Time

1:1 time

Time advances 1:1 when no play is happening – 1 game day for each real-life day.1) This rule and some examples of how it plays out can be found in the all-important TIME section on DMG 37. 2) The continued passage of time is critical for many of AD&D’s systems. We cannot have six months passing in real life while 3 weeks pass in the campaign world. It’s far more preferable for game time to pass considerably faster than real life. It enables big projects like castles and keeps, and also allows characters to participate in larger-scale events and changes in the world.

The DM tracks each character’s location not only in the campaign’s geography but in the campaign’s timeline. The DM will know what day each character is “on”. Players can always ask the DM what days their characters are on.

Any character who has been used at least once in the campaign is subject to this regular advancing of time.

In special cases, the DM may allow 1:1 time to be paused for some characters.3) The main purpose of the 1:1 time rule is to keep the clock moving forward and make time management more critical. The DM will keep this purpose in mind when judging any cases where 1:1 time may be “paused” for some characters. In these cases, the characters will always “owe” the 1:1 time after time is unpaused. For example, if a week of real-life time has passed since the last session, the character(s) will need to rest one week after they finish what they are doing.

1:1 time does not apply to characters on a long-distance wilderness trek or on a planar adventure.

The DM may prevent players from playing characters who have gone too far ahead in the timeline compared with other characters in the same region.4) DMG 37: “You will know when the adventuring of one such group has gone far enough ahead in game time to call a halt.”

Players may elect to “fast-forward” time for their characters. For instance, to skip over some days of travel, wait for a companion to be healed, or training to complete.

Time paradoxes

Since during the course of a campaign varying groups of PCs may appear and take part in the shared world, considerations must be made to avoid temporal paradoxes and anomalies.

Players can’t play PCs who are further along in the timeline than the current session time. For example, if a session begins on the 12th of the month and your character was doing stuff last session with another group on the 20th of that same month, that character is unavailable.

If a party is exploring an adventuring site, the party must retreat from the site to their camp or a settlement by the end of the session unless a 1:1 time pause exception is granted by the DM.

Downtime activity

If a player declares downtime activity for their character, that activity will begin on the in-game day their character is presently “on”. This applies whether the activity is declared during a session or in between sessions.

Fractional days

In the case of multiple days passing quickly during a session, and in the case of 1:1 time passage, fractions of days are rounded up by the DM, just as fractions of turns are rounded up during dungeon exploration.5) DMG 38 for rule on fractional turns. It is better to simply round up and call it a day (literally) in these cases largely because it helps advance the game calendar.

Bedrest, training, and healing from rest

See bedrest, training, and healing from rest.