+Edgar Johnson posted yesterday about his ideas for a mini-game to approximate PC upkeep and whether they accomplish their goals in their down time or succumb to their temptations. Like a lot of stuff either of us write, Edgar and I are tossing ideas back and forth on this issue and working to develop a more complete system that will be as much fun as we can make it. Edgar's post was a completely inspiring one and has me crazy excited to see where this goes. Before I can toss too many ideas out there, though, here are some basic definitions that I'm going to be using for my take on the system.
- Simple Dice Chain: This dice chain includes the following dice types, from smallest to largest: d2 => d3 => d4 => d6 => d8 => d10 => d12 => d20; it reflects the polyhedral dice most commonly used in RPGs.
- Extended Dice Chain: This dice chain includes more dice, including the "funky" dice. This dice chain includes the following dice types, from smallest to largest: d2 => d3 => d4 => d5 => d6 => d7 => d8 => d10 => d12 => d14 => d16 => d20 => d24 => d30; this is the dice chain used by the majority of DCC systems.
- Upkeep Turn: This is an abstract unit of time that occurs between adventures. It may be as little as a week or as much as a month; after one month of between adventure "down time," a subsequent Upkeep Turn is entered.
- Interests: An Interest is an area of activity that can serve as either a Goal or a Temptation. Typical Interests include Food, Drink, Lore and Influence.
- Goals: Goals are Interests that PCs actively pursue, pouring resources into positive results related to these Interests.
- Temptations: In many ways the opposite of Goals, Temptations are Interests that may be said to pursue PCs. In short, Temptations are Interests that tempt the PCs into spending resources on pursuing them rather than a PC's Goals, often to a negative result.
These definitions exist merely to clear up a few concepts in Edgar's original post and so I can talk about some very specific things in precise ways. More is coming soon on this system, so watch out!