Yeah I have an artificer in my campaign and in the downtime while leveling where I generated a guild for him and let him craft and also obtain information to further the plot.
For a couple years back '84-'85 I ran a game based in a medieval-ish city. The player characters entire adventuring careers arose from the consequences of relationships formed during what others would call "downtime". If someone got in trouble with the thieves guild, it was probably some npc they personally knew already and felt obligated to go extract from an uncomfortable situation. Every "downtime" contained within it the seeds for the next adventure. Modern game masters seem to simply not get the sheer fun and utility of downtime.
My last one gave us a full on session of downtime... Said I couldn't take some of the party out to drink... "The downtime rules according to pf2 are that you either spend money on requirement, craft magical items, use skills to gain money, etc." Before that the other DM of the same group was simply... Telling me the people I wanted to talk to were busy. When he chose me as one of the first for down time and the NPCs I'd wanna see were already predetermined to have downtime with the other PCs... "Oh you can't find her, she's busy, he's busy" and this happened in multiple sessions... Idk why I even got to go BEFORE the other PCs and it just says I'm not important. As he's outright got full on conversations and background and quest hooks planned for the other characters but me? I get to improve with a NPC at random... And I guess if I chose wrong I should've just known that NPC was already going to have a conversation with someone else. I guess I went first so the pacing of everyone else getting plot hooks and purpose would fit better with the next quest coming up sooner for them? In the previous game there was less of "they're already going to talk to someone else" and more so "no, your family is busy, your brother and step father you just met again after all these years are busy and not available". Idk what's even going on.
@@elgatochurroThat's silly. I can buy that some characters may be busy, as in they are actually away and can't be talked to through normal means. But during downtime, as far as I am concerned, unless someone is doing something that requires their attention 24/7 then at SOME point during downtime they'll have time for an activity like going out to drink once. Or meeting for an afternoon coffee, or sparring one morning. The brother and step-father situation is a great example. Sure, they may miss each-other a lot, but they aren't having a honey-moon period of vacation in which they strictly see one another and nobody else surely. Heck, your character is part of the family too! One day they invite your character to a family dinner. Or they planned camping and invite your character too. If your character needs to have a serious talk with one they surely can put aside 20 minutes of their life for it.
@@goncalocarneiro3043 it made sense and yeah they're busy but they were so often busy I don't get to talk to them. All for the DMs big plan of "you find out they cared about you"... I... Really already felt that, I wanted to interact though. An equivalent is me not showing up for sessions on end and telling the DM to play my character for me and I'll take credit for saving the world or something. The only times they got to meet up was right after a mission, and well it became a choice of hang out with the party of PCs who don't talk or this NPC I care about who will at least react to me. It really feels I've just been getting that short stick with that group and told to be grateful. The PCs I've made there keep having family and friends removed from them and the party of PCs who have their own NPCs to spend time with along with their own backstory and future plots tied in... Meanwhile I get "they're busy" "you can't find them". In the most recent game where we only got small amounts of down time, I tried talking to a few but they were already chosen by the DM to talk or spend tone with other PCs... Again... Why even call on me first then? I guess again to have the last two conversations and plot threads hype up those PCs and I get "they're busy" "you can't find them"... Wasn't even encouraged to try again. After the last one I decided to stay talking to this guy who no one seemed to care about because no way would be busy right? That's the correct choice...
@@elgatochurro I mean... "They're busy with someone else". Okay? "I wait until they aren't anymore then." Sounds like a mighty reasonable response. In fact, unless the other PCs are having a truly mega private moment with the NPC, why can't your PC be there as well? Surely not all downtime talks the other PCs have with the NPCs is something that would be considered rude eavesdropping to join in on.
@@goncalocarneiro3043 Ehh tried, tried a lot of stuff. i twasd a modern game so "can i text him? leave a note? maybe make a lunchbox since theyre so busy or see them off to one of their missions" The bottom line of it was I was cucked for a few campaigns, and then called a selfish player. Keep in mind im not AGAINST talking to the other PCs, Id love to... if they could hold an actual conversation outside of the current or next objective... or more than a mere sentence like "yeah". Im running for my own group and first session was 5 hours of them mostly talking to each other in character having a blast and I was waiting her with the plot hook to put out... and then later another hour after that of more jsut mostly in character roleplaying and talk. THATS what im used to as a player, talking to everyone around me in character. Personally IDK but I did see each and every rp bit the others got and yeah im jealous... They get it handed to them, hot and ready, all prepped up and cooked on a single platter... I got "who you wanna talk to?" "uhhh idk anyone here... I guess so and so?" "so and so is busy" "ok...?" jsut to find out multiple times so and so was going to be busy servicing another pc with all this. Id be *real* happy just having a party that talks a bit. Im in a paid game now where the players dont rp much but they do talk to each other.
I like the individual downtime adjudication between sessions. I force the "training time" that used to be part of AD&D/2E rules. It forces time between adventures and it pulls some of the excess loot from the party by charging training costs. They destroy training dummies and use up other resources in practicing their skills.
I tie the adventure into downtime. Like, it's not really downtime at all, it's just time not spent adventuring, where game time passes faster. There are always decisions to make, clues to be had, planning to do, resources to muster.
Great idea for downtime with levelling, our group uses milestone so it makes sense after each "chapter" in the campaign to have some time to consolidate and plan ahead.
@@PalleRasmussenSome players and DM’s don’t like it because, let’s be real, we all know “milestone” really means “the DM lets us level up when it’s convenient for the DM.” I’m still in favor of milestone leveling myself, but there’s not that illusion of objectivity or having ‘earned’ the level that some players want.
@@Leith_Crowther I use milestone; when they reach a certain chapter I decided in the story we write, or they do the equivalent (no railroading) +50% they level up.
@@PalleRasmussen Honeslty, I don't. My group prefer role-play level up which means that when they reach their level-up time (I use xp system, not only monsters but puzzles and role-play as well, they like it), they might sit on that same level for a little longer until the right moment comes c:
In my experience, its usually pure martials that have the hardest time justifying downtime or coming up with ideas. Spellcasters can do things like make spell scrolls (arcana proficiency), research magic, etc, people with tools proficiencies can make potions, armor, whatever, and rogues will be rogues. But martials rarely do anything other than fight club, which is what most martials are RPed as in all fairness. In order to give martials more options, I usually give reward tomes or opportunities for training that include the feats that are useful but garbage compared to other martial feats. Things like learning a fighting style, a battle master maneuver (Martial Adept), the Athlete feat (I give the ASI boost since who cares its just dex or str +1 up to 20), Charger, Defensive Duelist, Durable, Grappler, Gunner, Healer (if it was an op feat, people would use it more often), Heavy Armor Master, any of the Knight feats, or Giant feats, Mage Slayer, Mounted Combatant, Revenant Blade, or Tavern Brawler. It makes it so these features come up more often, and because martials in general deserve a boost, regardless of what the brain dead designers at WoTC think. This way it makes it clearer what they're training for, and lets you introduce characters to add artificial depth to their known acquaintances and potential plot hooks. Plus it usually involves shelling out money for non-magic items which is always a good thing to have in a game.
@@morrigankasa570 It's not necessarily forcing, not anymore than "paying upkeep" is anyhow. Also, I am assuming that if the spellcasters have money to make scrolls and do extensive research, the martials will also have money to do something. Giving them this option to spend money is great, feels like an investment, the alternative may have been "guess I do nothing with my money" and that's boring and demoralising.
@@morrigankasa570 Depends on how much money people get and how you price things, I suppose. But I imagine 500 gold is enough to buy a small shop. I mean... 100 gold is a LOT of money for non adventuring folk. It's what? Like 10 000$ equivalent? So in my eyes buying a house isn't that hard a thing to do if you're level 10 or upwards. Surely for a level 3 or lower though. Big achievement.
@@goncalocarneiro3043 Perhaps, but an estate is far more then a small house. I'm talking at least 10 Acres of Land and a Large House minimum. Ideally you want to go beyond that for an Estate, 100 Acres Minimum and a huge Mansion.
For longer downtimes, I might break it up with a social or urban encounter. Have everyone declare their activity (if they haven't already done so off-screen), encounter, roll to resolve downtime activities.
Dude you are helping me so much. My first time playing I gotta run a game for my 4 kids and wife that have never played before. New DM with 4 all new players your a life saver
The trick to making downtime matter is simple, but incredibly unintuitive if you only read the PHB, DMG, Xanathar's, and Tasha's. The main point is to have downtime grant rewards and bonuses that players can use in the rest of the game. Sure, let players craft items. Also let them build fortresses/headquarters. Let them attract followers and minions. Build armies. Build Spy networks. Schools. Adventuring Academies. Monasteries and temples. Libraries, wizard towers, and demiplanes. Don't just say "You carouse for two weeks. You got crunk." Have that carousing reveal plot hooks and calls to adventure the entire party can benefit from. When the wizard sends their Simulacrum to sit in the corner of a bar and hand out quests to level one npcs have the big rewards those NPCs find end up in the PCs hands. Have rumors the bard's and rogue's spy networks spread impact the wealth and status of the noble that pissed off the party 5 levels ago. If a player has the actor feat let them run a theater troupe that satirizes the big bad and deifies the PCs and their victories then reflect that positive public opinion during social encounters. Give the fighter an army, give the druid a grove/haunted forest, the barbarian their own tribe, the rogue their own mafia, the religious characters a church or cult, the Int characters an information network, and the Cha characters a propaganda office or red light district. Give each player their own empire to run once they hit tier 2 levels and a party base they can dump gold into. Once the party gets their hands on a few sets of sending stones have their followers check in with the party and how their downtime activities are doing at the start of every session. Throw minor complications at the empires owned by one or two players and have the players issue orders on how to deal with those problems. Hell, have each player make backup characters that are lower level than the main PC party and have one session every now and then where the players play their followers going off on a side quest while the main party is dealing with a bigger fish. For help on doing all this look up the Acquisitions Incorporated book, the Ravnica book, and dig up a copy or pdf of the 3e book Stronghold Builder's Guidebook. Acq Inc gives intro rules for managing a party headquarters and being part of a larger organization. Ravnica gives all the rules you need for the players to climb the ranks in an organization and eventually run everything. Half the Renown tracks in Ravnica's backgrounds give the PCs a dozen or so low CR faction/guild NPCs to boss around and brief guidelines on what to do with them aside from letting them die in combat. The 3e Stronghold book is the best resource in any edition for building whatever bases your players might want and filling them with expensive and useful magic items.
I usually run downtime outside of the game session, using our dedicated Discord server. This works nicely for my groups because it gives me the opportunity to focus on each character and run minor social encounters that tie in with their chosen activity. I also tend to end each session on a cliffhanger to be resolved over discord between sessions, which I’ve found really helps to keep my players engaged over the two weeks we have between sessions.
You could also change the urgency situation. Instead of "now we know the dragon is going to attack the town any day!", go for "we heard there might be a dragon, we need to spend some time in town gathering information", or instead of "we found a letter describing the duke's evil plan, we need to stop it instantly!", try "we found a letter in a cipher with the duke's seal, we need to find someone we trust and wait for them to decipher it". Modern superhero d&d makes that harder though, players expect to be able to do literally everything themselves.
