Time scales: rounds, days, weeks, expeditions

"For want of a nail the kingdom was lost"

Time keeping is extremely important in D&D. 

Everyone knows that since Gary Gygax said in the AD&D 1e DMG, in all caps, that YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT.

But I think few RPGs - and maybe not even AD&D - has got this exactly right.

One concern I've shared here before is how spellcasters recover all of their spells OVERNIGHT. This becomes a problem because fighter can take up to four weeks to recover lost HP. And, while spells must be chosen every day, equipment is usually chosen once per expedition.

These things are operating in different time scales.

- Losing some HP may "cost" you a month (resurrection also costs you a few weeks).

- Losing all your rations might ruin your entire expedition*.

- Losing spell slots costs you a day at most.

(*An "expedition" is the travel from a safe city to a nearby dungeon or other challenge. In other genres, we could have a "job", "mission", "heist", etc).

If you have spells that produce HP or rations, the rhythm of the HP and ration recovery is broken. Which is not a problem "per se", if you are conscious of the effects.

For example, if a PC takes weeks to recover HP, this could encourage players to "rotate" between multiple characters. A cleric with "cure light wounds" can basically avoid this process, except when there is need for resurrection.

There is a certain "rhythm" to D&D - each RPG has its own.

In Pendragon, there are "time skips" that take years, and rule for how you can play with your heirs. Likewise (IIRC), wounds can take a lot of time to heal.

In DCC RPG, there are lasting consequences for magic - you can get mutations, spell mishaps, etc. Some of these are permanent (IIRC). This is not a problem, but I think other classes should also be subject to permanent consequences - say, scars and losing limbs (which is a thing in DCC, IIRC, but not usually in D&D).

Runequest suggests "one adventure per season" and - AFAICT - this interacts with income and experience rules.

In 4e D&D, there are daily, encounter and "at will" powers for ALL classes, so everybody in playing in the same tempo. It might have been too radical, making classes feel a bit "samey".

In 5e D&D, there are few consequences that can last more than a day. All spell slots are recovered, yes, but so are all HP and other powers. Even "raise dead" only takes four days to recover. There are also "short rests" that allow you to recover some HP, slots, etc. during the day.

The tricky part in 5e is keeping the short rest:long rest ratio. 

You see, some classes are better with long rests, others with short rests. If you mess up the ratio, 5e's supposed "balance" goes out the window. That is why 5e attracts bizarre concepts such as "seven encounters per day", which sounds good in a dungeon but silly in the wilderness, city, etc.

Old school D&D has a similar problem (well, like all RPGs).

First, there is this wilderness/dungeon divide. B/X recommends at one encounter check per day in the wilderness. But even if you're making three or four (which is optional), it is unlikely that will lead to more than a couple of actual combats if you're using the reaction table and evasion rules. 

But in the dungeon you check for encounters every TWENTY MINUTES. This changes the game completely. Now spell slots are precious few - at least for the first few levels.

However, PCs are not supposed to go to the wilderness until level 4. By level 5, a MU might have a 5d6 fireball that can destroy many wilderness encounters. 

On the other hand, if you "nerf" the MU too much, he is helpless in the dungeon after casting a couple of spells.

I think this is why a first level MU feels too weak and a 10th-level one feels too strong. Nerfing the MU requires giving him cantrips or at least a sword to compensate.

AD&D has aging rules. Unless you get cursed by a spell, these do not really matter, because no game mechanic interacts meaningful with "years" (unless, maybe, building a castle or similar). Similarly, weapons have different speeds, which can interact with spell interruption and so on.

Then we have rounds, turns, hours, days, etc. Torches burn for an hour, which is 6 turns, or 360 rounds. Running out of torches might force you to spend days to go back to town, or, worse, can leave you lost in the dark.

I'm not suggesting a simple fix; instead, I'm encouraging you to reflect about which time scale your games are about, and how scales interact.

And, of course, keep strict time records and let your players know about it. 

The "5 minute workday" problem happens because there is no cost to wasting a day. If there is also no cost to wasting a few weeks, the PCs will start every encounter fully rested and healed regardless of healing spells and potions. And so on.

I have to reflect on how to implement this myself. In my current campaign, the PCs decided to leave a mission against certain goblin tribes that were harassing a nearby village. 

What happens when then go back? 

The answer should certainly be affected by how long they take to go back. If I just hand-wave time, we go back to "time railroading" and decisions about time become meaningless.

I've said before that "Time seems to be the glue that holds many rules together: Healing, researching, building, random encounters, searching, torches, diseases, etc. Once you ignore it, everything seems to come crashing down. Maybe this is one of the fundamental ideas of old school play."

Come to think of it, this is much bigger than "old school play" - or even RPGs. 

The interaction between different time scales is an existential question.

If I eat a chocolate now, I will feel good for seconds, and it might take weeks of chocolate to get fat, and moths to lose that fat.

To write a book, I have to put an effort for hours and days, and then I'll have it forever (or until the next revision).

A kind word to a loved one might make little difference now, but every moment can eventually add up to me looking differently to the past twenty years.

And ultimately, maybe we have to consider time scales that include more than a lifetime. Maybe PC death is necessary for PC lives to be meaningful; if everything (i.e., the campaign) ends becasue of a TPK, what difference did the PCs make?

But that is probably a subject for another post.