Downtimes are one of the oddest parts of a LARP. In table top, you often show up to a game, play for a few hours, leave, come back the next week and pick up from where you left off. In a LARP however, there are usually 2-3 weeks in between games both in real life and in game time. So, we have to fill the time somehow, right? Yet, how to fill that time is an entirely different prospect, and means different things to different players. So, I am writing up a few different ways to look at it, and some ideas for making downtimes a little easier, a little more involved, and a little more useful. Take what works for you, and hopefully downtimes will start making more sense.

I mentioned in my last set of tips and tricks, the idea of writing notes to yourself during games, and using those notes to fuel your downtimes. Things like "Research Maltese Falcon for the Sanctified" can be extremely useful to you. When it's time to write your downtime, write "Research Maltese Falcon using Occult skill" and you're pretty much set, right? A few more actions and you're all done. Ideally, this should take about 5 minutes, and then you hit submit (or send if you're not using the DT form) and you wait for a response.

I call this kind of downtime the quickie (I just came up with that now, clever, aren't I?) and it's an extremely useful one. You get your DT done and move on. I can't promise your ST won't ask you questions like "How are you researching the Maltese Falcon? Are you looking in books, or asking other occultists?", but the amount of effort you put in to it is pretty minimal, it lets the ST know what you're up to, and gets you some xp. Everything's good.

Now that we've gone over the quickie, let's talk about what kind of actions your character might take during a downtime. The most common actions are Training and Research. In order to learn new skills, disciplines, merits, and whatever else, characters need to train. If you're trying to push a DT out, this could be as simple as "Training in the next level of Celerity" or it could be as detailed as "I'm going to the abandoned rail road park and practicing sprinting between rail road tracks.

The basics for training are pretty simple, you can train in as many separate things as you want, but you can't train multiple levels of something in a single downtime. So, you can train Dominate, Obfuscate, and Computers, but you can't train enough to buy 2 levels of Occult in one downtime. For skills, merits, and attributes, you can up your levels quickly, usually in one downtime, but with Disciplines, it's a little harder. In clan disciplines train at a 1 to 1 rate, so if you are learning level 1, it takes one downtime (and you can purchase it immediately. Level 2 takes 2 downtimes and so on. Out of clans are a number of downtimes equal to the level plus one. So, if you are a Mekhet training level 2 of Dominate (not in clan for Mekhet), then it would take you three downtimes to learn. Level 3 would then take you 4, etc. This is lessened if you have a teacher or Mentor.

Then, of course, there's Research. You may be trying to track down information on an object, another vampire, a human, or something else along those lines, but if information is power, then Researching stuff is vital to your downtime.

One of the things that a lot of people struggle with (I know I do) is how to make your character as useful as possible. If there are 3 characters who specialize in beating the hell out of others, how do you distinguish yourself? I'll get into that question a little deeper when I go over character creation (and recreation) in a later write up, but the relevant answer is through research. Try to find out who killed the latest missing hire, or the secret behind an artifact, and you may find yourself the go to person for getting similar information the next time an issue crops up. The more people rely on you, the more involved your character is, and the more they stand to gain. You're a lot more likely to be able to turn information into boons, for example, if people know your info is good shit.

If you have Allies, Contacts, a Mentor, or a similar Merit, downtimes are also an excellent time to try to get them to dig up information, help you out with an action, or help you train. Of course, they may ask for something in return, but it's a small price to pay, right? Be sure to work with your ST on the nature of each of these Merits, and then you can either write something quick "Ally in transportation is investigating a robbery in the subway or go more in depth. It's all up to you.

There are lots of other possibilities for downtimes, and I highly encourage talking to your ST if you aren't sure what else to include (just be sure to do it in advance so you can get your DT in early and earn some extra xp), but there are a couple of other ways to make sure you always have stuff to work on and to make your DT writeup easy and quick.

The first is to always keep a record of your previous downtimes. If you use the downtime form on the site, copy your answers to a Word document (or other word processor) or write them in one to begin with. Otherwise just make sure you have a copy saved somewhere or ask nice and I'll forward old DTs to you. If you have records of your old downtimes, you can refer to them, update your actions based on what you got from your last downtime and/or what you learned/did at the game and you're all set.

Another trick I like to use is to write up everything I want to purchase for my character and how much it would cost. I keep the list in a document, and then refer to it during downtimes. Once all of that is done, I have an easy to reference list of stuff I want to buy, and then each downtime I decide what to purchase. It takes a little time to work up, but saves a lot of time each downtime since I already know what I want to buy.

Finally, though possibly most importantly, I cannot stress enough how important it is to have goals for your character. Again, I'll cover this more in character creation (and recreation), but having goals is important to your downtimes. Do you want to become Division Head? Are you trying to find your sire? Do you want to uncover the truth behind the recent disappearances? If you know what your goals are, downtimes become much easier. Just take your goal and figure out what the next step in achieving it would be and try to accomplish that. For example, if my goal is to become Division Head, I can't just walk in to Elysium and declare myself so. Instead, I might have my downtime action be to research the current Division Head and try to find out some secret of theirs. If I can find one, then I can use it to discredit the Division Head and hopefully eventually usurp him, but the first step is getting the information. Figure out what your goals are and then work from there. If you are having trouble coming up with goals, talk to your ST.

Do you have any suggestions for how to make downtimes easier, more effective, more fun? If so, please share them. Alison M. had some good advice from the last Tips & Tricks writeup, suggesting that you find an in character reason to have a clipboard, folder, or something similar for writing notes to yourself in. In a pinch you can always write on the back of your character sheet, but a clipboard would definitely help.