• If you were supposed to get an email from the forum but didn't (e.g. to verify your account for registration), email Wes at [email protected] or talk to me on Discord for help. Sometimes the server hits our limit of emails we can send per hour.
  • Get in our Discord chat! Discord.gg/stararmy
  • 📅 February and March 2024 are YE 46.2 in the RP.

[POLL] Slowing Down the Passing of Years

How should OOC time relate to in-character years?

  • 1 YE (9 Yamataian months) = 1 IRL year (12 months)

    Votes: 10 83.3%
  • 1 Yamataian month = 2 IRL months (see chart below)

    Votes: 1 8.3%
  • 1 Yamataian month = 1 IRL month (year changes every 9 IRL months, speeding up time)

    Votes: 1 8.3%

  • Total voters
    12
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.

Wes

Founder & Admin
Staff Member
🌸 FM of Yamatai
🎖️ Game Master
🎨 Media Gallery
Hey Star Army, there's been a discussion on the Yamataian calendar, which only has 9 months in it.

Now that we're looking at it in detail, we've got to decide how we want IC time to relate to OOC time. So I want your vote on this matter. The poll will be open for 7 days so everyone has a fair chance to vote.

The options are:
  1. Continue 1 IRL year to 1 IC-year, like we've done for several years now (months won't line up neatly)
  2. Go with my proposal to have 1 IC month every 2 OOC months (see chart below) - This would slow down the passage of IC years so more RP could happen in each year.
  3. Go with 1 month IC = 1 month OOC. Time would speed up (more years passing by in the same OOC time). I don't recommend this, but some people may like it so I'm putting it on here.
This is how it'd work if we went with my suggestion (option 2):
upload_2016-10-27_13-22-48.png

Thanks for your opinions and votes, guys.
 
I voted for 1. It's along the minds of "don't break what isn't broken". Yes, it doesn't line up properly, but people have different representations of a year in real life. Slowing the RP down further seems good on paper, but I think it could also make things more difficult in that while yes we could do more in a year... it'd make things take longer to ICly proceed. A single YE of planned development now becomes more than a year OOC. It'd lead to some head-scratching, too, since prior years were lined up to YE.

TLDR: It seems like this might have been okay to do before, but it doesn't really seem to matter as much as the confusion implies. All we really need to do is find a way to split the year more precisely for those wanting information. Or, at least, "anchor" certain events to certain days (such as on October 31, that'd be the IC day that something spooky might happen) to provide more stability/guesstimating.

It wasn't really TLDR. I just figured I'd throw this out there because time can be finicky on RP sites. It seemed simple enough as 1 year to 1 YE, so making it different could just confuse new members and only provide a bit more room for those who really want to slow it down or speed it up.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Wes
Option 1. I can live with months not neatly lining up, as time is fluid in RP anyway. As long as one YE = 1 calendar year OOC, I'm good.
 
Option 1. I can live with months not neatly lining up, as time is fluid in RP anyway. As long as one YE = 1 calendar year OOC, I'm good.
Okay. If we vote to keep the current 1 to 1 setup, I can make a conversion chart for the days that people can use if they're really picky about what IC day it is.
 
Okay. If we vote to keep the current 1 to 1 setup, I can make a conversion chart for the days that people can use if they're really picky about what IC day it is.
Option 1. I can live with months not neatly lining up, as time is fluid in RP anyway. As long as one YE = 1 calendar year OOC, I'm good.
These two statements are kinda what I mean. We don't even need specific days to line up. We could theoretically make MULTIPLE OOC days line-up with IC days. Tons of ways to more properly define the YE, such as days that might be shorter than others (so they take less OOC days, but still have the same IC value more or less). But overall, if someone WANTS specific days, nothing stops them from just... trying to get some sort of similar day added. Yamatai is so big at this point that I'm sure that most of the holidays are on various different YE days, despite there being an empire-wide calender.
 
wes, in the survey it says that
"2 Yamataian months = 1 IRL month (see chart below)"
but then below you say
"1 IC month every 2 OOC months"

Whats the deal?
 
wes, in the survey it says that
"2 Yamataian months = 1 IRL month (see chart below)"
but then below you say
"1 IC month every 2 OOC months"

Whats the deal?
Fixed! You can change your vote if you need to.
 
