what time is it?

Ugh. The world’s toughest question for a GM that doesn’t keep track of time! I just don’t like to do it. Too many notes as it is to keep track of other things, I don’t want to have to search my notes for time, day, season, etc. I barely even keep track of climate. I realize that my players were in a cold environment not terribly long ago, and I did not have them do multiple constitution checks to see if they were freezing to death. Though, I admit, this is fun for me as a player to go…”Uh, guys. I’m exhausted!” 

Remembering to do these things is just hard. Perhaps if I had a real GM screen in front of me. I could leave notes on it saying “CON checks every morning” or converting distance from miles into days for the map (playing online does have its own issues). Hey, I never said I was an expert at this, I’m still learning. I am still trying to figure out how to describe stuff to my players to make it engaging.

Role playing travel time does give the players a sense of time passing. I usually just hand wave it, just telling the players an approximate amount of time that had passed. It has recently come to my attention that if I don’t give that time, where is the sense of urgency regarding what needs to be done? Since I do not play out the travel time, the checks for freezing will not make much sense.

I almost always just hand wave travel time with “It took two weeks to get there.” Often, my players do find other ways to travel more quickly, such as teleport. For a few of my players, this becomes aggravating, they like to role play the travel time and get excited about what they may encounter along the road. Others would rather get to the point, stick to the objective, “stay on target.” I am leaving myself with much to think about. Perhaps I should add more semblance of time passing in my games.