My game is essentially Downtime: the game 😂😅 I keep track of time well, and let my players know that I will go at what pace they decide. They wanna take a tenday for stuff? Sure. If in one day you want to spend your adventuring day doing downtime stuff? You can do as much as time allows. I've found that players actually enjoy that 😅
One of the things I’ve been trying out during downtime is a bounty board of random creatures based on a dice roll for difficulty(CR). They’re small, 20-30minute or less adventures that get the players paid if they meet the requirements of the bounty. For example a 5-star (high difficulty) bounty for a party of level 3’s would be a barbed devil or something similar in CR. I also never reveal what the creature is until they meet it. Sometimes they even end up befriending the target if they’re not super dangerous (ogre with headband of intellect, who loved to pick mushrooms and brew potions) They’re short and the players love them because they’re getting paid, and the ones who mostly enjoy combat still get their fix. This week they are leave 8, there’s six of them, and there is going to be a 10* bounty of a death knight that is cranked up to the max. 3 legendary magic items, triple multi attack, etc. Not meant to kill them but defeat them for his master for story reasons
You needn't always make the bounty board have slaying quests. You could also in addition make some other classic types of bounties like "I need these items" or "Someone or something was stolen" or "I need something fixed" or "I need someone to find out why and how this happened". The players don't NEED to accept those missions if they already love slaying ones, especially if you make new ones pathetic or depressing such as someone losing a crappy meaningless item and offering seven copper for it, or an insane person asking people to complete a ritual that doesn't exist because he has ghosts in his head, or a parent that's disillusioned about their kid being dead after being missing for several years. BUT if they do accept it out of curiosity... Plenty plot hooks to make. Maybe that meaningless item was actually very meaningful to the homeless old man who lost their only memory of a friend and it ends up being emotional, or maybe the old man offers something else besides the seven copper be it services as a worker, informant or an advisor depending on their background. Maybe the insane person wasn't as insane as thought, and although there aren't any ghosts, the ritual does exist somewhat and could be refined to become a pseudo-banish spell and the insane man turns out to have some untapped talent, or they found an important guide on ritual spells. Maybe the parent actually swears they saw their child around, and it turns out it was a doppelganger and that could go in several directions, from "the kid was a doppelganger all along and fled home out of guilt for being an impostor" to "there is a doppelganger conspiracy happening and they are very uncreative or cruel, so they taunt the families of those they steal/kill by blatantly wearing their forms".
"Players almost never want to take longer than the bare minimum time for downtime" .. tell that to my current group who would happily roleplay away a whole session or three. Last time they had a downtime of more than a few days in a town they took 2 or 3 sessions and only moved on when i threw something at them lol My other group hardly roleplayed though and downtime, if it happens, was breezed over in 10 minutes.
This is a great video. My players love sometimes we will spend an entire session on DT but I also incorporate what their doing into role play. My players aren't big on in-character role play, but they love when their downtime visibly passes they in-game time and affects the world and their characters.
To be fair, the "Now time" version of downtime is a holdover from earlier editions where an adventure was expected to be over in a single session (Hence why earlier editions focused so much on killing monsters, gaining xp and seeing how much loot you could get back to town) because older editions didn't have short and long rests, it was a brutal game based on the idea of simply being a mercenary who didn't happen to get drafted into a wargame army. So, if the session ended, time passed in the game world at the same rate as the real world and you definitely didn't want your adventurers staying for a week or more straight in the dungeon where dangerous stuff could happen to them.
Thanks for the vid! I'm preparing for my first game as DM, and your videos are like fresh cool well water upon my steaming head. My adventure starts in small village and I'm thinking how my players would spend time in it, what they would find... About downtime: our DM has a habit to play and create npcs, so you can think that this npcs have a quest for you, or something special in their pockets. But no, it's just DM playing to make environment alive. Sometimes it's fun, but sometimes... confusing.
In my running campain, i do downtime every long rest (wich is 3 days) and all the players agreed to choose a craft for the pc in the character creation to have something to do among other things in the downtime, now i got one merchant, one blacksmith and one diplomat, wich works great in the spelljammer setting
I actually really enjoy downtime but o think my DM does it in a good way. We had 15 weeks of downtime and we could combine things into the max of 15 weeks so buying/selling magic items took a week. Learning a new skill took 9 weeks. Fighting or working or crafting took a week. We literally just listed what we wanted to do and than everything was applied at once
If you are properly tracking time in the campaign, then Downtime can take place between sessions. We run ours over discord during the week, then hit the table running at the weekend. Though this is only possible with [Strict Timekeeping].
Could you elaborate? Do you use a 1:1 time throughout the week where everything happens in real time? Also what methods of time keeping do you use, and what is the scale of your campaign?
Sure@@lukeremsberg5796, I'll try to be concise, but I'll state this up front: "1:1 Time is a rule for tracking time, progressing the in-game world, managing multiple groups, and securing downtime opportunities for players. It has 2 components: 1) For each day that passes between sessions, one day also passes in the game world. This was discovered by reading P.37 of the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. 2) Parties whose adventures carry them into the future are removed from play until the in-game calendar catches up to them. E.g. If a party spends 3 weeks travelling through the wilderness, and another week delving into a dungeon, the party will be removed from play for 4 weeks. This application of 1:1 time was inferred from play reports, descriptions of campaign play, and experimentation. Frank Mentzer's description of having a newly-levelled character locked in "training jail" exposed us to Gary's use of this method to determine how long downtime would remove characters from play." When I say Strict Timekeeping, the above (1:1) is what I am referring to. What Luke describes as "Abstract time", "fast time", or "now time" I consider to be Variable Timekeeping (most tables work this way). To your question: - Do you use a 1:1 time throughout the week where everything happens in real time? The simple answer is: No. 1:1 time is not that granular. As for Downtime, we are tracking days, weeks and months, not necessarily hours, minutes and seconds. The slightly more complex answer is that the utilisation of 1:1 time creates an Always On aspect to the game. Which may require/necessitate the players to resolve something or a DM adjudication, before the next Session game occurs. - what methods of time keeping do you use? Utilising 1:1 timekeeping requires a complete sea change in mindset from the way most Variable tables play. And I haven't quite gotten it down myself. I am currently using as close to Strict timekeeping as possible, utilising the 5e Lifestyle expenses (PHB) and the Downtime workweeks (XGE) to structure the overall pace of the campaign. - what is the scale of your campaign? Not quite sure what you are referring to when you say "scale"? My current campaign is a 5e game (levels 1 - 20) with 6 players. Though thanks to implementing "Training Jail" (the time required to train to level up) each player has a 'stable' of characters, as growing to higher levels requires more time (5e DMG). Though I have seen 1:1 time being used to coordinate several different tables (different campaigns) together. True multiverse hopping D&D.
This video is the "perfect timing" for me😊 Thanks a lot for it! I planned to make a downtime period for my next session as my players wanted to shop/read books/go to taverns and now I got more ideas on how to play around it! (Quite a new DM here :D)
Super helpful video! I'm a fairly new GM and in the campaign I've been running, we definitely have potential and need for occasional downtime. This has given me some good ideas for how to run this better the next time the situation arises.
I usually play very linear games. With all the loot my module was giving I was thinking “hey wtf do they do with all this cash” when I looked into it the answer was down time activities. Strongholds, crafting, and other activities. Finishing up a current game and starting up a sandbox style game.
I don't use downtime when I DM often (once or twice an 'arc' usually), but when I do I have it last an in-game week or more. As for how long we take on it: at least half a session (so 2-4 hours), no longer than 3 sessions. It is essentially a low-to-no combat, low-to-no event period for characters to roleplay, shop, level-up, and partake in some minor events that occur during the downtime. The restriction I have on how much they can do is essentially up to 1 activity per day on average (based off how much they can do during a short rest or long rest). Limitations based off how long things take in the books (or in my homebrew notes) helps a lot if players try to do too much during a given bit of downtime.
Downtime could be great in a good group, when everyone gets invested in something. I have seen a whole group decide to build a base, each player wanted something to do with it, so it became a group activity, and kept everyone engaged. I have seen other groups who love a good shopping spree and they all go to the shops together. I find there is a lot of fun to be had in downtime for many players if done well...there are a few players that just want to fight monsters, who will never have fun, but if you find ways to get everyone involved, it's sometimes hard to make them stop the downtime events...which is not so bad if everyone is enjoying it. I do really like your rule of requiring downtime to level up, and I have been using it myself the last couple years since I first heard you doing it. I do think you should write into the game ways to not have a since of urgency. I find it works best to have and ebb and flow cycle, where things get real intense then it calms a bit before slowly ramping back up again. Downtime and level ups should fit in those calm times, and once it is over the game should start getting back to the intensity. This can be done by having nothing major left between quests, which works great with Milestone leveling, or have some event not happening for a week or 2, that can start off the next series of events. Sometimes these can be hard to pull off, but it is something special if you can get the players in a state where they are really ready for downtime story wise, and not feeling like they are just wasting time while the bad guys are still working on their plans. Try to make it feel natural, that there is little to do for a bit.
Depending on available time, scheduling etc you could ask players broadly what they would like to do, then if it can be resolved during the session with a few clikclacks do so, but if a player wants to do some more intricate or rp heavy things find a bit of time during the week to call or meet to do that. Downtime is usually the only time it is common to split the party anyway, so it would be ideal time to have a 1to1 about secret plots, character development beyond the downtime or general feedback. Most groups have a group chat nowadays so you could even say "Hey, (dm) and (player) are going to call/meet tonight at 6. Anyone want to join (players character) in their downtime? Yet to be a campaign DM but its a nice thought in my head. I feel it would make players more invested in their characters and be especially effective for the more reserved players that shy away from taking up time in session. I find myself missing opportunities because of that so i imagine many others do too.
The first example you provided about the lich is an excellent way to integrate a character into an adventure. He adventures to gain knowledge and artifacts to become a lich. Downtime is then the part if the game where his personal story is advanced. This is also great for a milestone system. Everytime someone is able to progress a component of their personal story, they gain a level.
So, I have some questions 😊 But I want to clarify beforehand for context that I only have low level characters (dead or alive), that I'm not familiar with every rule and especially not with the dungeon master guide. So, here are my thoughts: It sounds like one week of downtime means you need to properly plan it and take into consideration that the big bad or the evil forces are potentially getting away? How can that be circumvented? Or do they just decide not to backstab the players' plans? And in the case of some "urgency mechanic", what does it mean for the experience points and level ups (and for the difficulty of the adventure), when the group chooses not to take a downtime? Do exp and lvl ups expire or stack? And do the required downtimes stack as well? (I feel like in the case of stacking level ups downtimes must stack as well, in order for it to make sense.) Additionally, I find that 100 g per activity is very costly, but maybe that's just my low level perspective and it's intentional that you can't necessarily do something in your downtime. That said, maybe I'm just not getting it or maybe my D&D group does things differently. (Edit: Maybe I should join the discord server because it seems like that'd also be a good platform for more insights.)
I needed this so much. I struggle with downtime as it always seems to be the last thing on the list of things I'm preparing. Thanks! It's breakfast as I'm watching this. Bacon time!
If someone is taking a shot for every instance of you saying time, then they will die of alcohol poisoning, would barely have time to pour the next shot
My players recently came into some downtime as well, and I thought it went pretty well so I thought I'd share. The players reclaimed their hometown from an expressive lord and rival to one of the player characters. The town had been under this rule for roughly a year before the players were able to reclaim it, and thus it needed a good amount of TLC in order to get back to being a functioning town. I gave them an in-game month to accomplish goals and aid in the rebuilding of the town, giving them something to spend their hard-earned gold as well as their skills to accomplish. I took about an average of 15 minutes per party member, and allowed them to summarize for me the things they wanted to accomplish during this period. - The druid and her mother worked to cleanse the surrounding forests of the darkness that the werewolf cult that had been under the employ of the lord had caused (the cult is still not fully eradicated) - The Paladin worked to rebuild the religion of the town, as well as work with the fighter to train up a new militia. - The fighter worked to restore his family's farm and also assist with the training - The Wizard noble worked on the infrastructure and boosting of the economy by sending out envoys to the surrounding towns - And the rogue worked on teaching life skills to orphaned children as well as generally assist with the other duties. During each of their 15 minute episodes, I would leave them clues to the next plot-hooks in the story, giving them each a moment in which something personal or contrary to their work would happen due to the next adventure. This seemed to work well for us and allowed me to pave the road for the next adventure as well. Just thought I'd share. I don't comment very often. Thank you for the awesome video
My group is weird. They tend to enjoy down time more than adventuring lol If they had things their way, they would role play all of it out, every single time.
Great points. IC downtime activity between sessions on Discord if DM agrees local area is safe for x days, OOC downtime otherwise to refine your character persona/arc and NPC relations/hooks with DM.
