You're Doing Downtime Wrong

A simplified mechanic and a rethinking of what it means to do downtime

For a long time, this is how I thought of downtime:

1. You return from your adventures or explorations to a safe haven, such as a town or home base.

2. You dedicate a specific amount of time to activities that either don’t fit within the “adventuring/exploring” phase of the game or can only be done within the safety of a secure area.

3. You gain or lose resources based on the results of those activities (some of which influence the players' progress in the non-downtime phase of the game) before returning to adventuring and exploring.

There’s a key part here that I think is the single biggest key mistake people make. Can you guess what it is?

For years, this bolded bit of text dictated my prep and the experience of my players at the table. Slowly, over time, I started to see a widening crack:

Why was the prep for my campaign getting in the way of the downtime my players wanted to perform? Why was downtime distracting the players from the campaign they chose from the start?

Why? Because I thought of them as two different modes of play with two disconnected, siloed systems.

In Downtime in Zyan by Ben Laurence, he effortlessly cuts through the chaff of this argument and illustrates what I believe is the ideal structure for a campaign:

If we think of a campaign as a living organism, and if we think of our collective play as its lifeblood, then [downtime] is less a separate mini-game and more the beating heart of the circulatory system.

… Looked at from the side of the GM, [downtime] also encourages worldbuilding and sandbox design with a view to this two-way flow [between downtime and adventures]. If you put this system into practice, it will transform the way you run games.

In other words, downtime does not just affect the campaign. It’s where you draw inspiration for adventures. It’s where NPCs come and go from the player characters' lives. It’s the proverbial well you first pull from when worldbuilding.

Downtime IS the campaign.

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A Method for Downtime

With mechanics, there are three things we want to state up front:

1. Problem: What is the noted problem this mechanic is solving?

2. Design Goals: What specific elements do we want in this mechanic?

3. Execution: How does a GM / Player implement this mechanic in their games?

So, with that said:

1. Problem: Downtime is often considered the “other” part of many campaigns. It ends up becoming a haphazard fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants system that is clunky and ends up being different each time you attempt it.
   

2. Design Goals:
   

   1. Create a system that is simple and repeatable across multiple types of downtime

   2. Have said system be instrumental in worldbuilding and campaign prep

   3. Allow the system to overlay across different types of systems

   4. Have the rules take up no more than one page
      

3. Execution
   This method is inspired by the system put forth in Downtime in Zyan, extrapolated on in Errant by Ava Islam, and many other articles of individual downtime techniques. As with many things in the hobby, its a hodge-podge amalgamation of different ideas with a bit of my own spin on it.
   
   There are four types of downtime actions: Improvement, Artifice, Fellowship, and Intrigue.
   

   1. Improvement represents physical improvement, learning new abilities, or spiritual enrichment.

   2. Artifice is things like crafting items, developing enchantments, or even mundane tasks like painting and dancing.

   3. Fellowship is gained by carousing in taverns, improving relationships, and establishing institutions.

   4. Intrigue is anything related to gathering intelligence, shaping grand designs, or setting plans in motion.

   
   The four types of downtimes manifest in three ways: player action, worldbuilding, and adventure generation.

   
   At the beginning of a campaign, the GM thinks of establishments, factions, and individual NPCs that pertain to the above actions.
   
   Maybe a blacksmith in town is looking for a particularly rare ore, or the local adventurers guild is in disrepair, or a library dedicated to a particular goddess hasn’t sent a messenger in several weeks.
   
   Once the GM has a few options for each action, they then ask the players who their characters are, explain where they are beginning their endeavors, and ask the players to determine their first goals. Then, offering the downtime actions to the players, they decide what they’d like to do first.
   
   Resolving the actions can be as simple as the players rolling 2d6 and comparing their results to the following:
   

   1. >=6 : Failure or Significant Complication

   2. 7-9 : Success with Complication

   3. 10+ : Success

   
   The GM has free reign to add or subtract a modifier from the result based on the difficulty of the action being performed.
   
   As the actions are resolved, the adventure will naturally form — the blacksmith’s rare ore may be protected by a fierce monster, the local adventurers guild may be in disrepair due to a vindictive local politician / ex-adventurer, and the goddess’s library may be silent due to a malicious cult taking it over.
   
   Over time, more complications will arise and more adventures will spin out from them. All the while, the players will continue to take downtime actions, further entwining themselves in the campaign until everything they do - from downtime to adventure - is of their complete and total volition.

Downtime & Campaign Planning Worksheet

Want to put the above into practice? Head over to grinningrat.itch.io and download the supplemental worksheet! You’ll find the above process outlined on one page and a list of potential complications on the back page.

Wrapping Up

This downtime system can absolutely be expanded. Feel free to add more detail, layer on complications for each of the four actions, or invent entirely new ones that suit your table.

The real takeaway isn’t the system itself — it’s the mindset behind it. When you stop treating downtime as a separate “mini-game” and start weaving it directly into your worldbuilding and adventure design, you’ll see just how integral it becomes.

Because again, downtime IS the campaign.

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