Downtimes made easy

1. Format

Subject: You always want to specify the character name and the month for which you’re submitting downtimes (and specifying the venue in question isn’t a bad idea either). Example: [Camarilla] January John Smith Downtimes

Body: There are multiple types of downtime action, and it usually helps to organize by action.

For example:

• General Downtimes
  DT1: Kill the Prince
  DT2: Kill the Seneschal
  DT3: Kill the Prince again
• Computer Downtime: Monitor the Prince
• Science Downtimes: Develop new methods of Prince Murdering
• Retainer Actions: Kill the Prince’s Retainers
• Contacts: Look for the Prince
• Ally Actions: Kill the Prince’s Allies
• Influence Actions
  *insert influence nonsense here*

2. What Can I Do In Downtime?

The specific actions defined by the book (masquerade specific) for general downtime actions are:

• Crafting: designing, building, or repairing an item.
• Feeding: Required to come into the game at full blood; without feeding downtimes or herd, you enter play with half blood.
• Patrolling: Increases the difficulty of others feeding in your territory without you noticing.
• Beyond your Means: Lets you acquire items beyond what you could normally afford.
• Investigating: General, all purpose action for wandering the city chasing plot, following leads and generally getting yourself in as much trouble as possible.

Apoc adds

• Lending Aid: Donating your downtime action to an ally

These are specific actions that can be taken, and should serve as a guideline for the types of actions you can take, but they certainly shouldn’t be interpreted as your only options. In general, a downtime action can represent any activity your character dedicates several days of effort towards. ie; having a meeting with another character doesn’t take a DT, while stalking them for several nights to observe their activities will. In terms of investigation, a brief visit to an important site to poke around probably doesn’t, whereas spending a week researching its history probably does. As always, your ST is the final arbiter for what constitutes a DT.

3. How to Write a General Downtime

So you’re meant to be writing a description of a character’s activities over several days, ideally with an explanation of how you plan to accomplish your goals, and maybe even contingency plans in case things go wrong. Its easy for this to spiral into writing a full novel every month, turning a game into a huge amount of work for both you and the ST.

To keep things short, direct and easy to read, I recommend the following three statement model for general DT actions.

1. Statement 1: Declaration of the goal of the DT. Ex: I would like to sneak into the murder dungeon and steal the Amulet of Plot Armor.
2. Statement 2: Declaration of the means by which you’ll accomplish the DT. Ex: I have the location of the murder dungeon from last game; I will be under obfuscate for the trip, using Visceratika to find my way through the dungeon, and will be carrying a bag full of money to bribe the guards.
3. Statement 3: Declaration of what you’ll do when things go wrong. Ex: If I get caught, I’ll set the murder dungeon on fire and run away while flipping the guards off.

If you have a step by step plan to lay out, that’s fine, but this is the minimum information you should include in a general action for your storytellers to begin processing it.

4. Conclusion

Any questions, feel free to email one of our storytellers.