Adding to my other post on downtime, sometimes the DM let us do the work. For instance, when we wanted to hire some mercenaries. It was up to the players to decide how many they wanted of what type of mercenary. Buy the equipment needed and make a roster of those mercenaries. We usually split the costs between the players unless it was just for that one character. The DM might adjust the cost and give us an amount of time to accomplish this. There were many times that we had to hire mercenaries to guard a place we took over as a base. After all, you have to stash all that treasure somewhere. It's pretty hard for your characters to carry around gold statues, priceless rugs and tapestries and those extra magic swords and armor.
I give players time for carousing. They can fit two to three a day, depending on what happens. They also have down time during training, and there's festivals and stuff.
i usually let my players do shopping as abstract time, and typically right before the next adventure begins. I also try to limit magic items, one because of power creep and two because i always envisioned magic items, even the simplest ones, to be hard and or time consuming to create. you need the right materials, the right smith/tailor, and additional magic input aside from any the materials might provide. i count this as separate from downtime. I use downtime to give my players time to RP and interact with NPC'S and each other while pursuing their personal non-adventuring goals(romances, business opportunities, schmoozing up to nobility/government officials, seeking intel for their personal backstory plot lines, training or studying something new to them etc) its usually in Now Time. and the way i keep it from getting to dull for everyone is by giving each of them 10-20 minutes stints before i go to the next character, and then we just cycle back through all the players(usually based on initiative rolls) like a turn order in combat for the session. most of the time though it leaves us with session time to do non-downtime stuff. but typically my players will know ahead of time if we are doing a downtime/time skip so they can pre-plan.
After downtime gets resolved out of session, I run a post-time skip scene called “Greatest Hits,” where I dedicate a short adventure to resolving all the complications (Xanathar’s) accrued over downtime.
Good one, I use downtown for players to lick their wounds, resupply, train/level up, and plot hooks for current or future adventures. Juicy juicy plot hooks.
For the game session after the climactic battle against the BBEG of the story arc I enjoy a downtime game session of pure social interaction everyone gets to participate, as a party and an individual PCs own thing. It's all improv and most likely not one die is rolled. The downtime activity can be anything - a party at a noble's house, shopping, a PC engaging in a personal goal, a PC visiting family, anything that has nothing to do with campaign plot, no enemies to fight, no threats of danger to deal with. Of course this is not for every game session, but it's perfect for when the previous game session was an intense go nova or die combat.
Honestly, this is when some of the best RP can take place. As others have said, you don't have to draw a hard line between downtime and the rest of the game. As a DM, it's a great opportunity to let your players take the lead, lean into / riff off of what they're doing, and create new story elements -- either on the fly or to incorporate later. Giving players a good head's up that a session will be downtime-oriented and somewhat open-ended is a good idea, though, so they can think about what they want to do ahead of time.
I admit, for me more often than not, downtime is more problematic as a player than as a DM. I once played a character who whenever the DM gave us like a day or so of downtime before we left for the next adventure, had so little to do, he ended up writing a service manual of sheer boredom. X3> As a DM I do downtime even in written modules at a few points where I find it appropriate, up to like 3-4 days to a week depending on circumstances (it's hard to find a vacation spot in Omu, Barovia or in Avernus, lol). I tend to let players know in advance that 'soon' they'd have about X-number of days of downtime and let them decide what to do. It especially helps the wizards copy spells. I usually keep it to 1 medium scale activity or upto 2 minor activities, depending on circumstances. Also one of my groups is absolutely fine with having full sessions that are essentially 'slice of life in Waterdeep', but some groups might not enjoy it as much and prefer to streamline it.
Mehm?... 🤨 dude... Meme rhymes with seem, seam, ream, deem, and team. That's ok, i remember when, as a teen that had been reading innumerable swords and sorcery books like Conan, Elric, etc, one day i discovered that chaos did not rhyme with house. Lol. Btw, great video. 😊
Here's my take on downtime from the days of Basic and AD&D. During an adventure we have left to resupply and recuperate for a day to 3 days before returning. A simple purchase and rolling for hit points recovery to see how long it takes. After a successful adventure we have had Dwarf and Elf characters that took a year off to do the things that they wanted to do. Some things do take a long time to accomplish. This of course pissed off the Human Magic User character because they have a shorter lifespan. So the choices were to wait for the others or continue playing with other characters we wanted to play in the meantime. However, this same Human Magic User took months of downtime to make scrolls and potions. So we played our characters and the other player had a choice of either not playing or using a different character until time caught up and his Magic User was finished making magic items. We have also had short sessions where each player either told the DM or wrote down what their character was doing. The DM would just let each of us know how long it took, what we accomplished (some, all, etc) and how much it cost us. And what ever took the longest was how much downtime we had. If yours took say 3 weeks but mine only took 1 week, then I could let the DM know what my character would be doing for the other 2 weeks. It could be partying (spend more cash) or finding rumors (spend more cash and get a note from the DM) or a mage might try to find additional magic supplies (spend a lot more cash). We have also had entire sessions dedicated to downtime. At higher levels there can be quite a bit that some characters will need to do that requires a bit more detail to go through. Such as building a castle, keep or mansion. Or creating a powerful magic item.
I run games chronologically in game as Mostly downtime. A simple rule of thumb - I make adventure paths, lasting about 3 interconnected adventures (about 1-3 sessions each). These are usually time crunch and do not have room for more than a week long downtime during the path. The rest of the chronological Year for the characters is essentially downtime. Even with a group of nine players, I have never spent more than 1.5 hours adjudicating the downtime. And sometimes I'll even do micro adventures for that downtime involving 1-2 player characters
I’ve always run games with downtime. I’m running a tier 3 table, and they are pretty close to tier 4. Since I gave them all lordship over their own individual towns, they have a ton of money. Downtime is great. My RP heavy player that enjoys court politics uses it to flesh out his town and meet with nobles. My combat-oriented players use that time to research and craft magic items that match their builds (I use the Xanathar’s guide rules). I also let the players start an activity in one set of downtime and finish it in the next one, which is good when they are crafting higher rarity items. I typically just run a downtime session, but I let everyone know ahead of time so they can choose what they want to do, and I give them their own short optional side quest that gives minor benefits. It takes longer, but it helps keep the combat players engaged. In fact, my players actually asked me to include full downtime sessions. They were engaged with the storyline, but they wanted an opportunity to pursue personal projects. They basically wanted a “shopping episode” or “beach episode” where the main plot isn’t the only thing on their minds.
15:42 Okay 106 Downtime (spoken) 24 Downtime (written) 26 Time (spoken) 4 Time (written) 1 Prep time (spoken) 1 Downside (spoken) 1 "Mem" (spoken) 1 "mgame" (written) 1 Table time (spoken) 1 Table time (written) 3 Now time (spoken) 1 Now time (written) This is the part I started to regret seperating times. 2 Slow time (spoken) 1 Slow time (written) 4 Abstract or fast time (spoken) 1 Abstract or fast time (written) 2 Real time (spoken) 3 In-game time (spoken) 1 Fast time (spoken) 5 Times (spoken) 1 Preperation time (spoken)
Whenever I ran downtime in my DnD campaigns, the players were allowed to do two tasks, one major and one minor. A minor task might be carousing at the local tavern for a couple of nights (and possibly getting tossed into the local hoosecow for drunken antics) or advancing a romance with another PC or NPC. A major task would be something like training or investigating something important to the PC outside of adventuring like who murdered his wife, hunting down his former commander who betrayed him and left him for dead or trying to prove his innocence in a crime. That kind of stuff.
The downtime level up works especially well with wizards supposed to be coming up with new spells. Some character backgrounds will focus a lot on doing something in downtime.
The way I've always run downtime is no different than any encounter. I mean I narrate summery of days tell something interesting happens. But it go turn base, player says "I go to x" I say "ok, what are you going?" (looking at next player)"oh! I'm gonna head first x." OK, next player exct... tell back to first, "ok, you arrive at x" player 1, ok, i do x." OK, next player. This goes on while keeping in mind the amount of time passing. Gets the players engaged in a day. Then summarize where needed, patrons and pantheons can easily appear to spice downtime up as well. One rule I say don't forget, it's a turn based game, main character syndrome, let them do a action, speaking can apply, then look at the next player, and ask them for input, go round the table, then Mr. Main character can continue, but you've given chance for everyone to be involved.
Honestly, I think downtime is really good for characters that enjoy the more roleplay part of the game, since it allows them to interact with the world in a more relaxed way (getting to know NPCs in the cities, look for information or even advance their non-adventurous aspirations). Maybe there are campaigns that allow more of this type of downtime, since campaigns that happen in a big city (Dragonheist for example) are a lot easier to run like this instead of a more dungeon crawl type of adventure. But to me, downtime scanes end up being the funniest ones, since they allow a lot more hijinks thanks to the nature of the interactions (after all, since they are downtime, it's a lot less likely for something that happens to turn into a life or death sittuation and as such, to require the characters taking the sittuation as seriously as they would with a real threat). And sometimes, things that happen in the downtime can end up affecting the adventure, as in, if a character uses that time to gain the trust of a faction, they might help them in a moment where they might be in danger.
downtime is a very foreign concept for me as a DM since 1977. Have had a player ask about creating his own spell once. Currently playing in a game where the DM has informed that downtime is a requirement especially once my character has reached level 5. Apparently my character will have to go travelling to find a mentor to train which costs a lot of money (that I don't have ) and in the interim the DM suggested I play another character. All of this is very strange to me. I don't have much interest in playing some other character for a few sessions just so my character can level up. My personal opinion is to ask the players if they want downtime and offer to prepare something on a solo play basis should they want too.
Is it really so rare to want downtime? I always wish we had more as a player, and as a DM my players are always loving their downtime because they can train for new Feats, work on proficiencies, work on the brewery they bought, etc.
I actually force my group more or less to take downtimes. But I always Text them a week before the Session they might get the Chance to go shopping or take care of Personal Business. They don't have to, but as you say - if the opportunity is offered, players love to take it. And if my rouge has done all the prepwork before, he might spend time scouting. Or the paladin prays a whole day which might give him a little buff etc. And if they want to take a break but time is ticking, i openly tell them "three hours won't hurt, but remember, you never know what might happen on the way" .... so they're unsure, and priorities are set. Usually 1-2 urgent things are done and they get back on the adventure again.
well, this was a bit of an unusual watch of yours. normally, I come here to learn new things and improve as a DM. the learning never stops and even after years I still get ideas of how I could've run things in a better or more interesting way after the fact. but this time, as I watched, I realized I am probably already handling downtime pretty well... Feels good, man.
I run downtime like some animes, where, downtime can either be actual time (days, weeks or months) or downtime is happening in the background of the adventures. For instance, we'll have a downtime episode after an adventure, but all that downtime stuff was done actually during the "actual downtime" of the previous adventure in the background. I also don't "regulate" how much time is downtime. I used to do a week, but i find it to be too restraining. sometimes its a day , sometimes its a month sometimes its a few hours. if their downtime is trying to introduce themselves to the king, that's cool. Downtime activities that "would" take long are happening inthe background with hirelings and workers. FOr instance, working on a stronghold is interesting, because it reminds me of when u have a house built. How often are u actually there while hte builders are working? Probably in the beginning and during hte inspection. Once they have the blueprints u're good to go
In terms of down time, what about putting cues in that leave space open for down time. That letter the players found talks of stuff going down a week from now.
