Hey guys, Iíve been thinking again, and if
weíre a crack adventuring group, shouldnít
we have professional development goals?
Professional development ó what kind of stupidó
Now hold on there, Mr. Ray of Sunshine, I
think we should hear the barbarian out.
Now what do you mean exactly?
Well all we do is bounce from adventure to
adventure, and we never really get any time
to pursue personal interests that, in the
long term, could produce exponential gains
as a professional team of murderers.
Would you care to give some examples?
Well, for instance, you could research some
custom spells, or the fighter could do some
pit fighting, or the rogue could volunteer
with the church of Torm.
Listens to barb and then holds up Sign: ìShould
I learn to talk?î
Well this idea sucks.
You guys all do your professional development.
Iím out of here.
Looking at rogue, begins shaking head.
Um, actually, you WILL participate in professional
development, or it WILL be reflected in your
yearly performance evaluation.
Well this sucks!
Welcome to the DM Lair.
Iím Luke Hart, and Iíve been a dungeon master
since high school.
On this channel I give practical dungeon master
advice that you can implement at your game
table.
And today in the Lair weíll be talking about
downtime, specifically why you should consider
integrating it into your games, and how you
might go about doing that.
But what is downtime, exactly?
Itís essentially a game mechanic whereby
the players are offered the opportunity to
have their characters do something BESIDES
going on adventuresóyou know delving into
dungeons, storming castles, rescuing the mayorís
daughter, stuff like that.
These activities take place between adventures
and are often personal pursuits that benefit
each character individually.
Thus they are usually pursued individuallyóthat
is, not as part of the adventuring group.
Examples of downtime activities are listed
in the Players Handbook on page 187ñwhich
is a pretty pathetic and unhelpful listóand
in Xanathars Guide to Everything on page 123ñwhich
is actually fairly extensive and useful.
They include things like researching spells,
crafting items, religious service, and even
engaging in crime.
Heck yeah, thatís what Iím talking about!
Now before I jump into telling you WHY you
should consider doing downtime in your games,
I just want to let you know that you can watch
the game sessions of my Sword Coast Guard
group over on my second YouTube channel, The
DM Lair Streams.
This is the group that has heroes such as
Nigel the Bard, Grist the min-maxed OP bugbear
ranger/rogue, and Dalinor the ìoh look at
me my armor class is 21, I can cast shield,
and my dungeon master was dumb enough to give
me a cloak of displacement so Iím basically
untouchableî paladin/sorcerer.
Just between you and me, Dalinor, I got something
in the works for youÖ
So, yeah, link below if you want to watch
a bunch of nerds play some D&D.
Just bear in mind we are NOT a D&D SHOW.
We are an actual D&D gaming group playing
D&D.
So if youíre looking for the pinnacle of
entertainment, you may want to look elsewhere.
But if you want to see normal people playing
a normal game of D&D, you might like it.
Okay, so why downtime?
Basically downtime allows your players to
pursue other things of interest to them than
just delving into dungeons, kicking down doors,
and murdering goblins.
Or whatever it is your groups happen to do
when adventuring.
For instance, the Sword Coast Guard is fighting
to prevent Lord Paxton from conquering the
entire Sword Coast with his army of orcs,
giants, and other nasties.
So on one series of quests they are working
to break up an orc army.
They TPK while doing that, but roll up new
PCs and get ëer done.
Next they murder a bunch of hill giants.
Then they thwart a glacier full of ice giants
ó see this video up here on how my player
soloed an entire dungeon to hear that story
ó and move on to take out a volcano full
of fire giants.
However, during all that fast-paced action
and murdering of orcs and giantsóLOTS of
giants, mind youódonít you think my playerís
characters might want to do something else
besides just rush from one dungeon to the
next?
I mean, thatís a lot of murdering.
They might need a breather, right?
Maybe Robby the Wizard wants to scribe some
scrolls.
Nigel the Bard wants to spend some quality
time with his dear Lady Tharmar ó video on
that right here.
Rokku the barbarian/druid might like to get
in touch with nature and help further the
church of craziness.
Maybe Grist the min-maxed OP bugbear ranger/rogue
would like to steal Dalinorís cloak of displacement
and sell it on the black market.
Sebastian the Tortle might like to go check
in with Lord Paxton to work on his master
plan of backstabbing the other players.
And then of course we have Dalinor the Paladin/Sorcerer.
Surely he has individual goals and aspirations
heíd like to pursue.
But you know, I couldnít care less about
Dalinor.
NO DOWNTIME FOR HIM.
You see, downtime gives your players the chance
to do all those cool things that they canít
do when they are busy saving the world.
So, my suggestion is that you definitely should
offer it as an option to your players.
Now some players may not care so much for
it, but others definitely will.
Okay, cool, so we just have the group take
a break between adventures to roleplay the
downtime activities at the game table, right?
Well, now, hold on there a second, Skippy.
Itís actually a very important consideration
to think about HOW you implement downtime
for your group.
There are basically two ways to do it: at
the game table and away from the game table,
which I refer to as offline.
Iím going to discuss both methods, including
advantage and disadvantages, and finally Iíll
give my personal recommendation.
Thatís right, Iím going to give you actual
reasons, not just say ìThis is how I do it,
and I think itís the best way to do it, and
therefore you should do it this way, too.î
First, doing it at the game table means taking
30 minute to an hour (or longer), to go around
the table, figure out what everyone wants
to do for their downtime, and then resolve
it.
This is the way I WAS doing it for years with
my Sword Coast Guard group, and I found there
to be two main advantages to it.
The first advantage of doing it this way is
that everyone gets their turn and you ensure
that downtime is completed.
