[Donjon] Questions about Abilities, Initiative, and Loot

[Jacob Ossar]

I haven't done any role-playing other than the occasional LARP for quite a while, but I disovered D&D back in the late 70s when I was a kid and played lots of it and other RPGs (mostly GURPS) for many years.  Even after I became disenchanted with D&D as a game system I never got the bug completely out of my system.  So I'm down with the basic idea behind Donjon, and it seemed like a good game to get to find out what's been happening in RPG design since I stopped actively paying attention.  I recently played a very brief session with my friend James to try it out. This session raised several questions and prompted several others indirectly.  

So OK, here's the "look at my cool character" part of the post, but I swear there are some questions later.  I should explain that back in my early D&D days, I had it in my head that a proper character name should include an epithet that starts with the same letter as the character's name, like this: "Bazark the Bushwacker".  In the Donjon spirit of homage to fun first RPG experiences, I went way, way overboard with alliteration this time around, leading to . . .

Surname: Seacrest (first name: Seymore)
Shtick (Class):  Secret Seeker

Stats:

Strength (Virility): 2
Smarts (Cerebrality): 4
Sensitivity (Discernment): 6
Speed (Adroitness): 5
Sturdiness (Wherewithal): 2
Sociality: 2

Save vs. System Shock (Poison, etc.): 1
Save vs. Spells (Illusion & Confusion): 2

Stamina (Flesh Wounds): 2

Strong Suit:
Sharp Senses: 4

Secondary Skills:
Sensory Sorcery:  3 (magic words:  seek, sound)
Supernatural Strike: 2 (mechanically, this is a missile attack that does magic damage.  Takes the form of scintillating shards, spikes, shuriken, or something similar.  Only works if the user possesses a Sphinx Statuette.  The spiffier the material the statuette is made of, the better the Damage Rating of the attack.)
Sneak Stealthily in Shadows: 2
Subvert Security Systems: 2 (helps get around locks and traps)
Sibilant Syllable Series Specialist: 2 (bonus dice to do anything that can plausibly be described using four or more consecutive English words beginning with "s"; can only use any given word once per session)

Scrilla (Wealth): 3  
Supplies (Provisions): 5

Superfluous (back)Story:  Seymore, a Sikh, served as a sepoy and attained the rank of subidar.  (I had originally thought Serjeant would be a perfect rank for a Donjon character, but I hadn't thought through the implications of playing with military historians.)  

I wouldn't dream of asking for an official comment about the Sibilant Syllable Series Specialist Ability.  But I am curious about the others.  Should Subvert Security Systems really be for locks OR traps?  Is Sharp Senses OK?  On one hand, several of the sample monsters in the rules have Hear Noise as (presumably) as Supporting Ability, so a bonus to rolls with any sense doesn't seem too outrageous as a Main Ability.  On the other hand, the Wilderness Scout presented in the chargen section has Track Anything as his Main Ability, which is in many ways more limited than Sharp Senses.  In a game where you can define your own Abilities, a certain variation in usefulness comes with the territory, but I'm wondering a bit about the scope of Abilities.  If Swing Sword is kosher as a Supporting Ability, why limit yourself unnecessarily by taking Swing Shortsword?  I mean, sure, roleplaying, but Donjon is explicitly supposed to be a GM-versus-players game.  I know you can search for whatever loot you want, making it much easier to find a shortsword if you need one, but a more limited ability gives the DM that much more scope to screw you.  I guess whether to do this or not depends on how competitively you're playing.  Do you try to rachet up the challenge you face by deliberately picking narrow skills or spell words like "defenestrate" and "phytoplankton" and then see if you can narrate situations where they're consistently useful, or do you try to create a character that gives the DM as little leverage as possible to deny you useful items or narration opportunities?  Still, I find it tempting to propose a rule such that if you take a very narrow ability or spell word, it's more effective (i.e. gets bonus dice) in the rare cases where it is clearly applicable.  This would obviously require some judgment calls, but perhaps not more so than the Donjon magic system does already.  

