Long-Term Projects and Training
Our group had a discussion last session concerning a player starting a long-term project to learn the calculating advancement from the spider playbook. We wanted to set an informed precedent for future actions of this type and I was specifically concerned with not creating a loophole that would become the optimal path to pursue future playbook advancements.
I particularly liked the player’s fictional setup for the project, involving gleaning information and technique from a friendly contact who fully embodies calculating. In hindsight though I cannot help but wonder if this fictional setup works every bit as well to describe the training playbook action in downtime.
I understand that long-term projects are the way to avoid, alter, or even break the rules, just questioning now if some rules are best not broken? Any input from similar situations and other groups experiences with long-term projects of this nature would be helpful.
If there’s fictional justification for it then yeah I can see it. I’d probably argue for a fairly substantial clock though. If you get meaty about the numbers a playbook advance is an 8 segment clock and using a downtime action to train playbook xp for it would be 8 downtime actions (barring training upgrade) staggered out over 8 scores because you can only train a certain area once per downtime. So even if you’re throwing out a 12 clock you’re talking about a person being able to finish it in 3 actions minimum in a single downtime. And that’s the only thing about the game breaking aspect that’s a little suspect to me. I’d probably go with multiple clocks of increasing lengths and make sure its not a “dump 8 coin into this one downtime and knock it out immediately” kind of thing unless everyone’s okay with that.
The problem with allow a playbook advance by long term project is that long term projects is that the clock for long term projects can be advanced simply by either paying coin for more actions and makeing more rolls or by increasing the result of any given roll result by spending coin. So in the extreme case any player who has saved 8 coin could guarantee the clock finishes in one downtime. This may break things fictionally unless your group and you are ok with a faster paced character progression.
My gut would be to call it training. Chris McDonald is right that it would take 8 scores worth of downtime (or 4 if you have the personal training upgrade) but since you also get XP at the end of the session, I think this makes a perfect “in fiction” reason for why someone would get an advancement (they were specifically training for it).
If you want to handle it as a LTM, that’s cool to, but I’d make it clear that this is unique. Here is the LTM for this one person with their particular contacts and resources to learn this one ability. That way you can evaluate it and decide in the future if it worked for the game or if it needs to be adjusted should your players want to learn more abilities this way. Even then, I’d keep it unique, just to ensure that that his project also has impact on the setting/fiction/story and character arcs.
Our group has done similar things with Crew upgrades. As long as it makes sense in the fiction I let them have it. It started with Quarters. The Dolls are based in an abandoned doll factory, so it made sense that they could make a project of throwing up some partitions and setting up rudimentary crew quarters. It was followed by two more projects to upgrade their security: one from the Leech, who built all kinds of traps and alarms, and another from the Whisper, who threw up protective wards and whatnot.
I think it would speed things up, for one thing. Not sure if that’s a desirable effect or not, but it does give a lean towards that optimality you were concerned about.
If the crew doesn’t have the Playbook Training advance, each DTA (Downtime Action) of Training puts one tick on that track. If it’s a LTP (Long-term Project), each DTA of LTPing will put from 1-5 ticks on the clock. (Rolling 2 dice gives slightly more than 2 ticks on average). And a player can finagle more dice to increase the odds of quick advancement as well. Can’t in a straight DTA:Training.
I suppose you could make it a multi-tiered clock to balance things out (2 8-tick clocks would roughly work out to the same as the DTA:Training).
I think the fiction could support either in the way your player describes, so that’s kinda moot.
Sean Nittner part of the reason why I didn’t include regular playbook xp in the math was that since this was proposed as a LTP it could be done at the same time as regular playbook level up. In theory if the player is loaded with coin you’re looking at then playing a session grabbing a full 6 xp then a single downtime action to train in upgraded playbook getting them an advance and them burning more coin and actions on a LTP project and getting an advance AND calculating in the same session. While that isn’t inherently any more game breaking than anything else it is specially setting a precedent that you could be double stacking advances in a single session which felt like it needed more math meat weight behind it.
That said I think making it a unique thing is a great shout.
Worth mentioning, even though you obviously saw p.17 and its explicit direction about LTPs. I think the example in that paragraph also illustrates an implicit direction to the GM though – to deepen the story as you use this tool.
So I don’t see it as a problem, but I did when I started out with this game. Now, I actually give my players a ton of freedom in this respect. Might call me an “evangelized believer” that this way of learning things is not just ok, its better.
Sure it ticks faster, but its fine! They are offering scenes they care about to get things they really want – instead of short, often general training scenes for an XP. So I tend to treat those kinds of projects with extra care (what are the risks? what effect does this have?) – basically I treat them as free play scenes to some extent. There are often risks, and rather than letting it be a here and gone downtime thing, I RP it out.
The result for me recently was the Whisper spending a day with one of the Dimmer Sisters to eat pie and reminisce like before, but this time observing seances over a ritual space in the house’s library to learn how to develop her own first ritual. I also get a lot of buy-in for the approaching demon clocks I’ve ticked when the player uses the ritual they learned. YMMV (and vary by a lot, this is not an automatically easy thing)
Thanks for all the insight and suggestions. I agree the unique end of the spectrum feels best to me for this sort of situation. Our group has made good use of the downtime and free play scenes to really dig into the characters, NPCs, and their relationships in what could otherwise end up as mechanized filler. Lucky to have a group as invested in these details as I am to help bring this particular story of Doskvol to life.