Time keeping / tracking inside dungeons?

[Grayscale]

Are there any rules defining how long it takes to perform some actions inside a dungeon?

E.g. 10 minutes to meticulously search a room, 5 min to set a trap, etc..

I know some actions have times attached to them (I recall lockpicking, setting camp, first-aid, exorcising..)

The question itself is more addressed at DF and DFRPG, though it would be useful in other case uses.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by Exallted

Are there any rules defining how long it takes to perform some actions inside a dungeon?

E.g. 10 minutes to meticulously search a room, 5 min to set a trap, etc..

I know some actions have times attached to them (I recall lockpicking, setting camp, first-aid, exorcising..)

The question itself is more addressed at DF and DFRPG, though it would be useful in other case uses.

I don't know of a set of rules compiled into one published place, and there's not much guidance in the DFRPG rules (which are the rules I know best). I know that it takes takes one minute per attempt to set a simple trap (Exploits, p. 58).

[Stormcrow]

This is more or less up to each GM to decide. Some skills will tell you how long a task takes, but most things players will ask to do will have to be decided when they come up.

[Grayscale]

Right. Time keeping is interesting to me as I think it leads to very interesting situations, and also it potentially is the one resource a well prepared party might be short of.

I think I saw someone mentioning that AD&D 1e of something had dedicated rules for time keeping inside the dungeon, so that's where the question came from.

[Varyon]

With regards to searching, there's a previous discussion here. While that's geared more toward modern settings, I see no reason it wouldn't work for DF and the like.

As for the characters keeping track of time in the dungeon, there's the Timed Candle (DF1:25) and the Self-Righting Hourglass (DF4:12). The Miniature Sundial (DF1:23) is also an option, but the reliance on sunlight sharply limits its usefulness in a dungeon. There are, undoubtedly, magical solutions as well - and of course anyone with the Absolute Timing or Chronolocation Advantages can track time flawlessly.

[Grayscale]

Originally Posted by Varyon

With regards to searching, there's a previous discussion here. While that's geared more toward modern settings, I see no reason it wouldn't work for DF and the like.

As for the characters keeping track of time in the dungeon, there's the Timed Candle (DF1:25) and the Self-Righting Hourglass (DF4:12). The Miniature Sundial (DF1:23) is also an option, but the reliance on sunlight sharply limits its usefulness in a dungeon. There are, undoubtedly, magical solutions as well - and of course anyone with the Absolute Timing or Chronolocation Advantages can track time flawlessly.

Yes, I meant more in the sense of the GM tracking how long the characters have spent inside the dungeon, or doing whatever.

There are some many rules that require time keeping (spells, wandering monsters, sleep and many others) that I find time to be a very nice "resource" to manage (if only a somewhat cumbersome one).

I found a Time Tracker dial on DriveThrough RPG that seems very well put together and useful, I'll toy with it a bit.

[bocephus]

Originally Posted by Exallted

Right. Time keeping is interesting to me as I think it leads to very interesting situations, and also it potentially is the one resource a well prepared party might be short of.

I think I saw someone mentioning that AD&D 1e of something had dedicated rules for time keeping inside the dungeon, so that's where the question came from.

To what end do you need detailed time keeping? I see two general scenarios as the GM that I use ... I tend to play more to the story than the mechanics though, so my style may not apply to you.

1) General keeping track for food, rest, healing, exposure... At my table I don't track this meticulously, its just sort of a general per hour or so ... "your not sure how long you have been down here but you are feeling hungry" so... 3-6 hours has past. Its super vague but its also normal. If you stick people in a controlled environment without time keeping they generally fall into a rhythm that works for them (or a collective one that works for the group). It might be a 20Hr cycle, or a 26hr cycle, or a 14hr cycle. No matter, a person will tend to consume the same amount of food and drink in the same general 48hr period based on activity. The body has requirements. Even if a PC has time senses, when they ask what time it is I usually say something like "It feels like its near lunch time" or "your not really hungry but you feel tired". If the player wants a specific time, I tell them to work it out on a piece of paper and I'll approve it (or not), if it isnt an important factor in game play I wont spend much time on it as a GM either.

