Urbancrawling in Dungeon Fantasy

Urbancrawl procedures

1. GM determines weather
2. Wake up, handle effects of sleep, HT rolls for harsh climates, HT rolls for healing, breakfast
3. Shopping, healing, recharging 
4. Pick tasks for the day
5. Resolve tasks
6. Morning encounter
7. Afternoon encounter
8. Evening encounter
9. Cost of Living
10. Sleep/Night encounter

The General Idea

When the party gets back to town, resolve selling items from the dungeon first. Then, determine what the party wants to do, as these tasks, especially training and crafting, will determine how long the party must stay in town.

This is a work in progress. I have no idea how well much of this will work, though I have long assessed Cost of Living by the day, not by the week.

The High Cost of Urban Living

Cost of Living for Status 0 or higher is normally is $150/week. There are times when this is better assessed per day, in which case the Cost of Living for Status 0 is $20/day. This handles normal room and board, including cost to stay at a tavern. If delvers want to stay at an inn, this adds $80 to daily Cost of Living (thus, making it $100/day) and grants +2 to rolls for Bargain Hunting (Dungeons, p. 4; Exploits, p. 13), Rumors (Dungeons, p. 4; Exploits, p. 14), Advertising (Dungeons, p. 4; Exploits, p. 14), and Finding a Sponsor (Dungeons, p. 4; Exploits, p. 14).

Compulsive Behavior adds lower amounts to Cost of Living when tracking Cost of Living day by day. Instead of the chart on Adventurers, p. 59, a self-control number of 6 adds $16 each day to Cost of Living; a self-control number of 9 adds $12 each day; of 12 adds $8; and of 15 adds $4. This amount does not change with Status.

Daily Cost of Living to feed animals is $10 at SM 0. Halve this for each SM below 0, and take twofold this for each SM above 0. This likewise does not change with Status.

Slumming It

For Status -1, Cost of Living is $10/day, and the delver must make an Urban Survival roll against a cutpurse showing up to pick his or her pockets. Assume the cutpurse has an effective Pickpocket skill of 17 vs. the delver's Perception or Per-based Streetwise; failure means the cutpurse gets the delver's money. If the delver already owns a home here ($1,000 gets him or her a permanent hovel in town, but the delver still must pay Cost of Living), this roll is at +5. Casting the Watchdog spell before going to bed keeps this from happening.

For Status -2, Cost of Living is $4/day, and not only must the delver roll against Urban Survival to avoid a cutpurse as for Status -1, he or she must also must make a HT or HT-based Urban Survival roll to avoid the Aching Ague (below). If playing with the Hygiene modifier, apply it here. If for some reason the delver owns a home, that doesn't help at all with stopping the Aching Ague.

Someone living at Status -1 or lower might be going hungry. Roll Urban Survival. If someone living at Status -1 fails, he is down 1 FP from missing a meal; if someone living at Status -2 fails, he is down 1d/2 FP from missing meals. If someone living at Status -1 owns a home, he doesn't need to make this roll; if someone living at Status -2 owns a home, he still needs to roll, but treat failure as if he was living at Status -1.

Note that someone living below Status 0 will take a penalty to reactions in town equal to the Status at which he is living. He also takes the same penalty to Finding a Quest and Finding a Sponsor (Dungeons, p. 4; Exploits, p. 14).

Aching Ague

Bedbugs spread it, or rats and fleas on the street.

Statistics: Blood Agent (Bedbug bites); HT to resist; 1d-2 day delay; 1d-4 HT damage; 12-hour cycle with 6 cycles. Symptoms produce stomach problems, which is the Nauseated condition (p. B428) after losing 1/3 HT; after losing 2/3 HT, doing anything stressful like combat or moving more than 1 yard a second means a Retching (p. B429) spell for 2d seconds; resist HT to keep from retching. Not contagious.

Encounters

There are many chances for encounters in towns, but most of them are meaningless interactions. Check once for a meaningful random encounter each 6-hour segment of the day: Morning, Afternoon, Evening, and Night. Encounters happen on a 9 or less, assuming you want big ones; size of the settlement does not matter. (I'm rolling on Midkemia Press's Cities myself.) Since most delvers sleep at night, skip checking for Night encounters unless the delvers are outside at night, or living at Status -2 and do not own a home. Resolve encounters as they happen.

Delvers can also go looking for someone or somewhere. Finding a known person or location in a settlement takes an Area Knowledge (Settlement) roll. Note that if the settlement's Search modifier is more than -2, the settlement will have neighborhoods with their own Area Knowledge (Neighborhood) roll. Rolling for the whole settlement when delver does not know or specify the appropriate neighborhood is at -2. If the delver has Area Knowledge for a neighborhood and wants to find something in another neighborhood, this is a flat -3 to the roll; don't worry about distance. Finding an unspecified location (i.e., a "tavern" or a "swordsmith") is just like finding a hireling on p. B517.

Daily Activities

What can a delver do during the day while in town? The short answer is one action of each of Getting Stuff Cheap (Dungeons, p. 3; Exploits, p. 13), Scoring Extra Cash (Dungeons, p. 4; Exploits, p. 14), Finding a Quest or Finding a Sponsor (Dungeons, p. 4; Exploits, p. 14), and training (Training Expenses, The Next Level, p. 43; Exploits, p. 93).

