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Certainly every character has places to be and things to do.
Whether its personal goals or AP tasks...
An every campaign has little snippets of downtime.
Surely the largess of pcs will fill this downtime with 'crafting' or 'drinking' or 'carousing with the ladies' or and the case of non crafters sometimes 'looking for work' (use of profession skills for profit)
Other than fighting, beering, crafting, working, wenching...
What do your characters do during their downtime that isnt 'goal oriented' but 'flavor oriented' instead? Does your table even bother with or care about such things? Do you get to know the locals? Does your table RP that? Play with the local kids? Offer up your services in volunteer work?
Magic items cost a fortune but mundane items not so much. Has your character ever said 'I dont need a +3 falcatta this week. What I really want is a nice little ranch. Check on my vegetable garden...' What does your character do that doesnt have anything to do with advancing your pocketbook, your stats, or the plot. Pure frivolous flavor.
Or is it always 'full speed ahead'
Your downtime is your uptime with less attack rolls (unless i'm wenching!)
The party I GM for has been slowly buying the houses around the tavern they live in (which belongs to them by now, too) and turning the whole street block into their playground, with a climbing parcour, a sparring ground, stables and a pool that they fill with their decanter of endless water.
I've played (and run) a number of campaigns in which we roleplay the non-adventuring time. It does tend to happen more in some settings/systems than others, with D&D/Pathfinder being near the bottom of the list.
My players are generally roleplayers-first, gamers second, so we always have interesting things going on during down time.
In my first game as GM, the party had a full week of downtime in a city while the wizard they were working for worked on a ritual array that would someone an outsider they had to interrogate, and I let them all come up with their own plans on what to do.
The Alchemist spent half his time studying in the library and half with the Barbarian going back to the abandoned mines to look for more Yellow Oozes to slay and use for alchemy reagents. The Druid spend the whole week hunting and managed to gather some excellent animals hides to use for leatherworking...
Whether its a full time skip or just a few hours where nothing life threatening is going on, my players seem to enjoy it the most, so I try to keep combats interesting and dangerous, but short.
I probably spend way too much time on what my characters do when they aren't adventuring...
My oldest character, originally created in the Carter administration, has been converted to each new game version or system that I've played. Because he's an evil wizard, I don't play him much.
However, his down time is well planned and tracked. Mostly he spends his time researching spells and unique magic items in his well hidden wizard tower located on a small island in the middle of the ocean. He has a flying boat he uses for any travel needs, but when he's home he monitors his traps and does research.
My (male) witch spends most of his time gambling, whoring, drinking, smoking weed and plotting to take over the world. Well, take over the town anyway, but the world is his ultimate goal. He also makes potions and alchemical items, but that's mostly a chore that he does because it's necessary.
My dragon-slaying ranger spends his down time at his keep tending his lands and settling disputes among his subjects. He hates it.
My druid monitors and protects her little forest and makes masterwork bows to sell in the local town. Lately she too has begun researching spells.
My high level cleric oversees the priests at his temple... My high level illusionist is the royal wizard to his king, etc...
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I have a table that's torn between the 2 extremes. On the one hand I have a player who simply doesn't care what his dwarf does between adventures (or even between combats) - I envision the poor man as simply standing in place where the rest of the party leaves him at the conclusion of the adventure where he just waits, through weeks of downtime in the weather, for the party to return.
On the other hand I've got a player who has a detailed account of her character's emotional state as well as physical. Her character is constantly frolicking with boyfriends, hosting impromptu parties, hob-nobbing with an EXTENSIVE family network she created in her backstory, and others.
My favorite by far though was a buddy who played a paladin in our annual gaming weekend. So we get to this town and we're supposed to be investigating an evil wizard. As we arrive they're having a festival. This guy announces his paladin is simply stowing his armor and weapons, down to the padded leather he wears, and just simply walking out among the crowd.
Now, he's not overtly investigating the wizard; oh sure, he asked a few key people some questions. But he made a point of just walking around, chatting with people. One woman had a lazy husband and the three of them chatted, the paladin lending thoughtful wisdom. He danced with some maidens - not in a coarousing way, but just a common festival stomp. He shook hands, smiled and just chatted, to get a feel for the townsfolk, like a politician.
