I celebrate my birthday at the time of this posting and looking back on where my age has taken me I stopped to briefly consider where does age and the passage of time take a campaign or our characters…
Age is a common stat for player characters. It gives a surface sense of the maturity of the character and how much they may have been through. The history of a character may change that, but age is at least a jumping-off point. Through my years of gaming, that statistic rarely changes. Many character sheets are even devoid of the specific birth date of the character. An RPG campaign is often like a comic book, where time moves differently and even months of travel (compressed into 15 to 30 minutes of game-time) doesn’t always change the season or the ages of characters.
RPG rules often treat age like a penalty. At a certain point, a character’s stats randomly change. Age automatically brings wisdom and, appearantly, that wisdom comes the same day the cake topped with candles is wheeled out for the character. Along with that wisdom comes automatic enfeeblement or reduced physical capacity. These rules stymie natural character growth and, I think, make us want to not track time in a game.
I see the passage of time as a powerful mechanism both in storytelling and roleplaying. There are events like birthdays and New Years Eve that are times of both reflection and looking forward to change. If these events could be experienced by our characters through roleplay could we then use even the simple passage of time to help our characters grow?
Birthdays, in particular, are an interesting time. While most of us rationally understand that it’s just another day on the calendar, there’s a part of us that wants our birthday to just be a good day. For the life of a PC, there are very few good days. Birthdays can either be used to give a special day for the character or to give them an extra reason to complain (all in fun, of course). “The heist is going bad today of all days?!? It’s my freakin’ birthday!”
There is a bit of work involved when considering the passage of time in a game. Not just for the sake of calendar book-keeping (which can be made difficult by fantasy calendars or when dealing with otherworldly travel), but also for keeping a tighter sense of continuity. But, for those willing to put forth the effort, I think the rewards are there.
Anyway, just some thoughts. I would have written a longer column but, hey, it’s my freakin’ birthday.
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