I frankly LOVE downtime. While it is true that it is "less risky" than adventuring by a huge margin in-game time-wise since in a matter of minutes it's do or die while in an adventure with maybe a couple hours of respite in between, downtime can be tense as well in a different sense. You can have encounters during downtime as well, even if they aren't combat ones. Once per activity, or in-game week, whatever makes most sense, give each player an encounter based on what they're doing if it's important enough. Trying to find a buyer for a magical item? Roleplay the exchange, make that NPC notworthy, they can buy a magical item, after all, reward the player for giving a discount or haggling for a better price by giving them a possible ally (or less of an enemy), or extra gold (and maybe a rival) respectively. Trying to create a stronghold? Where does the player character find the workers? Maybe have a little comedic subplot about a strike that delays construction the character must solve, or, if they use elementals and constructs as servants maybe a few otherwordly portals appear from entities seeking to control those elementals/constructs. Working or participating in gladiatorial battles? Create a noteworthy client NPC and RP a token exchange, run a combat encounter for a gladiatorial match and make it gimmicky, like the gladiators must use certain equipment given to them, or have an objective beside beating each-other up. Maybe an NPC wishes to pay the character to throw the match so their opponent looks better, maybe they gain a reputation for being too powerful among their peers, maybe they prove too weak instead. Does the player character have political influence? Roleplay a public event or a political assembly they must/are heavily incentivised to appear in so they meet their political rivals/allies and find out what the public's opinion of them is. Maybe during their speech, one very brave commoner tosses a rotten fruit at them and yells out some things that may or may not have any truth to them before the guards toss them out, or the player intervenes. Plenty chances to make what could be ignored entirely a bit unique, a glimpse into the day to day life of the player characters.
Frankly, I like it when a game system provides rules for certain things that fall into the downtime, especially such as increasing skills or learning new spells. Sure, finding buyers or sellers for specific stuff can and probably should be time-consuming BUT so should be learning spells or skills. Thus I like it when such things are covered by house- or official rules. (I prefer to use house rules because those official rules are often super restrictive or totally over-convoluted.) i.e. In my games a player can allocate 10 hours a day to "work" and still rest & recover, or he can allocate up to 16 hours and will not recover anything! Then we allocate time demands to activities, like learning a certain spell takes 20 hours of study or increasing a certain skill takes 10 hours of practice etc. Obviously, we make a list of such activities and I like to make it a bit flexible by setting a minimum time + a role of dice - modifiers. Example: you are moderately skilled in lockpicking and want to become good at that skill so I'd say it takes 5+1d8-2 (-2 for your moderate skills) hours or with good tutelage 3+1d6-2 hours. So you find a tutor and the increase takes between 2 and 11 hours. That role is either done openly at the table or if offline it is done by me as the GM. This does various things for me and my groups: It limits what is doable in a certain amount of time. Also, it makes it possible for a player to plan his downtime and achieve multiple things. Furthermore, it cuts down on the player's turn if downtime is done at the table. Because after his role the next player will go over his "first" activity. Obviously, the players will be able to plan their time, react to the results etc. Stuff like finding tutors or buyers/sellers and so on can be covered easily and fast via skill checks ( maybe a house rule similar to the above) etc. or via playing.
When I do downtime I try to pace it so we go into downtime at the end of a session and resolve it at the start at the next, I ask my players what their characters will do for how long, and then I go into the next session prepared and spend no more then 30mins at the most on more involved scenes but aim for 10mins for simple scenes.
I like to give my players downtime after an adventure or when they get to a new town. I’ve given my party downtime to enjoy the festivities of a local festival. The party has chosen to train or shop during a few day downtime when they were waiting for their new ship to be constructed.
Last downtime i got, a whole session of downtime: I wanna take some if the party out to drink. "According to the pf2 rules you can spend money on equipment, use skills to gain money, craft a magical item, blah blah blah. The rules say you can't just go have fun and roleplay with the group."
It should be a downtime but you shoudn't "play" a downtime. It should be discussed in 3rd person, when players declare their plans and actions and DM resolves it according to checks and palns. It should be a predesined "pauses" in adventure for downtime. Like in books, when one adventure (or part of adventure) is over and heroes can do something else until new threat emegres, new information appear or someone found out something new about new case or the old one. Else the whole game is nonstop runing against the time. Downtime needed to persue personal goals, to get familiar with the surrouding, to get some contacts and NPCs to care about. Downtime is needed to make the game part of the character life story, not the end of it. To make a downtime convincing you should put some predefined pauses in adventures: they defeated a villina but have no information on who have been his patron; they found a map or a text but need a time to decipher it (themself or with a help of NPC sage); they done what they could and have to wait for villins to take a move. The opportunities could be endless, but must be planned ahead and discussed with the players ("ok, now it time for downtime. anyone have anything in mind?")
1000 strikes to master a technique. Coding is said to take 1.5 years to functionally "Master". Tradeskill unions take 10 years to become "Master" level. I like to hash mark the skills list per week. I ask them early on and periodically remind them about what their lifestyle is or "camp habits". They have a 24 hour limit to each day and they basically fill in with 30 minutes per main meal, adventure 12 hours and if they push too long for too many days, than they can begin receiving debuffs if done too frequently (kinda like a drive clock on a long hauler truck) 8 hours for long rest unless they are a race that requires less. That leaves 3 hours for down time. 3*5+32=47 (I round up to 50) available hours for "downtime" per week to be spread out if they carry a travel kit for that skill or can reasonably explain how they spend the time. 50*78 = new sellable skill (like upcycling leather armor into strips, adding buckles and flourish, and selling belts back in town). Of course that time is cut down if they join a Guild or if they can read a book. So far the way I run this is minimally invasive to the campaign and my players tend to like it once they get past the slightly delayed gratification. Each dungeon is also measured in long rests and there are plenty of things racking up in the background to keep them from abusing the short and long rest mechanics. I also adding a "camp rest" option to the long and short rest system for them to get a few reasonable buffs from slightly more cushioned set up as long as the situation or dungeon has a decent spot. That also tends to incentivized them to spend gold on hirelings and survival/tactical skills to pick a camp spot and set it up to lower odds of random camp defense encounter. Artificer, magic user, tank, diplomat, pet handler, cook, healer, menders, hunters, trappers, and a bunch of other support opportunities. My players like it and it's been a good resource sink so far. The template gets set up offline usually and it only takes a few minutes to adjust for terrain and situation.
“Keep costs and difficulties low enough to be accessible at low levels.” Yeah, loot is barely a thing in most of the games I get to play in, so my characters never really have enough to to do more than survive in whatever downtime we get. It’s frustrating. “I guess I’ll scribe another first level spell scroll, and maintain my low standard of living otherwise. Doing some research on the leads we got would be nice, but my dice have been pretty cold tonight, and losing money because of a roll is frustrating.”
I break out Red Dragon Inn and Three Dragon Ante when players declare they want to do some downtime. They're good distractions and breaks away from dungeon crawls and the like. Also way more interactive than "Roll to see if I'm getting drunk. Where are the cheeeeetos?!"
With this video i realized that my group almost always is on downtime because 2/3 is wanted on the island we have to go to and i'm busy tryna get to know everyone(My old character died and i made a new one and that stuff)
I definitely like downtime as a way to have time skips between quests/BBEGs, and as a way to let the PCs progress (level-up or xp spending) in their abilities without seeming like they're instantly/drastically improving "just because" they cast a few spells and/or stabbed some creatures which just so happened to resolve the quest they were on. Using it for skill/feature growth, item crafting/procurement, base/henchmen matters, and other such meaningful in-game world activities. Definitely keep the actual game time spent on downtime at a reasonable level so as to not diminish the involvement of the whole group. The Players know that progression happens, so they can have some notes prepared to speed through the process, and the same for their downtime activities. The 1:1 slow time seems ok and can be fine if infrequent and short, but I'd prefer to play as a group to accomplish group goals because that's what the Players have come together for. In a 1-20 campaign (lasted about 120 sessions) I was in for D&D, there was roughly 45 total adventure days, 0 downtime days, and perhaps as many as 10 travel days - each with potential for encounters, and most did. Fast tracked Demi-gods, as one plot ran into another, which ran into yet another. Wasn't a lot of breathing room.
How would you go about using downtime and needing downtime to level up in adventures that mostly take place in hostile environments or that expect the party to level up several times in the same hostile place, such as some parts of Icewind Dale and Out of the Abyss, or any point in Tomb of Annihilation after they enter the jungle?
The confirmation link for the newsletter subscription gave me a 404 not found. :) When I clicked again, it told me that I already confirmed it. Exciting adventure to know if it worked or not. :)
At low level? "I am the Child of Paladine and Takhisis. I have access to the treasuries of both churches. I will take a +1000 sword, shield of Death, Armor of Immortality......".
The current campaign i am creating slowly incorporates downtime activities they can access, but that is it on my part. I am leaving it to the players to do them when they can and/or want.
It's of course great if the players have something two or more characters can together. Say, one character wants a secret and hidden base and the character isn't the Rogue. Why not work together to make that base not just protected from, but from the thief's guild? Depending on the character the Rogue might enhance his standing in the thief's guild at the same time by making it known he 'knows' someone. He doesn't have to tell who it is, but just have some in the guild know he knows . Any other character in the group can aid the guild through the Rogue to further the guild's goals. On the other hand, a character wanting to become a noble might help a noble NPC with a problem with the help of another character in the group. Say the Cleric of the group just learned 'Cure Disease' and the son of a noble had a tryst that left him with an embarrassing souvenir on his side, one that you can catch only in the poorer parts of the city people would talk if he went to a temple to be cured., Of course that leaves them indebted to both characters. Even a temple can have use for a favour from a noble. And so on. Depending on the setup the GM can do it with few to no dice rolls and it might give the town more colour. In short, you can do more in downtime if the players have activities together and as a result downtime isn't so boring any more. It can even happen, that the players the GM can't work wit, because he is busy with the others, pay close attention what the others are doing which results in less boredom during downtime in general. Sometimes they might even get inspired by what the others are doing and downtime becomes, in part at least,a group activity.
I have a character who is an information broker and diplomat. I e-mail the DM and tell him what I am researching or other wise attempting to do. They tell me what I can achieve and how long it will take. Then I get off their backs. Usually, I can do something diplomatic or information wise. He also uses either channel to introduce plot hooks or other information.
I usually give players 3o mins each for down time usally takes 1/2 the game but everyone gets thier shot, and i always set up phone call ahead of the game to know what they are after and figure out what has to rped
If players say they don't want downtime then fine - when adventuring none of the party can cook, look after their animals. repair torn clothing or repair damaged items, Their clothes get dirty. They smell. Villagers don't welcome them, their families and friends lose touch. patience, and eventually disown them . . . Plus, of course, they become physically and mentally exhausted, traumatised by the things they witness (or do), and may become psychotic due the the constant strain and horror of continuous battling.
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Hi Luke, I'm dan. I've been playkng since before you were born,
Real-time is how OG DnD was played, 1 week away from game is 1 week in world time
The way Luke said "meme" hurt me physically. Aside from that, great advice!
Took me a second to catch it; wondered what a "mem" was 😅
I really wish you weren’t so right
he briefly switched to French
I came to the comments just for this
He’s had some interesting pronunciations as of late. I believe last video he pronounced scythe as sky•th 😅
"don't take a week of real time for a week of game time" next you're going to tell me to not actually stab my players to death
Down time is definitely needed. My biggest bummer was playing an artificer to make cool things for the party but never getting time to do it
Yep, this is me. We have a time crunch campaign, I'm lucky to grab a week
Not acceptable. Bad DM.
Yeah I have an artificer in my campaign and in the downtime while leveling where I generated a guild for him and let him craft and also obtain information to further the plot.
For a couple years back '84-'85 I ran a game based in a medieval-ish city. The player characters entire adventuring careers arose from the consequences of relationships formed during what others would call "downtime". If someone got in trouble with the thieves guild, it was probably some npc they personally knew already and felt obligated to go extract from an uncomfortable situation. Every "downtime" contained within it the seeds for the next adventure. Modern game masters seem to simply not get the sheer fun and utility of downtime.
My last one gave us a full on session of downtime... Said I couldn't take some of the party out to drink... "The downtime rules according to pf2 are that you either spend money on requirement, craft magical items, use skills to gain money, etc."
