Doing your own calendar: is it worth it?

[Manic Typist]

I'm trying to decide if I want to institute my own calendar for my game, or more accurately.... a calendar imposed by a certain empire. On the one hand, it can be a great flavor text.... on the other hand, it might just end up confusing players, especially if the seasons and the calendar don't line up. I'm trying to decide if I should make the climate/ecology of the world different enough that this calendar could legitametly be used.... but if it is... well, you'll see the differences.

100 seconds- 1 minute.
10 minutes- 1 deca.
10 decas- 1 hour.
10 hours- 1 day.
10 days- 1 week.
10 weeks- 1 month.
10 months- 1 year.

Thoughts? I'm still digesting the fullness of the math myself. Part of what confused me, until I realized it, is that I kept thinking about it from my perspective (365 days to a year, 60 seconds to a minute, etc).

If my math was right (I've changed the numbers several times, so I'm a little dizzy) then 1 of these "Imperial" years equals roughly 3 normal years.

[Fitz]

I'd say the crucial thing to consider is whether or not your characters are supposed to know the calendar or not.

If they're foreigners, dealing with an unfamiliar calendar, then maybe the effort is justified for the purposes if local colour. If they're supposed to have grown up with this calendar, then the players' lack of familiarity with it will just create a dissonance that would make it that much harder to achieve character immersion.

Personally, I always just use the standard calendar we've all grown up with. It just makes life easier to be able to say "May 15th" and have everyone know what that means, rather than having to constantly explain that "Second-day of Floon-Tide" basically means May 15th.

[Captain Obvious]

Your math's about right. Your days are about 20% shorter than Earth days, too, for what it's worth. All this assuming a second is the same as a standard Earth second.

Speaking personally, though, I don't think I'd go so far changing things up just to have a metric calendar. Whenever I've rearranged things, I always assume a day and a year are about the same as in real life, and just tinker with weeks and months, and sometimes hours. It keeps things close enough to normal that the players don't get confused.

Although, there is some comedy potential there...

"The barmaid looks to be about 16 and..."
"Is she hot? I feel her up."
"Okay, her grandson is coming over to kick your ass."

[steamteck]

I did a new calender for my fantasy game when I started it some 30 years ago. It revolves around the cycles of the 8 moons of my world. It added a lot of flavor which everyone liked especially for magic rituals but no one cares about the little details much just the general feel. I didn't give names for every day of the week. I just named the months for campaign gods and then said 6 moons rising or 3 moons descending etc. I vary magic effects on the moon(goddess) which is ascendant. It probably ultimately depends on you players if its worth it. One of my guys actually can write in tolkien elvish so my group is very into it.

[Killer Shrike]

Depends on the group. Most groups, it just confuses and the effort wont be appreciated anyway. Some groups will really get in to it and even call you out on discrepancies.

Total judgment call on your part, but the fact that youre even asking would tempt me to say "No"....kind of a "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" thing.

[AliceTheOwl]

As a couple others have said, it depends on your group. In my current game, I'm the only one who brings up anything having to do with the calendar, and the players just trust that as much time has passed as I say. If they're the type to mark every single day down and carry a tally of days to keep track of everything, the calendar is well worth it.

[Maccabe]

It can be, I built a calendar of my own for a setting. I made up names for; each day of the week, each month of the year, and each holiday.

[Blue Jogger]

I specifically didn't make my own calendar for my fantasy world and then realized due to the way I did World Travel, it caused all worlds to not only have the same length of years, but have equinoxes and solstices line up on the same day.

[Markdoc]

I do make up my own calendars, but they are all variations on the 365 day year (partly because my game world is an alternate Earth, but mostly because I want to keep things simple). Players in general, don't care that much. The calendars in general serve merely as something to dot festivals at different times of the year.

cheers, Mark

[Manic Typist]

Yeah, I think I'll just rename things but keep the 365 day a year. I don't know if I will bother with leap year.... seems kind of fishy to me.

Thanks!

[StGrimblefig]

100 seconds- 1 minute.
10 minutes- 1 deca.
10 decas- 1 hour.
10 hours- 1 day.
10 days- 1 week.
10 weeks- 1 month.
10 months- 1 year.

Thoughts? I'm still digesting the fullness of the math myself. Part of what confused me, until I realized it, is that I kept thinking about it from my perspective (365 days to a year, 60 seconds to a minute, etc).

Is this based in any way on the so-called "French Revolutionary Metric Time" described here? Or is it made up from scratch?

Yeah, I think I'll just rename things but keep the 365 day a year. I don't know if I will bother with leap year.... seems kind of fishy to me.

The reason we have leap years is that the time it takes the planet to orbit the sun (the length of a year) is not an exact multiple of the length of time it takes the planet to rotate about its axis (the length of a year). So, occasionally we have to make corrections to prevent New Year's day from slowly rotating through the seasons ("You kids have it easy. When I was a boy, New Years was in the dead of winter!"). There are other "official" corrections, as well, because the defined natural time units (hours, minutes, seconds, etc) do not quite line up perfectly with the period of rotation of the planet. The average Joe doesn't worry about leap seconds, however.

Now, in your own fantasy world, you can define it however you want. You could say that the local deity liked to have things nice and orderly, so he/she/it made things line up just so. Or the deity of chaos (or the hubris of a legendary magician) could interject an error factor into that, if you so desire.

Discovering why it is done that way it is could even be the subject of an adventure.

[Cancer]

As a guide for why cultures create calendars and what features calendars have had historically, I offer this as suggested reading, in particular Part 1. (Unfortunately, it leaves out a discussion of the week.) After part 1 it gets into specifics of real-Earth calendars which are less relevant for you.

[Lucius]

I do make up my own calendars, but they are all variations on the 365 day year (partly because my game world is an alternate Earth, but mostly because I want to keep things simple). Players in general, don't care that much. The calendars in general serve merely as something to dot festivals at different times of the year.

cheers, Mark

Um, a 365 day year is simple?

What kind of mathematical base do you think in, that you find that "simple?"

Manic Typist:

What is your PURPOSE in creating a calender?

Lucius Alexander

The palindromedary wants to use a calender to drain pasta, but I don't think that would work...

[Nolgroth]

As a GM, I think doing a calendar is cool. Even if the players never really care, it makes me feel more in touch with the world I'm creating. Now "creating" a calendar could be as simple as renaming the months or what-not.

As a player, the calendar would be one of those nice reference pieces to have available, even if I didn't always use it.

Now if the cosmos played a part in the setting (sort of like the three moons in Dragonlance) then the calendar becomes even more important that just a piece of local color. Your character (and NPCs if you are GM) would probably need to know the date and what cosmic affects would have an impact for that date.

[Manic Typist]

Grimble- from scratch.

Cancer- thank you. Rep if it will let me.

Lucius- to make the game more fun and enjoyable, ultimately.