Tracking distance as a way to track time and other resources

[dicebro]

Is it more efficient to track distance rather than merely tracking time in the underworld?  For example: the party enters the underworld and is
Moving 12” per turn if the slowest member is wearing platemail.

If The ref just tracks time on a sheet, then he can’t easily account for the party’s location.

But if the ref instead tracks the number of 10’ squares explored, then the ref can know the location of the party as well as number of turns spent in the dungeon.

Why is this important? Because Wandering monsters are rolled for every X number of turns. A fast moving party will cover more distance and there will be fewer wandering monster encounters. But the platemail wearing dude weighed down with hundreds of gold coins will slow the party down to 6 squares per turn on the way out. Doubling the risk of a wandering monster encounter.

I may not be making much sense here. But my question is how do you do it? Do you track turns (time) based on marking the dungeon map squares (distance)?

Is there a simple way to do this? The time tracking sheets and tables I have seen published online never seem to account for distance travelled. They are just bubbles and pie charts for rounds and turns. There’s got to be a simple way to track encumbrance, distance, light sources & time so that these resources actually mean something in a game focused on extracting gold from a dark dungeon crawling with monsters.

[tetramorph]

Yes, dicebro, that is how I do it.

I ask them what they do. When they move, I count 6 squares and tell them also what they can see ahead of them based upon relative light source in use. I mark down one move. When they do this again, I mark down a full turn. I know that 10 min have passed and I roll for a random encounter. Of course, I double the above if they have already mapped the area.

Most actions that are not literal movement take about one move. Drinking a potion. Listening at door. Forcing a door, picking a lock, checking if skeleton keys match. Studying the wall, ceiling, floor, etc. All this is one move.

Some actions take a turn. Reading a scroll, looking for traps and secret doors per 10' of horizontal wall, ceiling or floor, etc.

I've developed my own system. I'll call it, "Tally marks +1." Here is how I do it. I do half a mark for a move. I finish one full mark to complete a turn. Once I've tallied five I announce that they must rest. If they (and they usually do) rest, I put a little tick above the five tallies to mark that they have rested and an hour is completed. If they fail to rest, all rolls are at a negative 1 penalty until they rest. I would make this accumulate over each hour without a rest.

New torches are lighted after the turn of rest. After four hours, so, four sets of tally marks, they must use another flask of oil in their lantern.

This is so important for knowing how long they have been in the underworld, for tracking light source use and for making sure I am keeping up with encounter rolls. But also, diminishing hit points or ability scores when poisoned, diseased, cursed, bleeding out, etc. Or if there is something timed going on in the dungeon. They push the red button and the computer voices starts a self-destruct sequence count-down. I need to know where they are when the ceilings start to cave in. Etc.

Paying attention to time has made all the difference. It really feels like a war-game.

What is that quote of Gygax, "it is impossible to maintain a campaign without accurate account of time"? Something like that?

Hope that helps.

Fight on!

[dicebro]

Tetramorph, Thanks for the description. I have also been doing what you do for many years. Specifically I have been marking the time in 10 min turns. But something seems amiss with that method. I can’t quite put my finger on it. In the description of dialogue between ref and caller in volume III, I noticed that the referee is described as marking distance instead of time. Albeit he does this vocally. I find that the trouble with only marking time is that I quickly forget about the affect of encumbrance on movement over time.

Question, is there a method by which to track the party’s varying movement in inches (12,9,6, or 3) while tracking time? Taking into consideration the party’s slowest members and then the return trip when everyone’s laden with treasure and moving more slowly.

Seems like graph paper might be useful here. Heh.

[tetramorph]

Oh, dicebro, gotcha.

Sorry about that.

And, for me, yes, I always take encumbrance into account. I just substitute 3" for 6" per move, 6" for 12" per turn, etc.

If they have mapped the area already, and they are encumbered, that is easy because they just keep moving at the normal exploration rate I am most used to.

But now I am still worried that I am not quite getting at the heart of what you are hoping to look at here, so forgive me if I am still off base.

