Quote from: Lunamancer on April 16, 2022, 11:08:08 AMThe idea is to have the campaign running in at least 5:1 time. 10:1 would be really nice.

Both Runequest 1e and Warlock recommend 7:1 time. That is, one real day equals one game week. Interestingly, both of the descriptions are written in a way that assumes that 1:1 time is the default and they are trying to convince the reader to switch. Runequest claims that 1:1 time is too slow but Warlock is written so that if the players spend more than one day in game, they must be forced to stop playing and return the next real day to continue the session. It is such a bizarre situation that I have to believe that some DM somewhere actually did this.

The Complete Warlock (1979) pg 5

"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 to take more than one day of the characters' time without having to come back the next real day to continue."

Note that both Warlock and Holmes use the terms "expedition" and "adventure" to represent what we would call a "session." This has to be due to the fact that the assumption was that all characters would return to base at the end of the session.


Also, I find this whole discussion strange because 1:1 is very clearly in OD&D (Volume 3 pg 36). It isn't an AD&D thing at all. And every early RPG I have assumes that some amount of game time passes in between sessions. (except Rules to the Game of Dungeon which doesn't mention time at all, no rounds, no hours, no days, nothing)

Quote from: Lunamancer on April 16, 2022, 10:33:18 PMIn the section of the 1E DMG where it discusses the importance of tracking time, where it is suggested to have one game day pass for each actual day that goes by when not playing, it has an example that contemplates what happens when one group gets ahead of another, grabs a particular treasure in the dungeon, and then when the behind-the-time group goes down there chronologically later in real time but chronologically earlier in game time, the DM is instructed to just accept fate had deemed that group didn't get the treasure.

The idea of what to do if the players or groups get out of sync in mentioned even as far back as the Empire of the Petal Throne manuscript in 1974. Here's what that book says:

Empire of the Petal Throne Original Manuscript (1974) pg 98

"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."

It may be harsh but at least it's consistent. The fact that games this early are talking about how to handle out of sync characters means that this was an issue that far back. Again, this pretty much assumes an open-table style of play.

Bushido (1981) has a neat system to catch players up with downtime jobs. You can be a thief, bodyguard, gambler, or even exorcist. You roll on a few tables to see how much money you made or if you need to fight a combat. This game assumes that one real week equals one game month, so sort of a compromise between D&D and Runequest.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig on April 16, 2022, 10:04:28 PMThe section on page 37 of the AD&D DMG doesn't contradict 1:1 Time During Downtime. First, it includes the guideline itself, "it is best to use 1 actual day = 1 game day when no play is happening." Clearly Gygax doesn't intend the example in which the guideline is embedded, the example that guideline is intended to illuminate, to contradict that guideline.

Let me clarify. The short version of what this section says, should you choose to use it, is that you can speed the game clock up, faster than actual time. You just can't slow it down. This allows for a wide range possible time flows. 1:1 time is within that range at the slowest possible end. So that's not what I'm saying is contradicted. I'm saying that the idea that that is the ONLY time scale consistent with this is contradicted by examples that do not conform to the 1:1 scale.

By itself, the statement "it is best to use 1 actual day - 1 game day when no play is happening" is saying exactly this. One game day will pass for each real day when you're not playing. Game time passed while you were actually playing. Which could be hours, but could be months. When you add the two together, the passage of time can be as slow as 1:1 without any hard limit to how quick it can be. And the examples are consistent with this.

If you want to force it to mean something else, you certainly can. I'm not saying you can't. All I'm saying is this is the most obvious meaning and makes the fewest assumptions.

QuoteSecond, the crux of the example is about when all the players meet again and are "ready to play about the same actual time [...] only A is at Day 77, B, C, and D are at Day 54, and E and F are at Day 58." Gygax says the three middle players (B, C, and D) can go back to the dungeon or wait for other PC's to show up and because of this people say (not you, but people on Twitter and people in comments to the stream), they say "See? 1:1 Time During Downtime isn't in the AD&D DMG!" Except Gygax isn't talking about downtime. He's talking about what people can do during play time, game time, table time, adventuring time, or whatever you want to call it.

At the table those three can skip 4 days and do nothing, find something in town to do for those 4 days, or go adventuring. If they go adventuring the players of A, E, and F can skip the session, or they can play another character (one of B, C, and D's henchmen maybe, or a convenient NPC), roll up a new character, or play another character they already have ready to go.

