Blessings of the Dice Gods: June 2016

Books and Libraries in Fellhold

[UPDATE 1/6/21: I no longer support spending money on products that benefit Zak S, or giving him positive attention and connection. The short version is that I find credible claims that he has engaged in unacceptable behavior and not made up for it. For more detail, see here for the core of the accusations. To get Zak's side of things, he maintains this separate blog from his main one to post updates on the legal status of these complaints.

Please consider these claims and make your own decision on their validity, and the implications thereof, before either supporting or shunning Zak.]

Below are the current draft of the rules for libraries and books in Fellhold. If you want to skip straight to the best stuff, scroll down to the table for generating random pretentious book titles - I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out.

I want libraries and books to play an important role in Fellhold. Since urban games are largely about information, and dungeon games are largely about exploration, having lots of opportunities to explore spaces in search of information seemed like a perfect fit. Also, with all the demons running around, books with Demon names have got to be really valuable (I need to more directly incorporate that element into the rules, but first I have to figure out the demon rules). Also, the tags and book format sections could probably use some expansion.

The rules might still be a bit chunky, I'll need to playtest them some. Zak's library rules in Vornheim are an obvious and direct influence here, but I've also read some great stuff on books over the years, including Ben L's post on textual corruptions (some ideas from which I'm going to incorporate into the demon rules). Some conversations with Logan Knight have also been influencing my thinking recently, and the alternate resolution approach for quick reference is based on something he told me about.

Libraries & Books

In addition to the two massive rival libraries of Fellhold and their incessant feuding, raids, and counter raids, characters may encounter smaller libraries in rich homes, forgotten delvings, or within specialist guilds. The following rules are for searching those libraries for useful books.

Library Characteristics

Rating

A library’s rating takes into account both its size and its quality - an enormous library of middling texts might have a similar rating to a tiny, focused library with the best books on the topic.

Tags

Tags describe the kinds of books that the library holds. These tags will usually be related to subject matter, but may also have to do with origin or purpose. The referee is invited to create any tags necessary or desired, but for ease, here is a list of sample tags, numbered for use in random generation as needed.

1) History

2) Dwarves

3) Undead

4) Magic

5) Runes

6) Demons

7) Money & Business

8) Engineering

9) Botany

10) Zoology

11) Monsters

12) Factions

13) Sorcerers

14) Summoning

15) Legends

16) Physical Fitness

17) Warfare

18) Prophecy

19) Ethnography

20) Games

21) Philosophy

22) Nature

23) Art

25) Law

26) Architecture

27) Fellhold

28) Language

29) Biography

30) Fiction

Generating a Library

If you find yourself in need of generating a library, you may use the following procedure. As always, feel free to either randomly generate or to choose the options that suit you best.

Size

1) Tiny

2) Small

3) Medium

4) Large

5) Huge

6) Gargantuan

Quality

1) Wretched (-2)

2) Poor (-1)

3) Middling (+0)

4) Decent (+1)

5) Good (+2)

6) Excellent (+3)

Tags

Roll 1d6 to determine the number of tags. In the case of a 6, roll again and add the new roll to the previous (repeating as long as you get 6s). These may be chosen or randomly determined with the table above.

Rating

Rating is calculated by looking at the size, quality, and tags of the library. A library can have a negative rating - this represents a disorganized mess full of misleading information that seems useful until it is actually read through and thought about.

Size: +1 per size over Medium

Quality: Add or subtract the appropriate value below:

1) Wretched (-2)

2) Poor (-1)

3) Middling (+0)

4) Decent (+1)

5) Good (+2)

6) Excellent (+3)

Tags: Subtract 1 for every tag over 3 - this represents the fact that the more subjects a library covers, the more likely it is that the included books are unfocused or introductory in nature. You may ignore this modifier if creating an especially well-appointed library (like a faction’s private library or that of an ancient lich).

