Level Advancement and In-Campaign Time

[Lanefan]

But for homebrews, I just mentioned in another thread, I just pass game time the same as real time. With one or two weeks between game sessions and each adventure taking 2 or 3 game sessions, going from first to second level took my group three weeks.

That runs hard aground in the narrative when your session ends with the party in mid-adventure about to open a door...or worse, in mid-combat because the battle's taking too long and people have to work tomorrow.

They don't time-stop for a week of game time in these instances.

Now if they're doing it weekend-warrior style and end each session back in town (which for some reason seems to have been Gygax's default assumption) then you can pull this off. But that's rare, IME.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

I guess the thing I've always found about having to train to level is it limits the game. We like some adventures to be extended over a couple levels. Lots of published adventures over the many editions have this built in. I just played Sunless Citadel, for example...it assumes you start at 1st and finish at 3rd level, so there is at least one level-up built into the adventure. It's sequel, Forge of Fury seems to have the same assumption (start at 3rd, finish at 5th).

Which merely points at a flaw in 3e design, as far as I'm concerned: the default rate of levelling up is far too fast.

It just doesn't seem very interesting to me after the PCs have gained enough XP to level and the players are all excited about it to say "well, you have this time pressure built into the adventure so if you want to level you either have to press on at your current level or you can leave to spend <some non-trivial amount of time> training...by that time the BBEG will have reinforced his lair or seen his plans come to fruition...but hey, you'll have gained some hp and new spells!"...it just doesn't seem to jive with me...YMMV, though. Maybe others have made this work.

I think it forces an interesting and sometimes difficult choice on to the players/PCs.

Also, not every adventure has to have a time crunch built in. Forge of Fury, for example, can still work very well even if the party leave it for a few weeks to go back to town and train up.

And it gets even more interesting if not everyone is advancing at the same rate. It's a common thing in my games to have one or two PCs well into their (untrained) next level at any given time. Sometimes an individual PC will decide to leave the party part-way through an adventure and go for training (the player will either already have another PC in the party or - if needed - will have a replacement available, or may even roll up something new).

Lanefan

 

[Tony Vargas]

Johnny and Jimmy decide to settle down for the winter, help out around the town, maybe find love, who knows.

Sue and Jane on the other hand want to face the winter wilderness and hone their skills, kick monster butt and find treasure.

Well, if there's nothing to find, they don't find it, I guess, is an option. The world can't really be as dangerous as random encounter tables make it out to be. You spend a few minutes describing how cold they get wandering around, looking for trouble and not finding it. Maybe a survival check or two.

Of course, at low level, even fighting off a pack of wolves or capturing a 2nd level highwayman can give you a few xp. But a higher level character could reasonably run up against the 'problem' of literally nothing worth their time being around for a whole season, or years on end.

And how do you reconcile players who want to get detailed (we all know the guy) about their downtime shenanigans

They can write it all up in exhaustive detail and save it to /dev/null ... er.. I mean 'the cloud.'

, and the guy who's just like "Yeah I'm gonna do some farming and stuff for a year." and isn't interested in the specifics of it?

No homework for him.

 

[Lanefan]

One thing I do when I have included "training" in the past is that:
You get your HD/HP and Proficiency/BAB&Saves right away, to indicate that your experience has made you tougher and better in a general sense. If you are at an ASI point you can gain an ASI, but not a feat. To gain feats and class features, you have to train. This also allows for a presentation of a world where a wildman can be really tough, really strong, and swing his sword really hard but he has not learned any specific knowledge and thus lacks cool feats or class features.

Similarly, we also give partial benefits (partial new h.p., stat increments) immediately on bumping, but for most of it - including improving your saves and [BAB equivalent] - you have to train up.

As a player, and I suppose as a DM, my biggest issue with "time passing between events" is "What do you do with players who want to keep adventuring?" Aside from of course, having players who are totally into this kind of stuff. Lets say you're using XP right? So every dungeon, every gold piece, every quest, every monster kill equates to some kind of advancement.

First off, it sounds like the OP isn't using xp and further, has players who are on board with lots of downtime.

But since you're talking about stuff much closer to my own situation, I'll carry on here...

Johnny and Jimmy decide to settle down for the winter, help out around the town, maybe find love, who knows.

Sue and Jane on the other hand want to face the winter wilderness and hone their skills, kick monster butt and find treasure.

Do you award Johnny and Jimmy equitable XP to Sue and Jane? Or does "around town stuff" give them nothing?

Well, first I'd expect each of these players to have multiple PCs in the game world. Given that, what usually happens is that Johnny and Jimmy would put those PCs on hold for the winter, while bringing in another pair to go adventuring with Sue and Jane.

