Downtime System

I have been asked to provide instructions on how to submit your downtime each month.

I have provided an example below plus a blank template. Please feel free to follow these exactly as it will make my life easier and thereby provide your characters with a better chance of succeeding at their goals as I will be a happy storyteller.

Deadlines:

First off, unless I have stated elsewhere the deadline for monthly downtime submission is Saturday one week after the game. When I check my mail on Sunday if you have not submitted your downtime by then you will receive a -1 to each effort (see below for description). On Monday if your downtime is still not in my mailbox when I check you will receive a -2 to each effort and on Tuesday you have a -3 to each effort. I will assume that you do not wish to submit your downtime if I do not have an email by Wednesday.

I will let you know at the game if the deadlines have changed for any given month.

Definititions:

  1. Effort – An effort is something that you wish to attempt. A couple of examples are investigating something, protecting something, attempting to kill something, resting (regain lost Willpower) or spending XP on a skill, attribute or Merit. A list possible efforts is provided at the end of this document. Multiple efforts can be completed each month.
  2. Actions – Every month each player has 10 actions. Each action is one 10th of you monthly available time. You say how many actions you wish to spend on any given effort. If you are spending experience you must use 1 action for every 2 experience rounded up.
  3. Attuning – Connecting your character to one of the pools which provide your character with Favours.
  4. Favours – These are the mystical powers your character now has access to.
  5. Capping – A capped favour is one that your character can now possess as you have spend enough experience to learn it. Even if your level of that favour goes down in points due to the pool shrinking you still possess the ability to use it until it reaches 0. The downside is that you can not spend any more experience on that favour level until it does reach zero. If you do not cap it you can not use it but you can continue to add experience each month.
  6. Priority – When you submit your downtime each month the efforts assumed to be in order of priority. This means that I will assume that you want your first effort to be given the best applicable dice pool while your last effort will receive the lowest applicable dice pool.

How they work:

Each month you can spend 10 actions doing things. The things you are doing are called efforts. You can use 1 effort for each action and then you could do 10 efforts. You could use multiple actions to perform a lower number of efforts. If you use all 10 actions on one effort you can only perform one effort. These are the two extremes. You will probably want to perform a few efforts each month spreading your 10 actions amongst them. The more actions you spend one an effort the better your chance of success.

How to submit an Effort (non Attuning):

Each Effort requires several bits of information in order for me to determine whether you are successful or not. Here is the list of information required:

  1. Effort: A few word description of what you want to do
  2. # of Actions: How many actions are you using for this Effort
  3. Experience Spent: If your action is to spend XP for things other than Attuning how much XP are you spending
  4. Others who you are assisting or being assisted by: If the other player’s downtime sheet does not say that they are doing this effort then you will end up attempting to perform the effort. You will know that they did not help and they will know that you were trying to do this effort.
  5. Description: A short description of what you are doing. This should be no longer than a paragraph or two and it should provide me with enough information to determine what dice pool to use. If you want to include a suggested dice pool you may at this point but it not required.

How to submit an Attunement Effort:

Here is the information that I require for a group attunement to work.

  1. Effort: Let me know if this is a Single or Group Attunement
  2. Others Involved: Who all is in the group (including yourself)
  3. Leader: Who is the leader of the group
  4. Location(s): Group attunements can only be performed at a single location as everyone must work together.
  5. # of Actions: How many actions are you (not the group but you) putting in
  6. Experience Spent: How much XP are you (not the group but you) spending
  7. Favour: Which Favour and which level (You must let me know both!!!)
  8. Capping / Not Capping: Are you saying that you are no longer going to spend any more XP on this Favour. Once you say Capping then you have the Favour (as long as you have spent enough XP) until it drops below 0 in experience due to the pool going down.

