Skill Guide

Skills Overview

Skills in the DH RPG belong to one of five categories:

  • Disciplinary: knowledge of an academic subject area; includes writing skills and human language knowledge
  • Technical: ability to use technology; includes everything from formatting text in Microsoft Word, to programming language knowledge, to using a high-performance computing cluster
  • Interpersonal*: skills related to understanding and communicating with others; includes charisma, negotiating, and uncovering deception
  • Management*: skills related to organizing people and tasks and staying on top of responsibilities; includes drafting grant documents (reports, etc.) and navigating bureaucracy
  • Personal: everything else in your character’s life that doesn’t fit into the other categories; includes sleep, relationships, parenting, hobbies, etc.

For skill areas labeled with an asterisk, some character types can optionally use a Power bonus.

Disciplinary

Disciplinary skills reflect how much a character knows the subject area and methods of a particular field. Disciplinary skills are used to interpret data, make arguments, and do research.

Culture

Knowledge of cultural expectations and practices other than the one(s) native to the setting of the current game scenario. The "culture" skill is not generic; the specific culture(s) in question should be indicated.

Language(s)

Used to determine whether a character can understand and/or communicate in another language. Characters may have different skill values for understanding, writing, and speaking individual languages. The "language" skill is not generic; the specific languages or language families should be indicated.

  • +3 for reading skills if the character knows a related language
  • -5 for reading skills if the character doesn’t know the alphabet of the language
  • +5 for simple, predictable tasks (e.g. validating results of named-entity recognition algorithm)

Scholarly sources

How well the character knows the major primary and secondary literature in a field and adjacent areas. Scholarly sources is used when conceiving of a project, doing a literature review, doing research, and producing scholarly outputs (papers, presentations, etc.). The difficulty of a Scholarly sources roll depends on how much of a specialist you need to be in order to know or access the information.

Knowledge of how “real people” talk and live, as distinct the expectations, practices, and traditions that are typically associated with the “culture” of a country or region. Includes knowledge of current slang, popular mass-market media references (memes, TV shows, etc.) Most likely to be picked up by spending time in that country or region.

Contacts

The character’s “network” – who do they know (and who knows them)? Characters roll Contacts when trying to think of someone to connect with (e.g. to ask for help, find a collaborator, get a letter of reference, etc.) Unlike other skills, where using the skill is the route to leveling up, other activities have the possibility of increasing your character’s Contacts score, including going to conferences, giving talks, publishing, using Twitter, and rolling for Networking.

Scholarly argument

The character’s ability to make a scholarly argument (e.g. in a paper, presentation, Q&A session, or debate in a bar). Characters who have leveled up their Scholarly argument skill can use it instead of the base Disciplinary roll when writing.

Technical

Technical skills reflect how well a character can use a particular technology. Some technologies are so embedded in daily life that characters don’t need to roll to use them for general purposes (e.g. word processor for writing, smartphone for checking email), but do have to roll for more obscure tasks (e.g. precisely formatting the text of an article according to a template, using smartphone to run Python code).

Devices

Using any other device, including all devices with some inherent complexity (e.g. VR/AR equipment, as well as using “intuitive” consumer devices in a non-obvious way (e.g. trying to get two “smart devices” to communicate with one another).

Word processor

Using a word processor for anything more complicated than writing text (which does not require a roll). The difficulty depends on the task. For example:

  • Very easy: Formatting text styles, using “track changes”
  • Easy: Adding tables
  • Moderate: Adding images and captions for images or tables
  • Difficult: Managing the formatting for a bibliography
  • Very difficult: Precisely formatting your text according to a provided template

Network analysis

Structuring data for use with network analysis software or libraries, and interpreting the results.

Programming for automation

Web scraping, simple text comparison, and other similar tasks that automate work that people would otherwise do.

Programming for analysis

Natural-language processing, stylometry, text reuse, image analysis, and other DH methods that require programming.

