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STANDING ORDER v0.6: the slot is 3h15

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Decided rather than worked around. Four passes measured Act Two's floor at about
66 minutes against a budget that said 55; the alternative was twelve minutes out
of the sick bay, which is where Revelation 3's best route lives. The slot moved,
because 3h00 was an assumption and the sick bay is not.

2h50 of play in three acts of 45 / 65 / 50 plus the break, in a 3h15 slot. Act
Two is budgeted at the 66 pass 4 actually measured with every cut taken, not at
the 56 the retry fix predicts, because nothing has measured the fix. The
twenty-five minutes of slack are deliberate: the house standard says a scenario
landing to the minute with zero slack is a fail for a table of strangers, and
every figure came off a desk pass run by a GM who already knew the document.

THE CUTS ARE NO LONGER DEFAULTS, which is the real answer to pass 4's finding
rather than a workaround for it. They existed because Act Two had to lose twenty
minutes it did not have. At 3h15 the correct number to plan for is zero — and
that retires the trap where the cheapest default cut hollowed out the price of
the likeliest ending.

AND THE REBUDGET EXPOSED AN OLDER DEFECT. The Countdown put step 3 at +1h20 and
step 4 at +2h00, measured from the blast door — so under every budget this
scenario has ever had, both fired AFTER Act Two ended. Both are backstops for
Essential revelations: step 3 is the second road to the sum and step 4 is
Revelation 3's last resort. They were arriving too late to back anything up. The
whole table is re-timed inside the act at +15 / +35 / +45 / +60, the reference
point is stated, and Act One's Stealth roll moves step 2 within that window
instead of pushing Teague past the end of the act.

The act checkpoints were trailing their own acts too — the signing one left five
minutes for the decision. A checkpoint is a point you can still correct from, so
the sum is wanted at 1:40 with twenty minutes of Act Two left, and Act Three's
is ten minutes in. Running times are printed so they mean something.