Book Format

Books may take different forms depending on the culture and people who made them. Smaller libraries are more likely to be made up entirely of one or two kind of book, while the largest may have examples of every kind. Assume 1 additional book type for every size over medium, or just decide. Roll or select from below:

1) Bound Books

2) Codices

3) Scrolls

4) Carved Stone Tablets

5) Carved Wooden Rods (read by reading from one end to the other, then rotating, like corn on the cob)

6) Ceramic cones with spiraling marks (Crabman)

7) Tapestries

8) Tattooed skin

Player Character Libraries

After raiding enough libraries and acquiring a pile of esoteric books, it’s possible that players will begin to wonder about building their own library.

Requirements and Starting Characteristics

Requires its own comfortable or better lifestyle in addition to whatever the player character pays for themself

- Begins at tiny size, wretched quality, and only with the tags of specific books the player owns

Upgrading Size

Upgrading size has the following costs (each step must be bought in order):

1) Tiny: -

2) Small: 100 GM x current number of tags

3) Medium: 200 GM x current number of tags

4) Large: 400 GM x current number of tags

5) Huge: 800 GM x current number of tags

6) Gargantuan: 1600 GM x current number of tags

Upgrading Quality

1) Wretched: -

2) Poor: 200 GM

3) Middling: 400 GM

4) Decent: 800 GM

5) Good: 1600 GM

6) Excellent: 3200 GM

Adding Tags

To add a tag, simply pay the combined value of the base rate for the library’s size and quality. For example, if your library is medium and of middling quality, you would pay 200 GM + 400 GM = 600 GM per tag added.

Calculating Rating

Rating is calculated as for randomly generated libraries, except that it is not reduced by tags over 3. Presumably the player is being judicious in their choices of works and understands their relevance, connections, and where to find them when needed. Therefore, the formula is thus:

+1 per size category, +/- quality modifier = Rating

Using a Personal Library

Rather than defining the individual book that is useful in a given situation, a player may use their own library effectively as “one big book” - this means that they may use the procedures for using a book found below, but act as if they have a book with the rating and tags of their entire current library. This ease of use and flexibility is the chief benefit of going to the expense and trouble constructing your own library.

Searching a Library

There are two types of searching: targeted and browsing. They are somewhat analogous to the distinction between crawling and targeted movement. In the case of targeted searching, the character is looking for a specific title. In the case of browsing, a character is simply looking for anything interesting that the library has. For the sake of simplicity, one character cannot perform both actions at the same time - sure, you would notice different titles than your target while searching for it, but you wouldn’t have the time to pull them out, flip through them, and verify that they’re something of interest. Since the sorting, labeling, and cataloging of books is highly non-standard and occasionally purposefully obfuscated, it is never as simple as going to the appropriate section and going in alphabetical order to the proper author.

Targeted

There are two relevant questions in targeted searching: does the library have the desired title? How long do you spend searching for it (whether it’s there or not)?

In the case of titles that are known to be held in a library, you can skip the first question, unless the source of information was bad or mistaken. To determine how long players spend looking for it, as usual, ask yourself if there is any urgency associated with the search - if not, they just find it if it’s there. If there is some kind of urgency, then the players can roll a d20 per 10 minutes searching (or whatever unit of time corresponds to a “turn” or encounter check in your exploration rules) - if the roll plus the library’s rating is equal to or greater than 20, and the book is present, then it has been found. If the book is not present and the roll is equal to or greater than 20, then the characters have figured out that it’s not here.

Browsing

In the case of browsing, a character finds one potentially useful book every 20 minutes. Determine the book’s tags and rating as detailed in the Books section below.

Books

Books are potentially extremely valuable to characters - either as loot to sell or as sources of useful information. The rules below specify methods for generating a random book as needed, as well as for making use of books for on-the-fly reference and long term study.

Book Characteristics

Tags: Books have tags just like libraries, but usually no more than 2.

Rating: Books have a rating equal to the quality level of their library +/- d3. For books found outside of a library, assume a quality level of d3 and add +/- d3 as usual.

Usefulness: A book with a rating below the character's level is considered not useful to them. Consider the absolute value of negatively rated books.

