Thoughts on "JeffroGaxian" Timekeeping

I've been familiar with the BROSR for a couple years now, so when Jeffro Johnson discussed his thesis on the latest episode of Inappropriate Characters, I wasn't nearly as shocked as most. Even about the "women can't play" thing.

I've made it no secret that I don't agree with them on most things, but I also have made it known that they propose ideas that have value. Their emphasis on strict timekeeping, patron play, and inspirational reading is at the top of the list.

However, the topic of this entry is on the nature of my disagreement on Jeffro's interpretation of Gygaxian timekeeping. He asserts that strict 1:1 timekeeping is essential to produce a superior game, so much so that he believes that if a player group is occupied for 20 days on travel, for instance, you couldn't pick up where they left off until the real-world day count has caught up.

Now, first I'm going to say that there is a desirable effect that can come from this strict adherence, especially from a DM's standpoint. It forces the players to think about how their characters' time is spent (as Gygax says he intended), and it forces them to focus less on singular characters. The reason this happens is because while character group A is occupied for two weeks, the next week when you meet up, you create character group B to handle another task. The following week, you decide whether to pick up with character group A again or to stick with group B. The clock keeps moving, so the players must choose what's important to them. It makes "plot driven play" go out the window in favor of objective oriented play.

Clearly, there is value here. However, there are things I believe he's missing. We'll start by dissecting what Gygax said in the DMG.

Note here that the first thing mentioned is that Gygax is trying to prevent a situation where "anomalies" occur. So we already know that he's concerned with preventing time paradoxes. Why would this happen?

We know from the testimony around Gygax's play groups that he was running games with an incredible sized player pool in a single shared play area (Oerik). The existence of multiple player groups at different points in the week necessitates that not only are characters unimportant in the grand scheme, players are too. Anyone who has run a West Marches campaign or played in one understands this.

Gygax was running games ALL THE TIME. Strict timekeeping was a survival mechanism to keep the world believable.

Secondarily, but equally important, Gygax put many timekeeping activities for the sake of adding meaning. In the above quote, he says that it makes recovery of hit points meaningful. He'll later explain that hit points (mostly) aren't "meat points," so it isn't that your character needs to recover from wounds necessarily, but more in line with his ability to defend himself from a fatal blow. Thus, the prolonged recovery time is there purely to add substance to the loss of HP. This is something that anyone who has run 5E D&D should be able to understand; when HP recovery happens too quickly, it feels as though HP loss is inconsequential unless you hit 0.

It's the same principle with magic items, learning languages, training. Time imbues meaning. Time requires prioritization.

With this excerpt, we have one of the smoking guns that puts to rest the idea that "JeffroGaxian Timekeeping" was the correct interpretation. It says that not only is it inconsequential how you keep up with your time measurement (so long as you do so accurately), but also the thing that actually matters is that you know what, when, and where characters are doing things.

That's it!

About halfway down that second paragraph, you see this: "Four actual days later (and it is best to use 1 actual day = 1 game day when no play is happening)..." The famed source of 1:1! A parenthetical suggestion that comes with a conditional clause: when no play is happening. What does Gygax mean by that? When IS no play happening, and if this was the general rule even when play is happening, why was it necessary to include it?

Around Gary's group, I'd assume that play isn't happening around the holidays, when time is supposed to be spent with family. When there's some sort of hiatus. When else?

In these examples, Gygax is putting forth three different player character groups that are all on different days: Day 77, 54, and 58. Note that there is no mention at any point that we're concerning ourselves with actual dates when we are told to simply let the group on Day 54 play next, then the group on Day 58, until they can catch up in the timeline with the group currently on Day 77. AND Gygax is reiterating how to ensure anomalies don't happen with the example of the monster being gone on day 52 but there on day 54.

Gygax emphasizes that many game sessions will occur within a month or two if spent in the dungeon, but the wilderness travelers will go rapidly through time.

Further, he says that you may allow your distant travelers (who are likely far ahead in days) to explore some distant dungeon if you're kind, meaning if you can offer them the sessions to do it and you're willing to risk the anomalies. So Gary has no objections here to letting your day 77 player characters raid a dungeon while the others are on day 54, if he can account for the needed sessions and if there won't be anomalies.

And there we have it. Time keeping requires a lot of work and dictates who gets to play when (which would be a necessary exercise in the event that you run daily games with mixes of around 20+ people), but it gives players a conduit to make interesting choices and even further separate the wheat from the chaff.

Gygax doesn't care how you do it, just that it's done. And the JeffroGaxian method is the easiest way to do it. It's the training wheels method. No hard math, no serious planning, just look at the calendar.

What do I do? I let time pass on a 1:1 basis when the player characters are not in the dungeon. But since I play with the same players every time, I feel no need to slavishly adhere to the calendar. If the PCs need to skip forward a month, we do it. We calculate monthly living costs and figure out how downtime played out. If we end the session in the dungeon on day 33, we pick it up next time on day 33. If we end in town on day 33, next week we pick up on day 40.

The JeffroGaxian adherents will cry foul, but it ultimately doesn't matter. Their way is cool and produces interesting results, but it is primarily a Jeffro Johnson interpretation, not a pure Gygaxian invention. The important thing is that you do track time and you do it accurately.