Long periods of downtime in genre novels

[Quartz]

IIRC in The Deed of Paksenarrion there's plenty of downtime. Even so, one of the characters explicitly says that they're bringing her on too fast.

 

[lukelightning]

I recall in one of the many "Somethings" of Shannara books one of the characters spends a few months training with some folks midway through the book. I think he learns how to speak gnome or something.

 

[GwydapLlew]

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.

Tad Williams was another I was thinking of - thanks, PC!

In LOTR, they have significant downtime in the following areas:

• Rivendell
• Lorien
• Rohan
• Minas Tirith

Note also that the Rivendell stopover specifically involves the creation of a magical item, the reforging of Narsil into Anduril.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I had a letter published in the recent Dungeon on this very subject, and was mightily annoyed to find the concept of significant downtime dismissed by the editor pretty much out of hand. He cited Lord of the Rings, of course, as a campaign with almost no downtime, completely ignoring the fact that LotR was absolutely not a First through Twentieth Level campaign. (He did throw me a one bone ... apparently Savage Tide can take a whole year of game time to complete! Yay.)

I like 3E a lot, but the whole concept of "nobody-with-potential" to "near-demigod" in a one-year-or-less time-frame grates on me like nails on a chalkboard. Few people understand that it's not the speed of advancement in real time that bothers me (as it does some people), but the speed of advancement in game time. It's just ... silly.

 

[Storm Raven]

And I was wondering what genre novels contain lots of downtime?

The Earthsea books do, the first two each cover several years at least, and even when they are in the "adventuring" phase of the books, they usually take quite a long time - weeks or months - during which the protagonists do little.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Katherine Kurtz' Deryni novels incorporate significant downtime, often dealing with the training at arms and of powers. Alaric Morgan took at least a couple of decades to reach his current high level (in D&D terms).

 

[T. Foster]

Each of the Harry Potter novels takes place over an entire year, and there's tons of downtime (arguably too much!).

 

[Particle_Man]

The Magic Engineer by L.E. Modesitt, Jr., though that may be too on the nose.

 

[coyote6]

Read the Black Company series by Glen Cook.

There is a lot of downtime in those novels, some of it is shown, some of it is only alluded to. The books altogether span about 20-25 years, if I remember correctly. And it's definitely an Epic fantasy, it's just not High fantasy.

Nearly 40 years, if this site is correct. And one of the characters spends years crafting a badass magic item, too.

 

[jmucchiello]

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

I entirely agree and originally intended to speak of (and dismiss) this point but it cluttered up my original post. Please keep this branch of discussion out of this thread. I'm not interested in whether gaming should emulate novels. I'm just looking for how those things that inspire my gaming address the issue of downtime.

Thanks.