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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sadras" data-source="post: 7964803" data-attributes="member: 6688277">1. I looked at the options offered in the DMG/XGtE and determined which of them were relative to the group and listed a few more activities that would be of interest. I removed the pit fights - that was not going to appeal to any of my players. All in all I had 20 downtime activities.2. I determined the characters' available downtime and adjusted the cost based on lifestyle expenditure in the PHB and the cost of the activities per the books.3. I emailed the downtime list with the time unit cost and gold cost and basic mechanics to the players ahead of game time and answered any follow up questions they had. So at the session they had already an idea of what they wanted to do and how it all worked - saving us play time.4. Then in order, I let each tell me 1 downtime activity they wanted to perform, we resolved them (with 1 exception - refer 7) and deducted the necessary time units from their tally and I would let the one that had spent the least time units go first until his/her time units spend equalled to or reached close to the others - that way everyone was performing their activities round about the same time as everyone else. Here and there I provided some narration for colour.5. As a surprise to the players, I introduced some interesting roleplay encounters that the characters could choose to pursue or not. The lure ofcourse was the possibilty of them furthering their personal or party goals at the cost of time units.For instance, the halfling sorcerer (mentioned upthread) had his two drinking buddies (PC created NPCs - a pair of dwarvern brothers) pressure him into spending an evening with them (costing 2 Time Units) hinting they had a surprise for him - "Another Hero of Baldur's Gate". Sure enough this peaked the halfling's interest wondering who they were talking about and so he joined them to discover the surprise was an old PC/now NPC who was indeed a companion during the time they saved Baldur's Gate (MiBG).* Uitlising the character's flaw of enjoying drinking - I told the player to roll a Constitution check for his character to see if he lost time (an additional 2 time units) the next morning due to a hangover/alcohol poisoning.These chance enounters provided additional interesting decision points for the players - which is always a good thing.*(Refer 6 below) This old friend and PC engaged in a lengthy dialogue in which the PC learned some pertinent information that would be valuable to the group's goals and put the PC in a difficult position of betraying a friend.6. I resolved particular actual roleplaying encounters as in 5 above (20-25 minutes of actual time) on another day (easy enough with quarantine) so as not to give 1 person too much spotlight in our downtime admin session.7. I resolved all the downtime activities on the spot except the buying magical items (that was to be rolled for afterwards in private).8. After time units were all practically spent - I ended the session. In private I compiled all downtime activities with their relevant costs, rolled for the magical items sources (refer 7) giving a description of the item, it's powers and cost and sent them an email with it all. They would revert to me which item they inteded on purchasing.9. I rolled in secret for the 10% complications for each activity and they will unfold at a later stage.Hope some of this helps - good luck!</blockquote>

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