Real World Role: the Agent aka Pushers

The Rogue is supposed to be an adventure that lives by hits wits more than his blade. The value of Wits is pretty much what many RPGs escalate towards. Hacking and Slashing isn't as savory when tactics and strategies employed allowed arrange the situation to give them the advantage.

Looking at intelligence or cunning, it is amazing how simply by re-arranging certain conditions something totally different comes out of it. In combat, imagine positioning where forces surround and divide players vs positions that allow the players to funnel weaker forces against more superior ones. In social and diplomatic puzzles, it is finding and converting a resource or leverage you have into something that can influence someone who can give you something in return.

My definition of Rogues are those who resolve problems with their witt and cunning, and not through direct violence. A kind of Rogue that exists in the real world are Courtiers, Brokers, Valets, Sergeants (another term for servant), Entrepreneurs, and Agents. More specifically, I want to simplify on the concept of the Agent: someone who looks after the his master or patron's interests because his own are rewarded by doing so.

The kinds of Rogues I've mentioned before: Courtiers, Valets, Brokers, etc. are all kinds and forms of agents. They represent the interests of parties more powerful than themselves. A courtier represents his Lord, the Arch Bishop or Patriarch, A Merchant Prince, the Guilde, A far flung kingdom etc.. Valets, and Sergeants represent powerful individuals when their presence needs to manifest indirectly in the events these agents oversee.

So what is it that people look for in representation: Judgement or the ability to know what is best for their master/employer/patron. Even in real life, among employees, comrades and peers our representative must be the one with the best presence of mind to see that things occur in a particular way.

Like the diplomacy I'd like to break this down to something simpler and easier to digest. The first set of skills are those that involve information gathering. This is the most basic agent. Spies, Scouts, Representatives, Diplomats, Scribes, and Couriers all come back or send information to their masters.

2 fundamental Skills: Observation and Writing. the most basic is to Perceive and the be able to communicate it accurately and in detail. Assume Language is a prerequisite.

Next group of skills deal with Information gathering into greater depth: Research, Body Language, Psychology, Detect Lies, Interview/Interrogation, Administration (Bureaucracy), Accounting, Merchantile (analyzing basic economic condition), Military Intelligence.

All these skills, will be useless if there was no way to communicate it readily and effectively to the parties concerned. Of course useful set of skills are: Languages, Cryptography (ciphering information), Holdout (hiding and disguising information), Slight of Hand, etc...

Pushing. Above, intelligence gathering is useful but very difficult to use when information has a short expiration date. In courts, marketplaces, empty hallways of the palace, parties, and bedchambers Agents primarily push. They make things happen in a way that is advantageous to his master. One thing is to react, which requires information to address such an appropriate action the other and more simpler course of action is to CAUSE an Action.

Take away the daily reports and the meticulous details, a highly skilled Agent PUSHES his masters agenda. He courts the right people, puts into the air the right kind of information, and manipulates the information environment to be a certain way, so as the subjects to act a certain way.

Pushing Skills: Public Speaking (Oration or Storytelling), Acting- playing a role, Persuasion (Pushing the right buttons, framing information in a way the audience is most receptive), Arguing (Diplomacy, Philosophy, theology, Law skill in GURPS), writing,

These skills all serve to push, while the more complex information gathering skills point to WHERE to push. Use Religious Righteousness to push a cause, Play to the Weakness of the Lord, be it his Pride, Envy, Fear, Lust, Greed, Vanity etc, Play to the Crowd's Desires: demonizing a foe or people, make them see themselves as liberators, civilizers, and bringers of justice. Play to the self-interest manifesting as altruism.

The Agent Pushes the mark to act: to declare war, to wed, to spend, to tax, to punish, to build, to ostracize, to associate, to court, to move, etc... all towards what would be to the advantage of the Agent's master.

When I write my Agent Template, it will be a LONG and arbitrary list of builds designed to Push. there are tried and true strategies, but unlike other templates Agents are better when they build on their diverse background and strengths than to follow the most advantageous and traveled routes.

Visualizing Mastery of a skill - GM Narrative Tool

My wife makes me watch project runway, and such competition reality shows have good examples of cognitive biases and how they can manifest in what the participants tell themselves. A participant named Seth caught my interest, not because of how he deals what I find "highly aribtrary designs" but how he goes about his work and how it is a very good example of what makes up mastery of a skill.