Using Books

Referencing a Book

If a character has a book on relevant subject, they may reference it to answer a question pertaining to that matter. A book can generally answer 1d10 + its rating of questions related to its tagged subject material. Once all of a book’s questions have been used, it is still useful for study or as part of a personal library.

Alternate Reference Rule: If your ruleset makes use of a skill system, allow the player to add the books rating to their skill check. This may take some scaling depending on the method of skill resolution, as the rating assumes a skill system based on x-in-6 chances.

Studying a Book

Studying a book is when the characters spends time reading it and internalizing it, and actually learning the contents. This takes a number of weeks equal to the book’s rating (minimum of one week). In the case of a negative rating, it takes the same time, but at the end of it, the player realizes what a crock of shit the book was. Assuming the book has a positive rating, at the end of the study period, the character gains knowledge of the book’s subject matter. If you use a skill system, they gain an entry-level skill, and if not, the player should simply note that their character is especially knowledgable on that topic and the referee should adjudicate accordingly.

Generating a Random Book

Whenever you need to generate a book on the fly, such as when a character successfully browses a library, use the following method.

Rating

Equal to the Library’s Quality Modifier +/- d3 (treat 1-3 as negative and 4-6 as positive). As with libraries, books can have a negative value - it contains confusing nonsense.

Sages and Their Petty Rivalries in Fellhold

Noisms/David McGrogan has done some really fantastic stuff with generating player characters' social circles in more urban games - most notably in Yoon-Suin, and in development for his new setting/game "There is Therefore a Strange Land", as shown in this post. In that post, he provides a table for generating a fence (not a physical barrier around a yard, but a person who buys dubiously acquired merchandise), and I have found it tremendously inspirational for Fellhold.

So, I have been creating tables for "specialist NPCs" that fulfill various key roles for PCs, including fences to buy their stuff. Additionally, though, I am detailing out Patrons (people with influence in certain social circles), Merchants (people who will sell you stuff), and my current favorite, Sages (people who can provide information). Every kind of NPC gets their own table that provides what they focus on, some relevant info to their specialty (like how much they charge/pay for merchants and fences), and some "spice" meant to create game hooks. Each kind of NPC also has a circle of contacts that can be generated as needed, and a table of jobs that they can hire the PCs for. The goal is for a handful of these specialist NPCs to serve as nodes for fractal adventure and intrigue generation that meshes smoothly with the other urbancrawl adventure generation stuff like Lairs and rumors and factions and such.

Below is the current draft of my sage rules. The part I'm most proud of is the "petty rivalry" column, as it both seems fitting for academics/artists, but also because I think it creates a lot of room for motivating adventure in a very sage-y way. I'm less keen on the jobs - they don't feel as flavorful, I may have to revisit.

Sages

Sages are specialist academics or artists who can be invaluable consultants in their area of specialty and are largely useless outside of it. They are primarily useful for the information they provide, and are surprisingly connected to other NPCs. There is about a half and half chance that any given sage has any practical skills or experience in their area of interest - but all are extremely knowledgeable. Sages are especially useful for shedding light on potential clues and giving a less biased opinion on the value of found objects than a fence. Many sages are also collectors of items related to their area of interest and may be customers of fences. Roll on the table below to generate - gender may be decided by looking at the die rolled for race (or any other) - odd indicates male, even female.

