How to Run Downtime in Dungeons and Dragons 5e

this week's episode of our show has been sponsored by world anvil this powerful web-based rpg campaign manager is perfect for building organizing and creating your worlds you can use it to plan your games create maps and handouts and keep all of your notes at your fingertips during play or even share them online with your group they're constantly innovating with new features such as integrated character sheets for many major rpg systems so you can manage your world and the characters in it a basic account at world anvil is completely free letting you get a feeling for all the amazing features on the platform follow the links in the description below or go to worldanville.com to try it out for free today and now onto this week's episode greetings my name is monty martin and i'm kelly mclaughlin and we are the dungeon dudes welcome to our channel where we cover everything dungeons and dragons including advice for players and guides for dungeon masters we upload new videos on tuesdays and thursdays so please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode well 2020 is coming to a close and as we finish our final quest for the year and reflect on all the hardships behind us feels like it's time to take a break it is definitely time for some down time now the the real question is with all of the time that we have right now being stuck inside what are we gonna do with all of our down time well while we contemplate what we are going to do with our holiday break why don't we discuss what your characters can do when they finally get to take a break and have some downtime of their own downtime in dungeons and dragons is extremely important because like us every once in a while your adventuring characters need to take a break they need to cut the flow of the story that's being told the wacky adventures that they're going on the perilous dangers and take some time to wander around a nice town go shopping enjoy the sights train in new abilities or maybe try some crime who knows but there's a lot of different options presented in downtime and today we're going to discuss how you can run downtime in your games taking down time is a hugely important part of keeping a balanced pacing to your overall campaign structure and today we're going to discuss how to run it in your games there's a lot to discuss so let's get rolling so to kick things off the main thing that you need to do as a dungeon master when you're setting up your adventure for your group is plan when and where down time might come into effect sometimes this down time might be as short as just a day or two of them pausing and reflecting on their past mission and getting ready for the next but down time can also take several days to weeks months or even years to prepare or rest or discover new things for their characters to set out on their next adventure as a general rule of thumb when i plan my campaigns i like to make sure that player characters have at least one opportunity to take a few days to a few weeks of downtime about once every character level and then as you're moving through the different tiers of play which averages out to about once every four or five levels you should anticipate having a longer period of downtime somewhere in there something like a few weeks to a few months or maybe even a year or longer not only do these breaks where you give your characters down time give your campaign a really excellent structure and balance between the adventures and the various chapters or arcs of your storyline they give your characters an opportunity to prepare for their next adventure and experience what the world of your campaign is like during normal life this also helps battle the video game protagonist syndrome where your video game protagonists often go from zero to hero within the span of a few weeks becoming the most famous person and most important person in the whole world when they started at nothing in a game of d having this take a little longer actually makes the world feel more real makes your players more invested in your characters and the characters progress through a matter of time whether that's days weeks months or years to reach that climactic point where they feel like the heroes it makes your campaign feel epic in scope it grounds the characters in the world and gives a lot of context for their actions a quick point about downtime is that it is distinct from overland travel if your characters are traveling for two or three weeks to a new destination that is not down time make sure that your overland travel sequences and your downtime sequences are distinct from one another because oftentimes the best downtime activities that player characters will want to take are things that require them being in a settlement or a consistent environment there's certainly ways to adapt this you could imagine perhaps your character is traveling on a massive ship or as part of a huge caravan or as a part of a huge journey in which case then yes you could meld those concepts but if your player characters are just getting from point a to point b that's not really a downtime sequence that's a travel sequence so as we get into the meat of what we can do with downtime one of the main things to focus on is allowing your players to live in the world not only does downtime allow them to decide what their next adventure is going to be and what materials or different training they might require to set out on their next adventure but it also allows you to introduce npcs have some great role-playing opportunities where the players get to not only discover the world and the npcs around them but also more about their characters their characters personalities what they like to do and what they're going to engage with and this actually becomes a very important and very defining part of who they are as a character in the worlds of d and as they settled on their next adventure they leave fueled by the role play and potential that they have brought to their character in this time downtime is a fantastic moment for the characters to reflect on their previous adventures as they work to prepare for the next one downtime also lets the player characters experience just how their actions are affecting the world and themselves and each other if your characters just saved a city well taking some down time in that city lets your characters see wow we're heroes these people love us as they experience all the regular folk that live in that place and see the lives that their actions have changed many of the greatest problems that we face in the world today are not problems that are going to be solved overnight they're problems that are going to take months and years of diligent work by a lot of regular people with big hearts to solve and downtime is an opportunity to actually showcase those things downtime is an opportunity for your player characters to research make alliances and do all the preparations to meet that problem