[dicebro]

Tetramorph, think I am just overthinking the methodology of the distance/time tracking. Thanks for your description on how you do this and I’m sorry if I came off as a centaur’s buttocks.. It is very helpful. I really do appreciate your willingness to help a fellow gamer try to figure these things out. I gotta con coming up and maybe I was just having a “moment”. Best wishes friend.

[tetramorph]

No worries, dicebro.

I think one way to think of it is that time/distance is really just two ways of saying the same thing.

When the ref Mark’s off distance he/she is marking off a time frame as well, and vice versa.

Still not sure if that helps.

Have fun at the con and Fight on!

[aldarron]

Well, that is what you are supposed to do. The only way you know how much time has passed is by how far the party traveled, or how many times you searched a room or taken a rest, etc. If your move rate is 120' per turn, then when have gone 120', a turn has passed. You mark time by the actions of the players. I usually just mark time off with tally marks. Most of the sheets I've seen are set up in groups of ten instead of six or twelve.

[Deleted]

I noticed this pretty early on when studying the three booklets - OD&D tracks certain things in groups. Weight is in Coins. Time is in Distance. etc. I haven't gotten to the point yet where I've been able to fully unlearn what I learned from BECMI in this regard. I suspect the OD&D system is actually simpler and more intuitive once fully embraced. After all, the amount of things one must track in comparison to comparable fantasy rules sets is effectively halved due to the wargaming logic applied here.

[linebeck]

Although it may be antithetical to the original intent of the game, the movement rule has interesting implications for fast and loose dungeon design.

All movement is divisible by 6 which is movement rate a heavily encumbered character can move per turn.

This suggests that instead of drafting a traditional map, a dungeon could be constructed as a point crawl with a series of nodes which constitute places of interest (a room, an intersection, a trap or trick, a fixed encounter, a treasure, etc.). Each connection between the nodes could be fixed at sixty feet which would mean that an unladen character could travel through four nodes per turn (240”), a character with a medium load three nodes (180”), down to an overly encumbered character who can only move one node per turn.

For example node 1 is the entrance, node two is an intersection, node three is another intersection with a hidden pit trap, and node four is a room with a heavy treasure. It would take an unladen character only one turn to reach the treasure but then four turns to carry the treasure to the exit.

This makes keeping track of turns and time incredibly easy at the expense of verisimilitude and the risk of play becoming excessively boardgamey.

[tetramorph]

linebeck, I like play to feel, perhaps not excessively, but at least, say, sufficiently boardgamey.

[aldarron]

Jun 6, 2020 12:12:16 GMT -6 linebeck said:

This suggests that instead of drafting a traditional map, a dungeon could be constructed as a point crawl with a series of nodes which constitute places of interest (a room, an intersection, a trap or trick, a fixed encounter, a treasure, etc.). Each connection between the nodes could be fixed at sixty feet which would mean that an unladen character could travel through four nodes per turn (240”), a character with a medium load three nodes (180”), down to an overly encumbered character who can only move one node per turn.

Have you seen the tunnel system in Blackmoor dungeon? Not exactly what you are describing but there is a similarity.

[thegreyelf]

Honestly, I think Gary's statement that it's impossible to run a campaign without strictly tracking time is a little hyperbolic. I've run many successful campaigns and strict tracking of time is something I never do. I simply estimate it with guesses and intuition based on judgement calls, heavily abstracting how much time x event took, like everything else in D&D. I believe in focusing much more on the story than the minutiae, and it always seemed to me that tracking every minute of every step in a dungeon, is minutiae.

[Deleted]

I think it matters *more* in those big campaigns with dozens of pieces on the board going in all directions at once. I don't run games like that. I like small parties who stick together and primarily dungeon delve. When you have the A team over here in the mountains looking for the Roc's egg, and the B team diving for pearls in the Sea of Serpents, and the C team negotiating with the giantess for ransom of their cousin or something, all spread across the game world map, for me that's just no fun to referee. It gives me a total headache and it's way too much paper work. Your mileage will naturally vary on such topics but it's not my speed. Oh Lord it's not my speed.