An Argument for Downtime

I've been reflecting on my earliest days as a GM lately. It's been easy to, with nearly 18 years of practice and the benefit of hindsight, pick apart things that went wrong when I was still figuring out the art of GMing. I was more keen to enforce rules than invite people to tell a story with me. I had high expectations of my players that I didn't communicate. I was guilty of railroading at times--I once had a god appear and threaten to send down a comet with grass on top that would drive inactive players into the ground where they would seemingly disappear to the world (yeah, I cringe when I think of that one). I was kind of a mess, and it's something of a miracle that I managed to fix all this. 

But the thing that strikes me now as most misguided is something else. To make the mistakes I made were the kind of mistakes that a GM lacking experience and confidence would make, and that's why I made them. But there was one mistake that went in the face of logic, and I've unfortunately seen it in plenty of games. I hate to see GMs suffering under delusions that make the game experience worse, so I'm going to address this mistake so many of us have made: downtime for the players is a good thing. 

I remember getting antsy as a GM during sessions when I was newer to the role. "But they're not getting enough done this session!" I would worry. "They're just standing around talking--there's a whole quest to do!" I would complain to myself. "Nothing is happening!" I would lament. I would pressure them to keep moving--the next bit of the quest would come to them, for instance, or I would even say something out of game to imply they should get to work. And I've had tactics like these used on me as a player (sometimes, in fact, by people who played with me as a beginner--how poetically tragic to have your own bad habit used against you). They're common thoughts: as GMs, we have a whole world and story to unveil, and trifling with the delicate art you perform complicates things for you. 

In order to understand why downtime is necessary, we have to address a few core truths about tabletop games. The first is that the point of tabletop games is to have fun. This is fundamental. Tabletop games are a medium that is capable of essentially anything that people can imagine, so you can choose with willing participants to pursue a use that is fully something besides a collaborative story, but tabletop games are designed so that you and the people you're playing with can have fun. It's what hooked us with tabletop games, and it's what keeps us coming back. We forget this over time with all the complicated elements of gaming, but at the heart of the matter, these games are for having fun. 

If we accept that fun is the point, then we can address GMing differently. Now our goal is to maximize fun for the players while also enjoying ourselves as GMs. And that means structuring the game so that it's fun. Here's where your individual game is the focus: you as GM have decided on a particular style (personal GM style, storytelling style, storytelling content, NPC use, worldbuilding, responses to players, etc) that suits you but also matches the players. Maybe this means being yourself as a GM and working at delivering a game that caters to your players' interests; maybe it means stretching yourself to try something new for your players while relying on established work you've already made. But these are ways that GMs can pursue their own fun while catering to their players' fun. 

And if our GMing choices should naturally aid what would be fun for the players, we can question whether certain elements of the game are fun for our players. If we notice that a group's interest flags when puzzles are introduced, we can change or eliminate the puzzles. If we notice that players enjoy combat more than we anticipated, we can add more of that. You get the picture--we can and should tweak our gameplay to match what the players enjoy (again with the qualifier that your fun counts too). 

Some things are a matter of taste. The broad play styles I decribe here on this site--combat, antics, and roleplaying--are all matters of taste. Some committed ttrpg players hate roleplaying or combat or goofing around, and they are no less of players because of it. That's just how they have fun. Getting the balance of this right is about observing your players and adjusting, and there is no hard and fast truth that applies to all games. How players feel about GM styles also falls into this category: some players and some GMs just will always struggle to get along well, and it's neither of their faults. It's just social dynamics, and that's something bigger than tabletop games. 

Other things are about the degree to which they're a part of your game because they are necessary. Story, for instance, falls into this category because any series of events in a tabletop game without connective story is just a series of random ideas. Setting and NPCs--the world around the player characters--will need to exist in order for the campaign to move along. You can run a campaign with relatively little worldbuilding and few NPCs, but going entirely without either is fairly unheard of. Some manner of direction, whether it's a questline or personal goal by the players, will be necessary to connect the world to the story. These are pretty much non-negotiable--your campaign has to have them, or something crucial will be missing. 

Downtime is like that. I'm going to split this into two groups: combat strategists and antics goofballs in one group, and storytelling roleplayers in a second group. Group one, our fighters and jokers, do need downtime. I'm not talking about looting and prepping for the next fight. I mean real downtime. Time when there is little to do that changes the mechanics of the game and the players must express themselves as the character. Yes, your brutal barbarian character has an impressive array of stats, but after a long day of fighting, how does he relax? What does he talk about (or not talk about)? This doesn't have to be an hour of painstaking roleplaying deep emotional trauma or anything, but even the players themselves will need a moment to digest and relax before the next step. These downtime moments are not about making players roleplay so much as inviting them to express their characters and allowing everybody a moment to reset. 

Group two has different needs entirely. A roleplayer thrives during downtime more than almost any other time. In downtime, a roleplayer can express their character, but they also get to explore aspects of the character's inner world, give opportunities to collaborate with other players, respond to other players, and take symbolic actions that represent the character's mindset. All of these are the tools of the trade with a roleplaying character, and it's hard to use those tools in the midst of a fight or a tense scene, so downtime becomes the way we're able to get the most out of our characters. Without this time, roleplaying characters would always be somewhat held back and underdeveloped, and that short-changes the players on the experience of fun that they're looking for. 