That to me was not only the best use of downtime (got him a +2 on all our investigation rolls from there on in) but was the best illustration of high charisma I've ever seen. He was just...nice, and genuine. Would that ALL paladins were played as well...
Certainly every character has places to be and things to do.
Whether its personal goals or AP tasks...
An every campaign has little snippets of downtime.
Surely the largess of pcs will fill this downtime with 'crafting' or 'drinking' or 'carousing with the ladies' or and the case of non crafters sometimes 'looking for work' (use of profession skills for profit)Other than fighting, beering, crafting, working, wenching...
What do your characters do during their downtime that isnt 'goal oriented' but 'flavor oriented' instead? Does your table even bother with or care about such things? Do you get to know the locals? Does your table RP that? Play with the local kids? Offer up your services in volunteer work?
Magic items cost a fortune but mundane items not so much. Has your character ever said 'I dont need a +3 falcatta this week. What I really want is a nice little ranch. Check on my vegetable garden...' What does your character do that doesnt have anything to do with advancing your pocketbook, your stats, or the plot. Pure frivolous flavor.
Or is it always 'full speed ahead'
Your downtime is your uptime with less attack rolls (unless i'm wenching!)
I like downtime and the many options more and more. I like it put it in there after a few dungeons or missions. Helps to flesh out characters, provide some rationale behind why they adventure, allows them to be good guys and girls, if that is what they want, or dodgy rogues, thieves and scoundrels.
On rose smelling I've added a simple aesthetics part to food tasting and many experiences outside of the general rules. Usually a d20 to determine how much a character likes something, modified a little by how good something actually is. The players have jumped all over this, and they try a lot of monster-ingredient foods as a result, discovering new properties in a lot of magical creatures.
I've seen downtime been wasted, oh let's craft more magic items, let's shop. By Lamashtu put some character into your characters (them, not you friendly rpers). I try to never waste a downtime opportunity.
I have a table that's torn between the 2 extremes. On the one hand I have a player who simply doesn't care what his dwarf does between adventures (or even between combats) - I envision the poor man as simply standing in place where the rest of the party leaves him at the conclusion of the adventure where he just waits, through weeks of downtime in the weather, for the party to return.
On the other hand I've got a player who has a detailed account of her character's emotional state as well as physical. Her character is constantly frolicking with boyfriends, hosting impromptu parties, hob-nobbing with an EXTENSIVE family network she created in her backstory, and others.
My favorite by far though was a buddy who played a paladin in our annual gaming weekend. So we get to this town and we're supposed to be investigating an evil wizard. As we arrive they're having a festival. This guy announces his paladin is simply stowing his armor and weapons, down to the padded leather he wears, and just simply walking out among the crowd.
Now, he's not overtly investigating the wizard; oh sure, he asked a few key people some questions. But he made a point of just walking around, chatting with people. One woman had a lazy husband and the three of them chatted, the paladin lending thoughtful wisdom. He danced with some maidens - not in a coarousing way, but just a common festival stomp. He shook hands, smiled and just chatted, to get a feel for the townsfolk, like a politician.
That to me was not only the best use of downtime (got him a +2 on all our investigation rolls from there on in) but was the best illustration of high charisma I've ever seen. He was just...nice, and genuine. Would that ALL paladins were played as well...
Loyal sad dog dwarf! Waiting in the rain. Awww.
In one game, my fighter-type is spending as much of the downtime as he can greasing palms and arranging his spy network. Unfortunately, this isn't much time, because our base is extraplanar and crises tend to pop up on very short notice. Plus it's a bit more of a split than we want to risk. So a lot of that work is farmed out to his former cohort (after many deaths, the Leadership feat was replaced), who has the time.
But given that his goals include taking over his home country through political manipulation, and then solidifying power behind a traditionally weak monarchy, he's got a lot of work to do there.
Actually the biggest problem I have is that we don't get much downtime. It seems like only 5 minutes go by between staggering back home after solving an imminent crisis before a new sending comes in, begging us to save the world, right now. And we're evil! But apparently there's nobody else who's competent and realizes that if the world is destroyed, they've got nothing to rule and nowhere to do their research.
