Downtime: A simple procedure for OSR games

Game Design Log #48

Jul 02, 2025

Following the traveling procedure I made for “No Peace for the Heathen”, I made a very simple downtime procedure, something with which I could give a frame for those moments players want to do other things instead of exploring and adventuring. These are bones, a skeletal frame, and some interconnected gameable bits. The idea is that players use it as a space for roleplaying. Ideally, this procedure will encourage them to do things during downtime, rather than constrain them.

I would love to know if this is something some of you would like to use in your home games! (at the end of the post there is a two-page spread to print or read more easily for OSE and Mörk Borg)

At the beginning of the downtime, players determine how many days each downtime-play period covers, with “1 day” being the smallest chunk of time they can use for downtime.

The PCs should narrate what they do each period in a way that makes them feel more comfortable, and if emergent role-play arises from their narration, they should be free to embrace it. This is just a skeleton to give form to the experience of downtime in the game, and role-play should give “meat” to this skeleton. Anything that arises from this free-flow narration can be introduced later mechanically, for the next period, as a complication, a condition, or a connection.

At the start of a period

When in downtime, players choose which tactic/attribute/ability they use for their roll. This will determine what they can do in that period of downtime (see below in “Using VITALITY points”).

Every player rolls:

{d20 + tactics (attribute/ability) + conditions + conections + days on the period} — {10 + complications}

If the difference is positive, it is the number of VITALITY points they have available to spend during that period.
If the difference is negative, the NPC/PC gets the “bad streak -1” condition as they start that period on a “wrong-foot” (consecutive bad streak conditions add their modifiers to the first one). However, they still get 1 VITALITY point.

Conditions can hinder or help their roll, with a negative or positive modifier, respectively (if you use a game without conditions, you still can use the ones contained in this procedure: bad streak or hunger, and ignore them when the downtime ends).

Connections are all the different people, places, institutions, networks, creatures, phenomena, and supply sources to which the PC is well connected. The value of Connections is the number of such connections. When starting a new connection, they have to reach a certain level on their track (level 4 of a total of 6) to add a +1 to Connections.

Complications are anything that may make the downtime activities for PCs more difficult, such as: if they are being hunted by someone, they aren’t fluent in the local language, they are frowned upon because of their origin, they are unaware of local customs, they have offended someone of importance, etc. Complications are evaluated on a period-by-period basis by the GM, and they may change with some of the downtime activities chosen by PCs.

Trackers for Connections, Knowledge, Intel, Rally, Crafting, and Skills

When using VITALITY points, sometimes you may increase a tracker related to a connection, knowledge, intel, rally, crafting, or a skill you want to learn.

Connection trackers are the most common of them, and they determine how well connected you are with someone, or something (as a network, an institution, or any kind of occult forces/phenomena). They range from level 1 to 6:

Unconnected
Aware of each other
Kind words in public
Friendly
Associates
Intimate

Intel, Rally, Knowledge, Crafting, and Skills trackers are variable in size, and they work like advancement trackers toward a goal, so each level doesn’t matter; what matters is that you complete them to reach your goal. Their size varies from:

1 → Very simple: easy access, something that most people know or believe in.
3 → Simple: depending on resources but commonly available, known by whom is interested in it, not so far from their own beliefs but just need a spark.
10 → Challenging: difficult to gather, against some laws, takes time and work to be good at.
30 → Very challenging: extremely scarce, against someone’s beliefs, very few people know about it.

Using VITALITY points

VITALITY points can be expended in each period to accomplish different tasks.

VITALITY points, if not used, are erased at the end of that period.

The tasks that each PC can accomplish depend on what Tactic/Ability/Ability (NPFTH/OSE/Mörk Borg) they used in their roll:

— ANY —

2 VITALITY — Learn a skill. Once per period, create or advance by +1 a Skill’s tracker. The skill has to be related to the tactic you used to roll at the beginning of the period. Easy/medium/hard/extremely-hard Skill trackers need 1/3/10/30 advancement to be completed.
N VITALITY — Gather rations, as many as two times the VITALITY points you use.
N VITALITY — Hearten. Once per period, you can give N/2 VITALITY points to another PC (rounded up). Narrate what you do to help them earn vitality for that period.
N VITALITY — Connecting. Once per period, you can try to forge a new connection or advance +1 its tracker. Narrate to whom, or with what, you are trying to connect, and how you use the tactic you choose to roll.
Then, depending on the availability of the person, the network, institution, creature, etc, that you want to connect with, roll 1d20 + N + Intel (+1 for each intel) vs Availability Difficulty (AD):
- Guarded, separated, very exclusive → AD = 20
- Only a few connections, trust issues, exclusive → AD = 15
- Neutral, some connections, open to “friend of a friend” → AD = 10
- Friendly, open to everyone → AD = 5
In a success (meet or surpass AD), advance +1 its tracker if it already exists, or create a tracker for it.
4 VITALITY — Revelry. Once per period, you throw a gathering. Narrate what kind of gathering you prepare and whom you invite.
Roll 1d6 for each one of the Connection trackers of those who join you.
- If you use 2 rations in a connection, you can reroll the d6 (narrate how you use the rations, they can be food, drinks, or other consumables).
- If you get below their tracker level, increase one in this tracker.
- If you get just the value on the tracker with the d6, you get very close with this connection, narrate how, and you add +2 to its tracker.
- If you roll over the value with the d6, you create a complication with this connection. Roll 1d6 for a possible complication, and the GM and/or you narrate what happens:
  - 1-2: Direct conflict → You get +1 complications related to this connection. You get -1 in this Connection tracker. Narrate the conflict.
  - 3-4: Offense → You get +1 complications related to this connection.
  - 5-6: Awkward encounter → They leave, and their tracker stays the same.

