After a recent comment, I decided to whip up 24hr versions of my Time Tracker Sheets. I love using this simple tool for running my games. It helps in so many ways and has just the right stuff for what I need.
If I’m running at the table, I like the version with a built in encounter tracker space.
When I run games online with Roll20, I use their digital initiative system so the Time Tracker clocks are all I need.
I hope you find them as helpful as I do!
Last month began my 10-month fellowship with Luther Seminary’s “Seeds Project,” and just a little over a week ago I got my first in-person cohort experience. We are 16 beloved and diverse people from a broad range of racial and ethnic identities, geographic contexts, denominational affiliations, theological beliefs, and life experiences.
The ministry work that we are doing is equally broad and wonderful. Being a part of this cohort might be the first time in my life that I’ve ever had ‘imposter syndrome’! My cohort fellows are doing some really cool, amazing, and important work.
Part of the focus of this program is addressing the adaptive challenges of our modern day ministry landscape. We can all see that the church is facing great upheaval and cultural shifts right now. During our recent retreat last month, I marveled at how the classic institutions and patterns of “The Church” can change and are changing to meet people today, and also how the core of loving Jesus is still the same and holds all of us together.
This is a fun thing to be a part of and I’m excited for what this year has in store.
I have a little table tool that I use for every single session. It helps me track time, encounters, and gives me enough room that I can take whatever notes I want.
Here it is. I use the blank space next to the initiative box for marking hit points, effects, etc.
I keep the sheets in a binder and it makes it really easy to remember past sessions.
In-between Bastweald and the Smolder Scrub are the dangerous waters of the Bay of Lost Souls. Here dark waves hold the faces of the long dead.
This is not a friendly region. A drowned and corrupted celestial lairs in ruins at the north end of the bay, and shipwrecks dot the northwest coast. Elsewhere, an ancient aboleth gathers history and lost knowledge in a deep underwater crevice.
I had fallen a bit behind in posting my #Dungeon23 updates, but only because I was doing so much prep for the Holy Rollers retreat! Now that the retreat is over and I’ve had a bit of time to get back into things, I hope to catch up and share the regions I’ve been developing.
Across the Bay of Lost Souls from my week 1 region of The Bastweald is an area called Smolder Scrub. This 26mile x 18mile region was blasted by a large eruption from the nearby volcano, Grandpa Snurre, around 20 years ago. Thick ash fell across the region, killing nearly all the trees and plant life. The ground remains overly soft and difficult to travel upon, but plant life has returned. Dense scrub of variegated colors has sprouted up everywhere and proper trails are all but lost. Between volcanic smoke, moisture from the bay, and dirt kicked up by passing creatures, a persistent gray haze plagues the Smolder Scrub, lightly obscuring the terrain and reducing visibility to just 1 mile.
It’s a rough land but hides multiple secrets. An old military outpost was lost after being buried by the explosion and was said to be a storehouse for multiple magical armaments. Also a young halfling has a dark secret in the village of the Scrubfellows.
Week 1 of #Marches23 #Dungeon23 is complete!
The Bastweald is an ancient forest that guards a powerful secret. Full region description, inhabitants, dungeon, legendary monster & lair, loot, and random encounter table all done!
It is less than one month away from the start of the Holy Rollers Retreat, and there are only TWO SPOTS LEFT before we hit our absolute maximum capacity! Single or double room available. Today is your last chance to register with our deep New Year’s discount – 23% off for 2023!
The 2023 Holy Rollers Retreat will be held Jan 31 – Feb 3rd at the ARC Retreat Community, about an hour north of the Twin Cities. In a homelike atmosphere, ARC offers 90 acres of pristine wetlands and woodlands within a majestic white pine forest. Trails are available for walking, skiing, and snowshoeing, as is a labyrinth for walking meditation.
This retreat will provide attendees with a wonderful mix of gaming, learning, and rest.
Each day will afford hours of Dungeons & Dragons play, with daily game sessions run by four seasoned DMs. The whole experience will be that of a collective West Marches campaign, and will lean heavily into exploration, discovery, and emergent storytelling.
Within each day, opportunities will be offered to explore the history of the ups and the downs between the gaming community and the church, as well as exploring emergent ways that people of faith are forming themselves for the work of God today. A highlight will be a screening of the GenCon-award-winning documentary The Satanic Panic and the Religious Battle for the Imagination and follow up conversation with the featured Pastor Derek White, aka The Geek Preacher.
