TEXT: ...you all meet 
  in a tavern
  Downtime
  Downtime is copyright 2018 Tracy Barnett, and is released under a Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution-only license. Art assets are 
  from Publisher’s Choice Quality Stock Art © Rick Hershey / Fat Goblin Games.
  
  Downtime
  a game for 3-4 players and a moderator
  Tings You’ll Need: A piece of paper, a full set of dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20), and a writing 
  implement for each player. You’ll need a set of non-edible tokens of some type for the Moderator to 
  distribute as appropriate. You should also have a place to play where you can get loud. Tis game could 
  get loud.
  A Note on Content: Tis game includes some explicit content. If you come across anything which 
  makes you uncomfortable, or which you do not wish to include in your game, strike or change it with 
  the author’s permission.
  
  You All Meet in the Tavern
  Everyone in the game is an adventurer, recently returned from an excursion of some kind. You’ve all been 
  through the dungeons a few times. You have stories to tell and the scars to prove their truth.
  Player Agenda: In brief, the players need to push the story forward, make interesting decisions, complicate their 
  own situations, work with the Moderator to tell the story, and be prepared to get weird with things.
  Good? Good. Let’s go.
  To determine who your adventurer is, roll three d20s, one for each column.
  Descriptor
  Type
  Story
  1
  Gravetouched
  Ogre
  Who Has Seen Some Shit
  2
  Aquatic
  Centaur
  Who Owes Big Pat, uhhh, Big
  3
  Cursed
  Dragon
  Who Knows the Secret Word Which Will Undo the Bindings 
  of Reality
  4
  Angelic
  Merperson
  Sworn to Sufer No Insult, No Matter How Small
  5
  Soulless
  Snome
  Seeking Teir One, True Love
  6
  Chosen
  Halfing
  Who Has Died and Been Rebron, Twice
  7
  Runeburned
  Construct
  Who Wants Nothing More Tan a Good, Solid Fuck
  8
  Broken
  Demon
  Hunted by the Bane of Drakentown
  9
  Forgetful
  Dwarf
  Who Needs a Barrel of McNaughtens Best Dark, Now
  10
  Mistrustful
  Elf
  Whose Pockets Overfow With Gold and Gemstone
  11
  Exacting
  Human
  Carrying the Axe of Ultimate Bloodletting
  12
  Pious
  Orc
  Here to Kill Honest Paulie
  13
  Immortal
  Pixie
  With a Hankering for Displacer Beast Pot Pie
  14
  Immoral
  Zombie
  Carrying the Cursed Idol of Karearanthark
  15
  Tyrannous
  Kobold
  With Information About the Plot to Assassinate Queen Gline
  16
  Spellbound
  Gnoll
  Whose Body is Wracked by Golden Bellfower Poison
  17
  Partially Petrifed
  Goblin
  Covered in the Fianl Mortal Remains of the Buglump Pustule
  18
  Polymorphed
  Minotaur
  Carrying the Famed Talking Sword of Cragrock
  19
  Mindless
  Devil
  Plagued by a Becy of Moaning Spirits
  20
  Roll Twice, Re-Roll 
  on 20
  Roll Twice, Re-Roll 
  on 20
  Who is Going to Use Teir Wish Spell, Tonight
  So, if you rolled 3, 18, 15, you would be a Cursed Minotaur With Information About the Plot to Assassinate 
  Queen Gline. Pretty cool Minotaur ya got there. Be a shame if something happened to them.
  Oh yeah, give your character an appropriately fantasy-sounding name. Once everyone has their name and de-
  tails, move on to the next step.
  Tat Minotaur above is named Englive of the Seven Hills, because of course they are.
  
