A census about: Downtime

[Sindal]

Hi guys

Two simple questions. This can be from a dm or player point of view. Note that this is ingame downtime.

1) How often is downtime a "thing" for your group? Do you have downtime between adventures? Do you have no allotted downtime and just jump from adventure to adventure while just qsumming ' misc stuff happens in the meantime '? How long are your downtimes typically, since they tend to run on workweeks. (gameplay wise)

2)
If your a player:
What do you prefer to use your downtime for? Crafting? Work? Crime? Carousing or gambling? Studying? Just relaxing?

If you dont get downtime mechanically, what do you imagine your character does in their unofficial downtime?

For me:
As a player, downtime wasnt very important since we were in one campaign for a rather long time. But we got to it recently.

My character is currently spending his downtime with his newly reunited father. They're just catching up after being separated for 7ish years :3

Apart from that he would probably spend it either traveling or hunting until hes needed by someone for something again (ranger)

[Asensur]

Downtime between adventure arcs (aprox 4-5 levels). Give 5*level days per level (for example, going from level 1 to 5 in an arc is 75 days: 5+10+15+20+25), plus 10 extra days for each side mission solved.

[Darkstar952]

I run a very sandboxy game using the gritty realism variant. Players are welcome to take downtime anytime they wish and whatever period they wish, but know that events in the world will move on and progress around them. Particularly significant or local events are mentioned to the group as they occur during the downtime and they can decide to either continue with their downtime or go off and interact with whatever is happening.

I find planning the game with gritty realism in mind really helps, the timescales for many adventures/plots already span weeks/months so players feel they have time to take some downtime, instead of the mad rush of events a lot of games seem to gravitate to.

I much prefer the more organic feel it gives the campaign, feels much more like the characters are living in the world and not just moving arbitrarily between adventures with downtime sprinkled in between.

[Sparky McDibben]

I require the players to take a week of downtime anytime we level up, which has had a fun effect on pacing and how I structure adventures. :)

[ScoutTrooper]

As a just starting out DM, I plan to give it out one or two ways.

1) Every time they reach a town, village or city and have personal things they wish to accomplish and it won't interfere mid quest/module

AND

2) Post module/quest

I'm playing with mostly veterans players, except one greenhorn. So a few want to partake in extra circular down time activities for their PCs or party sake. Another player is playing a goofy theory build we both came up with prior to me becoming the DM. And obviously the Greenhorn is learning.

[Lupine]

The players choose how and when to take down-time at my table. I tend to run adventures that take place on a scale of years, and the players often use the downtime rules as a part of the adventure. For example, the players recently entered a town while searching for the long lost heir to the throne of mcguffinry.

One of the players did pit-fighting to raise some money, and the rest of the table took research as their activity, using the money raised from the pit-fighting to recover expenses. Thats how they tend to take down time: more as a tool than as down time. Which I like, actually. The hard part is after the research time, I have to give them a smattering of lore both relevant and irrelevant (side quests) to their quest. That would be a lot more difficult if they took a multiple month downtime, so I guess I'm lucky they haven't done that yet.

At my table, the plot is there for the players to interact with, which they can do at their leisure... but the world goes on regardless. If they go after the heir instead of trying to oppose the villain's plans in the capital, then there will be consequences, but there may be benefits... and new stories that this change brings.

[Anderlith]

I’ve never played in such a restricted format that it was separated between “adventure mode” & “downtime mode”. We just decide that we want to pursue a goal, whether it’s a “quest” or just forging horseshoes to help out the local blacksmith for fun. Of course, if you wanted to stay in the abbey copying spells into your spellbook & something interesting is going on you’re gonna have to choose

[PhantomSoul]

I play like Darkstar -- the players (rather than the DM) decide whether to take downtime or not, and the world doesn't pause for it (so they decide when & whether to take the downtime strategically). I also have many "downtime" able to be done during "non-downtime" time, though, in that you can do tool training or language learning or whatever if I agree (or can be convinced!) that it's possible. Navigator's Tools or a Language, for example, are particularly likely to be possible to train while other things go on... but obviously it's going to be faster to dedicate yourself to training.

