Some players thrive on fast action and goodies, some like to soak up the local atmosphere of the adventure dujour. One way to keep up the pace during table day, and let the RP players enjoy themselves a little more, is to allow them some individual or small group RP time to dink around during downtime. First, lets deal with the obvious. This means more work for the DM; there's no way around that, but it doesn't have to be a whole lot more work.
I did some light research here in these forums, but mostly found scattered ideas among a great deal of lore, encounters, and to some extent insights on some players personal lives. Hoping to encourage others to drop the method(s) they use, here in one more centralized place. I'll dredge up a few from memories of the old days as well, back when iron was beating out bronze on the battle fields. As I'm not up on current rules and publicly accepted lore, I'll stick to basics that could be applied to most any RP scenario:
First, some basic guidelines that I have used in the past (very basic; add/change anything to suit your campaign): When a party voluntarily splits up at a town, city, rendezvous point, etc., this time may be spent gathering information, role-playing the making of a special item, or the gathering/purchasing of supplies, special ingredients, or one's consultation with one's contact/patron/overlord. . .
A predetermined amount of game world time is allotted to this; it's up to the players involved to get their character back in time to continue with the primary campaign. It's also up to the players to get this stuff done before the attached, scheduled campaign comes along in real time. No side adventure can be used to build experience levels. I strongly advise against letting any character earn anything resembling a magic item/magic weapon/chest of gold during these side trips.
If an established or random encounter, or whatnot kills or somehow removes the character from active play, that player may need a replacement character, in order to continue with the main campaign. Make it clear to the player that their character can die on one of these side trips, but will not gain any experience points/level advantage over the others in the main party. The primary purpose of these side trips is to give the role player the chance to add to their character's story, without bogging down play during the big game.
As long as the "I'm here for the combat, the loot, and the nachos." people understand that they lose no game advantage by not attending, and that they didn't have to sit around being bored by role play on their time, I found that they are generally fine with it. Your results may vary. Everyone may decide that they want to stroll through town, individually or in smaller groups.
It's your time; you decide how much to give them. As both a DM, and a player, I like both fast, time-sensitive action, been known to use a chess clock, and the story building behind role play. As a DM, I like giving the role players time to share in the story line. Can some role players get carried away? Let's just say that I do cringe when I see a player drag out thirty pages of notes, and take a deep breath before they start.
One may have to establish role play time limits. Example: "Your character has 15 minutes of active role play this session, including any replies you get from PCs and NPCs. You the player have 5 minutes of behind the scenes explanations for your character's actions." A chess clock works beautifully for that purpose. Stick with the time limit, or don't bother using it at all. A time clock that may sometimes be ignored will always be ignored.
In the fact-finding short 'n sweet category, we have the 2Y/N+E (Just made it up; kinda like the higher math look ;) Two questions gain yes/no answers, one gains an essay answer: A direct answer, or a puzzle, or maybe coded in thieve's cant, perhaps the information is incomplete but only offer direct lies sparingly. Keep in mind, "I don't know" can always be the honest answer, if this personal quest shares no part in the local environment.
Example; live, video, or phone:Our solo adventurer wanders down the alley, pointed out to him by his guide, who promptly slips away. You find a beggar near the dead end of that alley. Using investigation in this case, our hero says, "I understand that we may share a friend in common." *makes his roll* The statement requires an answer, the first Y/N.
"Yes"
Our hero asks, "For the right price, could I find her tonight?" *fails his roll* But he sweetens the deal with that bejeweled, cursed dagger he's no longer tied to, and wants to unload.
"Most definitely." (translation, Yes!)
Our hero says, "Tell me her address, and I'll drop this in that alms bucket of yours." *fails his roll* Ooooh, no good! Now he has to defeat the three assailants coming at him from the rooftops. Should he defeat them, and keep the informant alive, he can try once more before the city guard arrives.
This can be done in this form via email or text (because of the two yes/no answers, the DM only has to give the thumbs a workout on one of the questions):
Player can send all this at once: I want to meet The Beggar.
[If that happens (ITH)]"I understand that we may share a friend in common."
[if y]"For the right price, could I find her tonight?"
[if n]"So she's on your shit list, too?"
[if y]"Tell me her address, and I'll drop this in that alms bucket of yours."
[if n]"I understand. It's hard to stay mad at her. I really need to see her. Can you give me her address?"
The DM then makes their decision(s), and contacts the player at their liesure. At this point, our hero either gets that address or doesn't, and may either be walking away in triumph or failure, or may be running back toward the adventuring party, with half the local beggars guild chasing him down.
