[Donjon] Preparations

[Stefan / 1of3]

Hi.

My Donjoneers have completed their first adventure (after three sessions) and I noticed something about the basic rules.

We know it's pretty simple: 1 success = 1 fact or 1 die


What I'd like is a possibility to have things like preparation or research covered as well. When I research the fighting style of a monster, I'd like to have a bonus for all rolls against that creature.

Do you have any ideas for solutions?



We already changed that certain actions like rallying your allies can affect all allies at the same time.

[Hans]

Hi Stefan:

I'd be a bit worried about making any bonus from one roll carry over long term in the way you describe.  So much of the game is based on the basic equation (success=fact or die), tinkering with it concerns me, including things like helping out all allies with just one success for an entire fight.

However, one suggestion I have that would seem to work under the current rules is, instead of representing a research roll as gaining bonus dice to a later roll treat it as an attack that damages a stat of an opponent.  Here is an example ability:

Analyze Fighting Style
Roll Discernment+Analyze Fighting Style versus opponents Cerebrality+appropriate fighting style cloaking ability (e.g. Drunken Master or similar).  If successful, use successes as facts to name aspects of the fighting style of the opponent and then use additional successes to damage an opponents Discernment, Virility, Adroitness, and/or Werewithal, as a normal attack would.  Cannot be used to make wounds, and can only be used once per opponent, but can be used outside of combat.  Example:  I get five successes against Bob.  I state two facts: "Bob, I see you trained under a Tiger Claw master, and that you favour an old injury in your left leg".  I then do 1 damage to Bob's Virility and 2 damage to his Adroitness.

Another way to use this is to treat any "research" ability you want to have long term consequences as a "magic" ability, with "magic" words associated.  Since magic allows for both duration and multiple targets through the expediture of magical power, and explicitly allows penalties (and one assumes bonuses) this would seem ideal. 

Example secondary "research" ability:

Master Swordsman: "Magic" words Analyze, Guard
Example in use: I roll Cerebrality+Master Swordsman to gain "magical" power (in the fiction, I am observing my opponents, a group of orcs) and get 6 successes.  In my next action I use one success to make my target "small group", another to make the duration "one scene", no successes to use one word ("analyze") and then roll four dice plus Cer+MasterSword versus opponents Cerebrality+appropriate analyzing style defending ability.  I get four successes, and state that all the orcs have a -4 Adroitness penalty to against me for the entire scene.

With enough "magical" power aquisition (i.e. "research", roughly 16+ dice), you could make the duration "Longer" and the targets "Crazy numbers of people" and essentially create a permanent bonus for yourself against a class of opponent (or a permanent penalty to all members of that class against you), without changing the rules of the game at all.

As to "rallying" type effects, I have always run them the same way if I want them to apply as duration effects instead of as single use bonus dice.  Make the "rallying" ability a magical ability.  Example secondary magical ability:

Troop commander: Magic words Inspire, Direct.
Example in use: I roll Cerebrality+TroopCom to gather power and get 4 successes.  Next action, spend 1 success for small group (my friends), 1 success for duration of a scene, and the roll 2 dice+Cer+TroopCom vs.Medium difficult.  I get 4 successes, and give all my friends +4 to their Virility for this scene.

I suggest to you that this is the amount of effort that was foreseen as necessary to make any kind of bonus/penalty long term. 

I would be more inclined to allow a "magic" ability work off some attribute other than Cerebrality (e.g. Master Swordsman uses Discernment, Troop Commander uses Sociality) than I would be to make the normal facts off of a normal non-magical roll break the basic equation.

[Valamir]

For my own design of Robots & Rapiers (public beta version coming soon) I use a similar dice currency (Donjon is one of the principal cites in the credits) which I tweaked as follows

Standard:  1 Success = 1 Bonus for 1 Roll for 1 character
Persistent:  2 Successes = 1 Bonus for many Rolls for 1 character
Multiple:  2 Successes = 1 Bonus for 1 Roll for many characters
Multiple & Persistant:  4 Successes = 1 Bonus for many Rolls for Many characters.

Further I have the concept of buying off the Persistent Bonus by spending a like amount with a suitable cancelling narration.

So research into a fighting style would be purchased as Persistent Bonus, or maybe Persistent Multiple if you wanted all your buddies to benefit.  But the GM could pay a similar amount to eliminate such a bonus "the monster has mutated", "the monster is smart enough to adapt", "Your old book was outdated", so there is a built in safety valve in that the more abusive the players get with their lingering effects the more the GM will simply pay to cancel them, the cooler and more suitable the players get with their lingering effects, the more the GM will be inclined to leave them in play.

[Hans]

I like Ralph's table, and endorse it, at least until some playtesting happens of it.  He brings up a very good point that as long as the GM can use successes to cancel, then the balance is still there.  My instinctual reaction to the table though, is to:

a) make bonuses a "take the largest thing" instead of additive (i.e. if I get a +1 bonus, and then a +2 bonus, its a +2 bonus instead of a +3)
b) limit these kind of rolls outside of conflict (i.e. making a bunch of rolls to get big bonuses before a fight starts)

I have no reasons for any of the above other than gut feeling.

[Stefan / 1of3]

Valamir, that seems well thought out, yet so simple. I think I'll try that.


And thanks, Hans. Using non-combat abilities to injure attributes might be useful, too.