D&D 5E How Much Downtime Do You See in Campaigns?

[Inchoroi]

So I'm looking at the magic item crafting rules and seeing that it takes a PC somewhere in the neighborhood of five years to make a single Very Rare magic item. In the experience of those here, do many campaigns have weeks, months, years, or even decades of downtime? It seems to me that most published campaigns at least assume very little downtime.

It varies a lot depending on the campaign. My current campaign has seen a lot of downtime, as there was research for the characters to do to solve the mystery (spoiler: they still haven't figured it out and they're level 20 and I've given them literally everything save the "Oh naughty word Twist").

That being said, I ended up rewriting the magic item crafting, and crafting in general, rules to make a little more sense and be more useable.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Would I be correct to assume that campaigns with a lot of downtime have more loosely connected scenarios? I've been more influenced by the adventure path format, where it feels like downtime would just be letting the villains go unopposed.

 

[Hriston]

I’m planning a campaign in which the PCs start at level-0 and which involves a lot of downtime for gaining capabilities on the way to level-1. Complications are going to figure into how each instance of downtime is resolved, but I’m not sure what’s the best way this can be implemented.

 

[Oofta]

Would I be correct to assume that campaigns with a lot of downtime have more loosely connected scenarios? I've been more influenced by the adventure path format, where it feels like downtime would just be letting the villains go unopposed.

I have narrative arcs that happen and can be modified or ignored by the PCs. However, those things don't happen overnight.

Let's take a campaign I ran a while back. One of the main themes was that they were at war with a dragon king that was trying to take over the continent. As part of the narrative, a good chunk of time was spent off-screen in combat, helping build up defenses or researching ways to fight the enemy. Game time was spent on especially risky, difficult missions or other interludes.

Wars are not fought and won overnight. You can't normally just march into enemy territory and assassinate the big bad guy in my games. You have to make plans, win over an support allies, wait for reinforcements, build or rebuild defenses.

Even when there's not a war on, there will be a flurry of activity and then both sides retreat to fight once more. Maybe you finally uncover that assassin but it hints at a conspiracy. A trusted NPC goes undercover to find out more information only to show up at your doorstep dying from a rotting disease and he can only gasp out a few words before turning to dust that leads you to a new set of encounters.

I like that the game is about going from zero to hero, I just don't want it to normally happen over the course of an in-game span of days or weeks.

 

[MNblockhead]

Lots of downtime.

We are playing a Rappan Athuk campaign with Matt Coleville's Strongholds & Followers rules. Building up and maintaining their strongholds and the various political and business opportunities and challenges that this creates is a big part of the campaign. Beyond providing something to spend money on and to need lots of money to maintain, it is also the base of power for the parties continued pushing back of the forces of Orcus.

Previously, we played one 8-hour game each month and the then played downtime in between by e-mail. Now that I'm overseas, we'll play maybe twice a month and will probably take care of much of the downtime in game. Or at least, now that they have access to teleport circles we are beyond the bookkeeping of travel and lifestyle expenses. The gains or losses from their stronghold and businesses are larger and quicker to resolve. There is less benefit to spending time on gambling, carousing, working, etc. Now, other than training, the only individual downtime might be buying or selling high value items or acquiring information (carousing, researching).

Downtime keeps the setting alive and is building new party-centered plot lines from organically derived goals. What makes downtime work well with our group will not be everyone's cup of tea, but it includes:

1. GP = XP.

You gain XP by extracting treasure and from some milestones. There is no XP for killing things. This results in a more creative, problem-solving style of play, where you might go up against creatures stronger than you, by sneaking, not fighting. There is no benefit to killing large mobs of low-level creatures, so the party may ally with them, demand tribute, or just leave them be.

2. You have to train to level up and training costs gold.

This was a significant driver to get gold at low levels. At higher levels it is not so much a challenge as just another way gold is spent.

3. Xanathar's Downtime Rules

The downtime rules in XGE (along with a mix of PHB and DMG downtime suggestions) were used heavily at lower levels. But after they acquired a stronghold, I stopped bothering with lifestyle expenses. Also many of the downtime activities in Xanathars become less valuable as you level up. About the only ones still used heavily are info-gathering activities. Carousing and research are still heavily used. Nobody bothers with gambling, working, or most other downtime activity now. Buying and selling items can be handled by followers, so only very special items involve an individual PC's downtime.

4. Factions

I modified the faction rules with the reputation rules published on EN World a while back. I further added some rules to allow buying reputation with GP (e.g. donations, bribes, contributions, depending on the nature of the faction).

5. Strongholds and Followers

I've pretty much incorporated this book's rules as written. They are working very well in this campaign. It gave a goal to save gold for and the party is still working on getting more gold to level up their stronghold.

6. Round up in the book keeping

As the party levels up, expenses that were once significant become far less so and tracking them become tedious. I figure they have "people" to manage that and I just abstract the expenses to make it easier. BUT I ROUND UP! Expenses are never rounded in the party's favor. Strongholds give some very nice benefits in Coleville's book, but the party still needs to feel the bite in their pocketbooks.

7. Slow Leveling

We've played about 70 hours (at-table play, not between-session downtime) and the characters are at about 5th level. One player is at 10th because of some weird Rappan Atthuk swingy magic encounters that can go very bad or very good, which I won't go into because of spoilers.

At 5th they are already property holders and political players in this backwoods wilderness area that is on an important trade route.

Almost three years have passed in-game.

It is very different from most 5e play, but I like spending more time at lower levels, and really developing the characters and the party. Its not save the world, grow for barely competent to legendary in weeks or months. It is more of a long victorian-era novel.

 

[jgsugden]

In games I run? A lot. My campaigns generally have a major storyline and then four or five "B storylines" that each run for between 3 and 6 levels. At thend end of each of those, there tends to be downtime that allows the PCs to change up their lives. They may take a local political position, start a family, go on a quest far away, or form their own business... or make a powerful magic item. The downtime is longer between later B storylines.

 

[77IM]

This should be a poll.

 

[Raith5]

Hardly any in my recent 5e or 4e campaigns. In 4e we went from 1st to 30th level in 4-5 months!

 

[Li Shenron]

So I'm looking at the magic item crafting rules and seeing that it takes a PC somewhere in the neighborhood of five years to make a single Very Rare magic item. In the experience of those here, do many campaigns have weeks, months, years, or even decades of downtime? It seems to me that most published campaigns at least assume very little downtime.

I don't use published campaigns or very long adventures, only adventures that are supposed to level up PCs maximum 3-4 levels (and even that's too much for my tastes, but that's another matter).

Between adventures I like padding months or even years of downtime. That's because I do not like characters to reach too high levels at a young age, which brings up the question of what are they going to do the rest of their lives. So if a player is looking for downtime in order to craft something or build another project, they can find plenty of it between adventures (granted, 5 years is quite a gap, but why not).

In addition, if the adventure is not fully localized in an off-civilization area (or a dungeon), there is also downtime during the adventure itself, considering that most crafting activities can be broken up in small increments.

 

[Larnievc]

So I'm looking at the magic item crafting rules and seeing that it takes a PC somewhere in the neighborhood of five years to make a single Very Rare magic item. In the experience of those here, do many campaigns have weeks, months, years, or even decades of downtime? It seems to me that most published campaigns at least assume very little downtime.

In game time my campaign has been going for six months with one block of two weeks down time.