I tend to run a parallel rp-channel in discord that allow for deeper exploration, longer descriptions, and interactions. The regular weekly face to face (well via a VTT) session is still a mix of combat, RP, and exploration. It does mean that there can be entire sesisons that are almsot exclusively RP with very few dice being rolled, and some that are one long series of combat encounters - all situationally dependent.
But I do find that having the text channel on the side allowing for contextual discussions and descriptions gets used quite a lot (albeit some more than others). The two do keep the same time tracking roughly (e.g. text channel can be used for retrospective conversations between players and players with NPCs during travel times as well), but it open up an avenue for players to explore more of the surroundings, interacting with NPCs and get some of the lore that would simply get too dense during sessions.
We have sometimes had a player that have missed several sessions for personal reasons, and i typically offer them a 1 hour 1 to 1 call to catch up and potentially even a short side trek to bring them back into the story.
Having said that, I would be hesitant about running fully split sessions for a divided group - mainly due to the time and organisational strain on a DM.
This is an old school for sure. Email or even snail mail:
Example: From the player, in a previously-agreed-upon format; [My Character]'s downtime plans/wants while at [village, town, city, rendezvous point]:
(The player's primary mission/desires) "If they learn of the sage in town, [My Character] desperately wants to see that person. (Brief and blunt:) 1 They want to know if this sage recognizes this mark on his body. 2. . . 3. . ." (Story line meat and potatoes; the players should not expect any game advantage from this, but may very well gain a lead to another, upcoming adventure.)
"If allowed, will pay the local guild their due and set up a temporary locksmith shop; in an open market environment if weather allows. [My Character] will offer up this service, make lock-sets, repair clocks and clockworks, as well as offer to build small traps for boxes and such, and will design larger, more sophisticated traps to order as well.
"Always watching, listening, cautiously asking around (Note that this character has investigation skills). Needs to find their surviving family, and hope to either locate their master/creator, or learn then confirm that the person in question is dead.
"Stock [My Character's] poison kit (Does this character find and procure anything interesting?) Restock their disguise kit.
"Enjoy a few good meals. "Roots, bugs and mice are fine, but pork chops and baked apples are divine." Enjoy a few warm baths. If there are any locals, who don't have a problem with Them, then they will enjoy their company as well. Will spend 3/4 of their coin stash."
(The DM reads, decides on the outcome, gets back to the player.)
Some players thrive on fast action and goodies, some like to soak up the local atmosphere of the adventure dujour. One way to keep up the pace during table day, and let the RP players enjoy themselves a little more, is to allow them some individual or small group RP time to dink around during downtime. First, lets deal with the obvious. This means more work for the DM; there's no way around that, but it doesn't have to be a whole lot more work.
I did some light research here in these forums, but mostly found scattered ideas among a great deal of lore, encounters, and to some extent insights on some players personal lives. Hoping to encourage others to drop the method(s) they use, here in one more centralized place. I'll dredge up a few from memories of the old days as well, back when iron was beating out bronze on the battle fields. As I'm not up on current rules and publicly accepted lore, I'll stick to basics that could be applied to most any RP scenario:
First, some basic guidelines that I have used in the past (very basic; add/change anything to suit your campaign): When a party voluntarily splits up at a town, city, rendezvous point, etc., this time may be spent gathering information, role-playing the making of a special item, or the gathering/purchasing of supplies, special ingredients, or one's consultation with one's contact/patron/overlord. . .
A predetermined amount of game world time is allotted to this; it's up to the players involved to get their character back in time to continue with the primary campaign. It's also up to the players to get this stuff done before the attached, scheduled campaign comes along in real time. No side adventure can be used to build experience levels. I strongly advise against letting any character earn anything resembling a magic item/magic weapon/chest of gold during these side trips.
If an established or random encounter, or whatnot kills or somehow removes the character from active play, that player may need a replacement character, in order to continue with the main campaign. Make it clear to the player that their character can die on one of these side trips, but will not gain any experience points/level advantage over the others in the main party. The primary purpose of these side trips is to give the role player the chance to add to their character's story, without bogging down play during the big game.
As long as the "I'm here for the combat, the loot, and the nachos." people understand that they lose no game advantage by not attending, and that they didn't have to sit around being bored by role play on their time, I found that they are generally fine with it. Your results may vary. Everyone may decide that they want to stroll through town, individually or in smaller groups.
It's your time; you decide how much to give them. As both a DM, and a player, I like both fast, time-sensitive action, been known to use a chess clock, and the story building behind role play. As a DM, I like giving the role players time to share in the story line. Can some role players get carried away? Let's just say that I do cringe when I see a player drag out thirty pages of notes, and take a deep breath before they start.