At any rate, what about Supernatural Strike?  At first I was thinking about something like Snipe with Sling, but then I realized "hey, these Abilities can be anything I want!" and also "how am I going to justify a mundane sling that has a DR higher than 1?".  I used the Breathe Flame example in the rules as my model here.  I figure there are mundane Sphinx Statuettes with DRs ranging from 1-4, and after that I can go for one made of Serpentine or Sapphires or something at 2 Worth a pop for DRs exceeding 4.   I'm pretty sure that's cool, although I'm a little uneasy since the Breathe Flame example is of a Main Ability.  But as far as I can tell it should be no problem to make a Supporting Ability that does non-standard damage.  I'm guessing damage type doesn't make a difference one way or the other for your average grunt monster, and the DM can make up fancier foes with resistance to magic damage if she gets tired of seeing Undead Flesh and whatnot failing to stop Supernatural Strikes.  

The only other question that comes out of actual play is about loot.  The garden-variety Fighter on p. 66 wears DR2 armor and uses a DR3 weapon.  Since that's a total Worth of 5, am I right in assuming that characters would not be able to make a looting roll for a defeated level 1 Fighter, although they would be allowed to take the weapon and armor?  

Here are some other questions:  

[*]On p. 31 of the print version, the rules state "In order to make an Initiative Test, each player rolls his character's Level, plus the character's score in Discernment.  No other Abilities can be added to this roll."  Yet a few pages later (p. 33), there's an entire section entitled "Surprise and initiative-increasing Abilities."  Earlier, in the sidebar on p. 13, we are told that "If you chose an Ability like 'Speed of the Ancients,' you could use that to increase your initiative in combat."  I can see three alternatives here:

(a) The passage from p. 31 is simply incorrect.  As suggested on p.13, you can take Abilities the add to initiative rolls.
(b) The passage on p. 31 is right and the examples elsewhere should be disregarded.  
(c) You can't take Abilities that directly add x dice to initiative rolls, but can take Abilities that, if used successfully, can allow your to roll dice over into a subsequent initiative roll.  The examples on p. 33 suggest this interpretation.  

I'm guessing that the correct answer is (c), which would limit initiative-increasing Abilities by requiring players to make a successful Unopposed Test roll first, but a definitive ruling would be nice.


[*]It seems to me that going with the rules as written means that even a character with a Virility of 1 can carry as many Chain Shirts (DR2) as he likes without penalty as long as he doesn't wear one.  This is OK because fiddly encumbrance rules are exactly the kind of picayune considerations that Donjon is designed to deal with by means of elegant abstractions, right?  My sense is that the temptation to carry piles of looted equipment around is supposed to be sharply reduced by the fact that characters will rarely be able to sell non-permanent items.  Which brings me to ....

[*]In Questions about equpiment (Donjon), we learn that  

As for selling non-permanent items, there might be a way to do that within the adventure, but otherwise, there's not really a chance as surplus equipment is erased before an adventure, and characters usually start in Town at the beginning. If your character can get to someone who'd buy his stuff before an adventure is over, then feel free to sell away.

So when the rules say (p. 59) "After the Big Bad is defeated, the players will probably want to get back to town as soon as possible in order to cash in their experience and perhaps go up a Level", they mean that really the only thing characters can do in Town at the end of an adventure is advance a Level.  Their non-permanent items will vanish before (or just as) the characters arrive in Town, and any buying/selling or other significant actions will have to wait until the start of the next adventure.

[*]Just to double-check:  a character's "permanent items" are not the actual items a character begins with (i.e. buys in the first Town), but rather permanent slots that could be filled by other items.  So a character whose permanent weapon in adventure 1 is, say, a normal broadsword  is not wedded to that broadsword forever after, but could trade up to a magic one for adventure 2 (or during adventure 1) as his new permanent weapon?  I'm pretty sure I've got this right.

[*]Suppose Combat Monster (Race:  Muppet Barbarian, Sociality: 1) is in Town at the start of an adventure with Coals Newcastle II (Main Ability:  Can Sell Ice to Inuits).  Combat Monster has two permanent weapon slots and decides he'd like to try to sell his crude bronze axe and buy a nice steel one.  But he knows that his pal Newcastle will likely be able to negotiate a better deal than he can.  Can Combat Monster give the axe to Newcastle to sell? I assume that he can.

