Crafting Times.

We have, until now, not really judged how long it takes to make an item. This means that someone can very easily game the system and make a bunch of stuff by virtue of just putting in a bunch of jobs. It also devalues the value of the brownie's boon merit, which allows you to make things faster.

So we're going to change this. Crafting times will be either based on material or a flat rate. My thoughts on material:

Metal/Bone = 1 day per roll.
Cloth/Leather = 1 hour per roll.
Hedgespinning = 1 week per roll.

Please add your thoughts on what the times should be, we are not discussing if there should be times or not. There will be crafting times.

One general question to ask is how many hours a day will represent. Usually when crafting times are measured in hours, they assume a basic 8 hour day. And for a week I would assume an 8 hour day, five days a week? It might be a bit of a minor quibble to be that exacting, but considering some might have more or less time each day to put into a project than others. If one were doing a 'rush' job by doubling up hours, would they be able to do the same work in half the time?

The problem with this approach is it in no way addresses scale of work, or allows that skilled workers can make something faster than a less skilled one. At the highest end, a person could have 5 attribute a 5 skill, a specialty, and a +1 from a Pledge, which means 12 rolls.

Under this sort of system that person, and someone who who can barely perform a given task do it in the same amount of time.

More importantly, this caps how long a project can take.

Your fine needlepoint? 12 hours. That full wedding gown? 12 hours.

A nice ring? 12 days. A car engine from parts , 12 days. a car engine from metal ore, 12 days. Build a wall 12 days, build a house 12 days.

Previously, time has been measured by Size and Durability, both of which were flawed. Or by actual time to production which requires a little research, usually about 5 minutes worth.

Likewise accounting for time available to work is important. Most crafters spread their work out, things need time to set, cool, or process. Does a brew master complete a beer in 12 hours? Or does it need to sit, but they can make a batch every 12 hours? How big a batch? Are players going to be policed for how much IC time they can spend? Some folks are in scenes all day or they are devoted to their jobs so they craft for 12 hours at a time. How does Resources play into this? Is having Resources you earn by work going to cost less than resources that let you do what you want all day?

TL;DR This simplistic HR will impair those who are enjoying playing crafters, and is closing the barn door after the horses are already gone. It's not about verisimilitude, it's a reaction to players having gear and knowledge of what would be most effective. Better to work on how we play and how staff approaches plots and the use of gear in stories. That's putting characters all on the same footing, regardless of whether they're a new crafter or an established person with tons of items already made/purchased.

I don’t see how this is causing things to all take the same amount of time. Each attempt is a certain set period of time. And the number of successes needed to make something, vs how many successes one gets defines how long it takes them to get it done, right? So someone with more dice would need less rolls and less time to complete something, yes? Unless I missed something.

As to the simplicity of it, the problem with getting too complex is rules bloat. Yes, differing trades for differing crafting take differing amounts of time. But a system like this is meant to be an abstraction to keep from putting too many fine and unwieldy details into a system and making either not f un to deal with because of how much you have to take into account or to have it bog the staff down with keeping track of every little thing.

That is not to say a balance cannot be struck, but when it comes to a proper rule it has to sit carefully between what is fun and what is quick. That's why I asked after what I did. Because it could have an impact on how much actual time is taken. It could be as simple as dividing up the 'days' and 'weeks' into larger blocks of hours and when someone makes a request, defining about how many hours a day they'll be putting into a project.

Firstly I will say that I agree that there should be times, and in combination with the rule about basic gear with bonuses under your craft not needing a roll is good. However a few quibbles
Metal is really not all that hard to work. Just needs the right setup and tools so I would say a day per roll is a bit high. Also with Hedgespinning? Firstly for basic hedgespun stuff (devices with no extra magical bonuses etc) does the no roll crafting rule apply? Secondly I think once a week is maybe a bit too high, but it is a very nebulous area I acknowledge.

I don't mind a crafting time, but I'm a little confused on the time periods. For example, I use metal a lot so for me: 1 day per roll. Is that one extended roll or 1 day for each individual roll in the extended roll? And does that mean you can keep making rolls until you get tired and quit or until you get the successes you want? Or are you still limited to one extended roll to make the item or fail? For Hedgespinning, that's quite a wait. I do understand it, but that's quite a wait. I wouldn't cheer for it, but it seems a fair trade off for not paying XP. Will there be a system for setting aside long term work in order to accomodate other projects? I don't want to +request for a complex project then have someone say, "I really need a tiny, basic dagger!" and have to turn them down because I had previously requested some Hedgespinning project that is going to take me months to finish. I should be able to stop, bust out their dagger in a day or two, then return to my other project when ready.

