Spending Downtime

Last night I played a 1-on-1 session with the referee in preparation of restarting a campaign. He tried his hand at a less scripted session and it went well. We came away with a few fun new NPC hirelings that he rolled on the spot (two of whom died, but c'est la vie).

We also tried to generate some random content by rolling on downtime tables for research found in one of the 5th Edition supplements. The procedure called for the player to roll an INT check to determine if they found 0, 1, 2, or 3 leads. Then, the player rolled for a 1-in-10 chance to experience a complication. If they did, they would roll a d6 on a complications table.

Successful magical research (art from Herrmann's Book of Magic)

What a waste. The up front portion of the downtime activity - rolling to discover some lore - is as uninspired as it comes. No choice involved, just roll and hope for a high number to learn.

I wanted to roll on the complications table, but as written I was so unlikely to do so. It held a few interesting, emergent outcomes. This whole mechanic should have presented a trade-off or choice from the start. You could do that by including the complications roll in the INT check.

Roll the d20 and the d6 simultaneously. If you succeed, you discover a relevant lead. If you fail, you discover an unrelated rumor. Either way, you experience the complication. This results in fun outcomes regardless of the roll.

To take this a step further, a referee could create a unique complication for every d20 result, with worse complications tied to lower results. Then, combine the downtime roll to a single check.