Part I · Play

Downtime

Downtime’s the half of the game where the world decides what it’s been doing while you were bleeding in a warehouse.

After every session there’s a downtime: a week, a month, a season, however long the story needs. It’s where the world moves, and where you heal and grow.

Rule

Progression in Zi’Dara is yours. Nobody hands out levels, and there’s no experience to count. Every downtime, you choose what your character gets: a new permission, a new trait, more from something you’ve attuned, a roll at your Aspiration, a new thread. What you don’t get to choose is how much time you have, and the world’s always asking for some of it.

The Four Pressures

Every downtime, four pressures land on the party, and the GM names them before anyone spends a slot. The faction pressure comes from the faction turn (see Factions).

A personal pressure. Something on one character’s sheet, like a debt or a bond.
A party pressure. The shared Goal.
A faction pressure. One faction on the board is moving.
A world pressure. A world event.

If you ignore a pressure, it doesn’t go away. It gets worse, and the GM brings it to the next session. Ignore it twice and it becomes a scene.

Your Slots

Every player gets two personal slots, and the crew shares two party slots. A player can put one of their own slots toward a party action.

Two things happen without costing a slot: once-per-downtime traits refresh, and when the downtime’s over, all your Resolve comes back.

What You Can Do With a Slot

Face a pressure

Deal with it. Pay the debt, answer the letter, lie low, meet the man. One slot usually settles a pressure, and the GM says if it needs two. If something pushes back, roll for it.

Recover

Heal a Catch on your Hurt track. It’s a slot for each one, and none of them heal for free. Rub it out, and its three boxes clear.
Step your Armour back to full at a smith, an armoury, or with a patient friend and a needle and thread.
Mend something you carry that’s broken, usually for a purse of gold as well. Attuned things can’t break.
Tend the crew. You’ll need a trait that says so, like Tend the Crew. One slot heals a Catch on the Hurt track of everyone in the crew who wants it, you included.

Grow

A new permission on one of your Titles, up to six on it. It has to fit inside the Title, and the story should say where you learned it. Put it on every set action it fits nearly every time. See Permissions.
A new trait, either from the list or written in the same shape.
Chase your Aspiration. Roll against its die, built from whatever you’re doing about it. Beat it and it climbs one. See Aspiration.
Deepen a bond. Write a new thread with someone. If they’re in the crew, it goes on both your sheets, so agree on it together.
Get something the story can give you, whether it’s bought, made, won or owed: something to carry, a purse of gold, or the material an attuned thing needs for its next stage.

Swapping. In downtime you can also swap any of your permissions for others that fit your Title, as long as it makes sense for your character. Two permissions on one Title can go for a Boon the same way, and a Boon can go back for two (see Boons and Burdens). Wren’s crew works the city now, so she swaps ride hard over rough country for scout a building before we go in.

Attunement

Every new permission on an attuned thing takes a slot, up to what its stage allows. The thing can’t go up a stage until you’ve got its material, found in the story or bought (see Attunement). If you’re a Summoner, this is when the souls you’ve caught go into your summoning attunement, if there’s room (see Summoning).

Party slots

A party slot is an action for the crew. Two slots on the same thing count everything twice.

Chase the Goal. Whoever does it rolls against the Goal’s die: 1 step for the slot, plus everything of theirs that fits. Beat it and it climbs one. See The Party Goal.
Work a project. The same, against the project’s die. See Projects.
Move on a faction. Interfere with it, strike at it, deal with it or work for it. See Factions.
Rebuild. Step the crew’s Power or Wealth back up one, never past its best.
Advance a world event. Push something along, or hold it back.
Support an Aspiration. One more roll at someone’s Aspiration, built by whoever’s helping.

Something that climbs still only climbs one step a roll, however many slots went into it.

Rolling in downtime

Most slots just happen. When something pushes back (the fence wants his money, or the Guild’s watching the smithy), roll for it like any Challenge.

Ties go to the defender, every time. A die you’re climbing counts as the defender.
There’s no Aura in downtime, so you can’t pay to win a tie. You’ve got two other ways out: spend 1 Resolve to roll again (your dice only), or step the crew’s Wealth down one and take the tie. It’s the crew’s money, so ask the table first.
Only the crew can do that. A faction never rerolls, and never buys a tie.

Mending Threads

Downtime’s one of the two places to mend a strained thread. The other’s a scene with them, as long as it isn’t the fight where you strained it. Make it right with them, whatever suits them: do them a favour, pay them, or just talk it through. Play it out at the table, and the thread’s whole again. If it’s a thread with someone in the crew, their player says what would make it right (see Bonds and threads and Playing the strain).

Example

Vesk’s only thread with Bram is the fire he carried her out of, and the thank-you she never said. She strained it on a wall last session, yelling for him to haul her up again, so he’s been cold with her since. In downtime she finds him at the bar and finally says it. The thread’s mended, and she rewrites it now that it’s said.

A Full Week, Played Out

Example

GM: First up, personal. Vesk, your debt to the fence has been called. He wants his money by the end of the week, or he’ll talk to the Guild.

GM: Second, party. The vault score. Vane’s hired investigators, and they’ve been seen in the district.

GM: Third, faction. The Vane Estate is on the move. Its agenda’s at d10, and it’s going to push it this week.

GM: Fourth, world. There’s a festival on the harbour this week, so the law’s going to be everywhere.

Triage.

Example

Vesk: One slot pays the fence, every coin. The other gives my grappling line its Catch, Loud, because the hook rings off stone every time, and haul someone up after me with it.

Dorrie: One slot goes into the vault score as a party action. The other’s a new permission, tell people what they want to hear. I’ve been talking my way past too many doormen not to have learned something.

Isolde: I’ll put read how a spirit’s been bound on my first Title. I’ve spent the week with the Warden’s empty armour. My other slot goes on my Aspiration, because whoever bound that Warden knew my order’s work.

Bram: Mine get my plate back to full and heal my cracked ribs. Both party slots go against the Estate.

Resolution. Vesk’s slot settles the fence. Haul someone up after me won’t fit her Move nearly every time, so she’ll bring it in for 1 Aura when it does.

Dorrie’s slot is a roll at the Goal: her first Title, read a room in a glance, make a lie sound like old news and the slot make 4 steps, a d8, against the Goal’s d4. It’s 6 against 3, so the Goal climbs to d6. Her new permission fits her Talk nearly every time, so her Talk goes from 4 steps to 5, a d10.

Isolde’s Aspiration roll is her second Title, know the history of anything old, find what I need in any library and the slot, a d8 against its d6. It’s 5 against 5, and the tie goes to the Aspiration. There’s no Aura in downtime, so she spends 1 Resolve to roll again, gets 7, and it climbs to d8.

Bram’s ribs and his plate take a slot each. The Estate’s Power is a d12 and the crew’s is a d4, so the crew needs both party slots to roll against its Power, and two slots count everything twice: the crew’s d4 becomes a d8, against the Estate’s Power and its agenda at once. The crew rolls 5, the Power 8 and the agenda 6, so they miss both. The Estate’s move goes ahead: its Power rolls 9 against its own agenda’s d10, which rolls 4, so Vane comes home climbs to d12. And nobody touched the festival, so next session the law will be on every street.