Downtime in D&D

How and why we should use it in our games.
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[@strawberryhellcat4738]

We use a book called "Of Downtime and Demesnes" for our downtime roleplay. I found it recommended on a YT channel, downloaded the pdf, and we used it so often I bought the POD hardcover. It includes tables for carousing, philanthropy, training, trade goods, hiring retainers/henchmen/mercenaries, spell-crafting, random bazaar items,100 obnoxious peasants/noble patrons, strange pet stores, time-keeping aids, crime and punishment, building strongholds etc. It's also great for getting characters a bit more xp between adventures, and even failing a saving roll for some of the activities can be hilarious. We had paladins who donated to charities that were actually criminal fronts and got beat-downs, rangers who got social diseases from carousing, and 12 Goblin Mischiefs (the drawing on pg. 147...lol).

[@WayneBraack]

That sounds hilarious! I bet I have a lot of fun at your table

[@aidendon4127]

This is exactly what I was looking for. Many thanks! 👍

[@brottongoodfellow5932]

That book has never let me down

[@thePIPEisright]

Funny, I thought that book stunk. Lol. Different strokes I guess.

[@brottongoodfellow5932]

@@thePIPEisright lol, to each their own!

[@antovirlou]

I just found this channel today, and I’ve been watching basically as many videos as I could. And there’s a new one coming it! It’s amazing

[@WayneBraack]

Daniel has a lot of great advice. And it crosses so many RPGs but he presents everything is neutral. Easily adaptable to whatever game you're playing. Which is what we DMS do right?

[@BanditsKeep]

Welcome aboard!

[@ChristnThms]

I have a couple things to offer that may make downtime more fun for some groups. 1. The idea of a retail store that has shelves full of products is a very modern thing, and putting them in a fantasy setting removes an entire area of potential. Armor or weapons would be extremely unlikely to be simply "for sale." More likely, there's a smithy that could be commissioned for the work, and the small town version may not have the skill for the top tier items. Making even simple gear part of the downtime process makes it far more significant. 2. There are a couple books with some great downtime tables (XgtE I think) that are a great place to start when you first bring up downtime activities, and your players all return blank stares. For those players who use downtime for more social endeavors, I usually use them as the vehicle to introduce new rumors or quests or such.

[@Cybermaul]

In my DCC game, leveling up takes one month in-game and an amount of gold equal to the XP needed to level, spent on training, facilities, etc. During this month, the PCs get to commit time towards downtime activities. One player founded a hunters' guild which scouts the countryside and gives him rumors. Another player is working on a Dwarven workshop in the guild house. At the same time, I'm using domain actions from "An Echo, Resounding" and various clocks to track other factions, activities, and events. I gave the players mental and mechanical space to explore the world using downtime, and they're doing so!

[@BanditsKeep]

Nice! I have been meaning to mess with An Echo Resounding, thanks for reminding me!

[@deeps2761]

Loved playing 'downtime' sessions between adventures. Some campaigns I played in didn't really do it at all which was frustrating, especially when I was DM'ing I encouraged players to have ambitions and an idea of their family as in brothers/sisters that could be potential small scale mini adventures to pad out the world. Once the PC's get to a decent level and have a reputation then some settlements would try and encourage them to settle there while some leaders would feel threatened by these 'famous faces' in their town. That can be on top of what the PCs are trying to achieve ie create a new spell or whatever. Great opportunity to role play.

[@nickmaldonado59]

Dan, your videos always give me great inspiration. Listening to this, had a lightbulb go off for making my game WAY better with handling downtime in a fun, resource-management kind of way. Thanks again man 👍🏻

[@SpiritWolf1966]

I enjoy all of Bandit’s Keep videos 🎉🎉

[@BanditsKeep]

Thank You!

[@aidendon4127]

Thanks for all your great videos. As a new GM, I would love a practical follow up video with die based procedures for the different types of downtime you mention here. Maybe with some concrete examples? Right now its a bit abstract for me. How do I actually "do" different activities players want to achieve in their downtime, if that makes sense? 😊 Sorry if that sounds boring or old hat for you. I have just started a Dolmenwood campaign using the OSE Advanced rule set. I have run one 5E campaign where it was exactly as you described: lots of "ticking clocks" with little or no downtime, mostly because I wasn't focused on that aspect. Feeling very nervous and uncertain. 😂

[@malkomalkavian]

If there is no chance of failure, don't roll, they just do what they want. If it is mechanically the same as adventuring then it won't feel like downtime. That's my first instinct. You know your team better than i do. What do you think?