[*]OK, now to open the big can of worms that got me started thinking about items and selling in the first place. Can Wealth be transferred between characters?  It's a staple of old-school dungeoneering that when a group of characters is in town, they pool their gold and give it to the character with the best social and/or mercantile skills to buy new equipment.  Combat Monster would sure like to be able to give Wealth to Newcastle to buy a new axe for him.  It would definitely make characters with mercantile skills more useful to the party they're in if this were possible.  Sure, Newcastle can just buy the axe with his own Wealth and give it to Combat Monster, but in a big party he'd likely run out of Wealth before everyone's kitted out satisfactorily.  Besides, what's in it for him?  But I can't think of a way to allow Wealth transfers that wouldn't break the game.  Since both rolls to loot and to sell an item outright for cash are made against a character's current Wealth, clever players could give all their Wealth to a designated "banker" every time they get some so that they could always sell/loot against a Wealth of 0.  Allowing Wealth transfers only in Town would help somewhat, but could still be abused.  So is Combat Monster just stuck paying retail?  [/list:u]

[Jacob Ossar]

Now that I think about it, there's an obvious solution to the question of how Newcastle the merchant can buy things for his buddy Combat Monster.  Combat Monster can simply pony up the Wealth and Newcastle can do the rolling.  For that matter, provided it's legit for one character to use a buying/selling Ability on another's behalf in the first place, there's nothing to stop several characters from all pitching in to buy some fancy piece of equipment for one of them.

[JamesSterrett]

I'm the GM in the above mentioned game (and the player in another that Jacob is GMing); all played, oddly enough, over the phone - hurrah for unlimited free cellphone minutes!  :)

We've been finding that for all that the Donjon rules seem very straightforward when reading them, we're constantly running into hidden rocks - mostly of the "what dice are we meant to roll now?" variety.  The rules also tend to refer back to earlier things in the book using imprecise terminology; combined with the lack of an index, we've wasted a fair amount of time on occasion trying to figure out how to do something.  We're noodling at a "Player's Cheat Sheet" kind of play aid that would help us with this.

Granted, the easy and obvious option is to simply declare what we're doing in a given case and roll the dice - which has happened on occasion; but we're trying to make sure we understand how it is meant to be played, before we begin to drift it.  :)

The other unexpected learning curve is when to roll and when not to roll, as a GM and a player.  Initially, our GMs tended to simply ask players to roll Discernment, get a few facts, and define groundwork of the next scene; we've shifted back towards letting the GM set the scene unless the players specifically want something in the picture.

Getting the power level of the opposition correct has been hard, partly because we're using d10 instead of d20; this tends to make successes a feast-or-famine event because of the high number of ties.

On the bright side, the three of us (Corinne, my wife, is also playing) have generally been having a blast; the ability to think up wild, wacky, or cool plans and send them into action is loads of fun; and the collaborative tension of players trying to define facts such that the GM cannot twist them against them is also a source of much fun.

A specific question, at the end of this ramble:

Can a player attempt to produce an item from the Provisions without risking a Provisions die - apply zero Provisions plus Cerebrality and try to get something for nothing?  We decided "no".  :)

And:

How far into the future can players narrate through facts?  Is this mostly up to the GM?  

The example:  Cor and Jacob had entered a cave through a trap door, hunted down and killed a bandit leader.  However, a returning scout had placed a large boulder on top of the trap door; they come back up the passage to find it closed.  Jacob rolls Discernment + Sense Significant Stuff and stomps me in the roll with many successes; he then proceeds to re-introduce a friendly rock critter (which earlier had lead them to the bandit hideout and rewarded them for killing the bandits on the surface), which pointed out a passageway back to the surface that opened out near the trap door (paying a few extra facts along the way to keep the GM from getting uppity).

At this point, Jacob wanted to put in facts about what was up top; I felt he'd walked into a prepped scene (with the remaining bandit sitting against the big rock and feeling smug when the players surprise him).

I don't think anybody was ticked off that I took control back at that point (and I've no problem at all with Jacob narrating a cool way back to the surface); the question is:  should I have, according to the way Donjon is meant to run?

[Clinton R. Nixon]

First, thanks for your interest in Donjon. I'm very glad you guys are playing and enjoying it.

I wouldn't dream of asking for an official comment about the Sibilant Syllable Series Specialist Ability.  But I am curious about the others.  Should Subvert Security Systems really be for locks OR traps?  Is Sharp Senses OK?

All this looks great.

In a game where you can define your own Abilities, a certain variation in usefulness comes with the territory, but I'm wondering a bit about the scope of Abilities.  If Swing Sword is kosher as a Supporting Ability, why limit yourself unnecessarily by taking Swing Shortsword?

