Down Time

Rather than at the beginning of a session, I'll be asking you how you plan to spend your downtime at the END of a session. Your down time can be spent in many of the ways you would spend it using the D20 Pathfinder Downtime system, except that you don't know how much down time you "Get". You instead decide how much down time you "Take".

If you wish to go on a specific side quest for your character during downtime, see "Side Quest" below.

PCs can discuss this at the table, or send this to me via text, email, etc. 

At the beginning of the next session, I will inform you of how much time has passed. This can have 1 of 3 results:

1) Your downtime activity is done before the next "game" event happens, and you have wasted time. (You can spend the downtime doing any activity that is no greater than 1 day, even if you end up with 3 days).

2) Your downtime activity is interrupted by the next "game" event, meaning that some things might be left incomplete. 

3) Your downtime activity ends right when the next "game" event happens.

This can happen for a variety of reasons: some PCs may need more time than others, or some PCs' downtime might inspire other game events to start. Some PCs may not need any down time at all. Ultimately, your PCs don't "Know" in advance when the next event is going to happen, so they can't say "well, I know nothing is going to happen for a week, so this is when I choose to retrain a skill". 

If I don't get any response about what your character is doing during his downtime, then the character is wasting time. He can do any activity that takes no more than 1 day (such as converting capital or making profession checks). Even if he gets a week of downtime, during each day, he didn't know that something wasn't going to "happen" tomorrow. 

During the gaming session, the PCs will be generally working together, or interacting with the world. 

In between gaming sessions is a system of downtime. But how much downtime?

In between sessions, via text, email, etc- describe what your character is doing. Maybe he's crafting potions, which takes an amount of time based on how many potions he makes. But sometimes he wants to go on a side quest.

Obviously, we can't role play out all the side quests for every character, especially if the rest of the PCs are not involved at all with this.

Sometimes character quests can be integrated into the sessions we all play together. Sending me this information is great because I might be able to gear missions around for everyone. However, sometimes it's something for personal character development, it involves utilizing class skills better, or the rest of the PCs just don't care, or are against the quest.

Examples might be: Helping your mother escape Ravenloft, or killing a specific type of creature to turn into a zombie, or getting a specific magical item that's not easy to find. A side quest should be a specific sought outcome. Not something generic such as "get more XP" or "get more money". 

When you send me such a quest, I'll let you know what that quest will entail:

1) what are the costs? (do you need to spend money on spells or something to complete this? also, how much time will this endeavor take?)

2) what is the difficulty? (usually this will involve making one ore more skill checks or saving throws to accomplish the goal.)

3) what are the risks? (what happens if you fail the checks? Does your character risk death?)

4) what is the reward? (what will happen if successful).

Sometimes you'll have multiple choices with higher risks or penalties depending on what you're trying to do. 

If you wish to continue, send me your modifiers for the appropriate checks (such as will save modifier or stealth check) and I'll make the checks for you. I will then provide you with a description of what happened during this time.

Generally, different PCs may have different downtime events which will happen in tandem.  If multiple characters are going to end up going on the same "side mission" it should probably be a full adventure gaming session.

This is intended for the following reasons:

1) The side quest system is designed so PCs with personal quests that don't involve anyone else can be fairly adjudicated without dragging out regular game time.

2) Side quests can inspire main mission ideas, which is helpful to me.

3) Characters shouldn't NEED a ton of downtime. If your character requires a ridiculous amount of downtime, he's probably more of an NPC character concept than PC concept. (I know there are some exceptions but they should be few).