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Downtime Actions

Your character doesn't stop existing when an event ends. Between games they're living their life — running a shop, keeping up friendships, traveling, chasing goals of their own. A "downtime action" is anything your character does in that between-games time.

The most important thing to know up front: most of it, you can simply decide happened. You don't need to ask permission to live your character's life. This page is really about the small handful of things that do need to go through the Game Masters, versus the large everything-else that doesn't.

What You Can Just Do

You are the author of your own character. If something only affects your character and doesn't require a result you can't control, just decide it happened. Write it up in a blog post, mention it in roleplay next event, or simply keep it as backstory. For example:

  • Mundane life: running your business, crafting ordinary goods, traveling home, tending relationships.
  • Personal story and flavor: writing a gossip column, practicing a craft, brooding in a tavern, writing letters home.
  • Scenes with other PCs who agree to them: coordinate with the other player, and the two of you can narrate a shared downtime moment together.
  • Filling in your character's world: their personality, routines, a new tavern in your character's hometown, a minor regional custom, the people in their life (a landlord, an old mentor, their family) — the world is built on exactly this kind of player contribution. 

Rule of thumb: if it's your character's action, and yours alone to decide, it can happen.

What Needs a Response

Some things aren't doing something, they're asking for something to happen. If you want the world to answer you back, that goes through the GMs:

The difference is who's holding the pen: a downtime action is a result you author, while a Lore or PIP is a result the GMs author for you.

What Can't Happen In Downtime

A few things can never just be declared, no matter how you write them up, because they'd reach into the shared game or hand you something the game reserves for play:

  • Mechanical gains. Downtime narration never carries mechanics. You can't gain experience, skills, coin, or items by writing that your character earned them. Role-play outside of shift hours has no mechanics attached, and blog posts and between-game RP don't count toward skill advancement. Those come from showing up and playing!
  • Outcomes involving others without their say. You can't decide you defeated, robbed, or won over another PC or a notable NPC in downtime. Anything that touches someone else's character or the shared story happens in-game, where they get a voice in it.
  • Victories you didn't play. "Between games I tracked down and killed the Big Bad Evil Guy" doesn't work. The big story beats happen on the field, with the people involved actually present.
  • Contradicting established canon. You're welcome to add to your corner (above), but you can't overwrite what's already firmly set, or define facts about groups, places, or plots that aren't yours to speak for.

By following these guidelines the shared world stays fair and consistent and makes the important stuff happen in play, in front of the people it affects. 

When You Aren't Sure

Quick gut check: does it need an answer, affect someone else, or give you something?

If yes to any of those, check with a GM first. They can make things happen for you!

If it's just your character living their life — go ahead. That's exactly what downtimeDowntime is for.where you color your character in; game is where the world actually changes.

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