head-on it lets them be part of a bigger problem a problem that feels epic and incredible one that they just can't solve by throwing a fireball at it so let's talk about how to implement downtime into your game and how to run it mechanically at your table the first thing is that you want to take into account how long the down time is going to be and weigh that against how long the party has been adventuring for i like to match things out like this if your player characters are taking a couple days of downtime well that's something that you can probably resolve at the table in just a few minutes if they're taking a few weeks you might want to treat that the same way that you would treat a combat encounter or a role-playing scene and spend about an hour or so with it if they're spending a couple months that might be appropriate to even spend half the game session as if it was multiple encounters of downtime and if they're spending years you might devote an entire game session perhaps even longer to that depending on the interest of your group these are guidelines and keep in mind that there is a lot of versatility and change allowed within this i have had a group of players who loved carousing and downtime and even though they only had a day and a half of downtime we spent an entire session on it and it was really fun it depends on your party dynamics or talk to your players and think about the options you're going to have in that downtime if it's worthwhile that it could span an entire session then by all means that might be fun for your table when you are running downtime at your table the best technique to use to resolve it in an interesting and interactive way is a montage so we have four steps to running your downtime montage step number one you go around the table and have each player describe in a sentence or two what they imagine their character doing during that down time they don't need to role play it out yet or go into nitty gritty details this is more just what do you think your character is going to want to accomplish during these days months weeks or years that they have off you may need to give your players a prompt or a few suggestions for what they want to do i really love the new chapter of downtime revisited found in xanathar's guide to everything this is a great chapter to refer to to consider the types of downtime activities that your players might want to go on and it also introduces a couple fun dice rolls complications and other events that you might involve to make the downtime a little bit more interactive and interesting and then in step two you go back around again and start figuring out what those complications might be as you narrate okay check in with each player how is their down time going it's imagine it's the halfway point of their downtime so step one is the brainstorm where you as a table just come up with the concept of what down time is going to look like step two is where you actually start to role play it out and you have a back and forth between you the dm and the players deciding what the complications are what things are going to come up and any way that this diverges from their plan and maybe causes some unknown or unexpected situations or perhaps they just learn a new skill ability who knows this is also a great opportunity for the players to role play off of each other and this is something that you want to encourage if two of them decide to go to the market together or to the bar together have them role play what's happening at the market or bar and see where it goes and then all you have to do is feed in little bits of information to help amplify the scene that they're creating it only takes a couple sentences of narration and description to make the downtime come to life you don't have to role play out every single moment of interaction and in fact some of your players might not be interested in doing that they might just want to summarize what their choices are and this focuses on the choices that they make which makes the downtime feel interactive rather than just this extended scene where everybody is role-playing back and forth how good the tea tastes once we've had this role play opportunity we move into step three which is narrate the outcome now that you have all of the pieces there you work with each player in order to narrate the outcome of the situation they've gotten themselves into any complications that may have arisen and how you come to a conclusion within those little stories that they're telling this might be where you ask the player to make a die roll to determine the final outcome based on a skill check or ability check of some kind maybe just a luck check uh or that you've improvised in the end the conclusion of the downtime sequence is bringing all the players back together and figuring out how their group comes back for their next adventure and that is step four step four is preparing for their next adventure now that they've had their down time they've concluded their events they now are getting ready and gearing up to set out on their next mission and really downtime could be all about setting up for the next mission or deciding what their next mission is that could include talking to npcs going around the town gathering information now this montage method for handling downtime is actually quite flexible the most important steps really are steps one and step three if you've got a short scene you can skip step two entirely and just introduce each downtime activity by going around the table once and then go around a second time to narrate the outcome of each downtime activity on the flip side though you can also extend it by repeating these steps for longer periods of downtime which might represent the player characters doing a multi-phase project so as an example if your players are for for instance building a castle or building a fortress you might actually break that out into separate steps and figure out okay this is the planning phase this is the construction phase this is the organization phase and that is resolved as multiple downtime encounters so now let's take a look at some of the specific downtime activities and how long you might want to adjudicate for each of these with only a few days of downtime your characters are probably concerned with mostly resting recuperating shopping and perhaps doing some research or carousing come prepared with your shops and the people in those shops and what sort of supplies that they sell and broadcast that to your players and this is something that can be done in just a few hours but almost every player usually wants to hit up the market see how many health potions they can grab if they have any improved adventuring gear or even trinkets extra ropes shovels ladders whatever they might need on their next adventure it might also be ideal that they know the next adventure that they're setting out on and are resupplying for that adventure they might have to scale a mountain so they're looking for