Before that the other DM of the same group was simply... Telling me the people I wanted to talk to were busy. When he chose me as one of the first for down time and the NPCs I'd wanna see were already predetermined to have downtime with the other PCs... "Oh you can't find her, she's busy, he's busy" and this happened in multiple sessions... Idk why I even got to go BEFORE the other PCs and it just says I'm not important. As he's outright got full on conversations and background and quest hooks planned for the other characters but me? I get to improve with a NPC at random... And I guess if I chose wrong I should've just known that NPC was already going to have a conversation with someone else. I guess I went first so the pacing of everyone else getting plot hooks and purpose would fit better with the next quest coming up sooner for them?
In the previous game there was less of "they're already going to talk to someone else" and more so "no, your family is busy, your brother and step father you just met again after all these years are busy and not available".
Idk what's even going on.
@@elgatochurroThat's silly. I can buy that some characters may be busy, as in they are actually away and can't be talked to through normal means. But during downtime, as far as I am concerned, unless someone is doing something that requires their attention 24/7 then at SOME point during downtime they'll have time for an activity like going out to drink once. Or meeting for an afternoon coffee, or sparring one morning. The brother and step-father situation is a great example. Sure, they may miss each-other a lot, but they aren't having a honey-moon period of vacation in which they strictly see one another and nobody else surely. Heck, your character is part of the family too! One day they invite your character to a family dinner. Or they planned camping and invite your character too. If your character needs to have a serious talk with one they surely can put aside 20 minutes of their life for it.
@@goncalocarneiro3043 it made sense and yeah they're busy but they were so often busy I don't get to talk to them. All for the DMs big plan of "you find out they cared about you"... I... Really already felt that, I wanted to interact though. An equivalent is me not showing up for sessions on end and telling the DM to play my character for me and I'll take credit for saving the world or something.
The only times they got to meet up was right after a mission, and well it became a choice of hang out with the party of PCs who don't talk or this NPC I care about who will at least react to me.
It really feels I've just been getting that short stick with that group and told to be grateful. The PCs I've made there keep having family and friends removed from them and the party of PCs who have their own NPCs to spend time with along with their own backstory and future plots tied in... Meanwhile I get "they're busy" "you can't find them".
In the most recent game where we only got small amounts of down time, I tried talking to a few but they were already chosen by the DM to talk or spend tone with other PCs... Again... Why even call on me first then? I guess again to have the last two conversations and plot threads hype up those PCs and I get "they're busy" "you can't find them"... Wasn't even encouraged to try again. After the last one I decided to stay talking to this guy who no one seemed to care about because no way would be busy right? That's the correct choice...
@@elgatochurro I mean... "They're busy with someone else". Okay? "I wait until they aren't anymore then." Sounds like a mighty reasonable response. In fact, unless the other PCs are having a truly mega private moment with the NPC, why can't your PC be there as well? Surely not all downtime talks the other PCs have with the NPCs is something that would be considered rude eavesdropping to join in on.
@@goncalocarneiro3043 Ehh tried, tried a lot of stuff. i twasd a modern game so "can i text him? leave a note? maybe make a lunchbox since theyre so busy or see them off to one of their missions"
The bottom line of it was I was cucked for a few campaigns, and then called a selfish player. Keep in mind im not AGAINST talking to the other PCs, Id love to... if they could hold an actual conversation outside of the current or next objective... or more than a mere sentence like "yeah".
Im running for my own group and first session was 5 hours of them mostly talking to each other in character having a blast and I was waiting her with the plot hook to put out... and then later another hour after that of more jsut mostly in character roleplaying and talk. THATS what im used to as a player, talking to everyone around me in character.
Personally IDK but I did see each and every rp bit the others got and yeah im jealous... They get it handed to them, hot and ready, all prepped up and cooked on a single platter... I got "who you wanna talk to?" "uhhh idk anyone here... I guess so and so?" "so and so is busy" "ok...?" jsut to find out multiple times so and so was going to be busy servicing another pc with all this. Id be *real* happy just having a party that talks a bit. Im in a paid game now where the players dont rp much but they do talk to each other.
As a 45-year DM and player, I really enjoyed all of these ideas. Love your show!
Awesome! Thank you! Happy to help. :D
I like the individual downtime adjudication between sessions.
I force the "training time" that used to be part of AD&D/2E rules. It forces time between adventures and it pulls some of the excess loot from the party by charging training costs. They destroy training dummies and use up other resources in practicing their skills.
I too try to do downtime between sessions by email or phone calls.
You sound like a s**t DM to me, forcing that Training thing!!!
1 activity + mundane / basic potion shopping does seem like a decent balance for a period of downtime
I tie the adventure into downtime. Like, it's not really downtime at all, it's just time not spent adventuring, where game time passes faster. There are always decisions to make, clues to be had, planning to do, resources to muster.
After 25+ years of GMing I started running downtime 2 weeks ago, thanks to Blades in the Dark. Thank you Luke and thank you Mr John Harper!
Great idea for downtime with levelling, our group uses milestone so it makes sense after each "chapter" in the campaign to have some time to consolidate and plan ahead.
I thought everyone did that honestly.
@@PalleRasmussenSome players and DM’s don’t like it because, let’s be real, we all know “milestone” really means “the DM lets us level up when it’s convenient for the DM.” I’m still in favor of milestone leveling myself, but there’s not that illusion of objectivity or having ‘earned’ the level that some players want.
@@Leith_Crowther I use milestone; when they reach a certain chapter I decided in the story we write, or they do the equivalent (no railroading) +50% they level up.
@@PalleRasmussen Honeslty, I don't. My group prefer role-play level up which means that when they reach their level-up time (I use xp system, not only monsters but puzzles and role-play as well, they like it), they might sit on that same level for a little longer until the right moment comes c:
In my experience, its usually pure martials that have the hardest time justifying downtime or coming up with ideas.
Spellcasters can do things like make spell scrolls (arcana proficiency), research magic, etc, people with tools proficiencies can make potions, armor, whatever, and rogues will be rogues.
But martials rarely do anything other than fight club, which is what most martials are RPed as in all fairness. In order to give martials more options, I usually give reward tomes or opportunities for training that include the feats that are useful but garbage compared to other martial feats. Things like learning a fighting style, a battle master maneuver (Martial Adept), the Athlete feat (I give the ASI boost since who cares its just dex or str +1 up to 20), Charger, Defensive Duelist, Durable, Grappler, Gunner, Healer (if it was an op feat, people would use it more often), Heavy Armor Master, any of the Knight feats, or Giant feats, Mage Slayer, Mounted Combatant, Revenant Blade, or Tavern Brawler. It makes it so these features come up more often, and because martials in general deserve a boost, regardless of what the brain dead designers at WoTC think.
This way it makes it clearer what they're training for, and lets you introduce characters to add artificial depth to their known acquaintances and potential plot hooks. Plus it usually involves shelling out money for non-magic items which is always a good thing to have in a game.
I somewhat agree with parts of your comment, but I also disagree with other parts of it. I especially disagree with forcing them to spend loot/gold.
@@morrigankasa570 It's not necessarily forcing, not anymore than "paying upkeep" is anyhow. Also, I am assuming that if the spellcasters have money to make scrolls and do extensive research, the martials will also have money to do something. Giving them this option to spend money is great, feels like an investment, the alternative may have been "guess I do nothing with my money" and that's boring and demoralising.
@@goncalocarneiro3043 They could save up their excess Wealth to eventually buy a massive estate or shop or bar or something like that.
@@morrigankasa570 Depends on how much money people get and how you price things, I suppose. But I imagine 500 gold is enough to buy a small shop. I mean... 100 gold is a LOT of money for non adventuring folk. It's what? Like 10 000$ equivalent? So in my eyes buying a house isn't that hard a thing to do if you're level 10 or upwards. Surely for a level 3 or lower though. Big achievement.
@@goncalocarneiro3043 Perhaps, but an estate is far more then a small house. I'm talking at least 10 Acres of Land and a Large House minimum. Ideally you want to go beyond that for an Estate, 100 Acres Minimum and a huge Mansion.
For longer downtimes, I might break it up with a social or urban encounter. Have everyone declare their activity (if they haven't already done so off-screen), encounter, roll to resolve downtime activities.
Dude you are helping me so much. My first time playing I gotta run a game for my 4 kids and wife that have never played before. New DM with 4 all new players your a life saver
The trick to making downtime matter is simple, but incredibly unintuitive if you only read the PHB, DMG, Xanathar's, and Tasha's.
The main point is to have downtime grant rewards and bonuses that players can use in the rest of the game.
Sure, let players craft items. Also let them build fortresses/headquarters. Let them attract followers and minions. Build armies. Build Spy networks. Schools. Adventuring Academies. Monasteries and temples. Libraries, wizard towers, and demiplanes.
Don't just say "You carouse for two weeks. You got crunk." Have that carousing reveal plot hooks and calls to adventure the entire party can benefit from. When the wizard sends their Simulacrum to sit in the corner of a bar and hand out quests to level one npcs have the big rewards those NPCs find end up in the PCs hands. Have rumors the bard's and rogue's spy networks spread impact the wealth and status of the noble that pissed off the party 5 levels ago. If a player has the actor feat let them run a theater troupe that satirizes the big bad and deifies the PCs and their victories then reflect that positive public opinion during social encounters.
Give the fighter an army, give the druid a grove/haunted forest, the barbarian their own tribe, the rogue their own mafia, the religious characters a church or cult, the Int characters an information network, and the Cha characters a propaganda office or red light district.
Give each player their own empire to run once they hit tier 2 levels and a party base they can dump gold into. Once the party gets their hands on a few sets of sending stones have their followers check in with the party and how their downtime activities are doing at the start of every session. Throw minor complications at the empires owned by one or two players and have the players issue orders on how to deal with those problems. Hell, have each player make backup characters that are lower level than the main PC party and have one session every now and then where the players play their followers going off on a side quest while the main party is dealing with a bigger fish.
For help on doing all this look up the Acquisitions Incorporated book, the Ravnica book, and dig up a copy or pdf of the 3e book Stronghold Builder's Guidebook. Acq Inc gives intro rules for managing a party headquarters and being part of a larger organization. Ravnica gives all the rules you need for the players to climb the ranks in an organization and eventually run everything. Half the Renown tracks in Ravnica's backgrounds give the PCs a dozen or so low CR faction/guild NPCs to boss around and brief guidelines on what to do with them aside from letting them die in combat. The 3e Stronghold book is the best resource in any edition for building whatever bases your players might want and filling them with expensive and useful magic items.
This kinda reminds me of the strongholds and followers book that my friends got back in college.
Supported.
Love this! I actually out loud said WOOAHHH! when you said have the party play their followers for a break in the main plot. That’s so cool!
I usually run downtime outside of the game session, using our dedicated Discord server.
This works nicely for my groups because it gives me the opportunity to focus on each character and run minor social encounters that tie in with their chosen activity.
I also tend to end each session on a cliffhanger to be resolved over discord between sessions, which I’ve found really helps to keep my players engaged over the two weeks we have between sessions.
That's actually a really cool idea!
You could also change the urgency situation. Instead of "now we know the dragon is going to attack the town any day!", go for "we heard there might be a dragon, we need to spend some time in town gathering information", or instead of "we found a letter describing the duke's evil plan, we need to stop it instantly!", try "we found a letter in a cipher with the duke's seal, we need to find someone we trust and wait for them to decipher it". Modern superhero d&d makes that harder though, players expect to be able to do literally everything themselves.
My game is essentially Downtime: the game 😂😅
I keep track of time well, and let my players know that I will go at what pace they decide. They wanna take a tenday for stuff? Sure.
If in one day you want to spend your adventuring day doing downtime stuff? You can do as much as time allows.