[Delph]

it's campaign by campaign - we played Curse of Stradh and Tomb of Anihilation. There in no time and space to do any downtime. Now we are playing Dragon Heist and we have everyday downtime activities. Day have 3 parts. One you need to spend for sleep, and remainig two are splited for adventure and downtime. I run tavern, coplayers are - smith, shoe worker, agent and lazy guy :D

and done some other works - cleaning sewers, diving in "submarine" for sinked treasures, fight with demons, or pit fighting.

[ad_hoc]

We have 1 week of downtime between levels.

I have added a few activities to the list to try to give something for every type of character to do.

It works out well for us. Each PC has the chance to get a solid bonus and it's nice for the character to do their own thing without taking up much time at the table.

[barakas]

For my group, downtime is variable depending on what's occurring in the campaign. I'm the DM and I often announce that the group will have a few days of downtime after a session which led them to level up, or after the accomplished a significant task. We often resolve those downtime activities via email between sessions, but sometimes play it out at the table which can lead to some very fun role playing.

One of my players plays a tinkering gnome and he's always working on ideas about what he'd like to research and craft. He sends me multiple emails between sessions, theorizing what he could build and asking about contacts to carouse with in the next town. He's very active away from the gaming table, which is one of the qualities I love about DnD. For him, the game doesn't stop when the session stops. He's always kept it within the realm of possibility but he loves to explore what he can of the world.

Another one of my players is the complete opposite of this. He doesn't participate or initiate any between session exploration or downtime activities. Going around the table to identify downtime activities, he (a paladin) says, "I go to the temple and pray. Maybe I volunteer for the church?" Occasionally I'll create an encounter for him in those scenes, but it's usually pretty clear to me that he's not interested in that element of play. Which is totally cool because the other players always have a lot they want to do.

As a player, I like downtime. It gives me a chance to breathe and think differently about the world in which my character exists. My characters have pursued retirement plans during downtime by obtaining a country cottage. They've joined sports teams and competed across the realm. They've written tomes of their adventures or based on their area of expertise, and they've tracked down long lost family members.

[Kane0]

1) Averages out to a week or two per level for campaigns with a definite arc, or 1-3 weeks every few sessions with a more sandbox game.

2) Buying/selling is usually a part of it, as is drunken debauchery. Practicing a trade or personal interest (art collecting, running a business, political shenanigans) come up depending on the character.

[Segev]

Neither as GM nor player have I ever found there to be much, if any, downtime in a game. Maybe a day or two here or there, but never so much as a whole week.

[stoutstien]

Personally I hate the terminology of downtime. For the most part it's just a combination of the exploratory and social pillars though not always excluding combat for some.
I've always felt games that are 90% combat feel flat in terms of player characters growth and development.

[Segev]

Personally I hate the terminology of downtime. For the most part it's just a combination of the exploratory and social pillars though not always excluding combat for some.
I've always felt games that are 90% combat feel flat in terms of player characters growth and development.

No, downtime is by definition not the "exploratory" and "social" parts of the game. These happen on a longer and often more abstracted timescale than the combat portions, unless actively dungeon-delving (wherein the exploration can be pretty precise), but you're actively playing them. You're having encounters with interesting things while exploring, even if you're "skipping over" the "boring walking bits." You're not hand-waving away a month of daily life.

Downtime is when you're NOT doing anything interesting or life-threatening, as a general rule. You're not exploring, so you can't have interesting explorational encounters. You're not engaged in social activities that are more interesting than small talk, or you'd probably play through them. Downtime is when the party isn't working together, and when nothing much is going on. Certainly, nothing interesting enough to role play, even abstractly.

Crafting is done in downtime because it's a lot of monotony and usually just some bookkeeping, mechanically. If the DM manages to make it interesting enough not to be downtime, good on him, but that's unusual.

[stoutstien]

No, downtime is by definition not the "exploratory" and "social" parts of the game. These happen on a longer and often more abstracted timescale than the combat portions, unless actively dungeon-delving (wherein the exploration can be pretty precise), but you're actively playing them. You're having encounters with interesting things while exploring, even if you're "skipping over" the "boring walking bits." You're not hand-waving away a month of daily life.

Downtime is when you're NOT doing anything interesting or life-threatening, as a general rule. You're not exploring, so you can't have interesting explorational encounters. You're not engaged in social activities that are more interesting than small talk, or you'd probably play through them. Downtime is when the party isn't working together, and when nothing much is going on. Certainly, nothing interesting enough to role play, even abstractly.