You kind of glossed over the meat of the thing, though. It's not, Oooh, loooook! he said "game time will pass more swiftly" gotcha! The point is, what if B, C, and D do decide wait for A; then the DM moves on to E and F and they also choose to wait for A. It's not about any of the characters individually fast-forwarding time during play. I understand that's perfectly allowable. It's that we were just on day 51 on Sunday, and now the characters are all together on day 77 and it's only Wednesday (it can't be any later than Wed, otherwise B, C, and D couldn't have only been on Day 54 as they would have burned more days doing nothing).

Going through 27 game days (or possibly more depending what happens at Wednesday's game) in just 4 real days is a lot closer to being 8:1 time than it is 1:1.

So what happens next? Do we lock all the characters up for 3 1/2 weeks for real time to catch up? Or do we just admit, yeah, actually game time is flowing a lot faster than real time.

I've mentioned upthread, I've been using these guidelines since 1992. And what I do matches the example to a T. And my experience has indeed been that if you account for every single thing in the game that piles on game time, the flow of time normally falls between 5:1 and 10:1 when measured over a time period involving sufficient diversity in activities for a meaningful average to be derived.

QuoteWhat Jeffro is saying is that, while playing AD&D with the goal of using all the rules as written, they ran across day-for-day time during down time, and implemented it. And it made the game much better in many, many ways.

And now they're telling others about it

Yeah. I heard him describe it on Inappropriate Characters. And I felt it was coming from a really genuine place. It resonated with me. Because I experienced the exact same thing. It's just not the 1:1 rule that does it. The biggest thing that anyone can do to vastly improve their game is take an "open table" mindset. One where players come and go. Where stories don't get jammed up just because a key PC wasn't available. Where the game moves forward no matter who shows, so we can count on it moving on each and every time we meet. Where nobody feels like they're obligated to show up.

One way to achieve that--the way I first did it--was to just push the motif that we wrap up whatever it is we're doing by the end of the session. Like get out of the dungeon and get back to town before everyone packs up. Enforcing 1 actual day = 1 game day even when some PCs sorry asses are in the middle of a dungeon is one possible way to achieve it. So I can see perfectly clearly the chain of cause and effect. I do not doubt the claims. More power to you all for having so much fun!

I'm just noticing a shit ton of people pushing back on the 1:1 thing. And I know full well from experience that it's perfectly possible to gain all the benefits of what you fine folks were doing without hitting that so hard. And so I think people who don't like the 1:1 thing probably ought to know that, too. That they can in fact super charge their games without it.

Where in B/X is the patron play idea? Is it in OSE too?

Quote from: Lunamancer on April 17, 2022, 05:58:45 PMGoing through 27 game days (or possibly more depending what happens at Wednesday's game) in just 4 real days is a lot closer to being 8:1 time than it is 1:1.

So what happens next? Do we lock all the characters up for 3 1/2 weeks for real time to catch up? Or do we just admit, yeah, actually game time is flowing a lot faster than real time.

You aren't listening. Which is why these questions are irrelevant. I'm going to restate this one more time, and please read what I write so we can at least discuss the same thing.

The principle of downtime in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is this: When not being played (i.e. during "downtime"), 1 day passes for a character for every day that passes in the real world. And conversely, when a character is "out of play" for any reason, one real day passes for each day of downtime.

This principle is found on pg. 37 of the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide, under Time in the Campaign: "it is best to use 1 actual day = 1 game day when no play is happening". Some examples:

1. A character levels up. Because of generally mediocre roleplaying by the player, the character must take 3 weeks to train for the next level. That means they will be unavailable to be played for 3 weeks of real world time. (Frank Mentzer referred to this as "Training Jail".) The exact same rules would hold no matter how long the training time was, or even what the activity was (healing, making a magic item, spell research, etc.)

2. The same holds for doing nothing. If your character isn't being played, because you can't come to sessions or you play a different character, one day in-game passes for every real day spent not playing the character.

3. During actual game play, that is, during a game session, any amount of time can pass. Between long-distance travel, time spent searching an area, time spent waiting while an army marshals for the big battle, and so forth, a lot of time can pass in a game session, and time will almost never be 1:1. This is fine.

So whether game time + down time is 2:1, 8:1, or 1000:1 is utterly irrelevant because the core principle is about downtime only.

