Duties

The duties package adds +duty: short adventures a party plays through together. The party goes from challenge to challenge. At each one everyone rolls, and how the party did picks the way on. A duty can hand out rewards on the way and at its end.

• Every player can write a duty. A duty reviewer approves it, or sends it back with a note.
• Staff choose which approved duties players can start, and on which days.
• Everyone always rolls, and everyone always has something to roll.
• Steps nobody in the party has seen are taken first, so a duty played again goes somewhere new.
• There are no timers. The party’s leader keeps things moving.

You are	You want to	Read
A player	play a duty	Playing
A player	write a duty	Writing a duty
A duty reviewer	approve duties	Reviewing
Staff	choose what can be played	The active roster
Staff	install it	Installing
A coder	add a sheet system	Sheet systems

In the game, +help duty has the same in short form.

Playing

+duty lists the duties you can start now, with your progress in each: the rewards you have received and the challenges you have seen. Under them are the parties gathering.

+duty <duty> shows one duty: its description, the party it wants, and your progress.

To play:

1. +duty/start <duty> gathers a party, and tells you its number.
2. Others join with +duty/join <number>.
3. The leader sets out with +duty/go once enough are there.

At a challenge, +duty shows the options:

+=======================< The Harbor Fire - The Gate >=======================+
| A burning gate.                                                            |
|                                                                            |
| Option     Roll                                Trait    Difficulty  Needs  |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| force      Winning                             Winning  standard    1 of 1 |
| sneak      Skill (trained)                     Skill    hard        1 of 1 |
| improvise  Improvise                           Winning  extreme     1 roll |
+============================================================================+
| Round 1. Waiting on Ana and Ben. 2 ways lead on. +duty/try <option> to     |
| roll.                                                                      |
+============================================================================+

Everyone rolls once each round with +duty/try <option>:

• Needs is how many more successes the option needs. When an option still needs more after everyone has rolled, everyone rolls another round.
• An option marked trained can be rolled only by someone trained in its trait.
• improvise is always there. It is one difficulty harder than the hardest option.

When everyone has rolled and no option is still waiting, the challenge has its outcome. The party’s result is what most of its members got. Members who succeeded receive the challenge’s rewards. Then the party goes on to the next step.

At a narration, the leader goes on with +duty/go. At an end, the duty is over: a successful end counts as finishing it.

Keeping the party moving

Command	Who	What
+duty/leave	anyone	Leave the party
+duty/force <name>	the leader	Roll Improvise for someone who has not rolled
+duty/kick <name>	the leader	Send someone away. Their roll this round no longer counts
+duty/abandon	the leader	End the duty. Nobody earns its rewards

When the leader leaves, whoever has been in the party longest leads. When the last member leaves, the duty ends.

+duty/info <duty> shows what you have learned from a duty.

Writing a duty

A duty is a set of steps joined by links. Each step is one of:

• a challenge: everyone rolls, and the result picks the link to follow;
• a narration: text to read, then the leader goes on;
• an end: the duty is over, in success or failure.

Start one, give it a description, and add its steps. The first step is where it starts.

> +duty/create harbor=The Harbor Fire
[DUTY] Done: Created harbor. Add its first step with +duty/node harbor/<step>=challenge.
> +duty/set harbor/description=Smoke over the docks.
> +duty/node harbor/gate=challenge
[DUTY] Done: gate is a challenge. harbor starts there.

+duty/set <duty>/<field>=<value> changes the duty’s title, description, start, repeat (once or every), min and max (the party’s size). With a step’s name in the middle, it changes the step: its label, its text, and seen, the text for someone who has been there before. A challenge also takes an outcome text for each result: crit-success, success, partial, fail and crit-fail. An end takes result, success or fail.

Options

A challenge’s options are what the party can roll:

> +duty/option harbor/gate/force=win standard
[DUTY] Done: gate/force rolls win at standard.

After the trait and the difficulty come, if you want them, the successes needed and the failures allowed, then trained: +duty/option harbor/gate/climb=athletics hard 2 1 trained. The difficulty is trivial, easy, standard, hard or extreme.

Every challenge needs one option anyone can roll: an untrained option on a trait the sheet system lets everyone use.

Links

+duty/link <duty>/<from>/<port>=<to> joins two steps:

> +duty/link harbor/gate/success=hall
[DUTY] Done: Link 1: gate on success leads to hall.