Crafting is done in downtime because it's a lot of monotony and usually just some bookkeeping, mechanically. If the DM manages to make it interesting enough not to be downtime, good on him, but that's unusual.

All time in d&d is abstract.
I think the so-called downtimes are missed opportunity for players to interact with the world. Sure you can hand wave crafting or spending a week in a library researching the location of a lost city in the jungle but it's a huge missed opportunity to put life into the world. Maybe while you are looking for the ink for your scrolls you run into a fellow scribe who knows the formula for a rare spell but they need help collecting a rare ingredient.

[Valmark]

It depends.

Speaking from personal experience as a master, I never had PCs wanting downtime- it happened only once and it wasn't really downtime (they conquered a city and stuck around long enough to find "trusted" people to leave in charge. The most trustable of these was a White Dragon, so you can imagine. After that they went off adventuring)

As a player, we've always found a quest right after the other.
The only exception is my current irl group where we've been thrown against 5-6 plot lines with several enemy factions all trying to get our skin and we're gasping for air. Which still means no downtime.
Funny thing, the only quest we are NOT following is the only one my PC is interested in.

[Sigreid]

My campaign is very sanf box so they can basically downtime whenever they want keeping in mind the world doesn't stop just because they're on vacation

[Misterwhisper]

Never played in a game that had any.

[Cheesegear]

1) How often is downtime a "thing" for your group? Do you have downtime between adventures? Do you have no allotted downtime and just jump from adventure to adventure while just qsumming 'misc stuff happens in the meantime '? How long are your downtimes typically, since they tend to run on workweeks. (gameplay wise)

Generally speaking, between adventures, and, usually, it's only the group's Wizard that needs it. Everyone else just shrugs their shoulders.

A Wizard, learning a spell from a Scroll, takes 2 hours*Spell Level.
You find a Level 5 Spell Scroll, that'll take 10 hours. When are you finding the time for that? Not even all the other Scrolls you found during the adventure, too. That's 10 hours for one Spell, buddy.

Our group hates playing Wizards. Sorcerers and Bards are much more preferable.

[JoeJ]

Something I'm planning to try in my next campaign is to borrow the idea of an adventuring season from the Pendragon game. Basically, that means that the PCs are not full time adventurers. They only get about one major adventure per year, and they spend the rest of the time working their regular jobs (i.e. "downtime"). That makes time pass fast enough to have real changes in the world: NPC's (and sometimes PCs) get married and have children who grow up, people die, thrones are inherited, wars are won and lost, fashions change, etc.

[Kane0]

Generally speaking, between adventures, and, usually, it's only the group's Wizard that needs it. Everyone else just shrugs their shoulders.

A Wizard, learning a spell from a Scroll, takes 2 hours*Spell Level.
You find a Level 5 Spell Scroll, that'll take 10 hours. When are you finding the time for that? Not even all the other Scrolls you found during the adventure, too. That's 10 hours for one Spell, buddy.

Our group hates playing Wizards. Sorcerers and Bards are much more preferable.

Wow... that's quite a different cut from the grain here on the forums lol.

Right up there with the dragonfire sorcerer I DM turning down a free wand of winter.

[Cheesegear]

Wow... that's quite a different cut from the grain here on the forums lol.

Wizards are really, really, really good...Provided that they sit in their ivory towers, are given whatever Scrolls they want, and are allowed several weeks' worth of prep time, to learn anything they want.

The rest of us, living in the real world, only get 2 Spells to learn per Level. Which is fine, as it's still more than the Sorcerer or Bard gets per level. But, a Wizard is still tied to their Spellbook, which may be problematic depending on who is DMing...Which is me. Generally, I have my villains be just as smart - or smarter, even - as my players. A CR15 hostile knows how a Wizard works. Burn the book. Every time.

The first time I did that, my players decided that having your class be tied to an item that can be lost, stolen or destroyed, wasn't particularly a good idea. There are plenty of spells that can be cast by other classes that are only VS - no components or Focus required. But the Wizard, even exclusively casting VS spells, is still tied to their Book.

[Kane0]

I get that you're probably being hyperbolic, but a bookless wizard still retains all his currently prepared spells. He just can't change that prepped list or use rituals until he has a book (learned this the hard way thanks to Rage of Demons).

