D&D Downtime Activities & Ideas
Are you looking for D&D downtime activities to fill the boring space between adventures?
Our in-depth post on D&D downtime activities will light the campfires of inspiration!
Downtime is broadly defined as the time between adventures. This is time where the characters can relax, train, work, study, or any number of mundane activities.
Unearthed Arcana put out a guide to downtime with a robust assortment of things your players can do in their downtime. Some of these are purely mechanical, and some can be roleplay focused.
Adding this to the downtime activities already in the DMG gives DMs and players a good idea of how to use their downtime.
Why use downtime in D&D?
But why use downtime at all? Why not just go from adventure to adventure?
Let’s consider shopping as an example. Sure, you can tell your DM what you need and subtract the gold from your stash - easy peasy.
Many of the downtime activities listed in the DMG and UA can be transactional between the play and the DM. But that's no fun.
Here at Plus One to Gaming, we believe in taking every chance you get to add layers to the story and characters.
The best way to use downtime is as an extension of your story. Players can use it to expand their backstories, grow their characters in new directions, or move the story in meaningful ways.
If you decide to use playtime on downtime activities, make sure it adds something to the story or the characters.
Players are not interested in acting out scenes with shop keeps that only result in, what could otherwise be, a simple transaction. Choose your downtime scenes wisely.
How to run downtime activities in D&D
The DM and the players should talk about what they want to do and if they want to play that scene. Some players want to use all of their downtime forging plate armor. Plate armor can take around 300 days to craft. That is a lot of boring scenes to have to play out.
Instead, the player could tell you, “I want to spend most of my time forging my plate armor, but I also want to gamble with my share of the loot.” This gives you a scene to play, a potential enemy to make, and a new facet to the character.
In our most recent campaign, the group all used downtime in different ways.
Xyzal’s backstory caught up to him and put him in a compromising position. Now he has to make a hard choice.
Umren, focused on keeping his teammates alive while adventuring, studied martial arts and discovered a link to his heritage.
Lord Wizardclaws met with the Dean of the local wizard school to try and discover where his magical powers came from.
All of these scenes added to the characters and story. All three characters also did some shopping, crafting, and inventory maintenance. Those actions were done out of playtime.
How to make downtime more interesting
Downtime can also be used as a mini adventure designed to help the players prepare for the next phase of the campaign.
Let's take some of the listed downtime activities to see how they can be used as a mini adventure.
After successfully finishing a quest for the local lord, the players stumbled on some info suggesting the lord is involved in some activities that aren't above board.
This isn't necessarily the setup to the next adventure. It's simply worldbuilding.
But the players can't let it go.
The players need access to a secret part of the castle to uncover this mystery. They know they can not simply fight the guards or sneak past them. Several things are blocking their path.
Now the players have downtime. They can choose what they want to do before venturing off into the next phase of the campaign.
After the party sells their unusable items and buys new ones, they go to the local inn. Over pints of ale, they decide they NEED to know what is going on in the castle.
The Bard decides to chat with the guards. The party is semi-known for their deeds, and getting in good with the guards could buy you a favor or two or an advantage on a persuasion check.
The Wizard wants to do a little research about the Lord’s family and past. This may give the party an idea about what is happening in the secret chambers.
The Rogue wants to train in forgery to forge a letter allowing the party into the secret section.
The Paladin forges a crowbar. No one in town sells them, and the party may need one to pry open stuck doors or secret compartments.
Now the party is prepared to take the story in a brand new direction. The DM has to frantically write a new story with interesting characters, deadly monsters, and a satisfying ending.
This is downtime used in a way that players will remember and is worth their playtime.
Is downtime right for your table?
The number one question to ask yourself when using playtime for a downtime activity is, “Is this worth the table time?”
If not, make it a transaction between the DM and the player. If so, build out a story and a reason as to why we are using table time outside of the adventure.
