They mostly come at night

[The Guild]

One element that stuck with me after first playing the introductory solo-adventure in the old D&D red box, was escaping the dungeon near sundown and having to hurry while the fading light still kept the undead at bay. Also, that I was a bit disappointed to learn the vast majority of D&D monsters don't mind the daylight at all; it always seemed a bit of missed opportunity to me.

I was reminded of this much later by the first Witcher video game, which did make heavy use of its day-night cycle. In daytime, most outdoor areas are fairly safe and people go about their business. Rest until sunset, and everyone fearfully hurries either home or to the local inn, the music quietens and turns foreboding, magic starts to work and then, the monsters come out to play. The Witcher is not the only video game to do this, of course, but I think it did so particularly well. In the vast majority of video games, the day-night cycle is just a visual effect with few hard consequences tied to it.

And so it is in our good old pen-and-paper RPGs. While players and GM track time to an extent and most settings imply differences between day and night, I think this is practically never used to anywhere near its potential.

First, let's do a quick inventorization of what we might get out of this, as well as possible drawbacks.

Advantages:

• Mood-setting: enhances immersion by making the player characters interact differently with the daytime vs nighttime world and account for the shift from one to the other
• New tactics: the player characters can turn day-nighttime differences to their advantage for easier travel, defence and escape
• World design: the above will inform differences e.g. in the way town defences are constructed, and how close a dungeon will be tolerated to exist near civilization

Disadvantages:

• Upkeep: players and/or GM need to (more closely) track in-game time and take the daytime into account more often
• Delay: player characters can end up wasting time waiting for daybreak or nightfall, effectively ending up with short bits of unused downtime

Second, I am curious about games and game settings that already do this well to use as example, most of them probably in the fantasy and horror genres.
I actually can't think of much off the top of my head.
Anyone?

 

[Fenris-77]

I'm a big fan of bespoke encounter tables that lean into the day-night cycle. A lot of my settings are far more dangerous at night. If you're playing a game where night vision isn't trivialized (like 5E D&D for example) the whole darkness and loss of light sources is a powerful tool.

Edit: the timekeeping doesn't need to be awful. A ballpark level tracking of afternoon - evening - night with good telegraphing of coming changes works just fine IMO.

 

[Necrozius]

the timekeeping doesn't need to be awful

Agreed. You can also play with the day-night time scale in a similar fashion to media (ie, don't need to track each hour, just go with what makes sense, but telegraph things like "ooh the sky is turning reddish orange... night is coming in an hour or so" or "have hope, friends, the horizon is lighting up, dawn approaches!")

 

[JAMUMU]

Unless my players are being unusually well-prepared and name times, I sometimes I roll a d6/d12 combo and suddenly announce what time it is. This is always a prelude to fuckery.

 

[Fenris-77]

Unless my players are being unusually well-prepared and name times, I sometimes I roll a d6/d12 combo and suddenly announce what time it is. This is always a prelude to fuckery.

Most shit at my table is a prelude to fuckery. That neatly sums up the job of GM. A recursive dialectic where each instance of fuckery and the resulting shenanigans combine to define the next instance of fuckery.

 

[Simlasa]

I'm a big horror fan, so darkness generally brings on added fun... but I was particularly impressed by the change that comes with nightfall in Minecraft. The darkness itself spawns creatures.
I had that in mind when I read Veins Of The Earth, with its '12 Kinds Of Darkness'.
So, in a horror game, I'd lean into the notion... less that daylight chases things away (though it does) but that darkness is like another realm invading, enabled by our imagination/nuerosis to populate itself from our nightmares. The dark closet of my childhood was like a womb, pregnant with fear.

 

[PolarBlues]

I like tracking night and day, though it is not always easy. Most of my games happen in urban environments, where the flow play often slips into a 48 hour day mode, in which you just keep moving from scene to scene while everything is always open and no one needs to sleep or take a shower.

A while back I was running a street level superhero game using ICONS. The passage of time was important because I laid out the campaign with a timeline with various events occuring on various days (another problem of the 48 hour day, it makes events feel too compressed). I added a house rule that Determination Point (the Hero Points in ICONS) would refresh overnight (provided the character had a full night rest) rather than between sessions. This way the players would have a strong incentive to mark time themselves.

To maked this interesting and prevent players just blowing all their Determination Points later in the day, I created a random crime in progress table to be rolled once during the day and once at night. Not all rolls resulted in an encounter, but I stipulated that the day and rolls pattern had to be stuck to religiously, so that threat of a dangerous encounter occuring when the player character were already at a low ebb would always be present and not just left at the GM descretion. I am to soft a GM to kick the player characters when they are down.

That mostly worked, and indeed some of the random crimes turned out to be a lot of fun, but the system eventually broke down when the players got deeper into a particular story arc and start doing things that completely subvert the play loop. It's great when that happens, but at that point the random crimes just got in the way, tracking the timeline day by day just sort of fell apart.

That's the thing I find about putting a rigid structure around a roleplaying session; it works until it doesn't. But you got to allow the default play loop to get subverted otherwise what's the point?