[Darkstar952]

How does the creature automatically know that the character is a Wizard unless he sees him actively using the spellbook, which the wizard doesn't need to do for most of the day unless he is using a ritual. To memorise his spells for the day he just uses the book at the start of the day and then he can appear as another generic arcane caster.

Secondly how did the creature get easy access to destroy the wizards book, had he not taken any precautions like keeping it in bag of holding, secret chest or some other extra dimensional storage?

I'm guessing you've never had an artificer in any of your groups, they also want to take plenty of downtime. The groups I normally play with normally have no issues with downtime, the wizards and artificers need it a bit more for their classes, but all of the other classes it is a chance to establish and enrich the character within the world, makes them more than the single dimensional adventurers that seem prevalent in many other games I have seen.

[Segev]

All time in d&d is abstract.
I think the so-called downtimes are missed opportunity for players to interact with the world. Sure you can hand wave crafting or spending a week in a library researching the location of a lost city in the jungle but it's a huge missed opportunity to put life into the world. Maybe while you are looking for the ink for your scrolls you run into a fellow scribe who knows the formula for a rare spell but they need help collecting a rare ingredient.

You...do realize that if I take your "downtime is a missed opportunity" argument literally and seriously, you're effectively seeming to argue that every second of every day in-game should be RP'd out, because "and then you slept through the night" could be missing out on the rich role-playing opportunity of having a chance encounter on the way to the bush when you wake up to void your bladder, right?

The whole point of the question of "downtime" is whether there's actually enough of it to accomplish long-term activities. Let's just use the item crafting times in 5e. These go to months or years VERY quickly. Are you seriously suggesting that all of the time spent crafting a Rare magic item should be RP'd through, with adventures, quests, encounters, etc. being done to make it "interesting?" I guarantee that the player will be very frustrated that he's having to have his PC interrupt his crafting time and the other players may be annoyed that all the adventure is glued to the local city and/or revolves around this crafting for months of real-world game sessions to properly simulate the years of in-game crafting time and all the fascinating, interesting encounters that could possibly arise.

The reason downtime requirements are a problem is because so often adventures and campaigns don't allow for a realistic behavior to be taking that long not pursuing the plot, lest Bad Things happen and the main plot be lost. Either in the sense of the bad guys winning and the party losing due to the party not showing up, or in the sense of the plot threads going cold and there being nothing to pick up on after skiving off for months to years.

[stoutstien]

You...do realize that if I take your "downtime is a missed opportunity" argument literally and seriously, you're effectively seeming to argue that every second of every day in-game should be RP'd out, because "and then you slept through the night" could be missing out on the rich role-playing opportunity of having a chance encounter on the way to the bush when you wake up to void your bladder, right?

The whole point of the question of "downtime" is whether there's actually enough of it to accomplish long-term activities. Let's just use the item crafting times in 5e. These go to months or years VERY quickly. Are you seriously suggesting that all of the time spent crafting a Rare magic item should be RP'd through, with adventures, quests, encounters, etc. being done to make it "interesting?" I guarantee that the player will be very frustrated that he's having to have his PC interrupt his crafting time and the other players may be annoyed that all the adventure is glued to the local city and/or revolves around this crafting for months of real-world game sessions to properly simulate the years of in-game crafting time and all the fascinating, interesting encounters that could possibly arise.

The reason downtime requirements are a problem is because so often adventures and campaigns don't allow for a realistic behavior to be taking that long not pursuing the plot, lest Bad Things happen and the main plot be lost. Either in the sense of the bad guys winning and the party losing due to the party not showing up, or in the sense of the plot threads going cold and there being nothing to pick up on after skiving off for months to years.

No, just like every step of combat isn't played out or every footprint or broken branch isn't described when you are tracking.
I think it's equally problematic that players are expected to always save the world by next sundown. nothing feels worse than unrealistic time tables. Taken a few weeks off from delving into dangerous ruins isn't going to cause the world to end and having periods where the characters can relax helps make the life or death scenarios more impactful. it's a little like how a action movie can have so much action that muddles and whole thing the same thing can happen in a game where the players are going back to back to back to back fast pace game play.

*Side note: yeah crafting sucks and 5th edition but that is not my indicative of having good experiences with it.