-Followup: how does "life" get reflected on their sheets? Do they earn any kind of increase in their skills?

Depends what they're doing. If they just party in the mead hall all winter then no, no increases for them (and a decrease in their coin total, too!). But if they're learning spells or picking up a new language or whatever, then yes.

Or do you restrict Sue and Jane's XP to reflect the low amount Jhonny and Jimmy are earning?

No.

-Do Sue and Jane simply wander around in the woods, finding nothing, as you not-so-subtly try to press them to return to town?

The odds of their finding anything would be the same as if the whole party was wandering in those same woods.

Do you add more PCs? Have Sue and Jane roll up some "around town" PCs? Have Jimmy and Johnny roll up some more adventure-oriented PCs?

If they don't already have any, then yes.

-Again: how do you reconcile that the people off in the woods have been earning XP, and the people in town havent?
--I frame it this way because I rarely find a DM who awards XP or milestones or ANY form of advancement when it doesn't include "killing stuff".

I'm not the least bit concerned about keeping everyone at the same level of xp total. Going out in the field is 99% certain to get you more xp than staying in town...but it's also going to carry the risk of death or other bad things happening, which is much less likely in the safety of town.

And how do you reconcile players who want to get detailed (we all know the guy) about their downtime shenanigans, and the guy who's just like "Yeah I'm gonna do some farming and stuff for a year." and isn't interested in the specifics of it?

The guy who gets detailed: that's what the pub is for, or email, or some other out-of-session means of communication.

As far as details, put in as much or little as you want. Want to write a short story? Go for it. Post it where everyone can read and be ready to give a brief summation for the group at the session for those who didn't have time to read it. Don't care? Not a problem, but I will ask for a brief outline and may fill in some details for you.

The only restriction is that you don't gain or lose money unless it's something pertinent to the game (e.g. built a castle) and you don't gain any XP. I don't care if you fought a thousand goblins in your off-time, it doesn't count. Sorry but the game doesn't work that way. There was no real risk, so there's no gain.

AFAIC if you do something that earns you xp or money then you get said xp or money, whether it's part of the run of play or something done in downtime. If you want to take the time to advance from 8th to 9th level one goblin at a time I'm not going to stop you, though I'm also not going to run every one of those little battles.

By the same token, if you do something that loses you money or risks your life then that happens too, as normal. The goblins get lucky and gang up on you and take you down? Them's the breaks...

Lanefan

 

[Sunseeker]

I can't speak for the OP, but what I do is have the players tell me what they did during the break. Settled down on the farm? Great. You may have heard some rumors from that traveler who asked for shelter that stormy night. Hunted orcs? Awesome. You were never able to find "king" Grozzle but you did manage to gather a little more information which might come in handy. Spent time at the gambling tables? Cool. You made a small fortune and then lost it all while making a new ally. Or are they?

As far as details, put in as much or little as you want. Want to write a short story? Go for it. Post it where everyone can read and be ready to give a brief summation for the group at the session for those who didn't have time to read it. Don't care? Not a problem, but I will ask for a brief outline and may fill in some details for you.

The only restriction is that you don't gain or lose money unless it's something pertinent to the game (e.g. built a castle) and you don't gain any XP. I don't care if you fought a thousand goblins in your off-time, it doesn't count. Sorry but the game doesn't work that way. There was no real risk, so there's no gain.

I also ask people OK an outline of what happened because I may nix some ideas. The cleric isn't going to be teleported up to Valhalla to have tea and crumpets with Thor. But if you want to have a whirlwind romance and now you're married? Fantastic, describe them for the group.

I'm not the (sole) author of the campaign, I am narrator and set boundaries. How much or little players want to add to the story is up to them.

To me, my first reaction was: okay, so no matter what you do, nothing you do actually matters. If nothing can be gained and likewise nothing can be lost, then aside from "I want my PC to do this thing." Someone could say "I do nothing." and have the same outcome.

First off, it sounds like the OP isn't using xp and further, has players who are on board with lots of downtime.

I totally couldn't tell from the OP, to be honest.

But since you're talking about stuff much closer to my own situation, I'll carry on here...

Well, first I'd expect each of these players to have multiple PCs in the game world. Given that, what usually happens is that Johnny and Jimmy would put those PCs on hold for the winter, while bringing in another pair to go adventuring with Sue and Jane.

Depends what they're doing. If they just party in the mead hall all winter then no, no increases for them (and a decrease in their coin total, too!). But if they're learning spells or picking up a new language or whatever, then yes.

