Campaign News January 13

Getting the Most from Downtime

Characters all have a great deal more time on their hands than that which is played out during game sessions. Skillful players will use this time to their characters' advantage. 

Character Agency 

One key to understanding how downtime works and how to use it to your characters’ advantage is consciously considering the level of “character agency” the character has in different circumstances. That is to say, how much direct control you are exerting over your character as its player versus how much control is handed over to the character itself (via the management of your impartial referee). For simplicity, I’ve described four levels of agency here, but it is of course a continuum, not four discrete settings.

1. Immediate: This low level of character agency is typical in actual session play. The referee makes only minimal assumptions about the character’s actions, relying on the player to respond, moment-by-moment, to the circumstances of the setting.
2. Managed: This level of character agency is often applied in session play as well, when time is accelerated for cross-country travel, resting periods, and so on. The player doesn’t describe actions for every moment of play, but rather has indicated what the character will do and a stop condition, such as “my character returns to town.” At this level of agency the referee will not present every minor detail of the setting that might be noticed by the character to the player. Instead the referee only mentions those circumstances which might reasonably cause the player to consider the character changing his plan, or otherwise demand attention, such as a possibly hostile encounter.
3. Removed: Outside a session, a player may provide a general disposition or high-level course of action for a character to pursue such as performing duties in an organization to which he belongs or traveling from one town to another between sessions. At this level of agency, the character is trusted to handle the details of whatever happens without player intervention until the end of the character instructions are reached--unless something extraordinary happens in the setting that could influence the player’s decision. The referee will report the consequences after the fact, possibly even conducting combat on the character’s behalf.
4. Autopilot: In this rarely employed level of character agency, the player instructs the referee to fully manage the character’s actions and choices. The player might describe instructions for the character to a very specific level or only a very general one. The player might also indicate conditions under which the character should exit “autopilot” mode. While in the mode, the character might encounter any number of situations which require decision-making that unless the player has specified how to be handled, are decided by the referee.

In normal session play, we switch, largely unconsciously, between the “immediate” and “managed” modes of game play. In downtime, the “removed” mode is typical, but “autopilot” is a useful option in some circumstances.

Downtime Options 

Idling: When a player has not provided any instructions for their character outside the session, the referee will assume that the character is “idling.” That is, the character accomplishes nothing, remains where he or she is (hopefully within the relative safety of civilization), and incurs the normal upkeep expenses. The character is very likely to stay alive, but will not advance in any way. 

Training: Most of the players in this campaign have, at some point, taken advantage of downtime to improve their characters or accomplish objectives using a "removed" or "autopilot" level of character agency. Doing so requires having an objective in mind. Learning to read and write has been a downtime objective for a couple of characters in this campaign, for example. Training for the next level is another good example.

Working: It's possible for a character to make part or all of his or her upkeep costs in a job. Job pay can even exceed those costs for characters who have developed sufficiently valuable skills such as those needed to be a spy, a sage, an alchemist, an engineer, and a few others as described in the DMG. This option can work in downtime at any level of character agency. Some of the options do carry risks, however. Many jobs aren't well-suited to a character sporadically disappearing on adventures and later reappearing either.

Research & Information Gathering: Another good use of downtime which requires little in the way of specific goals or instructions, is information gathering, or researching a specific topic. This might be conducted at any level of character agency, but would typically be a removed sort of activity. Most likely, the player would want to know the results once the character knows them, and possibly issue new orders for subsequent downtime based on those. 

Characters have the same tactical infinity in downtime that they do in session play. How that is used is limited only by the player's acquired knowledge of the setting, ability to think ahead, and willingness to investment time in the game outside of sessions. That investment can be quite low and still produce valuable results..

Operationalizing Downtime

Outside the game session time passes for characters at the same rate as real world time, so three days after the last session in which you played a character, three days have passed for that character. In the game sessions, however, time is sped up and slowed down as desired or needed for game play. Most often, an evening's session of 3 or 4 hours will cover several days, maybe even weeks, of character time. This means that characters in the session have moved further into the future than characters who were not in the session. That creates opportunities.

Whichever character(s) have been played the furthest into the future set the "global game clock." That date advances one day in the game world each day in the real world. Characters that were not played in the most recent session will be further in the past, and the gap between their date and the "global game" date is what I call their "slack days." Slack days can be used in downtime instantaneously. In this manner, a character that is behind another might use downtime to travel a couple of days to where that character is without the global clock also moving forward a couple of days.

To gain the most advantage from downtime, consider how much time you as a player have to dedicate to managing it between sessions.

• A fairly small investment is sufficient to set a character on a specific objective with a high level of character agency such as learning a skill or finding out information.
• If you have sufficient time to manage your character in more detail between sessions, it's possible to accomplish more without knowing ahead of time all of what it is you'd like to accomplish with the character. As their initial steps are completed and reported by the referee, you can issue new instructions.
• A player can also take the approach of trying to accomplish a more ambitious goal without managing it so closely by setting the character off with agency closer to "autopilot," having the referee manage the character's actions.

I will generally err on the side of providing less character agency rather than more, if it's unclear whether the circumstances encountered in downtime trigger player intervention based on the player's instructions. A player wishing to send a character deep into its own agency will need to be quite explicit about that intention.

Conclusion

Use your character's time wisely and it will get more done, provide you with more information about the setting and the game, and advance more quickly. I am always happy to help players who are unsure how to use their characters' time figure that out!