And I am not in favore of registering my minutes of the day to see how much time I am spending crafting that day. I prefer a simple system. And to avoid rules bloat. Avoiding rules bloat is important.

No one will be expected to register their minutes to see how much in a time they spent crafting. It will assumed to be off-screen. And times are based on each individual roll. Metal's time isn't because its difficult to work with, but because it requires time to work with it. And hedgespinning was just pulled out of thin air.

I'd be alright with saying:
Leather/Cloth/Wood = 1 hr per roll.
Metal/Bone/Hedgespinning = 1 day per roll.

I'd like to see something based on complexity or size. Something simple like:

Simple X .5
Involved X2
Complex X5

and

Small example of task X.5
Larger X2
Huge X5

and
Advanced (+1 additional) X2
Very advanced (+1+ to several trait) X5

So in theory your huge very complex better than almost everything of its kind would take 125 times as long. So your model of a dirigible takes a few days. Your kilometer long real one with super technology/magic is quite the endeavor.

With a small tweak you could make those numbers additive, so the most complicated thing would take X15. Just leave very small and very simple as halving the time each.

The comment about registering minutes was in reference to an earlier suggestion that the waiting times be broken down into hours in case someone is crafting more than usual in a particular time period. I understand and agree with the sentiment that sometimes you'd just focus fully on yoru work to the exclusion of other things, but keeping track of that is just too much so I'd rather not want to do that nor suggest staff be responsible for keeping track of it.

As for the waiting times, those seem reasonable enough to me, systemwise.

Problem is balancing realism with GIANT HEADACHE FOR STAFF. Whilst I am not sure I agree with one day per roll for metalwork if you can do the basic stuff without the need for a roll? eh. Not that bad all up.

I'm fairly sure that the book's crafting times put metalworking at 8 hours per roll, so saying 1 day per roll really isn't that far off. Granted, yes, there's technically three 8-hour periods in a day, but that's literally working absolutely non-stop, no food, no sleep, no nothing.

I like the idea of leather/wood/bone-crafting being 1 hour per roll as really, its much less difficult to say... make a leather gauntlet than make a knife or sword.

I both like and dislike this.

First, yes, it is more realistic. You can't sit submit four crafts a week making weapons and armor. Even with Brownie's Boon (which REALLY cuts the time down in this new system), that leaves no time for anything else. Even if you don't rp eating your meals, sleeping, or doing the normal things (like working), you still have to do them.

The issue, Sanger, with doing things like that is that it's subjective and up to staff to decide, and I've found that most people would rather staff /not/ do things subjectively, wanting the same rules for everything. A weapon will take less time than a suit of armor, for example. Hell, I've toyed with chainmail, and it takes for-frakking-ever.

I dislike the times, though. Needlepoint can take as long as fashioning a simple sword (I'm not talking about the folded steel type, just something plain and simple). At this time, because it's 3am, I can't think of something else, though. Although, I am reminded of what Cobalt said recently: items straight from the book do /not/ require a roll, meaning mundane items (with a bit of embelishment and personalization) wouldn't be an issue. Special making a war axe with more damage (like I'm waiting to do), that'd take longer, for example.

Ok, I'll try. Instead or time/roll, how about general limits? You have 7 days to work with during the week (rolling week). Hedgespun takes all seven days (hey, it's hard to make animal bones hold together well enough to make a weapon out of). A work of art is dependant on the size of the item (to the point that a size 5 or bigger takes all seven days). One handed melee weapons take 2, two handed melee weapons take 4. Bows would split the difference and be 3. Arrows/throwing items would be limited to a quantity/day, say 5 (hella generous with metal throwing knives/axes here). Armor could be 5 (takes a lot of time to fit, alter, re-fit, re-alter, re-re-fit, you get the idea). I miss anything?

So, Alexander makes his war axe in 4 days and crafts a battle axe in 2. On the seventh day, he starts working on another battle axe, and then that bleeds over to the next week, meaning he only has 6 that week to play with. That week he makes a suit of armor and takes a day off to rest and clean his forge before a certain someone kicks him for everything being a mess. Sure, could be a bit of staff headache if people plan to, like in this example, chain-craft stuff. But if people only put one or two in a week, it wouldn't be /too/ big an issue, I think.

My major issue with this last idea about general limits is that it doesn't take into account the crafter's ability. If I'm much better and more efficient than someone else, then we shouldn't be putting out an equal quality product in an equal amount of time. Since extra successes and execptional successes don't do anything in the crafting system, and most items don't even require a roll (technically allowing you to craft major items straight out of the book with no or little crafting ability), the benefits to actually being a good crafter are limited to being faster or making supernatural items. If that can somehow be incorporated, I wouldn't mind that avenue either.