2 Workers 2 Placement

Update: see my 2w2p tag for all posts on this framework.

Or, "how to play an RPG as if it were a cooperative worker-placement board game." This (sub?)system is in response to Marcia B's worker placement manifesto, which I endorse. It inspired me in a specific way that I realized probably can't be communicated effectively in a couple of sentences so here it is as a whole post.

I have some additional thoughts about how to flesh out this mechanical skeleton (specifically, to use it to replace the overloaded die in the enchantingly fractal structure of Brendan S.'s Hazard System) but in the interest of actually getting a post out there I think this is good enough. Drawing the rest of the owl is left as an exercise to the reader.

structure of play

The GM describes a situation, and the players ask questions and decide what their characters are going to do. The GM identifies what tasks are being attempted, what their goals are and communicates what the risks are for each. The players make a final decision of which characters are on which task.

For each task, dice are rolled and its outcome settled. The GM describes the new situation and the cycle resumes.

before rolling

Find out the number of (six-sided) dice based on the number of people on a task: 1 die for an individual, 2 dice for 2-3 people, 3 dice for 4-6 people, 4 dice for 7-10, and so on. People with experience count as double their number and specialists count triple.

If task uses some scarce resource, there is a risk of using it up. At the GM's discretion, the players may declare that they are using up a scarce resource before rolling to roll one extra die.

after rolling

Once rolled, the players must assign individual dice to goals and risks: each roll of 5-6 achieves a goal or removes a risk and each roll of 3-4 advances a goal or avoids/delays a risk. If no die of 3+ can be assigned to it, whatever the risk threatens happens and whatever opportunity there was for the goal is lost.

Perceptive readers will note that this is more or less the dice mechanic from GHOST/echo, which I have previously riffed/elaborated upon.

Unless the GM says otherwise, no risk may be delayed more than twice, but advancing the same goal three times achieves it.

complications

To increase the difficulty of a given goal, divide that goal into multiple steps which are each treated as their own goals. The opportunity to work on a later step should not be lost as long as an early step is being advanced.

Similarly, risks can be heightened by splitting them into multiple risks; a simple way to do this would be to treat the same consequence for each participant as a separate risk.

cultural proficiencies: a modest proposal

The idea here is that "martial weapons" refers to the type of weapons used by the warriors of a given culture rather than just "weapons that are good."

Everyone can add their base attack bonus/proficiency bonus to attacks with a crossbow (2H 1d8, loading), dagger (2d4 in a grapple, 1d4 otherwise) or one-handed tool (1d6) such as a cleaver, hammer, hand axe, etc.

Fighters are proficient with the weapons of their culture. Other martial classes may have specific weapon groups associated with them. You can learn a group (or a specific exotic weapon) as a feat if you have a teacher.

• Northern men: battle-axe (1H 1d8 or 2H 1d10), saex (1H 1d8) and thrown hand-axe.
• Paladins and Eastern men: mace (1H 1d8), thrusting spear and arming sword (both 1H 1d8 or 2H 1d10).
• Southern men: thrown or thrusting spear (1H/thrown 1d8 or 2H 1d10) and gladius (1H 1d8).
• Elves, Rangers and Western men: self bow (2H 1d8), thrusting sword (1H, 1d8 finesse).
• Dwarves: battle-axe and war-hammer (both 1H 1d8 or 2H 1d10). 
• Barbarians and Goblins: mace, saber (both 1H 1d8) and composite bow (2H 1d8 ranged).

Attacks with these weapons are not usually penalized if you are not proficient. Attacks with exotic weapons are at a -3 penalty for the non-proficient.

spirit masters

Being psionics rules, because I've been reading the Saga of the Pliocene Exile and realized some specific debts that the 3e Psionics Handbook owes to it.

These assume you're using a standard six-attribute score array and that modifiers are on the "one-third score minus 3" schedule, and might need adjusted if you're using the WotC "half score minus 5" schedule.

Artist: Stephen Fabian, cover of The Adversary by Julian May

The human spirit is capable of marvelous things when properly disciplined. Masters speak of five awakened faculties, each of which has several modes.

