The current phase of the Moon is slightly important in a werewolf game, how do you keep track of it in your game? this seems more problematic for me because I mostly haven't cared much about how much time has passed overall.
[RPG] How to keep track of the Moon
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Related Solutions
To add to fgysin's answer, if your campaign takes place over longer scales, with travel taking e.g. weeks, quad paper becomes useful:
In this case you'd use either a separate sheet, the other side of the paper or the right half for notes. Cross over days that go past with nothing significant happening, but use a number for notes if something is important:
Depending on the size of the paper and grid, you can fit a year on 2-4 pages, meaning even decades-long campaigns stay (relatively) organized.
Regarding who maintains it, as GM you can more easily set yourself reminders in the future or notes about NPCs if you do it. However, if a player does, you can still ask them to mark down e.g. a star without telling what it means. Sneaky way to hint at a deadline...
Another answer I'd read last week (maybe here, maybe on GitP) pointed me to the article Hacking Time in D&D by the Angry GM that addresses this topic in some detail, and is a great starting point.
It covers so much that it'd be difficult to summarize here, but some key highlights are:
- real time != Game time. Trying a task ad infinitum, or waiting for hours, in game is easy for the players, but characters would (and should) experience boredom and monotony
- introduces a time pool mechanic to track such mental fatigue
- ties this mechanic to the passage of time in blocks that roughly map to spell durations
I think it'll prove useful, and the Angry GM blog in general is a gold mine of information for GMs.
Best Answer
In the past, I used one of several methods for moon phases. I've almost always tracked time in play, at least to the day.
Method 1: Tide Table Books
I would pick up (usually for free) leftover out of date tide table booklets picked up at the end of fishing season. I then used that, despite being the wrong year, as the "official" tide and moon phases for that game.
I used this in my VTM games.
Method 2: Randomize.
I used a d8 to pick which phase it was in.
1: New (3 day)
2: Waxing crescent (4 day)
3: Waxing quarter (4 day)
4: Waxing gibbous (4 day)
5: Full (3 day)
6: Waning gibbous (4 day)
7: Waning quarter (4 Day)
8: Waning crescent (4 day)
I then rolled for day within each, using a d3 or d4 as appropriate. Note that this is actually just under half a day long. To correct that, on odd moons of the year, knock a day out of the new moon (for only 2 such days); on even moons, leave it at 3 days.
Note that this is a 30 day cycle. One can also use a d30.
Days Phase
01-03: New (3 day) 04-07: Waxing crescent (4 day)
08-11: Waxing quarter (4 day)
12-15: Waxing gibbous (4 day)
16-18: Full (3 day)
19-22: Waning gibbous (4 day)
23-26: Waning quarter (4 Day)
27-30: Waning crescent (4 day)
Method 3: Let the players pick at the start of the adventure
Sometimes, I'd just have players agree to what the lunar phase was. Then I went into the adventure.
Note that this was something I did running Dragonlance, so there were 3 moons to track... and I just advanced from there. I used a chart from the DragonLance Adventures hardback, and it was 20+ years ago...