Time Tracking

[maximus]

How do you keep time in your game for stuff like combat rounds, torches/lanterns, and spell effects? I've seen some people keep track on paper, others use a die, and some others just kind of hand wave it.

[Persimmon]

Mostly hand waving, though for spells I try to keep close track. Also for conditions caused by spells like paralysis etc. Torches I guess a bit but definitely track. For general supplies I have the characters restock in cities, crossing off gold, adding more for maintenance, etc. In a couple campaigns I even taxed the party when they returned to civilization. Not real precise, but something.

[maximus]

Yea, depending on who the party is "working for", they've had to pay treasure taxes at times too. Since it's typically a 1 on 1 game, I sometimes lose track of time with everything else that's going on. I found a time tracker from Necrotic Gnome (free download) that might be exactly what I need. Would be nice if C&C had something similar (hint, hint to @TLG...).

https://necroticgnome.com/products/old- ... me-tracker

[Marcus Aurelius]

spells are easy as most use combat rounds for duration so I write "Spell name" 5 (for rounds duration) and every combat round that happens I make a hash mark. Torch or other light source I figure amount of movement that would happen before they go out and keep rough track of distance on the map.

[Lurker]

For the most part a lot of it is hand waived, unless it adds tension to the game (for the one off horror type game, or when the girls' game was doing a high stress cave clear of orcs). Even on those times I don't completely track it. I just use it to add stress as needed at the right time "as you creep down the tunnel you hear (insert something appropriate) and then you notice the torch light has started to dim and flicker as the last seconds of the torch begins to sputter out .... what do you do give me a roll?

However, as Marcus point out tracking spells are easier. I'm lucky, my wife put a thick plastic table coverer over the table cloth. With that, behind my DM screen I have a whole table top to work with and a pack of visa-vis markers. After one game as we were cleaning up and BGv2 picked stuff up and saw all my notes etc - names monsters spells and even short hand symbols everywhere with hash marks etc.

I'm with you and Persimon. I've had them pay gate tax going into towns cities etc on any liquid wealth and perceived value of their carried goods and even their own 'value' . Wearing really good cloths and furs might just bump that tax up form a few coppers (plus tax for trade goods) for a normal traveler up to a silver or 3 . Of course there are the needed bribes to skip up to the front of the line or have the guard just tax on what is seen and not waste time digging through everything

It does help to get in good with the shire reeve, an important guild master, or even the local lord . They can speed that process up and why would someone have to pay taxes to the reeve if they are working for that same reeve (and if they are, and know they will not be searched, why wouldn't they make a little extra coin to sneak in something else for someone else that would prefer to not pay said taxes too)

[Captain_K]

For Combat: we have a dry erase board about 1' by 2' or small that we prop up where most can see it. pick a player to keep track, not the DM.
Initiative we roll a d8 or 2d4 or d7 etc. add one if DEX is a prime, plus a few cases where more can be added. This give the order, write PC names in their slot, keep a corner for rounds to be tracked like III hash marks with room around it to note when a spell starts and ends.

For out of combat we just use a clock, note start of adventure relative to dawn, dusk, midnight and do it in rough hours. We just sort of agree, that took 3 hours, traveled for two, back in town just as night falls. general.

[BASHMAN]

For rounds, I use a big novelty die where everybody can see it, and I roll it down by 1 each round.

For tracking longer periods of time, like hours I use a 3x5 card.

I mark the margins 1-12 to represent the hours of the day, and make columns of AM/PM. This allows me to track time in 10-minute intervals for several days all in one small card.

I make a hash-mark for each 10-minute interval that passes. After four vertical lines IIII for 40 minutes, I do a / for the 50 minutes, and a \ for 60 minutes (so an hour would have IIII with an X over it). If I need to fast forward an hour, I just draw an X where the hashmarks would be. If I need to fast forward 3 hours, I just make the X bigger (three rows tall) or I could just draw three Xs.

This technique was very useful when I was running a campaign where the PCs had a deadline to rescue someone in a castle and certain events happened at certain times of day (like a secret passage opening at exactly midnight, etc.). It also works to motivate players to move quicker when you tell them you are ticking off 10 more minutes as they keep searching a room or examining a painting again, etc.