(Faction play, "always on" campaigning, and so forth add extra considerations, but that's not what I'm talking about.)

Daddy Warpig's covered this pretty well; my only caveat is that Jeffro and the BrOSR are playing it a bit more strictly than Gygax himself did: https://www.enworld.org/threads/q-a-with-gary-gygax.22566/page-411#post-3818408

Quote from: Daddy Warpig on April 17, 2022, 09:41:57 PMYou aren't listening. Which is why these questions are irrelevant. I'm going to restate this one more time, and please read what I write so we can at least discuss the same thing.

No. You aren't listening. You're too busy being condescending.

First, stop repeating the DMG. I'm not the one who just noticed this rule the year before last year. I've literally been using this rule for 20 years.

Second, whether or not you consider these questions irrelevant is itself irrelevant. These are the questions that go to the heart of the confusion and the contention people are having. And that's just as true regardless of how you feel about the questions. The first time I heard people griping about this shit was a few month months ago. And I told them, "No. That's not how the rule works. You CAN fast forward time." And they said nuh uh, these guys are strict, and this is the thing they point to to say "Look how crazy these guys are."

I carefully worded the questions so that all you had to do was answer them simply and directly like a normal person and it would clear up a lot of confusion. I swear, it takes a special talent for you to botch such a softball and come off as a pissed-off snot.

Third, realize that your own document is contributing to this confusion. One of the selling points you cite in the google doc you posted was that if you go on vacation for 2 weeks, you'll know just 2 weeks have passed. In the example in the DMG, if I went on just a 4-day vacation, I'd come back to find 3 1/2 weeks had passed. Yeah, yeah, I get it that my guy will still be 3 weeks in the past since I only lost 4 days. But what am I going to do with this 3 week lead I have on the rest of the party? Romp through empty dungeons that they already cleaned out in the future?

In the inappropriate characters convo, one of the good questions Pundit asked Jeffro point blank was, can't we just do all this stuff with careful time keeping? Do we really need the 1:1 rule? And Jeffro insisted the 1:1 rule serves a coordinating function, that it cannot work otherwise at scale. And I don't know. Maybe it's me. I would consider things to be decidedly uncoordinated if my character was sworn to protect the princess, I take 4 days off, while I'm on vacation and 1 week later in game-time the active PCs kidnap the princess, and when I finally get the chance to play out the time period when that happened, I find this is now a plot point set in stone that I can't do anything to change.

I'm not saying this is badwrong at all. This is, unfortunately, exactly how it would go in my game, too. We do the best we can with it. But when you go out of your way to say you're using a system that solves coordination problems of multiple or split groups that you don't really solve, to the extent that I take you at your word, I have to imagine you're doing something different from how you actually are. Because what you're saying you're doing here does not solve any unique problems that cannot be solved by careful time keeping alone. So Pundit's skepticism is justified.

Basically, you're over-selling it. The over-selling is creating confusion. The confusion is causing you frustration. And you just don't have the temperament for it.

I find for long term tracking of multiple campaign worlds, it definitely seems to work best to match 1 in world year to one game year. Eg my Wilderlands campaign chronology since I started using 1:1 looks like