You kind of answer your question with the idea of self-challenge. In another vein, though, it truly doesn't matter: if you can find a short sword as easily as a regular sword, are the two mechanically different? For that matter, is "Bash With Rabbit" any different, really?

The only other question that comes out of actual play is about loot.  The garden-variety Fighter on p. 66 wears DR2 armor and uses a DR3 weapon.  Since that's a total Worth of 5, am I right in assuming that characters would not be able to make a looting roll for a defeated level 1 Fighter, although they would be allowed to take the weapon and armor?  

That's correct.

[*]On p. 31 of the print version, the rules state "In order to make an Initiative Test, each player rolls his character's Level, plus the character's score in Discernment.  No other Abilities can be added to this roll."  Yet a few pages later (p. 33), there's an entire section entitled "Surprise and initiative-increasing Abilities."  Earlier, in the sidebar on p. 13, we are told that "If you chose an Ability like 'Speed of the Ancients,' you could use that to increase your initiative in combat."  I can see three alternatives here:
...
(c) You can't take Abilities that directly add x dice to initiative rolls, but can take Abilities that, if used successfully, can allow your to roll dice over into a subsequent initiative roll.  The examples on p. 33 suggest this interpretation.  

I'm guessing that the correct answer is (c), which would limit initiative-increasing Abilities by requiring players to make a successful Unopposed Test roll first, but a definitive ruling would be nice.

As above, you are correct again. Note that this sort of ability may take an action in combat.

[*]It seems to me that going with the rules as written means that even a character with a Virility of 1 can carry as many Chain Shirts (DR2) as he likes without penalty as long as he doesn't wear one....

So when the rules say (p. 59) "After the Big Bad is defeated, the players will probably want to get back to town as soon as possible in order to cash in their experience and perhaps go up a Level", they mean that really the only thing characters can do in Town at the end of an adventure is advance a Level.  Their non-permanent items will vanish before (or just as) the characters arrive in Town, and any buying/selling or other significant actions will have to wait until the start of the next adventure.

There's a lot of head-nodding going on over here. Your question about equipment "slots" below is also correct.

[*]Suppose Combat Monster (Race:  Muppet Barbarian, Sociality: 1) is in Town at the start of an adventure with Coals Newcastle II (Main Ability:  Can Sell Ice to Inuits).  Combat Monster has two permanent weapon slots and decides he'd like to try to sell his crude bronze axe and buy a nice steel one.  But he knows that his pal Newcastle will likely be able to negotiate a better deal than he can.  Can Combat Monster give the axe to Newcastle to sell? I assume that he can.

Yes, with the caveat that Newcastle could not sell it if he felt like it.

[*]OK, now to open the big can of worms that got me started thinking about items and selling in the first place. Can Wealth be transferred between characters?

Nope, nope, nope. Doesn't make sense? Wealth is abstract. It's money, credit rating (check that Call of Cthulhu reference!), respect, or as Cuba Gooding Jr. said in Jerry Maguire, quong.

... I can't think of a way to allow Wealth transfers that wouldn't break the game.  Since both rolls to loot and to sell an item outright for cash are made against a character's current Wealth, clever players could give all their Wealth to a designated "banker" every time they get some so that they could always sell/loot against a Wealth of 0.  Allowing Wealth transfers only in Town would help somewhat, but could still be abused.  So is Combat Monster just stuck paying retail?

Here's a ruling off the top of my head: characters can try to trade  Wealth using looting-style rules. Combat Monster could try to give 8 Wealth to Newcastle, who has 5 already. Combat Monster would roll a total of 8 dice versus Newcastle's 5. Any successes would be added to Newcastle's Wealth, and Combat Monster loses all 8 Wealth, no matter the outcome. Note that the more broke a character is, the more likely he is to get Wealth traded to him.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

How far into the future can players narrate through facts?  Is this mostly up to the GM?  
...
I don't think anybody was ticked off that I took control back at that point (and I've no problem at all with Jacob narrating a cool way back to the surface); the question is:  should I have, according to the way Donjon is meant to run?

It sounds like you have a good grasp on Donjon. I'll be the first to admit that I purposely write rules so that a group has to intepret them for their play, which often causes as many problems as it does helps. In this case, if your group was happy, you did it right.

[JamesSterrett]

Thanks for the replies...  we'll let you know if more stuff comes up, and will send along a copy of the player cheat sheet whenever it gets put together....  :)