Creating Meaningful Downtime

Heroes Helping Out at the Hearth

The Hearth phase in Of Hearth & the Harrowing is part base building phase, part advancement, and part downtime. It was originally inspired by Runequest's adventure system where adventures often have plenty of time between them. If you want to adventure after you have used up all your Rune Points in that game, you can, but waiting until after a holy day where you can worship and get your points back is how you go at it with all your resources.

This adventure per month or season leads to natural downtime, and players can use that time to train skills, research, learn new spells, etc. It is far less a formal downtime, than say the latest edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay that gives players downtime actions they can do. Since that game does not really have resources that can be regenerated by those actions, its often used for a minor modifier later, or maybe generating rumors, etc.

The problem with this is that it becomes this throw away moment, so often. This is a story, you and your players are creating, so why not make those systems part of the story. I also want it to be part of the story. It could have as much meat on it as the next heist or adventure the heroes are planning. I often also use it to lay in hooks for the next full adventure.

In Of Hearth & the Harrowing, those weeks matter. A lot. But I still don't want you to skip the story. Just because you have a robust downtime system, complete with town building, personnel management, crafting, etc doesn't mean that you should lean on the charts, tables, and rolls. Instead, make those decisions happen in character. What is the reaction from the villagers? How are you actually training that skill? What is it you are doing to influence (read: augment) the villagers labors in the Hearth Phase? Above everything else, tell a story.

By making a system that is more fundamental to the game loop, it also stands apart from downtime in a lot of other games. It is not just connective tissue between adventures, it matters as much as the adventuring phase does. It is up to the heroes as to how long they stay in the Hearth between each expedition and what will work for each group will be a bit different. Some will have wanderlust and want to press out every other week into the wilds. Others will wait multiple weeks in between, preferring the safety of the Hearth to the dangers of the adventure.