AD 2013-4 = 4433-4444 BCCC: Jana Vex meets Lance Harcourt, goes to Golarion
AD 2015 = 4445 BCCC: Jana Vex returns, Hakeem begins his adventures
AD 2016 = 4446 BCCC: Closing of the Black Sun Gate, Fall of Yusan, Oriax flees. Birth of Hassan, son of Hakeem. Full moons 4446: 21/10, 18/11, 16/12. 4447: 13/1, 10/2, 8/3, 5/4, 3/5, 1/6.
AD 2017/18 = 4447 BCCC: Destuction of the First King in the Caverns of Thracia. 3/4/47 At Hara Hakeem slays Kainos Warbringer, Shieldbiter slays the Cormarrin Princes. 29/4/4447 Borritt Crowfinger destroyed by Hakeem, Neo-Nerath ended. Kingdom of Altanis-Nerath proclaimed, with Hakeem as Regent. His infant son Hassan will marry Eratha Bronze of Hara, and rule when of age. 10/8/47 Hakeem resigns, Lord Namelin Bronze of Hara becomes King-Regent of Altani-Nerath, appointing Minars Rappak as Vice Regent/Commander of the Altanian Host/Warden of Nerra. Then Hakeem returns to Nerra 15/8/47 and falls out with Bronze, angry at his presumption. 18/8/47 Malenn declared Golden Queen of Ahyf. 20/8/47 Hakeem Godslayer vanishes, apparently having undergone Divine Ascension. 21/8/47 Namelin Bronze declared King of Nerath, the restored kingdom centred on Hara. 12/9/47 coronation of King Bronze.
AD 2018 = 4448 BCCC.  End of Wet Season: 1/4/2018 = 1/4/4448.  M7/48: Skandiks defeat Overlord's fleet near Sea Rune, Alkazed kills Archpriest Thuruar. M8 Skandik invasion fleet on the Roglaroon near Modron destroyed by hurricane-force storm. Modron claims this is the work of their new Archmage.
AD 2019 = 4449 BCCC.
6/1/49: Beneath Trolltooth Ridge in caves west of Stonehell, Sandro & Danor Gordak flee mountain trolls, leaving Talakan to die, but he turns into a bird and only flies away.
12-19/2/49: Talalakan Tzapachi & co find great wealth in Stonehell.
Shieldbiter is absent for 7 months on the Astral plane after an incident on Golarion with a bag of holding.
AD 2020 = 4450 BCCC Shieldbiter defeats the black dragons of the marshes beyond Bisgen, and adds their  territory to Nerath. He is granted Bisgen by King Bronze, but shows little interest in the town.
AD 2021 = 4451 BCCC Shieldbiter establishes relations with the Amiondel Elves in the Claws of Oricha. Travelling north he subdues the red dragon Xathragot, and takes most of her treasure.
13/12/4451 BCCC: Hytirus Vex returns to Selatine with Ralluan mercenaries and conquers the village, exiling his sister Jana Vex, and killing or enslaving her followers.
AD 2022 = 4452 BCCC M1-3: Set on revenge, Jana Vex trains in martial arts with the monks of Sun Soul Spire. M3: The dying Archmage Dyson Logos, knowing he has only a few weeks remaining, retires from Hara to the Earth Womb beneath Dyson's Delve, "to sleep until Nerath has need of him again".

I find this lets me take breaks from a campaign, come back years later, and player mindset matches with in-world development. It also allows for sporadic, regular, or intense play. Freezing a world/campaign in time, or advancing it decades into the future, messes with GM and player time perception and tends to leave an artificial feel, whereas 1:1 feels very organic.

Quote from: Lunamancer on April 18, 2022, 12:07:23 AMIn the example in the DMG, if I went on just a 4-day vacation, I'd come back to find 3 1/2 weeks had passed. Yeah, yeah, I get it that my guy will still be 3 weeks in the past since I only lost 4 days. But what am I going to do with this 3 week lead I have on the rest of the party? Romp through empty dungeons that they already cleaned out in the future?

QuoteI would consider things to be decidedly uncoordinated if my character was sworn to protect the princess, I take 4 days off, while I'm on vacation and 1 week later in game-time the active PCs kidnap the princess, and when I finally get the chance to play out the time period when that happened, I find this is now a plot point set in stone that I can't do anything to change.

I've been reading your posts but I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. Both of the situation you describe can happen whether or not the DM is using 1:1 time.

If a player misses a session, he misses out on the dungeon looting done in that session. If a player misses a session, the other players might do something to an NPC that the absent player may have not wanted. Both of those things can happen regardless of how much game world time passes between sessions. In fact, whether the absent player returns four in-game days later or four in-games months later is almost entirely meaningless. The only effect it would have is on the age of the character.

In both situation, the DM is not obligated to run a special session to catch up the absent player. The DM could, of course, but that would be an exception because of real world time constraints.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on April 18, 2022, 10:26:32 AM

Quote from: Lunamancer on April 18, 2022, 12:07:23 AMIn the example in the DMG, if I went on just a 4-day vacation, I'd come back to find 3 1/2 weeks had passed. Yeah, yeah, I get it that my guy will still be 3 weeks in the past since I only lost 4 days. But what am I going to do with this 3 week lead I have on the rest of the party? Romp through empty dungeons that they already cleaned out in the future?

QuoteI would consider things to be decidedly uncoordinated if my character was sworn to protect the princess, I take 4 days off, while I'm on vacation and 1 week later in game-time the active PCs kidnap the princess, and when I finally get the chance to play out the time period when that happened, I find this is now a plot point set in stone that I can't do anything to change.