— SNEAKY / DEX / Agility —

N VITALITY — Stealing. If you know something you want to steal, you can try it. Narrate what you want and what you do, then roll 1d20 + N + Intel (if you have it) vs Security Difficulty (SD):
- Well guarded and secured → SD = 20
- Just secured → SD 15
- In a close space, but without safeguards → SD = 10
- At the open → SD = 5

— AGILE / DEX / Agility —

2 VITALITY — Crafting. Once per period, advance by +1 a Project’s tracker. Easy/medium/hard/invention Project trackers need 1/3/10/30 advancement to be completed.

— STRONG / STR / Strength —

2 VITALITY — Crafting. Once per period, advance by +1 a Project’s tracker.
Easy/medium/hard/invention Project trackers need 1/3/10/30 advancement to be completed.

— OBSERVANT / WIS or INT / Presence —

2 VITALITY — Intel. Once per period, you can try to find intel about the people at the place you are. Advance +1 on an Intel tracker, related to the focus of your intel. Narrate how you use OBSERVANT to gather this intel.
Easy/medium/hard/invention Intel trackers need 1/3/10/30 advancement to be completed.
3 VITALITY — Research. Once per period, you can try to find knowledge about a particular topic. Advance +1 on a Knowledge tracker, related to the focus of your research. Narrate how you use OBSERVANT to gather this knowledge.
Easy/medium/hard/invention Knowledge trackers need 1/3/10/30 advancement to be completed.
3 VITALITY — Commune with spirits of the land. You commune with +1.

— IMPOSING / CHA or INT / Presence —

3 VITALITY — Commune with spirits of the land. You commune with +1.
3 VITALITY — Rally. Once per period, you can try to rally people for a cause. Narrate what you want and what you do to rally them.
Easy/medium/hard/invention Rally trackers need 1/3/10/30 advancement to be completed.
Roll 1d6 for each one of the Connection trackers of those whom you want to rally.
- If you don’t have a tracker of them, assume that it is at 1.
- If you get below their Connection tracker level, increase +1 to their Rally tracker.
- If you get the value on their Connection tracker with the d6, you enthrall them, and you add +2 to their Rally tracker.
- If you roll over the Connection tracker with the d6, you create a complication with this connection.
  Roll 1d6 for a possible complication
  - 1-2: Direct conflict → You get +1 complications related to this connection. You get -1 in this Connection tracker. Narrate the conflict.
  - 3-4: Offense → You get +1 complications related to this connection.
  - 5-6: Awkward encounter → They leave, and their tracker stays the same.

— RESILIENT / CON / Toughness —

2 VITALITY — Heal condition. Once per period, decrease by 1 the modifier of a condition on yourself or another PC/NPC. Narrate what you do to help heal/overcome that condition.
1 VITALITY — Power through. Once per period, decrease by 1 the modifier of a bad streak and a hunger condition.
1 VITALITY — Carrying the weight. Clear to 0 the bad streak condition of another PC, but you can’t do anything more in that period. Narrate what you do to take on the weight.

DESIGN NOTE: Among the things that the PCs can do, some are restricted to “once per period”. This may seem counterintuitive, because it implies that for the same number of days, the PCs could do more times this downtime activity if they decide to use fewer days to define the downtime period. The idea, however, is that if in a span of time they want to repeat an activity, they have to consciously choose a shorter period, making them roll more times, and engage more actively with that downtime activity they want to do more than once.

At the end of the period

For each PC/NPC, one ration of food per day of the period must be erased from the equipment of any PC/NPC.
If a PC/NPC does not receive a food ration, this PC/NPC does not eat and gets the “hungry (-1)” condition (consecutive hungry conditions add their modifiers to the first one).
Erase any unused VITALITY point.
Rest following the resting rules of the game you are using (resting in NPFTH).
Start a new period, go to the beginning, and follow the steps!

Bartering and buying

This procedure is constructed to give structure to things that commonly have none, but buying, selling, and bartering have some built-in structure provided by the economy of the setting.

However, if you want to include these aspects in this simple downtime mechanics, you can use these:

— IMPOSING / CHA — INT / Presence —

N VITALITY — Bargaining. Once per period. Roll 2d10 + 2 X N. You get this percentage off on an item that is available at the place you are.

N VITALITY — Bartering. Once per period. You can exchange 1 of your items for N/2 other non-magical items of similar size.