I've found that players actually enjoy that 😅
One of the things I’ve been trying out during downtime is a bounty board of random creatures based on a dice roll for difficulty(CR). They’re small, 20-30minute or less adventures that get the players paid if they meet the requirements of the bounty. For example a 5-star (high difficulty) bounty for a party of level 3’s would be a barbed devil or something similar in CR. I also never reveal what the creature is until they meet it. Sometimes they even end up befriending the target if they’re not super dangerous (ogre with headband of intellect, who loved to pick mushrooms and brew potions) They’re short and the players love them because they’re getting paid, and the ones who mostly enjoy combat still get their fix. This week they are leave 8, there’s six of them, and there is going to be a 10* bounty of a death knight that is cranked up to the max. 3 legendary magic items, triple multi attack, etc. Not meant to kill them but defeat them for his master for story reasons
You needn't always make the bounty board have slaying quests. You could also in addition make some other classic types of bounties like "I need these items" or "Someone or something was stolen" or "I need something fixed" or "I need someone to find out why and how this happened". The players don't NEED to accept those missions if they already love slaying ones, especially if you make new ones pathetic or depressing such as someone losing a crappy meaningless item and offering seven copper for it, or an insane person asking people to complete a ritual that doesn't exist because he has ghosts in his head, or a parent that's disillusioned about their kid being dead after being missing for several years. BUT if they do accept it out of curiosity... Plenty plot hooks to make. Maybe that meaningless item was actually very meaningful to the homeless old man who lost their only memory of a friend and it ends up being emotional, or maybe the old man offers something else besides the seven copper be it services as a worker, informant or an advisor depending on their background. Maybe the insane person wasn't as insane as thought, and although there aren't any ghosts, the ritual does exist somewhat and could be refined to become a pseudo-banish spell and the insane man turns out to have some untapped talent, or they found an important guide on ritual spells. Maybe the parent actually swears they saw their child around, and it turns out it was a doppelganger and that could go in several directions, from "the kid was a doppelganger all along and fled home out of guilt for being an impostor" to "there is a doppelganger conspiracy happening and they are very uncreative or cruel, so they taunt the families of those they steal/kill by blatantly wearing their forms".
"Players almost never want to take longer than the bare minimum time for downtime" .. tell that to my current group who would happily roleplay away a whole session or three. Last time they had a downtime of more than a few days in a town they took 2 or 3 sessions and only moved on when i threw something at them lol
My other group hardly roleplayed though and downtime, if it happens, was breezed over in 10 minutes.
This is a great video. My players love sometimes we will spend an entire session on DT but I also incorporate what their doing into role play. My players aren't big on in-character role play, but they love when their downtime visibly passes they in-game time and affects the world and their characters.
To be fair, the "Now time" version of downtime is a holdover from earlier editions where an adventure was expected to be over in a single session (Hence why earlier editions focused so much on killing monsters, gaining xp and seeing how much loot you could get back to town) because older editions didn't have short and long rests, it was a brutal game based on the idea of simply being a mercenary who didn't happen to get drafted into a wargame army.
So, if the session ended, time passed in the game world at the same rate as the real world and you definitely didn't want your adventurers staying for a week or more straight in the dungeon where dangerous stuff could happen to them.
Thanks for the vid! I'm preparing for my first game as DM, and your videos are like fresh cool well water upon my steaming head.
My adventure starts in small village and I'm thinking how my players would spend time in it, what they would find...
About downtime: our DM has a habit to play and create npcs, so you can think that this npcs have a quest for you, or something special in their pockets. But no, it's just DM playing to make environment alive. Sometimes it's fun, but sometimes... confusing.
You might also want to give Matt Colville a gander.
Oo! Oo! I know this! “C” works 30% of time every time 😉
In my running campain, i do downtime every long rest (wich is 3 days) and all the players agreed to choose a craft for the pc in the character creation to have something to do among other things in the downtime, now i got one merchant, one blacksmith and one diplomat, wich works great in the spelljammer setting
I actually really enjoy downtime but o think my DM does it in a good way. We had 15 weeks of downtime and we could combine things into the max of 15 weeks so buying/selling magic items took a week. Learning a new skill took 9 weeks. Fighting or working or crafting took a week. We literally just listed what we wanted to do and than everything was applied at once
If you are properly tracking time in the campaign, then Downtime can take place between sessions.
We run ours over discord during the week, then hit the table running at the weekend. Though this is only possible with [Strict Timekeeping].
Could you elaborate? Do you use a 1:1 time throughout the week where everything happens in real time? Also what methods of time keeping do you use, and what is the scale of your campaign?
Sure@@lukeremsberg5796, I'll try to be concise, but I'll state this up front:
"1:1 Time is a rule for tracking time, progressing the in-game world, managing multiple groups, and securing downtime opportunities for players.
It has 2 components:
1) For each day that passes between sessions, one day also passes in the game world. This was discovered by reading P.37 of the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide.
2) Parties whose adventures carry them into the future are removed from play until the in-game calendar catches up to them.
E.g. If a party spends 3 weeks travelling through the wilderness, and another week delving into a dungeon, the party will be removed from play for 4 weeks.
This application of 1:1 time was inferred from play reports, descriptions of campaign play, and experimentation. Frank Mentzer's description of having a newly-levelled character locked in "training jail" exposed us to Gary's use of this method to determine how long downtime would remove characters from play."
When I say Strict Timekeeping, the above (1:1) is what I am referring to. What Luke describes as "Abstract time", "fast time", or "now time" I consider to be Variable Timekeeping (most tables work this way).
To your question:
- Do you use a 1:1 time throughout the week where everything happens in real time?
The simple answer is: No. 1:1 time is not that granular.
As for Downtime, we are tracking days, weeks and months, not necessarily hours, minutes and seconds.
The slightly more complex answer is that the utilisation of 1:1 time creates an Always On aspect to the game. Which may require/necessitate the players to resolve something or a DM adjudication, before the next Session game occurs.
- what methods of time keeping do you use?
Utilising 1:1 timekeeping requires a complete sea change in mindset from the way most Variable tables play.
And I haven't quite gotten it down myself.
I am currently using as close to Strict timekeeping as possible, utilising the 5e Lifestyle expenses (PHB) and the Downtime workweeks (XGE) to structure the overall pace of the campaign.
- what is the scale of your campaign?
Not quite sure what you are referring to when you say "scale"?
My current campaign is a 5e game (levels 1 - 20) with 6 players. Though thanks to implementing "Training Jail" (the time required to train to level up) each player has a 'stable' of characters, as growing to higher levels requires more time (5e DMG).
Though I have seen 1:1 time being used to coordinate several different tables (different campaigns) together.
True multiverse hopping D&D.
This video is the "perfect timing" for me😊 Thanks a lot for it! I planned to make a downtime period for my next session as my players wanted to shop/read books/go to taverns and now I got more ideas on how to play around it! (Quite a new DM here :D)
Super helpful video! I'm a fairly new GM and in the campaign I've been running, we definitely have potential and need for occasional downtime. This has given me some good ideas for how to run this better the next time the situation arises.
I usually play very linear games. With all the loot my module was giving I was thinking “hey wtf do they do with all this cash” when I looked into it the answer was down time activities. Strongholds, crafting, and other activities. Finishing up a current game and starting up a sandbox style game.
I don't use downtime when I DM often (once or twice an 'arc' usually), but when I do I have it last an in-game week or more.
As for how long we take on it: at least half a session (so 2-4 hours), no longer than 3 sessions. It is essentially a low-to-no combat, low-to-no event period for characters to roleplay, shop, level-up, and partake in some minor events that occur during the downtime.
The restriction I have on how much they can do is essentially up to 1 activity per day on average (based off how much they can do during a short rest or long rest). Limitations based off how long things take in the books (or in my homebrew notes) helps a lot if players try to do too much during a given bit of downtime.
Love this format! Nice change from the standard list videos!
I don't like the multiple choice pacing of this video, but other than that great vid!
Downtime could be great in a good group, when everyone gets invested in something. I have seen a whole group decide to build a base, each player wanted something to do with it, so it became a group activity, and kept everyone engaged. I have seen other groups who love a good shopping spree and they all go to the shops together. I find there is a lot of fun to be had in downtime for many players if done well...there are a few players that just want to fight monsters, who will never have fun, but if you find ways to get everyone involved, it's sometimes hard to make them stop the downtime events...which is not so bad if everyone is enjoying it.
I do really like your rule of requiring downtime to level up, and I have been using it myself the last couple years since I first heard you doing it. I do think you should write into the game ways to not have a since of urgency. I find it works best to have and ebb and flow cycle, where things get real intense then it calms a bit before slowly ramping back up again. Downtime and level ups should fit in those calm times, and once it is over the game should start getting back to the intensity. This can be done by having nothing major left between quests, which works great with Milestone leveling, or have some event not happening for a week or 2, that can start off the next series of events. Sometimes these can be hard to pull off, but it is something special if you can get the players in a state where they are really ready for downtime story wise, and not feeling like they are just wasting time while the bad guys are still working on their plans. Try to make it feel natural, that there is little to do for a bit.
Depending on available time, scheduling etc you could ask players broadly what they would like to do, then if it can be resolved during the session with a few clikclacks do so, but if a player wants to do some more intricate or rp heavy things find a bit of time during the week to call or meet to do that. Downtime is usually the only time it is common to split the party anyway, so it would be ideal time to have a 1to1 about secret plots, character development beyond the downtime or general feedback.
Most groups have a group chat nowadays so you could even say "Hey, (dm) and (player) are going to call/meet tonight at 6. Anyone want to join (players character) in their downtime?
Yet to be a campaign DM but its a nice thought in my head. I feel it would make players more invested in their characters and be especially effective for the more reserved players that shy away from taking up time in session. I find myself missing opportunities because of that so i imagine many others do too.
The first example you provided about the lich is an excellent way to integrate a character into an adventure. He adventures to gain knowledge and artifacts to become a lich. Downtime is then the part if the game where his personal story is advanced.
This is also great for a milestone system. Everytime someone is able to progress a component of their personal story, they gain a level.
So, I have some questions 😊
But I want to clarify beforehand for context that I only have low level characters (dead or alive), that I'm not familiar with every rule and especially not with the dungeon master guide.
So, here are my thoughts:
It sounds like one week of downtime means you need to properly plan it and take into consideration that the big bad or the evil forces are potentially getting away? How can that be circumvented? Or do they just decide not to backstab the players' plans?
And in the case of some "urgency mechanic", what does it mean for the experience points and level ups (and for the difficulty of the adventure), when the group chooses not to take a downtime? Do exp and lvl ups expire or stack? And do the required downtimes stack as well? (I feel like in the case of stacking level ups downtimes must stack as well, in order for it to make sense.)
Additionally, I find that 100 g per activity is very costly, but maybe that's just my low level perspective and it's intentional that you can't necessarily do something in your downtime.
That said, maybe I'm just not getting it or maybe my D&D group does things differently.
(Edit: Maybe I should join the discord server because it seems like that'd also be a good platform for more insights.)
I needed this so much. I struggle with downtime as it always seems to be the last thing on the list of things I'm preparing. Thanks!
It's breakfast as I'm watching this. Bacon time!
If someone is taking a shot for every instance of you saying time, then they will die of alcohol poisoning, would barely have time to pour the next shot
My players recently came into some downtime as well, and I thought it went pretty well so I thought I'd share. The players reclaimed their hometown from an expressive lord and rival to one of the player characters. The town had been under this rule for roughly a year before the players were able to reclaim it, and thus it needed a good amount of TLC in order to get back to being a functioning town. I gave them an in-game month to accomplish goals and aid in the rebuilding of the town, giving them something to spend their hard-earned gold as well as their skills to accomplish. I took about an average of 15 minutes per party member, and allowed them to summarize for me the things they wanted to accomplish during this period.
- The druid and her mother worked to cleanse the surrounding forests of the darkness that the werewolf cult that had been under the employ of the lord had caused (the cult is still not fully eradicated)
- The Paladin worked to rebuild the religion of the town, as well as work with the fighter to train up a new militia.
- The fighter worked to restore his family's farm and also assist with the training
- The Wizard noble worked on the infrastructure and boosting of the economy by sending out envoys to the surrounding towns
- And the rogue worked on teaching life skills to orphaned children as well as generally assist with the other duties.
