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Old 05-12-2020, 08:50 AM   #1
Captain Joy
 
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Default Long Tasks: Alternative Method

B346 has rules for Long Tasks. I was thinking about another way to handle such things and am requesting feedback.

What do ya'll think about some thing like: "You'll be rolling against [insert skill(s) here]. When you've built up your Margin of Success up to [insert number here], you will have completed the task."?

You would do such a thing when time is a factor and each roll represents more and more time spent on that task.

Has anyone seen something like this in GURPS RAW?
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Old 05-12-2020, 10:20 AM   #2
Donny Brook
 
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Default Re: Long Tasks: Alternative Method

It sounds a bit like the "energy accumulation" method of Path/Book rituals from Thaumatology.
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Old 05-12-2020, 10:21 AM   #3
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Default Re: Long Tasks: Alternative Method

That's kind of how the long tasks things work, but flips the equation around backwards so that the margin of success is counted rather than just a success/fail roll.

Time is a factor, as you say, so there's probably a baseline amount of time it'll take. Let's say 10 minutes.

Under your scheme, each level of margin of success counts for 1 minute of that time, so that 10 minute task would require accumulating 10 'points' of success margin.

By the book, it's -1 (which more or less maps to one point of success margin) per 10% less time taken. Going back to our 10 minute task, and each minute less you want to take will cost -1 to skill. However in this case, you just roll once with the appropriate penalty to see if you succeeded in the time you need to or not. Failure may not mean that the task failed outright, simply that you're not done yet and circumstances dictate that you have to stop, like an earth-shattering kaboom.

Both have their upsides and downsides, the counting successes requires more rolls but the math may be a bit simpler. The other way has a bit more math to it, but boils things down to one roll, which is a very GURPS-y way of doing things. And I think there are situations where one is probably easier to calculate on the fly than the other.

It's certainly not an uncommon way of doing long tasks. DnD 4e (I think?) had a system kind of like that where each roll was a pass/fail and you needed X number to succeed. You rolled and counted up successes until you had a certain number, or accumulated a certain number of failures, or if it were contested a race to see who won first. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on the details though, it's been a while since I looked at those rules.

To add one more method to your toolbox, it can be simplified such that for a long task a character needs X number of successful rolls, crits count for 2, and go.

I think that accumulated successes work for things that have an open-ended amount of time that can be applied to it, don't really have a fail condition, and are hard, like an artwork or an invention or something. The character rolls, accumulating successes until they either succeed (meeting the threshold) or stop leaving the project unfinished, possibly to be resumed at a later date.
You could adjust the skill difficulty along the way to account for positive influences (inspiration, a useful resource) or stumbling blocks (interruptions, lack of funding).

RAW has one way of doing things, but there are lots of tools in the GURPS toolbox that you can use that the mechanics support even if it's not written down.
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Old 05-12-2020, 01:26 PM   #4
Grayscale
 
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Default Re: Long Tasks: Alternative Method

Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Joy View Post
B346 has rules for Long Tasks. I was thinking about another way to handle such things and am requesting feedback.

What do ya'll think about some thing like: "You'll be rolling against [insert skill(s) here]. When you've built up your Margin of Success up to [insert number here], you will have completed the task."?

You would do such a thing when time is a factor and each roll represents more and more time spent on that task.

Has anyone seen something like this in GURPS RAW?
If I recall correctly, Kromm explores this very concept in his article Opus Longa, Pugna Brevis from Pyramid #3-120. I like it quite a lot.
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Old 05-12-2020, 01:54 PM   #5
ravenfish
 
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Default Re: Long Tasks: Alternative Method

A surviving "sample page" from the old Pyramid, http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=5738, provides a system where multiple success rolls build up "task points" until they reach a threshold of success. It might be worth looking at.
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Old 05-12-2020, 11:30 PM   #6
Rupert
 
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Default Re: Long Tasks: Alternative Method

I've used this off and on since forever, having stolen it from Aftermath!, which is where I first ran across this system for long tasks.
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Old 05-15-2020, 08:41 PM   #7
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Default Re: Long Tasks: Alternative Method

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Originally Posted by Exallted View Post
If I recall correctly, Kromm explores this very concept in his article Opus Longa, Pugna Brevis from Pyramid #3-120. I like it quite a lot.
Yeah, Acting at the Speed of Drama, from that article is this exactly.
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