Our group has the concept of a "Mission Impossible" group of agents who have a "job" of working in a sort of CIA style compound. Each player has at least a couple of characters of different levels. Those characters are assumed to essentially be coming to "the office" every day and spending their down time pursuing their family lives and hobbies. Some players do more than others on those downtimes.
When we have a problem pulling a full game session together we will sometimes have a smaller group meet and the "agency" will get a request for help. The Agency has special portals that allow teleportation all over the world, so they can teleport to the closest portal and then head out from there. Typically they will do a one-shot session with a couple of encounters and, assuming they succeed, they teleport back to the Agency compound and file their report, update their character sheets and return to the daily grind...
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WHEW! Thanks early morning folks! We were 13 hours into this post and at that point the only 2 responses were 'we're buying the town' and 'not much'
I was gettin worried that 3.5 loyalist was right! These characters need character! It'd be a sad day indeed if folks with minds capable of building optimized characters had a hard time saying what they did that didnt involve boosting their wealth or their stats and just 'more optimizing'. I was worried that Hoover's rainyday-dwarf-on-a-street-corner was more the norm than the exception...
I like to remind people that role playing games are better than MMO's for the very reason that MMO's only give you the 'illusion' of unlimited options, but that you're still restrained by the mechanics of the MMO... In rpgs you have a much less limited number of options for what to do with your character. Pet a doggie? Fix a local's rotted windowsill? Help reinforce the town's walls? A little skinny dipping down at the beach? Pee in the nieghbors bushes? Teach a pro-bono course on proper animal care to local children as an excercise in helping those children build character, heheheheheh.
Current characters played...
Dwarf Fighter: Drinking and starting bar brawls. Maybe not creative, but the simple pleasures in life are what keep her going.
Elf sorceress: She's always carving stuff out of wood, trying to perfect her craft. While some of that may eventually go into magic item creation (if she ever takes a feat) a lot of it is just stuff like making hair sticks and buttons and pretty things. She also makes wind instruments. She wants to make the "perfect" flute some day, for no other purpose than to make lovely music.
'Course for the latter campaign, my GM is a little too into downtime (which is something I'd never thought I'd say, as I tend to enjoy a bit of slice of life in my roleplaying). My saying last session that I wanted to buy a dress somehow turned into a 30 minute roleplay of shopping, when all I was looking for was "okay, you buy a dress." I wanted to keep track of her possessions (her old adventuring outfit had been ruined recently so she wanted some new clothes) but not waste the party's time (I say "waste" because some players were really not interested in a shopping expedition and were clearly annoyed by the use of time, and I didn't mean to derail them). I should have spoken up then of course. Somehow I went along with it because I felt like I didn't want to disappoint the GM (at the other players' expense, though, so that's not cool). We seem to spend more time shopping and talking to people than we do exploring or fighting, and I'm not sure how to give the feedback to my GM without sounding like a jerk or whining "I'm boooooorrred." Especially since I have gone along with it.... *sigh*
Other characters recent/past.... playing cards, cooking, reading. One character was an avid matchmaker. ;) I'd love to have a character with a stronghold at somepoint as long as it wasn't a distraction for the rest of the party.
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My elven wizard secretly studies necromantic spells in his spare time because he doesn't want all his companions to die and leave him all alone again.
They'll be with him forever.
Okay guys I'll be right back I'm going to go put on Linkin Park's "Crawling" and go drink a beer in the shower while crying.
brb
I honestly gotta say by hour 10 I was thinkin man. At least someone could post that their character was in a 12 step program where they wandered the streets muttering to themselves the mantra
"This town is not here for me to burn... These townfolk are not here for me to stab... I will make a concerted effort today to make an npc make a noise other than 'The lamentation of the women' or 'thatll be 5 gold pieces sir have a nice day"
I would imagine that there's not a lot of role play threads on these boards for two reasons. 1) in most cases you have to be there to fully appreciate the story. 2) they usually do not lead to conversation. Other than adding an example or two there's really nothing to say.
Now for the downtime in games I'm currently in, I suppose that I'll have to disapoint and say that 95% of the downtime is glossed over. Most of the time because where playing in adventure paths where things are mostly on rails. Although I'm sure you can always deviate from the path not all DMs are comfortable in doing that.