Seth, consistently puts out work that defies the professional judges expectations of a "days work". this is no small task, even if some people may not respect the profession (i do because it is a creative profession not protected or rewarded by copyrights). In Grain to Gold, they give examples of how many hours it would take to make a pair of pants. Watching the show, can give you an Idea of how much work it takes to make a FINE set of clothing. The contestants have about 12-13 hours.

Anyway, I was talking to my wife about it and she sews as a hobby and I was happy how I was able to guess how he does it and she was able to confirm it. Basically, before cutting out the patterns, everyone goes through a step where they try it on a "scratch" fabric to see if there is anything wrong with the design and from there work in the adjustment. Seth, skips this part. He skips a whole repetitive process that doubles the work involved.

What is profound about this is to take this observation and apply it to the people you know who are able to do work more efficiently than anyone else of their field. In my field: 3d and Graphic Arts, its the sketching processes. The faster the person works, the less sketching they need to get done and the more quickly the move into the meat of the work.

Steps are necessary in performing a task with very low margin of waste and error. If you can just imagine the "ritual" you go through every day for safety, hygiene, and work we all have necessary steps that can be made intuitive or "mastered" to become a purely mental process.

as I've discussed with Diplomacy, each processes can be made intuitive depending on the strengths of a character. A Very Empathic Character can sense and draw information much quicker than those with average Empathy, A frugal and meticulous character can judge and juggle values pretty handily, a persuasive and charming personality can frame proposals easily and seemingly effortless.

How does this relate to the game? Visualizing mastery is helpful in imagining how characters act in the thick of their core-roles. A warrior, quickly assess martial intelligence without having to engage and test techniques; A soldier knows how much resources, men, and effort a campaign will cost and begins working with his limitations to see what among the patron's requests are feasible; A commander, arranges his troops quite naturally and gathers information without having to exchange as much words with what the soldier has to say; a scout, can calculate on his own what the enemy is going to do given the clues he can perceive, he processes contexts and acts on the dangerous conclusions instantly.

Applying it to GMing? There are many steps to prepare and develop a good game. In everything about GMing, we can use a processes or set of tables the rules give us, or we can memorize or formulate our own rules of thumb that give us results uncannily like the GM tools we are given.

Skipping Steps. Not all steps are equal, each occupies an amount of time while having a measurable effect in utility. What separates a novice from someone who thinks they know what they are doing is the knowledge of the values of each step. Only after this valuable humility is achieved, can one make rational and calculated judgement when to skip a step or how to proceed to perform it purely mentally.

Definition of Diplomacy

Diplomacy, Leadership, Tactics, Strategy, are Key words you find in business, in real life, and RPGs. In the game, these words are boiled down to a skill. Here I break down it down to what they really are really made off in terms of actions.

Diplomacy . diplomacy is simplified as negotiation, etiquette, getting along, conversation etc. In my experience, a Diplomatic task is any difficult negotiation of various conflicting interests or a long term behavioral strategy. Someone who is diplomatic, is a person who has mastered getting the most Good will, trust, reputation, and credibility out of every effort he puts out.

A diplomatic person knows the costs of "conquering" and "holding" any position of great strategic value. Such a person has drilled into him skills that come naturally when called to turn situations into their favor.

Below I break down the action, but keep in mind in practice these all blend into a skill that encompass and entire lifestyle when truly mastered. Just because the masters of diplomacy make it look easy, doesn't mean it is. Anyone who wants to be more Emotionally intelligent about their life and time with others find Diplomacy a worthwhile long term behavioral strategy, despite their disinclination.

Knowing the interests of all parties involved. "Intelligence gathering" is a sophisticated way of beginning the most fundamental step in any scientific or problem solving method: asking the right question. Before interests begin to answered, a practiced or familiarized mental process of empathizing and asking "what is it for the us/me?".

Skills that make this task easier is definitely: psychology or knowledge regarding human behavior and interests, information regarding the condition and status of the other person's affairs (which may need bureaucratic and observational skills), and the appropriate communication language or medium.