Roll	Area of Interest	Race	Look	Demeanor	Petty Rivalry	Spice
1	Paintings	Human	Crookedly Elderly	Nervous	Not taken seriously by others in area of interest - resents it mightily	Avid collector of items relevant to area of interest, will pay well for examples
2	Sculpture	Human	Vigorously Young	Agitated	Considered an expert in field - subject of intense jealousy	Massive alcoholic - can only provide useful information while carousing
3	Language	Human	Nerdishly Hot	Smug	Locked in ongoing rhetorical war with prominent member of another field	Well read - knows d3 extra areas of interest equally well as first
4	History	Human	Powerfully Disheveled	Condescending	Accuses anyone writing on any related topic of plagiarism	Massively in debt to a random patron
5	Dwarven Culture	Crabman	Pretentiously Fancy	Manic	Kicked out of library with best resources for arguing loudly in the stacks	Espouses theories or creates art considered dangerous by one or more factions
6	Witch Kingdom Culture	Crabman	Intensely Staring	Passionate	Convinced that all other approaches to topic are amateurish and wrong	Currently juggling three lovers from three different, antagonistic factions
7	Faction Politics	Crabman	Bluntly Strong	Creepy	Believes that other methods of analysis/criticism are degenerating society	Wants to use area of interest to become fabulously wealthy, hasn't figured out how yet
8	Crime	Crabman	Distractingly Ugly	Cheerful	Fancies self a "hands on" practitioner, scoffed at by others in field	Actually a little bit famous - treat them as a minor patron, as well as a sage
9	Rune Magic	Crabman	Shabbily dirty	Crazed	Still bitter over award going to rival years ago	Works for a merchant to pay the bills, merchant doesn't like their area of interest
10	Soul Economics	Crabman	Hilariously out of fashion	Crackpot	Feels that valuable patron was stolen due to rival's shoddy crowd-pleasing work	Outrageously racist, uses area of interest to justify/explain it
11	Demons	Crabman	Surprisingly sexy	Depressed	Cares only for subject matter related to own factional interests	Mostly just uses area of interest to meet and hit on young men or women
12	Undead	Crabman	Pleasantly plump	Monotonous	Affections for another prominent sage in field spurned	Theories/art/criticism is wildly outside the accepted norms of the field, but it’s not obviously hokum
13	Weapons	Ratman	Wildly Coiffed	Tedious	Formerly popular with laymen - surpassed by new rival	Came out of nowhere recently, people wonder how they became so knowledgeable/talented outside the usual circles
14	Technology	Ratman	Palely Thin	Cavalier	Intimately involved in political squabbles within one of the great libraries	Affects the look, mannerisms, and outlooks of a race or culture besides their own
15	Business	Ratman	Awkwardly Bepimpled	Careful	Looked down on by field for making money off of knowledge	Loves the sound of their own voice, and never uses one word when three will do - but almost always says something actually useful if you let them ramble
16	Animals/Beasts	Ratman	Delightfully Eccentric	Reckless	Rumored to have unhealthy obsession with subject matter of field	An insufferable gossip - always knows d3 random rumors from random sources
17	Plants/Herbs	Ratman	Boringly Drab	Laconic	Disdained for always teaching and never producing	Extremely well connected - knows an additional D6 random NPCs
18	Healing & Disease	Ratman	Overpoweringly Tweedy	Soft Spoken	Disdained for always producing and never teaching	Bookworm - the library they are connected to is one size larger than rolled
19	Architecture	Tiefling	Aggressively Chalk-Covered	Timid	Unpopular in wealthy circles	Never without a pipe, always smoking, seeks out exotic tobaccos
20	Food	Troll	Colorfully Pierced and Tattooed	Menacing	Passed over for tenure at one of the great libraries, has sworn revenge	Concealing a terrible secret - wherever they live is also a lair

District & Faction Relationships

As with other NPCs, a sage should be a member of a faction and should have a district to live in, which can be determined randomly or chosen based on relevant factors (area of interest, faction, and so forth). When generating a sage's contacts, be sure to keep these factors in mind to suggest relationships and locations for these contacts.

Sage’s Contacts

A Library tagged to their area of interest

D6 Other Sages of diverse interests (consider rolling additional petty rivalries as desired)

