grIP v1.2

 grIP version 1.2 has much improved shuffling of the scan space.

The latest version can be downloaded from here, and the signature from here.

Arrowheads - Gigs and jobs

Some months ago I wrote about a currency system that I use in my Ironsworn campaigns. One of the features of that system was that you could earn currency (arrowheads) for doing some job (or a gig) in a settlement. I provided a system that lets you create oracle tables that tell you how much time you spent working and how many arrowheads you earned which was trying to keep it balanced at 10 arrowheads per day. Since then I've switched from that system for jobs to one that I think works much better.

The new system assumes a flat amount of time is spent if you decide to work as I noticed that especially when playing in a party, tracking different finishing times for each players gig/job was tedious. So in the new system, when you work, you spend 10 hours on the job, flat. If 10 hours in a single gig don't make sense, then perhaps you searched for a gig for 1 hour, worked 4 hours and then had to waste another 2 hours arguing with our boss about getting paid, then another 1 hour searching for another gig and then working for 2 more hours. If you prefer tracking hours in such detail, go ahead and simply keep it on average 10 hours. If you're rather not have to care, just make it a flat 10.

Another difference in this newer system is that working is a risky activity. You will Face Danger every day that you work. We assume that jobs/gigs are Dangerous (in rank) by default. On a strong hit, you did the job perfectly, you take 10 arrowheads plus the regular +1 momentum from Face Danger. On a weak hit, you did the job alright, you get paid 10 arrowheads but you have to reduce one track by 1 as appropriate for your narrative. Perhaps you dropped a heavy thing on your toe. Or you worked in a smelly place for 10 hours and this dispirited you a little. Or you annoyed some god and now you'll be a bit unlucky (-1 momentum). Or your clothes got torn and you need to spend some supply to repair them. If you score a miss, you messed things up badly. Not only you won't get paid but, for a Dangerous job, you need to reduce a track by 2. But you are probably already wondering: what stat do you roll for this Face Danger?

Before you roll for the above Face Danger, roll a D6. If you roll 1-5 translate that to the corresponding stat: 1=Edge 2=Heart 3=Iron 4=Shadow 5=Wits. If you roll 6, then you have two options: Either you chose whichever stat you like, or you increase the rank of the job to the next level (so, initially, from Dangerous to Formidable) and roll again a D6. A formidable job will subtract -3 from a track if you fail your Face Danger roll but if you score a hit you get paid 20 arrowheads (refer to the hourly rates in the Arrowhead Purse asset in my previous post). If chose to upgrade the rank of the job and you roll 6 again, you may choose to upgrade it even more, up to Epic. An Extreme job pays 30 arrowheads, and an Epic job pays 60.

Once you know what stat to add to you roll and what rank the job has, try to envision what job you found and how that stat applies to it that day. If the job is ranked higher than Dangerous envision not only why it is more dangerous or difficult but also why you are getting paid more for it. If you are a healer and you roll Iron on your D6 roll, then perhaps someone asked you to tend to their sick husband but at a critical moment the patient started flailing around in confusion and you had to pin them down. Or maybe even though you are a healer, the only job you could find was helping some merchant move heavy boxes around. If you are a warrior and you roll Shadow on your D6 then perhaps you found a job as a replacement guard, saw a pickpocket and had to tail him for a while before arresting him and finding where he hides all the stolen goods. Or perhaps you found an opportunity to steal from someone, maybe someone you dislike, if you don't mind stealing. If the stat you rolled does not make sense in the narrative, consider your time wasted; you did not manage to find a job that day.

I find that this system of jobs/gigs adds a bit of normalcy when I need it with the potential for some silliness too, like the example of dropping something on your toe that I mentioned above or fumbling a simple job because of bad social skills. You should remember, though, that you don't have to work on every chance you get. You can get arrowheads as a reward, either pre-agreed when you Swear a Iron Vow or as a gift from an NPC to thank your character. You can scavenge arrowheads when appropriate with Resupply. Perhaps you find them whenever you score a strong hit on Resupply or you can Ask the Oracle if you found any. You may pickpocket them with Face Danger +shadow and so on. Find the balance that you like between doing gigs and actually adventuring.

Maybe my next post will be about actual professions as assets. I wonder what it would be like if there was a party where one player is, for example, a rich merchant, who has hired, and has to keep paying the other players as guards. Or maybe a modified version of the Commander asset, where its strength is replenished by spending arrowheads (paying to hire new mercenaries or heal existing ones) and also needs a payments to keep it's strength up (weekly/daily salaries for the mercs).

Aperito v1.3.2

I fixed a small bug in how Aperito was presenting the results of the compare command. When a file was only in the save file that the user was comparing to, it would say that the file was not missing in the file, while for files which were missing from the save file, it would say that they were never seen before. It was reversed!

 The latest version can be downloaded from here, and the signature from here.

Aperito v1.3.1

I fixed a small bug that made Aperito hard to use in windows when copying across different filesystems. If it fails to set permissions or modification dates on the target directory of a copy or in the duplicates directory of a deduplication operation Aperito will no longer crash. I'm trying to reserve hard crashes only for cases when data loss could occur and even then you can disable them with the nonstop command.

 The latest version can be downloaded from here, and the signature from here.

Aperito v1.3

I've been using Aperito to figure out what files I need to backup for months now. I usually copy a directory with lots of files to an external drive, and then I use Aperito to load a huge list of previously "seen" (and therefore backed up) files to clear the duplicates. What's left is then manually organized and and added to my backups.

The only problem with this procedure is that the more often I backup, the more often I have to take a full copy of the directories that I want to backup, only to immediately have Aperito discard most of the stuff in them and backup a few new files. And the fuller the location where I backup becomes, the harder it is to temporarily fit another full copy of the source directories.

So, to help with that, I added four new commands which flip Aperito's logic around and instead of moving out from a directory files that have been "seen" before, it will instead copy files that have NOT been "seen" to a second directory, preserving the original subdirectory structure.

Additionally some minor corrections to code and documentation have been made in this new 1.3 version.

  The latest version can be downloaded from here, and the signature from here.