Downtime is sweet, it breaks the campaign into chunks, making time pass and allowing players to pursue personal goals that might not be interesting to the rest of the players to play out for an entire session but lead to interesting developments and more hooks into the world.
Time becomes a resource as torches burn low, and the increasing risk of dangerous and non lucrative wandering encounters increases. Time in wilderness exploration is also expended to discover interesting locations or reach a distant destination at the expense of rations and the risk of wandering encounters.
Downtime is available to do all sorts of useful and interesting things but is also limited. Using Downtime requires choosing what is important at the risk of random campaign events like natural disasters and the success of opposed faction machinations. Also with enough time, aging could cause a character to need to retire and an heir to be decided upon (I’ve thought about using seasonal downtime turns like Pendragon or Ars Magica uses but I prefer a little more granularity in a year of adventuring.).
I’m a big enjoyer of the Worlds Without Number RPG and using it for my current campaign. It’s not my go to for one shots or convention games due to a bit more mechanical complexity than Knave, Shadowdark, Cairn, or OSE but I’ve found that during an extended campaign WWN really sings for me. I’m running an open table sandbox in a dying earth desert city in the unstable wake of the king’s assassination where the players are effectively fantasy cyberpunks, taking missions for different scheming factions as freelancers.
WWN uses 2d6 rolls for skill checks as in the Traveller RPG, instead of the familiar d20 used for combat and saves in the game. This keeps combat swingy but makes experts very likely to succeed at things they’re good at. I don’t always like skill checks in game but when I do- the sharp curve of a 2d6 system is my favorite. You know what else uses 2d6 rolls? The excellent downtime rules from Downtime in Zyan and Errant!
Here’s the gist of how this system works in an excerpt from Downtime in Zyan:
This is also the same system used for many rolls in the Powered by the Apocalypse rule family of games for extra player familiarity if they’re coming from that background. Here’s how World’s Without Numbers skill system works.
Downtime in Zyan assumes the same -2 to +2 range of ability score modifiers to this roll as Worlds Without Number which makes the conversion even more seamless. This would be a really short blog post but the one factor to consider is the presence of skill points (up to another +4) in WWN increasing the maximum odds of success. I initially considered raising the base level difficulty but decided it was more fun for specialists to have the chance at greater success in their Downtime activities for their investment in the skill than to make even basic successes more unlikely for nonspecialists.
A Worlds Without Numbers Downtime System:
Roll 2d6 + Attribute + Relevant Skill
<7: Failure: There’s a complication and/or it doesn’t work.
7-9: Basic or Mixed Success: It works but there’s probably a complication.
10-11: Expert Success: It works!
12-13: Master Success: It works and an extra good thing!
14+: Legendary Success: It works and some really good stuff
Downtime Types
Inspired by the systems from Downtime in Zyan, Errant, and this blog post. More are possible pending player interest but I thought these were neat to me. The various new talent and martial training options from the Downtime Systems have been omitted as Worlds Without Number provides more mechanical advancement and character customization by default than B/X type games but I could see them fitting in the games too if focused in scope and potency.
Animal Training: Step Tracker
Assassinations: Single Downtime
Building Bonds: Step Tracker
Building an Institution: Step Tracker
Burglary: Single Downtime
Create a Magic Item: Step Tracker
Craft: Single Downtime
Expeditions: Single Downtime
Burglary: Single Downtime
Pit Fighting: Single Downtime
Proclamations: Single Downtime
Investigation: Step Tracker
Revelry: Single Downtime
Here’s some examples:
Investigation
The GM creates a tracker for the number of successes required. Each success reveals a portion of the information.
Number of Steps Needed:
- Widespread Knowledge
- Uncommon Knowledge
- Esoteric Knowledge
- Forgotten Knowledge
<7 Failure: Stumped, no progress is made on the research tracker this downtime.
7-9: Basic or Mixed Success: The research tracker advanced but the GM may decide the information found is misleading or wrong. They don’t let the PC know if they’ve done this or not
10-11: Expert Success: The research tracker advances
12-13: Master Success: The research tracker advances 2 steps.
14+: Legendary Success: The research tracker advances 3 steps.
Revelry
Drink, debauch, socialize, and be merry!
<7: Failure: Roll on the Revelry Complications Table! Gain a hostile contact.
7-9: Mixed Success: Gain 1 new contact. Roll on the Revelry Complications table.
10-11: Expert Success Gain 1 new contact or 2 new contacts and roll on the Revelry Complications table.
12-13: Master Success: Gain 1 new contact. Roll on the Revelry Boons table
14+: Legendary Success: Gain 1 legendary contact. Roll on the Revelry Boons Table.
Creating a Magic Item
Most Downtime activities are an open spectrum from Failure to Legendary Success . However, some like Magic Item Creation require greater success than Basic as a baseline requirement to achieve the goals. I’m using WWN’s provided rules as a baseline and its system of accepting flaws in a failed item creation roll to still produce the item without the time and cash being wasted is neat and I’ll stick with it.
Multiple Downtimes
Every time a mission based adventure is completed (or abandoned) the party gets Downtime. This Downtime period usually represents about a month before the next adventure in my game. If an adventure or mission takes longer, players get a bonus Downtime activity for every ~3 sessions of adventuring without a Downtime. This doesn’t make much sense from a diegetic standpoint but exists to not penalize the amount of Downtime received and keep it relevant in the game if particular adventures or missions can’t be easily compressed into 1-2 sessions. Further reading on this idea.
I think this is a really cool model. I’ve got my own WWN sandbox game going right now and I’m definitely going to use this in it.