User blog:Waldere/HabitRPG: The Tabletop RPG

There are some people who can play video games in moderation. These people can turn off their thoughts about the game once they turn off the game, content with the hour or two of entertainment they'd enjoyed and ready to move on to something else. I am not one of those people.

As someone who spends a little too much time thinking about the "game" aspects of HabitRPG and not quite as much thinking about the "improving my productivity" aspects, I've spent a lot of time brainstorming alternate ways to use HabitRPG, either to incorporate more of the tropes I see in other games or to make more of a game out of using the app. (Ironically, at times my obssessive tendencies have kicked in so hard that I actually had to log off of Habit in order to get anything done. But that's a topic for a different post.)

Recently, I had my proudest idea yet. I'm positive I'm not the first to come up with this, but here it is: '''use your HabitRPG character as your character in a tabletop rpg. '''

Now, let me be clear. I'm not talking about just plopping your avatar into a D&D campaign and pretending that would make sense. I'm talking about making a homebrew game that incorporates the mechanics of HabitRPG, the goal of which is to give a group of players some extra challenge and incentive.

(For simplicity's sake, I recommend keeping health and mana totals for the two games separate, since there's no easy way to apply precise amounts of HP loss to your Habit character or burn up MP. Assume at the start of the campaign that everyone has full health and mana. I offer suggestions throughout as to how to blend the two games, but this is the simplest way of going about it.)

Here's my vision: gather a group of HabitRPG players (your party, perhaps?) to form a party. Gameplay will consist of exploring rooms to find either chests or monsters. One round will consist of every player taking a turn (decide turn order how you'd like). Every turn, players can perform one of three actions: EXAMINE, ATTACK, OPEN, and SKILL. They EXAMINE the room for monsters, chests, or hidden doors; ATTACK a monster; OPEN chests or doors; or use a SKILL. A player may also make ask the party to vote to MOVE to a different room; more on that in a moment.

How will the DM determine whether the player encounters a secret or a monster when they EXAMINE? The DM will have a list of possible encounters for a given room with minimum Perception requirements for each one. When the player EXAMINES, their PER Score is a D6 roll + a PER bonus equal to (number of points allocated to PER + [PER stat/8, rounded up]) (AKA the Player Score Formula). They encounter the highest ranked encounter their score qualifies them for, which is then crossed off the list of possible encounters. Monsters will have lower PER requirements; chests will have higher. (Alternately, monsters are always revealed, and players may only find chests through the EXAMINE action.)

Some rooms may have traps triggered by very low PER Scores. If a player triggers a trap, their tabletop character takes a set amount of moderate damage (minus one for each 20 points of CON that player has) and their Habit character takes damage upon checking the minus-only "IT'S A TRAP!" habit, set to Medium. Some traps may hit multiple players, and some may have save rolls determined by different stats. A kind DM might allow players who make roll high PER Scores to detect and deactivate traps; a sadistic DM might create traps that are actually triggered by high PER Scores, such as Mimics (Monsters shaped like chests that attack upon being opened, but drop good loot).

If a player's PER Score is too low to qualify for the lowest ranking encounter on the list, the DM should respond, "You don't notice anything." If there are no encounters left in a room, but a player rolls above a certain "Discovery" threshold (perhaps equivalent to the score needed for the highest ranked encounter in that room), then the DM responds with, "There is nothing here." Through this system, players don't know whether it's okay to move on from a room unless they can roll high enough, creating a bit of tension to the decision to MOVE.

If there is a monster, a player may ATTACK it. Do a STR check with the Player Score Formula, then compare it to the monster's CON Score, which is CON + D6 (rolled by DM). STR > CON? Deal the difference as damage to the monster's HP. STR < CON? The attack fails, and the monster retaliates by attacking you (STR + D6 vs. CON check). Then your turn ends.

If a monster is defeated, the player who dealt the killing blow receives a treasure, and every player may check the +only "Monster Slayer" habit. If a monster survives to the end of the round, it attacks one player at random. Monster STR Score = STR + D6. Player CON Score = use CON in the Player Score Formula. Same damage calculation as before. The damage in this case is dealt to the tabletop character, not the Habit character. For extra integration, though, players may add and check as needed three minus-only "Damaged!" habits, one for each task difficulty level, in order to approximately represent different levels of monster damage.

