Workshops in Swords of Infinity
As I wrap up development on the Swords of Infinity system reference documents it is a good time to reflect on some of the decisions I made during development and, hopefully, give people an interesting insight into such things. Swords of Infinity is a role-playing game designed to evoke the same feeling as swords and sorcery stories written by authors such as Fritz Lieber, Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, and the like. It is also the game engine that will power the Swords of Kos RPG, set in the world of the Swords of Kos Fantasy Campaign Setting.
The subject of this blog post will cover one of the mechanics I recently worked out with assistance from Mike, namely workshops. It became clear that I needed to address tools and workshops when Mike, playing alchemical rogue Paros, wanted to set up an Alchemy Lab on the party's ship, the "Epipleon". It seemed reasonable to Mike that Paros, as an alchemist, would have a lab and I agreed. However, rather than simply telling Mike that Paros needed a workshop, or telling him that he had one and then forgetting about it, I wanted to justify and reward him for having one. The rules for workshops, as they appear in the system reference documents are reproduced below.
Tools refer to the implements and spaces used by a craftsperson to ply their trade. Some crafts might require entire workshops be set up to house the tools (e.g. Alchemy), while others are more portable. This distinction is up to the Storyteller, but typically Tools of high enough Value Level will always require a workshop be set up to house them at some point, regardless of the craft. A good general rule is to require that a workshop have at least five square feet per Value Level of the tools being stored in it.
A character's ability to craft items is limited by the quality of her tools, with their Value Level deciding what quality of item can easily be crafted. Characters can craft items of Value Level equal to the Value Level of their crafting Tools at no penalty. For every Value Level the Tools are below the Value Level of the crafted item, the character receives a -10 penalty to their Success Check. Likewise the character receives a +10 bonus to her Success Checks for each Value Level that the Tools surpass the Value Level of the crafted item.
When I came up with these rules it was important to me that there be a mechanical justification for having tools and workshops, beyond just making them a prerequisite for using crafting skills. I wanted rules that logically fit with stories depicting vast, complex workshops, and actually justified their creation in game. To accomplish those goals I tied the quality of tools to a modifier that makes crafting either harder or easier, depending on the value of the item being crafted. I did this, rather than making certain tools a tollgate for crafting, because it both rewards the creation of expensive workshops and penalizes the use of inferior tools without preventing players from using their skills when it matters most to the story. If a player is desperate enough, they can use sticks and stones in place of tools (albeit at a hefty penalty) to accomplish their goals, and this fits very well thematically with the Swords and Sorcery genre.
Hopefully this was an interesting look into my development process, I'll be back with more retrospectives on other parts of the Swords of Infinity role-playing game system soon.