Okay fair enough, so in your case the game still focuses on the "adventure" and "downtime" is more of a "fill-in-the-blank" of what happened while the adventure was going on?

I'm not the least bit concerned about keeping everyone at the same level of xp total. Going out in the field is 99% certain to get you more xp than staying in town...but it's also going to carry the risk of death or other bad things happening, which is much less likely in the safety of town.

Well, the question was more aimed at the fact that players, and therefore their characters, tend to go where the rewards are. So if two characters stay home and get nothing other than a nice story, and two characters go out and earn a bunch of XP, we can wager that next time the downtime cycle comes around, there ain't gonna be anyone staying home.

I personally like to reward downtime activity. I have played with a lot of DMs who dont which has always made me question the purpose of including downtime to begin with.

The guy who gets detailed: that's what the pub is for, or email, or some other out-of-session means of communication.

Fair enough that's what I prefer as well.

Well, if there's nothing to find, they don't find it, I guess, is an option. The world can't really be as dangerous as random encounter tables make it out to be. You spend a few minutes describing how cold they get wandering around, looking for trouble and not finding it. Maybe a survival check or two.

Sure. I'm not a big fan of "random encounter tables" so I'd happily tell my players up front that "The local area seems to have stabilized for the time." before having them wander around doing nothing and wasting everyones time.

Of course, at low level, even fighting off a pack of wolves or capturing a 2nd level highwayman can give you a few xp. But a higher level character could reasonably run up against the 'problem' of literally nothing worth their time being around for a whole season, or years on end.

Which I suppose was part of my point. Some player may want to travel the world looking for that adventure.

I haven't run into this issue. Everyone has Backgrounds and they're tied into the setting. They from somewhere. They have goals that aren't related to what the group is doing. The down-time between adventures is perfect for that.

But isn't that really just adventuring by a different name? Instead of venturing out into the woods looking for trouble, you go looking for it at home? I don't think adventuring is all raiding tombs 24/7 and a good "adventure" can happen right in their home town...but then that's not really downtime is it?

Moreover, see the post above about "You don't find adventure. Adventure finds you." Gandalf shows up with a quest when he shows on, on his schedule, not yours. There isn't always an adventure to be had.

Eh. I'm with a DM that's kinda like that. On a personal note: I'm not enjoying it. It feels a lot less like "We're rugged adventurers looking for excitement!" and more like "We're cashiers waiting for someone to come and order a BigMac." If we literally can't do anything because nobody has asked us to do anything, that IMO is not being an adventurer.

I'm not using XP.

Well that crosses off a lot of my questions then. I really wasn't clear from the OP.

They could pick up a Tools or Vehicles proficiency or something if they want, sure. Maybe an extended downtime and career change could lead to a second Background.

Okay, the question was mostly aimed at "Can the time be mechanically productive as well as story productive?" What I was hoping not to hear was [MENTION=6801845]Oofta[/MENTION]'s answer that "no matter what you do you can't fundamentally gain anything other than story." Because, lets me honest: I don't need a TTRPG group to come up with a creative story for what my PC does on their own. That's like, my other other hobby.

I think you're picturing a much more adversarial relationship between me and the players. I just say "Okay guys, you won. The bad guy is defeated and the town is safe. No obvious threats around right now. What are you doing to do with your new free time?" and the players understand this is an opportunity to pursue their individual character development.

Then I basically just say "Six months pass .. and you see the bat signal."

No, that's fine. I was mostly curious on the level of detail you were willing to get into. See [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] who will basically run a side-adventure for a secondary group of characters during the downtime if that's where people want to go.

I think I was pretty clear in the OP that this is exactly what I'm doing.

You don't give out any form of advancement when it doesn't involve killing stuff? I'm a little unclear on your answer.

Both are fine. It really doesn't effect anything. Downtime is an opportunity to have a different kind of fun, not homework.

If it doesn't affect anything, why do it?

On the contrary, the PCs are all split up during downtime, off pursuing their solo stuff. The wizard is off to the Tower of High Sorcery to take his Test; the barbarian is following a prophecy into the desert; the cleric is rehabilitating the shrine they just finished clearing of monsters; and the bard is returning a sword they found to its rightful owner.

What if they don't? What if they stick together, as a group, doing a group thing?

I guess if you think my running the campaign this way is a "jerk ultimatum" you can go play somewhere else then. My players seem to like it. Good communication and setting expectations ahead of time about how the campaign will function is always key (not just for this, but for anything).

