Another concept I want to support when PCs are in Town is that of off-camera play. Gygax mentions it basically in passing in the DMG, when he speaks of the importance of keeping time. He spoke of time passing when a PC traveled to see an oracle, how many days the character would be unavailable for inclusion in adventures when other PCs wanted to go slog around a dungeon. The whole bit was simply to focus on the PC being unavailable, and with the assumed approach to adventuring at the time being one game day equaling one real world day, and keeping track of what days a PC was available was important in continuity. I walked away from reading that, however, with a sense that off-camera play is a thing and wondering how I could use it at my table.

I can’t say that I worked out any solid procedures for it. It rarely came up in play, actually, and certainly not in any way that involved closely tracking travel time or the like, just a general break in adventuring for a couple of weeks until that PC returned. Aside from an assassination attempt, there was never a formal process for even determining how well the trip went (a D20 roll, perhaps). I find now that I really want a formal process for off-camera activities as a part of Town play.

This has a few predicates. First, the activity the PC is engaged in is a solo endeavour; querying an oracle isn’t a team event. Next, what travel is involved isn’t through the wild and wooly Wilderness where adventure hangs from tree limbs and drops on passersby, so traveling with an adventuring party isn’t an expected part of it. I also reckon that the effects of the off-camera play shouldn’t be of primary importance in any group concerns.

The procedure for off-camera activity needs to be able to gauge the time spent in pursuing it as part of managing Town activities as a whole, plus offer choices to the player as the activity is pursued that affect the off-camera activity, other Town activity, or both. The Town cycle is a major part of the game experience I want, so shoring up the supports for it is important.

What’s Suitable for Off-Camera?

The obvious answers are those already found in the DMG, I reckon. If the PC decides to travel through settled lands to query an oracle or personally handle a business dealing or the like, then it can be done off-camera. The actual business or political negotiations can be expressly played by the GM & player without the rest of the group around, of course, though a diced resolution process can serve just as well (leaving live play to full group situations).

Tasks such as an assassination attempt (if one has assassin PCs in one’s game) also fit with off-camera play. If a PC class has diagetic tasks associated with it that don’t fit well in group play, then those tasks are set out as off-camera. A thief casing wealthy estates in a nearby city is an activity best suited to off-camera. Forays involving burglary there may be best suited to off-camera play.

Any time a PC has an individual test or ritual to perform, then playing off-camera is likely the better approach. A monk has to travel to a far site and pass through a gauntlet of tests there to be able to advance in the monkish order, well, that’s a good thing to do off-camera.

[A thought just popped into my head: for those who like character arcs, off-camera play may be a way to include that sort of thing in an old school campaign where individual stories aren’t a focus.]

I guess the question now involves deciding how involved the off-camera procedures should be? Much the same as the on-camera procedures? Flattened a bit to reduce handling time for the GM? Really simple abstractions?