When they say Traits, they mean attributes – once you get to a new Rank in Savage Worlds, you usually increase one of your attributes because you can only do it once per Rank, and they influence the future costs of your skills.
I love downtime, it’s great for a gazillion different reasons. It’s good for dramatic pacing, it gives an opportunity to play with some fun fiddly mechanics (Blades in the Dark <3 ), it gives everyone an opportunity to do some large-scale storytelling or worldbuilding, etc. In the system I’m developing, downtime is codified just as well as action scenes – it all depends on how much you’re focusing the “lens” of the imaginary camera frame.
I like how Pathfinder 2e gives so much attention to downtime, it fits the game. Savage Worlds, however, is a game about action, and so it shouldn’t have too much of a structure around its downtime activities. Savage Pathfinder, 50 Fathoms, and almost all of the (good) independent content for SW accounts for such fun activities.
Our current Zeitgeist (5e) campaign is on a forced hiatus, so we turned it into a long, weekly downtime activity – I would love to describe this in length, but it’s actually quite time consuming to do so, so instead I recommend you ask Aviv on one of her streams, she’ll be happy to get into details.
Downtime Next Week
We love downtime so much that we’re taking a break next week! Corresponding to our characters spending a week in the base. Life imitates art.
