An Example Turn

A turn of the DH RPG consists of a player deciding what their character will do during that month by allocating the character’s 20 activity points to different activities. All characters have 20 activity points, reflecting the 24 hours every person has in the day. However, depending on the character the student created, some of those activity points may not be freely allocatable. Having children under the age of 10 comes with a 20% reduction in available activity points; for children between 10-18, there is a 10% reduction.

Many activities -- including those essential for completing project and character goals, like writing, teaching, and various technical tasks -- require players to roll the dice to determine how successful their character was at doing the activity. Even if a player decides that their character should spend 10 activity points -- half of their allotment for the whole month -- on writing, a bad dice roll may mean that very little actually got written (e.g. due to distraction, small acts of procrastination, etc.) As an activity, writing is particularly complex, involving two dice rolls: one to see how many words got written (using the Management skill group), and one to determine writing quality (using the Disciplinary skill group). A high writing-roll with a low quality-roll accumulates a large number of “editing points”, which must be removed (by trading one activity point to eliminate one editing point) before the written work is “complete”. The number of dice that a player rolls to accomplish any particular activity varies based on the character’s role, how the player has customized their character, as well as leveling up through experience gained in-game. These dice represent skill level differentials that can (but do not always) impact how well characters perform an activity; any player can have a bad dice roll regardless of the character they play.

To illustrate how gameplay works in practice, imagine a graduate student character decides to spend 5 activity points on writing her dissertation. This chapter of their dissertation is going to take 20 writing points to complete. By default, a graduate student character has 1D in Management (meaning the player can roll one die to determine their success at getting words written), and 3D in Disciplinary (the player rolls three dice to determine writing quality). This player has created a character who is extremely self-disciplined, assigning some of the character customization points to Management, which allows them to roll 3D (instead of 1D) when rolling for writing. If the player’s roll for writing (using their Management skill) is above a certain threshold (let’s say 12), they can apply all the activity points they dedicate to writing as writing points -- meaning that the character would be left with 15 writing points left on the dissertation chapter. If the player hadn’t customized their character by increasing their Management skill, it would be impossible for the character to get a 12 while rolling the default 1D in Management. Even rolling 3D, it is possible to roll less than a 12. When a character’s Management roll doesn’t meet the defined threshold, they get fewer writing points than the number of activity points invested in writing -- to factor in time lost to social media distractions, snack breaks, bored web surfing, and the like. There are different cut-offs for the character to get different amounts of writing points, based on the amount of time invested. Even if a character puts 10 or 15 activity points towards writing, shirking other responsibilities in the process, rolling a 2 for writing means that none of the activity points translate to writing points -- which is much more likely for characters with a 1D in Management. Let’s assume that the player rolls a 9 on writing, meaning that of the 5 activity points invested in writing, 4 of them translate into writing points, leaving the character with 16 writing points remaining on the dissertation chapter. The player then rolls for quality. Let’s say the player did not customize the character’s Disciplinary skill, so they will roll the default 3D for graduate students. Writing is a complex task in real life; it is possible to successfully focus on writing, produce a lot of words, and realize that what you’ve written goes down a rabbit hole and it’s not actually useful after all. However many writing points the character has gained represents the maximum number of editing points they could potentially accumulate. Fortunately, it is mathematically impossible for the graduate student (with a Disciplinary roll of 3D) to roll a 2, and acquire the 4 editing points that would correspond with their 4 writing points. (This is possible for undergraduate characters with a 1D Disciplinary roll, who might, for instance, write a paper only to discover their major sources were actually linked to a conspiracy theory.) Similar cutoffs apply to editing points as writing points. The player rolls a 10 this time, and accrues 1 editing point on the dissertation chapter. They will need to exchange one activity point in the future to remove that editing point before they can submit the chapter. As an alternative, they could convince another character to edit it for them, and that character would have to spend the activity point.

Another key mechanism of the DH RPG is the “randomness die”. Every time the players roll dice, one die is a different color. (If the player rolls only one die, they use the non-standard colored die.) If the differently-colored die gets any number larger than 1, it counts on face value. If the student rolls a 1 on that die, the entire dice roll for that activity doesn’t count, and the student must instead roll the 20-sided (D20) “randomness die”. What happens next is left to the DM’s discretion and imagination: a low roll on the D20 leads to something catastrophic, a high roll leads to something surprising but excellent, and a middle roll has no major impact but may derail the character’s plans. In this way, a low score on the differently-colored die does not necessarily spell doom, merely a loss of personal control, reflecting the fact that oftentimes things “just happen”. All students experienced the impact of the randomness die at various points throughout the quarter.

(Excerpted from "Rolling the Dice on Project Management")