All twenty-one guards pass. What is left is human beings.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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slaguru666
2026-09-15 23:15:38 +01:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent 4148d13768
commit 1a6c1474da
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docs/scenarios/STANDING_ORDER.md
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| | |
|---|---|
| **Version** | **v0.5**, 15 September 2026 — absorbs desk playtests 1–4 |
| **Version** | **v0.6**, 15 September 2026 — absorbs desk playtests 1–4; the slot is 3h15 |
| **Can it be run?** | **Yes, from this document alone,** with the compendium for sheets and the three bestiary creatures. |
| **Is it convention-ready?** | **Nearly, and one decision is Tim's.** Four desk passes, no human runs. `_1.md` (GM chair, 5291) · `_2.md` (Act Three stress, 8143, creatures run through the real fight harness) · `_3.md` (player chair, contrarian, 3307, reached ending 1) · `_4.md` (**the clock, cuts taken as written, 6620**). Every content defect the four passes found is fixed. **What is left is a budget decision, not a defect** — see Runtime. |
| **Is it convention-ready?** | **Nearly — what is left is a run with human beings.** Four desk passes, no human runs. `_1.md` (GM chair, 5291) · `_2.md` (Act Three stress, 8143, creatures run through the real fight harness) · `_3.md` (player chair, contrarian, 3307, reached ending 1) · `_4.md` (the clock, cuts taken as written, 6620). Every content defect the four passes found is fixed, and the budget question they raised is decided: **the slot is 3h15.** |
| **What it is** | A **three-act one-shot**. It ends in the session; there is no second part and the text must not promise one. |
| **Players** | 4–6 from the duty roster. The cast is declared in Casting and the build enforces it. |
| **Runtime** | ⚠ **Act Two's floor is about 66 minutes and the budget says 55.** Pass 1 ran it at 75 uncut, pass 3 at 70 uncut, and pass 4 at **66 with all nineteen minutes of cuts taken**. Pass 4's ten-minute retry defect is fixed, which should recover most of the gap — but that is a prediction and nothing has measured it. **Either the slot is 3h15, or twelve minutes come out of the sick bay.** Tim's call; see Open questions. |
| **Runtime** | **2h50 of play in three acts of 45 / 65 / 50 plus a ten-minute break, in a 3h15 slot.** The twenty-five minutes of slack are deliberate — see *The twenty-five minutes of slack are the point*. Act Two is budgeted at the 66 minutes pass 4 measured with every cut taken, not at the 56 the retry fix predicts, because nothing has measured the fix. **The Pacing Note's cuts are no longer defaults; plan to take none of them.** |
### The three things that are not obvious
@@ -105,22 +105,56 @@ population on paper.** A record cannot hold both. It resolves by correction.
## Session Timing
> ⚠ **Every figure in this table is an estimate and nothing has tested it.** The first
> desk pass is also the first test of this clock.
**The slot is 3h15.** Decided 15 September 2026, after four desk passes measured Act Two's
floor at about 66 minutes against a budget that said 55. The alternative was cutting twelve
minutes out of the sick bay, which is where Revelation 3's best route lives. **The slot
moved instead, because 3h00 was an assumption and the sick bay is not.**
| | Act | Budget | GM checkpoint |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | **The Returns** — Wetherlaw farm, the vent head, getting in | 45 min | They are at the blast door by 0:40 |
| — | *Break* | 10 min | |
| 2 | **Bellhouse** — the population, the Registry, the sum | 55 min | Pennyfeather has shown them the sum by 1:45 |
| 3 | **Renewal** — Thursday, the signing, the decision | 50 min | The signing starts no later than 2:35 |
| 2 | **Bellhouse** — the population, the Registry, the sum | **65 min** | Pennyfeather has shown them the sum by **1:40** |
| 3 | **Renewal** — Thursday, the signing, the decision | 50 min | Sowerby has the folder open by **2:10** |
| | **Total** | **2h50** | against a **3h15** slot |
**Running times, so the checkpoints mean something:** Act One 0:00–0:45 · break to 0:55 ·
Act Two 0:55–2:00 · Act Three 2:00–2:50. **A checkpoint is a point you can still correct
from**, which is why the sum is wanted at 1:40 with twenty minutes of Act Two left, and why
Act Three's is ten minutes in rather than at the signing. If you pass one, take cuts.
### The twenty-five minutes of slack are the point
**2h50 of content in a 3h15 slot, and the difference is deliberate.** The house playtest
standard says a scenario that lands on schedule to the minute with zero slack is a *fail*
for a real table of strangers, and every figure above was measured on four desk passes with
a GM who already knew the document. A real table asks more questions, takes longer to
decide, and loses five minutes finding the right page.
**What the acts are budgeted at is what they measured**, not what would fit:
| Act | Pass 1 | Pass 3 | Pass 4 *(cuts taken)* | Budgeted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One | ~50 | ~30 *(Joan skipped)* | ~45 | **45** |
| Two | ~75 | ~70 | ~66 | **65** |
| Three | ~45 | ~50 | ~50 | **50** |
⚠ **Act Two's 65 is honest rather than hopeful.** Pass 4's ten-minute-retry defect is fixed
— a failed roll on a filed clue now costs a scene, not the clock — and that *should* bring
the act nearer 56. **Nothing has measured the fix**, so the budget is set at what was last
actually observed and not at what the repair predicts.
### Pacing Note — the cuts, written in advance
Desk pass 1 ran **~170 minutes of play against 150 planned, and Act Two carried all of it**
at 75 against 55: seven locations and six speaking parts, every one good enough that the
table would not leave. These cuts are sized at that overrun, and **the first two should be
the default rather than the emergency.**
⚠ **These are no longer defaults. Take none of them unless you are actually late.**
They were defaults when the slot was 3h00 and Act Two had to lose twenty minutes it did not
have. At 3h15 the act is budgeted at what it measures, so **the correct number of cuts to