Finding the optimal and multiple ways of satisfying all parties involved. This skill involves some math and good head for numbers and figures. Even when dealing with currency like favors, political capital and especially time, one needs to be able to give a quick account what they can afford, and what it will cost them.

Skills. Finance or Merchantry - the skill with moving and investing cash or other cash-like resources. Math, Accounting, or any way skill that allows the character to deal with large and complex values. And knowledge of various costs (from running a city, marketplace, a guild, an army on the march etc...).

Being able to frame the solution and negotiation in a way that all parties are more receptive. Framing is the art of crafting words to mean something else than they would normally. Framing takes advantage of cognitive biases, or Works to prevent cognitive biases from affecting the value assessment of the other party to be detrimental to negotiations.

Skills. Philosophy, Psychology, Literature or Written Composition, empathy, Savoir-faire, Acting or Poker face (Bluffing) etc.

Like almost all scientific and problem solving methods, the pattern follows Input > Process > repeat Step 1 and 2 until Success.

How is this useful in the Game?

Well, for starters GMs who work towards being more EI in their game (which smacks of KODT's more role-playing less hacking philosophy paradoy of the old school ideal) who are themselves introverted (like myself) can learn to look at the complexity of a problem instead of glossing over the details and bashing it.

when problems are solved in this way, personal social problems tend to be less intimidating and frustrating because of the empathic and critical thinking skills it encourages.

Science and Gaming: Testing Claims

Thrand's reply to Roman Vs. Rajput 2 of 2: "Roman Vs. Rajput"

I've pretty much seen the same tests in other videos. I do admit that it is hard to reflect these rules rules in game. Although you can find some facts about how much force on average it would take for a blade to penetrate mail and I would have to say given ideal conditions like these tests it still requires massively build men of 220lbs+ with a high muscle proportion to generate that force.

If you have a chance to watch Warlords with Jet Li, his swords strikes were mostly made to avoid piercing armor. GURPS low tech has pretty much detailed all the vulnerable points to strike, and if weight didn't matter an a character can be edge proof... Speaking from experience with airsoft, 1lb can mean the difference in speed and energy remaining in a day long encounter.

Bonuses in game, really feel different from real life. Small bonus in real life matter A LOT over long periods of time. Bonuses many people take for granted like the way your clothes fit, shoes, having extra socks, that small sip of water, the thickness of clothes against thorns and abrasive surfaces, knee pads when kneeling, crawling, in 110 (45 celcius) heat!

Another Take on the Classics: GURPS Racial Templates

Another take on elves and dwarves.

Dwarf

0 points

Dwarves are hardy and strong folk. Their physical traits allow them to do more work then any other people, allowing them to make impressive feats of industry and infrastructure. Desipite their notable abilities, they have been enslaved for generations by many other nations. Each plundering them for their highly productive man-power. The Dwarves that have escape and won their freedom live in mountain strongholds in what used to be terrible places where they once served.
Attribute Modifiers: HT+1 [10].
Secondary Characteristic Modifiers: Basic Lift +1 [3]; Basic Speed 5 [-5]; FP 10 [-3]; Basic Move 4 [-5] (shorter strides).
Features: Stocky and Short, the are 20% shorter than an average human of the same weight.

System Note: what is broken is, as a Racial Template HT minus speed and FP modifier is 2CP per level. I think, the system should have incorporated Fitness and Rapid Healing into the HT stat. It will be complicated but it will make the game system more robust.

It is weird when Fitness is not Part of Having a Good HT. I could have invested 10CP for HT11 but take twice as long to recover as a person who spent 5cp on Fitness or not as quickly heal as 5cp in rapid healing.

This is why, the 2cp per HT combo is pretty weird is because at Net 10cp I have an HT15. Endurance checks for running and swimming require a fail an HT check before losing FP, (B426). So a character with 10FP but HT15 can outlast someone with HT10 but FP15 which is 50% more expensive.

I was tempted to Munchkin the template and give dwarves HT15 FP10 Spd5.