During each of their 15 minute episodes, I would leave them clues to the next plot-hooks in the story, giving them each a moment in which something personal or contrary to their work would happen due to the next adventure. This seemed to work well for us and allowed me to pave the road for the next adventure as well. Just thought I'd share. I don't comment very often. Thank you for the awesome video
The multiple choice jimmick was incredibly tedious. But the advice was good.
My group is weird. They tend to enjoy down time more than adventuring lol
If they had things their way, they would role play all of it out, every single time.
That sounds genuinely fun to me. I prefer a ratio of 75% Roleplay/Casual Fun/Lore & 25% Combat.
Great points. IC downtime activity between sessions on Discord if DM agrees local area is safe for x days, OOC downtime otherwise to refine your character persona/arc and NPC relations/hooks with DM.
Adding to my other post on downtime, sometimes the DM let us do the work. For instance, when we wanted to hire some mercenaries. It was up to the players to decide how many they wanted of what type of mercenary. Buy the equipment needed and make a roster of those mercenaries. We usually split the costs between the players unless it was just for that one character. The DM might adjust the cost and give us an amount of time to accomplish this.
There were many times that we had to hire mercenaries to guard a place we took over as a base. After all, you have to stash all that treasure somewhere. It's pretty hard for your characters to carry around gold statues, priceless rugs and tapestries and those extra magic swords and armor.
I give players time for carousing. They can fit two to three a day, depending on what happens. They also have down time during training, and there's festivals and stuff.
i usually let my players do shopping as abstract time, and typically right before the next adventure begins. I also try to limit magic items, one because of power creep and two because i always envisioned magic items, even the simplest ones, to be hard and or time consuming to create. you need the right materials, the right smith/tailor, and additional magic input aside from any the materials might provide. i count this as separate from downtime. I use downtime to give my players time to RP and interact with NPC'S and each other while pursuing their personal non-adventuring goals(romances, business opportunities, schmoozing up to nobility/government officials, seeking intel for their personal backstory plot lines, training or studying something new to them etc) its usually in Now Time. and the way i keep it from getting to dull for everyone is by giving each of them 10-20 minutes stints before i go to the next character, and then we just cycle back through all the players(usually based on initiative rolls) like a turn order in combat for the session. most of the time though it leaves us with session time to do non-downtime stuff. but typically my players will know ahead of time if we are doing a downtime/time skip so they can pre-plan.
After downtime gets resolved out of session, I run a post-time skip scene called “Greatest Hits,” where I dedicate a short adventure to resolving all the complications (Xanathar’s) accrued over downtime.
Good one, I use downtown for players to lick their wounds, resupply, train/level up, and plot hooks for current or future adventures. Juicy juicy plot hooks.
For the game session after the climactic battle against the BBEG of the story arc I enjoy a downtime game session of pure social interaction everyone gets to participate, as a party and an individual PCs own thing. It's all improv and most likely not one die is rolled. The downtime activity can be anything - a party at a noble's house, shopping, a PC engaging in a personal goal, a PC visiting family, anything that has nothing to do with campaign plot, no enemies to fight, no threats of danger to deal with. Of course this is not for every game session, but it's perfect for when the previous game session was an intense go nova or die combat.
Honestly, this is when some of the best RP can take place.
As others have said, you don't have to draw a hard line between downtime and the rest of the game. As a DM, it's a great opportunity to let your players take the lead, lean into / riff off of what they're doing, and create new story elements -- either on the fly or to incorporate later. Giving players a good head's up that a session will be downtime-oriented and somewhat open-ended is a good idea, though, so they can think about what they want to do ahead of time.
I admit, for me more often than not, downtime is more problematic as a player than as a DM. I once played a character who whenever the DM gave us like a day or so of downtime before we left for the next adventure, had so little to do, he ended up writing a service manual of sheer boredom. X3>
As a DM I do downtime even in written modules at a few points where I find it appropriate, up to like 3-4 days to a week depending on circumstances (it's hard to find a vacation spot in Omu, Barovia or in Avernus, lol). I tend to let players know in advance that 'soon' they'd have about X-number of days of downtime and let them decide what to do. It especially helps the wizards copy spells. I usually keep it to 1 medium scale activity or upto 2 minor activities, depending on circumstances. Also one of my groups is absolutely fine with having full sessions that are essentially 'slice of life in Waterdeep', but some groups might not enjoy it as much and prefer to streamline it.
Some really great advice, I've been inspired for my next game. Cheers!
Mehm?... 🤨 dude...
Meme rhymes with seem, seam, ream, deem, and team.
That's ok, i remember when, as a teen that had been reading innumerable swords and sorcery books like Conan, Elric, etc, one day i discovered that chaos did not rhyme with house. Lol. Btw, great video. 😊
Someone tried telling me it was pronounced meh-meh.
Here's my take on downtime from the days of Basic and AD&D.
During an adventure we have left to resupply and recuperate for a day to 3 days before returning. A simple purchase and rolling for hit points recovery to see how long it takes.
After a successful adventure we have had Dwarf and Elf characters that took a year off to do the things that they wanted to do. Some things do take a long time to accomplish. This of course pissed off the Human Magic User character because they have a shorter lifespan. So the choices were to wait for the others or continue playing with other characters we wanted to play in the meantime. However, this same Human Magic User took months of downtime to make scrolls and potions. So we played our characters and the other player had a choice of either not playing or using a different character until time caught up and his Magic User was finished making magic items.
We have also had short sessions where each player either told the DM or wrote down what their character was doing. The DM would just let each of us know how long it took, what we accomplished (some, all, etc) and how much it cost us. And what ever took the longest was how much downtime we had. If yours took say 3 weeks but mine only took 1 week, then I could let the DM know what my character would be doing for the other 2 weeks. It could be partying (spend more cash) or finding rumors (spend more cash and get a note from the DM) or a mage might try to find additional magic supplies (spend a lot more cash).
We have also had entire sessions dedicated to downtime. At higher levels there can be quite a bit that some characters will need to do that requires a bit more detail to go through. Such as building a castle, keep or mansion. Or creating a powerful magic item.
I run games chronologically in game as Mostly downtime. A simple rule of thumb - I make adventure paths, lasting about 3 interconnected adventures (about 1-3 sessions each). These are usually time crunch and do not have room for more than a week long downtime during the path.
The rest of the chronological Year for the characters is essentially downtime. Even with a group of nine players, I have never spent more than 1.5 hours adjudicating the downtime. And sometimes I'll even do micro adventures for that downtime involving 1-2 player characters
I’ve always run games with downtime. I’m running a tier 3 table, and they are pretty close to tier 4. Since I gave them all lordship over their own individual towns, they have a ton of money. Downtime is great. My RP heavy player that enjoys court politics uses it to flesh out his town and meet with nobles. My combat-oriented players use that time to research and craft magic items that match their builds (I use the Xanathar’s guide rules). I also let the players start an activity in one set of downtime and finish it in the next one, which is good when they are crafting higher rarity items. I typically just run a downtime session, but I let everyone know ahead of time so they can choose what they want to do, and I give them their own short optional side quest that gives minor benefits. It takes longer, but it helps keep the combat players engaged.
In fact, my players actually asked me to include full downtime sessions. They were engaged with the storyline, but they wanted an opportunity to pursue personal projects. They basically wanted a “shopping episode” or “beach episode” where the main plot isn’t the only thing on their minds.
15:42 Okay
106 Downtime (spoken)
24 Downtime (written)
26 Time (spoken)
4 Time (written)
1 Prep time (spoken)
1 Downside (spoken)
1 "Mem" (spoken)
1 "mgame" (written)
1 Table time (spoken)
1 Table time (written)
3 Now time (spoken)
1 Now time (written)
This is the part I started to regret seperating times.
2 Slow time (spoken)
1 Slow time (written)
4 Abstract or fast time (spoken)
1 Abstract or fast time (written)
2 Real time (spoken)
3 In-game time (spoken)
1 Fast time (spoken)
5 Times (spoken)
1 Preperation time (spoken)
Whenever I ran downtime in my DnD campaigns, the players were allowed to do two tasks, one major and one minor. A minor task might be carousing at the local tavern for a couple of nights (and possibly getting tossed into the local hoosecow for drunken antics) or advancing a romance with another PC or NPC. A major task would be something like training or investigating something important to the PC outside of adventuring like who murdered his wife, hunting down his former commander who betrayed him and left him for dead or trying to prove his innocence in a crime. That kind of stuff.
The downtime level up works especially well with wizards supposed to be coming up with new spells.
Some character backgrounds will focus a lot on doing something in downtime.
The way I've always run downtime is no different than any encounter. I mean I narrate summery of days tell something interesting happens. But it go turn base, player says "I go to x" I say "ok, what are you going?" (looking at next player)"oh! I'm gonna head first x." OK, next player exct... tell back to first, "ok, you arrive at x" player 1, ok, i do x." OK, next player. This goes on while keeping in mind the amount of time passing. Gets the players engaged in a day. Then summarize where needed, patrons and pantheons can easily appear to spice downtime up as well. One rule I say don't forget, it's a turn based game, main character syndrome, let them do a action, speaking can apply, then look at the next player, and ask them for input, go round the table, then Mr. Main character can continue, but you've given chance for everyone to be involved.
Honestly, I think downtime is really good for characters that enjoy the more roleplay part of the game, since it allows them to interact with the world in a more relaxed way (getting to know NPCs in the cities, look for information or even advance their non-adventurous aspirations). Maybe there are campaigns that allow more of this type of downtime, since campaigns that happen in a big city (Dragonheist for example) are a lot easier to run like this instead of a more dungeon crawl type of adventure. But to me, downtime scanes end up being the funniest ones, since they allow a lot more hijinks thanks to the nature of the interactions (after all, since they are downtime, it's a lot less likely for something that happens to turn into a life or death sittuation and as such, to require the characters taking the sittuation as seriously as they would with a real threat). And sometimes, things that happen in the downtime can end up affecting the adventure, as in, if a character uses that time to gain the trust of a faction, they might help them in a moment where they might be in danger.
downtime is a very foreign concept for me as a DM since 1977. Have had a player ask about creating his own spell once. Currently playing in a game where the DM has informed that downtime is a requirement especially once my character has reached level 5. Apparently my character will have to go travelling to find a mentor to train which costs a lot of money (that I don't have ) and in the interim the DM suggested I play another character. All of this is very strange to me. I don't have much interest in playing some other character for a few sessions just so my character can level up. My personal opinion is to ask the players if they want downtime and offer to prepare something on a solo play basis should they want too.
Is it really so rare to want downtime? I always wish we had more as a player, and as a DM my players are always loving their downtime because they can train for new Feats, work on proficiencies, work on the brewery they bought, etc.
I actually force my group more or less to take downtimes. But I always Text them a week before the Session they might get the Chance to go shopping or take care of Personal Business.
They don't have to, but as you say - if the opportunity is offered, players love to take it. And if my rouge has done all the prepwork before, he might spend time scouting. Or the paladin prays a whole day which might give him a little buff etc.
And if they want to take a break but time is ticking, i openly tell them "three hours won't hurt, but remember, you never know what might happen on the way" .... so they're unsure, and priorities are set. Usually 1-2 urgent things are done and they get back on the adventure again.
Downtime is a mixed bag for most groups.
well, this was a bit of an unusual watch of yours.
normally, I come here to learn new things and improve as a DM. the learning never stops and even after years I still get ideas of how I could've run things in a better or more interesting way after the fact.
but this time, as I watched, I realized I am probably already handling downtime pretty well... Feels good, man.
I run downtime like some animes, where, downtime can either be actual time (days, weeks or months) or downtime is happening in the background of the adventures. For instance, we'll have a downtime episode after an adventure, but all that downtime stuff was done actually during the "actual downtime" of the previous adventure in the background.
I also don't "regulate" how much time is downtime. I used to do a week, but i find it to be too restraining. sometimes its a day , sometimes its a month sometimes its a few hours. if their downtime is trying to introduce themselves to the king, that's cool.