A Fence related to their area of interest

A Patron that enjoys their area of interest

A merchant that sells something essential to their area of interest

Jobs from Sages

Roll	Job
1	A rival is gaining in popularity - figure out a way to discredit them.
2	That belongs in a museum! Or in their private collection, anyway. Retrieve an item related to their area of interest
3	They have a theory that requires some in-person research somewhere dangerous. Protect them while they conduct it.
4	If only they would listen! Bring the sage’s work to the attention of a patron they think can help them
5	The King's Library is refusing them access to a particular work - figure out how they can read it
6	Their supplies are so expensive. Find them a lot of money, and you can keep half, plus they’ll owe you a favor
7	They are hopelessly lost in courting the object of their affection - help them figure out how to approach them
8	They want to set up a new studio or salon and need help finding and securing the right place
9	Word has come in that there’s a terribly rare and valuable find across/deep under town - get them to it before a rival gets there!
10	There’s a certain beast that they need for their work - bring it back alive
11	Their landlord is getting tetchy about late rent payments - can you help them out?
12	A rival has shameless copied their work and is receiving all kinds of praise for it - help them take their rightful place in the spotlight
13	They need some subjects for their work - it shouldn’t be that dangerous
14	That Fence sold them a bunch of shoddy fakes at a high price - they want their money back
15	They’ve developed something that they think will sell like hotcakes - find a merchant willing to sell it
16	They’re bored - go carousing with them for a week or two
17	They owe a gambling debt to some shady characters - they’re good for the money, they swear, but buy them some time
18	There are a lot of cryptic references to a potentially significant book - scour libraries for it and bring it to them
19	Their research has somehow uncovered clues to a hidden organization of some kind - investigate this conspiracy and see if it’s real
20	Their faction has grown suspicious of them, and they are thinking of jumping ship to another - help them make contact and smooth over initial tensions

What Do you Do in the City? Default Urbancrawl Actions

Ever since I decided that the rebooted Fellhold is a massive dungeon-city/city-dungeon, I have been giving a lot of thought to Urbancrawling rules. This series of posts at the Alexandrian covered the topic in a lot of detail, and helped me to organize my thinking, including the core idea of having a "default action". And Paolo's discussion of his game Gangs & Bullshit introduced the idea of structuring how you "zoom in" versus "zoom out", and when I smashed the two ideas together, I felt a tremendous "A-ha!" moment, but I was probably just slow in putting together something obvious.

The core idea is that players have a default "turn" where they do highly abstracted, easily resolved stuff, but that when things go wrong, you zoom into traditional RPG resolution. Making this work, especially with lots of players pursuing different things and getting different complications, might take some skilled refereeing - I haven't tested this yet.

The goal for players is to have a clear set of options of "what can I do?" when that isn't clear. For referees, I want something flexible enough to handle whatever is happening in their game, but with enough structure to help figure out how to make things interesting if it's not obvious. The part I'm most pleased with is the ease with which you can slot this into different time length "turns" - I assume a default of a week as long enough to help time pass and encourage longer-term thinking, but short enough to be easy to go "well, while you're in the middle of fixing up your hideout, that broker you stiffed walks in with 5 goons".

My chief concern with the rules as presented is that there might be too many options for urbancrawl actions and that the Apocalypse World inspired mechanic (6 under equals bad fail, 7- 9 = success with complications, and 10+ = Great Success) might produce too many complications for the urbancrawl actions to be meaningful, or for enough time to pass to accomplish longer term goals. I'm also not sure how hard it will get having 4+ people running around doing different actions each.

Time Scales

The referee may make use of any or all of these timescales for urbancrawl actions as needed. One week is the suggested default amount of time, but different campaigns may have different needs. Even with a default length "turn", referees may occasionally find it useful to make use of other scales - such as moving from a default of one week turns to watch-long turns while the party prepares a heist.

Since several other urbancrawl rules use “the urbancrawl action” as their timescale, they may need to be adjusted occasionally due to the nature of the activity, or due to the actions of other player characters. If one player character is trying to make friends and another is staking out a house, you may need to adjust how you resolve one or the other depending on what timescale you choose.

Weeks

The default timescale for urbancrawl actions, it's enough time to get some stuff done, but granular enough that it's easy to zoom in on and coordinate between different players' activities.

Days

Some actions would just be a bit ridiculous to take an entire week to pursue (talking to one person, for example), in which case, the referee can "zoom in" to a scale of days.

For example, while for some groups it may be appropriate for carousing to be resolved as week-long benders, for others it will make much more sense to resolve as one evening and its aftereffects

Watches

Watches fill a role somewhere between a standard exploration turn and a day - they are eight hour chunks, or one third of the day.

