188 - Downtime

Optional Rules: Downtime

It’s over. Maybe you got what you wanted: the villain was defeated, the day saved and you and your friends victorious. Or maybe not, life’s not fair and often someone getting what they want is at another’s expense like it or not. Regardless of the outcome, it’s time to move on and build towards your next objective.

But not all of life is highs and lows and adventure, between the drama you’ll need some time to destress and put yourselves back together. A broken leg won’t heal if you insist on going out crime-fighting every night. Downtime rules cover what characters get up to during extended off-screen moments - if you’ve finished an objective or stalled out on one they can be used to sum up some productive things a cabal gets up to in the weeks or months when it isn’t changing the world. And provide consequences for those choices when play resumes.

Pursuits
Pursuits are the things you focus on during downtime. You’re assumed to take care of the incidentals of day to day living, but it wouldn’t be Unknown Armies if you couldn’t neglect your health or your loved ones in the pursuit of personal gain. By default you get a single pursuit per downtime but can take up to two additional pursuits in return for risking greater complications due to spreading yourself too thin (which are covered in the next section).

Physical Recuperation: Use the medicine rules on page 74 of Book 1: Play to assess the rate of recovery based on whatever method you choose: be it kicking your feet up at home with some ice packs or wheeling your leaky carcass into an ER and crying “hit and run”. Recovery that takes up to half the period covered by your downtime counts as one pursuit, anything higher counts as two (but only if you decide to do anything else). Another PC can provide medical assistance with one of their identities as a pursuit if desired (the effort counts as Continuing Education for them).

Therapy: As above, use the therapy rules on page 75 of Book 1: Play provided you’re willing to subject yourself to some kind of mental health support. Each pursuit is good for one roll under the Helping The Disturbed category at a level determined by your therapist. Another PC can use a pursuit to provide this therapy with one of their identities if desired (the effort counts as Continuing Education for them).

Quality Time: Put in the hours with your nearest and dearest to show them how much you care, social connection is good for you too. For each pursuit spent developing your connection with another person add 5% to that relationship with a successful roll on an ability or identity relevant to what you do together.

Continuing Education: Whether going to night school or obsessively practicing in your garage, working on your skills pays off in terms of competency. Gain 1-5% (1d10 divided by 2, rounded up) in an identity per pursuit spent on it with a failed roll on that identity (or a successful roll for avatars). The penalty for pursuing multiple pursuits doesn’t make this easier for non-avatar identities, if the roll wouldn’t fail without the penalty you don’t get the benefit (but you still risk complications).

Charge Gathering: Outside of charging rituals or weird artifacts (which should be handled as a Unique pursuit) this is an option only available to adepts. Roll your adept identity, gaining the sum of the roll plus your school’s omega (assume it’s zero if you don’t know it) in minor charges. If you manage to scrounge up more than 10 you can trade that many up to a significant charge (now and only now) since this activity is abstracted.

Treading Water: One thing that’s off limits during downtime is pursuing objective milestones, that’s strictly on-screen business. However you can work to keep progress you have, each pursuit spent treading water protects against 1d10% of deterioration to the percentiles of a standing objective or the carry over to a new one with a successful roll on an ability or identity relevant to how you do maintenance on it.

Unique: This covers everything else that idle magi might get up to when they aren’t busy changing the world. Casting rituals, figuring out how artifacts work, setting up a new cabal clubhouse after the old one got burned down. Exact details of how this category works are up to the GM on an individual basis, but should involve some sort of roll, at least for the purposes of determining whether there are complications.

Complications
Unknown Armies is all about actions having consequences and downtime is no different. Given that downtime pursuits are a metaphorical barrel on a street corner labelled “FREE STUFF” it’s not surprising that there might be some dirty needles at the bottom. By default a matched failure or fumble on a pursuit roll lets the GM pick a complication from the following list. If the player is greedy things get worse. If they’re juggling two pursuits their rolls are at a -20% shift and if they’re ballsy enough to go for three then in addition to that penalty any failure triggers a complication.

The exact nature of a complication should narratively play off the pursuits chosen by a player. At the GMs discretion the player may use this to highlight what they’re most willing to risk.

Injury: Physical and mental trauma, the past can come back to bite you or pushing too hard can mean risking your bodily or psychological integrity. Take 1d10 wounds or a stress check (of a high enough rank you need to roll dice, no freebies) on a gauge determined by the GM. Bad screw ups during treatment for these things are covered under their individual sections in Book 1, use those where acceptable.

Gaffe: Whether it’s neglect or familiarity breeding contempt not all relationships are happy ones. Maybe you screwed up, maybe it was completely beyond your control. Regardless, lose 1d10% from one of your relationships as it sours.

Rust: Not keeping up with a passion or career risks dulling your skills. If you’re too busy burning the midnight oil trying to summon grandma's ghost for a chat about your inheritance your suffering work ethic might mean demotion at work. Lose 1-5% (1d10 divided by 2, rounded up) off of one of your identities.

Taboo: For adepts and avatars there’s a fine line to walk on the path to power. Screwing up costs all your charges for the former or 1-5% (1d10 divided by 2, rounded up) off your identity for the latter.

Objective Decay: If you have an incomplete objective that you’re taking time off from or are planning to build on your previous success then leaving it alone risks your work turning fallow. Knock 1d10% off of those objective percentiles as you lose momentum or your opposition screws around unopposed. Ideally the GM should only go for this if the players intend to keep going with what they have, but it’s understandable if cutting into their work sours them on it after the fact.

Unique: Whether it’s their chickens coming home to roost or foreboding omens on the horizon, the GM can use this miscellaneous category to resolve unfinished business or seed new complications and hooks to be dealt with when play resumes. Or just mess with the players in general.