• Spirit Manifestation of energy, illusions and even substance. Associated with Dexterity.
• Spirit Transportation of creatures and objects. Associated with Constitution.
• Spirit Probing of other minds and spirits. Associated with Intelligence.
• Spirit Discernment beings, surroundings or thoughts without the use of the senses. Associated with Wisdom.
• Spirit Binding the bodily and spiritual faculties of others. Associated with Charisma.

Spirit Masters (HP, saves & advancement as magic-users) are always awakened, but any character has a chance to be equal to the sum of their attribute penalties in 20. Awakened characters start with two modes they are able to use. Masters learn an additional mode for every odd-numbered level they have.

Using spirit powers is taxing. Each use of a power costs energy (= encumbrance slots until next night's rest, or 1d4HP if no slots remain); however Spirit Masters have reserves of energy equal to their level to use each day without fatiguing themselves. Characters can only use modes in faculties if they have a positive bonus in its associated attribute. Furthermore, they cannot spend more energy in any mode than their their bonus in its associated attribute or half their Spirit Master level, whichever is higher.

Mental Contact

A spirit or awakened character can make mental contact with an intelligent being by touching it, making eye contact or speaking its name in its hearing. Characters in mental contact may bespeak one another, mind-to-mind, even if they do not share a language. Most creatures cannot bespeak anything that they believe to be false.

Being in mental contact is not without risks. All binding and probing modes require mental contact. Awakened characters with these modes are aware of all attempts to make contact with them while they are conscious, and can use them to refuse contact. 

To force contact, an awakened character must roll 1d20 + the attribute bonus of their mode + energy used on it and reach a target number based on the type of mode they are using and the mode of defense chosen:

• Defensive binding walls off the mind behind a fortress-like wall. A probe must beat a 9, binding a 12 and discernment a 15.
• Defensive discernment allows the mind to drift on the wind, evading contact. A binding must beat a 9, discernment a 12 and probe a 15.
• Defensive probing leaves nothing to hold on to in an empty mind. A discernment must beat a 9, probe a 12 and binding a 15.

The aggressor always spends their energy, but the defender only does if they repel contact. 

If contact is made, characters still get a will save (vs spells) to resist the effect of a hostile mode. Awakened characters who make the roll may break contact.

Mode Descriptions

Unless otherwise noted, modes last for minutes equal to the associated attribute.

Binding Modes

• Disable (1) — target cannot use a language, limb or sense of your choice for a few minutes.
• Coerce (2, requires Disable) — target cannot take any action or speak any words (your choice which) except the one you designate as long as you maintain concentration. They may choose to remain still/silent.
• Lock (2, requires Disable) — target cannot use any awakened faculties.
  
• Puppet (2/3, requires Coerce) — your spirit enters an otherwise inanimate/living body which you control as if it were your own. Until you return to your own body by touching it, it will lose 1HP every sunset or sunrise.
• Drain (*) — the target loses 2d4 HP and you gain the total, minus one, in energy until sunset or sunrise. If the target saves or fends off contact, you lose 2 energy instead.

Discernment Modes

• Mass Sense (1) — extends through a few dozen yards through open air, a yard of earth a or an inch of stone or wood. As long as you concentrate, you are aware of the placement, shapes and sizes of all solid bodies therein.
  
• Every additional point of energy you are able to spend on discernment powers doubles these ranges.
• Mind Sense (1) — as mass sense, but instead gives awareness of minds and whatever most occupies their attention. Mental contact may be made with all, some or none of them, at your discretion.
  
• Project (1/2/3, requires Mass or Mind Sense) — your sense of presence travels from your body as a disembodied spirit, up to 2/5/18 miles. Until you find and return to your body, you may travel through open air at the speed of thought, but 
• your body lies unconscious at takes 1 point of damage with every sunrise and sunset.
• you do not regain any energy.
• may only pass a threshold if the house is abandoned or you have slept within.
• Consult (2) — you reveal whether a single question can be definitely answered. 
• Divine (2d4) — finds a short, true answer to a single question. If the question has no definite answer, you instead take the energy cost in damage.

Manifestation Modes 

• Bolt (1+) — throws an arc of energy at one nearby target, dealing 2d6 damage for each point of energy. A reflex save [vs breath] halves the damage.
  
• Glamor (1) — creates sense-displays for anyone in mental contact with you. While you concentrate, these otherworldly sensations are limited only by your imagination.
  
