slaguru666andClaude Opus 5
49c2e9fc7b
The six-player introductory case ships as a Foundry Adventure in a new `starter` pack, because a scenario that arrives as nine loose documents a GM has to assemble is a scenario that gets read rather than run. One import brings in: the GM scenario in twelve pages; the seven player handouts as their own journal at OBSERVER ownership so they can be revealed one at a time without the GM editing permissions first, while the GM text stays hidden; the six pregens built through the same buildActor path the shipped pregens use, so they arrive with full skill lists, kit, hit points and linked tokens; the cast, including the Cancellation Man; the Borrowed Authority as a real credential with scope, Trust 2 and its three red flags; and the case file already at Containment 8 / Resources 8 / Clearance 6 with its four phases loaded at the stated difficulties and modifiers. Pregen ratings are fixed at mid-band rather than rolled — a pregen that varies between installs is not a pregen. The expansion from posting or trade into a sheet reuses the register and the induction rule rather than restating them, so the starter cannot drift from the generator. Verified by importing it: no errors, the roster resolves through stable keys, handouts arrive player-visible, Nia has the team's highest Tradecraft as the text requires, Callum's shield is slung so raising it is still a decision, the three probationers show the trade/induction split, and phase one runs out of the box. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
189 lines
8.1 KiB
Markdown
189 lines
8.1 KiB
Markdown
# THE CUSTODIANS
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*A Basic Roleplaying game of crossings, as a Foundry VTT system.*
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A drab British government agency deals with **crossings**. Reality keeps a record of
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what belongs where, and it can be made to get it wrong. Agents are civil servants:
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they carry warrant cards and cordon tape, they file in triplicate, and the thing that
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makes them dangerous is that they know how the record works.
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The tone is bureaucratic horror. Most cases close with an arrangement rather than a
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fight, and the supernatural is a filing error somebody committed on purpose.
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---
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## Installing
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**In Foundry:** *Game Systems → Install System → Manifest URL*
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```
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https://gitea.timevans.uk/slaguru666/RingBRP/raw/branch/main/system.json
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```
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**Or by hand:** clone this repository into your Foundry data directory as
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`Data/systems/ringbrp`, then restart Foundry.
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```bash
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git clone https://gitea.timevans.uk/slaguru666/RingBRP.git ringbrp
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```
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Requires **Foundry v13+** (verified against v14.364). No modules are required. Dice So
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Nice is supported but optional — the system registers four of its own dice textures.
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### Deploying to a remote Foundry server
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The built compendia in `packs/` **are committed on purpose**, so a remote server needs
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nothing but the files:
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```bash
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cd /path/to/foundrydata/Data/systems
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git clone https://gitea.timevans.uk/slaguru666/RingBRP.git ringbrp
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# restart Foundry
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```
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`node_modules/` is *not* committed. You only need it if you intend to rebuild the
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packs or regenerate art on that machine:
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```bash
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npm install # pulls classic-level, used to write the LevelDB packs
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npm run build # rebuilds packs/ from tools/content.mjs
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npm run check # the three guards; the build refuses to run if they fail
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```
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To update a deployed server: `git pull` and restart Foundry. If the pull touches
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`packs/`, Foundry must be **stopped** first — LevelDB will not tolerate its files
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changing underneath a running server.
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---
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## What is in the box
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<!-- box:start -->
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|---|---|
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| **Postings** | 25, each with a key characteristic, trained skills, talents and its own kit |
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| **Trades** | 10 ordinary jobs the department recruits from, plus induction |
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| **Catalogue** | 236 items — 123 gear, 62 weapons, 32 armour, 19 vehicles |
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| **Skills / talents** | 59 skills, 19 talents |
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| **Bestiary** | 21 statblocks across folklore, horror and the far side |
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| **Eras** | modern, antique, future, anomalous — the agency is old and never abolishes anything |
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| **Icons** | 292, all generated from `tools/icons.mjs`; no external art |
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| **Starter scenario** | **PAPER WINDOW**, a six-player introductory case, importable as a single Adventure |
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| **Compendia** | pregens, NPCs, skills, weapons, armour, gear, vehicles, powers, tables, rules, the starter |
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| **Rules journal** | 12 pages, generated from `rules.mjs` so the book cannot drift from the code |
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<!-- box:end -->
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---
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## The rules, in brief
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**d100 roll-under**, banding into critical / special / success / failure / fumble.
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96–99 always fail, 00 always fumbles, and every skill has a 1% floor.
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**Reaction Lanes** replace Strike Rank. Initiative is
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`3 × max(⌈DEX/3⌉, ⌈readiness/10⌉)` less carried load, plus a d6, **re-rolled every
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round** — including the first, so the opening round is ordered like every other.
