|
Throughout many different readings, the core rule book, etc. Time is mentioned greatly. I don't understand it! It says stuff such as "You can read 250 words per minute" or when crafting "week's worth of progress." How do you know what time it is when the campaign starts? How is time calculated? Is it calculated into rounds such as 1 round per minute? How do you know if it's the "next day?" How do you know if the PC needs to eat, or drink, or anything else? For spell casting characters, how do you know when it is the next day and you can cast your spells again (similar to the other question about calculating the next day)? What else about time should I know? Also, after a campaign when you enter a city for healing or purchasing new weapons and armor, are you supposed to have a map for the city too or is that completely verbal? When in a dungeon do you have to travel as a group or can you single handedly explore certain areas while the others go a separate path? Also, if possible, can somebody break down the Black Fang's Dungeon adventure featured in the BB? I just don't understand if you have to follow everything linear or if you can skip an area and ultimately skip an encounter or two.
P.S. The beginner box didn't really explain as much of the rules as I hoped so thank you to everybody for your feedback! :D
Ok some things to note:
Give your players as much freedom as possible when making decisions they will appreciate it and care about your story instead of treating it like walking exp.
1 round = 6 seconds, 10 rounds = 1 minute
Its pretty much assumed that the party eats and drinks at their leisure unless a problem arises that requires rationing and close scrutiny (water in the desert, food while lost, etc.)
Your the GM you decide when its the next day, typically when everybody is done with what they wanted to do or with what needs to be done you just skip to the next day and start over.
I would not worry about a map for every city it can be done pretty easilly verbally especially if they are only going to be there once or twice. That said if you really want a map there are some random generators online if you have a laptop at your games.
Players can absolutely go off on their own but please try to discourage this as it starts to detract from the total play time and it may show favoritism (no matter how untrue) to one of the players. Also going off alone will often result in death and is usually reserved for the scout or the extraordinarily stupid.
Run some very low level games (levels 1-3) so that you can hammer out basic mechanics, strategy, movement, actions and what they mean (standard, move, swift, free, immediate, etc.) Try experimenting with different powers such as grapple, bull rush (not sunder that will just blow your mind right now), pounce, rake, gaze etc.
Moral of the story: start small and work your way up there is a lot to take in and it wont happen all at once, you will pick it up as you go along and before you know it you will e making your own house rules and custom monsters.
I think this can be explained even more simply.
When you start a game session, tell your players what time of day it is, if it is raining, sunny, cloudy, whatever. From this point on, it is similar to a story, but the players are also helping you write it.
That means that after they fight a few times, and you figure it might be noontime, you can mention they are hungry. If they decide to eat, great, if not, that's fine too. Now they might investigate something, fight some more, talk to some people, etc.
As they walk around, you can just imagine that it takes time just like it would in the real world. If they are not in combat, you don't need to count that time. You can just assume time is passing, and like in a book, describe the things that happen next.
When night comes, you can tell them they are hungry again. They might go to a tavern or inn, or might camp. They might spend money, and after they are done doing so, you can just tell them when it is getting late. If they decide to sleep, you can either ambush them during the night (I don't recommend that while you're still new to this), or you can just tell them when the sun comes up. It's a simple as that.
Counting actions and rounds is really mainly for combat. Don't worry so much about it unless somebody has to act against somebody else.
My advice is to find out what isn't important and cut it out. The less you have to keep track of, the better.
In my group, we don't keep track of rations. I just assume they have enough food for a daily basis, and we don't even cover eating breakfast, lunch or dinner.
If we are in a desert or something, or it has been a week since they went to a town, I would just tell them their food supplies are almost running out, and what do they plan to do.