[Valmark]

No, just like every step of combat isn't played out or every footprint or broken branch isn't described when you are tracking.
I think it's equally problematic that players are expected to always save the world by next sundown. nothing feels worse than unrealistic time tables. Taken a few weeks off from delving into dangerous ruins isn't going to cause the world to end and having periods where the characters can relax helps make the life or death scenarios more impactful. it's a little like how a action movie can have so much action that muddles and whole thing the same thing can happen in a game where the players are going back to back to back to back fast pace game play.

*Side note: yeah crafting sucks and 5th edition but that is not my indicative of having good experiences with it.

What is your definition of downtime? 'cause it feels like you are talking about something entirely different.
Downtime usually (or at least how I've seen it referred) is used to do those things that can require long time without big interruptions like, for example, creating items, researching spells, training animals (I'm not too sure on this in 5e) or maybe going shopping for items and supplies in preparation for adventuring again. If there's roleplay it's usually not really quest-related, like maybe the PC is engaged and goes to meet their fianceé.
Do note that I did say usually.
Homewever the example you made isn't downtime. At least, not how it's usually intended. If I meet an npc that can help me in exchange for a job and I accept that breaks my downtime, since I go back adventuring.

On another note, you can't really say that the world isn't going to end if you take a few weeks off. It is highly dependant on the plot of the campaign and in most campaigns you don't really have time to play around when the plot picks on. There again, I never had players wanting or needing downtime so it could be lack of experience.

[stoutstien]

What is your definition of downtime? 'cause it feels like you are talking about something entirely different.
Downtime usually (or at least how I've seen it referred) is used to do those things that can require long time without big interruptions like, for example, creating items, researching spells, training animals (I'm not too sure on this in 5e) or maybe going shopping for items and supplies in preparation for adventuring again. If there's roleplay it's usually not really quest-related, like maybe the PC is engaged and goes to meet their fianceé.
Do note that I did say usually.
Homewever the example you made isn't downtime. At least, not how it's usually intended. If I meet an npc that can help me in exchange for a job and I accept that breaks my downtime, since I go back adventuring.

On another note, you can't really say that the world isn't going to end if you take a few weeks off. It is highly dependant on the plot of the campaign and in most campaigns you don't really have time to play around when the plot picks on. There again, I never had players wanting or needing downtime so it could be lack of experience.

Like I said I don't like the term downtown because it makes it seem like it is a tag for anything that is handwaved from crafting to a training montage.
It very table dependent on how much time is spent milling around towns and drinking in pubs. The idea of not blowing everything up with fire ball is very foreign to some.

[Grognerd]

Something I'm planning to try in my next campaign is to borrow the idea of an adventuring season from the Pendragon game. Basically, that means that the PCs are not full time adventurers. They only get about one major adventure per year, and they spend the rest of the time working their regular jobs (i.e. "downtime"). That makes time pass fast enough to have real changes in the world: NPC's (and sometimes PCs) get married and have children who grow up, people die, thrones are inherited, wars are won and lost, fashions change, etc.

I approach downtime similarly to this, though not with a specific limit per adventure. Rather, since leveling up signifies growth and maturation of the character, I have a minimum time threshold associated with leveling. Basically, a month per current level upon leveling. So when leveling from 3rd to 4th level, that's a 3 month span.

I don't enforce that everything stops for three months. Instead, I just look at how long that adventure took. Whatever the difference in time was between that adventure and 3 months turns out to be becomes storied downtime. If an adventure takes a character from 2nd to 4th level, I don't restrict them to one level - they still get both levels. But now the balance is for 2+3=5 months of downtime.

At the end of the story arc, before entering the next arc, that's where the downtime takes place. Kind of like on TV shows when stuff happens between seasons 1 and 2, but it is off-screen. So in the first example... let's say an adventure lasted 3 weeks and a character progressed from 3rd to 4th level. That's a 3 month span of time. Since the adventure lasted 3 weeks, We have a balance of roughly 9 weeks of downtime that is "owed" and conducted at a suitable spot between adventures.

With XGtE and the expansion of complications and rivals from downtime, it also sets up good hooks for the next adventure that way, as well as a way to shape the world between adventures yet still basing that shape on what the PCs do in downtime.

This probably sounds more complicated than it is in practice, but I just can't jive with the 20th level fighter being a 19 year old kid. To get that level of power, it's going to take some time.

EDIT: This is also my mandated downtime. Characters can always take additional downtime, but that doesn't count for this purpose.