 

[Baulderstone]

Edit: the timekeeping doesn't need to be awful. A ballpark level tracking of afternoon - evening - night with good telegraphing of coming changes works just fine IMO.

Yes, that's how I do it. Move time along when it feels right according to your gut and your sense of pacing.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yes, that's how I do it. Move time along when it feels right according to your gut and your sense of pacing.

I find overly fiddly timekeeping enormously annoying as a GM. I also find that it's not a sign of good overall game design in a lot of cases, or at least not overall design I find useful and pleasing at the table.

 

[AsenRG]

I find overly fiddly timekeeping enormously annoying as a GM. I also find that it's not a sign of good overall game design in a lot of cases, or at least not overall design I find useful and pleasing at the table.

But...but...but...Gygax...butt...

 

[opaopajr]

A lot of old TSR D&D classic modules use this extensively in their Random Encounter Tables. I'm thinking of Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, most of the gold box SSI, etc. It definitely changes the mood from fearless adventurers swinging their sword about town, to taverns being a port in the storm of night.

 

[Toadmaster]

I'm a big fan of bespoke encounter tables that lean into the day-night cycle. A lot of my settings are far more dangerous at night. If you're playing a game where night vision isn't trivialized (like 5E D&D for example) the whole darkness and loss of light sources is a powerful tool.

Edit: the timekeeping doesn't need to be awful. A ballpark level tracking of afternoon - evening - night with good telegraphing of coming changes works just fine IMO.

The reduction in reduction of night vision present in many of the OSR games is something I'm liking. Darkness is a feature often glossed over in many RPGs, and there is a huge difference between walking in an open area under the stars, under a moon at different phases (can be quite bright), in a dense forest or in a cave (very dark).

Not only the effect on the ability to see, but also how being backlit against a very weak light source highlights figures, and the use of a light source gives away its position to others in the dark.

Shadowdark and its torch mechanism is an obvious example, but not at all the only one to explore the idea of darkness being dangerous.

Agreed. You can also play with the day-night time scale in a similar fashion to media (ie, don't need to track each hour, just go with what makes sense, but telegraph things like "ooh the sky is turning reddish orange... night is coming in an hour or so" or "have hope, friends, the horizon is lighting up, dawn approaches!")

Yes, this can be so effective if done well. Both foreshadowing the coming dangers of the night, but also the relief of the coming day. I've worked a lot of nightshifts on wildland fires. Although not so much worry about orcs and goblins, but the shift is very much broken up into nightfall, moonrise (or not), natural illumination by fire, the lightening of the sky as dawn approaches which signals the approach of the end of shift etc.

With so many living in areas with well lit streets, I think many have lost the magic of real darkness. For people who don't do much camping or otherwise spend time in natural settings it is easy to forget just how black it can get, as well as how well lit nature can be. Also just how much your ears start to pick up for the loss of vision.

 

[finarvyn]

But...but...but...Gygax...butt...

I'm pretty sure that Gygax was thinking of the passage of days, not the specific time on the clock. Remember that in many of the early campaigns, if you constructed a magic item and Gygax said it would take six weeks, you didn't get to use that character for six actual weeks. I'm not 100% sure if you knew that or were just quoting Gary since he often said something along the lines of how important timekeeping is for the campaign. I don't want to be "that guy" who tells you what you already know.

 

[TJS]

I could see this working very well in a very small scale hex crawl where every hex is one hour to cross.

This sort of forces the player to decide if they want to take risks in regard to exploring to ensure they get back to somewhere safe before evening. If also allows for lots of things like lengthening shadows etc and a sense of foreboding to come into play.

 

[Necrozius]

I think many have lost the magic of real darkness

Especially if you get everyone to turn off their flashlights deep in a cave…

 

[Tulpa Girl]

I agree that, thematically if not literally, most classic monsters during the nighttime. I think the main exception would be flying creatures - while there are some avians that are active and hunt during nocturnal hours (most notably owls), I suspect that even if a flying monster has infravision or low-light vision, the superior line-of-sight visibility of the daylight hours would make daytime easier for most such creatures. As a result in my world attacks from dragons, harpies, and the like usually occur during daylight hours, although there are some exceptions, such as (mythological, not real) vampire bats.

 

[Endless Flight]

I like the progress clock BitD uses and I could see using that to keep track of four or six hour increments of time.

 

[Baulderstone]

I agree that, thematically if not literally, most classic monsters during the nighttime. I think the main exception would be flying creatures - while there are some avians that are active and hunt during nocturnal hours (most notably owls), I suspect that even if a flying monster has infravision or low-light vision, the superior line-of-sight visibility of the daylight hours would make daytime easier for most such creatures. As a result in my world attacks from dragons, harpies, and the like usually occur during daylight hours, although there are some exceptions, such as (mythological, not real) vampire bats.

I agree overall, but you also have owls, who even have specially evolved stealth wings so their prey can't hear them coming in the dark.

Now I am wondering if owlbears are nocturnal and if they migrate or hibernate in the winter.

 

[Tulpa Girl]

Now I am wondering if owlbears are nocturnal and if they migrate or hibernate in the winter.