• A challenge leaves by success and fail. It can also have links on crit-success, partial and crit-fail; without them those results go by success or fail.
• A narration leaves by continue.
• After the step, a link can take settings: weight=<n>, min=<n> and max=<n> (how many members succeeded), share=<percent> of the party, and requires=<option> (an option that must have succeeded). It is used only when all of them hold.
• Several links on one port are a choice. The steps the fewest members have seen come first, then the weights decide.
• Every challenge needs a link on success and one on fail with no settings, so the party always has a way on.

Rewards

+duty/reward <duty>/<step>=<kind> [once|every] <details> adds a reward to any step:

> +duty/reward harbor/gate=coin once 5
[DUTY] Done: Reward 1 on gate: coin, once.

• info is something learned. Its details are the text, which +duty/info shows again.
• The sheet system adds its own kinds, such as coin. Its details are a JSON object of the kind’s fields, or the value of its first field.
• once gives a reward to each character only the first time. It is the default.
• A challenge gives its rewards to the members who succeeded. A narration or an end gives them to everyone there.

Checking and submitting

+duty/steps <duty> shows every step, option, link and reward, with the links numbered. +duty/check <duty> lists what still needs work:

> +duty/check harbor
+============================< harbor needs work >===========================+
| Nothing leads to hall.                                                     |
| Nothing leads to loot.                                                     |
| Nothing leads to lost.                                                     |
| gate needs a link on success with no conditions.                           |
| gate needs a link on fail with no conditions.                              |
+============================================================================+

When nothing is left, +duty/submit <duty> sends it to the duty reviewers. +duty/withdraw <duty> takes it back to change it. +duty/mine lists your duties.

Changing a duty after it is approved makes a new draft beside it. Players keep playing the approved one until the draft is approved too. +duty/discard <duty> drops the draft.

Reviewing

Duty reviewers hold softcode.duties.review, which the Duty Reviewer role gives:

@role/assign *Ann=duty-reviewer

• +duty/review lists the duties waiting; +duty/review <duty> shows one with every step.
• +duty/approve <duty> approves it.
• +duty/return <duty>=<note> sends it back to its author with the note.
• +duty/note <duty>/<step>=<note> leaves a note on one step.
• +duty/retire <duty> takes an approved duty out of use, and +duty/restore brings it back.
• +duty/end <number> ends any party’s duty.

The active roster

Approving a duty does not make it playable. Players can start a duty only while it is on the active roster:

> +duty/roster harbor=on
[DUTY] Done: harbor is on the active roster.

+duty/roster on its own lists the approved duties, whether each is on the roster, and its window.

A window limits the days a duty can be started: +duty/window harbor=2026-12-01,2026-12-31. Add ,yearly for days of every year, written MM-DD. A yearly window may wrap the new year: +duty/window frost=12-01,01-06,yearly. +duty/window harbor= clears it.

The roster is also a table in +config duties, beside the sheet system to use, the most steps one duty may have, and the largest party.

Installing

Install Duties from the portal’s package list, or with the package manager. Install Duties help and Duties settings too, for +help duty and +config duties.

Caution

Duties roll nothing on their own. Install a sheet system bridge as well, such as duties-d20 or duties-fate. Without one, duties can be written but not checked or played.

Sheet systems

A sheet system bridge attaches PROVIDER`<NAME> to the Duties object, holding its own object. With several installed, +config duties/system picks one by name. The object answers:

Attribute	Gets	Returns
FN`DUTIES`TRAITS		A JSON array of {"key","label","group","always"}. always marks traits everyone can roll
FN`DUTIES`CHECK	%<roller>, %<trait>, %<difficulty>, %<mods>, %<context>	{"tier","text"}, the tier one of crit-fail, fail, partial, success, crit-success
FN`DUTIES`REWARDS		A JSON array of {"kind","label","fields":[{"key","type"}]}
ON`DUTIES`GRANT	%<roller>, %<reward>, %<context>	Triggered to hand a reward out. %<reward> has kind, repeat and the kind’s fields
FN`DUTIES`TRAINED	%<roller>, %<trait>	Optional. 1 when they are trained in it
FN`DUTIES`CAN	%<roller>, %<trait>	Optional. 1 when they may roll it
FN`DUTIES`FALLBACK	%<roller>, %<context>	Optional. The trait Improvise rolls

Duties keeps track of once rewards itself, so a system only hands out what it is given.