This scale is useful for detailed (but mostly uncontested) exploration, movement over large amounts of space, or for stake outs and other situations with long bouts of nothing happening but the potential for something important to happen at any time

RPG Time

This scale is the standard way time is handled in most RPGSs - long stretches of fairly unstructured time, sometimes moment by moment, other times skipping hours or days, punctuated by intensely tracked round by round time for situations involving danger and high stakes. This scale is recommended for traditional "adventures", and for resolving many of the complications arising out of the urbancrawl actions (otherwise known as "where the game is"). The urbancrawl action is not invoked here, and instead the referee should use the rules and procedures appropriate to their game.

Resolving the Urbancrawl Action

Rolling

To resolve an urbancrawl action, the player taking it rolls 2d6 and adds any relevant modifiers determined by the referee. By default, a roll of 6 or less means a failure with complications, 7 - 9 means a success with complications, and a 10 or higher means a smooth success with no complications.

Please note that just because an action is listed below does not mean that it must be resolved as an Urbancrawl Action - sometimes shopping can just be shopping. Using the urbancrawl action is meant to generate hooks for interesting play, so only use the action when you want something to be a potential trigger for play.

Alternate Resolution

If your rules set makes use of a skill system, you can certainly replace the 2d6 roll with a skill check on some relevant skill. If you do so, consider a method to still allow for "complicated success", so that the players have a chance to get what they're after while still creating interesting gameable situations.

You’ll notice that the 2d6 roll makes “complicated success” the default, which you may or may not wish to emulate. More successes means more time will pass and more will be accomplished at the urbancrawl level of abstraction. Getting more done at the scale of urbancrawl actions lends itself well to games that are more concerned with organizations and large territory - the city equivalent of the “domain game”. Creating more complications lends itself to more standard adventures and zooming in to a greater level.

Tweak the resolution to suit your table’s tastes.

Modifiers

The Urbancrawl Action can be modified based on the referee's discretion and the player's ingenuity, due to ability score modifiers, relevant expertise, or level of familiarity with the person or locale being engaged with. Players should always be made aware of the total modifiers before they commit to taking a particular course of action. If using the 2d6 method, modifiers should be capped at plus or minus three,

Complications

Any time an urbancrawl action fails or succeeds with complications, the referee will determine what they are. Common complications include only getting some of what you were after, extra costs, or other parties becoming interested in the character. Typically, complications should be more severe when accompanying a failure than a complicated success, or when associated with an activity that has been subject to previous complications, but this is not a hard and fast rule.

Some small complications can be resolved with a brief interaction or quick roll - such as a merchant demanding extra money for something.

The main point of complications, however, is to produce hooks for the game - this is where the interesting stuff is, and what usually causes a zoom in to "RPG Time".

As a rough guide, zoom in on complications that can bring in the whole party, and more quickly resolve complications that can only involve one person, unless it's just that good. If your group wants to act at a bigger scale, resolve more complications abstractly, but if it wants to use the urbancrawl action more as a random adventure seed generator, zoom in on more complications.

The referee is encouraged to come up with their own complications, and especially to find ways to tie complications to existing contacts, factions, rumors, and conspiracies, but each urbancrawl action option below includes six sample complications if the referee is feeling stuck.

Example Types of Urbancrawl Actions

The choices below are by no means the only options, but they are meant to provide a useful starting point and a "menu" of options if players aren't sure what to pursue.

- Investigate a . . .

Conspiracy
Person
District
Faction
Ruined District

- Look for a Job
- Train/Research/Get Buff
- Petty Crime
- Do Your Damn Day Job
- Shopping
- Carouse
- Make Friends
- Other

Lifestyles of the Poor and Adventurous

One of the major "themes" of my Fellhold reboot (if that's not too grand a word) is the idea of place being important. Factions have turf, demons have loci they are tied to, and some powers only work in certain places. A frequent hole in the sense of place in D&D games is a place for the characters to live - hence all the murderhoboery. I contend that one contributing reason for this is that most cost of living or lifestyle rules suck and are boring. You inject some fun when you start playing the domain game, but before that, it tends to either be total handwaving or else tedious bean counting.

