Roleplay during downtime?

[Stormborn]

How do you handle character development and interaction between "Events" in a campaign? For example, if a city is under siege and no major conflicts occur or the PCs get a room for the winter in a city?
My current campaign has a LOT of roleplaying, however the events of the metanarrative have certain time table, one measured in months and year not days or weeks. I want to progress the time line along without having to either come up with several side adventures unrelated to the main story (I will do some) or worse roleplaying the development of all of the PCs relationships on a day to day basis, which would take for ever.
So, how do you progress the roleplaying without bogging down the campaign world?

 

[heirodule]

Not sure if this is helpful. I game infrequently and try to make the downtime periods always occur at the end of sessions.

So the game progrsses in real time. Sometimes I "catch up" to where real time is though.

 

[StalkingBlue]

There's nothing to keep you from starting the next scenario with the words,

"So, seven months later ..."

Also you could always check with your players whether there's anything in their PCs downtime development they'd like to play out. It's best to ask them for suggestions for scenes / encounters / challenges. In very broad, generic strokes: the long coveted audience with the local ruler; the formal duel with the sword trainer as climax of their fighting training; the musical performance for the region's most demanding audience ...

If you have a lot of RP in your campaign, I'm sure your players will come up with tons more original stuff than the above.


Of course there's no reason whatsoever to play out day-to-day stuff just because it happens. Think of the game like a movie or a book - you cut ahead to the dramatic or interesting bits. (Which of course may include a PC shopping for a ball gown for that big ball coming up, if that's what the player happens to want... )

 

[the Jester]

Hmm... when we 'pass time' we usually summarize and rp only the important bits. Recently did this in my epic game- some six months passed in a few hours of real time.

 

[Umbran]

In general, if the characters are of stable psyche and aren't under a whole lot of stress, there won't be much change unless there's some event or other that spawns it. So, unless something happens, you can usually skip over otherwise dramatically uninteresting times by saying, "X months go by. Not much happens. It would not be odd if some of you started feeling a little stir crazy," or somethign similar.

 

[Piratecat]

I usually say, "What with one thing and another, three months pass. What do you want to accomplish in that time?" Then I allow or disallow these things, and quickly roleplay out any important interactions that might have occurred. We skip over the stuff that's less exciting.