I've been reading your posts but I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. Both of the situation you describe can happen whether or not the DM is using 1:1 time.

If a player misses a session, he misses out on the dungeon looting done in that session. If a player misses a session, the other players might do something to an NPC that the absent player may have not wanted. Both of those things can happen regardless of how much game world time passes between sessions. In fact, whether the absent player returns four in-game days later or four in-games months later is almost entirely meaningless. The only effect it would have is on the age of the character.

In both situation, the DM is not obligated to run a special session to catch up the absent player. The DM could, of course, but that would be an exception because of real world time constraints.

It's a bit different since this 1:1 "always on" paradigm presumes every player is their own individual free agent -- you COULD get together with different party members, but you don't have to, everyone can be up to their own thing.

So normally a game proceeds without you because everyone is together, but when you're alone you play through what you missed anyway -- it's just that if other people already be at a boss or something, it would break the timeline if you beat the boss earlier in the timeline while you were still in the past even though the other players already beat it later in the timeline (thus necessitating that boss still be alive). So in the example above, the DM is just making it impossible for the PC to do that because they missed their chance so to speak, even though in the timeline they're still in the past when it would have been possible.

So I guess if you strictly adhere to the 1:1 time that can't happen because the team would not be able to get ahead of the lone wolf player. Perhaps that's what Jeffro was getting at.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on April 14, 2022, 10:57:56 AM
...
Yeah. I had to stop 45 minutes in when it was clear that there was no effort being made by the Inappropriate Characters crew to actually try and understand what Jeffro was saying.

IMHO; that is 50% Jeffro's fault.

He was a victim of his own hyperbole.

Especially since even in his online discussions he never breaks "BROSR Character" when explaining why 1:1 time is great. The hype and smack talk never stops, so it is often difficult to cull the wheat from the chaff if he is putting you off by saying how you suck at RPG's at the same time.

i.e. "...your playing Fake D&D" "...been playing D&D wrong" etc, ...  For Jeffro to not expect serious push back for smack talk like that is just silly.

Pundit has been reacting to their hyperbole/smack talk since day one, and of course with Jeffo right in front of him he was going to zero in on it, and go to town.

What did he think would happen?

Quote from: Lunamancer on April 16, 2022, 10:33:18 PM
...
To my knowledge, and my knowledge of the 1E material is pretty strong, nothing in there tells you have players jump into domain play, running NPC types, or any of that. Jeffro seems to be just making that up. However, it is absolutely 100% true that Gary did have that exact same idea and wrote about it. And not "sort of" the same idea. I'm talking the EXACT same idea. And I can prove it. I just can't prove that he had the idea at the time he was writing 1E. Here's what I've got on it, though.

As some of you know, in 1999 Gary put out the Lejendary Adventure RPG. What's lesser known is LA was just the fantasy version of a Science Fantasy RPG he wrote that was never published called AsteRogues. In there, he explicitly describes having players play multiple characters, and specifically characters who operate on different tiers of action--like one group that does straight-up adventuring, another that does domain management type stuff, and so on.

He even gave it a name. The multi-tiered campaign.

I happen to have a copy of the beta version manuscript. It bears a copyright date of 1994. And presumably he had the idea at some point in time before he actually sat down and wrote it. So the idea is at least that old. Maybe he did have it when he wrote 1E. Maybe this was the vision behind every thing he actually did write into 1E. And maybe Jeffro is astute far beyond his ability to articulate that he was able to pick up on that just from the totality of 1E. *shrugs* I was never able to, and as I said earlier up thread, I put my 1E fu up against literally anyone in the world. But who knows? Maybe Jeffro saw something I didn't see. Or maybe this is all just a coincidence.

I readily admit this 1:1 stuff is a recent idea for me, and I've never even set foot in a Holiday Inn hotel, so given that...

I think Jeffro derives this derives from p.7 in the PHB where it says:

"... And perhaps a war between players will be going on (With battles actually fought out on the table with miniature figures) one night, while on the next, characters of these two contending players are helping each other to survive somewhere in the wilderness."

If players are regularly swapping out between domain level fantasy battles and party wilderness adventures with different PC's, I think it is a reasonable inference to make that players are operating on many tiers of play simultaneously within the same 'campaign world'.

And having some players electing to play at different tiers more heavily or to the exclusion of others would seem to be an inevitable feature that would emerge as a result of running a "multi-tiered campaign".

