[penllawen]

I didn't realise I wanted downtime rules until I looked at the ones from A Light In the Dark. Then I immediately realised I did. A few things didn't fit for me though; they're optimised for a living campaign, so they're a bit too detailed in places and a bit too simple in others for my home game.

So I wrote my own, which you can read here. They're very heavily patterned after the A Light In The Dark ones, with a few modifications to suit my own biases.

I've never been completely happy with how I've handled downtime. It felt a little like an underbaked idea, a randomised tax the GM imposes; "well done for finishing that run. It's now going to be... ummm, let's say three weeks until your next one. Pay lifestyle costs. OK next run!" This system puts players in control, with a series of options they can pursue. Hopefully, the balancing works where all the options have their own attractions, without anything being overly powerful or creating a cognitive dissonance around "well, why are these people shadowrunners, then?" It also puts some emphasis on how being a shadowrunner is brutal work - it takes time to heal up, to get 'ware fitted, to train and improve.

I've tried to minimise dice rolling, including a speedy gear acquisition path that makes stuff easier to get hold of when the schedule isn't tight. I've added a sort of resource currency for contacts, to represent the flow of favours back and forth to them, and hopefully give a little flavour of being part of a group of criminals. I've added zero-cost healing and gear repair options to recover between runs, which formalises the handwaving I was doing anyway. And I've added a very light progression system for contacts, both finding new ones and improving loyalty with the ones you have.

I've also taken the chance to buff a few things I feel are a little underpowered in RAW. Sleep regulators become quite potent, for example. Faces should shine here, able to butter up contacts for future favours as well as find new contacts more easily. People with good technical skills might make a non-trivial amount of nuyen on side hustles, maybe even enough to make rent on a crappy apartment - but no more. They're still gonna be hungry.

Feedback welcomed! I'm still very much moving some of the numbers around, and trying to balance options against each other; I expect this will continue as it gets a proper playtest. But please do tell me if you spot any egregious oversights or exploits.

[BeCareful]

Huh, sounds good. I do like engaging in downtime, espeically if the GM sends messages to each player from one of their characters' contacts.

I always thought the standard presumption was "one weekly shadowrun", or more if they're short/easy.

Also, my plan was just, if any of my players complain about training times taking too long, to offer them a run from one of the Big Ten, with a reward of an all-expenses-paid resort vacation: a whole month of the Luxurious life, where training times are halved 'cause of all the fun they're having. It counts even if their training would go beyond the end of the trip (so yes, if they spend 3 months & 6 days working on other stuff, then spend the last day starting something that would take multiple months, I'd let them cheese the system). Then, if anyone wanted to smuggle cigars or something, I could work out a side plot.

[penllawen]

Huh, sounds good.

Thanks!

I always thought the standard presumption was "one weekly shadowrun", or more if they're short/easy.

I think some tables work that way. I'm working to make my Seattle shadows rather smaller and more intimate than that, so I wanted to reduce the pace of runs as part of scaling the whole, err, "scene" down. I also wanted to stress that shadowrunning isn't easy and your professional characters are doing stuff all the time just to maintain their bodies, skills, and gear.

I also want to make sure they have to think about lifestyle costs as something. One of my new batch of characters has chosen not only High but also the quality that means she takes penalties if she drops below High; I'm going to make that hurt a little bit.