2) You are using time to put pressure on the players to force them to perform "under stress". In this case I find it easier to time the players than the PCs, simply because normal play is not 1min play time=1min game time. Build your scenario, get an idea for yourself about how long it should take, then figure out how much real world table time you want to give for decision making. You can find some great examples of this all over the web, I think that the best Youtube example I have seen, probably comes from a Critical Role session where the GM (Matt Mercer) had really done a great job building and scripting the encounter to push the players into fast decision making and honest stress at the table.

https:/youtu.be/hdtabnXnckw about 1:37:00 is right around the start of the encounter. Fair warning, I intend this as an example of the mechanics of encounter building not a "Matt Mercer or D&D discussion". The good points are the encounter are:
1) Its broken into 3-4 sets (blocks of space) that have to be moved through using movement as your "timer", not keeping track of actions.
2) There is a real time timer that represents a 'global' effect that is damaging the PCs. Irrespective of the number of decisions made BOOM. Even if they just dont make a decision...
3) The effect scales so the players have a moment to get used to the stress, and realize its getting worse before they push into playing the encounter.
4) There is a distraction to waste time on (in the NPC that keeps attacking randomly) and really has nothing to do with the "time portion" of the encounter. This can also be a puzzle that has no point but diverts the PCs attention in a non-productive way.
5) there is a simple mechanic to control the pace if the GM sees the need to ... each time the timer runs out it doesnt have to represent damage... IE timer end BOOM, reset, timer end "the hum increases to a loud whining pitch", reset, timer ends Boom... you have effectively given the players double the time to get through the trap without them knowing (they dont know the mechanics). You can vary this as needed with dice rolls "is it full charged" (if rolls are real or not is up to you).


I dont know if this was of help to you, but thats how I generally deal with "time in the adventure".

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Exallted

I think I saw someone mentioning that AD&D 1e of something had dedicated rules for time keeping inside the dungeon, so that's where the question came from.

AD&D, and D&D before it, measured things in terms of turns, which were like "moves" in a board game, where you could travel a certain distance along the dungeon map in a certain time (approximately ten minutes) or do things like search a section of wall or fill a bag with gold coins in the same amount of time. It measured combat in rounds, which were approximately one minute long, and represented the back and forth of fighting over a fairly lengthy period.

Since the game had these board-gamey units of action, it expressed all its working parts in terms of turns and rounds. Spell casting times take a certain number of turns or rounds to complete. Light sources last a certain number of turns. Magic items might work for a certain number of turns or rounds.

With such simple units, dungeoneering becomes very efficient. If someone says, "I search the dead end for secret doors," the game master can just roll a die to check for success and say "That's your turn." After a combat, the GM just rounds up to the nearest turn, assuming any leftover time is spent resting, cleaning weapons, or regrouping. You can pass through a whole lot of dungeon very quickly in real time by reducing everything to these basic units.

(AD&D added segments of six seconds each, mostly for calculating the effect of spell casting times and magic item activation on initiative determination. When you're not dealing with these things, you're mostly supposed to ignore segments.)

GURPS tends to be more detailed than this. Searching a wall for secret doors, for instance, requires one minute, less five seconds times the margin of success, and players have the option to take extra time or haste to change their chances of success. Meanwhile, movement rates are only really given for running each second, not walking over a period of minutes; characters can walk as fast as they like and are able. And the length of a combat never gets rounded up.

You can impose these D&D-isms onto GURPS if you like, but I don't really see the benefit, since GURPS is measured in real-world units for the most part — which has always been part of its stated purpose. Spell durations are given in seconds, minutes, hours, or days, etc., as needed. Each thing you want to do takes as long as it takes. To try to squeeze that into blocks of one and ten minutes, for instance, doesn't seem to lead to more efficient dungeoneering. The GM need merely decide how long something takes, and that's how much time passes.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Searching a wall for secret doors, for instance, requires one minute, less five seconds times the margin of success, and players have the option to take extra time or haste to change their chances of success.

What's the source for this rule? I was looking for that recently and couldn't find it.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Dalin

What's the source for this rule? I was looking for that recently and couldn't find it.

By "searching a wall for secret doors," I mean that one has already guessed that one is present and is merely looking for the opening mechanism. That's Traps (Per-based) skill. "Time required is as for Lockpicking." Lockpicking says each attempt requires one minute minus five times the margin of success.

Maybe the time required only refers to disarming, resetting, and building traps, not detecting them, in which case there is no stated time to detect, and the GM will have to make something up.