"Owlbears - they hibernate in the winter, sleep during the day, only coming out at night... and they're still cranky and irritable when you encounter them. What's up with that?"

 

[AsenRG]

I'm pretty sure that Gygax was thinking of the passage of days, not the specific time on the clock. Remember that in many of the early campaigns, if you constructed a magic item and Gygax said it would take six weeks, you didn't get to use that character for six actual weeks. I'm not 100% sure if you knew that or were just quoting Gary since he often said something along the lines of how important timekeeping is for the campaign. I don't want to be "that guy" who tells you what you already know.

Yes, man, he was - as far as I can tell from Tony Bath's work. But then I don't know why you wouldn't change that to "the passage of days and nights" if it seems to work better, and it sure seems that way...

Now, I admit that I am always checking the exact time of the day. But that's because of the working hours of some establishments, some specific monsters like vampires, and the likelihood of robbing/stealing attempts (at nights, it is more likely to be "at swordpoint", in the day, a pickpocket).
But applying it to all monsters?
Well, it could be quite helpful for setting the mood, and I shall endeavour to do so in the future...

 

[opaopajr]

I'm sure those old RPG modules had some influence on Castlevania 2 with its day & night cycle, perhaps one of the earlier well-known video games incorporating this idea (though there are plenty of more, I can assure you). You could carry out the idea to not just monsters, but also NPC personalities and helpfulness; morning people and nightlife lovers might have different senses of humor, forthrightness, and respectability.

Speaking of time increments, the old D&D watch periods were pretty handy in 6 four-hour increments. If I remember they were also not too far off from the Canonical Hours accounting of time (matins 3AM, prime 6AM, terce 9AM, sext 12PM, nones 3PM, vespers 6PM, etc.) with those being 8 three-hour increments. Canonical Hours also had Lauds & Compline to follow seasonal adjusting dawn and dusk, so you could just account 2 increments of seasonally adjusting lengths.

Though if you do pick one be consistent for both your GM sake and the players, it's hard to slip into and out of an alien head space. I am reminded of how many multilingual people return to their mother tongue when doing number related things like math & accounting. For that reason I'd be tempted in using just 2 increment Lauds & Compline, Dawn & Dusk, for most diurnal and nocturnal creatures. Less overhead is more gaming.

 

[Mankcam]

When I run WFRP 4E later this year I'll have to remember to use Nightime as a feature.
Streets are much less safe, and people whisper of creepy things in the woods to keep folk straying too far from hearth fires and lantern poles.
Given it's renaissance-like setting, there already is gothic undertones and supernatural folkloric elements to the WFRP setting.
Using Nightime as a feature will just remind me to highlight it much more.

 

[Baulderstone]

When I run WFRP 4E later this year I'll have to remember to Nightime as a feature.
Streets are much less safe, and people whisper of creepy things in the woods to keep folk straying too far from hearth fires and lantern poles.
Given it's renaissance-like setting, there already is gothic undertones and supernatural folkloric elements to the WFRP setting.
Using Nightime as a feature will just remind me to highlight it much more.

WFRP also lets you put Morrslieb's eerie glow in the sky when nighttime just isn't frightening enough.

 

[Lofgeornost]

When I run WFRP 4E later this year I'll have to remember to Nightime as a feature.
Streets are much less safe, and people whisper of creepy things in the woods to keep folk straying too far from hearth fires and lantern poles.
Given it's renaissance-like setting, there already is gothic undertones and supernatural folkloric elements to the WFRP setting.
Using Nightime as a feature will just remind me to highlight it much more.

Something I'd like to incorporate in a premodern setting like WFRP is the idea that people do not typically sleep uninterrupted through the night--instead, they have a 'first sleep' period, then some wakefulness, and then a 'second sleep' until dawn. There's historical evidence that things worked this way in Early Modern Britain, at least--a historian named Roger Ekirch wrote a neat article about it, "The Sleep We Have Lost," back in 2001 (he later published a book on night in premodern Europe, At Day's Close). The midnight wakeful period might be spent in bed, particularly in cold weather, maybe chatting or engaging in more intimate activities with bedmates, but it would also be a time to get up and replenish the fire, check on livestock, etc. It may explain why monks had one of their canonical hours of prayer in the middle of the night (matins/lauds).

 

[Toadmaster]

Something I'd like to incorporate in a premodern setting like WFRP is the idea that people do not typically sleep uninterrupted through the night--instead, they have a 'first sleep' period, then some wakefulness, and then a 'second sleep' until dawn. There's historical evidence that things worked this way in Early Modern Britain, at least--a historian named Roger Ekirch wrote a neat article about it, "The Sleep We Have Lost," back in 2001 (he later published a book on night in premodern Europe, At Day's Close). The midnight wakeful period might be spent in bed, particularly in cold weather, maybe chatting or engaging in more intimate activities with bedmates, but it would also be a time to get up and replenish the fire, check on livestock, etc. It may explain why monks had one of their canonical hours of prayer in the middle of the night (matins/lauds).

This appears in some Gothic novels set in warmer climates. Lots of late night socializing to avoid the heat.