[@aidendon4127]

@@malkomalkavian yeah, that's my first instinct too. However, I need procedural methods for when we do roll. I want a procedural framework to hang my hat on so that it makes logical sense and for consistency in my rulings.

[@timsanty3052]

Excellent discussion as always Daniel! I’m using 1:1 time in my Caverns of Thracia open table campaign currently, and I’m loving it. It can get a little weird at times, but I basically told the party that each session takes place over one in-game day, and every delve needs a week-long recovery for the party. No one has complained yet, and we are several months in!

[@BanditsKeep]

Nice! I feel like an open table is a cool place to try 1:1

[@mightytoothpick]

I usually do downtime for learning new proficiencies, learning new languages, doing research on specific stuff, maybe visiting someone or just take some time off to rest from their adventures

[@ericbrandenburg9267]

My Human Rogue in this new edition has the Artisan background, but he is a Moonshiner/Bootlegger. Downtime is money! Sourcing ingredients (at that 20% discount), pressing or brewing, fermentation, then barreling and/or bottling. Skill Expertise gained after leveling up means I will make very good quality booze. Being a "merchant" with wagons loaded down with beer, wine, and various liquors will open a lot of doors, and get you on a lot of ships to just about anywhere. There are all kinds of guards that can be bribed with a bottle of hard liquor. Also, the Prestidigitation cantrip flavors food/drink. That lets me lace drinks with poison, sleeping potion, truth serum, etc with next to zero chance of detection excluding magical means.

[@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115]

One of the options on my settings is always a way to get rid of the eldritch corruption by spending time in a Temple, Library, Tavern, Brothel, Fighting Pit, Gambling Houses, etc. Tons of NPC interactions and worldbuilding.

[@andrewlustfield6079]

Downtime is great, especially for thieves and bards who actually need to establish contacts with others in the underworld. It's important for research, for knights to make connections with local nobility, for wizards to research spells or gather information on the various monsters the party is currently or expects to be fighting. And for priests to acquire healing supplies and holy items the party might need. Since I run a very low magic campaign, monster research is actually pretty important. To my way of thinking, it's a big part of what makes your world feel three dimensional. So when you go through town and most of the buildings are store facings supported by stilts.

[@frankb3347]

Ars Magica has downtime built in as an intrinsic part of campaign play. It's when you advance your characters and their holdings between sessions. Active play is just the occasional highlights between what's actually happening most of the time.

[@grumpyoldslan]

With one to one time, you also run into the problem of what to do if the characters don't come out of a dungeon between sessions -- we usually assume no time passed between those two sessions and now the characters are "behind", though they can "catch up" once they leave the dungeon with some travel or some extended downtime.

[@strawpiglet]

I was thinking about this too, Slan. I wonder how Gygax handled that. I also wonder how he handled it when a player couldn't show up.

[@Xplora213]

Players stuck in the dungeon died.

[@SusCalvin]

One Ring enforces downtime as part of travel. Travel will build up fatigue. Fatigue doubles as your hp and carrying capacity. The only way to reduce fatigue from travel is to take shelter along your journey. You gotta hang out at the Homely House and spend a little time culture gaming with the elfs. After each adventure, you spend a seasonal downtime that resets all your spent fatigue, limiting you to three adventures per year. Winter is a special enlarged downtime.

[@pickpocketpressrpgvideos6655]

Love Downtime activities. I think they're especially useful for games with lots of loot, gives the players something to spend it on (so that they can go out and get more loot!)

[@apjapki]

I think downtime is a great relief from ticking clocks. Rather than players being intimidated by it, I find they are often very relieved by it. To take an example many will recognise, I returned to rpgs as a player and played Lost Mine of Phandelver to learn the 5e rules. During that campaign there are a few locations you can learn of that are mysteries in and of themselves quite far from the main story and which contain zero hooks to the main plot. The problem for my Good aligned character is at least four allies are kidnapped before the story starts and the final one is only found in the end dungeon. This means that I never really had the freedom to ignore the ticking clock and explore. Downtime can absolutely give you the player time to absolutely be self directed, not even having to follow the collective party will and for every player to put a kind of personal footprint in the world. And it's a big relief before the next clock starts ticking. I know there are other ways to do this stuff and to achieve these things, and possibly less relevant to a pure treasure hunter approach - but it's just a perspective.

