Your questions inspired me to write an actual play post, if you wanna check it out: http://www.pyresofvam.com/odds-ends/actual-play/monsterhearts-actual-play-edgegate-part-1/

Briefly, the highlights were:

- Cole, the chaos ghoul, made another student’s lab experiment explode, probably killing the poor NPC. Cole jammed the door as gas filled the room, to create more chaos, yet when he finally stopped pretending the door was stuck and dragged the unconscious NPC into the hallway he was hailed as a hero!

- Jane, our part-machine Hollow dealt 3-harm to an NPC with a Terminator-strength bitch slap in a cat-fight, hospitalising her.

- It was subtle, but I really liked that Aurora and Cole shook hands on a promise and both lingered slight, both rolling 10+ on to turn each other on. In the backstory, Cole has had love rekindled in his dead heart after seeing Aurora frolic naked in the woods. Before we even started play Aurora had 4 Strings on Cole, now it’s 5.

- More than anything I loved how the game played, how we all suggested how things could go and how as the MC I didn’t have to strain to come up with where things would go next. Snowballing and chain reactions are awesome.

Thanks again for making such a great game, Joe. Congrats!

What happened in your session? What were the big highlights?

Usually all the players wanted to do a little something during downtime so we’d meet for the next session and that session was very very streamlined. All it consisted of was numerous skill checks. There was no awesome story, or combat or anything. It was simply a matter of what did you want to do and did you succeed or fail.

After that session was over, we would take real time downtime for a good while, like 2 weeks (when you’re playing 2-3 times per week, a 2-week real downtime is major) and then get back to the story.

As far as in-game downtime is concerned, it depends on what kind of game it is. If it’s a bunch of smaller adventures then sure, decide that the next event won’t happen for a while and then the players can have more exploration “downtime”. If it’s a campaign taking players from level 1 to level 20+ then chances are the in-game downtime will be limited to smaller stuff that can just be quick checks.

One of the things I do like about running games on IRC is my players can contact me on IRC during downtime and if they wish to do something in downtime, we can handle it quickly then and there and not have to hold a special session. If they can’t get to me on IRC (which is rare) they can email me their request and we can handle it.

What I think is more important, especially in the internet age where people are running games online (either IRC, or skype/ventrilo or a virtual table top), is for people to have good amounts of REAL downtime.

I have seen players get bored and burned out from playing long sessions multiple times a week. I handle my games like college courses. My sessions are 3-4 hrs long and maybe 2 days a week, spread out like Monday & Thursday or Tuesday & Friday.

Whatever system you use, whatever mechanics/house rules you use, the idea of in-game downtime should be about giving them a nice diversion from “questing” and giving players the freedom to explore or invent or whatever other ideas are in their heads. It also helps extend your campaign like Mockingbard said.

I totally agree about the mini-quest or a seed for bigger things. I haven’t fully explored that side of it yet, in play, but I have used it a few times recently and it’s worked great even so.

So far, a double raise has resulted in a new NPC contact and double pay, a raise resulted in the PC getting paid for leading some NPCs deeper into the ratman sewer warrens she cleared out the entrance to in play, and a failure resulted in minstrel NPC friend getting roughed up and now relying on the PC to pay for her food and board until her fingers healed so she could make a living again.

It was an easy way, in all instances, to expand the world and the PC’s experiences. It also nicely fills in the gaps, so when we say one session = about one week in-game, we know some of the things that happened ‘off screen’ and she still profits from those.

Apocalypse World and Dungeon World have several good crunchy bits that have story seeds worked right in. I’ll have to have another look and see what else I can steal and modify

+1

Everyone has their own ideas and ways of streamlining, but once someone spins an existing system it shows others a way to play they may not have thought of.

I love systems that have sidebars and such that explain the designer’s thoughts and reasoning and what tweaking X will change and if you like Y, you can change Z to get to it.

Lots of indie games do this too. Savage Worlds Deluxe also has some things like this, and Clint Black is always available on the forums to provide official answers and feedback on other people’s house rules. Paizo staff do a good job of this too.

Anyway, props to you for working on your own system and doing it right.

Good on you

All somebody has to do is study the mechanics enough to understand how the pieces come together and how they all work together. Once you get that down you put your own flavor into it. Hopefully if you’ve studied the mechanics well enough you also know how to streamline and lighten the rules up a bit, including overhauling the mechanics to fit your needs beyond simply house ruling.

This is one of the many reasons why I’m making my own system. Take the SRDs and put MY spins on them..and MY interpretations and have them all documented and put into a lovely PDF form and pass it out like candy at Halloween Not only will I have explanations for my spins on it, how they work and why I did them, I will also openly give advice in the e-book on how to spin it your own flavor and will even give my email address and IRC room in case anybody wants to come and get assistance or whatever.

I encourage everybody to dismantle whatever system they like and make it their own style and flavor of it.