important things to focus on when it comes to consistency. Most people can eyeball times' passage in a campaign or track it generally (I assign one player in most of my campaigns to track the calendar for example). The biggest issue with consistency is tracking history and the events that occur. I am not going to worry if the GM gets a little confused about time. But if a dead NPC suddenly shows up alive and well, not because he has been resurrected but because the GM simply forgot he died, that is a bigger issue (which is why I keep an ongoing list of the living and the dead that includes notes about each persons recent activities).

QuoteTIME IN THE CAMPAIGN
Game time is of utmost importance. Failure to keep careful track of time
expenditure by player characters will result in many anomalies in the game. The
stricture of time is what makes recovery of hit points meaningful. Likewise, the
time spent adventuring in wilderness areas removes concerned characters from
their bases of operation — be they rented chambers or battlemented
strongholds. Certainly the most important time stricture pertains to the
manufacture of magic items, for during the period of such activity no
adventuring can be done. Time is also considered in gaining levels and learning
new languages and more. All of these demands upon game time force choices
upon player characters, and likewise number their days of game life.

One 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.

Use whatever grouping of days you find desirable for your milieu. There is nothing
wrong with 7 day weeks and 31, 30 and 28/29 day months which exactly
correspond to our real system. On the other hand, there is nothing to prevent you
from using some other system if it pleases you and you can keep it straight. What is
important to the campaign is that you do, in fact, maintain a time record which logs
the activities and whereabouts of player characters and their henchmen.

For the sake of example, let us assume that you begin your campaign on Day 1
of the Year 1000. There are four player characters who begin initially, and they
have adventures which last a total of 50 days — 6 days of actual adventuring
and 44 days of resting and other activity. At this point in time two new players
join the game, one of the original group decides to go to seek the advice of an
oracle after hiring an elven henchman, and the remaining three "old boys"
decide they will not go with the newcomers. So on Day 51 player A's character
is off on a journey, those of B, C, and D are resting on their laurels, and E and
F enter the dungeon. The latter pair spend the better part of the day surviving,
but do well enough to rest a couple of game days and return for another try on
Day 54 — where they stumble upon the worst monster on the first level,
surprise it, and manage to slay it and come out with a handsome treasure. You
pack it in for the night. Four actual days later (and it is best to use 1 actual day
= 1 game day when no play is happening), on Day 55, player characters B, C,
and D enter the dungeon and find that the area they selected has already been
cleaned out by player characters E and F. Had they come the day after the
previous game session, game Day 52, and done the same thing, they would
have found the monster and possibly gotten the goodies! What to do about
that? and what about old A and his pointy-eared chum off to see the oracle?
Some penalty must accrue to the non-active, but on the other hand, the overactive
can not be given the world on a silver platter. Despite time differences,
the activities of the newcomers to the campaign should be allowed to stand, as
Destiny has decreed that the monster in question could not fall to the characters
B, C, and D. Therefore, the creature was obviously elsewhere (not dead) when
they visited its lair on Day 52, but it had returned on Day 56. Being aware of
time differences between groups of player characters will enable you to prevent
the BIG problems. You will know when the adventuring of one such group has
gone far enough ahead in game time to call a halt. This is particularly true with
regard to town/dungeon adventures.

Returning to player character A and his trek to visit a far-off source of
supernatural lore, he and his elven companion set off on Day 51, journey across
the land for 11 days, visit the oracle and remain 3 days, then come back in
another 11 days (wonder of wonders!). This comes to a total of 25 days all told,
counting Day 51, so they come "home" on Day 75 and are set to adventure on
Day 77, let us suppose, as a brief rest is in order. Allowing that activity to be not
unusual for a single session of play, then player character A and his henchman
are ready to play about the same actual time as the other players — only A is
at Day 77, B, C, and D are at Day 54, and E and F are at Day 58. The middle
group must go first, and alone, or it can opt to "sit around" waiting for A or for E and F or for both parties, or they can operate alone for another short
adventure in terms of game time, thus taking advantage of their temporal
position. Other options include any of the players singly or in time-related
groups going off on outdoor adventures. In the case of players so segregating
their characters, it then becomes necessary for you, as DM, to inform prospective
participants in a game session that there is a hiatus which will necessitate only
certain members of their number playing together, as their respective characters
cannot locate the others of the separated groups. At this juncture they should be
informed of their options, and if players B, C, and D do not choose to take
advantage of their favored position, then game time will pass more swiftly for
them, as the other participants must be allowed to adventure — in the dungeon
if they so desire. Thus, players E and F would have the choice of awaiting the
return of A or of going on adventures which involved only the two characters. In
effect, player character A is out of it until game time in the central playing area
reaches Day 75, when communications can be made — or until other player
characters contact him on his return from the oracle, let us say, assuming nothing
important transpired during the return trip.

In effect, the key is the relative import of the player characters' actions in the
time frame. Generally, time passes day-for-day, or turn for X number of real
minutes during active play. Players who choose to remove their characters from
the center of dungeon activity will find that "a lot has happened while they
were away", as adventures in the wilderness certainly use up game days with
rapidity, while the shorter time scale of dungeon adventuring allows many
game sessions during a month or two of game time. Of course, this might mean
that the players involved in the outdoors someplace will either have to come
home to "sit around" or continue adventuring in wildernesses and perhaps in
some distant dungeon as well (if you are kind); otherwise, they will perforce be
excluded from game sessions which are taking place during a period of game
time in which they were wandering about in the countryside doing other things.
This latter sanction most certainly applies to characters learning a new
language, studying and training for promotion in level, or off someplace
manufacturing magic items.