Getting Stuff Cheap: If a delver wants to try Scrounging more than once a week, he or she is -3 for each successive attempt. Crafting and Brewing take longer than a day, so the delver needs to do this action each day until the item is finished. Brewing potions take the time listed for the potion in GURPS Magic. A fletcher on a successful Armoury (Missile Weapons) roll can craft 15 arrows a day. Weapons and armor take a number of days equal one twenty-fifth of the cost of the item. Otherwise, these actions each take a day.

Scoring Extra Cash: All of these actions take a day.

Finding a Quest and Finding a Sponsor: Like Crafting and Brewing, these actions take longer a day; specifically, they each take a week. Thus, a delver needs to do this action each day for a week to make the roll.

Training: A delver can also train for one new trait a day. This requires no roll, and applies only to adding new traits. Spend the points and the money for training; no roll is needed.

Keep in mind that these activities are separate from resolving any encounters.

Doing Work for Yuda: A delver who is down on cash can try to earn some with a side job in lieu of the tasks listed in Getting Stuff Cheap. Someone with Armoury, Artist, Carpentry, Farming, Jeweler, Leatherworking, Merchant, a Professional Skill, Sewing, or Teamster at 12 or better (defaults do not count) can roll against the best of these. Success means the delver earns $30 that day; critical success means the delver earns $60; critical failure means the delver has been blacklisted from working for the next week. The GM need not feel bound by the listed skills; if a player can make a case for why his non-combat skill would let his or her character earn money, let it do so.

If a delver lacks any of these skills, he can try to be a day laborer for much less. Roll against the delver's best basic attribute (ST, DX, IQ, or HT). Success means the delver earns $15 that day; critical success means the delver earns $30; critical failure means the delver has been blacklisted from working for the next week and takes 1d crushing damage from a mishap or a beating. DR does not help with this damage!

These are not secure jobs! To have one of those, the delver must own a home. For $1,000, the delver can buy a permanent hovel in town. While the delver must pay Cost of Living as normal, he or she makes job rolls monthly, as on p. B517. However, the delver must be at home and not adventuring when making monthly job rolls, making this only a choice for a long-term layoff.

Murder-hobos bumming around town

A short post, especially since we couldn't game last week since one of the players had to go to a tea party. No, not the political kind, rather the equally dumb but more boring kind that have old ladies. For his sake, I hope they were MILFs.

As I said last time, I have been working on an urban crawl in my sandbox. It becomes a fight between my wont to add all kinds of details and hooks and the need to keep things loose for improvisation. One detail I did add was that each tavern and inn now has a chance that someone robs the PCs while sleeping, and the truly scummy taverns and inns also have a chance that the PCs get a disease.

How this works is that if the PCs stay in a tavern at night (which they usually do), I roll three dice and compare to a number, like a frequency of appearance, with 6 being normal. Inns, which have rooms, might be a 3; scummy taverns a 9; sleeping on the street a 12. That's why inns are pricier for a stay. If one shows up, a cutpurse (GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 10: Taverns, p. 6) picks a PC at random to target first. He gets +10 against a sleeping target, but is going for money, which is presumably in an inner pocket or something, so -5 there, making his effective Pickpocket skill 17 vs. the higher of the PC's Perception or Streetwise skill. Success on the Quick Contest means he gets the PC's money; critical success means he also gets his gems, if any, which are presumably better guarded and less expected. Critical failure wakes the PC. The cutpurse moves from PC to PC until he loots them all or he wakes one. They're not going to go for big items like magic swords, which are harder to steal and lug off without someone seeing it, so some PC items are safe.

In a truly scummy tavern, the bedbugs might bite. The chance for this in a scummy tavern 3 or less on 3d, or 6 or less on the street. If one bites, it might spread the Aching Ague or an akin disease if the PC fails his HT roll. Remember to apply the Hygiene modifier of the settlement (GURPS City Stats, p. 6) to the HT roll. If you don't know it, set it to 0 in a village or to -1 in a bigger settlement, like a town or a city.

Aching Ague

Bedbugs spread it, or rats and fleas on the street.

Statistics: Blood Agent (Bedbug bites); HT to resist; 1d-2 day delay; 1d-4 HT damage; 12-hour cycle with 6 cycles. Symptoms produce stomach problems, which is the Nauseated condition (p. B428) after losing 1/3 HT; after losing 2/3 HT, doing anything stressful like combat or moving more than 1 yard a second means a Retching (p. B429) spell for 2d seconds; resist HT to keep from retching. Not contagious.

Slumming it a longer layoff gives a flat chance of robbery. While GURPS Dungeon Fantasy murder-hobos are specifically mentioned as not being able to have Status lower than 0 (Pyramid #3/58: Urban Fantasy II, p. 13), they can try to live like hobos who do not murder anyone. Living at Status -1 gives a robbery on 12 or less on 3d, and a disease a 6 or less, but costs only $75 a week. Living at Status -2 gives a robbery on a 15 or less on 3d, and a disease on 9 or less, but costs only $30 a week. Living at Status 0 or better gives plot immunity from robbery or disease during layoffs. Think of it as making enough extra money to cover any robberies. If someone suffers the aching ague during downtime, just rule he starts the game down 1d HT.

Oddly enough, the murder-hobos at our table won't come into contact with these rules unless something truly bad happens, as Yémos always casts the Watchdog spell before going to bed.