[@Brigadator]

I'm running a game were a natural 'magical' plague came through the characters' city and the region, it was resistant to magical cures and was going to force them to take 2-3 monthes of downtime. This happened two sessions before COVID sprang up and shut everything down, ironic I know. We stopped gaming because of COVID, and had two years out of game before we started back up. When we started back up I told eveyone that their characters also had two years of downtime as the ingame plague ran it's course as well. I had a real world reference to pull from. I planned one session where everyone could say what their characters were doing for their two years. One player wanted to roleplay the entire two years. It took us six session running through the two years of downtime because of this one player. Every time I tried to skip us forward he'd be like 'wait, what about this and that', and I'd have to narrate or roleplay him and whomever elses character was with him at the time. He would not, or more likely could not, let the time just skip forward. As the GM I didn't care too much, but I noticed other players were getting annoyed by it. I tried every tactic I could but he wouldn't let us start up without playing through the entire downtime. By the end, I was frustrated as well. A couple monthes later he pulled out and stopped playing. I wish I could say I miss the player at the table, but I feel the dynamic has improved after hsi departure.

[@sketchasaurrex4087]

Half of the downtime is done through a group chat with the players. They go shopping for their new gear, stock up on supplies, check for wanted posters, odd jobs, and rumors. That gives me stuff to plan and prep for the party to play out for the first hour and then they go on whatever hook I dangled best for them.

[@Frederic_S]

I ran Blades in the Dark for half a year and it handles downtime pretty well.

[@yourseatatthetable]

For me, the idea that 'downtime' aught to be a given; that it goes along with adventuring, just a different sort. Usually it comes out in general play. Just 'living our imaginary lives' so to speak.

[@BanditsKeep]

Indeed

[@underfire987]

Great ideas all of these i am going to look at how i can implement this into my campaigns far better now!

[@BanditsKeep]

Excellent!

[@harrycookson6086]

The Delta Green RPG also has a good system for downtime, where after a mission the PCs perform long term goals and have their personal lives affected by the mission they just went on

[@BanditsKeep]

Cool

[@Sageofthedustypage]

excellent topic with some thought-provoking concepts i think has mostly a soloist i will start a journal to keep track of time and expenses, training and character growth.

[@BanditsKeep]

Cool!

[@SusCalvin]

Pendragon might have the lead in downtime. The PC knights go on one adventure each year. The rest of the year they maintain the manor they live at, chat up people, boss peasants etc. You roll to see if your horse, wife, kids and dogs survive winter.

[@BanditsKeep]

Ah yes! I need to get that to the table some day

[@SusCalvin]

@@BanditsKeep One of my mates did not like the administration in the manor system. I think it pushes you to keep an estate working.

[@BanditsKeep]

@@SusCalvin yeah that fascinates me - though I could see not liking it as well. I’ve got the book, just need to find the time (and motivation).

[@malkomalkavian]

I think a lot of knights, and kings, didn't like admin and let the whole pile rot while they hung out with their mates and talked about the last adventure and the next.

[@SusCalvin]

@@malkomalkavian It depends on which bit of Europe. The bailiff or reeve or alderman which acts directly with the peasants is not necessarily a noble. They can be a person closer to the peasants or a peasant themselves. You can have a divide in the nobility, where part of them are purely titled nobility. With small or no land but positions in the officer corps and administration. There could be a high nobility aggragating land to their circle.

[@heroeshomebrew]

I run downtime for my west marches campaign on Discord between sessions. We use the book On Downtime & Demesnes which allows the players to spend gold and gain xp for their downtime activities, but each activity has a saving throw, so their may be consequences if they fail. Because we use 1:1 time, it gives their characters something to do for the days between sessions if they aren't healing.

[@BanditsKeep]

Nice - I feel like I have that supplement, I’ll have to take a look

[@heroeshomebrew]

@BanditsKeep It's become an essential resource for me.

