D&D 5E Downtime: When, How, and How Much?

[billd91]

Do you generally have a timeline of events that progress as the campaign goes on, and space for downtime between the events?

Some things are on a timeline - some may set a tougher pace than others, but very few armies willingly march in the winter... so there can be predictable breaks in the cadence.
I also have some random charts of events that can pop up.

 

[Longspeak]

I'm running D&D these days, but in another game I ran years ago that wasn't D&D, I had large amounts of time between stories. Once as long as seven years, but usually between 6 and 24 months. Players in that game had a lot of fun working with me, playing out scene, advancing their characters' lives. Lots of meta and OOC, lots of side sessions. These days, not a lot of players seem to want to take me up on that.

In the game I am running now, I narrate the existence of downtime, and then ask if anyone wants to do anything during that. I try to invite time for personal growth, but not everyone has the time so I don't make it a requirement, nor do I run sides where people can level up past the group average. It's all character development stuff. I make myself available for side sessions, or for PCs to chase down their own leads.

I also narrate several "Here's something that happens in the next few days if anyone wants to address or react to it." If no-one wants to react to it, then I develop it, and it will come up later. One of those is just hitting now, from a lead they ignored six months ago.

 

[oriaxx77]

One of my friends plays a campaign once a month. This is their active phase. Between these they play downtime in emails. They love it.

In my campaigns there is no downtime. Sometimes (between significant events) we jump 4-5 years forward and we discuss how the world changed. Usually this is the start of the next campaign.