Elf

10 points

. They are the elite ruling class and race of many human kingdoms. They are considered attractive by many cultures and standards. Their appearance leads many to notice their finer points and ignore their shortcomings. They lowest borne elf can be found in the gentry, who own valuable forests filled with game animals rich in furs, meat and other products. Many elves are land owning aristocrats, who serve their elven princes by providing many resources and human sergeants.
Attribute Modifiers: None.
Secondary Characteristic Modifiers: None.
Advantages: Appearance: Attractive +1 reaction bonus (Universal +20%) [5]; Longevity [2].
Perks: Presence of Superiority [1]; Honest Face [1]; Sanitized Metabolism [1].
Features: They have more exotic shades of eye and hair color. They have pointed ears.

Special Note: this takes advantage of how attractiveness and Racial superiority can come from the cognitive bias that stem in fallacy of association and how distracted appearance and "racial" superiority make people overlook negative traits and over emphasize positive traits.

Just because someone is more attractive or the ruling class, makes the lesser classes all inferior in comparison irrationally. This is basically the underlying sentiment with elves as they Look good, and MUST be good for something... the same time goblins are Ugly and must make up for something or are stupid.

Yeah Honest Face is there because there is that Assumption that Elves are Good!

DnD Classes and their Real World Counterparts

As the title points out, i'm interested in figuring out how DnD 3.X concept of roles compare to some real world roles.

the Fighter.

Beginning with the most basic and simple, the Fighter. The concept is so broad, but when placed along side the Ranger, Barbarian and Paladin what it isn't begins to be defined.

The Fighter is tough, not as much as the Barbarian which has "rage" in taking punishment. Among the four, the Barbarian and the Ranger are more "striker" or "flanker" like since they have poorer lasting abilities, while capable of dealing more damage over time.

So the definition narrows down to the Fighter and the Paladin. Without elaborating on many points, the Paladin is definitely the leader while the Fighter is capable of dealing more damage over time.

Having compared the others, what is the equivalent of the Fighter in the more gritty realistic roles. Well, looking at toughness and ability to hold the line the Fighter is the Soldier. What defines a soldier from other warriors is discipline.

I don't want to go about the whole history of Soldiering and how all great conquering empires relied on discipline to make a rabble into an army. Individual prowess has its place in the battle field: in scouts, skirmishers, and ambushers, but for those who form the ranks, march in full kit for days, and has to worry about his brother in arms as much as his own hide Discipline is what makes this all work.

So the Fighter is the Soldier or the Disciplined Warrior.

The Barbarian.

It becomes clear that the Axial counterpart of the Disciplined Warrior is the Undisciplined one. Personal Bravery and Glory are virtues of the Ages before Military Discipline and Organization. You hear about it in the Post-Mycenean Greeks, the Gothic and Frankish Barbarians, the Raiding Danes (or more commonly known vikings), also Nomadic warriors of the Steppe East to West, etc...

In the economy of Work, an Undisciplined Warrior focuses more on his fighting skill and less on his teamwork, logistics, defense, planning, etc... All the things that make the Soldier the warmachine of the empire.

Still Undisciplined Warriors of great skill have a use. The Byzantines call them Kurasores, or Assault Troops. Technically, they are called Medium Infantry because of their good mobility like light troops but heavy hitting power like heavy troops. In the battlefield they fight in loose formation, unlike the real Soldiers. Their mobility and power is employed as, what in DnD is called Strikers or in other Game terms: "Flankers".

toe to toe against a Soldier/Fighter, what decides who wins in purely the Context of the Situation. Like in economics, there are strategic trade-offs and any absolute set of circumstances ignores the purposes of these trade offs.

The Paladin.

The Paladin is the Commander. Again, in the Economies of effort and work trade offs and decisions must be made. A Commander is a warrior who focuses more on Logistics, Diplomacy, Camaraderie, Strategy, and Tactics.

There are Warriors, and there are Leaders. The Paladin/Commander is competent enough to stand against his Barbarian/Kurasores or Fighter/Soldier but can best them when planning, preparation, sustainability, diplomacy and organization are avenues of success.

Knights, are ideally commanders. What they lack in fighting ability, they make up for with the RIGHT to lead and the wealth and influence for the leisure to master all skills.

The Ranger.

The Scout gets a bad rap because of Aragorn and the Rangers. It seems the Scout is the wimpy ranger or the pupa stage ranger. well in truth, the Scout IS the Ranger.

In the Economies of effort and work, the Ranger/Scout focus on their intelligence gathering skills. Note that, the skill that allows them to gather information are not "observation" or tracking, but they do help, it is actually their Mobility.

