Keeping track of time

[Blazeguard]

As a noob (both player and DM) I am having trouble figuring out how to keep track of time passage. Any tips, hints, suggestions? I am playing with my kids so it probably won't be super structured anyways but I'm just wondering how others do it.

Ray

[Solomoriah]

In my head, generally. Less than entirely accurately, and that works fine... except in combat, when everything goes to rounds.

[prongbuck]

Hi Blazeguard, I recently had trouble keeping track of time as well. As Solomoriah suggests, I keep track of time in my head when my group is not in "adventure" mode, ie. not in a dungeon or on some time critical task.

When the party is in a dungeon and I want to keep track of time for lights sources burning out, spells, wandering monster checks, etc., I use a time tracker sheet I created, you can get it here.

I am currently working on a second, enhanced, version.

[Blazeguard]

That time tracker sheet looks great. It looks like just the sort of thing I need.
What sort of enhancements are you working on?

Ray

[prongbuck]

The time tracker works fine, I just found that I didn't need so much space just for tracking time so I am adding a spot for tracking marching order, spell durations, a spot for 1 or 2 wandering monster tables and I made it portrait instead of landscape.

I am open to suggestions if you have any. My goal is to create a tool to make my games run smoother so this sheet will evolve as I find what works and what doesn't for me.

[Blazeguard]

That sounds awesome! I'm fairly new to all of this but I'm definitely going to test this out and if I find anything that could be improved upon I will definitely throw out some suggestions.
Thanks for offering this btw.

Ray