Timekeeping

In my last post, I dropped a DM Cheat Sheet in Appendix D but I never actually explained how to use it.

You are of course free to use it however you wish, but here's how it looks when I've had a chance to fill it out.  The format is [room]-[Underclock].  

S    Searching a room for 10 minutes.

L    Eating lunch for 30 minutes.

X    Random encounter triggered.

"1-0" means that they were in room 1 and the Underclock was equal to 0.

"2-0" means that they were in room 2 and the Underclock was still equal to 0.

They didn't light a torch until they returned to room 2 at 0:30.  Since torches last for 1 hour, you can see them relighting a new torch at 1:30 and and 2:30.  (Most buffs also default to 1 hour.)

At 1:40, the Underclock finally triggered a random encounter.

From 1:50 to 2:20, they ate lunch.

The nice thing about tracking time like this is that it makes it easy to draw a wander map that shows where the party wandered through the dungeon, which is nice for DM notes and write-ups.

I even added an "X" and an "L" to the map for the random encounter and the lunch.  You could probably add timestamps if you wanted a more comprehensive wander map.  (I sometimes make these after sessions.  I just think they're neat little artifacts.)