Non violent game world activity: Making torches

This is in rough draft form, so forgive the stream of conciousness format!

This time it's making torches, either for sale or for personal use. I'm thinking maybe you roll a DC 15 check, with the GM randomly determining if it's a INT or WIZ check to find or dig up a pool of bubbling tar.

Once you've found one the GM randomly determines if you use INT, DEX or WIZ to make it. Ie, if you're figuring out the technical details - or if you're just juggling the components into place - or if it's a matter of working with what you have into a synergous whole.

Roll a nat one and you fail and the pool has been used up (whether that's forever or a few weeks is up to the GM)

These tasks assume this is not the end of the world stuff - your character is not pushing themselves to the limit, because frankly that's a sucky way to live. So you can make two attempts at torch making a day.

Must figure out a way of fitting various tasks with each other.

Also write them all up in a set format as well.

Ideas for non violent RPG activities (re D&D 5e) #1

I'm working on this post in regard to the sort of conflict between being forced to place a bet (as opposed to the excitement of making a bet when you want to) and a combat system being the only fun of a book. So you have to do combat to have the fun of the book, but that means your forced to make a bet (the 'bet' being gambling your characters life on dice rolls for XP and gold)...and maybe you can see the contradiction.

Anyway I wanted to have some ideas for play with the piece and although I can't think of a bunch, I thought I'd have some posts that include one at a time.

Lumbering - if you do this, you're okay! See, I want to keep with the gamble aspect, so maybe a strength roll DC: 15 and if you fail that, a DC: 15 con check or otherwise you are too tired to do any more lumbering today and you have to make a con check tomorrow to see if you're too tired for it then as well (if that fails you can try the next day without rolling again). If you're using a hand axe, you are at disadvantage on the strength check.

You can make 1 silver for a log at town or 5 copper at a village. Probably up to three a day (perhaps after a week it's just one a day as local demand diminishes)

Gamble aspect: Go to the blacksmith and you can get your axe sharpened by a blacksmith (for 1 silver in town or 5 copper at a village if they have one) - this gives you advantage on the strength check. However, sharpening only lasts for that day (sorry simulationists, this is for game purposes. Please don't argue. It's boring)

Who are the Dunyain?

Imagine a vending machine. Now imagine it has legs. It walks around, sloshing it's contents around inside itself as it waddles across the landscape, gathering more contents. You can go up to the buttons, press them - maybe put money in or maybe you put money in but you've jimmied the coin collector so it simply pops out again into your hand. It's rather like those beetles that have learnt to simulate the antennae movements that will prompt an ant to give up it's crop of food to a fellow ant, since that helps the collony - but since it's a beetle, one who takes while only aping the gestures of giving, the circle is broken.

Is that what the Dunyain are?

Oh no, that's how the Dunyain see you!

You better understand what they are by understanding how they see you! Because from outward appearance they are just another ant...sorry 'person'. All benign, all loving, all waving their antenae in just the right way for you to open your wallet to them. To hand over your children to them.

Also they are part of the speculative fiction (speculative fantasy fiction, no less) 'Prince of nothing' series, by Scott Bakker.

Here's the fan forum and the link, for a few more twisted perceptions on the idea:
http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1363.0

Looking into Stencyl

Found this tutorial by a user the easiest to get into, in programming with it for the first time

http://www.stencyl.com/help/viewArticle/102

It shows the tutorial in flash with the game at the end of the tute, so even if you're just curious you can load it up to see how it ends.

It's slightly out of date with newer versions of Stencyl, but I managed to muddle through. So if you have trouble post a comment since I was able to get through it I might be able to help you do the same.

Anyway, I kind of want the flash capability but at the same time if it's more of a struggle than using Unity is, then I dunno about pressing on with it.

Watch Dogs : Did hacking just turn out to be a gimmick? Do all sandboxes suffer from gimmickdom?

So it appears that perhaps just classic old GTA style driving can get you away in Watch Dogs. And even if you do hack, you don't see it because it's behind your point of view, or if they show an exploding pursuer in slow mo it tends to make you crash because of the disorientation from the camera going from the explosion back to driving.

Do all sandbox games have this trouble? Dishonoured seemed to have this problem too, where just a few powers were needed to complete a mission and anything else was just getting baroque about the matter. And the sandbox - if it doesn't force the use of hacking, then hacking becomes a throw away, unnecessary gimmick. If it is forced, then you get less of a sandbox!

That's the thing about a sandbox - it tends to make everything not matter. Just another thing amongst many things. A bit like real life!

But seriously, do sandbox game makers need to start thinking about how they implement these things, giving a secondary layer of rewards for using hacking. So someone could be rated a supreme hacker if they wanted to, or maybe they might focus on conventional escapes and fighting.

But ultimately it's the audience that might have to accept that any new thing in a sandbox will, at best, have some incentives and ratings for it - it's not going to force gameplay to be entirely different, all by itself.