I suppose I'll mention several things I noticed recently. First, any time my PC interacts with a member of the opposite gender they're assumed to be flirting/seducing them. For example, we found a 14 year old girl whose villige had just been burned to the ground and she was the only survivor. She was buring her parents when we got there. I anounced that my character helped her bury them and tried to console her. Everyone was like ohhh, 14 is like the age of consent in ye old days, we're sure your "making her feel better". I was like FACEPALM. This is the same in games I've played among many GMs, it's kind of weird.
Another thing, my first DM used anything you said against you, more or less. If you want to encourage downtime activities do not punish players for speaking up on what they're doing. I think I still have the mind set of "anything you say can and will be used against you, don't say anything." It's probably common sense, but I thought I'd throw it out there. As a note I don't play with that DM anymore.
Final thought a DM needs to be willing to work with a player to make the process fun for everyone. As an example, one of my current DMs had several extended downtime periods of months at a time. He did ask what PCs where doing during that time, but didn't really work with me when I began to describe what my character was doing. For example my halfling is a skilled rider and animal handler was fascinated by a group of friendly lizardfolk who had domesticated dinosaurs. Yes we met this group in game and had befriended them. I anounced that she was spending time helping them care for their dinosaurs and riding them if allowed to. The DM's response was little more than "halfling riding dinosaurs DERP" kind of in a mocking way FACEPALM.
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A few comments based on ChaiGuy's observations:
1. Hypersexual joking or role-playing at the gaming table. This is also a pet peeve of mine. Back in my college days when I gamed with a bunch of hormone-crazed gamer geeks, many of whom could count their female romantic relationships on one finger or less, I sort of expected and even participated in some of the off-color "humor" even though I found much of it boring, repetitive, predictable and potentially offensive to the opposite gender (which wasn't necessarily a problem based on the general interaction we had with that gender). But I have to admit that even today, when I'm gaming with a bunch of old fogeys, many of whom have been married for decades and have children of their own, much of the same sort of snickering adolescent sex-based "joking" still happens. I pretty much view it now as a product of our hypersexed culture and just accept it and move on.
2. I have found that dealing with downtime with a GM is something that has to be approached carefully. Many GMs have been burned by players who use "down time" to pursue in-game advantages, usually either through schemes to acquire crazy amounts of "free" gold, or through attempts to manufacture dodgy magic items. Because of that I've been careful to always couch my approaches to downtime activity with the perspective that it's up to me to demonstrate that my requests are not attempts to "game the system" but are legitimate role playing activities.
3. Many GMs simply don't have the time to work with several players who want to do extensive downtime activities. I am always careful to first ask the GM if they have time to work with me before I send anything to them about what my characters will attempt to do. Mostly that takes the form of "Hey, I've got some ideas about what [Character name] will be doing now that we've finished the latest quest for now. Do you have some time to work with me, or should I just make some basic assumptions on my own?"
Being a GM myself, I am well aware of how much work goes into the job.
Mark, how do these sessions play out? Is the dwarf's player just standing around, fiddling on his computer while the rest of the group has a drinking contest in the tavern, etc.? Or does he just get up and leave until you call him back for fights?
This sounds problematic for me.
@ AD: don't you mean those guys could count their romances on one hand? ;) (that'll probably get removed...)
@ Lim'on: I don't play out the downtime at the gaming table. We have a month between sessions so to spare the guy playing the dwarf I usually run downtime thru email.
That begs the question... do YOU all play out downtime at the table? I suppose that would be an organic way of growing the gameworld. I've done that in campaigns past but I always end up with an odd man out, kind of along the lines of what Captain Citrus suggested. Ex:
a couple campaigns ago I had one PC get really into downtime. We'd PBEM'd a side quest he'd gone on and then when the PCs met up again he had a theater and a girlfriend he was looking after. When we first met at the table another PC had one more thing to go shopping for so I roleplayed it...and it turned into theater-guy's shopping trip.