Downtime activities that "would" take long are happening inthe background with hirelings and workers. FOr instance, working on a stronghold is interesting, because it reminds me of when u have a house built. How often are u actually there while hte builders are working? Probably in the beginning and during hte inspection. Once they have the blueprints u're good to go
My term for between session stuff is "asynchronous" (or "async" for short). It's also my preferred way as both player and DM.
14:29 Doing Downtime in Slow Time: You dare oppose me, mortal?
In terms of down time, what about putting cues in that leave space open for down time. That letter the players found talks of stuff going down a week from now.
Do you have any fixes for the “dead levels” you mentioned?
I frankly LOVE downtime. While it is true that it is "less risky" than adventuring by a huge margin in-game time-wise since in a matter of minutes it's do or die while in an adventure with maybe a couple hours of respite in between, downtime can be tense as well in a different sense. You can have encounters during downtime as well, even if they aren't combat ones. Once per activity, or in-game week, whatever makes most sense, give each player an encounter based on what they're doing if it's important enough. Trying to find a buyer for a magical item? Roleplay the exchange, make that NPC notworthy, they can buy a magical item, after all, reward the player for giving a discount or haggling for a better price by giving them a possible ally (or less of an enemy), or extra gold (and maybe a rival) respectively. Trying to create a stronghold? Where does the player character find the workers? Maybe have a little comedic subplot about a strike that delays construction the character must solve, or, if they use elementals and constructs as servants maybe a few otherwordly portals appear from entities seeking to control those elementals/constructs. Working or participating in gladiatorial battles? Create a noteworthy client NPC and RP a token exchange, run a combat encounter for a gladiatorial match and make it gimmicky, like the gladiators must use certain equipment given to them, or have an objective beside beating each-other up. Maybe an NPC wishes to pay the character to throw the match so their opponent looks better, maybe they gain a reputation for being too powerful among their peers, maybe they prove too weak instead. Does the player character have political influence? Roleplay a public event or a political assembly they must/are heavily incentivised to appear in so they meet their political rivals/allies and find out what the public's opinion of them is. Maybe during their speech, one very brave commoner tosses a rotten fruit at them and yells out some things that may or may not have any truth to them before the guards toss them out, or the player intervenes. Plenty chances to make what could be ignored entirely a bit unique, a glimpse into the day to day life of the player characters.
Frankly, I like it when a game system provides rules for certain things that fall into the downtime, especially such as increasing skills or learning new spells. Sure, finding buyers or sellers for specific stuff can and probably should be time-consuming BUT so should be learning spells or skills.
Thus I like it when such things are covered by house- or official rules. (I prefer to use house rules because those official rules are often super restrictive or totally over-convoluted.)
i.e. In my games a player can allocate 10 hours a day to "work" and still rest & recover, or he can allocate up to 16 hours and will not recover anything! Then we allocate time demands to activities, like learning a certain spell takes 20 hours of study or increasing a certain skill takes 10 hours of practice etc.
Obviously, we make a list of such activities and I like to make it a bit flexible by setting a minimum time + a role of dice - modifiers. Example: you are moderately skilled in lockpicking and want to become good at that skill so I'd say it takes 5+1d8-2 (-2 for your moderate skills) hours or with good tutelage 3+1d6-2 hours. So you find a tutor and the increase takes between 2 and 11 hours. That role is either done openly at the table or if offline it is done by me as the GM.
This does various things for me and my groups:
It limits what is doable in a certain amount of time. Also, it makes it possible for a player to plan his downtime and achieve multiple things. Furthermore, it cuts down on the player's turn if downtime is done at the table. Because after his role the next player will go over his "first" activity. Obviously, the players will be able to plan their time, react to the results etc.
Stuff like finding tutors or buyers/sellers and so on can be covered easily and fast via skill checks ( maybe a house rule similar to the above) etc. or via playing.
Mem....That struck my soul with pain
When I do downtime I try to pace it so we go into downtime at the end of a session and resolve it at the start at the next, I ask my players what their characters will do for how long, and then I go into the next session prepared and spend no more then 30mins at the most on more involved scenes but aim for 10mins for simple scenes.
This was spot on! Very helpful! Thanks!
Cyberpunk has some really cool rules on downtime. It'd be super easy to use them in D&D!
I like to give my players downtime after an adventure or when they get to a new town. I’ve given my party downtime to enjoy the festivities of a local festival. The party has chosen to train or shop during a few day downtime when they were waiting for their new ship to be constructed.
Last downtime i got, a whole session of downtime: I wanna take some if the party out to drink.
"According to the pf2 rules you can spend money on equipment, use skills to gain money, craft a magical item, blah blah blah. The rules say you can't just go have fun and roleplay with the group."
It should be a downtime but you shoudn't "play" a downtime. It should be discussed in 3rd person, when players declare their plans and actions and DM resolves it according to checks and palns.
It should be a predesined "pauses" in adventure for downtime. Like in books, when one adventure (or part of adventure) is over and heroes can do something else until new threat emegres, new information appear or someone found out something new about new case or the old one.
Else the whole game is nonstop runing against the time. Downtime needed to persue personal goals, to get familiar with the surrouding, to get some contacts and NPCs to care about. Downtime is needed to make the game part of the character life story, not the end of it.
To make a downtime convincing you should put some predefined pauses in adventures: they defeated a villina but have no information on who have been his patron; they found a map or a text but need a time to decipher it (themself or with a help of NPC sage); they done what they could and have to wait for villins to take a move. The opportunities could be endless, but must be planned ahead and discussed with the players ("ok, now it time for downtime. anyone have anything in mind?")
1000 strikes to master a technique. Coding is said to take 1.5 years to functionally "Master". Tradeskill unions take 10 years to become "Master" level. I like to hash mark the skills list per week. I ask them early on and periodically remind them about what their lifestyle is or "camp habits".
They have a 24 hour limit to each day and they basically fill in with 30 minutes per main meal, adventure 12 hours and if they push too long for too many days, than they can begin receiving debuffs if done too frequently (kinda like a drive clock on a long hauler truck) 8 hours for long rest unless they are a race that requires less.
That leaves 3 hours for down time. 3*5+32=47 (I round up to 50) available hours for "downtime" per week to be spread out if they carry a travel kit for that skill or can reasonably explain how they spend the time. 50*78 = new sellable skill (like upcycling leather armor into strips, adding buckles and flourish, and selling belts back in town). Of course that time is cut down if they join a Guild or if they can read a book.
So far the way I run this is minimally invasive to the campaign and my players tend to like it once they get past the slightly delayed gratification. Each dungeon is also measured in long rests and there are plenty of things racking up in the background to keep them from abusing the short and long rest mechanics. I also adding a "camp rest" option to the long and short rest system for them to get a few reasonable buffs from slightly more cushioned set up as long as the situation or dungeon has a decent spot.
That also tends to incentivized them to spend gold on hirelings and survival/tactical skills to pick a camp spot and set it up to lower odds of random camp defense encounter. Artificer, magic user, tank, diplomat, pet handler, cook, healer, menders, hunters, trappers, and a bunch of other support opportunities. My players like it and it's been a good resource sink so far. The template gets set up offline usually and it only takes a few minutes to adjust for terrain and situation.
“Keep costs and difficulties low enough to be accessible at low levels.” Yeah, loot is barely a thing in most of the games I get to play in, so my characters never really have enough to to do more than survive in whatever downtime we get. It’s frustrating. “I guess I’ll scribe another first level spell scroll, and maintain my low standard of living otherwise. Doing some research on the leads we got would be nice, but my dice have been pretty cold tonight, and losing money because of a roll is frustrating.”
I break out Red Dragon Inn and Three Dragon Ante when players declare they want to do some downtime. They're good distractions and breaks away from dungeon crawls and the like. Also way more interactive than "Roll to see if I'm getting drunk. Where are the cheeeeetos?!"
With this video i realized that my group almost always is on downtime because 2/3 is wanted on the island we have to go to and i'm busy tryna get to know everyone(My old character died and i made a new one and that stuff)
I definitely like downtime as a way to have time skips between quests/BBEGs, and as a way to let the PCs progress (level-up or xp spending) in their abilities without seeming like they're instantly/drastically improving "just because" they cast a few spells and/or stabbed some creatures which just so happened to resolve the quest they were on.
Using it for skill/feature growth, item crafting/procurement, base/henchmen matters, and other such meaningful in-game world activities.
Definitely keep the actual game time spent on downtime at a reasonable level so as to not diminish the involvement of the whole group. The Players know that progression happens, so they can have some notes prepared to speed through the process, and the same for their downtime activities. The 1:1 slow time seems ok and can be fine if infrequent and short, but I'd prefer to play as a group to accomplish group goals because that's what the Players have come together for.
In a 1-20 campaign (lasted about 120 sessions) I was in for D&D, there was roughly 45 total adventure days, 0 downtime days, and perhaps as many as 10 travel days - each with potential for encounters, and most did. Fast tracked Demi-gods, as one plot ran into another, which ran into yet another. Wasn't a lot of breathing room.
How would you go about using downtime and needing downtime to level up in adventures that mostly take place in hostile environments or that expect the party to level up several times in the same hostile place, such as some parts of Icewind Dale and Out of the Abyss, or any point in Tomb of Annihilation after they enter the jungle?
This was a will helpful video. Thank you.
The confirmation link for the newsletter subscription gave me a 404 not found. :) When I clicked again, it told me that I already confirmed it. Exciting adventure to know if it worked or not. :)
At low level? "I am the Child of Paladine and Takhisis. I have access to the treasuries of both churches. I will take a +1000 sword, shield of Death, Armor of Immortality......".
The current campaign i am creating slowly incorporates downtime activities they can access, but that is it on my part. I am leaving it to the players to do them when they can and/or want.
It's of course great if the players have something two or more characters can together.
Say, one character wants a secret and hidden base and the character isn't the Rogue. Why not work together to make that base not just protected from, but from the thief's guild?
Depending on the character the Rogue might enhance his standing in the thief's guild at the same time by making it known he 'knows' someone. He doesn't have to tell who it is, but just have some in the guild know he knows .
Any other character in the group can aid the guild through the Rogue to further the guild's goals.
On the other hand, a character wanting to become a noble might help a noble NPC with a problem with the help of another character in the group. Say the Cleric of the group just learned 'Cure Disease' and the son of a noble had a tryst that left him with an embarrassing souvenir on his side, one that you can catch only in the poorer parts of the city people would talk if he went to a temple to be cured., Of course that leaves them indebted to both characters. Even a temple can have use for a favour from a noble.
And so on.
Depending on the setup the GM can do it with few to no dice rolls and it might give the town more colour.
In short, you can do more in downtime if the players have activities together and as a result downtime isn't so boring any more. It can even happen, that the players the GM can't work wit, because he is busy with the others, pay close attention what the others are doing which results in less boredom during downtime in general.
Sometimes they might even get inspired by what the others are doing and downtime becomes, in part at least,a group activity.
I’ve had down time last from a few days to months. We usually do down time via emails
I know this is an old video but do you have any rules or advice for a chase scene
I have a character who is an information broker and diplomat. I e-mail the DM and tell him what I am researching or other wise attempting to do. They tell me what I can achieve and how long it will take. Then I get off their backs. Usually, I can do something diplomatic or information wise. He also uses either channel to introduce plot hooks or other information.
I got alcohol poisoning from this drinking game
I hope you're okay. Pace yourself, friend
Never microwave bacon. Thank you for such a thought provoking video!
Luke, you are a true Master Baiter. Well done.
I usually give players 3o mins each for down time usally takes 1/2 the game but everyone gets thier shot, and i always set up phone call ahead of the game to know what they are after and figure out what has to rped
If players say they don't want downtime then fine - when adventuring none of the party can cook, look after their animals. repair torn clothing or repair damaged items, Their clothes get dirty. They smell. Villagers don't welcome them, their families and friends lose touch. patience, and eventually disown them . . .
Plus, of course, they become physically and mentally exhausted, traumatised by the things they witness (or do), and may become psychotic due the the constant strain and horror of continuous battling.
Great video Luke!!
in original D&D, time was all "Now Time" like the game world would continue while in-between game sessions.
Nah