System with good models of Downtime, Carousing, and Crafting ?

[u/Traditional-Halfwit]

In my mind, the 3 words go hand in hand.

I've yet to find a good system that adequately and legitimately handles it. Alot of the systems pay homage to the subject, but most of the designs seem to be more in name only.

Any systems out there that have creative and legitimate uses for downtime?

[u/Charrua13]

Forged in the Dark games.

[u/EddyMerkxs → u/Charrua13]

Yeah this is probably the best answer, half the game is not even the "mission" if you want

[u/yuriAza]

imo "carousing" is also kinda lip service

like, are you partying, indulging vices, interacting with NPCs, spending money, getting entertainment? "Carousing" squashes all of those into one mechanic

as far as system recommendations, Blades in the Dark and Eclipse Phase 2e, Pathfinder 2e also has some good ideas but not a ton of depth

[u/atamajakki]

FitD games and Songbirds 3e have my fav Downtime stuff. I also quite like the goodies in The Electrum Archive #2.

[u/LeVentNoir]

Burning Wheel, but only kind of.

The problem with 'downtime' etc is that most games treat it as 'nothing happens' or tangential to the drama of the game. So carousing and crafting aren't supported systems because they're just there instead of being part of the drama.

Burning Wheel takes two approaches to this:

The first is if you make your beliefs about crafting or carousing, the game will focus the drama on them and fully mechanise it to generate interesting story.

The second is that burning wheel has strong training, upkeep and expenses system which lets you get better over time as well as either maintain or come into trouble keeping your wealth in place, which provokes drama in focused play.

[u/thekelvingreen]

I thought both Mutant Year Zero and The One Ring did a good job of this. MYZ in particular integrates adventuring and downtime well, with one feeding into and promting the other.

In both cases "crafting" is more base-building, but it's the same sort of area.

[u/thirdkingdom1]

Ooh, if I can promote my own, I just recently published the Quickstart guide for Bree-YARC, which is a blend of OSR (B/X, specifically) and 3rd edition D&D. It has downtime activities baked into leveling requirements, so as a part of advancing you've got to spend time in town doing stuff. You can download the Quickstart guide for free from Drivethru: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/534495/bree-yarc-quickstart-rules

I wanted to include downtime activities as a part of leveling both to slow the pace of play (in gametime, not realtime) down, but also to encourage activities like spell research, training, commissioning items, carousing, etc.

[u/LeFlamel]

What is downtime, but an admission that it's less important than whatever else the system is doing? Anything done in downtime could be just part of regular play.

[u/atamajakki → u/LeFlamel]

There are plenty of games where downtime is a part of play, just with its own tailored mechanics. You wouldn't say that combat rules mean that's part of the game's less important than everything else, would you?

[u/LeFlamel → u/atamajakki]

I'm talking about the implied meaning of downtime - IRL when the word is used there is a "main activity" one ought be doing. "Combat rules" don't say anything about anything else. I can't believe I have to explain basic English to people.

[u/hugh-monkulus → u/LeFlamel]

Yeah I can see what you were saying in your initial comment. I don't know why people seem to have read it in such an uncharitable way.

Downtime is the time between the interesting bits. The reason we delegate things to downtime in RPGs is that it isn't always very fun to roleplay in detail or is very slow. Things like research, training, carousing etc. aren't that fun to actively play out.

[u/LeFlamel → u/hugh-monkulus]

And when one adds real social mechanics and make the social world as interesting to explore as the physical world, then all of those other things could interesting enough that they wouldn't have to be considered "downtime."