  Te People in the Tavern
  Once everyone has made and named their characters, each person rolls two d10s for each of the other characters 
  to determine their starting relationship with that character. Tese may not be the same both ways; people ofen 
  view things very diferently from one another.
  Mortua the Dour, Englive of the Seven Hilltops, Bruce Stoneheart, and Loris the Plainspoken are characters 
  made by some fctional players we’re going to use for these examples. Cool? Cool.
  So we’ve got:
  • 
  Englive of the Seven Hills, the Cursed Minotaur With Information About the Plot to Assassinate Queen 
  Gline
  • 
  Mortua the Dour, the Exacting Construct Who Wants Nothing More Tan a Good, Solid Fuck
  • 
  Bruce Stoneheart, the Spellbound Gnoll, Sworn to Sufer No Insult, No Matter How Small  
  -and-
  • 
  Loris the Plainspoken, the Mindless Pixie With a Hankering for Displacer Beast Pot Pie
  Whatever fctional player who’s in charge of Englive rolls two d10s for each of the other characters. 
  Englive then:
  • 
  Sort of Loathes Mortua the Dour
  • 
  Happily Dreams of Bruce Stoneheart 
  -and-
  • 
  Intensely Doesn’t Care About Loris the Plainspoken
  Use these relationships to inform how you interact with the other characters in the game.
  Descriptor
  Feeling
  1
  Sort of
  Loves ____________
  2
  Really
  Hates ___________
  3
  Eternally
  Lusts Afer __________
  4
  Temporarily
  Doesn’t Care About ________
  5
  Murderously
  Loathes ___________
  6
  Happily
  Envies _____________
  7
  Sadly
  Pines for ____________
  8
  Mildly
  Dreams of ___________
  9
  Intensely
  Hopes to Heal _________
  10
  Rolle Twice, Re-Roll on 10
  Want to Wish Tat ______ Was 
  Never Born
  
  What Happens at the Tavern 
  Adventurers come to the Tavern to blow of steam, swap stories, and make sure they get what they want between 
  adventures. Ting is, in any good tavern, there are plenty of agendas that work as cross-purposes, not to mention 
  rivalries, and worse. And let’s face it, there’s never a completely calm night at the Tavern.
  Before the start of the session the Moderator will roll two d20s to to determine the Event of the Evening. Tis is 
  the thing which disrupts whatever you have planned for tonight and means that this night at the Tavern won’t be 
  a calm one.
  Te Moderator in this case rolls a 19 and a 8, so the group has to contend with a Disappointing Fire. 
  sigh 
  It’s always a shame when a group of fre elementals can’t seem to muster up the combined energy to light a 
  match. Whatever will our adventurers do about this? And if not them, what annoying, too-helpful (or too-mur-
  derous) patron steps up in their place?
  Te point is, the characters’ night needs to be disrupted by this event, no matter how minor-seeming.
  Descriptor
  Feeling
  1
  A
  Loud
  Riot
  2
  Quiet
  Mob
  3
  Hopeful
  Dragon Attack
  4
  Bright
  Church Ceremony
  5
  Dark
  Tax Collector
  6
  Maddening
  Food Fight
  7
  Loose
  Tidal Wave
  8
  Poor
  Fire
  9
  Rich
  Tief
  10
  Bleary
  Invasion
  11
  Smelly
  Downpour
  12
  Limp
  Lizardfolk Horde
  13
  Wet
  Djinn
  14
  Dry
  Zombie Gang
  15
  Stif
  Ghost
  16
  Angry
  Shared Hallucination
  17
  Happy
  Swarm of Insects
  18
  Sad
  Pison Cloud
  19
  Disappointing
  Messenger from the Queen
  20
  Roll Twice, Re-Roll 20s
  Roll Twice, Re-Roll 20s
  
  How to Do Tings
  You’ve got a full set of dice in front of you. If you’re trying to do something where you could fail, or where failure 
  is interesting, the Moderator will tell you to roll the dice. You and the Moderator will determine if what you’re 
  trying to do is something that:
  • 
  You’re Really Bad at (d4)
  • 
  You’re Kinda Bad at (d6)
  • 
  You’re Okay at (d8)
  • 
  You’re Good at (d10)
  • 
  You’re Really Good at (d12) 
  -or-
  • 
  You’re Amazing at (d20)
  Te Moderator will determine how difcult this thing you’re trying to do is. Tat means they’ll say if the thing is:
  • 
  Easy (2-5)
  • 
  Kinda Tricky (6-9)
  • 
  Challenging (10-13)
  • 
  Tough (14-17)
  • 
  Real Hard (18-19)
  • 
  Te Gods Temselves Shouldn’t Attempt Tis (20)
  Ten you roll the appropriate die and see what happens. Tere are degrees of success, such as:
  • 
  If you roll a 20 on any die, you succeed with such style that the Bards will sing of you for generations
  • 
  If you beat the difculty, you do it awesomely. Bonus!
  • 
  If you meet the difculty, you do it, no sweat
  • 
  If you miss the difculty by one rating, you do it, but there’s a complication
  • 
  If you miss the difculty by two or more ratings, you fail
  • 
  If you roll a 1 on any die, you fail in a horrible, embarrassing way and you should be ashamed
  In all cases, you should work to advance the story, even if you fail at what you’re doing. Afer all, a plain old 
  swing and a miss is usually not that interesting. And you’re interesting, so keep things moving forward.
  Bonus!
  Whenever you beat the difculty, including on a 20, you get a Bonus! Token. Tese tokens can be spent while 
  playing to accomplish basically whatever you want to have happen in the game, at the discretion of the Modera-
  tor. 
  For example, Loris the Plainspoken is about to sit down and enjoy that displacer beast pot pie they’ve been 
  craving, when someone begins to complain about how disappointing the fre is. Loris, mindless though they be, 
  decides to use some pixie magic to boost the fre’s power so they don’t have to listen to the complaints while they 
  eat.
  Loris is Really Good at pixie magic, so the player grabs a d12. Te Moderator thinks this is Kinda Tricky, so Loris 
  has to hit between a 6 and a 9 to do this. Tey roll an 11, so they boost the fre awesomely! Bonus!
  