Specialized software

Includes the use of software designed for specialized purposes (e.g. Photoshop, Photoscan, Maya, Unity, etc.) Indicate what kind of software (e.g. video editing, graphic design, 3D modeling) when adding this skill.

Web development

Building websites and web pages. The difficulty depends on the task. For example:

  • Very easy: updating an existing site built using a content-management system
  • Easy: building a straightforward informational site
  • Moderate: building a complex site as a platform for a DH project using a content-management system (note: resulting site will require ongoing, higher Maintenance rolls to remain functional)
  • Difficult: building a straightforward static site
  • Very difficult: building a fully custom dynamic site
  • Modifiers: short turn-around time or specific requirements (e.g. making the site multilingual) can add +5-10 to difficulty

Visual design

Creating visually-appealing designs that are effective in communicating a message or serving as a user interface. The difficulty dependso n the task. For example:

  • Very easy: making basic improvements on the UX of stereotypical software UIs designed by programmers
  • Easy: creating an eye-catching poster
  • Moderate: designing a visually compelling and intuitive website
  • Difficult: developing an effective UX for complex software
  • Very difficult: designing an interpretable presentation of a visualization of complex data
  • Modifiers: +5-10: work is being done for a client with strong opinions about design, or the result needs to be accessible

Software engineering

Developing software in alignment with good practices for modularity, reusability, documentation, etc.

Data cleaning

Modifying data to fix errors, or normalize formatting, structure, etc. so the data can be successfully used for analysis or with particular software packages.

  • Modifiers: +1-5: Data isn't encoded in UTF-8; +5-10: Character can't read the language of the data

Computing at scale

Using cloud computing, high-performance computing clusters, or high-powered virtual machines to do computation at scale. The difficulty depends on the task:

  • Very easy: using Google Collab, MyBider, or other cloud back-ends to Jupyter notebooks
  • Easy: using Jupyter notebooks via JupyterHub on an HPC cluster
  • Moderate: using Amazon, Google, or Microsoft cloud
  • Difficult: using an HPC cluster, or running a Docker image in the cloud
  • Very difficult: parallelizing code to effectively use an HPC cluster

Data management

Handling the processes and tasks surrounding data management. The difficulty depends on the task:

  • Very easy: using reasonable file-naming conventions
  • Easy: creating a file organization structure, capturing websites using the Internet Archive
  • Moderate: implementing a file organization structure, uploading data to an easy-to-use institutional (or disciplinary) repository
  • Difficult: uploading data to an institutional (or disciplinary) repository

Technical standards

Familiarity with the existence and use of technical standards. The difficulty depends on the task:

  • Very easy: applying an existing standard in an unambiguous and clearly-defined way
  • Easy: searching for the existence of standards
  • Moderate: applying an existing standard in a context with some ambiguity
  • Difficult: identifying which standard is the best fit for a given context

Interpersonal

Charisma

Used to convey academic “brilliance”, inspire devotion in students, etc.

Empathy

Used to understand or connect with another’s feelings, or understand what another character is feeling. The difficulty depends on the task:

  • Very easy: understanding another character’s emotional state in a straightforward situation (e.g. colleague not getting a grant)
  • Easy: understanding another character’s emotional state in a familiar situation (e.g. undergrads feeling anxious about grades)
  • Moderate: understanding another character’s emotional state when the other character is trying to hide their feelings.
  • Difficult: understanding another character’s emotional state when they are profoundly different from your character.
  • Very difficult: understanding another character’s emotional state when understanding it threatens your character’s interests (i.e. where they don’t want to hear it).

Listening

Paying attention to what other characters are saying, to hear and understand what they’re saying (or not saying)

Networking

Making a connection with other characters, with some pragmatic aim.

