What do your heroes do when they're not adventuring?

[mmadsen]

In my current campaign the PCs are leaders of their village (new settlement in a newly discovered island) so the whole game basically consist of them looking after the villagers, growing and harvesting crops, dealing with the native (gnomes, goblins, an ogre family) etc - adventures happen when they can get to them (or when the Giant lizard eats a hunting party) and the PCs go and deal to it.

Does anyone know of any supplements that make this kind of thing easier? I know Birthright used to have rules for running a kingdom or guild, and an old "Dungeoncraft" article in Dragon covered "Countrycraft".

 

[Shallown]

In my present campaign the characters usually have a week or two downtime at one time. The characters live in an abondoned house near a small (200 people) frontier town well away from the main stream going-ons of the realm.

The Elven Bard composes and visits the local tavern to play every few nights.

The Dwarf fighter is attempting to rebuild the collapsed barn to make a work shop. he had armor and weapon craft and is now learning carpentry.

The Rogue plays with his friends in town. He is only 15 or so. Was a scout/courier during the recent war.

The ranger/fighter explores the surrounding country and hunts a good deal being gone for days at a time.

The dwarf wizard studies, a lot. when not doing that he reads the clerics books.

The cleric does research having a habit of buying lots of books and hauling them home.

This last adventure left them in a large eleven town for like 2 weeks so they did different things.

Elven Bard restablished contacts he had been gone for 2 years. Finished his bladesinger training.
The rogue explored the city.
The ranger fighter took a level of wind rider and trained in it as well as learning about his new steed a Large wolf/half silver dragon.
The dwarf fighter hooked up with the local church of war (which had become very popular after the recent war) And tought a few elves how to use a great axe as well as sparring for fun and profit.
The cleric spent countless hours in the library in the city.
The dwarf wizard finally had time/money and resources to make a few items. With tme living in a small town they were getting to the point that they couldn't get things a higher level group needs they all range from 7-8 in level.

I tend to have a lot of NPC interaction in down time. Most of my group gets bored easily so downtime usually takes 1-2 sessions at most sessions being 6-8 hours.

hope that answers your question

 

[Kilmore]

Don't forget about Christmas! Or whatever you name your campaign's winter holiday (I call mine Yolin). After a gaming session, I indicated that the holiday was coming up in the campaign world. The players really got into that. They ended up buying all kinds of crazy crap for one another. Party treasure go boom.

 

[LostSoul]

I had some down time in my campaign, lasting from October through to September (campaign time). The Wizard decided to help a local businessman by working as a scribe (most people in the world were illiterate), making a pretty good living doing so. The Fighter didn't have any marketable skills, so he worked at the inn doing menial labour for room and board. It was pretty cool; both characters seemed to enjoy their work, until they got the itch to adventure again...

 

[Thanee]

So, what do your heroes do in their off time now, and what could they be doing?

My current D&D character (Silvermoon, elven arcane trickster) spends most of her down time with her partner/lover (a human nobleman/wizard she fell in love with quite some time ago, after their first meeting, when she picked his pocket , but gave back what she found there, because it would've got him into trouble otherwise). She escorts him on balls and similar social events, further honing her dancing and diplomacy skills as well, and of course they also get intimate fairly often in the short times they can spend together. It's pretty much her own little adventure there, since she really wants to marry him and mate with him for the rest of their lives (she has discovered a fountain of youth, which might work to make it "their lives" and not only "his life", considering their very different expected lifespans) - but because she is not of noble birth (unless you count being elven, but nobility won't let that pass ), she cannot do so (unless she becomes a member of nobility first). Of course, being a resourceful rogue she's already working on her plans for achieving this...

Sometimes she's also honing her magical talents by creating new magic items for herself or her friends or just keeps hanging out with her friends, "partying" all night long and generally wasting her money.

Another hobby she has, is fashion and gemcutting. She creates new clothes and jewelry (most often to impress others at the aforementioned social events, but also to sell them and make even more money to waste later ).

Bye
Thanee

 

[drnuncheon]

In between adventures, the PCs in my game bust petty criminals, train new recruits, spend time with their families when people aren't trying to kill them, and that sort of thing. But hey, they're cops.

J

 

[mmadsen]

How many of you have players that own a manor, track its growth (or decline), start families, etc.?

 

[arwink]

One campaign involved the PC's taking over and rebuilding a ruined keep. By the time the characters were retired, one was building a church and taking command of the smaller settlements around the kingdom, one had formed an order of rogue/wizards to track down and aquire dangerous magic items and a third had started the aforementioned brewery and was working on a business importing coffee beans.

Two of the three characters had families. One intentionally took a wife, and the second got a low ranking member of the third's church and was forced into a wedding for the sake of decency. They were expecting their fourth child by the end of the campaign.

There was a lot of development going on in downtime there, although the majority of it was based around drinking despite it all. Businesses were built up, characters invested in merchant trains and local stores, they worked hard to maintain their holding and build new fortifications, they negotiated with mercenary groups. Only half of that really occured in the background or in downtime though, the rest were adventures unto themselves.

 

[mmadsen]

Player characters routinely loot the strongholds of the enemy. Has anyone here had their own stronghold attacked by NPCs (or other PCs)? Has anyone come back from an adventure to find their domain in ruins?

 

[arwink]

Yes and yes