So I had theater-guy expounding on contacts in the town and leading an expedition through the market place. The cleric doing the shopping really didn't care but was kind of interested in the snivelling lackey type merchant selling her the book she was buying, so she started chatting him up. Theater-guy (also a rogue) scales the building to scout the area, and the paladin and barbarian players literally didn't say anything, though the paladin at least announced she was with them. I set up an impromptu visit from a noble that was after them and an encounter ensued, almost turning into a full on side quest that the barbarian wouldn't have even been there for. I handled it terribly and the players were confused.
@ AD: don't you mean those guys could count their romances on one hand? ;) (that'll probably get removed...)
Dont you mean those guys count their one hand as a romance?
Nyuk nyuk.
That begs the question... do YOU all play out downtime at the table? I suppose that would be an organic way of growing the gameworld. I've done that in campaigns past but I always end up with an odd man out, kind of along the lines of what Captain Citrus suggested. Ex:
I try to very much. I definitely never do it behind the scenes because I want anything that I do for flavor to be seen by the rest of my group... Lead by example or somesuch. I try not to drag it out because its true, some people at my table start rolling their eyes if I spend much time tilting at windmills or doing anything that isnt 'plot development ho!'
We're in RotRL at the moment and I've been planning on picking up a spot of land in sandpoint. Not really picking up a house because I'll be getting 'secure shelter' soon, but you now. Just a little chunk of land where I can set up the secure shelter when i'm in the neighborhood so I'm not renting at an inn. I'm using 'favored son of sandpoint" trait so I actually get to stay at amikos for free but for flavor I'd kinda like my own little parcel of land to call my own.
We found some really nice liquor at alderns place and when it was time to distribute party loot I didn't sell the liquor for profit. Using favored son of sandpoint means amiko sells all your loot for 10% above what you can normally get for it and she's been doing that for us a lot, so I thought since she's running an inn, she'd like the free expensive booze so I just gave it to her as a gift. I mean you know. She's been doing us favors and I'm a friend of the family and all... I'd get her a decanter of endless water for the bar but I always kind of presume a bar has one of those already or that she wouldnt need one so much since they're on the coast of the sea and a river.
A lot of the examples I've put up are things I try to do. I like entertaining the local kids with cantrips, I'll use my craft wondrous item to make a lyre of building so I can help the town repair itself after a raid... The idea about using your handle animal check as a way to help little kids build character comes from what Tommy Lee Jones does when he's not making movies. He invites kids to his horse ranch in San Saba and teaches them how to care for animals and develop responsibility and sensitivity and thoughtfulness by teaching them how to care for horses.
I love that kind of poignancy (and even the sort of inceptionny nature of my character teaching npcs to have 'better character') so any time I can I try to bring to the table any little thing like that.
I do totally agree with chaiguy's statement that anything you say can be used against you... If you bothered to build a relationship with one of the locals you're somehow putting them in the 95th percentile for being the one who gets kidnapped kind of thing. At least I wouldnt complain if say the gender roles were reversed.
Girl pc falls in love with local dude and its the 'dude who gets kidnapped' would be a refreshing but IMHO frequently underused mechanic.
I will agree that far more games probably commit suicide as a result of power creep than as a result of not being thematically interesting enough, so thats not really what i'm worried about. I do worry that any thread about 'character development' is 90% more likely to be a conversation about stats and builds than it does about any actual 'character'.
Not that I have anything against optimizing. Just that I'd like to think that even a character that's built in a way that lends him to being featured in a Michael Bay film set to dubstep could still have some moments where the music changes a little bit.
You could have an awesome character concept and an awesome background story, but if what you bring to the table is "I'm a [half orc pirate/elvan inquisitor/halfling barbarian/insert race/class name here] and i'm an alchoholic. And I like me some wimmins."...
I tend to think of interesting character being less of what you are and more of what you do.
I know asking the question 'what interesting non glory/wealth/power seeking things does your character do may not strike up much conversation, but I don't want that to mean those kinds of play aren't worth doing or those conversations aren't worth having.
My current character is an alchemist with a botanical bent in the Serpent's Skull AP. He categorizes plants during down time and writes about them, creating a sort of botanical encyclopedia of his travels. He also conducts alchemical experiments.