Well I wasn't asking to play in your game now was I Captain Snippy-Pants? Thanks for taking the line completely out of context from the line right before it. But hey yeah you went there so lets run with it: It IS a pretty jerk move for the DM to say "Okay it's downtime time, you all split up, you all do you own things, none of you get to stick around each other because you all have to do you own things, on your own, alone, by yourself."

Yeah, that's kinda a jerk move. Because ya know, it's the player's call on what their character does, NOT YOURS

 

[Oofta]

To me, my first reaction was: okay, so no matter what you do, nothing you do actually matters. If nothing can be gained and likewise nothing can be lost, then aside from "I want my PC to do this thing." Someone could say "I do nothing." and have the same outcome.

Where do you get "nothing you do actually matters" from anything anyone has posted on this thread? From a game mechanic perspective, things that happen between games don't count but they certainly can from a world perspective.

Maybe I wasn't clear. If someone wants to do a story arc off-screen where they clean up a section of town and eliminate a gang of were-rats and I think they're high enough level that it would be relatively trivial (although possibly time consuming) and it makes sense in world then it happens. On the other hand if someone says that during their off-screen time they travel to hell and kill Asmodeus, it's not going to happen.

Okay, the question was mostly aimed at "Can the time be mechanically productive as well as story productive?" What I was hoping not to hear was @Oofta's answer that "no matter what you do you can't fundamentally gain anything other than story." Because, lets me honest: I don't need a TTRPG group to come up with a creative story for what my PC does on their own. That's like, my other other hobby.

So let me get this straight. Someone could say "on my off time I defeated the Grozzle's army. That was 300 goblins all told along with a handful of leaders and other monsters. Let's round it up to 20,000 XP so I'm now level 6 instead of level 2 and I gained 50,00 GP. By the way I also recovered this list of magic items. Oh and here's my bad fan-fic novella to read if you want to read it. Chapter 22 is really awesome."

You would say okay?

Because they said so. With no risk to their character, no actual game time, just a statement of what they did? I'm sorry the concept of telling a pretty story not having any impact on game mechanics bothers you so much.

Well I wasn't asking to play in your game now was I Captain Snippy-Pants? Thanks for taking the line completely out of context from the line right before it. But hey yeah you went there so lets run with it: It IS a pretty jerk move for the DM to say "Okay it's downtime time, you all split up, you all do you own things, none of you get to stick around each other because you all have to do you own things, on your own, alone, by yourself."

Yeah, that's kinda a jerk move. Because ya know, it's the player's call on what their character does, NOT YOURS

Where do you come up with this stuff? Where was it said the party has to split up? If they want to go on a river cruise together and wear matching outfits while starting a marimba band they can. What they can't do (in my campaign) is gain in-game mechanical benefits unless it's following the downtime rules for training or other activities.

 

[Uller]

That runs hard aground in the narrative when your session ends with the party in mid-adventure about to open a door...or worse, in mid-combat because the battle's taking too long and people have to work tomorrow.

They don't time-stop for a week of game time in these instances.

Now if they're doing it weekend-warrior style and end each session back in town (which for some reason seems to have been Gygax's default assumption) then you can pull this off. But that's rare, IME.

Lanefan

You misunderstand. We just completed an adventure that took two game sessions, each a week apart and then broke for a week. The adventure involved a fight at night in a camp, a long rest, then the exploration of a small cave with a short rest. There were 3 days of travel each way...so about a week of adventuring. So when the game ended, they got two weeks of downtime. We don't say that the adventure pauses for a week of game time mid dungeon...

 

[Sunseeker]

Where do you get "nothing you do actually matters" from anything anyone has posted on this thread? From a game mechanic perspective, things that happen between games don't count but they certainly can from a world perspective.

Why, though? If it matters to the game world then it matters to the game. If I spend my years between adventures becoming a reknowned artist, that matters to the game as much as it matters to the story and the world it takes place in. Imagine the connections I would have forged between nobility, how did I use my art to influence culture? Did I extract huge sums of money for my work? Do I return to the party vast sums of wealth?

Maybe I wasn't clear. If someone wants to do a story arc off-screen where they clean up a section of town and eliminate a gang of were-rats and I think they're high enough level that it would be relatively trivial (although possibly time consuming) and it makes sense in world then it happens. On the other hand if someone says that during their off-screen time they travel to hell and kill Asmodeus, it's not going to happen.

Which at its core reads to me like "I'm not going to actually play through whatever you want to do, so just make sure whatever you do has no fundamental impact on anything." Heck, lets run with your example: there's a gang of were-rats, that is: a gang of humanoids with a highly infectious curse running around town. "Cleaning them up" has meaningful impact. Not just that you cleaned them up, but how you cleaned them up. Did you kill them? Was one of them perhaps a long-lost son of someone important? Did you save them and same question?