• Radiance (1/2/3) — a soft glow provides light (as twilight) and heat for 5/10/20 nearby people until the next sunrise or sunset. You may gather it together into a bright blaze that cooks food for (or deals 1d6 damage/round to) that many people over 2d4 rounds, though this ends the effect.
• Figment (2, requires Glamor) — creates an independent phantom for any two senses of your choice. Unlike a Glamor, this mode does not require mental contact or concentration, and the phantom can be detected by ordinary recording equipment.
  
• Substance (3+, requires Figment and a transport mode) — creates up to sixteen pounds of earth, stone or water, four pounds of horn, leather or wood, one pound of base metal or four ounces of precious metal for every point of energy spent, which evaporates with sunrise or sunset. Creatures who consume the substance take no ill effect but their hunger or thirst returns when it disappears.
  
• Construct (3, requires Figment and a probing mode) — you create a phantom, perceptible to all senses and recording devices. Until sunrise or sunset, it will follow up to three instructions you give it, which can be conditional or to be carried out in sequence. The phantom can move as fast as a bird through the open air, but cannot cross a threshold unless the house is abandoned or you have slept therein. 

Artist: Sam Wood, Manifesting a Metacreativity Power

Probing Modes

• Search (1/2) — if a a particular conscious/unconscious memory that you describe exists within the target's mind, you may re-experience it together.
• Publish (1) — you place a memory or set of memories at the forefront of your mind, so that anyone who could make mental contact with you (even if they have not) can examine it.
• Redact (2, requires Search) — submerges a conscious memory into the target's unconscious. When given a strong trigger of the memory, they may make a will save (vs spells) to regain it.
• Balance (1/2/3) — neutralizes one emotion/wound/disease affecting the character. Balancing emotions calms the target and may allow a reaction to be rerolled. Balancing a wound or disease allows recovery as an additional day of rest would.
• Program (+1 to any a binding mode) — you program up to three triggering situations to activate in those situations. For a number of days equal to your Intelligence, if those situations occur, the target is affected by the mode.
• Subtlety (+1) — the target of your mode believes its effects are natural or come from within, rather than being a foreign influence, if they fail their save.

Transportation Modes

• Float (1+) — makes a total mass you designate of about your bodyweight float lazily through the air at your command within a few dozen yards as long as you concentrate on it. Each additional point of energy doubles the range and increases the mass eightfold.
• Impulse (1+) — something up to an eighth of your bodyweight a few dozen yards (and half as high into the air). Each additional point of energy increases the mass you can move eightfold; smaller masses fly commensurately farther, but take (and deal, to whatever they strike) damage as from a Bolt of the excess energy.
• Atmosphere (1/2) — stills/creates winds for a few dozen yards around you as long as you concentrate on it. Keeps the rain off, if you wish to.
• As with Mass/Mind Sense, every additional point of energy that you are able to spend on this power doubles its range for the same cost.
• Support (Float +1) — rather than floating through the air, creatures in mental contact with you can run through the air as though solid ground existed wherever they wished to step.
• Forceful (+1) — the target loses 1 (more) energy whether or not they make their save or fend off contact.

Artist: Michael Whelan, cover of The Golden Torc by Julian May

Mental Concert

Awakened characters may pool their faculties and act in concert. To form a concert, the characters must between them use the Mind Sense discernment, Drain binding and Balance probing modes. Everyone in mental contact with them may pool all the energy they have to contribute and place it in the hands of one character who acts as conductor. Then increase that pool by one-third. After the concert, reduce the pool by a quarter and redistribute remaining energy to the characters as the conductor wishes.

Total up the maximum energy each character in the concert could spend on each faculty; for every time that this doubles the conductor's allowance (or if the conductor has none for that faculty), increase their allowance by 1 for the duration of the concert.

Artist: Wayne Reynolds, Metaconcert

towards a medieval "brown stone" game

Note: this is not an earnest attempt to recreate any game that was played in the Twin Cities in 1971. It is just something that I threw together based on one explanation I have seen of the (poor quality and contradictory) evidence of how combat in that game worked.

These are incomplete, I basically just wrote and edited until I ran out of steam but I think it'd be enough to start playing. 

I didn't include any Referee's guidance for timekeeping or reactions or things like that, just do your best I guess.

Rules Brief for Players

The game is about a companies of adventurers going on expeditions into strange mazes and uncanny places to find their secrets and treasures. These expeditions are dangerous; adventurers may well die. If they survive, however, their fame and power will grow...