[@ElderGoblinGames]

Great stuff. As always.

[@BanditsKeep]

Thank You!

[@Slit518]

When I do downtime I generally choose when it is, and about for how long. I allow the PCs to pursue something that they want to during the downtime. Information, a Skill, learning a Language, researching a Spell, etc.

[@BanditsKeep]

Cool

[@adventureswithfrodo2721]

My current campaign at first downtime I decided I would start a fish and Chip shop, as a Tabaxi druid it mad since. That turned in to a long john fish shop, after the fishing boat captian. Then a hamburger shop named for thev boat captions Anne wendsay, note aw. Okay it is lame but hey didn't have any thing better to do.

[@bigbambino6286]

lifelong forever DM and my players have been up to a ton of downtime recently so thanks my fellow daniel for the video!

[@BanditsKeep]

Awesome

[@jamesrizza2640]

Hi Daniel. I run sandbox campaigns so what I do is after every adventure, [once the players make it back into town, this ends the current adventure,], I roll a die 20 to determine how much time has gone by between the players last adventure, [the one just mentioned], and the start of the next adventure, [the next session that the players are about to start.]. This is my table for anyone interested; 1. 3 days, 2-3. 1 wk, 4-5. 2 wks, 6-7. 3 wks, 8-9. 1 month, 10-12. 2 months, 13-15. 3 months, 16-19. 6 months, 20. 1year. This allows enough time for campaign events to play out, start, end or what have you. It seems unrealistic to me that characters would risk their lives and take injuries and then go immediately back out to do it again. In addition to this, it takes time for word to spread of new adventures or areas to discover. [Unless the players go blindly into the wilderness to find such places. In a hex crawl this can be very dangerous.] Also this gives the PC's some time to do downtime activities, such as spell research, training a skill, healing and learning their surroundings. Great video Daniel, thanks for sharing.

[@someguy403]

That's a really cool idea. Personally, I would prefer to just use 1:1 time but that table seems like it could be pretty interesting, and as you said it makes some sense that adventurers wouldn't immediately rush back out into danger without first enjoying the spoils of their victory. My only issue with it is that I like to have multiple adventure hooks active at any given time and I think I would lose out on a lot of that if time kept skipping months ahead.

[@jamesrizza2640]

@@someguy403 This is the magic of being a DM, you don't have to consistently use it, in fact the players may never need to know you are using it, this is why I put such a gap between die rolls. You will know you didn't use the table but they won't, unless you tell them. The other option would be not to put a time limit on a adventure hook. I do have time limits on my hooks, but the point in my campaigns is that the players can't do everything that is going on, they have to choose which events/adventures they will pursure and which will be resolved by time, other npc adventurers or so forth. To me it adds an additional level of "realism" to a fantasy game, lol. Cheers.

[@aidendon4127]

Great advice. Thanks for the table and explanation!

[@CaptCook999]

Several of our players had Dwarves and Elves. So downtime wasn't an issue to these long lived characters. When we decided to take off 4 years of downtime, our human mage was very upset. Because he didn't want to adventure without us and 4 years is a long time to a human. I guess that he didn't realize that he could be making potions and scrolls for that next adventure. This same human mage decided to make a magic item when he became high level. And he was upset when the DM told him that he couldn't take that character because he was busy for the next several months and would have to choose another character to play or not play at all. He did relent and played another character of lower level. Even though that character had a good chance of dying. But the risk might be worth the reward if he survived. So...

[@MrMuddyWheels]

Cyberpunk Red has a good downtime system. After a mission anyone who was injured needs time to heal this requires time to rest so you don’t re injure yourselfs. Anyone not healing rolls on a class specific downtime table if they have 7 days available to see if and how much money they made in that time

[@BanditsKeep]

That seems simple and fun

[@CaptCook999]

Reading the DMG, it sure seems that Gary Gygax wanted to fleece his players out of as much as he could. Forcing players to have downtime in order to train to go up levels, also costing them money. Cost of living during the downtime. Taxes for all the gold and coins, gems and jewelry and any other goods that they brought into a town. Most characters would be broke after all these expenses. So what else do you spend money on during downtime? Depending on your level and class it could get rather expensive. Mages especially have high expenses. Thieves could actually make money in their downtime burgling and running scams. Fighters could either sit back and relax or work as a bouncer or guard. Clerics, well they probably will have to put in some time at the local church doing good deeds and casting spells for people which might produce a small profit after the church takes their cut. And most of this is considering that the characters are lower level. Higher level characters? Well that's a completely different story. A high level mage is going to need a place to study for more spells. A laboratory for making potions and scrolls. And at least a few trusted guards need to be hired to keep his place safe until they return from that next adventure. Depending on the DM, we seldom paid for going up levels until we hit 4th level. That's when they made us start paying for training.