climbing gear keep in mind what the next adventure is what sort of things your players might be looking for and then have the shops and shopping available for them i do like giving my player characters the option to buy some magical items in particular consumable items like potions and scrolls of course the price tag on these magical items is very high and i usually randomly generate them sometimes shuffling the numbers just a little bit to make sure that if my player characters have their heart set on a specific magic item aldor might have it in its in his inventory for a very high price a final thing that your characters might do with a couple days of downtime is use some of the really cool out of combat spells particularly divination spells like contact other plane and scrying sending perhaps even some of the summoning spells like planar binding these are spells that require expensive material components to cast in many cases or have a chance of driving your character unexpectedly insane because they contacted an eldritch entity entity from beyond the far realm these are fun spells to use and they should be a part of a campaign but they require the players getting a couple days of down time to use them you might also have places in the town or settlement that are broadcasting the ability to do this maybe there is a wizard's tower where they can go and use the crystal ball to scribe but they have to pay him for the service or there's a church where they can go uh and speak to their divine beings or what have you there are a lot of places that you can build into the environment that allow the players to go interact with an npc and perform these tasks and it can become a great asset for their next adventure now the final thing that the players will love to do with a couple days of downtime of course is go carousing and hit the bars and perhaps other questionable establishments that cater to their various vices this can just be a lot of fun depending on how you're comfortable your group is with these various kinds of illicit activities or fun activities the player characters might just have a good time together with each other role playing and finding out a little bit about their characters developing their ongoing story and building their bonds with each other but it could also be a cool opportunity to seed some plot hooks as your player characters find rumors about their next adventure site or gather some information maybe an old friend gives them a little bit of advice oh yeah i hear that you're off up to doom mountain used to be that there was an ancient dragon lived up that way i think i heard that someone used to say that if you brought him in a gift that he would let you pass without getting eaten and just throwing out those things in the midst of the downtime can be all you need to make the world come to life during a few days of downtime i also sometimes throw in fun games or quirky activities that the party can take place in if they're going to the bar and carousing for the night maybe there's somebody at the bar who's challenging anybody there to an arm wrestling contest or a drinking contest or a game of chess i feel like a lot of times the proficiencies added into your character such as being skilled with dice cards or chess never come into play and you don't need to actually play a game of chess but have them roll with proficiency to see if they won or not and maybe scraped a few extra coins off the table against their opponent in the bar by adding these small elements in you give the players something to engage with relax and have fun with that still involves a few dice rolls a chance option for maybe winning a few gold coins and just something to remember their down time with now if your characters are going to get the opportunity to take a few weeks of downtime this is a case where you might want to offer them a few more options for training or retraining instead tasha's cauldron of everything introduced the new rules for retraining their class features perhaps even their feats their spells known or maybe even their entire subclass this is one of my favorite things to do with a couple weeks of down time and it feels really appropriate and engaging to give that characters that opportunity to swap out some other skills again i think it's really important to add in npcs that have these skills already if there's a great warrior who has retired to this town but is willing to train them in the art of archery or swordplay or something that they may not already be skilled in they can go and seek this person out and train in that ability perhaps your character is looking to multi-class this is a great time to do it rather than willy-nilly having them gain a level in another class maybe they meet somebody of the class they're hoping to multi-class into and train with them for a few weeks i also like to encourage that if they want to train or practice with another party member perhaps your fighter wants to become an eldritch knight and you have a wizard in the party who spends those weeks teaching them the ins and outs of basic magic this is a great way to encourage role play between the party and also have your players gain new attributes and skills because of that offering the players the opportunity to train in new skills with a couple weeks of downtime can feel like a great reward as well as a great thing that player characters can do with their gold oftentimes player characters don't have a lot of things to spend their money on and this can feel like a great way that the player characters can take their treasure and use this in a cool way to advance their characters through their down time it feels really rewarding and like their down time is actually having an impact and honestly it's not game-breaking at all for the player characters to spend a couple weeks of downtime to gain proficiency in a tool language or skill even a martial weapon really isn't that big of a problem for most characters and it really does make them feel like wow my down time did something meaningful and that's a great feeling for the player characters a great option for a few weeks of downtime is to look again in xanathar's guide to everything and see what sorts of things they might be able to do or make if they're already proficient in a tool set if they're proficient in alchemist supplies have them spend the few weeks gathering the materials spending the gold cost and making a few health potions for their party i wouldn't necessarily let a character make a permanent magic item with only a few weeks of downtime consumable items like potions and scrolls are perfect alchemical tools and mundane adventuring gear are totally perfect for a couple weeks of downtime activity however as we move into a few months of downtime this is where you start to want to take maybe the equivalent of a couple encounters worth of time even up to maybe an entire session at your table if you are doing this this is a great opportunity for the players