Advice:

• If you don't know what to do, ask questions.
• Tell the others what you want to do.
• The Referee won't lie to you, but they may not tell you everything.
• There aren't rules for everything. If you make a good play, you won't need to roll any dice.
• If you fight, someone will get hurt. It could very well be you.

Adventurers usually go on expedition in large companies, to have the advantage of numbers. Each player can have a few different characters in the company.

de modulii magicii

This is a thinky post and modest proposal about modularity in TTRPG design.

Since modularity can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, I'll be specific. I am not talking (at least not directly) about the role that discrete packages play in character customization; I am talking about the more general organizational principle of giving a unique name to a particular rule and referring to it at need elsewhere in the text.

When a rulebook describes a number of statuses that can affect a character's combat options: blinded, dazed, deafened, prone, surprised, stunned and so on, and then elsewhere gives players and enemies the option to blind, daze, deafen, knock prone, surprise and stun one another, that's an example of modularity. Modularity is a strategy for sacrificing some amount of clarity (the consequences of stunning a foe may not be explained in the same place in the text as the source of the condition) for to make the rules more consistent (all abilities that stun foes achieve the same effect) and concise (it is not necessary to quote a modular rule everywhere it is referenced). The cost in clarity can be offset by choosing descriptive names for the modular rules so that readers' expectations about what applies to stunned characters map well onto what the actual rules provide for those situations.

A place where modularity is particularly useful is in magical effects. By nature, magical affects are at least somewhat contrary to the readers' expectations and, if precise boundaries of the effect are needed, a lot of text may be the result. Delta has a whole series of posts analyzing the rules texts of spells from Chainmail through 3E; it's evident at a glance that spells have accumulated more and more text as time goes on and the attempt is made to nail down exactly what such and such a piece of magic can do.

Whether you like detailed spells descriptions or vague ones, is not practical to quote the full text of a spell description every time it is referenced. As such, the rules are full of effects defined in reference to specific spells. An unscientific survey of a pretty orthodox old school magic item list had 10-40% (depending on category) of magic item listings specifically referencing a spell effect. Excluding scrolls (which are mostly spell scrolls), potions are next most likely to reference spell effects, followed by wands, miscellaneous items and finally rings. Monster abilities in early editions and their imitators seem much less likely to reference spell effects; however 3/3.5E can't get enough of monster abilities directly referencing spell effects, between traditional spellcasting, spell-like abilities and the very confusing situation of "supernatural" (and sometimes "extraordinary") abilities that duplicate spell effects without certain features of spells such as the possibility to be interrupted or dispelled.

Honestly, I think 3/3.5E is pushing in the right design direction there, even if they did it in the messiest possible way. Nevertheless, I'd wager few people have the system mastery to accurately tell you off hand the differences between a spell, spell-like ability, supernatural ability and an extraordinary ability. And even fewer would be able to accurately guess the effects of an unfamiliar spell from its name. In 4E, the designers pulled hard in the opposite direction by removing the modularity from spells (and prayers and maneuvers and psionic powers) entirely: all abilities got siloed to the class or monster type that granted them where they are described in full. In particular, this means that while the information is conveniently organized for the DM running the encounter, the economics of space and how many unique abilities a DM can actually keep in mind while running the encounter suddenly place pretty hard limits on how intricate monsters can be.

Rather than continue talking about the historical vicissitudes of spell modularity, I will instead make a modest proposal:

Modest Proposal

Keep magical causes and magical effects separate:

• A magical effect (wonder) should be listed under a descriptive name and any limitations that are not obvious spelled out (for example, that the wonder of move earth can shift loose earth and its vegetation, but not stone).
• A magical cause could be a spell that can be learned, a consumable preparation, an artifact or a natural ability of a magical creature. The description of a cause should name the wonder should spell out any important limitations on its use (costs, concentration, durations, number of targets, ranges, time to activate and so forth).

Different ways of working the same wonder can be made to feel very different if, for example, different costs are demanded from a holy person and a necromancer to bring about the same healing of a broken body. The details of the wonder equip a ref to rule on its applications and edge cases, while the details of the causes are able to be more diegetic and flavorful without sacrificing modularity for that.