Non- Attunement Template:

  1. Effort:
  2. # of Actions:
  3. Experience Spent:
  4. Others who you are assisting or being assisted by:
  5. Description:

Attunement Template:

  1. Effort:
  2. Others Involved:
  3. Leader:
  4. Location(s):
  5. # of Actions:
  6. Experience Spent:
  7. Favour:
  8. Capping / Not Capping:


Downtime Example:

  1. Effort: Investigate Vampires
  2. # of Actions: 3
  3. Experience Spent: None
  4. Others who you are assisting or being assisted by: Joe and Frank
  5. Description: My character will be watching the vampires from a safe distance. I am looking for a weakness so that I might be able to kill them at a later date. If they see me I will run away at full speed. At no point will I attempt to interfere in anything they do even if it means an innocent person dies. Joe and Frank are supposed to come along with me.
  1. Effort: Gain 1st dot in Drive
  2. # of Actions: 2
  3. Experience Spent: 3 XP
  4. Others who you are assisting or being assisted by: None
  5. Description: I will take a course on stunt driving in my spare time.
  1. Effort: Group Attunement
  2. Others Involved: Joe, Frank and Myself
  3. Leader: Frank
  4. Location(s): Kinsmen Merry Go Round
  5. # of Actions: 3
  6. Experience Spent: 6
  7. Favour: Brawn Level 1
  8. Capping / Not Capping: Capping
  1. Effort: Single Attunement
  2. Others Involved: Myself
  3. Leader: N/A
  4. Location(s): Kinsmen Merry Go Round
  5. # of Actions: 1
  6. Experience Spent: 2
  7. Favour: Quickness Level 1
  8. Capping / Not Capping: Not Capping
  1. Effort: Single Attunement
  2. Others Involved: Myself
  3. Leader: N/A
  4. Location(s): Roxy Theatre
  5. # of Actions: 1
  6. Experience Spent: 1
  7. Favour: Quickness Level 1
  8. Capping / Not Capping: Not Capping

Possible Efforts:

Here is a list of possible efforts. It does not cover every possible effort but it is a good basis to work from. If you want your character to do something that is not listed feel free to still say your character wants to do that.

Investigate or Research a person, place, thing, or event. I need to know what you’re investigating, and possibly what info you’re looking for.

Search for a person. Use this if you’re looking for the location of a person, usually to get a meeting/scene with them.

Aid someone else with their action.

Patrol or Protect an area – either to keep people from entering, or just to keep an eye out for interesting events.

Obtain physical possessions – getting a hold of rare drugs, getting a weapon made to your specifications, etc.

Conceal an Action. Take this action in conjunction with other actions to conceal the action or its effects, instead of yourself.

Harass. Tell me who you’re doing this to, and what you’re doing – a smear campaign is different from hunting down their loved ones and killing them. This will prevent the target from succeeding at Recovery actions, and could cost them more temporary Willpower!

Hide. Take this action if you’re taking above normal levels of caution to keep others from finding you.

Interfere with someone else’s downtime actions by letting me know who you’re messing with, and what it is they’re doing that you don’t want them to carry out.

Contingency plans to help make sure your own actions go more smoothly – they reduce the chances your actions will have unintended complications.

Recovery (Regain Willpower) -Take a little bit of rest and relaxation and gain a Willpower. This action can only be performed once a month and normally automatically succeeds, but can be disrupted if you’re under stress, being actively harried, or have things important to you damaged or destroyed.

Spend XP – In order to spend your XP you must perform 1 action for every 2 points (rounded up) of XP spent. This is a long term action and the successes gained can be carried over but ust be applied to the same skill, attribute, etc in subsequent months. If you switch and put actions into a different skill, attribute, etc then those previous successes will remain for later usage on that skill, attribute, etc.

Example: Joe wants to buy the 1st point of Academics. This costs 3 experience. This will require 2 successes 3 / 2 = 1 ½ rounded up to 2. The first month he gets one success. The second month Joe decides he would rather have their first dot of Crafts. He spends 2 actions and gets the 2 successes required. In the third month he spends another action and gets the 2nd success required for his first dot in Academics.