Through the silly season, there are naturally increased interruptions to our usual weekly home game as holidays, family and other commitments clash with our preferred playtime. It is probably fairly common for groups to take a break throughout December and try to pick up again in the New Year. However, with all the stress of the season and the risk of the hiatus dragging on, keeping the action going outside of organised sessions is not only possible but could help add depth and enjoyment to your campaign and continue the immersion. Here are some ideas I use as a DM to keep the dice rolling and story progressing outside of a ‘normal’ session.
Due to geography, we already play online using my own DIY VTT. However, there is nothing stopping you from employing these tricks even if your home game is usually in person. I am sure you would all have a chat group set up somewhere, and that is naturally where the action will take place. The obvious advantage here is that there is no immediate need for everyone to be participating at the same time, and play can progress at a leisurely pace. The one thing you may need if you are normally IRL or use integrated platforms like Roll20, is a simple online dice roller. I recommend www.throwdice.net where not only will everyone be able to see the rolls, but you can label them too so it is clear what they are for (or even create separate rooms where players and the DM can roll in secret from the rest of the party). So fire up Discord, Messenger or WhatsApp and let’s delve into offline-online play!
Idea 1: Players Handbook (PHB), Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG) and Xanathar's Guide to Everything (XGTE) Downtime Activities
This will greatly depend on your character's levels and finances. Basically, I split these up into two categories, Stronghold Downtime and Township Downtime. Stronghold Downtime as the name suggests requires players to have started building their own establishment. We'll cover this in its own section as it can get very detailed.
All the other activities can be carried out in places they don't own, so are much more accessible. Here are my thoughts on making them interactive as well as time-passing and potentially beneficial undertakings. I've broken them up into three groups which you can use to pitch them to players depending on their willingness and availability.
The Time-Outer: Players away on family holidays, overseas, or just needing a full break from the game for a while will probably benefit most from Downtime that requires little to no interaction, but still gives them some character advancement or allows them to contribute to the parties current goals. Take a look at the Relaxation, Research & Training (PHB/XGE) options. I still like them to make rolls, but the amount of time they spend can be dependant on more active players. Generally, I split things into Tendays. So if they are investigating possible leads, studying a new language or skill, or just trying to live the quiet life, I come up with a roll to measure, often a percentile die, to see how successful they have been, how much progress they made, or simply if they managed to only spend their normal upkeep based on their characters holiday desires.
The Inbetweener: A lot of players will wish to interact and keep role-playing, but will only be able to do so in short bursts or sporadically. Here I like to introduce activities that might require some more detailed investigation, haggling, using existing contacts or friendly NPCs in order to achieve the best outcome. Have a read of the sections on Buying, Selling & Crafting Items & Magic Items (PHB/DMG/XGE). Often the biggest barrier to achieving these goals is time, as crafting anything takes a while. A lot of players however will be most interested in the less mundane side of things and want to explore magical options. I am pretty stingy with my magical gifts to my adventurers. Rarely will they be found for sale, and when they are the cost is exorbitant. Similarly, I won't let them sell high-value items like 100gp plus gems or uncommon and above magic items just anywhere. Downtime in a big town or city is the perfect opportunity for players to try to unload unwanted merchandise, try to find some new rare gear, or even the assistance and facilities needed to make their own. This opens up the possibility of sending them on mini-quests that involves tracking down a buyer, locating a certain component, or completing a favour for an NPC to improve their chances of success. Again it will often boil down to a percentile dice at the end, but with some roleplay leading up to the point of sale/creation/purchase etc, you may grant advantage or a modifier to the roll to make the exchange much more meaningful.
The Enthusiast: The fortunate (or childless :P) adventurer may find that Christmas poses no boundaries to their ability or desire to play and they still want their D&D fix on a near-continuous basis. Hopefully, you as DM either fall into this category or can at least log on often enough to keep these sorts of players happy! For them, I'd recommend the Carousing, Gambling, Rumours & Crime (DMG/XGE) options as the most involved and potentially fun downtime activities. It will depend on the players of course. A Lawful Good Paladin would shun Crime and a devoted Cleric may abhor gambling, but effectively what you are trying to set up is either a series of events relying on NPC interactions and higher risk-reward scenarios that require more player intervention instead of just a random dice roll. Does your Cleric have proficiency in Dragon Chess and the player a real-world knowledge of the game? Have them enter a tournament. You could even play them yourself online or get them to screenshot the game result vs an AI. Are your characters members of the Zhentarim or Harpers? Have an agent approach them and task them with some intrigue or espionage within the town that could lead to them gaining renown or standing within the organisation. At the end of it all you can use the tables in the books to dish out rewards, but how well they roleplay their missions should affect their final outcome.
