The Golarion Calendar mimics our calendar IRL. A Campaign or Adventure Path starting in 2019 starts in Golarion's 4719, 2020 becomes 4720, etc.
My previous game used the Midgard Rule of "Time Flies" reproduced below.
From the Midgard Worldbook
“The Time Flies rule states that during a campaign, the timeline always advances between game sessions by a period of not less than twice the real-world time that has passed. If it has been a week since you last played, then two weeks passed in the game world; if it has been a month, then two months have passed. Just add the time to the game’s calendar, noting that it includes rest and recovery time or downtime or heroes‑on‑vacation time.
“If the group is in a dungeon or on a highly time‑sensitive mission, apply the additional time once they return to a suitable location.
“For campaigns that seek to emulate the storytelling rhythm of a long-form saga, consider increasing this modifier to at least two months of game time between sessions. As a result, characters can age at a noticeable rate (six game sessions equal one year of game time), and generational effects become more pronounced. In addition, this prevents the chronological oddity of heroes going from novice to archmage in only a year or two.”
For the Golarion Campaign
The Golarion campaign will limit Time Flies to at least an amount equal to real-world time. Sometimes this will be handled in-story (it takes a week or two to travel back to town), but if the adventurers spend three weekly sessions clearing out a dungeon in the sewers below town, then on the fourth week, it’s going to take them four weeks to fully recover from the ordeal, sell their treasures, etc. Though it is possible for the campaign calendar to get ahead of the real calendar.
While adrenaline keeps you going for that three-day dungeon crawl, once it's over and you’re back to relative safety the bruises need to heal up, and “oh, that’s definitely a sprain.”, etc. So it takes some time to get back in shape.
The assumption is also that it takes a few days to find buyers for any treasures taken out of a dungeon, after all it’s usually pretty crazy stuff, and a few more days to buy and sell.
After several attempts to use the Downtime Rules, new campaigns (and none are planned at this time) will approach Downtime with a more free-form approach. A Player describes what they want to do, and then the player and GM work the results out. While we will be using the Downtime Rules Systems and Actions as guidelines, most of that will occur behind the scenes.
The result of Downtime actions could result in side-quests, a few one-on-one sessions with the GM, or maybe just a couple of rolls. The goal would be to enhance the campaign and the game, not to overwhelm it.
For characters who aren’t engaged in anything, “Wow, where’d the time go.”
This is actually the way we used to play Downtime, and I originally thought that the Downtime Actions and Systems would enhance the game, but in the last few campaigns the rules actually stifled and got in the way of downtime.
There's a great YouTube video of Matthew Colville talking about this topic at:
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