New Sage Ability

The content below is a copy of the wiki post, which is part of bard sage abilities connected to being a ceramics maker and designer.  In my game, not all bards are musicians.  Publishing this, I'm going to write a further deconstruction of the content on my other blog, The Higher Path, available through my Patreon.

CERAMIC ORNAMENT (sage ability)

The skill enables the amateur ceramic glazer to transform a pre-existing modelled article of clay pottery, stoneware or porcelain into a warm, idiosyncratic object that has the potential to be immediately adored by a character for the sake of its dilettante quirkiness and modest imperfections.

Making

Unless the glazer also possesses sufficient skill to make the ceramic to be transformed, the object must be obtained from a potter of at least amateur ability, prior to the object being fired. The glazer then makes the flux, decides if the object requires an underglaze or overglaze, as well as other considerations that may apply, and these together are fixed to the object in order to create an ornamental piece. This may be any aesthetic object made of ceramic, such as a cup, pitcher, bowl, plate, spoon, urn and so on. The object is limited in size to the hand span of a typical human, or seven inches in diameter.

A minimum of tools is required to mix the flux and apply it ~ a small putty knife, brush, half a dozen pots for mixing the flux, a hand fan for drying, with other materials to be named. The image may be of any conceived variety, including geometric patterns or even just the effect of a rich or desirable color that catches the light. Application of the design will be 2-5 hours, with each turn in the kiln taking a full day, to fire and dry the piece. A kiln worker can be hired if the character does not own a kiln, or does not know how to operate one. The cost of materials and kiln varies depending upon where the work is being made.

Most probably, the glazer will need to make several attempts at the object. A success upon the first try is 5%, +5% cumulatively per attempt thereafter. Thus, a glazer would have a 25% chance of success on their fifth try. If the glazer is not operating the kiln, another attempt can be made while the first object is fired; or several attempts can be made and fired all at once. Success cannot be determined until after the ornament has been fired.

Objects made after the first success will continue to increase in likelihood (so that some efforts may yet fail), but after a measure of 100% has been reached, the glazer may continue to turn out like objects, each requiring no more than two hours per ornament.

Appreciation & Benefits

Once the ornament can be regarded as a success, the glazer should then share the piece around for others to view. Of those who see it, 1 in 20 will regard it as something special enough to want it for their own. The actual value will not be high ~ approximately three times the typical cost of the original ceramic. The glazer may charge for the ornament or give it away ~ but none of the benefits for generosity listed below will accrue to the maker of the ornament.

The character (NPC or Player) who then possesses the ornament will quickly begin to adore and appreciate it as something sentimental, so long as it is not broken or otherwise ruined. Once a week has passed, the pleasure of using or handling the object for a minute a day will convey a sense of well-being that will affect the character’s good spirits, particularly with respect to others. Whatever act of selfless acts the character might perform, in the way of spells, work done, kindness provided and so on, gains a 10% bonus. Acts must be truly selfless for the bonus to take effect.

A healing spell would heal 10% more hit points, work would be performed 10% faster, an effort to save a person by carrying them from danger would increase the encumbrance capacity of the ornament’s owner by 10% and so on. Risking all to defend a helpless friend would add 10% to the d20 roll. Further examples may be included here once they have presented themselves in play.

A single character only has enough personal love and adoration for one such object, sadly.

Generosity

If two persons or more, viewing the object while still in the possession of the glazer, both roll a 1 on a d20, it should be noted that the object cannot be shared. However, the first person to renounce the object out of generosity for their peer, will gain a +20% bonus to all selfless acts that day (while the new owner would receive no benefits for another week). No other immediate benefits would be gained by the generous character after the day had ended (count sunset as the end of each day, with the new day beginning immediately thereafter).

However, should the ornament ever come back to the generous character, as a legacy of the owner who has passed on or has retired their character from the campaign, the ornament then becomes a keepsake. As a keepsake, the piece will now benefit its new owner in the ways described above, AND the new owner will also gain a +1 to the ability stat matching the primary attribute of the previous owner. For example, if the previous owner was a cleric, the new owner’s keepsake would increase the new owner’s wisdom by one point ~ so long as they used or handled the object pointedly that day.

Once the object is broken, all benefits are lost. There are no negative penalties for a broken ornament.

See Glaze

Art Inflation

Continuing this discussion as an addendum to my late Bard post, I had mentioned that there was a problem with the audience or beneficiaries of artworks that have been produced.  I'll tackle this now.

See, we can talk about the bard creating art and suppose the party picking up a little experience here and there as the party's bard gets lucky with doubles, but we have a greater question.  What is to stop the party from simply entering a large city, visiting the local gallery and soaking up all the plentiful x.p. that's already been produced and is hanging on the walls there?  Or literally paying for experience by coughing up the entrance fee for the Cirque du Renaissance that happens to be showing at a Burgundian or Florentine fair?  See a few jugglers, attend a play and a concert, walk past a few swirls of paint and go to bed a 5th level fighter!

I won't deny it, that is a problem.

