Starting point buy and dice checks

This page shows you how to turn a world into a tabletop role-playing game. At the start, the player spends points on the protagonist's attributes. During play, risky actions are decided by dice.

It uses the world 潮灯镇 (Tidelamp) from the first world.

The idea

Each of two jobs is handled by one plugin:

What you want	The plugin that handles it	What you do
Spend points on attributes at the start	tabletop-rules	Define the attributes, and write a point-buy rule
Roll dice for risky actions	dice-check	Turn it on

1. Define the hero's attributes

An attribute that players can spend points on must meet three conditions: it is a number, it has a lower and an upper limit, and its category is abilities.

Open world.yaml, and change characterSchema to:

characterSchema:
  types:
    - npc
  attributes:
    - id: resolve
      name: 胆识
      type: number
      category: abilities
      min: 0
      max: 5
      defaultValue: 1
      description: 面对未知时能不能稳住。
    - id: footing
      name: 脚力
      type: number
      category: abilities
      min: 0
      max: 5
      defaultValue: 1
      description: 在湿滑的礁石和海床上奔跑、攀爬。
    - id: insight
      name: 眼力
      type: number
      category: abilities
      min: 0
      max: 5
      defaultValue: 1
      description: 看出不对劲的细节，听出话里没说的部分。

Make the description clear about what the attribute covers. The model uses it to decide which attribute an action should use.

2. Turn on the two plugins

Add them to pluginPolicy.plus:

pluginPolicy:
  preset: traditional-story
  plus:
    - tabletop-rules
    - dice-check

At this point you can already play. If you do not write a rules file, tabletop-rules uses all the attributes that qualify for point buy, and gives 4 extra points.

3. Write your own point-buy rules (optional)

To set your own point total and limits, create data/tabletop-rules.json:

{
  "id": "creation",
  "budget": 4,
  "attributes": [
    { "id": "resolve", "label": "胆识", "base": 1, "max": 4 },
    { "id": "footing", "label": "脚力", "base": 1, "max": 4 },
    { "id": "insight", "label": "眼力", "base": 1, "max": 4 }
  ]
}

Field	Meaning
id	Always write creation
budget	The total number of points the player can spend. All of them must be used
base	The starting value of this attribute
max	The most this attribute can be raised to at the start

Each point added costs 1 point of budget.

NOTE

The attribute ids here must match exactly the ones you defined in step 1, and base and max must lie inside the min and max of that attribute. If you get one wrong, the next step identifies the attribute and explains what must be corrected.

4. Validate

pnpm validate:world ~/.covel/worlds/tidelamp

5. Check in the game

Restart Covel, and start a new session in 潮灯镇.

When	What you should see
After you create the character	A point-buy form. Each of the three attributes starts at 1, and 4 points can be spent
You submit with points unspent	The form tells you what is wrong, and you can change it right away
You take a risky action	The story shows the check as a calculation, for example 14 + 4 = 18 vs DC 12
You take an action with no risk	No dice are rolled, and the story just continues

The dice are rolled before the story is written, so the result cannot be changed to suit the wording of the text.

Two ways to make a check

When both plugins are on, the player has two ways to roll, and both can be used together:

• Automatic check: handled by dice-check. When the protagonist does something risky, the model decides which attribute to use and how hard it is. Then it reads the dice that were already rolled.
• Player-started check: handled by tabletop-rules. In the "Attribute checks" panel on the right, the player clicks "Request an attribute check" and chooses the action, the attribute, and the difficulty.

If you want only one of these, turn on only the matching plugin.

When it does not work as expected

Symptom	Cause and fix
The point-buy form does not appear at the start	No attribute qualifies. Check whether they are numbers, whether they have min and max, and whether the category is abilities
The point-buy step fails at the start	An attribute id in the rules file does not match the one in world.yaml. Run pnpm validate:world; it says which one
Dice are never rolled	dice-check is not turned on, or the action really has no risk
The check always uses a poor-fit attribute	The attribute's description is too vague. Make it clear which kind of action it covers

See a complete example

The worlds/lantern-barrow in the repository is a complete tabletop world. It has six attributes, point-buy rules, and preset companions and a dungeon.