DOWNTIME
These are the downtime rules I’ve been using in my West Marches-ish troupe-play campaign. There’s a lot already covered by the core rules; this starts from there and codifies or explains some other common situations.
Everything covered by these rules is long-term, measured in days or weeks and not moments. We use these rules between sessions, but they can work for any downtime. The PCs are all based out of one steading, so there’s some incentive towards steading-building, but these rules would work fine if you’re moving around; that would change the incentive towards stopping in nicer places. And we completely ignore upkeep costs, but room and board prices can be found in the core rules if you care to use them.
Looks interesting, and I can see the type of feel it’s going for, are you familiar w/ Jeremy Strandberg ‘s Stonetop? My only criticism is the assumption of 1d4 weeks of time between adventures seems to clash with the Agenda (or was it a Principle?) to portray a fantastic world. Then again, I may just be used to rest being at a premium from D&D.
Sorta feel like using Discern Realities to do research/investigation is… not quite right? You’re always rolling WIS regardless of how you do the research. And I feel like you could get too much info on a 10+? Maybe? (The instruction to make the info revealed “one small piece at a time” might help mitigate that).
There was an old discussion about longer-term investigation a while back… let me see if I can find it.
Found the thread… it wasn’t as relevant as I thought it might have been (it was about investigating a crime scene). But I found this bit that might be useful to you?
Get Answers
When you investigate or do research, tell us how you go about it and ask the GM a specific question that could be answered this way. If you do it by…
…intimidating a reluctant source or witness, roll +STR
…sneaking around unseen and unnoticed, roll +DEX
…waiting patiently and watching, roll +CON
…performing careful analysis, pouring through records, or summoning up memories, roll +INT
…searching an area for clues or evidence, roll +WIS
…interviewing witnesses, chatting up bystanders, or otherwise being social, roll +CHA
On a 10+, the GM will give you a clear and helpful answer from your character’s point of view, including some clarifications and follow-up questions. On a 7-9, the GM gives you a cryptic or incomplete answer and tells you how you could learn more.
On a miss, you get at least a cryptic or partial answer in addition to whatever the GM decides.
Oh, and since Charles Gatz mentioned it, here’s the most relevant part of Stonetop if you’re interested:
drive.google.com – Steading Playbook (chapter).pdf – Google Drive
Charles Gatz, the 1d4 weeks serves several purposes in my campaign. For a different campaign, that may not be necessary, or a longer time may be desired. Not only is this troupe-play, but it’s set in the Invells setting from Inverse World, kind of age-of-sky-sail, with steadings spread very far from each other, so changes propagate slowly. If you’re in a megacity, with all the adventure happening within a few hours-walk, the time scale should be much smaller.
For any players that play two sessions in a row, it gives them the opportunity to have some downtime. In my more-traditional campaign, Bolster is rarely used, and someone taking time to Recover would feel like they were slowing everyone down. But, if there’s time, they’re going to use it. And I really like Bolster.
It also balances out the timing. A particular session may cover a few days or several weeks. The extra downtime reduces the variance. As the game’s gone on, the players are also finding new ways to spend their downtime. I could give the players the opportunity to say “I’m ready in 3 weeks”, “I’m ready in 7”, but mine probably wouldn’t feel right with that.
The longer time gives you room to see the changes in the world as a result of player choices. It’s also room to actually see the Updating the Campaign Map steading change rules work out over time, or other changes. For example, one session, the players set up trade with a steading about two weeks away. To see that have any significant effect on their home steading would be a matter of a month or two.
Jeremy Strandberg, I haven’t actually seen that Discern Realities in use, and this campaign isn’t really focused on that sort of investigation anyway. I actually just threw it in as I fixed this up for posting here when I realized it’d work. In fact, most moves would have some long-term application you could play out; you could have leverage on a GM Character and manipulate them or consult your accumulated knowledge about something or help or hinder someone for weeks, but those aren’t as likely to come up. Discern Realities in particular is easy to scale up or down.
And of course, the rules are where the game is. If the campaign were more focused on intrigue, I’d probably want more detail in the moves related to it. As it is, the bit on Discern Realities is just “Hey, don’t forget this move exists!”, with some explanation of how it might look.
That Steading playbook looks useful. A lot of it’s not specifically downtime but definitely helpful for the city-building stuff. I’ll check out more of it.
Particular inspirations I drew on:
– Blades in the Dark‘s downtime, though not very directly
– Pendragon‘s one-year-per-session
– Steven Lumpkin’s DnD 5E West Marches downtime rules