Previously, I've had characters that... hm. My half-orc magus was a blacksmith and a bit of a lech - he ended up retiring to a Greek-ish island run by merfolk with the local blacksmith girl and occasionally making forays to the mainland to serve as a mercenary.
In a Buffy game I played a Watcher who was an ecoterrorist on the side.
One character that I had in a game of mine was a kobold druid who had a mushroom garden in the sewers under Waterdeep, and ran an herbalist's shop. Another ran a bakery.
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That begs the question... do YOU all play out downtime at the table? I suppose that would be an organic way of growing the gameworld. I've done that in campaigns past but I always end up with an odd man out, kind of along the lines of what Captain Citrus suggested.
We usually have a brief mention of downtime at the table but don't go into too much detail unless it's relevant to the adventure somehow or several players are actively involved. Other players have a general idea of what all the PCs do outside of adventuring, but we avoid having the GM spending the first hour just sorting out everyone's individual downtime.
In keeping with this, my characters usually have a list of downtime activities, nothing too detailed. For example, my druid did some basic healing and animal training work in town at low levels, and then eventually gathered a bunch of students and trained two as full druids. My inquisitor assisted the local doctor and did a lot of paperwork (he was the adventuring party's clerk/record keeper). My bard crafted and collected lovers and eventually started a religion.
I don't feel that too much more detail is necessary because just giving the character a hobby or day job adds a lot of depth. The player can always keep it relevant by letting it affect RP during an adventure - for example, a craftsman can comment on the workmanship of the treasure, a scribe can copy out documents or inscriptions for his personal library, and my inquisitor frequently clarified whether a conversation was "on the record" or "off the record."
One other thing my group did in the campaign where I played the druid was for some players to RP a bit outside of the sessions in shared downtime activities. For example, my druid and the party alchemist had a long conversation while cooperating on some Potions of Neutralize Poison, and likewise my druid spent a lot of time talking with the PC parent of one of her students. I really enjoyed it because it let me flesh out some key PC-PC interactions without derailing the sessions.
WHEW! Thanks early morning folks! We were 13 hours into this post and at that point the only 2 responses were 'we're buying the town' and 'not much'
I was gettin worried that 3.5 loyalist was right! These characters need character! It'd be a sad day indeed if folks with minds capable of building optimized characters had a hard time saying what they did that didnt involve boosting their wealth or their stats and just 'more optimizing'. I was worried that Hoover's rainyday-dwarf-on-a-street-corner was more the norm than the exception...
I like to remind people that role playing games are better than MMO's for the very reason that MMO's only give you the 'illusion' of unlimited options, but that you're still restrained by the mechanics of the MMO... In rpgs you have a much less limited number of options for what to do with your character. Pet a doggie? Fix a local's rotted windowsill? Help reinforce the town's walls? A little skinny dipping down at the beach? Pee in the nieghbors bushes? Teach a pro-bono course on proper animal care to local children as an excercise in helping those children build character, heheheheheh.
Yeah, you've got it. The potential of rpgs ove mumorpogers. It isn't all just number crunching and slot filling people. Let us not go in this dark direction.
Current characters played...
Dwarf Fighter: Drinking and starting bar brawls. Maybe not creative, but the simple pleasures in life are what keep her going.
Elf sorceress: She's always carving stuff out of wood, trying to perfect her craft. While some of that may eventually go into magic item creation (if she ever takes a feat) a lot of it is just stuff like making hair sticks and buttons and pretty things. She also makes wind instruments. She wants to make the "perfect" flute some day, for no other purpose than to make lovely music.
'Course for the latter campaign, my GM is a little too into downtime (which is something I'd never thought I'd say, as I tend to enjoy a bit of slice of life in my roleplaying). My saying last session that I wanted to buy a dress somehow turned into a 30 minute roleplay of shopping, when all I was looking for was "okay, you buy a dress." I wanted to keep track of her possessions (her old adventuring outfit had been ruined recently so she wanted some new clothes) but not waste the party's time (I say "waste" because some players were really not interested in a shopping expedition and were clearly annoyed by the use of time, and I didn't mean to derail them). I should have spoken up then of course. Somehow I went along with it because I felt like I didn't want to disappoint the GM (at the other players' expense, though, so that's not cool). We seem to spend more time shopping and talking to people than we do exploring or fighting, and I'm not sure how to give the feedback to my GM without sounding like a jerk or whining "I'm boooooorrred." Especially since I have gone along with it.... *sigh*
Other characters recent/past.... playing cards, cooking, reading. One character was an avid matchmaker. ;) I'd love to have a character with a stronghold at somepoint as long as it wasn't a distraction for the rest of the party.