[@atomicnectar]

i used to hand wave down time or just ask PCs wat they have been up to dont spend much time on it. but looking for more things to suggest for them to do during downtime

[@BanditsKeep]

It can definitely add life to the campaign

[@LuizPaiva2077]

Downtime in Blades in the Dark (and forged in the dark games) is a separate minigame (not so mini) inside the rules. Its so mechanics heavy you could spend an entire session on it (very cool stuff, but not for my taste)

[@BanditsKeep]

Interesting! I have Blades somewhere, have never played though

[@mikeb.1705]

Most of the time I try to take care of shopping / admin / downtime via emails or texts in between sessions. Of course that isn't always possible, and we end up spending some time at the start or end of a session dealing with that "admin".

[@playerextremebr1.027]

6:09 this more easier and freeform? Using yes/no oracles, Tables, Encounters, etc.

[@playerextremebr1.027]

Player: i made new friends! GM: roll oracle, "no and..." you make enemies. Roll for iniciative Lol

[@BanditsKeep]

I would say so

[@SusCalvin]

There is no skill system, but people other than MUs should have reasons to spend time researching and investigating things. They can say they try to learn a new language or how to play the trumpet. We have used rules where PCs can pick up new languages over time. They can build a thing they think they need, from repairing their crossbow to building a Renaissance sink bomb.

[@BanditsKeep]

For sure

[@stochasticagency]

What can one use for good downtime references? You mention several things like research, crafting, business, and shipping. Some of these things should be easy to find a reference for, but are you just hand-waving others?

[@RedwoodRhiadra]

If you're playing 5e, Xanathar's Guide has rules for a fair number of downtime activities. Pathfinder has its own pretty comprehensive rules in Ultimate Campaign (and the Archives of Nethys, of course). For OSR, there are a fair number of supplements which do similar - "On Downtime and Demesnes" is a classic one, Downtime in Zyan is a newer one I've heard of but haven't had time to look at yet.

[@sw33n3yto00]

Downtime and Demesnes on DTRPG.

[@angelloramirezg091]

Hi Daniel

[@BanditsKeep]

Hello

[@mr.pavone9719]

Splunge!

[@BanditsKeep]

🤘🏻

[@Arnsteel634]

Second

[@BanditsKeep]

🥈

[@DeGreyChristensen]

I’ve done 1-1 time tracking before. We hated it. It made things so complicated, especially when considering travel times and postponed or canceled sessions because things happening in real life. I much more prefer using an in-game calendar. This way you can just say, we take a month to rest in the town and research “blank” or craft “blank”. I want to build a castle. Ok that takes 2 years. What do you all do with your 2 years of downtime while this player oversees his castle being built? Ok. 2 years have passed, the dwarf’s beard is a little longer, the rogue has set up a prosperous trading industry at the port, the wizard has invented 2 new spells, and the fighter’s castle is completed. One of the peasants runs in to the newly complete great hall shouting that orcs are attacking the outer village. What do you do? You can’t do this with a 1-1 game but it can be done in minutes with a calendar.

[@BanditsKeep]

Indeed, different tables enjoy different aspects of the game for sure.

[@tagg1080]

This is correct. 1-1 time defined as matching game calendar to real calendar is the bros doing, but that isn't what Gary lays out in the DMG. He lays out a game calendar that passes 1 day per real day if the players are not doing anything. You are doing it the way Gary says to do it. Matching game calendar to real calendar is only necessary if you have a huge amount of players all trying to track things well into the future. It is a tool for a problem, not an axiom of d&d.

[@ericjome7284]

I like carousing. Spend that gold until you gotta go get more.

[@BanditsKeep]

Nice

[@incoher]

fiiiiirst

[@BanditsKeep]

🏆