So here's my stab at making some relatively portable, modular lifestyle rules that can be bolted on to the D&D-alike of your choice. The currencies given assume a silver standard, and the amounts are totally untested, so feel free to adjust. Anywhere you see a reference to "an Urbancrawl action", you can substitute in "a week" or "one period of downtime." More on what I'm up to with Urbancrawl actions soon (hopefully)

The actual hard and fast rules are kept pretty brief, because I want this to work well regardless of system intricacies, and so I've avoided creating too much interconnectedness or dependency with the other urbancrawl rules. I've used rate of healing as the main factor affected, but I've also thrown in guidelines on what stuff that can just be assumed to be "taken care of" for a given lifestyle. I'm considering easing up on the "stick" of homeless and poor, and adding more "carrot" for comfortable and above, since I see "poor" as pretty normal for characters for a while.

Lifestyle

How a player character lives impacts their ability conduct business in the city. Filthy hobos tend not to heal so fast, while those living in the lap of luxury might be more tempting targets for burglars. In addition to the specific rules below, here are some general guidelines for PC lifestyle:

Everyone should live somewhere on the map - when a player selects or changes lifestyle, figure out where on the map the place they stay is - even if they’re homeless, they should have a locale they tend to stay in
Lifestyle might provide a small modifier (+/- 1) to the urbancrawl action, if it seems relevant - for example, a smelly homeless person trying to investigate a conspiracy playing out in a bog mummy’s court is going to have a harder time than a sophisticated socialite.
Likewise, when complications arise from the Urbancrawl action, consider the player’s lifestyle in applying them - it’s a very different matter if a rival faction pushes past a watchman and trashes your luxury apartment than if a petty street gang stomps your shanty apart with their boots
Try to make lifestyle something besides a transaction to pay more for better healing - see what details players focus on and find interesting, and incorporate those into play
Lifestyle should influence the nature of the contacts a player makes - richer characters will tend to have higher class contacts. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, as sometimes the upper crust need some shady types to get stuff done for them, but if players want more access to higher social class, they should make efforts to join it

Lifestyle Options

Players may choose any of the options below that they can afford. By default, the cost is paid per urbancrawl action (one week is the standard), but the amount or frequency can be adjusted as desired.

Homeless

You are a street person. You eat garbage and your clothes are filthy, probably tattered. You have to constantly watch any belongings you have, or other bums will steal them to sell for food or drugs. Those little items that it sure would be nice if you had? You have to buy those specifically, or you don’t have them. Some cigarettes are a big deal. You are constantly cold, wet, and uncomfortable, so healing doesn’t work out so great. You heal at 1/4 the normal rate. Check constitution once an urbancrawl action - if you fail, you have some kind of minor, persistent, but rather unpleasant disease, like the flu or itchy boils all over. Either use your preferred disease rules, or else take -1 on rolls until you heal.

Example accommodations: crates, tarps, abandoned tunnels, doorways, under bridges.

Cost: Free

Poor

You have somewhere tiny and uncomfortable to stay, but it’s dry and reasonably safe. You eat a lot of bread, vegetables when you can get them, and meat is a rare treat. You can put a lock between your stuff and the ravenous outside world, and most folks in your neighborhood don’t have anything worth stealing, so you and your stuff sleep pretty securely, but if you have a lot of it, you might have to figure out where to put all of it. Your clothes are likely second hand or just extremely well worn. You can assume you have a few small, everyday items if it becomes relevant, and you can probably barely afford to smoke and buy coffee, but nothing fancy. Due to poor nutrition, you heal at 1/2 the normal rate.

Example accommodations: tenement apartment, guild dormitory, alms house, attic apartment, shady boarding house.