Mobility is broken down to:

• Pathfinding, the skill of finding one's way in a variety of terrains even those one has just have been to,
• Stealth, how to move silently and not disturb surroundings,
• Hiking, the endurance to travel great distances,
• Athletics, the ability to climb, run, jump and perform physical feats necessary in overcoming the obstacles,
• Foraging, the skill of being resourceful enough to travel with the lightest load possible and find enough food and water to meet the demands of the situation.
• Alertness, the presence of mind to react quickly and out witt opponents just long enough to escape or survive.

These skills all make up what counts for great mobility in hazardous and dangerous terrain, the kind one will find in war.

I have a game tomorrow. I hope to write about the Rogue, Bard, Cleric, Wizard, Sorcerer and Druid... if I can figure out what they can translate to.

DnD Magic With a real Cost

Looking at economics of energy, Magic in any setting throws away laws of physics for the sake of metaphysical and metaphorical unity. There will always be a game design imbalances to magic because, the human design will have a hard time making a "balanced" system compared to the Laws of the Universe as we see it in Science.

Still, some players ache for magic and if you want to play you will have to sate their hunger. As a economics nerd, the few ways I can comprehend magic if there was a cost. A real cost that would complicate decisions the ways organization and efficiency systems in the Real World complicates decisions.

In DnD3.5 i decided, what if magic costs 1 day per Caster Level x Spell Level at a minimum of 1. Defining it more completely, 1 XP expenditure on a magic Item is 10 days worth of life.

If Magic and all its certain and reliable power costs this much, how does it affect the decision making? One thing that it will certainly change is the Sh*t, Shower, Shave, Persistent and Extended Spell casting done by GISH characters.

What does Oldschool Gaming have to say about, making the 3.5 system magic cost so much?

Defining the Cost: LFD.

Since Characters are the Baseline, then I can define the cost of magic as Life Force Days. Every time a character casts a spell he loses LFD = to CL and SL. He loses an additional 10LFD per 1xp spent to cast anything.

It will be a natural strategy that some will try to gather as much LFD as they can when they can squeeze it in their ethical parameters. So its is important to define where can they draw up "life force days". In this case, any magical creature or creature able to take up a magical class. when their maximum age is indeterminable, then use their HP and double for every size category they are larger than human.

This means characters who want to "win back" or "store up" as many LFDs as much as possible.

Storing LFDs. there is no Storing LFDs, there is just getting more energetic and physical primed. I guess, I can translate it to Comeliness (average of Constitution and Charisma for me) having achieved the fitness at your prime (for me it was Early 20s). Over abundance can mean better Constitution and Charisma! A necromancer or a wizard who looks mature but as fit as an athlete.

Drawing and Sharing LFDs. Characters can volunteer LFDs to other characters with a minimum tax of 1LFD. All spell casters are able to draw LFDs from volunteering sources.

Forced LFD Drain. This is where necromancy and negative energy spells figure in. A being can only give up so many LFY before dying. If a creature takes LFY greater than their CON in a day, they start losing CON.

• Energy Drain Effects Saps 5years instead of every level Drained on initial Hit. On a Failed Save, at the end of the Day another 5 yeas is lost.
• 1hp Drained or Gained is 10LFDs gained/recovered.
• 1xp Drained is 10LFDs gained/recovered

Death Knell allows the spellcaster to gain 1d8 x 10LFD

Vampyric Touch allows the spellcaster to gain 1d6 x10 (per two caster levels) LFD.

Enervation allows the spellcaster to gain 1d4 x 5 LFY

Energy Drain allows for 2d4 x 5 LFY

Cosmetics of LFD loss. Character's don't all of a sudden grow old, instead they appear more tired and haggard. Its mostly a hit on their Consitution and Lifespan. A character can appear in his 30s but suffer all the venerable effects, a few

Rolling back Time with LFDs. It costs Double the Recovered LDFs to turn back Physical Age. So in an instant the powerful spellcaster is supposed to get 20 years from an enervation spell, he can choose to become 10 years Physically younger. They can go only as far back as their Prime (look at Racial Statistics) Any farther means wont have any affect.

Optional Rule: Spell casters can increase Con or Cha, in at the cost of 1 point for every 5 LFYears gained up to +2 each! These are "temporary adjustments" and recorded in the Character sheets' temporary bonus scores.