A book of wonders could be used by a referee both as an at-the-table reference for whatever magic is in play but also as a source for describing new wizarding traditions (by selecting a set of wonders and describing that tradition's means of causing each), artifacts or creatures. If the rules texts were sufficiently concise, a deck of cards bearing wonder descriptions could be physically handed out to players when they become able to use them.

factoring ad&d classes: a modest proposal

This post is an attempt to sketch out a different way that the base book classes of AD&D 2e, an edition of the game I never directly experienced, could have been developed in another edition.

Obviously, now we have the benefit of three additional editions of official D&D and numerous offshoots and hacks widely available, so this isn't to say, "this is what 3e/4e/5e should have been" as much as, "this is another direction that could be explored," now that we've taken some probing steps in various directions.

So: classes in 2e AD&D were derived from the four types:

Warrior	Wizard	Priest	Rogue
Fighter	Mage	Cleric	Thief
Ranger	Illusionist	Druid	Bard
Paladin

Let me single out a feature that i rather like: only the four core classes are always available to players. From the DM's chair, I find this very appealing; it's a much lighter demand of a setting that it have fighters, mages, clerics (though clerics present some problems) and thieves than that it also have barbarians, bards, druids, monks, paladins, rangers and sorcerers (to say nothing of warlocks) as well. Bards, druids and monk are particularly egregious in terms of the amount of baggage that their inclusion brings. Although 4e and 5e took the step of distinguishing common and uncommon "races," they do not do the same for classes (which, for my money, do a lot more heavy lifting in terms of providing implied setting).

Another interesting thing about this grid is the idea that we could make the rows meaningful as well as the columns. for example, the Ranger and Druid do seem to have something in common, as do the Bard and Illusionist, suggesting:

Warrior	Wizard	Priest	Rogue
Fighter	Mage	Cleric	Thief
Ranger		Druid		Wilderness
	Illusionist		Bard	Trickery
Paladin

...hey, this looks a lot like:

Defender	Controller	Leader	Striker
Fighter		Warlord	Rogue, Ranger	Martial
	Wizard		Warlock	Arcane
Paladin		Cleric		Divine

I'll freely admit that this is a part of 4e's design that i genuinely do like. I think you could potentially communicate a lot of setting using a matrix like this, especially if your sources of power corresponded to diagetic factions. even the gaps in the table (though later books, of course, fill them) serve a purpose. It says something about what these sources of power are about that there would be no martial controller, arcane defender or divine striker, for example.

However, this tableau is of basically no use for restricting available classes, which was one of the things that the 2e one does so well. Furthermore, little enough is directly shared between classes of the same source of power that they feel, to me, a lot more like palette swaps on the same game math than genuinely distinct types of character. This is exacerbated by the insistence on filling in gaps in the source/class matrix

Returning to our spread of classes in 2e AD&D, let's use a different axis to split things. Instead of source of power, let's use (3 position) alignment:

Warrior	Wizard	Priest	Rogue
Ranger, Paladin		Cleric		Lawful
Fighter	Mage	Druid	Bard, Thief	Neutral
*Berserk			*Assassin	Chaotic

Italicized classes are ones that we'd expect DM veto power on. I'm adding in a couple of thematic Chaotic classes, nothing to see here. there's a couple of things that i don't love about this. First, as in 4e there's no clear way to use this table to restrict available classes; the neutral classes don't correspond to the core classes (druids in particular probably should not be the core priest class). Second, i don't like the idea of the core classes being restricted to neutral alignment. i'd prefer something like this:

My proposal is to distinguish the alignment of druids and bards from 'neutrality' (probably replacing that with a better term). I'm merging paladins into rangers (as we don't necessarily need two distinct Lawful classes about defending the innocent), and making clerics no longer a core class but instead a Lawful-only specialty.

Warrior	Wizard	Priest	Rogue
Fighter	Mage		Thief	any
Ranger		Cleric		Lawful
		Druid	Bard	Old Believer
Berserk			Assassin	Chaotic

This setup involves four alignments:

• Worldly - occupied with the here and now, uninterested in bigger questions or grand conflicts. most scoundrels.
  
• Lawful - follower of the nameless craft gods of the Heavens. most people, to some extent are Lawful.
  
• Old Believer - keeps the old ways in the secret names of the old gods of the Earth. back-country folk, to some extent, are Old Believers.
  
