I love the idea of downtime, and it looks like the DMG has some fun additions to the PHB options (carousing, anyone?). One of these days I'm going to stop running lengthy adventures so the PCs can actually make use of the downtime options in between shorter excursions. However, the more I think about it, the more it occurs to me that using downtime could end up being something of a logistical nightmare.
I've got six players. They're not all going to want to do the same things. They're not all going to be able to afford to do the same things. One PC might just want to blow all their money on fun and games, while another wants to do some research in the local library, while another wants to knuckle down and earn an honest living, and so on. I can easily see sorting out everyone's disparate downtime activities taking up a good chunk of a gaming session.
Anyone got any thoughts on the logistics of handling disparate downtime activities at the gaming table? Is this something that would be better to gloss over during play and leave it to be sorted out via e-mail or whatever?
I'll be awarding it for completing objectives and the players can choose to spend it as they like including using it as a commodity to trade to gain in-game benefits. When they decide to spend it on downtime activities, it puts whatever nefarious plans of the villains off by that many days. (Whatever it is they did that earned them these days delays the villains.) When anyone decides to spend downtime days on downtime activities, everyone else in the party will essentially be "doing other things" if they aren't also using that interval for downtime activities.
I will not be spending more than a few minutes of session time on describing activities. It will be a transition scene, a montage that hits the major highlights, sets up future adventures, and jump cuts us to the next action scene.
At least in the first years of the game, "downtime" was not something done at the table, but between gaming sessions. At the end of a session, if the PCs are back at their "home base", have the players tell what what their characters want to do in the meantime, and for how long. When you next meet up to play, spend just a couple of minutes letting the players know what happened in the meantime and get back into the action.
By the way, this is also a helpful way for players to try out different characters. Have everyone make a few PCs, although only able to play one at a time. If one of them takes on a long-term project, that's fine. Just have them use a different PC in the next session. This was also a standard old-school way of handling, e.g. the long times required for both healing and magical research. The former is less an issue now, of course.
Llenlleawg wrote:
What if the opportunity for downtime comes up in the middle of the session rather than at the end?
Llenlleawg wrote:
pukunui wrote:
I think I might have jumped the gun on posting this thread. Wait till you see what the downtime rules in the DMG involve. They're like a minigame all their own, in some respects.
pukunui wrote:
I have a feeling that I'm going to ask the party to decide how much downtime they want after each adventure. They should come to consensus.
And, I'll probably do narrative and progress tracking through emails and game summaries between games.
Yeah, see, it's pointless having this discussion now, since you guys don't know what the downtime rules in the DMG look like. I think some of you, at least, would be singing a different tune if you did know.
For my part, regardless of what the DMG says, I'm going to minimize the amount of session time spent on not-adventuring when playing a game about bold adventurers facing deadly perils in worlds of sword and sorcery. Downtime days will be a commodity to be earned and spent as described in the AL guidelines. What actually happens is narrated in a pithy manner and in service to furthering more adventure.
Bully for you!
I think if the downtime activities as a minigame of their own are fun enough to be worth integrating into a campaign, then you shouldn't be worried about spending session time on them.
That's always been my general opinion, anyway. To me, it feels like being worried about spending too much time in the dungeon.
It is totally possible to spend time on something past the point where it is being fun. But as long as you don't cross that mark, it doesn't matter to much how much time gets spent on what.
From what I've seen of them, I think they do indeed have the potential to be quite fun. My issue is just one of logistics. I have 6 PCs in my group, and different downtime activities can last different lengths of time, so how do you juggle that sort of thing? In some cases, some downtime activities might lead to further adventures (if one PC gets arrested and thrown in jail for 5d6 days, the other PCs could always try to break him out early rather than find things to do while he stews in the cooler, for instance).
pukunui wrote:
It could be that I am overthinking it. I guess it's partly because I know my players - some of them suffer from decision paralysis, and I can easily see them being unsure about what they want their PC to do during downtime.
But I'll admit, it might not end up being an issue in actual play.
pukunui wrote:
pukunui wrote:
Also, I think there will always be options to spend time training. If the party decides to take 4 weeks off adventuring and someone crafts an item that takes 4 days, he or she can always find a language tutor and start brushing up on Goblinoid (or other language he/she wants to learn). I just hope the final DMG version gives many options. I actually envision keeping a tally of time spent learning new things so that after 40 weeks (or whatever it comes to) the PC will have a new language or skill, etc.
Since it is hard to gain new skills (other than multiclassing and taking the feat), I could see the entire party telling me what skill or language they are training and then after the requisite time, bingo...they learn it -- Kind of like constant improvement tracker that only advances when they have access to a trainer.
Oh...also, it seems like Downtime activities will work much better for sandbox type campaigns where time isn't a factor.
Like travel rules (used to be?), I think I'll demand that the party's downtime goes at the pace of the member taking the longest time.
iserith wrote:
If one character runs out of money and the others want to continue with downtime, the poor one can work to sustain themselves, at least. There are rules for it (can't remember exactly where, but I think they're towards the end of the equipment section of the PHB). Player boredom hopefully won't come in to it, because you can work out a year of downtime in about five minutes, depending on what the players want to do.
pukunui wrote:
Ta-da!