Of course, downtime exists on a spectrum. As a storytelling/roleplaying GM, I've sought out players with the same tastes, and that has meant that I'll often have a party full of eager roleplayers throughout campaigns. This can mean that downtime is chock full of people wanting to engage as their characters, and I've had downtime moments last over an hour or even for a full session on occasion before I started being more active about moderating downtime. I'm not claiming that more downtime is better, full stop. There are limits. But for every one GM like me who's allowed too much downtime, I think that there are a half dozen GMs who have restricted downtime out of the belief that they were improving the game. 

And I think that's a tragedy. Downtime--the moments where I or my players were just exploring the world and ourselves with openness and sincerity without worrying about some grand adventure--those were the moments I found my characters, and the moments where my players' characters shone the most. To have no downtime means being harried and rushed along through an adventure that we're meant to enjoy, and the rushing makes it harder to enjoy and appreciate it all (that is to say, it's harder to have fun). 

So how much downtime does a party need? It depends on the party. Like I said above, combat and antics groups usually need a touch less downtime, but your group might be different. Roleplayers will need more downtime and may even need gentle reminders to get back to the story. Newer players may need to be encouraged to take downtime as they may not know that they can choose to regroup or relax. Some players unused to roleplaying may need the behavior modeled for them. There are variables to consider, but there's actually a very simple formula which can be memorized and used at any level of the game, and it's even intuitive: for every chunk of story progress the group makes, grant them an opportunity at downtime.

I'll admit up-front--if used too strictly, this can give the impression of a formulaic and repetitive structure for telling a story. But for the most part, assuming you take steps to keep the story fresh, this works just fine. If you take a look at the campaigns I've posted notes for here--the Eastweald, the mystery campaign, Of Gods and Dragons--all of the sessions follow this pattern. I actually have internalized this pacing to the point that I get physically tense and uncomfortable if we stray too far from a balance of story progress and downtime. Here's how I think of it: the party builds of tension (think of steam in this metaphor) whenever it works on the story. Taking downtime vents that steam. If I were to push my party too hard, the steam pressure would build up, and there could be catastrophic consequences. You have to vent the steam often. And since I play a storytelling/roleplaying game, I want to give opportunities to reflect on the developments in the story as we go, so I have every incentive to give downtime often. 

Besides, if we're honest with ourselves, planning takes place during downtime, and planning is a crucial part of the tabletop game experience. Whether your plans are tactical, hilariously hare-brained, or revealing of your character, the plans matter. There's a stereotype that tabletop game plans are usually comically bad--imagine that without the planning. Even if you are the harshest of GMs, you want your players to give a full, honest effort to your work, so you want to give them time to think about it. Downtime is critically necessary. 

To close, I'd like to share something that happened during downtime when I was a player. I was in a campaign playing as a con artist, and for the sake of the party's cohesion and the story I wanted to tell with this character, I wanted her to do something dramatic in the name of good to try to make up for her past misdeeds. For sessions, I couldn't find a moment that fit or felt right. Then the party had a massive fight with a den of vampires. The combat was grisly, but we slayed most of the vampires--aside from the one that kidnapped the ally most vital to our mission. We were discouraged, stopped for now, without a direction, and covered in gore. My character reached something of a breaking point. 

My GM had left us to downtime in the farmhouse manor where we'd fought the vampires. I shuffled off to a corner and prayed--to anybody, to almost everybody. Just trying to see if someone would listen. In the end, the goddess of spring aligned with what my character wanted, and my character's earnestness in wanting to do better sealed the relationship. My character became, in that moment, no longer a Charisma-based Rogue, but a healing Cleric of second chances with high Wisdom and Charisma. 

The thing is, I didn't know going into that downtime that my character would end up suddenly cross-class or that she would pledge her life to good or that her entire approach to life would change on the other side of it. But all of that did happen, and I needed downtime to do it. Obviously, this is an extreme example--not every downtime results in something transformative--but the principle still applies. We need to have time to digest, to refocus, to look within and look forward. 

(Oh, you can read a novelization of that campaign, by the way, as well as two prequels and a sequel.)

That's all for now. Coming soon: reflections on character deaths, how to not get weighed down by worldbuilding, and what perfect GMing looks like. Until next time, happy gaming!

How to Use Downtime In and Out of Game

No amount of careful planning or clever GMing can get around it; any longer game such as a campaign is going to have downtime. The players may be pausing between quests (or just procrastinating), or perhaps someone needs to look up some unknown rule. Not a lot is happening. So how do you make the most of your time? 

The answer depends on your group of players and your own needs as GM. But in general, certain positive activities lend themselves best to certain circumstances. This guide will walk you through what to do in each circumstance that you may have some downtime. 