• Chaotic - traffics with the uncanny forces out of Deep Sea and Far Sky. most Chaotic characters will disguise their rites; wizards are always under great suspicion of being Chaos cultists.
  

This is better, in my book, but it can be further refined. Notice that there is no longer a core Priest class, and take the obvious step of collapsing that column with Wizard:

Warrior	Wizard	Rogue
Fighter	Mage	Burglar	any
	Druid	Bard	Old Believer
Ranger	Cleric		Lawful
Berserk		Assassin	Chaotic

This is approaching what I'd really like to see. We understand fighter, mage and thief to always be on offer. The specialty classes are all bound up with a diagetic alignment (in this case a mostly religious meaning). Any type is available to any alignment, but that doesn't mean that every alignment has a specialty in every type. Indeed, in the first draft of this post I had a Necromancer Chaotic wizard specialty rather than Berserk. While that could work, it seemed better to me to place all wizards under the suspicion of being Chaos magicians by associating wizardry and Chaos.

Available talents ("nonweapon proficiencies" need rebranded) would be chosen by combining the Warrior, Wizard or Rogue list with the appropriate alignment list. Other distinctions (say, what a cleric can do that a lawful mage cannot) would be as noted in the specialty class.

If one wished to customize the array of classes offered to a given setting, identifying alignments and their associated specialties seems like a natural way to do this; for example, someone could remove the Old Faith and add in something home-brewed.

In my dream vision of this, the core classes each get a spread to themselves. Each aligned pair of specialty classes could then be presented in a single spread, one on each facing page. Nine classes in twelve pages.

dice pools

Postulated: dice pools are fun. It is fun to adjust the number of dice you roll. It's scary to face a roll with fewer dice than usual, and feels great to roll a huge fistful.

Postulated: forgone conclusions are not fun. If you know before you roll the dice that there's no way to get a certain outcome, why roll?

Proposed: this is why people don't like taking sums of dice pools.

The fact that the floor of the sum of a dice pool shifts is problematic in a different way than that the peak of its bell curve shifts or than that its ceiling shifts. Look at the probability of rolling a certain sum or greater on 1-4 dice:

#	1D	2D	3D	4D
1	100.00%
2	83.30%	100.00%
3	66.70%	97.20%	100.00%
4	50.00%	91.70%	99.50%	100.00%
5	33.30%	83.30%	98.10%	99.90%
6	16.70%	72.20%	95.40%	99.60%
7		58.30%	90.70%	98.80%
8		41.70%	83.80%	97.30%
9		27.80%	74.10%	94.60%
10		16.70%	62.50%	90.30%
11		8.30%	50.00%	84.10%
12		2.80%	37.50%	76.10%
13			25.90%	66.40%
14			16.20%	55.60%
15			9.30%	44.40%
16			4.60%	33.60%
17			1.90%	23.90%
18			0.50%	15.90%
19				9.70%
20				5.40%
21				2.70%
22				1.20%
23				0.40%
24				0.10%

The floor moving is bad because it creates forgone conclusions by opening gaps in the outcome range of the smaller dice pools. It also creates them by shifting the 100% to outcomes that had previously not been 100%. We don't see either of those problems when we subtract the number of dice rolled from the sum:

#	1D	2D	3D	4D
0	100.00%	100.00%	100.00%	100.00%
1	83.30%	97.20%	99.50%	99.90%
2	66.70%	91.70%	98.10%	99.60%
3	50.00%	83.30%	95.40%	98.80%
4	33.30%	72.20%	90.70%	97.30%
5	16.70%	58.30%	83.80%	94.60%
6		41.70%	74.10%	90.30%
7		27.80%	62.50%	84.10%
8		16.70%	50.00%	76.10%
9		8.30%	37.50%	66.40%
10		2.80%	25.90%	55.60%
11			16.20%	44.40%
12			9.30%	33.60%
13			4.60%	23.90%
14			1.90%	15.90%
15			0.50%	9.70%
16				5.40%
17				2.70%
18				1.20%
19				0.40%
20				0.10%

This also makes the tiers of possible outcomes go up by 5s which is a lot easier to deal with mentally than going up by 6s (unless you're Count Rugen).

a modest proposal

Take the sixes off your dice and replace them with zeroes. Boom, done.