"Downtime" In BF, what is downtime and how do you include it in your games?

[GrimlinJoe]

I've had a few questions come up in my play groups as to how we should handle downtime. Seeing as I am still new to DMing, I was uncertain as to how to go about approaching the subject. I'm sure that the many things that Magic-Users does count as downtime but I wanted to know what other things you guys like to include as downtime. Perhaps you could share your house rules on downtime and if you have any helpful resources that go over it as far as OSR is concerned?

[Dimirag]

Resting & Healing
Buying stuff
Taking care of business
Managing a home/lair/HQ/school
Training
Making contacts

Basically downtime are activities that does not take the frontline nor a primary approach, characters will spend some time doing an activity that can require little or short explanation, at the end the activity may require a roll to see how it ended or how it developed over that time.

As you've said the most obvious use of downtime is for MU to learn spell, or for spell research
Clerics can also do research, but their time may be spent doing clerical activities (celebrations, rites, maybe some administrative or some community help)
Thieves and Fighters have more "free" time, both may be members of a guild that requires them to do some activities (probably illegal in thieves case).
Depending on your houserules you may let characters pay gold to train and gain XP with a tutor or training partner (a twist on the classical XP per gold earned).

[GrimlinJoe]

Resting & Healing
Buying stuff
Taking care of business
Managing a home/lair/HQ/school
Training
Making contacts

Basically downtime are activities that does not take the frontline nor a primary approach, characters will spend some time doing an activity that can require little or short explanation, at the end the activity may require a roll to see how it ended or how it developed over that time.

As you've said the most obvious use of downtime is for MU to learn spell, or for spell research
Clerics can also do research, but their time may be spent doing clerical activities (celebrations, rites, maybe some administrative or some community help)
Thieves and Fighters have more "free" time, both may be members of a guild that requires them to do some activities (probably illegal in thieves case).
Depending on your houserules you may let characters pay gold to train and gain XP with a tutor or training partner (a twist on the classical XP per gold earned).

Awesome this is exactly what I was looking for. I will have to do a little more digging seeing as I'm not certain how to roleplay downtime exactly.

[Dimirag]

Mostly you don't roleplay it, you ask what they want to do in a set time (a week, a month) then judge what are the results or ask for specific rolls. Unless you want to make downtime a primary gametable activity.

You can start by asking how much time they will spend in downtime, or you can give a set time if a future event its known...
Ex 1:
GM "you've reached the safety of the town, what do you want to do and for how long?"
Magic User "I want to learn a couple spells, It should take me 3 weeks"
Cleric "I have some matters at my temple, I'll be off for 2 weeks, then I'll wait for you (the MU) to finish your doings" (I will tell you later -the GM- what I'll do in my last week)
Fighter: I'm going to see the boys at the garrison, then going to see the weaponsmith, I'll see if he can forged me a new weapon with this rare metal we found, it should take no more than a week, I'll be doing some training the next 2 weeks"
Thief: "Ok I'm going to talk around looking for gossips and see what happens around, maybe I'll do some quick and easy jobs "

Ex 2:
GM "you've reach the inn you are staying, you know you have 3 weeks before the great meeting about the northern swamp exploration, what will each of you do in that time?"

Once you know what they want to do (players don't need to tell you in advanced everything they'll do) you tell them what happens, if a roll is required or if some roleplaying must be involved.

[GrimlinJoe]

Thank you this has been super helpful. I am trying to find ways to help with player absence so I was thinking to incorporate down time to make up for absences