Setting Calanders---How does your world keep time?

[LordVreeg]

[blockquote=Limetom]Another point I forgot to bring up before: weeks are a silly little invention. They aren't really tied to any kind of phenomenon found in nature; they're just a somewhat useful construction in our modern world. In other societies, weeks are meaningless and pointless. Many cultures base the week as a 5-9 day period based around today. Others ignore it as unessecary. Our monoculture pins it as 7 days based either on Sunday or Monday, with the former being more common.[/blockquote]
Well, actually many weeks are not modern.  Many historical, ancient societies had them, often based on religious significance.  Hindu, Babylonian, Roman all had variations on the 7 day week based on clestial bodies they could see and religious days.  Also, many early agrarian societies involved going to the market, and Wikipedia notes that many early names for the week were derivatives of the word 'Market'.

But your underlying points are very well taken, that weeks are subdivisions created around cultural specific delineations, market, holy day, fasting, fishing, etc.  And campaign or setting needs to take advantage of this. I also use the work-week to delineate further the class strata in Celtricia.  For the moneyed classes, there is a 5 and a half day work week (out of the 8 day week), while for the common folk it is a customary to work for 7 out of the eight days, and for the truly underclass, everyday is work to survive...

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Then perhaps weeks are completely unnecessary for my setting. It would be a simpler answer: it's not Tuesday, it's "Duwmasa 1st."

[Bill Volk]

My setting doesn't have a great deal of use for calendars (since it's only a year old), but I've decided that everyone tends to talk about seasons rather than years. Seasons are much more emotionally involving than they were even for real-world farmers in the Middle Ages, since not everyone was even sure that the first Winter would end. There are still skeptics in The Overture who aren't sure that seasons are going to fall into a regular cycle. Thus, they talk about the Second Spring instead of Spring of the Second Year, etc.

[Moniker]

For anyone using non-standard names for days, have your players actually become accustomed to using them or can reference them without help?

I've always found that alternative month/day/week names simply confuse players more so than help flesh out the feeling of the setting.

[SDragon]

The Xiluh calendar works rather odd. Depending on how you look at it, it's either more simple (every month is 20 days), or more complex (extra-calendar days) then the Gregorian calendar.

By the way, I think it's kinda funny that so many people seem to incorporate some sort of "leap day" concept in their calendars. Is there any reason for this, in the various settings? For me, it was simply a chance to add a bit of complexity to the calendar.

[LordVreeg]

Then perhaps weeks are completely unnecessary for my setting. It would be a simpler answer: it's not Tuesday, it's "Duwmasa 1st."

Well, I used to work that way, and it actually helped immerse the players in my groups to set up a week that was based on the schedule of the city.   When I only used the monthday, I got less involved players.

[LordVreeg]

For anyone using non-standard names for days, have your players actually become accustomed to using them or can reference them without help?

I've always found that alternative month/day/week names simply confuse players more so than help flesh out the feeling of the setting.

yes, my players became occustomed, and that was one of th reasons I started this thread, so I could push that envelope.  Once I put them on the site and started referencing them a lot myself (and embarreSsed them when they forgot a few holy days).  But putting it on the site where my players reference a lot, and for  while I was printing out the excel sheets with the calanders and passing them out with every session.  

[Matt Larkin (author)]

@Moniker:
You do become accustomed, but it does make it harder. For any casual setting, I thus stick with the Gregorian calendar. When I came closer to publishing stories in Kishar, however, I began to ask myself why that calendar would be in use; verisimilitude won out over simplicity (but then I'm not really running games in my setting these days, so I guess that's okay).

[Elemental_Elf]

For anyone using non-standard names for days, have your players actually become accustomed to using them or can reference them without help?

I've always found that alternative month/day/week names simply confuse players more so than help flesh out the feeling of the setting.

This has always been a problem for me. My players are often quite content to just use the English Gregorian Days and months, if at all possible. In some settings I have created, bah, no one cares; in others it does matter. When I change the names of the days, I typically refer to them a lot while I GM, such as setting days for quests to be done or having the PCs meet others on particular days. Repetition leads to retention.

Also, to help make things easier it is often wise to name things in an a way that is phonetically easy.  Which do you think will be remembered and used more often: Xel'zbugitaril or Priana? If you said the former... well you're just weird then. The latter is obviously easier and 5 will get ya 10, the PCs will remember it far more easily than the former.

