Long periods of downtime in genre novels

[Ciaran]

Heck, Conan goes from being a wandering homeless guy to king in a matter of a couple of years, depending on how you count.

Sure, if your idea of math is something along the lines of 17+30=19, or something. Conan is described as a youth in the stories dealing with the start of his career, while he's old enough when he becomes King of Aquilonia that his continued physical vigor at his age is noteworthy. That's a pretty solid adult lifetime.

 

[Hussar]

IIRC, he's in his early thirties as King. He is in his twenties in the Pirate Islands. Then again, if you take into account EVERY Conan adventure story, not just REH, the guy has maybe 30 seconds of down time on the third Tuesday of February.

 

[jmucchiello]

Most stories don't have the characters progress from barely competent to world shattering powers in the span of a year, either. Down time makes things a little more tolerable in that regard by imposing a little time span on events.

Don't be limited by the magic item thing. That was just the spark that started my question. I don't care what the downtime is for. Just does it happen.

Also, most books I read tend to be of the type where some backwoods nobody discovers he can manipulate magic, gets a mentor who dies early, struggles with learning his craft while other forces either try to find and eliminate him (because he is a wild card in their plans for domination/destruction), and finally facing those forces and rending them.

I almost want to say Conan doesn't count since the stories of Conan are not "epic" in my definition but instead are episodic. They have more of a villain of the week feel. The only flaw with discarding him is his kingship. Becoming king is usually an epic tale.

Plus, yeah, I can name like 5 book series off the top of my head that are chock full of downtime.

Good for you. Thanks for sharing.

 

[jmucchiello]

Basically all, only that the novel doesn't necessary tells you.

The question is not so much about roleplaying downtime, but rather to at least assume downtime between adventures

Maybe it is "adventure" that is the problem. As I tried to say above, in the early years there is usually room for downtime, because the characters aren't aware of the "epic"-ness of the setting. Remember, at some point the world will end unless the characters do something. At the point where the characters know this and have some inkling of the ability to stop it, from then on there is little downtime. The same applies to novels. In the front of the book, the author can get away with "For six months Flynn toiled in the mines...." Somewhere around the middle of the book Flynn has to get out of the mines and get things done.

Books don't have to roleplay the downtime, just mention it. The (original) Dragonlance trilogy has a few downtime moments in the first two books. How many are there in the third book? (I don't remember actually )

 

[jmucchiello]

The whole "I make my own magic items!"-idea is uncommon in fiction too. Usually the protagonists are given old stuff to use. Like Luke gets to use Obi-Wan's lightsabre. Come to think of it; that's a great example to your question. Luke invests downtime with Yoda and later he takes time off to craft his own lightsabre. Meanwhile Darth Vader is up to no good. Blowing up planets and strangling generals.

Yes, the original Star Wars trilogy is a perfect example of what I'm saying. A New Hope is full of downtime. In Empire, low level Luke takes time off to study and train between Hoth and Bespin. Once Return of the Jedi begins there is almost no downtime. The epic in question is removing the tyrant emporer from power. Not the adventure to destroy his death stars.

 

[Cabral]

I know you said epic fantasy novels, but the only thing I can think of is Star Wars. There's lots of off-camera downtime and there's some on-screen downtime. Most notably, the Millennium Falcon training session.

Also, during the Deathgate heptalogy by Marget Weis and Tracey Hickman, there was a good amount of downtime but again it was mostly "off-camera" (off page?). I don't recall any true downtime described in the book that wasn't in a flashback or in the past tense.

You might be able to make downtime more interesting by sort of adapting montages into the downtime. Do keep track of what the players are doing in their individual downtimes but roleplay the overlapping scenes, such as a night in the tavern, perhaps with a barfight or a pickpocket.

 

[Hussar]

A New Hope is full of downtime? When? From the time Luke leaves Tatooine to the destruction of the Deathstar, the only downtime I can think of is some training on the Millenium Falcon.

Now, between the movies, I think there's quite a bit. But during the movies? Not so much.

 

[an_idol_mind]

One reason that there's not a lot of downtime in many fantasy stories is that there's not a lot of adventuring going on. Most fantasy stories focus on one adventure, after which the main character usually retires. Bilbo had his one adventure with the dragon, and then spent decades in the Shire afterwards. In D&D, the characters undertake many different adventures. Of course, in those fantasy series that do feature multiple adventures, there's often significant downtime between stories. The Chronicles of Prydain, for example, have downtime between each of the five books. Additionally, there is a significant amount of downtime in Taran Wanderer, where the main character spends his time training in a variety of skills.

If I get a sequel to my novel published, there will be about thirty years of downtime between two connected adventures, but that probably doesn't count...

 

[Piratecat]

Hussar, you may be surprised by how long the Fellowship stay in Rivendell in the book of Fellowship of the Ring. They delay far beyond what I'd consider as reasonable, and run into quite a few problems as a result.

There's also downtime in Tad Williams Memory, Thorn and Sorrow.

 

[BryonD]

The Riftwar Saga skips years while Pug is a slave and student.

But I honestly think that trying to emulate the details of great novels is a great way to make a really bad game.