One may have to establish role play time limits. Example: "Your character has 15 minutes of active role play this session, including any replies you get from PCs and NPCs. You the player have 5 minutes of behind the scenes explanations for your character's actions." A chess clock works beautifully for that purpose. Stick with the time limit, or don't bother using it at all. A time clock that may sometimes be ignored will always be ignored.
In the fact-finding short 'n sweet category, we have the 2Y/N+E (Just made it up; kinda like the higher math look ;) Two questions gain yes/no answers, one gains an essay answer: A direct answer, or a puzzle, or maybe coded in thieve's cant, perhaps the information is incomplete but only offer direct lies sparingly. Keep in mind, "I don't know" can always be the honest answer, if this personal quest shares no part in the local environment.
Example; live, video, or phone: Our solo adventurer wanders down the alley, pointed out to him by his guide, who promptly slips away. You find a beggar near the dead end of that alley. Using investigation in this case, our hero says, "I understand that we may share a friend in common." *makes his roll* The statement requires an answer, the first Y/N.
"Yes"
Our hero asks, "For the right price, could I find her tonight?" *fails his roll* But he sweetens the deal with that bejeweled, cursed dagger he's no longer tied to, and wants to unload.
"Most definitely." (translation, Yes!)
Our hero says, "Tell me her address, and I'll drop this in that alms bucket of yours." *fails his roll* Ooooh, no good! Now he has to defeat the three assailants coming at him from the rooftops. Should he defeat them, and keep the informant alive, he can try once more before the city guard arrives.
This can be done in this form via email or text (because of the two yes/no answers, the DM only has to give the thumbs a workout on one of the questions):
Player can send all this at once: I want to meet The Beggar.
[If that happens (ITH)]"I understand that we may share a friend in common."
[if y]"For the right price, could I find her tonight?"
[if n]"So she's on your shit list, too?"
[if y]"Tell me her address, and I'll drop this in that alms bucket of yours."
[if n]"I understand. It's hard to stay mad at her. I really need to see her. Can you give me her address?"
The DM then makes their decision(s), and contacts the player at their liesure. At this point, our hero either gets that address or doesn't, and may either be walking away in triumph or failure, or may be running back toward the adventuring party, with half the local beggars guild chasing him down.
I tend to run a parallel rp-channel in discord that allow for deeper exploration, longer descriptions, and interactions. The regular weekly face to face (well via a VTT) session is still a mix of combat, RP, and exploration. It does mean that there can be entire sesisons that are almsot exclusively RP with very few dice being rolled, and some that are one long series of combat encounters - all situationally dependent.
But I do find that having the text channel on the side allowing for contextual discussions and descriptions gets used quite a lot (albeit some more than others). The two do keep the same time tracking roughly (e.g. text channel can be used for retrospective conversations between players and players with NPCs during travel times as well), but it open up an avenue for players to explore more of the surroundings, interacting with NPCs and get some of the lore that would simply get too dense during sessions.
We have sometimes had a player that have missed several sessions for personal reasons, and i typically offer them a 1 hour 1 to 1 call to catch up and potentially even a short side trek to bring them back into the story.
Having said that, I would be hesitant about running fully split sessions for a divided group - mainly due to the time and organisational strain on a DM.
This is an old school for sure. Email or even snail mail:
Example: From the player, in a previously-agreed-upon format; [My Character]'s downtime plans/wants while at [village, town, city, rendezvous point]:
(The player's primary mission/desires) "If they learn of the sage in town, [My Character] desperately wants to see that person. (Brief and blunt:) 1 They want to know if this sage recognizes this mark on his body. 2. . . 3. . ." (Story line meat and potatoes; the players should not expect any game advantage from this, but may very well gain a lead to another, upcoming adventure.)
"If allowed, will pay the local guild their due and set up a temporary locksmith shop; in an open market environment if weather allows. [My Character] will offer up this service, make lock-sets, repair clocks and clockworks, as well as offer to build small traps for boxes and such, and will design larger, more sophisticated traps to order as well.
"Always watching, listening, cautiously asking around (Note that this character has investigation skills). Needs to find their surviving family, and hope to either locate their master/creator, or learn then confirm that the person in question is dead.
"Stock [My Character's] poison kit (Does this character find and procure anything interesting?) Restock their disguise kit.
"Enjoy a few good meals. "Roots, bugs and mice are fine, but pork chops and baked apples are divine." Enjoy a few warm baths. If there are any locals, who don't have a problem with Them, then they will enjoy their company as well. Will spend 3/4 of their coin stash."
(The DM reads, decides on the outcome, gets back to the player.)