How long is a day?

[daimonionen]

How do you measure time? If the adventurers can only have an eight hour rest once a day, how do you deal with that? When do you say they can't have a long rest because not enough time has passed yet?

[Ninja_Prawn]

How do you measure time? If the adventurers can only have an eight hour rest once a day, how do you deal with that? When do you say they can't have a long rest because not enough time has passed yet?

I mostly just go by feel - my players are pretty good about going to bed on time. As long as at least some of the rest period would happen more than 16 hours after they last rested, I don't sweat the details.

[Joe the Rat]

I try to keep an eye on time, but we're fairly fluid. If they need a long rest early, they do end up spending the better part of a day holed up and resting. So they end up hearing me rattle through the random encounter checks, and do their best to hide, deceive, or negotiate their way out of trouble.

[daimonionen]

But how do you limit long rests? They can't have a long rest, say after every encounter. How does time work here?

[Joe the Rat]

They have to wait 16 hours since their last rest, roughly. So if they want to drop into a long rest after a few hours of dungeon delving, they'd best find a good hidey hole for the next 21 hours (with encounter checks as appropriate).

I do let them claim short rests while they wait.

[Ninja_Prawn]

But how do you limit long rests? They can't have a long rest, say after every encounter. How does time work here?

Unless the encounter lasts all day, no they obviously can't. That's wrong on every level and you can pretty much take your pick of reasons when you tell them they can't rest then.

To be honest, I more often run into players trying to squeeze in more than 8 hours of work without taking exhaustion checks...

[daimonionen]

Sorry, I just don't get it. How do you measure time? Do you go by number of encounters, does 5 "real life" minutes count as one hour, what?

[Ninja_Prawn]

Sorry, I just don't get it. How do you measure time? Do you go by number of encounters, does 5 "real life" minutes count as one hour, what?

Oh, right. I count time as best I can. It's always a guess: that conversation lasted 10 minutes, it took 15 minutes to walk across town to the tavern, you spent an hour drinking...

Combat is easier, obviously, with 1 round = 6 seconds. And travel isn't too bad with the travel pace numbers in the PHB.

But yeah, the for rest I just go by feel. I throw out little notices now and then so my players know the score. Such as this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?475390-A-Faerie-Affair-IC-II-A-Pixie-in-a-Bottle&p=21291269&viewfull=1#post21291269), this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?475390-A-Faerie-Affair-IC-II-A-Pixie-in-a-Bottle&p=21326274&viewfull=1#post21326274) or this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?475390-A-Faerie-Affair-IC-II-A-Pixie-in-a-Bottle&p=21350130&viewfull=1#post21350130).

[Tanarii]

How do you measure time? If the adventurers can only have an eight hour rest once a day, how do you deal with that? When do you say they can't have a long rest because not enough time has passed yet?There's a couple of ways to go about it. The most popular in my experience is for the DM be in control of time, but to hand-wave it. The DM says when the players can take a short rest, and when they can't, and determines it based on the flow of the adventure and number of encounters so far.

Another way is for it to be a cooperative effort between the DM & Players. Again, this usually involves hand-waving time on the DMs part as far as tracking time goes, but the players can declare they'd like a rest, and the DM has to use his judgement, in collaboration with the players, on if this is reasonable to allow.

If you want, you can do strict time keeping, although you're probably want a player designated as the 'time keeper' who's entire purpose is to keep track of how much total time has passed. The PHB gives rules for rates of travel out of combat, including on the local exploration scale. Then on top of that, the DM needs to give the amount of time for other activities (checking out a room or clearing in the forest, recovering after a battle, etc). In older versions of D&D they actually had a time increment for all that called the "Turn", which was 10 minutes. That means you could just round up any activity to 10 min and have the time-keeper tick off another 10 min. This can be combined with the players getting to choose when to rest, or the DM saying when it's safe, or something else.

Basically it boils down to several things, possibly on a sliding scale:
Is time handwaved, strictly kept, or some combination thereof?
Are rests generally under control of the DM, Players or some combination?
Are there well defined reasons rests can't occur (wandering monster checks, in predesignated 'dangerous' areas) or is it all decided based on DM fiat (with or without collaboration with the players)?

Personally I use wandering monsters, 10 min time increments, and a player who is the time-keeper, when the PCs are on/in an adventuring site or very dangerous area of wilderness. ie I'm 'zoomed' to the local adventure scale. In safer wilderness areas ('borderlands') it's on a 1 hour scale for travel and wandering monster checks. Rural areas or urban areas (when not adventuring in the area) I just hand-wave time. Rests are generally under player control, within the context of wandering monster checks, but sometimes I designate an area as too dangerous for a safe rest.

[daimonionen]

Hm, okay. thanks

[JakOfAllTirades]

It's basically as long as the narrative requires.

If the PCs aren't doing anything interesting (sitting around healing up after a battle, waiting for their ship to come in, whatever) just say "OK, a day passes." Done, a whole day went by just like that.

OTOH, if they're adventuring, their characters have to save the world before the next sunrise and they insist on stumbling through six or eight combats without taking a long rest (good luck, guys) a day could last several gaming sessions. Each battle should last a few minutes. A short rest lasts an hour. As GM you decide how long other activities (traveling, mapping, searching for traps and disarming them, parleying with NPCs) should take. Clock's ticking!

Both of those are extreme cases; it's usually somewhere in between.