If the were-rats are worth no XP, and have no fundamental value to the story other than being a minor irritation to the town, why where they there? Because to me it sounds like this thing that wasn't any trouble, and wasn't really causing that much harm, really didn't need to exist in the first place. It sounds to me like your veto power comes into play right when these things would start to matter.

And also: I only got it from your post, not anyone elses.

So let me get this straight. Someone could say "on my off time I defeated the Grozzle's army. That was 300 goblins all told along with a handful of leaders and other monsters. Let's round it up to 20,000 XP so I'm now level 6 instead of level 2 and I gained 50,00 GP. By the way I also recovered this list of magic items. Oh and here's my bad fan-fic novella to read if you want to read it. Chapter 22 is really awesome."

You would say okay?

Because they said so. With no risk to their character, no actual game time, just a statement of what they did? I'm sorry the concept of telling a pretty story not having any impact on game mechanics bothers you so much.

Lol no. Because I don't run downtime like that. Downtime isn't a little homework exercise everyone just invents for what happened between now and the next problem. I actually run downtime. It's a thing we all do, together, at the table. Maybe we don't all take part in each other's individual activities, but we are all at the table, taking turns, rolling dice, seeing how the outcomes of our "downtime" turn out.

It's not story time. Ya'll can go home and make up whatever stories you want for your characters. Kill Asmodeus if you want, I don't care. But if it didn't happen at the table, it didn't happen in the game, and it sure as heck doesn't affect the world.

Where do you come up with this stuff? Where was it said the party has to split up? If they want to go on a river cruise together and wear matching outfits while starting a marimba band they can. What they can't do (in my campaign) is gain in-game mechanical benefits unless it's following the downtime rules for training or other activities.

You know my entire post wasn't responding to you​ right?

 

[Lanefan]

Where do you get "nothing you do actually matters" from anything anyone has posted on this thread? From a game mechanic perspective, things that happen between games don't count but they certainly can from a world perspective.

"From a game mechanic perspective, things that happen between games don't count" is pretty clearly stating that what you do in your downtime doesn't matter to your progression as a character - progression that is mechanically measured and counted by a) xp and b) wealth.

Maybe I wasn't clear. If someone wants to do a story arc off-screen where they clean up a section of town and eliminate a gang of were-rats and I think they're high enough level that it would be relatively trivial (although possibly time consuming) and it makes sense in world then it happens.

It shoudn't just "happen". While I don't want to play this out long-form any more than you do, I'd certainly sit down with the player for 15 minutes, get some idea of what the player/PC has in mind, and get some dice rolled:
- in general, how successful were you? (did you get all the wererats, or did they beat you back, or did you miss a bunch? This roll will also give an idea of what xp to give, in relative terms)
- in general, how much did it hurt? (a bad roll in this example probably means the PC picked up lycanthropy; a very bad roll might mean the PC died)
- in general, how lucrative was this venture? (a bad roll might mean you lost money or items, a medium or good roll means you came back with some loot)
- in general, how long did it take? (a really bad roll might indicate you haven't finished yet and have to choose between finishing this or field adventuring...or getting the party to help you finish)

On the other hand if someone says that during their off-screen time they travel to hell and kill Asmodeus, it's not going to happen.

But they're not telling you what they do. They're telling you what they're TRYING to do. Small but very significant difference.

A PC says she's using her downtime to go off and kill Asmodeus? Fine. The same series of dice rolls apply as above, but unless you roll about seven 20's in a row on the "how successful were you" line you can start rolling up a new character, 'cause that one's had it.

So let me get this straight. Someone could say "on my off time I defeated the Grozzle's army. That was 300 goblins all told along with a handful of leaders and other monsters.

No. Someone can say "on my off time I tried to defeat the Grozzle's army", at which point you and the player start rolling as above. After that's done, you-as-DM get to assign the xp earned and treasure recovered. Players NEVER do this on their own.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

You misunderstand. We just completed an adventure that took two game sessions, each a week apart and then broke for a week. The adventure involved a fight at night in a camp, a long rest, then the exploration of a small cave with a short rest. There were 3 days of travel each way...so about a week of adventuring. So when the game ended, they got two weeks of downtime. We don't say that the adventure pauses for a week of game time mid dungeon...

That makes much more sense.

I'd never want it to be so formulaic, though - just seems contrived, somehow. But, if anyone bumped you could have thier training take a couple of weeks to find and complete, which would achieve the same goal and fit with the narrative as well....