That seems like a reasonable conclusion to me. (Which is the conclusion that Jeffo makes)

Your reveal that Gygax later on describes the exact same idea seems to verify Jeffro's deductions.

In my opinion; it strains credulity that Gygax pulled the idea of the "multi-tiered campaign" out of the air whole-cloth in '99. Especially given other anecdotal evidence from 'back in the day' that Jeffo gives. (buried on his blog and twitter)

Quote from: Lunamancer on April 18, 2022, 12:07:23 AM
...In the example in the DMG, if I went on just a 4-day vacation, I'd come back to find 3 1/2 weeks had passed. Yeah, yeah, I get it that my guy will still be 3 weeks in the past since I only lost 4 days. But what am I going to do with this 3 week lead I have on the rest of the party? Romp through empty dungeons that they already cleaned out in the future?

My understanding of the BROSR interpretation:

1:1 for downtime only. Session time can be varying length and that gets added to the game calendar at the end of every session.

So in essence

Downtime = 1:1

Session: Variable. Added to Game calendar at the end of each live game session.

There is no pausing or going back in time to "catch up" PC's who aren't active. (Inactive PC's are on "Lock")

So you get the effect with inactive PC's of the in-game calendar "fast forwarding" due to game sessions that they missed.

So you don't have a 3 week lead.

You get 3 weeks' worth of downtime if your GM is generous because you didn't actively play for 3 weeks.

Otherwise, your PC just sat around.

I believe the BROSR derives this mode of 1:1 play from p.38 "Players who choose to remove their characters from the center of dungeon activity will find that "a lot has happened while they were away"..."

So:

Quote from: Lunamancer on April 18, 2022, 12:07:23 AM
... I would consider things to be decidedly uncoordinated if my character was sworn to protect the princess, I take 4 days off, while I'm on vacation and 1 week later in game-time the active PCs kidnap the princess, and when I finally get the chance to play out the time period when that happened, I find this is now a plot point set in stone that I can't do anything to change.

BROSR: Tough luck. Your PC's mouth wrote a check your ass couldn't cash. Shouldn't have sworn to defend the Princess before you took off for vacation.

Bob the Viking beat you to it. Next.

Quote from: Lunamancer on April 18, 2022, 12:07:23 AM
I'm not saying this is badwrong at all. This is, unfortunately, exactly how it would go in my game, too. We do the best we can with it. But when you go out of your way to say you're using a system that solves coordination problems of multiple or split groups that you don't really solve,

I think that the BROSR interpretation does solve certain problems, as long as you adopt their hardcore "you snooze you lose" always-on single timeline paradigm.

No going back in time or pauses for PC's to catch up. You don't have to worry about that stuff because players are either actively playing their PC's or they are not.

If PC1 is travelling on a journey of 18 days that would normally be about 3 weeks of IRL time, So PC1 is out of play until his journey ends and his player will play PC2 in the meantime. But three game sessions happen in that time that could "speed up" the timeline so that player may get to play PC1 after only one or two weeks of 1:1 downtime.

Or the player misses a session, and PC1 sat around for a week he could have been played but the player wasn't there. To bad so sad...

i.e. Players have to "keep up" with current events if they want to 'optimize' the in-world game time for a particular PC. If they don't then the game world will happily move on without them.

I think that for a normal gaming group of a GM and 3-5 players just carefully tracking time would be enough.

I think that the BROSR implements the 1:1 downtime + strict always-on single timeline to due to the patron play moves that they advocate for which in turn effects the session moves.

i.e. It forces everyone to "keep current" or they will miss out. Off loading from the GM the need to inform/remind players where the game world is at, and getting rid of the burden of having to track different timelines.

Now how does that mesh with what is written on p.37-38 for TIME IN THE CAMPAIGN...??

Well, I think that you can pretty much make the BROSR interpretation fit... But!

Paragraph 5 is a big sticking point, as Gygax does indicate that after playing with one group that cleaned out a room of a dungeon – he then went back in time to play out a session with another group, and made an ad-hoc justification why they "missed" the monster killed in the future by the previous one.

And the BROSR interpretation is that game time is continuous. No back to the future stuff...

With paragraph 5 Gygax seems to be down with tracking multiple timelines. And having different game sessions going back and forth keeping pace with the campaigns 'overall' timeline. Without paragraph 5 you can make the case for the BROSR tracking of a single continuous timeline.