Idea 2: Stronghold Building
Despite playing (a weird version of) Storm Kings Thunder in our home game, my party obviously enjoyed SimCity too much as young lads and the moment they got their hands on an old ruined tower decided to put down roots and build themselves a little capitalistic utopia. I began to homebrew some options as the details for this in the DMG are a little vague and don't go into almost any details. This became a bit overwhelming, so a quick google and I found this handy PDF reference which someone else has done an excellent job on and now forms the basis of all mercantile Stronghold building activities for our group.
Basically, it gives your players something to sink their hard-won gold into. More than that, it allows them to spend some downtime "planning" (read arguing over) what to build, allowing time to pass as they assist construction or work in their own business, and use some of their background and skill proficiencies to maybe make a gold piece or two. My guys quickly learned it is not the most efficient way of amassing wealth, but they came up with interesting ways to have it add to the game. They leveraged their contacts in the Zhentarim to borrow cash to build an Inn in exchange for the Zhents being able to install a spy in their blossoming community. They set up merchants to try to sell their spoils and unwanted magic items to (see Idea 1) which randomly change every tenday, and they have started displaying some of their "Trophies" from more spectacular battles as tourist attractions. One warning, there is a bit of work to put in with the old excel spreadsheet to keep track of everything (like the passage of time if you don't record that already) but their little town has kept us busy for many hours back and forth when we are unable to meet for a 'proper' session and has started generating numerous interesting story hooks and arcs.
One of the best parts is nothing here is time sensitive so you can play at chatroom pace and not all players need to contribute... as long as they are happy for others to spend their gold! :P Harking back to Idea 1 and forward to Idea 3 coming up next, integrating a home base for your players gives them something to fight for and at least removes the 'hobo' from your lovable group of Murder Hobos. Plus, if certain NPCs happen to learn where they stash their hoard and lay their heads at night, the consequences of their previously chaotic tavern burning actions in random villages just might come back to haunt them now they have something to lose...
Idea 3: Individual Pursuits
As DM of a primarily official module home game, a lot of the work has been done for me. However, some of the best sessions and most interesting encounters over the past year of Storm Kings Thunder have been homebrew randomness or pre-planned personal arcs that I added to the game to make my players feel more connected to the world and give a damn about what happens to it. This is all good and well during live play, but going into holiday chat mode has REALLY opened up the group to acting more individually and pursuing their own agendas. The beauty of chat-based play is you can have many chats going at once with different folks in them. The 'official' group chat of what the party is doing, and one private chat with each player.
This has worked particularly well when coupled with Ideas 1 & 2 as it allows more active players to explore character arcs while those tied up can simply pass time with more mundane DMG based options that just require a roll every few days. Just before the holiday break, we ended on what was something of a tricky cliffhanger DM-wise. It was the end of a chapter where a major encounter had resulted in the party being split and potentially the death of one of the characters, but their fate was unknown to the other party members. If we'd simply met online the following week as usual, the cat would have been let out of the bag right away. However, because we'd moved to chat-based play, the party members still together could carry on deciding how they would try to determine the fate of their friend while the missing Barbarian and I role-played out a life-or-death escape. RAW, he should have died, but I gave him the slimmest chance to get out of it that not only needed him to get lucky on some rolls, make good decisions, and fight for his life... but unbeknownst to him or the rest of the group, also relied on his friends coming to his aid. We simply could not have made it work in Live play, as their actions relied on and affected each other, except they didn't know that. This all played out over a couple of days in separate chats. When it boiled down to the climax and against the odds the party was reunited and the Barbarian survived, it probably went down as the most dramatic and memorable piece of play in the campaign to that date.
Back at town after the daring rescue, all three adventurers went off in different directions of recruitment, training, working and personal development which generated a few nice little private story moments and gave me more material to build on going forward when we regroup at the end of January for our first live session in six weeks.
Idea 4: Text-Based RPG Action
Finally, don't forget just because you usually use minis, Roll20, or another VTT, doesn't mean you always have to. To keep the XP, gold and story moving over this protracted break I've guided my party towards completing some fairly simple side quests. Overland travel is simplified to fast-travel in most cases, and the quests are low in complexity (mostly raiding Barbarian Tombs for Giant Relics) that offer a mix of puzzles and basic combat. The combat in these encounters is run "theatre of the mind" via chat as there are only ever a few creatures involved and it tends to turn into a lot about role-playing how they would each approach it rather than constant dice rolls to determine the outcome. Mind you, with the shared ThrowDice.Net roller, you still get to share the highs and lows of chance playing a factor too.
So there you have it. According to my wife, we are still playing too much D&D despite not having any sit-down sessions planned from early December to late January. This means we must still be playing the right amount of D&D. As DM, taking the holiday season as a time to explore players backstories and connection to the world really does pay off, will give you lots to work with in your next live session, and can be great fun for you and your players all the while keeping the campaign rolling along.
If you want to hear more about my home game and meet my players, I also blog about their adventures right here on Zalgariath.com. Links to the shenanigans of Mickale Kings Thunder below.
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