Cost: 5 Silver Skillings

Comfortable

Whether it’s a private apartment or a room at a comfortable inn, you have somewhere neat, pleasant, and warm to stay. The food is filling and good for you, if not especially fine. You can occasionally indulge in treats like a good cup of coffee or a pastry. Your clothes are well made and sturdy, and they don’t look terrible. You have enough space for a reasonable amount of stuff, a good solid door with a lock, and people would probably notice if someone was trying to break in. You can go out for drinks or buy your friends coffee pretty regularly, and if you smoke (or indulge in other drugs) you can afford your habit no problem. Any small, everyday item that you could reasonably assume you would have, you have. Since you eat well and rest comfortably, you heal at the normal rate.

Example accommodations: Reputable boarding house, an inn, private apartment, faction quarters

Cost: 1 Gold Mark

Luxurious

You live extremely well - comfortable bed, nice furniture, delicious food. You have plenty of stuff, and room for plenty more. You have servants to take care of the cooking and cleaning, and maybe the occasional small errand. There might even be dedicated watchmen to keep an eye on the door and keep the riffraff out. Your clothes are tailored and high quality, likely of the latest fashions, and you can indulge in ridiculous habits like only buying witch-grown coffee. Not only can you assume you have any small, everyday items you might need, once per session, you can declare that you have any one non-magical item that you happen to need right now, since you bought it on a whim at some point. If you could reasonably be carrying it, you are. If it’s large, you’ll have to head back to your place to get it. Due to good food, comfortable rest, and attentive care, you heal at 1.5 times the normal rate. You are somewhat more likely to be the target of burglary, since you have stuff worth stealing.

Example accommodations: Luxury apartment, high quality inn, townhouse, faction leadership quarters

Cost: 10 Gold Marks

Roll	Preposition/ Participle	Type	Tags (1d2)	Phrase
1	Toward	A Theory of	History (Random Race/Period)	: A Modern Deconstruction
2	On	An Outline of	Dwarves	: A Refutation
3	About	The Ethics Implied by	Undeath	: A Shocking Revelation
4	Regarding	A Definition of	Magic	: Threat or Menace?
5	Concerning	The Remarkable Truth About	Runes	: A Critical Examination
6	Within	The Shocking Findings On	Demons	: Memoirs of a Witness
7	Before	Conclusive Evidence For	Business	: The Authoritative Stance
8	After	The Unspeakable Secrets of	Engineering	: The Definitive Reference
9	Upon	An Explanation Of	Botany	: The Journal of (Author)
10	Without	The Underlying Models of	Biology	: A Rebuttal of Nonsense
11	In Defense of	The Essentials of	Monsters	: Path to the Truth
12	Against	The Prerequisites for	Factions	: What You've Been Missing
13	Describing	The Painful Consequences of	Witch Kingdom	: The Essential Primer
14	Around	The Classics in	Summoning	: Over 400 Copies Printed
15	From	Conservative Interpretations of	Legends	: Aligning Perspectives
16	To	The Life Changing Impact of	Physical Fitness	: A Paradigm Shift
17	An Attack on	The Disturbing Implications of	Warfare	: The Shocking Truth
18	Discovering	A Radical Examination of	Prophecy	: What You Must Know
19	Uncovering	The Traditional Wisdom of	Ethnography (Random Race)	: An Illustrated Guide for Children
20	Recovering	The Ancient Secrets of	Games	: Expanded, Revised, and Annotated
21	Covering	The Cutting Edge of	Philosophy	: A Surprising Conclusion
22	Touching on	A Groundbreaking Study in	Nature	: What They Don't Want You to Know
23	Summarizing	The Best of	Art	: A Practical Guide
24	Collecting	An Inquiry Into the Causes of	Law	: How To
25	Revealing	The Collected Works of	Architecture	: The Unauthorized Tell-All
26	Setting Aside	The Ridiculous Follies of	Fellhold	: An Expert's Opinion
27	Embracing	The Dark Implications of	Language (Random)	: A Novel
28	Re-evaluating	The Accepted Truth about	Biography (Random name, important to random tag)	: The Surprisingly Sexy Truth
29	Recording	The Terrible Fate of	Fiction	: A Revelation
30	Capturing	A Practical Approach to	Cooking	: A Summary