I had a whittler too! Lithuanian pagan vampire, he got pretty good at his woodcraft. He eventually perished, but his little gnomes and wood monsters lasted in Lyon.
A few comments based on ChaiGuy's observations:
1. Hypersexual joking or role-playing at the gaming table. This is also a pet peeve of mine. Back in my college days when I gamed with a bunch of hormone-crazed gamer geeks, many of whom could count their female romantic relationships on one finger or less, I sort of expected and even participated in some of the off-color "humor" even though I found much of it boring, repetitive, predictable and potentially offensive to the opposite gender (which wasn't necessarily a problem based on the general interaction we had with that gender). But I have to admit that even today, when I'm gaming with a bunch of old fogeys, many of whom have been married for decades and have children of their own, much of the same sort of snickering adolescent sex-based "joking" still happens. I pretty much view it now as a product of our hypersexed culture and just accept it and move on.
2. I have found that dealing with downtime with a GM is something that has to be approached carefully. Many GMs have been burned by players who use "down time" to pursue in-game advantages, usually either through schemes to acquire crazy amounts of "free" gold, or through attempts to manufacture dodgy magic items. Because of that I've been careful to always couch my approaches to downtime activity with the perspective that it's up to me to demonstrate that my requests are not attempts to "game the system" but are legitimate role playing activities.
3. Many GMs simply don't have the time to work with several players who want to do extensive downtime activities. I am always careful to first ask the GM if they have time to work with me before I send anything to them about what my characters will attempt to do. Mostly that takes the form of "Hey, I've got some ideas about what [Character name] will be doing now that we've finished the latest quest for now. Do you have some time to work with me, or should I just make some basic assumptions on my own?"
Being a GM myself, I am well aware of how much...
Devaluing the currency is a great use of down-time.
One downtime-adventure hook I prepped, but alas didn't get to go through with entirely was for a drunken monk. He had a connection to the local rural mafia, which supplied him with Irish cream like alcohol. They were known as the guild of dairy freshness, and there was so many side-quests with that lot, rp potential, npcs. He only did a few of the jobs, so didn't rise up the ranks. Had to pay them off later because his actions offended the boss.
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I'll have you know, what may appear to be a six-foot-five, steel plated, murder hobo is actually a modestly successful tailor and businessman when he is not out fighting werewolves and chasing down necromancers.
Skills man. :D
Only 3 ranks per level but at level 7 he has a +13 to Profession (Tailor).
I've got to say, I really like profession checks, great for downtime.
Ok, so you guys do it at the table (play downtime I mean). Help me understand how you keep it from turning into a one man show. I've already illustrated how I stink at that.
Y'see, I've got a game coming up on Sunday. I HAD planned this great, horrific dungeon full of gore, horror and grit. Unfortunately just today at the zero hour my players got back w/me over email and said they want a game with more of a "Forgotten Realms 1e meets the movie Legend" kind of a feel.
However one player also reminded me that her character was going to go after her missing boyfriend during her downtime. I'd completely forgotten til tonight so I thought maybe I could resolve this at the game.
Here's the setup: a few sessions ago my player decided her character was a bit of a helcat and that she had a bunch of boyfriends. I played it up in PBEM downtime but then they were kind of interrupting the game, so between sessions a couple games ago I had her BF's taken out by a shadow fey - she got one locked up, charmed another and conned the third into heading into the forest alone where he subsequently disappeared.
Now I'd thought that was the end of it but now she's going after the "one that got away" in the forest. She's a cleric but has really high survival and is kind of the surrogate ranger of the group. Now that she's 4th level she's got an animal companion. I'm thinking now is the perfect time for getting after the man.
I don't know how to play this, what the plot is going to be or anything. Let me know your suggestions of running downtime and maybe I can work this into a plot hook of some kind.