Another way to help get the PCs to remember the names would be to have less actual names to remember. I always thought it would be cool if a Calendar named the weeks, rather than the days. Each day would have a number (such as Firstday, Secondday, Thirdday, etc.) while each individual week (say there's 4 in a month) would have an actual name, such as Saane. So if you wanted to meet someone for breakfast 2 days hence you should say "Saane Seventhday" or "Seventhday of Saane." In this model your PCs would only need to remember 4 names instead of 7+.

The Xiluh calendar works rather odd. Depending on how you look at it, it's either more simple (every month is 20 days), or more complex (extra-calendar days) then the Gregorian calendar.

By the way, I think it's kinda funny that so many people seem to incorporate some sort of "leap day" concept in their calendars. Is there any reason for this, in the various settings? For me, it was simply a chance to add a bit of complexity to the calendar.

I like leap days because they are interesting and provide depth to what is essentially a boring spreadsheet. I also add them because I tend to make leap days important, unlike the Gregorian Leap day. Leap Days are days of merry fun and  great festivals. Plus as we all know large social gatherings are a hotbed for possible adventure hooks...

Hmm, thinking about it I know of another reason why I like Leap days - they represent imperfection. It just doesn't feel real if the world orbited the sun in an easily divisible number of days. Granted I'm sure somewhere in the galaxy some planetoid does but the majority, I am sure, are flawed. I suppose I also like that the imperfection occurs in something that constantly strives for symmetry, perfection and predictability. Granted, leap days occur regularly but they often throw a wrench in the system when they are added, at least in my opinion.

[LordVreeg]

[blockquote=EELF]So if you wanted to meet someone for breakfast 2 days hence you should say "Saane Seventhday" or "Seventhday of Saane." In this model your PCs would only need to remember 4 names instead of 7+. [/blockquote]
I just wanted to lay down a quick kudo...I think these sound great.  Really nice 'setting-specific' terminology that just rolls of the tongue.

[Jharviss]

I agree with LordVreeg.

Elemental Elf, mind if I steel your idea of just naming the four weeks in a month?   That sounds like the best idea thus far.

I'm also thinking of just having 12 months, 3 to each season, and each having a name along the lines of Waxing Winter, High Winter, and Waning Winter, and so on.  

[Elemental_Elf]

[blockquote=EELF]So if you wanted to meet someone for breakfast 2 days hence you should say "Saane Seventhday" or "Seventhday of Saane." In this model your PCs would only need to remember 4 names instead of 7+. [/blockquote]
I just wanted to lay down a quick kudo...I think these sound great.  Really nice 'setting-specific' terminology that just rolls of the tongue.

I am both honored and flattered that you'd 'kudo' my idea :)

I agree with LordVreeg.

Elemental Elf, mind if I steel your idea of just naming the four weeks in a month?   That sounds like the best idea thus far.

Steal to your heart's content! :)

I'm also thinking of just having 12 months, 3 to each season, and each having a name along the lines of Waxing Winter, High Winter, and Waning Winter, and so on.  

That's a nice way of handling names of the months. Its easy to remember and flavorful!

[Cantus]

By the way, I think it's kinda funny that so many people seem to incorporate some sort of "leap day" concept in their calendars. Is there any reason for this, in the various settings? For me, it was simply a chance to add a bit of complexity to the calendar.

If you're making a calender that has the 1st month of the year alway have the winter solstace in it, leap days are almost always a nessecity.  If the orbit of your planet around it's sun (or the sun around the planet, as the case may be) so perfectly aligns with the time it takes for the planet to turn once on its axis that you never have an extra day that needs accounting for, then the calendar doesn't seem believable.

My setting has two moons in it, and it takes roughly 14 cycles of the quicker one for them to align at a certain point in the sky, thus a 14 lunar month "year" is used for recording dates and events, even though it only takes about 4 or 5 lunar months for the planet to go through all 4 seasons.  The years are named after the the constelation the moons block out from the sky, while the months have fixed names, based off of saints that were born in that month.

[psychoticbarber]

I'm also thinking of just having 12 months, 3 to each season, and each having a name along the lines of Waxing Winter, High Winter, and Waning Winter, and so on.  

In Canada, there's four distinct seasons:

1) Winter
2) More Winter
3) Is Winter done yet?
4) Construction.

[LordVreeg]

I'm doing something right...or I'm reading it as such.  My PC's from the Igabr group are arguing online as to what they are doing for the Day of Chaos holyday coming up on Fastak...

Cantus, I have to give you credit...I have a binary solar and lunar world, and never bothered to take it into account.  Having the years being named by the constellations blocked is pure genius.



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