If you are organising an ongoing larp ‘campaign’ / chronicle, you need to think about how to handle the outcomes of events in play, and actions that player characters (or indeed, non-player characters) may want to take outside of events.

Do you really need it?

The first thing to consider is if you need to do so. You could consider a model used by many TV shows, where an undefined amount of time happens between episodes, but nothing really important or interesting happens during that time ‘off-screen.’ This has the benefit of focusing on uptime play, and reducing the organiser work load in managing the downtime. The drawback to this is the loss of player character freedom and connectivity with the world setting.

Assuming you want to include some sort of downtime, there are a number of options.

What should be included or assumed

It can be important to define what aspects of downtime the players need to inform the organiser about, and what can ‘just happen.’ For example, in vampire larp does the organiser want to make an ‘issue’ of the character feeding, where and how they hunt or is that just assumed to happen in the background? In a larp about dynastic conflict between noble families, can characters choose to automatically sire more heirs, or should they submit that intention to the organiser and have them judge the outcome?

Related to this issue is how to handle player characters that don’t submit a downtime for whatever reason. Should the organiser assume they have a very boring but safe period of time (which may give the player less to do next event?), or assume they do certain things? What if other player characters are trying to co-ordinate with them? It can be important to consider this, and make it clear to the players.

Downtime Format

One option is free text downtime, where the players submit to the organiser what they would like their characters to do. While this has the benefit of freedom, it can quickly become unworkable if a large number of players actively do this.

For bigger larp campaigns, it can be important to systemise elements of downtime. A well-known example of this is the influence system in MET. If there are typical actions that characters regularly carry out, it can make sense to put in place some system for them. Bear in mind this is not a neutral design point. By including a system for it you are suggesting to players these are actions to take, and may encourage people to design characters to take them. If you include a system for blacksmithing actions to create masterwork weapons, people are more likely to want to play a blacksmith as a character.

If including such a system, it then becomes important to decide how much a character can get done in their downtime. How much time passes between events, and is it fixed or does it vary? With supernatural long-living characters or a generational campaign, you could have downtimes that span decades or centuries. Some larps simplify this by having as much time pass as happens in real life between events, or by a fixed amount of time such as a 90 day season.

If you systemise this, you may need to give characters a number of ‘action points’ or ‘downtime points’ to spend on downtime actions, and give the players some idea of what can get done in that time.

While designing this, you also need to consider what else you consider important in the campaign. If you want to encourage play about economics, you may need a downtime system were possession of objects (such as craft tools or buildings) is important. If you are focused more on interpersonal issues, you may decide not to include this level of detail.

It is worth considering whether your downtime system is complete and includes all significant actions that can be taken, or whether you still need some level of free text option.

Downtime Conflict

What happens if characters want to take offense actions in downtime, such as raiding the home of another character or trying to kill them?

• Do you have PCs operate differently to NPCs in this respect? Do you allow NPCs to be killed in downtime, but not PCs? Do you distinguish between ‘major’ NPCs, and more minor background characters (or ‘mooks’)?
• Can such actions be played out, either as the next larp, or as a smaller sub-scene played before it starts? If not as a larp, perhaps they can be played out as a tabletop roleplay session, or as some kind of board game / wargame? Two characters commanding armies into battle against each other could use a multiplayer computer game like the Total Wars series to resolve the battle.
• How do you factor in the abilities of the characters in downtime? Suppose a player character decide to spend their downtime wandering around preaching heresy. When in play, the player can use his eloquence to persuade people, but may not have any soft skills to represent this. How do you factor this into downtime?

Character progression

Assuming your larp has soft skill character progression, you need to consider how it relates to your downtime system:

• They could be entirely separate – spending xp could not be linked to acting in the world. This encourages players to spend their downtime doing things, rather than sitting round ‘training.’
• One could be the prerequisite for the other. Learning a skill (such as a language or a magical spell) might require a mentor, or the pupil, or both to spend downtime points training before the xp can be spent. A softer form of this is that training is not required, but makes the learning easier or cheaper in xp cost.
• ‘xp’ can be removed entirely and replaced with the downtime system. Characters know they need to spend so many downtime points (which could be called ‘days’) training to gain a skill.

Related to this is the question of whether characters get downtime actions if the player misses an event (or plays a different character or helps crew it, instead of playing the character in question).

Forum play

As an aside, it’s also possible to use an internet board for downtime play. Different options for downtime play here include:

• Players writing short stories about their characters normal life. They might define for example what their home looks like, which some players enjoys and gives them a more solid sense on who their character is – what does a wizard’s private sanctum and laboratory say about them?
• Characters (players and other otherwise) engaging in conversation. If you have a more sophisticated downtime system, this might be used to plan or co-ordinate actions for it, or for the next event. Depending on the play culture and the content will determine whether this is best done in secret by email, or semi-public on an internet board.
• A Narrative to play out scenes beyond the scope of an event, such as a major battle or siege. The organiser could also post rumours or public news (such as a royal proclamation) by this route, as a means to insert information into the campaign.

Internet board play can have its own etiquette to it which varies by player culture. It can be important for the organiser to make clear the sorts of things that are acceptable to post.

Conclusion

We’ve looked at some of the design points when designing downtime.

One point I haven’t covered is the organisers ‘creative agenda’ and how that influenced downtime resolution. Informing players upfront whether cause-and-effect logic will be held to or whether results will be ‘fudged’ to make more drama at the next event can be very important in managing their expectations.

Downtime can be a lot of work. However, at the same time it can also empower players to create plot and drama, rather than the organiser having to produce it. It can encourage and support proactive play, and breathe life into a setting.