Difference between revisions of "Talk:Oswyn Spencer"

Revision as of 16:28, 23 February 2022

Investigation Guide

Starting an Investigation

So you want to try your hand at investigation! Hooray! Clues are one of Arx's most interesting features. There are many, many, many @clues. This guide is a suppliment to @investigate in game. Here are the basics of how to set up an investigation:

@investigate/new

This will start a new investigation.

@investigate/tags

This will pick a tag or tags to investigate. You may already have clues; they probably have tags linked to them. For the purpose of this guide, we'll begin with a fairly benign tag: folklore.

@investigate/tags folklore

@investigate/story

This is where you explain how your character is going about getting the information. It's also where you can explain skills you're using, if you're using something other than perception/investigation. Same with resources. We'll get into both those later.

@investigate/story Oswyn is a scholarly Scholar with access to the stacks and archives. He's also very good at navigating the multiple cataloguing systems that have been built up over the years. He's also good at directing other scholars, guiding them in research.

@investigate/stat

Pick a stat to use. Default is Perception. You can use other stats, which will average out with Perception or something like that.

@investigate/stat Perception

@investigate/skill

Pick a skill. Default is Investigation. Like the previous step, you don't have to use Investigation, but something something average.

@investigate/skill Investigation

@investigate/finish

At this point, you'll make a new investigation and it will be assigned a number. You've essentially saved your work here. These are the basics. You can totally do an investigation with just these commands.

Alternate Example: Keskia

Let's say we have a more social-oriented character, Keskia.

@investigate/new
@investigate/tags folklore
@investigate/story Keskia is a bard with numerous contacts. People tell her stories. She puts word out with other contacts, bards and various caravan guards she's worked with before, and offers to pay them for bringing her information.
@investigate/stat Charm
@investigate/skill Manipulation
@investigate/finish

Adding Resources and Lowering the Difficulty

There are a few more steps you can include.

@investigate

This will show you a list of your investigations. You'll be able to see the investigation ID number, the investigation tags, and whether it's an active investigation or not. Let's say your investigation number is 9998.

@investigate 9998

This will show you the basic writeup of the investigation; all the parts you put in before. It's also going to show you modified difficulty and current progress. The higher the difficulty, the higher your roll is going to need to be to get info. The lower the difficulty, the easier it is. You will get results faster with a lower difficulty. But how to get a lower difficulty? I got you, fam!

@investigate/resource

You have resources! You can see them when viewing your inventory. They are economic, social, and military. You can use these to help lower your investigation's difficulty. The maximum amount of each type of resource you can add is 50.

@investigate/resource 9998=social,50

Remember how Oswyn's example mentioned guiding other scholars? That's him using social resources.

@investigate/actionpoints 9998=5

This will spend 5 action points to lower the difficulty. There's probably a limit on how many you can use here, but I don't know it because I don't really ever do this one.

Alternate Example: Keskia

Here we can see how Keskia is going to use alternate resources. Her story hinted at social resources (other bards), military resources (caravan guards), and economic resources (paying for information). Her investigation ID is going to be 9999.

@investigate/resource 9999=economic,15
@investigate/resource 9999=social,50
@investigate/resource 9999=military,10

Recruiting Help

Other characters can help your investigations, either themselves or with retainers with the investigation ability. You can send them an invite. Remember, don't just do this out of context - you need to ask them IC, whether in a scene or via messenger. They should agree OOC that they'll help. Then you send them an invite.

@investigate/requesthelp

Let's say you're inviting your friend Letta.

@investigate/requesthelp 9998=Letta

Letta gets an invitation to help with the investigation in an @inform; she follows the instructions listed there and submits her help. When the investigation finishes, or 'pops', both you and your helping person will get the @clue.

Alternate Example: Keskia

Keskia has more friends than Oswyn. Sorry, Oswyn!

@investigate/requesthelp 9999=Bogdan, Kamia, Pepito

And Also...

There's more you can do with investigations. You can get fancier with the tags, like using multiples, or removing other tags from the investigation. You might decide to take someone's offer to help their investigation and have to deal with @helpinvestigate, which is very similar to @investigate. You might have to adjust the story of an investigation, or the stats used. These are just the basics.