plan for is zero** — and that matters most for the second one in the table below, which desk
pass 4 proved costs the price of the likeliest ending rather than "the drawings".
Keep them for the room that runs hot: a table that talks, a GM who is behind at the break,
a six-hander that splits three ways. **In that order, and stop as soon as you are level.**
| Cut | Saves | What it costs |
|---|---|---|
@@ -214,13 +248,20 @@ is a contradiction, and this one resolves the way records do: it corrects the re
The site does not react to the agents. It runs its day. Print this and run it off the
clock whether or not the players are anywhere near it.
⚠ **The clock starts when they come through the blast door**, not at the start of the
session, and **every step lands inside Act Two's sixty-five minutes.** That is deliberate
and it used to be wrong: steps 3 and 4 were written at +1h20 and +2h00, which under any
budget this scenario has ever had fired *after the act they belong to had ended* — and both
of them are backstops for Essential revelations, so both were arriving too late to back
anything up. **If you re-time this table, keep them inside the act.**
| Step | When | What happens, whatever the players are doing |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | On arrival | Shift change. The corridors are briefly full. Nobody is looking for intruders because there has never been one. |
| 1 | +25 min | **The broadcast.** Sowerby reads the daily regional bulletin over the tannoy — casualty figures, ration adjustments, a weather report for a sky nobody has seen. It is four minutes long and the whole site stops to listen. |
| 2 | +50 min | **Teague is told there are strangers below.** From here he is looking for them. He is not yet hostile; he is a policeman with an anomaly. |
| 3 | +1h20 | **The establishment return is posted.** Pennyfeather files the population count that makes Thursday's sum what it is. Stopping this does not stop Thursday — the number is already true — but a player who tries has understood the case. |
| 4 | +2h00 | **Vigil.** The site's fifty-two-year remembrance for the surface dead. Everyone attends. It is genuinely moving and it is for nothing. |
| 1 | **+15 min** | **The broadcast.** Sowerby reads the daily regional bulletin over the tannoy — casualty figures, ration adjustments, a weather report for a sky nobody has seen. It is four minutes long and the whole site stops to listen. |
| 2 | **+35 min** | **Teague is told there are strangers below.** From here he is looking for them. He is not yet hostile; he is a policeman with an anomaly. *(Act One's Stealth roll moves this — see there.)* |
| 3 | **+45 min** | **The establishment return is posted.** Pennyfeather files the population count that makes Thursday's sum what it is. **This is clue 13c**, the second road to Revelation 5: the number is on the front and anybody watching her post it can read it. Stopping her does not stop Thursday — the number is already true — but a player who tries has understood the case. |
| 4 | **+60 min** | **Vigil.** The site's fifty-two-year remembrance for the surface dead. Everyone attends. It is genuinely moving and it is for nothing. **It is also Revelation 3's last backstop** — somebody reads the 1974 roll of honour and there are no names on it. |
| 5 | **Thursday, 06:00** | **Renewal 211.** Sowerby signs, Teague countersigns, Pennyfeather files. Act Three. |
---
@@ -354,10 +395,11 @@ scenario is gated on getting inside; the door has never been locked.**
is a fall, and a fall here is a twisted ankle and nothing worse]`.
3. **The vent head and the adit.** The way in. `[CUS: Stealth — they can be inside without
being seen, which matters at Countdown step 2]`. **This roll buys *when* Teague finds
them, and nothing else.** *Success:* Countdown step 2 moves to **+75 min** — they get
most of Act Two before he appears. *Failure:* step 2 moves to **+30 min** and he is
them, and nothing else.** *Success:* Countdown step 2 moves to **+55 min** — they get
most of Act Two before he appears. *Failure:* step 2 moves to **+15 min** and he is
looking for them while they are still in the lobby. *Special:* he is not told at all
until they introduce themselves. The door opens either way; it has never been locked.
until they introduce themselves. **All three stay inside the act**, which is the point —
a Teague who arrives after Act Two has ended is a roll that bought nothing. The door opens either way; it has never been locked.
### Time, ruled — because the table will ask in Act One
@@ -950,13 +992,12 @@ Name these as *do not resolve* so a helpful GM does not answer them.
brief and three is what this is. **Four passes say the signing carries its fifty minutes
comfortably** — passes 3 and 4 both landed Act Three on the nose — so this is probably
settled as a no.
- ⚠ **THE BUDGET, and it is the last open thing in the document.** Act Two ran 75, 70 and
then 66 with every cut taken. Pass 4 found the reason the cuts could not hold — a failed
filed-clue roll cost ten minutes and handed back most of what the cuts saved — and that is
now a scene-cost instead, which should bring the act close to 55. **But nothing has
measured the fix.** Two honest options:
- **Move the slot to 3h15.** Costs nothing, and 3h00 was an assumption rather than a
constraint.
- **Take twelve minutes out of the sick bay.** It is the only non-load-bearing block of
that size — but Revelation 3's first route lives in it, and route 11 is the one that
plays best. This is a real trade and it is yours, not mine.
- ✅ **THE BUDGET — decided 15 September 2026. The slot is 3h15.** Act Two ran 75, 70 and
then 66 with every cut taken. The alternative was taking twelve minutes out of the sick
bay, which is the only non-load-bearing block that size — but Revelation 3's first route
lives in it and it is the one that plays best. **The slot moved instead.** Three things
follow and they are all improvements: the acts are budgeted at what they measured rather
than at what would fit, there are twenty-five minutes of genuine slack for a real table,
and **the Pacing Note's cuts stop being defaults** — which is the proper answer to desk
pass 4's finding that the cheapest default cut gutted the likeliest ending, rather than a
workaround for it.