As you duck under the portcullis and enter the city, a small figure in a crude straw mask pauses while crossing the street ahead. Waving its arms and laughing, it then runs out-of-sight. In the distance are colorful banners and pennants strung between buildings and sticking out of windows. The sound of music and laughter is detectable above the clatter of shod hooves and the general buzz of urban life. The rider next to you remarks it is solar fest time and the city will be alive with revelry. You wonder if that will mean the shops close early, for you have some important purchases to make and hope to get business done and be on your way. "Do you have a place to stay the night, stranger? The inns will likely be full what with the festival and all." inquires the rider.
In the LBBs, Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson stress the importance of keeping a good record of time for the campaign. This is especially important when there are several PCs who may be entering and exiting the dungeon, changing things below ground and above. The milieu is most believable when the PCs can effect real changes in their environment, changes that can be noted by others as well as themselves. However, due to various in-game considerations some PCs may be ahead of others in terms of time. If the setting is to seem realistic, some temporal consistency may need to be imposed.
Holidays and festivals are another way to make the setting seem realistic. Most detailed published settings such as Harn and Glorantha, have detailed calendars, complete with holidays and other dates of note. Seasons that change, usually marked by a festival, observance of an historic event or other religious or cultural observance can be tied to the adventure and even if nothing more than "flavor" at a minimum it adds to the color and "experience" of the game.
An awareness that in-game time is passing may indicate the players are treating their PCs as "real people" with lives beyond the adventure and not just as in-game pawns. The game has become more than just a casual pass-time when they ask, "What does my PC do when not adventuring? Where does he/she live?" Such is often an indication the players are becoming invested in the campaign.
I have mentioned before my fondness for the urban adventure and have usually found a way to insert some form of urban environment into most campaigns I run. I usually try to get the PCs "back to town" before we end a session as it is a good place to heal-up and resupply.
The product shown above, Cities: A Gamemaster's Guide to Encounters and other Rules for Fantasy Games by Stephen Abrams and Jon Everson (Midkemia Press) has some nice random tables for developing city encounters on-the-fly and random tables for determining what PCs may have been involved in during downtime in the city. Cities is a generic product not specifically tied to white box or any other rules. It has been around for some time and has been through several editions. The copy shown above is from 1979.
Some published RPGs such as King Arthur Pendragon and The One Ring make significant use of the calendar year as part of their game structure tying certain game procedures to the seasonal progression. As referee, I find marking the passage of time helps me and hopefully my players as well to organize events and put them in perspective within the game. And it's often rather entertaining to roll-up on random tables what a PC has been up to since we last saw him at the table.
During your week in town you meet and impress a government worker, who might be of assistance if you are ever in official trouble. Your modest room and board at the inn cost you 20 coins. You spent 2 coins on repairing and maintaining your clothing and feeling the need for companionship, spent 12 coins on that. Sensing a lucky streak, you wager at the gambling tables and end up losing 200 coin. Thinking you might need to improve your "skill" at gambling you seek training from an "expert" which cost you 50 coin. Your instructor informs you that you are now only 5 weeks away from acquiring "skill at gambling". You deduct 284 coins from your account and wonder whether to spend 5 more weeks in town training with "the gambler" or to start looking for work? (Results of random rolls on tables found in Cities.)
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