around the table to look at any spells that they have that have a larger casting time maybe this is a great time to create a clone or maybe this is a good time to look at investing in creating a magic item a few months of downtime is when your characters can really start big projects that affect the world in meaningful ways if your player characters are taking involvement in local government or kingdoms or realms or starting businesses of their own this is where you might want to look at these sort of things as things that the players can get started or manage you might even look at some of the alternative rewards and give the player characters the opportunity to use their resources use the npcs that they've encountered use the things that they've accomplished create a brand new spell or maybe even get a brand new boon over and above what they've gained by leveling up you might even offer them the opportunity to train on a new feat one of the hardest things about dungeons at dragon's fifth edition is that people love taking feats but they compete with an ability score increase sometimes a great way to introduce an awesome feat into your campaign is to have the option to train in it during downtime and gain it as a bonus feat on top of the regular options presented there's actually a great example where monty presented to us in a campaign we played the ability to train on griffins for an approaching war that was coming up he said that we could spend the training time with a small amount of time to learn to fly the griffins and ride them properly or with more time we could gain the benefits of the mounted combatant feet while we were on griffiths this is a great way to encourage your players to spend that time preparing for the upcoming adventure and gaining something out of it that is going to help them in the quests to come it's also a great way to offer some of the lesser taken feats as treasure or a reward i would not necessarily let a player say take sharpshooter or great weapon master with their down time unless they really had earned it and maybe were studying under a legendary swordmaster but some of the more interesting and slightly more niche feats are a really really great option here instead like mounted combatant or perhaps other feats like athlete or feats even like actor maybe they're spending a bunch of time being part of a theater company and so your entire party gains the actor feat might be a great thing to unlock with a couple months of dedicated down time and spending time with a grand master who can train the character on how to use that feat if your players are about to set out on a year or longer's worth of down time this is when you might look at an entire game session or even more but this is a great opportunity to get into some wide scale options for your adventuring party things like building a stronghold or recruiting an army or designing and crafting legendary magic items in the player's handbook and several other supplements as well there are many awesome spells that players can use to actually build strongholds and fortifications and these spells work short term when you cast them but if you cast them in the same location every day for a year they become permanent these include spells like teleportation circle the players could build their own teleportation network spells like guards and wards making a modern kindness private sanctum to protect themselves from their enemies or even other really powerful spells like glyph of warding or forbiddens to protect certain areas years worth of down time are also a fantastic way for the characters to reflect really broadly on their past adventures and we get to see how the passage of time has affected the characters mentality as they've gained new skills and the world has dramatically changed based on their previous adventures this can be a really really rewarding thing to work on with your players and in some cases you might even look to other game systems like microscope or even cool games like a quiet year to use those games instead of d to figure out what happens over a long span of time as the world changes based on the player's adventures i also think with years worth of downtime an important factor is that this is usually coming at the conclusion of a part of the story so it might be a great time to look at the player characters around the table and reassess what it is that they were hoping to get what are their personal quests and during a few years of downtime it might be important that they conclude some of those personal missions of theirs what are their personal quests what are their goals and what have they become attached to through their adventures and have some sort of conclusive ideas play out during those years of downtime that feel important and valuable and invest your players in the world the people that inhabit it and the quests that they might have to go on later yeah this is actually an opportunity for your player characters to revisit their entire backstory and perhaps even think about changes to their ideals their bonds their goals their flaws people change a lot over several years and maybe the adventures have really fundamentally changed your characters maybe when you come back to your characters after several years some of them have started a family or become rulers and when your campaign picks up again after that downtime your player characters actually weren't ever anticipating coming back to the adventure again these are great storytelling elements to lean on that we don't often get to explore in the dungeons and dragons campaign but they can really create some creative outcomes that are reflective of life itself and isn't that a wonderful thing to be able to see the entire life of a person flash across in just an afternoon so this has been a look at our house rules for how we run downtime in dungeons and dragons 5th edition tell us about how you're spending your downtime in the comments below the videos that we create on our channel are made possible thanks to the incredible generosity of our patreon supporters if you enjoy the work that we do here on youtube please consider joining our community by following the links in the description below and if you want to check out us running some downtime and going on crazy adventures check out our live play shadows of drakenheim which airs tuesday nights at 6 p.m eastern at twitch.tv slash dungeon underscored dudes you can find all the previous episodes of that show right up over here and we've got plenty more great advice for dungeon masters running d5e right up over here please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 212,031

Keywords: dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, games, accessories, rules, rule, gameplay, play, game, rpg, d20, player, character, D&D, 5e, DM, PC, tips, advice, guide, guides, review, dice, books, book

Id: 6UpYefUjsnA

Length: 28min 10sec (1690 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 17 2020