Design the monsters in this campaign however you like, but they should use the same stats as HabitRPG and should be calibrated to work with the intended playgroup.

If a chest or secret door has been revealed, a player may attempt to OPEN it. Upon announcing their intention, the DM reveals whether the lock on the chest/door is jammed, mechanical, or magical. If jammed, do STR check (Player Score Formula). If mechanical, do an INT or PER check, or a STR check using the formula D6 + (allocated STR + [STR stat/12, rounded up]). If magical, do an INT check using the formula D6 + (allocated INT + [INT stat/6, rounded up]).

As a variation, a chest or door may require a key, either dropped by a monster or found in another chest. The person who uses the OPEN action must be the one who holds the key.

Finally, a player may use a SKILL. I'm not quite sure how best to implement these, as they don't translate as cleanly mechanically. Use the skill formulas posted throughout the wiki, as well as your best judgement, to determine how these should operate and precisely what effects they should have. If you use a combat skill, the monster you use it on can't retaliate. Additionally, for this game you might want to create some skills. Examples might be a Lumos spell for Mages (lights up the area, revealing secrets), or Lockpick spell for Rogues (instant success on a mechanical lock).

Eventually, the party may decide to MOVE to a different room. At the beginning of their turn, a player may declare that they would like to MOVE through one of the open doors in the room. If the majority of the party agrees, the party chooses and moves through a door. (This does not consume that player's action for the turn.) Upon entering a new area, the DM announces whether and what monsters are revealed.

At the end of the campaign, players must fight a boss battle. The only option players have here is ATTACK. Let your imagination run wild with this one; special attacks, multiple attacks, status effects - if you can make it jive, go for it! If the players beat the boss, they may check the "God Slayer" plus-only habit, set to Hard. They may also get additional rewards, depending on how you decide to handle treasure. More on that in a moment.

If a player dies, they can no longer participate in the quest. (For added integration, have them check the minus-only "YOU DIED" habit, set to Hard.) However, another player can buy the "Phoenix Down" custom reward to bring back a dead player, who will be transported to wherever the party is now. (Perhaps, as a reward for the gold they spent, the user of the Phoenix Down may be granted a treasure by the DM.)(Or perhaps character revival is a custom Healer spell.) If a player dies in Habit, they are also booted and must be revived, but suffer no additional penalties. (They've already lost enough.)

I see treasure working in two possible ways. The first is to add a plus-only "Treasure" habit to each character's list. Whenever a player finds a treasure, they check it. If you want to get fancy, you could even add three, one for each task difficulty level, that correspond to common, uncommon, and rare treasures.

The other way is to have characters save up their treasure until the end of the campaign. Then, if they beat it, they can exchange their treasure for gem purchases, at the rate of 20 treasures per purchase. (If you decide to do the difficulty-based treasure system, think of it as a point system, where common = 1, uncommon = 2, and rare = 3. They would need 20 "points" to earn a gem purchase.)

As for who's dropping real world coin to pay for these gem prizes, I leave that to the group to decide. If everyone involved is willing to pay for their own, and use the treasure system as a way to make the gems feel like an earned prize rather than a standard purchase, great! Otherwise, I recommend the DM cough up the cash. It's the same principle behind guild/party leaders using gem challenges to incentivize their teammates to be more productive, but on a larger scale. And if you happen to be playing with your actual Habit party, you could make a genuine gem challenge out of the campaign and award however many gems you like, with a shiny achievement, to boot! At the very least, putting the DM on the line for the gems will discourage them from making the campaign too easy. ;)

I realize this is a skeletal outline for a Habit variant and leaves a lot of questions unanswered. How synchronized should your HP between the two games be? How should spells be incorporated? What should monsters be like? Should players have their computers open to their HabitRPG characters while they run this campaign, or just write down their actions and tally them up later? (My vote would be for the former.)

However, I think there's potential here for a fun game that both utilizes and enhances HabitRPG. It's up to each group to decide how best to explore this idea and how best to adjust all the fine details. (And please note: I pulled all of these numbers and formulas out of thin air so that I could illustrate my idea, not illustrate its best execution. Please, tweak everything to perfection.)

If you decide to try out this idea, or you've designed and played your own HabitRPG tabletop game, please let me know how it went!