A whole section of the Streets of Avalon RPG is about what happens in the lives of the PCs between the scenarios that punctuate their lives with high stakes. The quieter parts, the day to day events, the chances for them to get to act and take a little more control of their lives instead of having their lives impacted by situations that come to them. I call this downtime.
The downtime part of this game comes from a few places. The first was Mouseguard and the player’s turn. When I got to the players’ turns in Mouseguard and realized the players had a resource they could use to take actions for themselves to generate resources, heal up, and have scenes that impacted their characters on a variety of levels, I was kind of floored. Now this was 2008 to 2009 ish, so 16 years ago. Man, I’m getting old. This concept of letting the players create some scenes and have the GM react and play them out was kind of new back then. Some games had it but it felt very much like a version of the, “What do you do while you’re in town?” moments of RPGs but more structured with a limited resource. Made more of a game out of it.
Next was my Airy Peaks Dungeon World campaign. It was a dungeon crawling game based on that old school premise of having a giant dungeon to explore and having a nearby town that you could return to between delves to rest, recuperate, have some fun, and spend your hard earned loot. The game ran until its conclusion after something like 50 sessions of play. The important lesson I learned from that game was how important it was to make the time in town just as meaningful to the game as the time in the dungeon. Once again, no different than Homlett or a hundred other modules that have that structure but the connections the PCs made in town, the way I would change the town in little and big ways over time, and how that affected the PCs stuck with me.
The last was downtime from 5e. You get a resource in days to spend to do things outside of the adventuring you get involved with. It reminded me of those mobile app games where you only get some much energy before you need to wait or pay to get more. It doesn’t sound too much different than Mouseguard but that game felt more like you had a limited amount of time, like a day or two for what you wanted to cook up and do. This downtime was scaled to days. I actually thought that was pretty clever. A way to extend the time between adventures and provide a space for the PCs to get some things done that they want to get done.
I took these three primary ideas and the concept of flexibility in everything to do with this design, plus the part where I’m a Dresden Files fan all but three of those books take place with large time gaps between them, and come up with my current downtime system. So what’s the system?
Downtime in SoA
In a Streets of Avalon game a PC gets 25 effort when a downtime starts. This represents the amount of time and effort they have between scenarios to do things. That might be working to make enough coin to pay their rent and feed themselves. It could be learning how to use alchemical tools or a rapier. It might even be tracking down the relics they let get stolen a scenario or two ago. It could be sinking some more time and effort into rebuilding that bar they bought. It’s really whatever they want to do with it.
During downtime the GM will go around the table asking players what they’d like to spend their downtime on. Once the player decides on an activity to either begin or continue working on and how much they’re spending, the GM needs to either build out the downtime task or add the effort to it if it already exists. More on building those in a second. Then the GM will create a scene that’s relevant to some part of the downtime activity or ask the player to help them build one. Then they play out the scene. This can establish new NPCs, locations, and even potentially lead to other benefits and stories as we’re still playing out moments these characters lives using the rules of the game. These downtime scenes can also create new situations for the PCs to deal with in the future. The GM will go around the table working with players to create scenes up to three times. If anyone has any downtime left after that the GM just has the players allocate it however they wish as the remaining effort they put forth during that period of downtime.
Building Downtime Activities
Downtime allows for several types of activities:
- Giving the PCs a chance to make enough coin to pay their upkeep at the end of downtime.
- Learn new trainings.
- Utilize talents they might have from their class.
- Look for leads on side stories or personal stories.
- Building out a business.
- Any other number of things I’m not thinking of.
Now that we know most of what a character can do, what does it look like? I use a table in a google sheet to track these things over time. It looks kind of like this:
| Character | Task | Effort | Notes |
| Bisty | Work a trade. Orphanage Manager | 10 x2 (1)
10 x 2 (2) |
1st one. 15 sp, spent 4 to pay the guys.
2nd one. Spent 4 sp. Crit, 30 sp and 2% to be noticed Downtime 2 – 5 sp first one 10 sp |
| Bisty | Looking into Edda Mournwrights motives | 5 | Discovered Edda is working with the Grimhaggens |
| Slippery Jim | Prosthetic Arm Design | 5
30 / 30 sp need 15 total by next downtimes end. |
Vladimir the Mad Tinker
30 sp and not next downtime but time after that. |
| Slipper Jim | Gain Sewer Access from the Ire Hose | 7/25 and decide if it’s hidden or not and if you want secured it’s 75. | |
| Spany | Refurbish your brothel – Succuin Manor | 2/2 Downtimes | Joren is on the project. Two downtimes |
| Spanky | Make a rich contact to invest in your Brothel (Complete) | 25/25 – 5/25 | After 25 works like research topic and then at 50 it automatically succeeds. TN 20 – |
| TammeyO | Search for your Brother | 25 downtime per lead
25/25 |
Xavi-a is running with a group of thieves known as the |
| Tammey0 | Magical Studies (1) (2) | 53/100, 10 of this was from paying | For every 10 sp you spend you can reduce it by 5 up to 50 sp |
| Tammey0, Jim, Bitsy | Read Garren Vells Journals | 5 points from each | Learned 3 potential locations of Garren Vell and how to make a healing potion. Healing Potion. Heals 1d8 Harm. Costs 40 sp for 5 doses. Costs 10 effort from each of Magical Studies, Alchemist, Chiurgeon |
| Spanky | Looking for Garren Vell | 5 effort |
These are the actual notes from my game I keep in Google docs. I didn’t edit them or anything so they probably read a little like gibberish but I’ll highlight a few of them.
Bitsy
Bitsy is a Fighter by class but her occupation is Orphanage Manager. She runs the Better Home for the Future orphanage. During downtime she chose to work twice. This is a common downtime activity that’s in the book. It looks like this:
Working a Trade
You can work in your profession or an artisan trade if you have the training for it.
