The Turn Sequence

I've been thinking a lot about this, how to incorporate by-the-book time tracking into my AD&D sessions.  Time is a very important element in the AD&D game, with almost every subsystem requiring or mentioning the passage of time as a factor in resolving an outcome, yet in actual play this element is almost completely ignored. Most parties either abandon it totally or consider the recording of time only randomly when it feels appropriate. The only situation where it gets any focus is during combat and initiative. The DMG itself admonishes, in all caps, to keep strict time records and I feel that a significant portion of the game's balance is bonded to the time system.

For this reason I have an experimental idea - to record the passage of turns first, and then adjudicate which actions can occur within it.

For example, within 1 turn a PC can either move up to his movement speed x10ft while exploring and mapping a dungeon, or search a 20ft by 20ft area for secret doors, or listen behind a door, or disarm a trap, etc.  If a PC wanted to do some of these things in combination, for example, moving up to half his total distance, approaching a door and listening for sounds behind it, then only his movement action can resolve on the first turn and he must wait in position before attempting to listen at the door on the next turn.

In a party situation, this would allow PCs to take separate individual actions and resolve their successes at the same time, at the end of the turn. For example one PC could check for traps, another might search a section of wall for a hidden door, another might try to force open a closed gate, etc.  Combat is always rounded up to the next full turn.

This feels more like a tactical game to me, where characters move into and hold a position before continuing on to the next turn.  A lot of concepts from tactical games have started to appeal to me as a method of playing D&D, such as moving and fighting in formation rather than as individuals.

The DMG has a guideline for searching a room, where if there is nothing in a room a single round check will make that obvious to the PCs, but otherwise a 20' by 20' area can be searched in one turn. With a little bit of math, we can extend this to a room of any size, and simply divide to find out how many turns are required, rounding up to the nearest full turn.

Obviously the main drive for this type of strict timekeeping is in running my solo games, but I feel that this could be used in live play as well. For a live situation, the DM can call out the turn and ask what the PCs decide to do during it.  I have no idea if players will take to such a procedure or if it will be quickly abandoned.

For live play, I like to hide dungeon areas that are outside the PCs line of sight. To incorporate this turn system, I would simply let my PCs walk into any area, revealing what they can see as they go, until they reach the limit of their movement distance per turn.  Of course in such a situation, ambushing the PCs with monsters becomes much easier.

There are tools to aid DMs in tracking time, such as the OSRIC turn tracker, but I assume that this method would make those tools mostly superfluous, except as reminders for torch burning times and monster checks.