So either the BROSR has some legal wrangling to do, or I read something wrong.

Or I just misrepresented the BROSR 1:1 downtime + session time position...

Quote from: Jaeger on April 18, 2022, 10:01:21 PMNow how does that mesh with what is written on p.37-38 for TIME IN THE CAMPAIGN...??

Well, I think that you can pretty much make the BROSR interpretation fit... But!

Paragraph 5 is a big sticking point, as Gygax does indicate that after playing with one group that cleaned out a room of a dungeon – he then went back in time to play out a session with another group, and made an ad-hoc justification why they "missed" the monster killed in the future by the previous one.

And the BROSR interpretation is that game time is continuous. No back to the future stuff...

I would say that in this example Gygax is being very generous. As you said, I've played in and run open table style campaigns and the general rule has always been that if you miss the session, your character also misses the time. That being said, however, the example given is pretty extreme with the party burning through 50 game days in a single session. I've never seen anything close to that. And the reason given for keeping track of multiple timelines in this example seems to be out of a sense of fairness rather than verisimilitude.

Also, there is a separate issue with how to handle a similar situation if you are running multiple groups. Just because the Tuesday night group wasted 50 game days in their single session shouldn't mean that the Friday night group be forced to skip ahead a month and a half of game time.

But my main point was that if you have a situation where the party goes through 50 game days and some of the players are absent, then that is a problem. And it's the same problem whether you are playing 1:1 time or not.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on April 18, 2022, 10:26:45 PM
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Also, there is a separate issue with how to handle a similar situation if you are running multiple groups. Just because the Tuesday night group wasted 50 game days in their single session shouldn't mean that the Friday night group be forced to skip ahead a month and a half of game time.

But my main point was that if you have a situation where the party goes through 50 game days and some of the players are absent, then that is a problem. And it's the same problem whether you are playing 1:1 time or not.

I read that as him talking about when traveling PC's will be "avaliable" to play again.

They are not really burning through 50 gamedays in one shot, They travel, do a thing then travel back. Gygax is marking on the game calendar when they will be 'back in play' from traveling back.

i.e. They are 'out of play' for so many days on their return journey that it makes no sense to advance the timeline when other PC's can do a lot of adventuring during that time.

So other PC groups can play while the out of play PC's are "Locked out" traveling.

Of course this is all rather unclear as Gygax leaves out a whole lot of context IMHO... You have to arrive at your interpretation of Gygax's ideas by inference.

To be honest, the 1e rulebooks are a hot mess. And maybe he is talking about tracking multiple timelines and coordinating them onto one mainline...

But who would want to do all that tracking?

I can easily see some teenager from across the country in 1981 reading the PHB p.7 and Campaign time rules on DMG p37-38 and thinking: "WTF is this dude taking about!?"

And so he does what most people did - use AD&D as the best supplement B/X ever had...


In my opinion the BROSR still has a few questions that they need to satisfactorily answer if they are to really claim that Gygax 100% intended D&D to be run the 1:1 way:

1: It is a matter of record that Gygax didn't always play 1:1 during his lifetime. If 1:1 was the preferred play mode why didn't it make it's way into any other of his post D&D RPG's? Other than the cutting room floor...

2: If 1:1 was the way AD&D was meant to be played... Then why did Gygax write tons of modules that don't mention the 1:1 style of play? By BROSR standards Gygax put out a lot of "Fake D&D" material after he wrote the DMG...

3: If 1:1 is so transformative... Where are all the Dragon magazine article extolling its virtues? Where are the interview quotes of Gygax telling people that they are doing it wrong? Why did Gygax basically go radio silent on the subject for decades after the core books were published?


And this is from someone who is starting to sip a bit of the BROSR kool-aid...

I want to give their patron play model a shot after my current star wars campaign wraps up. I think that it can add an additional dimension to the old school campaign I have in mind. I know players form the Tuesday game I play in that can act as factions for my Sunday game.

But Lunarmancer is not wrong when it comes to BROSR proponents over-selling things a bit...

I run a timeline game like this and I jump around sometimes -- given the issues that can popup in real life, sometimes it just makes sense.

For example, sometimes, before a session happens, I MYSELF haven't finished catching up through resolving everyone's downtime. Then we play a session and those characters jump ahead, but through no fault of their own the other PCs who were waiting on me to tell them what was happen to them fell behind. In that case I go back and make sure they can catch up to the best I can.