Effort. Special. For each 10 points of effort you spend roll 2d6 + your training bonus + the relevant stat. Consult the chart:
| TN | Coin Earned |
| Less than 10 | 5 sp |
| 10 | 10 sp |
| 13 | 15 sp |
| 16 | 25 sp |
| 18 | 30 sp* |
* Every time you roll an 18 or higher or a critical you get a 1% cumulative chance to be noticed and approached by a wealthy patron to work for them, craft something special for them, be a part of a special event or project they want to bring you in on, or something else relevant to the ongoing narrative. The GM rolls d100 when this occurs and the scene set is with this wealthy patron or it can be pushed out if the GM and Player agree to it.
Bitsy has critted twice on this roll which is why the 2% is in the notes section but we haven’t rolled under the 2% yet.
Jim
In one of our sessions Slippery Jim Bolivar got bit by an infectious zombie, had his arm cut off, and still managed to survive. He started looking into building himself a replacement but that research didn’t go very well so. He spent effort to learn tinker tools and failed both rolls. After that he spent some effort to find someone who could build him a replacement. I decided it would cost him 5 effort to make a roll to find someone at TN 15 who could do the job. Each time he missed on the roll it would decrease the TN until he succeeded. He got lucky and succeeded on the roll the first time he made it. That led to Vladimir the Mad Tinkerer.
Vlad probably isn’t human but he’s a genius with clockwork and Jim paid him 30 silver after a bit of negotiating down from 1 gold. That’s the equivalent of $1000 American which is still pretty cheap for a functional prosthetic arm in the city of Avalon. I decided that Jim would have to spend 5 effort working with Vlad so Vlad could make the design for his arm. Vlad needed time with Jim to measure Jim and understand exactly what was needed to be built to fit it to Jim’s body. After that it was just time and money. Which means I also use Downtime segments as timers on some activities. It’s already used for the healing of some conditions. Just something for GMs to keep in their mind when figuring out resource costs for downtime activities.
In our game Jim just got his arm back. It was a pretty neat scene where Jim got a little more than he bargained for because his prosthetic clockwork arm allows him to feel things with it, including pain.
Spanky
Spanky has the occupation of prostitute. One of Spanky’s goals is to set up his own brothel and he’s been working on it since our first downtime. He spent effort to go look for someone to invest in his project. I decided it was feasible because of the prestige of the brothel he worked at so it would cost 25 effort just to start making rolls to see if someone was interested. Every five effort spent after that would allow a roll with the TN starting at 20 and reducing by 1 every time a roll was made until 50 effort was spent and an investor was found. The player of Spanky critted on their first roll. Found an investor and then proceeded to start setting up his new brothel the Succuin Manor. A play on words of Succubus and Incubus but also more R rated material.
Next, Spanky needed to find someone to oversee the work on the building he bought, made a deal with the owner/madam of his old brothel (Lucius/Luciel of the Foxy Den) to open his new brothel outside of the current neighborhood. This cost a couple effort and calling in a favor with Joren of the carpenters build, who Spanky became friends with in the first scenario. Joren also owed Spanky a favor and refurbishing the building was the favor. So since Spanky had taken care of the money, effort, and potential business issues, the only cost was time, which I set at two downtimes. At the end of our fifth scenario the Succuin Manor will be opening on the Feast of the New Year.
As an aside Spanky also spent some effort looking for Garren Vell. Garren was an alchemist from a side story who was making infectious zombies. That’s how Jim lost his arm. Garren got away. I was about to have infectious zombies show up in their neighborhood and cause all kinds of trouble during the next scenario as one of my reactions when Spanky decided to go looking for Garren during our downtime between the 3rd and 4th scenario. The TN was 15 and Spanky got a 16 on his roll. This scene led Spanky to finding out where Garren had been hiding out and returning to the group to tell them so. This eliminated the reaction I could have used for the next scenario. It also had some other more far reaching effect but that’s a story for another time.
Tammeyo
Tammeyo is a private investigator by trade and has been looking for her brother Xavia who she was separated from when they were toddlers. Split up to different orphanages. She’s been spending time looking for leads on Xavia and finally got one. Xavia had taken up with a cult masquerading as a small group of thieves calling themselves the Shadowed Hand. Right after that I dropped in the scenario where her brother had been captured by a larger group of Mask thieves known as The Overhang Court. The Shadowed Hand and The Overhang Court were in a territory war. I’d always planned on dropping that scenario in right there but it was interesting to see her lead just show up at their door looking for Tammeyo’s help specifically.
Tammeyo has also been trying to learn about magical studies so she can investigate the more magical side of situations, especially since she keeps encountering them and has a hard time determining what is happening. She can pay tutors to help speed her advancement along at a cost of 5 effort for 5 sp but only up to 25 of the effort required to learn the Magical Studies training. At that point she just needs to do the work.
Flexibility in Execution
I have tried very hard to make tools and systems for this game that allow for extreme flexibility while still keeping the feel of what it’s like to live in a low magic slightly clockwork infused gaslight fantasy London. The downtime system is about effort, money, and time to accomplish things. As GMs we have to decide what’s reasonable for the narrative but once we do we can just say it’ll cost you this much of x, w, and or Z to get it done. So we have a game to play in how to spend resources and have longer range plans along with the crafting of scenes based on those plans. If you’re playing or running a Streets of Avalon game I implore you not to throw away these moments or gloss over them. We spend 2ish to 2 and a half hours on downtime because it’s part of these characters’ stories and part of the game play. It’s the players chance to drive the game within the fairly lose structure I’ve built and it’s always produced several interesting moments that impact the game going forward.
At some point I’ll talk a little about upkeep which is another limiter and choice point on how you might want to spend your downtime.