Everyone gets some time, dm directs, no one person dominates.
If they try to do something stupid, that will take too long, dm shuts it down or says, that won't complete by the time your downtime is up.
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My current character is an Orcish scarred witch doctor with a room temperature IQ. He's spent the last bit of downtime working on an improved reincarnate spell, in order to reincarnate people into orcs only.
This was based on the fact that part of the AP he was playing in Jade Regent (Minor minor spoilers) had him wrestle someone for the amusement of the local lord, who then had the loser executed.
He found out, and reincarnated the man into an orc, improving his wrestling abilities. He's decided that since it worked once, the whole world could be improved by turning people into orcs.
He takes no party treasure, and has plans of opening his own temple where he'll use his money to fuel reagents for his improved reincarnation spell, and invite anyone with a lost loved one to come and get a better, more orcish version.
It's the little things in life.
@Mark Hoover Rescuing an npc definitely sounds more like a full on adventure than a downtime. It also sounds like something the character wouldnt be considering doing without the party. If she's good at tracking and feels confident of her skills in the area then there's every reason to let her track this dude by herself to
- a bearcave that ended horribly (he was seeking shelter during the rain) (if she's a ranger replace bear with whatever she wrote down as favored enemy :P)
- She follows his tracks to a remarkably accurate stone statue of him! There be basilisks afoot! My personal favorite environment for basilisks is tall grass or cornfields like the raptor scene from jurassic park.
- to the neighboring town where the boy met another girl he fancied (drama!) or
- best ever she doesnt find him but finds a princess bride moment where she finds a struggle where her new beau was involved (lyncher or lynchee!) and evidence from that battle is tracks pointing to that great, horrific dungeon full of gore, horror and grit. your campaign already had planned (plot hook!) (her plans become your plans)
- he's alive but immobilized and on the brink of death. he says he was attacked by one of the other rivals of her affection (drama she created herself!)
- he's perfectly healthy and she finds him in his private cabin in the woods, but he's actually a very powerful enchanter who lures cute girls into the woods to join his caged harem legion or to practice his craft on for other twisted purposes(who's charming who!)
@ VT: how about another twist, going on the finding him alive and fine in a cabin in the woods:
He's found, safe and sound...w/no memory of what's happened. Remember; its a fey that sent him off in the first place. Turns out the fey boyfriend stealer isn't a BBEG but a friend.
Y'see all 3 men, b/cause of circumstance, have been spared being drafted and sent off to war. Now all three are fine thanks to a fey creature that just happened to show up and seduce them all.
I like it! Sometimes you gotta keep it short (especially if she likes going off alone and her jaunts bore the rest at the table) but its better to follow that flavor and build on it than to ignore it or discourage it. Especially if you can tie it to existing plot!
My two current character:
The barbarian spends his downtime outdrinking entire taverns. My DM allows me to roll Fort saves to see when he passes out drunk and since he has beastly con he can drain small villages dry of alcohol. Once during our trip to the oriental setting he tried to learn meditation from the monks in a cherry tree park. Difficult since he didn't know the language and could only communicate with mimic. Didn't get to reallyroleplay that one... He also likes to go shopping with the rogue and the sorcerer. Shopkeepers will lower their price much faster if you growl right.
My paladin spends downtime in churchs and hospitals using lay on hands on sick and hurt people. Also after our group saved a couple of intelligent constructs from hundred years of unjust prison and slavery he has been trying to help them find their own place in society where they can be free and happy. We don't really get enough freetime for him to try and help the guards aprehend street thugs, but if I get the chance...
Liberating goblins, construsts, sentient zombies, lycanthropes, thri keen, trolls and the like can be great fun.
We have a place for you, welcome!
Crimson throne, our group totally sided with the lycanthropes against the dockworkers. Won them over, got them rights, awww yeaaaahhhh.
^ Excellent
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Once I played an evil character who killed children's parents in front of them in his downtime, he did it because a world with more hero's would be more interesting after he became a lich.
To keep his days interesting in his retirement of lichdom?
Kind of an intriguing idea, especially if it ends up in so much good and change to a territory (adventurers all over man).