I voted for #1.

Here's my problem with this time shakeup: It is 100% not necessary.

There is no reason to think about it, and it has never been a problem, point of contention, or even the barest hint of the necessity to think about it. It might be nice to think about every once in a while, but it adds very little to RP. In fact, I did not even know that Yamatai only had 9 months, until I saw this thread, and I have been onboard the site since 2006.

I am perfectly fine with IC time moving slowly.

Slight edit: It adds needless and unnecessary complication to something that was previously a non-issue.
 
Last edited:
If you want IC time to move slowly, consider option 2. Right now I have a sense that IC years move by too fast and I'd like to take more time in each one, which is why I proposed the new setup to match the detailed calendar.
 
I'm not thrilled about the calendar changes in the first place. We've had OoC holidays line up with IC ones ever since way-back-then.
I can accept that Yamatai's planet rotates around its sun differently, spins faster and so forth to make different local time, but I would have still kept universal time the same.

So, from my point of view, the cage was already rattled and I'm still not sure how much I like this, neither do I know how I'll cope with this.

This proposal rattles the cage further. I was for slowing time down before, and I've been villified for it back when I was co-admin (with the OoC years packed into 1 IC one waved to me since then like some brand of shame). You prefered the IC year to match the OoC year too. But now, you want it to be slower? Can you explain why you'd favor that - because, so far, in all honesty my attitude to this borders the "make up your damn mind" here. >_<

So, basically, none of the above. An IC year should still be 12 months.
 
Last edited:
I just want things to stay as they are. 12 months IC in line with our 12 IRL. I like knowing when we think Halloween or Christmas or New Year in real life we can think it IC and RP it at the same time. If years go by too fast for you just say you're giving your plot its own unique rate of time.

Individual plots may not have much in terms of different missions happen in each year as is but we don't want big events moving slower do we?
 
I think so long as people want their Halloweens and New Year's parties to happen IC as well as OoC at the same time every year, it's ideal both calendars line up perfectly. Since I don't see anyone giving up on holidays anytime soon, that means option 1 is best. It's not like we're going to hold a vote on whether we should keep celebrating OoC holidays IC; I'd sooner just roll with it!

As far as the stuff happening, I've been told that 90% of military service, even in active combat zones, is just boring waiting--like fruitless patrol or escort missions, let's say--so I can believe that there's a lot of stuff happening each year that isn't worth writing about.
 
Not going to cast a vote yet because I've gotta think about it, but either of the first two options seem essentially fine to me.

Having 9 months is neat and has a basis in RP and Yamatai being Earth-like but not actually Earth. From what I can tell it has a calculated, semi-scientific basis. The option to stretch things out OOC is really cool, too, since it's one that's evolved over the years and developed in our collective consciousness, and if you're finally comfortable with it, that's neat. I hope @Nashoba has the chance to give us input, since I remember him being somehow interested in adjusting time a few years ago.

That said, if nothing changes (it seems like things are changing tho), I'm fine with the 12 months = 12 months status quo, too. As I said in the other thread, there have been RPs that refer to "November" or "December," and I know I've said "Tenth Month" or "Eleventh Month" etc. myself in an attempt to sort of simulate what your new submission does to get away from the Roman calendar. Having Nepleslia stick with a 12 month = 12 month calendar might be cool, too. Their language is already called "trade," so why not have their timekeeping be "trade standard"?
 
It looks like Option 1 is strongly in the lead so I'm going to be editing the OOC portions of the calendar submission under the assumption we're sticking with 1 year IC = 1 year OOC.

For reference I ran the numbers on how OOC and IC months line up and here's the chart:

upload_2016-10-27_17-33-50.png

I will probably adjust Love day and other holidays to fall on the OOC days.
 
Due to overwhelming support for not changing the IC/OOC ratio, I'm withdrawing this proposal and closing this thread. Thanks everyone for your feedback on this one!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
RPG-D RPGfix
Back
Top