  What Happens When Bad 
  Tings Happen
  When you get hit, fail hard, or something similar, you take a debility. Debilities are words that get tagged onto 
  your character until something happens in the fction to remove it. You and the Moderator will decide what your 
  debility is when it happens. It needs to come from what happened, so you wouldn’t get the Burned debility from 
  a waterfall, for example. It would, however, be appropriate to get the Pummeled debility from getting slugged by 
  an angry fre giant. Heck, you might get Burned from that if you failed bad enough.
  To that, typically, you’ll get one debility from any appropriate failed action. If you fail critically (rolling a 1), you 
  could take more than one.
  Here’s what that looks like: 
  A nearby fre elemental liked what Loris did with the fre in the previous example, so they get in on the act and 
  boost the fre even more. Loris, who doesn’t like things too warm, tries to counter the magic. Tis is more pixe 
  magic for Loris, so they have a d12 again. However, the Moderator knows the fre elemental is in its, well, ele-
  ment, so they set the difculty to Really Hard. Loris knows they can’t counter that, so they spend their Bonus 
  token to add some extra oomph. Te Moderator lets them roll a d20 for that. Score!
  Problem is, Loris only rolls a 15. Tey’re able to get the fre tamed, but to do it, they have to take some of the fre 
  into themselves. Ouch! Loris gets the debility fre boils as little pockets of fre begin erupting from their skin at 
  random intervals. Tat’s gonna stick around until Loris gets a cure of some kind for it.
  
  How to Moderate All Tis Nonsense
  So you’re the one in charge, huh? Everyone is looking to you to set the scene, give the details, voice any character 
  that’s not played by someone else at the table, etc. Good! Tis is a fun place to be. Tere are a few things to keep 
  in mind as you go about doing this; your agenda, if you will.
  Keep Tings Fantastic 
  Tis is a fantasy tavern and should be described as such. Tis game is supposed to be a little of-the-wall, so think 
  of your favorite fantasy tropes and turn the dial up on them.
  Keep Tings Flavorful 
  Describe the smells, tastes, sights, and sounds around the characters. Te ghoul munching on a leg over in the 
  corner doesn’t just smell gross; it smells like someone killed a pair of swamp water-flled hiking boots, buried 
  them for six weeks, dug them up, set them on fre, and then walked through a trash pile.
  Complicate Tings 
  Tis is a game of mild escalation. If it ends with the Tavern being burned down, so be it; it’ll be back again to-
  morrow because magic. When the characters try to do something, make things interesting for me. Get in their 
  way and make their respective stories engaging.
  Be a Fan 
  You’re complicating things, sure, but you needs to cheer their successes, too. You’re not the players’ adversary; 
  you’re there to spotlight their characters and throw twists at them.
  Don’t Make All the Decisions 
  Tere are other minds at the table with you. Asking the players “what do you see?” “what does that feel like?” 
  “how do you know Huldir the Becalmed?” and similar takes some of the cognitive load of of you. Share these 
  duties. Te players have their own small agenda, near the beginning of this document; expect them to do those 
  things.
  Keep Tings Challenging 
  Unless a player is Awesome at a lot of things, the last two difculty tiers are hard to hit. Tere’ll be a lot of full 
  failures or complicated successes if you make things too challenging. Find a balance that works for your group.
  Bonus! Is What You Make It 
  You can let the players do whatever they want with the Bonus! Tokens. Creating story details, being better at cer-
  tain tasks, re-rolling the dice, etc. are just a few examples. Like the previous item, fnd the balance that works for 
  your group and write down what you think that currency can do.
  Have Fun 
  Tat means diferent things for diferent people, but you should all agree at the top of the session what kind of 
  fun you’re looking to have. 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Old School Revival (OSR(ic))/[Miscellaneous Rules Simple Systems]/Downtime.pdf