At some point, even the stay-at-homes will be forced to venture forth into the
wilderness due to need, geas, quest, or possibly to escape the wrath of
something better avoided. The time lines of various player characters will
diverge, meet, and diverge again over the course of game years. This makes for
interesting campaigns and helps form the history of the milieu. Groups of
players tend to segregate themselves for a time, some never returning to the ken
of the rest, most eventually coming back to reform into different bands. As
characters acquire henchmen, the better players will express a desire to operate
some of theirs independently while they, or their liege lord, are away. This is a
perfectly acceptable device, for it tends to even out characters and the game.
Henchmen tend to become associates — or rivals — this way, although a few
will remain as colorless servitors.

You may ask why time is so important if it causes such difficulties with recordkeeping,
dictates who can or can not go adventuring during a game session,
and disperses player characters to the four winds by its strictures. Well, as
initially pointed out, it is a necessary penalty imposed upon characters for
certain activities. Beyond that, it also gives players yet another interesting set
of choices and consequences. The latter tends to bring more true-to-life quality
to the game, as some characters will use precious time to the utmost
advantage, some will treat it lightly, and some will be constantly wasting it to
their complete detriment. Time is yet another facet which helps to separate the
superior players from the lesser ones. If time-keeping is a must from a penalty
standpoint, it is also an interesting addition from the standpoint of running a
campaign.

TIME IN THE DUNGEON
Keeping track of time in the dungeon (or on any other type of adventure) is
sometimes difficult, but it is at least as important as the accurate recording of
time in the campaign. As has been mentioned elsewhere, the standard time
breakdown is ten one-minute rounds to the turn, and six turns to the hour. All
referees should keep a side record of time on a separate sheet of paper,
marking off the turns as they pass (melees or other actions which result in
fractional turns should be rounded up to make complete turns). It is essential
that an accurate time record be kept so that the DM can determine when to
check for wandering monsters, and in order to keep a strict check on the
duration of some spells (such as bless, haste, strength, etc.). The DM must also
know how long it has been since the last time the party took a rest. A party
should be required to rest at least one turn in six (remember, the average party
packs a lot of equipment), and in addition, they should rest a turn after every
time they engage in combat or any other strenuous activities.

On occasion, a party may wish to cease movement and "hole up" for a long
period, perhaps overnight, resting and recuperating or recovering spells. This
does not exempt them from occasional checks for wandering monsters, though
the frequency may be moderated somewhat, depending on conditions. Toofrequent
interruptions may make spell recovery impossible. Keeping correct
records of duration of these periods is absolutely essential.

Also my interpretation of that passage isn't Gygax saying "1:1 time must be kept" but him saying time records must be kept. Those are two different things. He then talks about how he thinks it should generally be handled. At least that is my reading

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on February 20, 2024, 10:01:04 AM
Also my interpretation of that passage isn't Gygax saying "1:1 time must be kept" but him saying time records must be kept. Those are two different things. He then talks about how he thinks it should generally be handled. At least that is my reading

Mine too.  That's the way I read it 40 years ago, too, with a lot less experience than I have now. 

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on February 20, 2024, 09:49:51 AM
It is probably worth posting the full quote of the section in question as a lot of the discussions only post short snippets. I would be very interested to see how different people interpret it.

We've gotten to the point where I went to google all the talk about 1:1 time just to figure out what exactly we're arguing about.

It does seem that Old Gary was suggesting keeping strict time records, and when the game was not being played, to use 1:1 time to keep things simple. Gary notoriously ran a big group that didn't necessarily all play at the same time together, with a few characters per player to cover play when a character was busy in another adventure.

I'd be surprised to find out that anyone was suggesting 1:1 time during the game session. Though I've been surprised before...

Quote from: Ratman_tf on February 20, 2024, 01:29:40 PM

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on February 20, 2024, 09:49:51 AM
It is probably worth posting the full quote of the section in question as a lot of the discussions only post short snippets. I would be very interested to see how different people interpret it.

We've gotten to the point where I went to google all the talk about 1:1 time just to figure out what exactly we're arguing about.

It does seem that Old Gary was suggesting keeping strict time records, and when the game was not being played, to use 1:1 time to keep things simple. Gary notoriously ran a big group that didn't necessarily all play at the same time together, with a few characters per player to cover play when a character was busy in another adventure.

I'd be surprised to find out that anyone was suggesting 1:1 time during the game session. Though I've been surprised before...

And from the proponents of it here I gather they are also running big groups that don't all play at the same time. I had to work hard to form the group I'm playing with and we're down to only 3 of the original players plus one recent addition.

Haven't been able to find players so I can run a spanish speaking game. In the other campaign I'm a player.

So, where the fuck do people find enough players to run such games?

Quote from: Ratman_tf on February 20, 2024, 01:29:40 PM

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on February 20, 2024, 09:49:51 AM
It is probably worth posting the full quote of the section in question as a lot of the discussions only post short snippets. I would be very interested to see how different people interpret it.

We've gotten to the point where I went to google all the talk about 1:1 time just to figure out what exactly we're arguing about.

These days I feel this way with every new conversation that comes up. Even if I know the topic, I often don't understand the particular grievance or related blog post that rekindled a discussion about it. I think on twitter especially with this stuff opinions are starkly drawn and rigid because that is what gains traction (it looks like clarity, because twitter needs things to be reduced to their most simple component, but I think it just a kind of tunnel vision)