Let's consider some solutions.  The first and most obvious one is access.  17th century French salons, at least, were not open to the common hoi polloi.  A vast majority of people ~ player characters included ~ can't read, leaving off a fair number of great works in the way of poetry and prose.  The very best pieces of pottery, jewellery, sculpture and such never make their way into the public markets and are often made for private appreciation.  Galleries, as we understand them, were a somewhat later invention than the 17th century and this, at least, can slow down a few visitors.  The Louvre in my game will still be a palace until 1692 and won't be open as a gallery until 1793, after the French Kings are gone.

This doesn't discount everything, however.  Crecy, Chartres, Lincoln and hundreds of other cathedrals are still quite evident and plain to be seen by most of the population, as are the Pyramids, the Hagia Sofia, the Taj Mahal and the many parts of the Great Wall of China.  Musicians may play for monarchs but they don't play exclusively for monarchs, so that even the greatest musician in the world may happen by to play for a bed that night.  Circus performers, puppeteers and dancers are quite public performers and we all remember being told about the groundlings at Shakespeare plays.  There are still plenty of opportunities for free x.p.

However, comprehension does limit this somewhat.  I described the limits of how much understanding a lower level has in art created by a higher level bard when I first proposed the art-as-x.p. transfer idea.  Perhaps we might install a different limitation, however, in the way of intelligence and wisdom checks, so that our munchkin fighter of the 8 intellect can't help but fall asleep as Hamlet talks to his dead father.

But that doesn't help us with mages and clerics, does it?  And the last thing we need is to give mages and clerics an edge - they get enough as it is.  So perhaps checks aren't such a good idea.

Well, how about fatigue?  How many paintings can a person stare at?  How many circus performances and poetry readings can a person reasonably be expected to endure?  Perhaps that first bard might get the blood pumping and flowing, but after the one after, or the one after that?  We might say that if we grew up in the vicinity of Notre Dame, who really cares what it looks like to outsiders.

On the vein, perhaps there's only one kind of art that can appeal to a given person.  You might like art pottery but floor mosaics are a yawn.  Perhaps its music that steals your heart and you feel nix, naught, nothing for what others call a good dance routine.  Perhaps all this other stuff just doesn't reach you - but give you the death-defying, flabbergasting demonstration of a high wire act and your day is made.

Finally, there is always scarcity.  The players may go looking for these things but the reality is that they're just damn rare.  Or surprisingly lacking in the promise that others have given.  Perhaps the Pyramids really are just piles of rock.  Perhaps the Taj looks great in a rendering, but since the grounds weren't finished until 1653 (the Mausoleum was finished in 1643), perhaps it is less than great when surrounded by thousands of slaves ripping up the earth in every direction.  Perhaps the Great Wall is just a wall.

I think it is probably a combination of all these things - along with every dirty trick I can invent to turn seeing a single painting into a difficult, trying adventure that makes the pay-off cost something.  Certainly, having created the problem, I'm on the hook for managing the solution in a reasonable, player-accepted manner.

Else I'm stuck with players easily piling up unbound amounts of experience, which certainly doesn't work for my game.

Fixing the Bard's Ability to Transfer X.P.

Coming back around to the bard.

Some might remember that way back in January, I wrote a proposal that a bard's artwork could work as a transference of experience from the bard to the audience, effectively putting one's soul and experience into that work so that a part of it would then be given - in a firm, practical, game meaningful way - to the person who saw or heard the results of that artwork.

A few days ago I put up a table on my wiki that would try to codify this, to propose how long it would take an artist to make an artwork vs. how effective the artwork would be.  The table looked like this.

Let me start by saying there is a big problem with the table, one that took two days to sink in.  First, however, I'll talk about how it was supposed to work.

The bard starts by stating what degree of artwork they want to make.  We'll say that our bard Henri is an authority-level bard, meaning he is unable to make illustrious work or better but he can make anything up to excellent.  Henri is a painter and he decides he's going to make a fine piece of art that will take him, according to the table, 19 weeks.  It would take less if he were an expert or a sage, but he's an authority so there it is.

Each week, Henri makes a check to see how he is progressing.  Note that the heading says "weeks of success" ~ which means Henri must be successful 19 times to complete his work of art.  It could take him many more weeks to actually finish it, which accounts for going over and starting from scratch, going through blue periods and moments of crisis, struggling with the method and so on.  Each week, Henri throws 2d20, one against his wisdom and one against his intelligence.  If he succeeds against both, he has had a successful week and he can move on.

Finally, when the painting is finished, others who view it gain the benefit of 5-8% of Henri's experience.  We'll say that Henri is 6th level and has 30,000 x.p., and we roll a 5 (poor Henri), so that others gain 1,500 x.p. upon seeing the painting, adjusted according to what level they themselves are.  All of that is covered in the link that started this post.

This is fine, except it's broken from the outset.  We'll start that even 38 weeks of work seems a little short for giving someone ~ even an equal level ~ that much experience.  I messed around with the table in all sorts of way and I can see that's still an issue.

