Hi all.
As I've started preparing to run Missions I've begun looking into things like the missions calendar and downtime between missions.
Aside from training (pg.103-107 in SR5), what exactly can characters use their downtime for in a Missions campaign? And how do they go about doing it? The FAQ is not very clear on this.
Downtime can be spent just like normal, but there's a lot of changes from the standard rules. You always use the buying hits rules for activities that are permanent (like buying a gun, learning a spell, or having a contact network for you, for example), and several activities are handled in special ways (such as fixing all the broken drek and healing damage suffered during a run). From the FAQ, page 10 and 11:
"Any additional time that you take to buy gear, train, etc. should all be marked on the calendar, and take additional time on your calendar. You may take multiple actions in a single week if they take fewer than 7 days, and actions may spill into the following week. So a training session that takes 3 days and learning a spell that takes 6 days would take 9 days total. You track your weeks in full though, so any “unused days” before the next Mission are lost.
You must pay your Lifestyle costs at the beginning of the week of each month (after the first month), before you do anything else that week.
You may not take more than four weeks off between shadowruns. After all, you need to keep your name out there. Runners that stay hidden too long run the risk of being forgotten, and your fixer will stop calling if you ignore him too often."Note the restrictions on amount of downtime; 1 week per run and then 4 weeks of downtime max between each run.
The Missions calendar concept has me a little confused. I assume that the calendar is per character, and is mostly used to track that character's time spent training and going on runs - is that right?
Correct. Each player character maintains their own Missions calendar separate from all others.
Do players mark the missions their characters take part in on the calendar, and if so, does a run take an entire week's slot even though in game time the run only lasted a couple of days or even a few hours?
Yes, and yes. From the FAQ page 10:
"You can run one Missions adventure per week, and you cannot use that week for anything else."Can this scenario come up?: Two people who both attend the same two sessions in a row, have different amounts of downtime marked on their characters calendars between those two Missions because one needed more training time than the other
Yes, this is a very probable outcome, since as mentioned above each player character's calendar is separate from any others.
Is the downtime a character can have related at all to the real-world time between Missions sessions?
As I understand it Missions are designed for convention play where the group of players are unlikely to be consistent. Think of Missions less like your traditional game between a group of friends and more like a game between total strangers who all share a love for Shadowrun.
I think that's enough stupid questions for now 
Hope you guys can help
R.M.
Have fun with Missions!