Let's start with something obvious that some GMs nevertheless need to hear. At the beginning of a session, it's important to have a bit of social time in what is likely some downtime as people assemble and prepare to play. But even if you don't have incidental downtime here, it's worth creating it. I have had the great fortune as a GM to teach many people to play and a healthy number to run their own games. And one lesson that seems to have stuck with all of my acolytes is that it's healthy for players to have positive relationships outside of the game--it actually creates or heightens the trust necessary to enjoying roleplaying. So make some time and foster some relationships between your players (respectfully and at their comfort). 

But what about more ambiguous moments, like in the moments between people's turns in combat? There's often some space between players' actions that can sap energy and momentum out of a fight. I think that one solution is to keep adding description to the scene. You can describe the battlefield more closely, provide narration of enemies' body language and facial expressions, and get really involved in the details of combat narration. Details like this help to fill the downtime with potentially useful information that might inspire the player, and it also can help to keep combat focused (in my experience, combat makes for chaotic conversation). An example of this tactic in action: "The barbarian you're facing off against is standing about five feet from a boulder. He's favoring his right leg after the last strike you got on him. He's glaring at you but is grimacing with pain. You can see he has two bulging coinpurses at his side." All of these details are minor, but they might lead the player to use "Stone Shape" and fashion the boulder into stocks around the barbarian; they might focus their attacks on the barbarian's revealed weak spot; they may prioritize looting differently with the coinpurse information. All of these would affect the outcome of the scene, and all of it comes from a bit of added detail in these downtime moments. 

One of my favorite cases for downtime is when players feel like they just need a break from the stress of questing and seek out in-game fun. This circumstance is close to my heart because it's basically an opportunity to goof around with your friends. A lot of times, this situation starts with a player character deciding to go to a bar. Now, very rarely are player characters really looking for bars--they're really looking for a place where something interesting is likely to be happening. We all assume that a tavern is full of drunk folks doing wild things, and so that's the shorthand; we want craziness, so we say "bar." 

Now, there are a few ways to respond to this. You could allow the players to easily find a bar, and the important thing is that they are able to find a rowdy bar. Maybe the first tavern or two is a little lowkey, but they should find a bar with some bizarre goings-on. Remember, they're looking for something interesting, so give them something interesting. We're talking about a traveler with a talking rat interesting, minimum. 

You could also recognize the spirit of the request and give them something they'll like just as much or more. If you have players setting the bar for interesting at "maybe there'll be a fight," and you give them a wizard duel in the street or a parade of circus animals, you're going to give them a good time. So the idea here is basically to allow the player characters to look for a bar, but have them interrupted by the more interesting thing that they were really looking for. This approach uses improvisation pretty heavily, but it's definitely worth it for the reactions it gets. 

The last approach I would recommend for players needing to unwind is actually stepping back and allowing them some relatively quiet time and seeing how they react. Sometimes, especially with roleplaying-centric groups, an activity like going out to the bar is once again not really going to a bar, though it's also not exactly an invitation to adventure; it's a simulation of real-life socialization. Taverns are where people carried out social business, and roleplayers want time and space to express their characters outside of all the immediate stresses of the game's story. If you have player characters who are reflecting on their emotional experiences associated with recent events, you have absolutely found a roleplayer doing what they play for, so let them have that time when you can. 

Depending on your gaming setup, you may have to contend with bathroom breaks. To a certain extent, this should be obvious; people need to go to the bathroom, and usually find times to use the bathroom when their character is not as involved. I concede this is obvious. However, I have played in games where the forward momentum of the story carried us well past the point several of us needed bathroom breaks, but we didn't want to say anything since the GM was so into it. The fact that it's happened to me means that it's happened to others, and to those GMs, I say, "Yes, the pacing matters. So do your friends' bladders." Always choose being considerate as a GM--remember that the point is fun, and it's hard to have fun when you're not being treated considerately. 

Different GMs take different policies on side-chatting during the game. This one really is up to your discretion, but I think that it's best dictated by what type of game you're playing. If your game is more casual, I think side-talk should be not only allowed but encouraged. The point of a casual game is to have social fun, so it should include a social focus. More serious games--both roleplaying and combat--tend to need a little less side-talk. Roleplayers need immersion in the world, and hardcore combatants need to focus on the tactics and strategy. However, your tolerance for a lack of focus on your game is ultimately the most important factor, so use your best judgment and give yourself your best position to GM well. 

A conceptual note about downtime: this discussion is predicated on a division between time spent playing the game in the way all assembled parties have chosen to do so and time spent doing anything else. I hope that my explanations above help to show that this division does not have to exist. I have run a very casual hijinks campaign for about a year and a half that mostly plays to be silly and hang out. Essentially 100% of their time by the above definition is downtime. They don't do quests very efficiently, and mainly they want to entertain each other with antics. And that's totally fine! I spend a lot of my time trying to add bizarre things in their way, like they're constantly looking for a bar (but not really). And that's just life as a GM--you adapt to your players. 

So what do you do when you encounter downtime? You make it serve your game! Whether you add details to combat, wild chaos to the story, or some personal time between players, you can really benefit from treating downtime as an opportunity. So get out there, figure out what best serves you and your players, and start getting the most from every session.

That's all for now. Coming soon: common misconceptions in my homebrew world, why you don't have to recreate modern society's problems in your homebrew setting, and how to create an in-game newspaper. Until next time, happy gaming!

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