A much bigger issue is the question, why would Henri EVER make anything except creditable works?  It takes less time and the payoff is much, much better that working for a long time on something fine.  Henri can make better than 6 creditable paintings in the time it takes to make a fine one, with more than three times the probable payoff.  So the table's concept is garbage out of the gate.

Finally, there's no adjustment here for the artwork being a fail.  Henri knows if he works all this time on the painting, eventually it will be finished and eventually it will pay out.  So there's no stress here, either.

[there is another issue having to do with the viewer/audience, which some of you will have guessed, but I will discuss that in another post]

Now, there's nothing about the table above that can't be salvaged without dumping the % column, so let's start there:

Let's keep Henri having to choose the level of artwork, only let's have that choice mean something. Let's also keep Henri having to roll under his wisdom and his intelligence for each week, in order to be successful.  But let's skew those rolls in a way that rewards MORE work instead of less.

Suppose that Henri's intelligence is 10 and that his wisdom matches the bard's minimum for my game, 13.  And we'll say, for the heck of it, that Henri decides to create a creditable work.

This means he has to succeed at 3 rolls (2d20 per roll, against the two stats).  That's easy.  But now we're going to say that for the artwork to have any value, one, two or three of those rolls must be a double.

That is, the number on the wisdom check and the number on the intelligence check must match; if they do not match, the artwork progresses towards completion but, in fact, adds nothing, zip, zero to its value.

Once Henri has rolled three times, if there are no doubles, the artwork is finished and can't be continued.  Henri might sell it for some income, but it is worthless for experience transfer.

Let's spend a moment talking about rolling doubles on 2d20.  There are 400 possible combinations in rolling two 20-sided dice, just as there are 36 possible combinations in rolling two 6-sided dice.  With 2d20, there are 20 possible rolls in 400 that will result in a double.  With 2d6, there are 6 possible rolls that will result in a double.  Therefore, there's a 5% chance of rolling doubles with 2d20, just as there is a 16.67% chance of rolling doubles with 2d6.

[Please forgive these comparisons. People are more familiar with the odds on 2d6]

However, for our success to count, the doubles that Henri rolls for making an artwork must also be equal to or less than both his wisdom and his intelligence.  That means there are only 10 possible doubles that enable Henri to give his art value: a mere 1 in 40 chance.  So yes, Henri is going to produce less valuable art than someone with an 18 in both intelligence and wisdom: just as a fighter with an 18 in both strength and constitution is going to do better than one with a 10 strength and a 13 constitution.

But okay, so what?  Roll a double, not, Henri can spend 19 successful weeks making six so-so paintings or he can spend it making one so-so fine painting.  If every double produces the same bonus to the experience he can transfer, what difference does it make?

Ah.  Obviously, we have to look at that bonus.

Henri attempts a credible painting and, lo and behold, he rolls a double in his third week.  Yes!  How much transfer does Henri get?

Well, I have to base this on someone spending 6 years working on the Mona Lisa (Da Vinci painted a lot of similar paintings that never amounted to a thing except to art historians) giving a 20-30% transfer.  That's a masterpiece, 305 successful weeks from a sage, by someone who probably had a 19 in both intelligence and wisdom, so six years and a bit to roll an average of 15.25 doubles.

If we allow each double to generate 2%, that works out.  But I have another idea.  A better idea.

Suppose that for a first double, we offer 0.3-1.8% of the bard's experience available for transfer (3d6 x 0.1).  If Henri rolls a 10, that's 1% of his 30,000 x.p., or 300.  Not bad, since it would take Henri an average of 13 credible paintings to get a single double.

But what if he gets a second double?  Is it 2 x 0.3-1.8%?  No, I don't think so.  A second double on one art work means either it is an ambitious project or the bard really was on fire.  The second double gets a 0.1% bonus!  Yes, I know what the reader is saying: big deal.  But what if every subsequent double gets a similar bonus?

Very well, look at the table on the right.  With each cumulative double to be obtained in a given artwork, the overall average of that particular double increases. At best, a credible work can manage three cumulative doubles before the work is completely done.  This doesn't mean it can't be a pretty amazing work; but the chances of rolling three doubles on 2d20 in a row, all of which are below one's wisdom and intelligence, is pretty low.  Henri has a much, much better chance of getting three (or even two in one work) if he tries for longer and longer works.

And if it is an immense project, something that really will take years (including the destruction of failures or merely the attempts before hitting the mark - like Michaelangelo's multiple attempts at David) has the chance of really mounting up points with a lot of doubles.

Am I making bard transfer artwork incomprehensibly difficult?  Oh, you bet!  I want it to be the Holy Grail, not something a bard character churns out without reflection or suffering.  The mere fact that a bard could waste 20 weeks of their life and game time trying to create a juggling move or forty stanzas of epic poetry, only to fall flat on their face audience-wise, will really make a bard pause before making the effort.

Remember, we want the player bard to have the artist experience.  That includes failure, just as it does for a fighter.  But it also includes the very, very rare piece of incomprehensible genius that causes the world to stop and take notice.  That takes time, it takes suffering . . . and it takes risk.

There's a reason why a lot of artists are prone to suicide.