The ARC Retreat Community offers a quiet place to slow down the pace of life, restore balance, and grow on your spiritual journey. Enjoy healthy and delicious meals prepared and served from the ARC kitchen. Cozy up by the fireplace or strap on snowshoes and explore the 90 acres of pristine wetlands and woodlands within a majestic white pine forest, located in Stanchfield, MN, about an hour north of the MSP Airport.
For years I’ve been using a simple, yet key, tool in my GM campaign binder, a time tracker developed by olddungeonmaster.com:
DM Tool for Tracking Time Download your free copy here. I have tried several different ways to keep track of time in a dungeon. Years ago I even wrote a “Time Tender” software program. I was thinking of getting a toy clock, or a broken clock that I could turn the hands on. Thinking of […]D&D 5E – TIME TRACKING TOOL
It’s well designed and simple enough to do what I need without getting in the way. It’s quick and efficient and I love being able to shade in the little boxes. There’s tons of space for adding notes about anything else I deem to be relevant.
Keeping track of time improved my game in all sorts of ways, but as I’ve gotten more into West Marches style play I’ve found myself wanting a few small updates to this tracking tool.
First, I wanted an easier way to visually mark the 4hr divisions of the day’s watches, a sort of exploration turn used for overland travel, foraging, hunting, surveying, and other non-combat adventuring tasks. I changed the numeration around the outside of the tracker to better call out these 4hr chunks of time.
Second, I wanted a reminder to track the weather. Weather in ttrpgs is often either forgotten about entirely or used primarily as a plot device. In exploration heavy play the weather can become a key challenge for the party to overcome. Many GMs will randomly generate the weather either in the moment or ahead of time, and this puts that note on the weather in an easy to reference spot – right in the middle.
I enjoy using it so much I wanted to share this tool with others. Download the PDF and never not know what time it is again!
In 2023 I’m diving into the #dungeon23 design challenge, a challenge to do just a bit of game design each day of the year and have a huge body of work at the end of the year. Since I’m exploring West Marches-style design lately, I’m going to take this challenge in a West Marches direction and I’m calling it #marches23.
Each week of the year I’ll focus on designing 1 region. Regions are complex areas with a lot of design bits, kind of like a group of thematically connected rooms in a dungeon. Each day I’ll work on designing a small part of the region I’m working on. I’ll start a new region every Sunday and will post the finished region here on my blog each Saturday. Daily updates will be posted on Mastodon (https://dice.camp/@TheDMPastor)
Here’s the overall map that I will be filling in with 52 regions over the course of 2023.
We’ll set out from the town of Bastion to see what we can see.
We are exactly one month away from the start of the Holy Rollers Retreat. As of writing, there are only a few spots left (4!). To celebrate the new year and make this retreat as accessible as we can financially, we’re offering a last chance deal with a deep discount – 23% off for 2023!
The 2023 Holy Rollers Retreat will be held Jan 31 – Feb 3rd at the ARC Retreat Community, about an hour north of the Twin Cities. In a homelike atmosphere, ARC offers 90 acres of pristine wetlands and woodlands within a majestic white pine forest. Trails are available for walking, skiing, and snowshoeing, as is a labyrinth for walking meditation.
This retreat will provide attendees with a wonderful mix of gaming, learning, and rest.
Each day will afford hours of Dungeons & Dragons play, with daily game sessions run by four seasoned DMs. The whole experience will be that of a collective West Marches campaign, and will lean heavily into exploration, discovery, and emergent storytelling.
Within each day, opportunities will be offered to explore the history of the ups and the downs between the gaming community and the church, as well as exploring emergent ways that people of faith are forming themselves for the work of God today. A highlight will be a screening of the GenCon-award-winning documentary The Satanic Panic and the Religious Battle for the Imagination and follow up conversation with the featured Pastor Derek White, aka The Geek Preacher.
The ARC Retreat Community offers a quiet place to slow down the pace of life, restore balance, and grow on your spiritual journey. Enjoy healthy and delicious meals prepared and served from the ARC kitchen. Cozy up by the fireplace or strap on snowshoes and explore the 90 acres of pristine wetlands and woodlands within a majestic white pine forest, located in Stanchfield, MN, about an hour north of the MSP Airport.
Dungeon Master Pastor 