You see, you have a captive audience.
Players butts are in their seats, and you
just get it done.
Now letís contrast that with doing things
by email or in a Discord server you set up
for the game.
I donít know about you, but I have several
players who never respond to jack via email.
If something isnít discussed at the game
table, it might never get discussed.
So thatís the risk you might run if you do
downtime offline.
The second advantage is that sometimes a playerís
downtime activity will impact the very next
adventure theyíll go on, so itís important
to do it right away.
What I mean is that if downtime falls in the
middle of a session and not neatly at the
very end, and if you do downtime offline,
the group might actually start the next adventure
before resolving the downtime activities.
Now in the case of something like engaging
in crime or performing faction service, resolving
it later might not be a big deal.
But, if Robby the Wizard wanted to create
scrolls and potions to use in the next adventure,
or Nigel the Bard wanted to go to New Olamnís
bard collage to research information about
the enemy lieutenant they are about to face
off against, then not doing downtime before
the next adventure might be a problem.
This is where resolving downtime during the
game session really shines.
You can make sure all that important stuff
is done right then before the next adventure
starts.
However, if you are running downtime offline
and cases like this spring up, you can always
just resolve the important downtime activities
right then, and save the less important downtime
pursuits for outside the game session.
And now for disadvantages of running downtime
during the game session, of which I found
there to be THREE.
The first one is that it can be boring for
the players.
You see, one playerís downtime is all of
the other playersí moment of having nothing
to do in the game.
So that means while you are resolving Robby
the Wizardís downtime ñ and holy crap does
that take some time because he wants to debate
everything ñ Nigel the Bard, Grist the min-maxed
OP hobgoblin ranger/rogue, Rokku the insane
halfling barbarian/druid, and Dalinor the
fancy-cloak paladin are all bored out of their
minds.
And each player has to sit their happy butt
there and pretty much do nothing while you
resolve all the other playersí downtime activities.
Now, sure, they will spend some of that time
deciding what they want to do during their
downtime, but thatís usually not a decision
that takes more than a few minutes.
Second disadvantage of downtime at the table:
because players are put on the spot a bit
ñ because when I do it this way, Iím working
to resolve downtime as quickly as possible
ñ their creativity may be affected.
That is, there may be another thing that they
would have preferred to do if they had been
given more time to mull it over outside the
game.
And they could have come up with something
really cool to pursue as part of their downtime,
but they had to pick quickly so as not to
bog the game down with indecision.
The third disadvantage is that because downtime
doesnít come up very often in the game ñ
maybe every two months or so ñ the downtime
rules in the DMG or Xanatharís or Acq Inc
donít get used very often.
And that means everyone forgets them.
That means you spend lots of time at the game
table looking them up and reading them before
you can resolve the downtime activities.
Which means things take that much longer and
are that much more boring for the players.
And I donít know about you, but my ability
to process rules, especially complex ones,
plummets when Iím actively DMing.
Like, away from the table, Iím good, but
at the table, under pressure, sometimes my
brain is like ìNope, not gonna do this right
now.î
However, if you were doing downtime offline,
then there is not pressure to figure out the
rules.
You can look them up at your leisure because
you arenít holding the game up.
Alright, now letís look at the pros and cons
of doing downtime away from the game table
between game sessions, which Iíve been referring
to as offline.
The number one advantage in my opinion is
that itís less boring for players because
the game isnít being held up waiting for
othersí turns resolving downtime.
In fact, it should be exciting for players
because they can take their time offline to
do their downtime.
This means the player and the dungeon master
can delve into more details and have something
really cool happen as a result.
This is the second advantage of doing downtime
offline.
I mean, if Nigel the Bard, say, wanted to
conspire with Lady Nellabee Tharmar to create
a demonic army of cambion offspring that would
someday threaten Waterdeep itself, well working
out those details offline with the dungeon
master would be the best way to do it.
That way all the other players are unaware
of whatís going on, and they are taken completely
unaware when in a later game session a devilish
army led by Nigel and his love Nellabee ñ
actually a succubus who was promoted to a
pit fiend ñ attack Waterdeep.
Unless, of course, theyíre watching this
video, which they shouldnít be doing!
The third advantage of downtime offline is
that players can participate OR NOT, as desired.
Itís entirely possible that you may have
players who donít give a flying crap about
downtime and would rather just skip it.
Doing it offline makes it easier for them
to just ignore it.
Oh, and by the way, dungeon masters, itís
okay if a player doesnít enjoy and engage
with every part of your game, including downtime.
All players have different interests, and
different things are fun for them.
This is okay.
Donít force it.
Now, the main disadvantage of doing downtime
offline ñ and this is a pretty big one in
my opinion ñ is that it eats up more of the
dungeon masterís time.
I think we all know ñ or at least we should
ñ that many DMs spend a metric crap ton of
time preparing for and running their games.
So spending even more time resolving downtime
out of the game sessions puts more of a time
burden on them.
I imagine that for many DMs who have the extra
time, this isnít a big deal.
However, if you struggle to even prepare your
game sessions because of how busy your life
is ñ which is where Iím currently sitting
ñ then I would think carefully about this.
You might just not have the time to take downtime
offline.
Now, obviously whether you do downtime during
the game session or offline is a personal
decision for each dungeon master to make,
but whatís my personal recommendation?
I would definitely try both ways to see which
one works better for your group, but ultimately
I feel that doing downtime offline might be
the better way to go.
Let me know how you usually do downtime for
your groups and why.
Next week weíll talk about how to reward
magic items to your players.
But until then click here to binge on my Dungeon
Mastering 101 playlist.
And until next timeÖ Letís play D&D!