Burning 1 Con AND Cha allows the character to gain 1LFY!

Multiple Ages. characers will be trying to get LFDs organized will notice their characters moving forward and back in their physical condition.

Character's Physical Age, since this is what is most apparent. (Real Age)

Undead. Animated with Magic, specially prepared Undead have their own LFDs. Upon Casting Animate Dead, the Caster chooses how Much LFDs to grant it from his "storage" or his own Life Force. Each LFD a Zombie can operate for 1 Day, a Skeleton costs 2 LFDs to operate 1 day. If they

Raising Characters from the Dead. Raise Dead costs WAY more, but is still possible. casting the spell has its cost in Life Force Years.

All these are ON TOP of the current affects, limitations, and costs of the spells.

other Abilities that Cost LFD.

All other sp and su abilities that mimic or just like a spell is as though the character is casting that spell.

Cleric's Turn/Rebuke Undead. Clerics HD in LFDs

Bard's SU abilities. Cost equals Skill Ranks in LFDs

Paladin's Smite 1LFD

Paladin's Laying of Hands HD in LFD

Paladin's Aura of Courage 6 LFD (casting remove fear)

Paladin's Summon Mount 6 LFD (casting summon monster)

Paladin's Detect Evil 1 LFD

Summon Familiar 30 LFD

Druids Wildshape 6 LFDs (like casting Alterself)

Thousand Faces 1LDF (Disguise self)

Monks - I decided that these don't cost any LFD since the SU abilities are so stretched out like Quivering Palm and Empty Body.

5th Level wizard with Int 15

4/4/3/1

4+20+30+15 = 69 LFDays if a wizard spends all his spells that day. thats 2 months of life force.

5th level sorcerer with Cha 15

6/7/5

6+35+50 = 91 Life Force Days!

5th Level Cleric Wis 15

4/4+1/3+1/1+1

4+25+40+30 =99 LFD

Casting Limited Wish

CL13*7 = 91

91 + 3000 (300xp x 10)

3091 = 8.4 years!

Casting Wish

CL17*9 = 153

153 + 50,000 (5000 x 10) = 50153 days

138 YEARS!

So a Human Wizard that has been able to keep his physical condition at 15 needs to burn his 55 years and another 83 years off from some source. Possibly a Rite of Sacrifice killing 4 other CON 10 people who willing volunteer it or when forced from some weakened thrall.

Long-Lived Races . Long lived Races can use magic more often, which screws short lived humanoids... or encourages them to enslave longer lived races for "batteries". One captured elf, will last power 5 lifetimes, if bled at a sustained rate.

Next Problem: ALIGNMENTS

Dnd without Alignments. What is so bad about players, who have to define their character's outside alignments? Well there is a bit more ethics and awareness of moral awareness required when looking at actions when there is no alignment.

mechanically speaking, spells and abilities that depend on alignment start getting complicated. it doesn't have to be, in my opinion. True Names can help narrow protection and detection spells a bit. Assassins, Paladins and Anti-Paladins become problems since the system has a black and white approach to actions.

Remove Alignment restrictions to paladins and they become pretty peculiar. They are a class that are accountable to the GM, an all knowing and being that will immediately act on any transgression. there are some serious thinking to do if there IS a diety, particularly when they depend on the worship of followers, are not omnescient, let tragedy befall both "good" and "bad" people etc. etc... There is so much rational baggage if there is an Omniscient person that makes everyone accountable to their actions that it makes the world predictable and unreal.

Remove the Omniscient Accountability and the patronage (which removes the magical abilities), and you have is a well educated fighter, capable of sorting out complex ethical and moral decisions better than the average person... something like Roy in Order of the Stick.

What can replace the Paladin's special abilities? How about ranger amount of skills (6 + int modifier) x 4. What happens is the paladin becomes the more educated figther, able to handle logistics, statecraft, and warcraft. A character formidable in court, among the common folk, as well as in the battle field.

Will this sell to players? Heck NO! only a total RP nerd will find this interesting. Remove the black and white and you have to think about actions more. This means no more: demonetization of opponents, players are required to make searching questions about the complex context of the situation AND WORSE, Empathize with their enemies.