Converting D&D (3.X or 5E) to Narrative Timekeeping

[souran]

D&D (except 4e) and most retroclones (also shadowrun) use inworld time keeping. Durations are tracked in seconds/minutes/hours/days etc. However, because each of those durations pass at different rates of real time during play this is not easy to track.

Some other games use narrative pacing tracking things by round/scene/act/episode/story. This is more conducive to play.

What issues would you see if you tried to convert 3.x or 5E durations and time keeping to narrative time?

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

People arguing about whether or not their spells are still active. People arguing about what a "scene" is.

[Foxwarrior]

The problem with pacing things by scene is that the DM gets to arbitrarily decide when scenes start and end. Wacky tactics that involve using a "once/5 minutes" ability every five minutes become mostly impossible if that's changed to once per scene, as does the idea of casting your buff spells before opening the door.

My preference is, instead of having the DM decide that it "feels right" for your spells to end right now, to just space out your different durations such that it's pretty obvious from the fiction whether enough time has passed for some effects to end but not others, like having a 1 minute duration and a 1 hour duration and nothing in between.

[Dogbert]

The problem with pacing things by scene is that the DM gets to arbitrarily decide when scenes start and end.

After the terms in which I left my penultimate gaming table, I won't deny that an exact measure of seconds and feet helps the player a great deal in defending against antagonistic, crap DMs... but to be honest, the moment you find yourself litigating over feet/second, that's a clear sign you need a new gaming table (as I realized, hence my up and leaving).

[OgreBattle]

Having things be daily or refresh after rest strikes me as a solution for a not-exact-timekeeping system.

A buffing spell then takes concentration slots, which prevent rest.

So...

Daily
Refresh after rest
Concentration- maintain as long as you can concentrate

The way magic is used in D&D is unlike any mythology or popular fiction, so getting rid of tracking minutes is a bonus

[FatR]

I've switched to narrative timekeeping in my heartbreaker, because in my experience any duration bigger than rounds and smaller than a day/rest cycle means nothing else than "the effect ends when GM says so" anyway. I've tinkered about with the short-rest cycle as well, but in practice it ended up as nothing more than "enough time out of battle to cast low-to-mid-level healing stuff without interruption".

[Username17]

No one can decide when scenes begin and end. Fixed times of day are much better. Having a Cinderella moment when your spell ends at midnight is cool. Having three consecutive Cinderella moments when your spells end at 12:00, 12:01, and 12:03 is straight bullshit. But you can have the one and not the other by having fixed corners of the day when spells end.

-Username17

[souran]

My experience tends to match FatR that anything with a duration longer than X rounds or rounds/level and shorter than 8 hours tends to be "lasts until the DM says it ends". Narrative time keeping does require a little different kind of trust than in world timekeeping.

Franks Poetic magic durations could be fairly easy to work. If most magic ended at either sunrise or sunset or noon or midnight would sort of give you the best of both worlds.

[RelentlessImp]

Why not just use the Shadowrun Spirits services system? Sunrise and sunset are excellent narrative moments, and already have use in D&D (cleric spell preparation varies between sunrise & sunset depending on deity).

[Username17]

Why not just use the Shadowrun Spirits services system? Sunrise and sunset are excellent narrative moments, and already have use in D&D (cleric spell preparation varies between sunrise & sunset depending on deity).

Well, you have that option. But in addition to powers that last "all day" and can end at the next Dawn, you also have powers that last for "a few hours" and those can end the next day corner (Dawn, Dusk, Noon, or Midnight).

Once it's built in, players can interact with it. "Let's wait until sunset so we don't have to recast all our spells" or whatever.

-Username17

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

But how long does Swords Dance last?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Any undesirable narrative side-effects for spells lasting a fixed amount of time? I think it's kind of lame and genre-breaking for every PC in every campaign to schedule their activity around fixed times of day. While there are heroes who schedule their operations around certain times, Batman doesn't and shouldn't leave the Batcave at exactly 6:00p every day because starting his day at 5:30p will only end up fucking him over if something bad happens while he's on patrol. I don't want parties to start making Gantt charts to schedule their day so that they don't end up running out of juice either when crossing the Great River (estimated 30 minutes from breaking camp) or meeting the forest hag (estimated 4 hours after crossing the Great River).

[Username17]

Any undesirable narrative side-effects for spells lasting a fixed amount of time?

Since they are rarely started at the same time they also won't end a the same time. Tracking four different end points for things you currently have operational is fucking soul destroying - especially when the usual response is to tick off a box and recast every time any of the shields go down.

It's an accounting nightmare, and lends no narrative benefits. Like, can you recall a single time Batman told you that the air tank would run out in 23 minutes but the shark repellent would wear off in 47 minutes, so you could have up to 24 minutes with the air tank off once you got in the ship without the shark repellent being a separate limiter on how long you could stay in the water? It's a fucking 8th grade algebra problem and it doesn't even solve any arguments at the table.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

It's an accounting nightmare, and lends no narrative benefits.

It'd say it depends on the timescale. Tracking three effects with seperate durations in the triple-digits of minutes is bullshit, tracking three effects with durations in the single-digits of minutes is not. For stuff like heists and hostage rescues and city escapes, I think it can be narratively desirable for frogmen to start fussing about only having five minutes of breathable air while also only having two minutes of battery for their underwater laptop and four minutes of shark repellent.

[jt]

There's nothing stopping you from explicitly cross-listing narrative and real time durations. Especially if you have standardized durations, which you should anyway.

per scene / recovered with a 5 minute rest / lasts 5 minutes
per session / recovered with an 8 hour rest / lasts 8 hours

Then you can usually use narrative time, but if you want a really long scene where the party holds off waves of zombies from entering their cabin for 20 minutes, you still know how many times they can refresh their abilities during that.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Ah, so Sword Dance lasts about 5 minutes... that sounds about right. That seems like an idea compromise between narrative and real time limits and I think I'll probably steal it for future use.

[LR]

It seems like a best of both worlds option for day-length counters should be to set them on the Harmonious Four Day Time Cube Quadrant based on what's thematic for the character, but the PCs can do a ritual to sync their watches so the Necromancer's bone walls fall apart and the Paladin recovers their combat buffs under Luna's Mirror or the Paladin area blessing falls off and the Necromancer can add more skeleton warriors to their reserves with the Light of the Daystar.