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**Coherence** runs 10 → 0 and measures how well-filed an agent is in reality. It bands
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into Anchored / Loose / Adrift / Unmoored / Displaced, and spending it is how the
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supernatural works.
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**The Quiet Arts** are deliberate misfilings, not spells. They cost Coherence, and
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they **only ever arrive from a crossing that goes wrong**.
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**Defences are graded.** A defence stops a blow of its own quality or worse outright;
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against something better it only reduces it by as many steps as it was outclassed by.
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Only a critical stops a critical.
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**Access is a record.** There is no hacking skill and nothing to break into — see
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below.
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**A weapon's fire mode is a decision.** Slow weapons shoot better and then make you
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work; fast ones offer a second shot at the cost of both; rapid ones fire bursts; beams
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can be held on the target for damage instead of hits. A weapon that cannot fire a
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burst cannot be made to.
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**Sights and lamps apply themselves.** A sight is graded by range band — a telescopic
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sight is a penalty inside ten metres — and a carried lamp buys the dark back to dim,
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never to daylight, and tells everyone where you are. Neither is a thing the player
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selects: both are facts about what is in the pack.
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---
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## Borrowed Authority — the access subsystem
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Deliberately not cyberpunk. Nobody jacks into anything.
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What an agent has is a **named credential** belonging to somebody real, with a
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**scope** of things that person could plausibly do, a **Trust** that erodes as it is
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used, and **red flags** describing how the real owner behaves.
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- **Inside its scope there is no roll.** A facilities contractor opening a plant room
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is not intrusion, it is Tuesday. It costs 1 Trust and it works.
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- **One tier beyond is a stretch** — roll, at −20 for each red flag you break. The
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system is not testing whether you are clever. It is testing whether you are
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behaving like the person whose name is on the record.
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- **Two tiers beyond is impossible at any skill.** No percentage on any sheet gets a
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contractor issuing accounts.
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- A **fumble burns** the credential, and somebody real is going to be asked about it.
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A credential is assembled, not found: up to **three dossier items, each a separate
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scene using a different skill, at most one of them at a keyboard**. Items make the
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credential better, never the roll easier.
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**AI** is a posture on the target rather than an opponent — a *gatekeeper* raises what
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counts as routine, an *analyst* writes a new red flag every time you stretch, an
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*asset* stands in for a dossier item.
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And you may spend **Coherence** to widen a scope, because reality can be made to
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remember that the person always held that duty. It works. It always works. Push a
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credential past what its Trust will carry and your file and theirs converge one step,
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and nothing in this game spends anything to converge them back.
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---
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## Repository layout
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```
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ringbrp.mjs the system: sheets, engine, hooks (~5,500 lines)
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rules.mjs THE SINGLE AUTHORITY for every rule formula
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system.json Foundry manifest
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template.json data model for every Actor and Item type
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templates/ Handlebars sheets
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styles/ one stylesheet
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lang/en.json all user-facing text
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icons/ dice/ fonts/ generated art
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packs/ built LevelDB compendia (committed — see Deploying)
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tools/
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content.mjs the catalogue: skills, weapons, armour, gear, vehicles, NPCs
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build-packs.mjs builds packs/ — runs the three guards first and refuses on failure
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make-icons.mjs draws all 231 icons
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make-dice-textures.mjs
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rules-text.mjs generates the rules journal FROM rules.mjs
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mission.mjs the case generator
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mission-tables.mjs its content tables
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check-rules.mjs guard: no rule may be defined twice
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check-kits.mjs guard: every posting's kit must exist and be usable
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check-lang.mjs guard: no localisation key may be both a value and a branch
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docs/REVIEW_LOG.md the design and defect log, R-1 onward
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```
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### The one rule this codebase enforces on itself
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**No rule formula may exist in more than one place.** Everything lives in `rules.mjs`,
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and `tools/check-rules.mjs` fails the build if a formula is restated, if an alias
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stops being identity-equal to what it aliases, if a constant is re-declared as a
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literal, or if an exported rule has no spot-check. The packs used to be built under
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one set of numbers and played under another; this makes that impossible to ship.
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The build runs all three guards before it writes anything:
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<!-- guards:start -->
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```
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check-rules: OK — 87 rules, 16 files scanned, 3 aliases + 41 constant sets checked, 275 formulas verified
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check-kits: OK — 25 roles, 10 trades, 218 catalogue items, every kit key resolves, every posting can use what it carries, every loadout distinct
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check-lang: OK — en.json, 926 keys, no leaf/branch collisions
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check-behaviour: OK — 28 behavioural tests
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```
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<!-- guards:end -->
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