  • Very easy: talking with others at an event specifically designed for “networking”
  • Easy: talking with others with similar interests or specializations.
  • Moderate: talking with people with adjacent interests or specializations.
  • Difficult: talking with a diverse mix of people, including those with very different interests or specializations.
  • Very difficult: talking with people who are inherently skeptical of the work you do.
  • Modifiers: bonus for charisma (+1 for every pip above baseline Interpersonal dice, e.g. if Interpersonal is 2D and Charisma is 3D+1, you get a +4 bonus); other character traits (e.g. social anxiety) may incur a penalty

Persuasion

Making other characters see things your way.

  • Modifiers: bonus for charisma (+1 for every pip above baseline Interpersonal dice, e.g. if Interpersonal is 2D and Charisma is 3D+1, you get a +4 bonus); other character traits (e.g. self-doubt) may incur a penalty.

Deception

Lying or otherwise convincing characters of something that's not true. The difficulty depends on the task:

  • Very easy: white lies (e.g. false gratitude)
  • Easy: straightforward lies to those who have no reason to doubt you (e.g. assuring your parents that you've written more on your dissertation chapter than you have)
  • Moderate: more complicated lies, and/or to those who are not immediately inclined to believe you.
  • Difficult: complicated or improbable lies, to someone who has reason to doubt you.
  • Very difficult: convincing someone of something they have reason to not believe.

Managing people

Overseeing and directing the work of other characters; helping other characters understand how their work contributes to the whole; finding opportunities for the other characters to develop the skills they want, etc.

Self-control

Restraining your character’s inclination to lash out, costing Goodwill points. The difficulty depends on the context:

  • Very easy: impersonal minor inconveniences (e.g. office coffee pot empty)
  • Easy: low-stakes issues with someone with less power (e.g. students turning in assignments late), or higher-stakes issue with someone with more power
  • Moderate: medium-stakes issue with someone with comparable power
  • Difficult: publicly-visible criticism (e.g. on social media), or moderate hassle caused by someone with less power
  • Very difficult: significant hassle caused by someone with less power
  • Modifiers: x2 sleep deprivation penalty for Self-control rolls

Social media

Getting a positive response when spending time engaging with others (particularly colleagues) on Twitter, Facebook, etc. The difficulty depends on the task:

  • Very easy: posting pictures of cute animals, food, etc.
  • Easy: posting things others can relate to (e.g. commiserating)
  • Moderate: posting niche, personal, or edgy things
  • Difficult: asking for help about technical things, trying to get a response across multiple time zones
  • Very difficult: asking for feedback / volunteers; trying to get an international response
  • Modifiers:
    • Depending on your character's relationships with people in power, you may be given an additional Randomness die as part of your Social media roll. A low roll may result in a Twitter-policing penalty with mild to moderate professional consequences.
    • If you've rolled low Writing score this turn (less than 1/3 of the maximum possible score based on your skill level), you can get a -2 difficulty on Social media

Management

Management activities require focus and self-control. Doing academic work that isn’t covered by a Technical skill is part of Management.

Writing

Reflects a character’s ability to focus and “get words on paper”. Distinct from the quality of that writing (for which you roll Disciplinary or Scholarly argument or Scholarly sources).

Bureaucracy

Reflects a character’s familiarity with bureaucracies and procedures, and how to “do things properly”. If the character succeeds at the roll, they get whatever they need done. If the character fails, they can try again, or they can roll a Luck die to see if they succeed despite potential mistakes with the bureaucratic process. The difficulty depends on how easy the process is:

  • Very easy: something that is a regular bureaucratic procedure (e.g. taking attendance)
  • Easy: regular bureaucratic procedure that may have some less-obvious parts (e.g. enrolling in classes, filling out timecard)
  • Moderate: process may be semi-documented, but requires some institutional knowledge to do successfully (e.g. getting a new course approved, applying for a summer fellowship)
  • Difficult: process is incompletely documented, you have to rely on institutional knowledge, and some of what you hear might be wrong (e.g. filing your dissertation, submitting a tenure package).
  • Very difficult: something that is not documented anywhere, and not acknowledged to exist (e.g. finding out whether your collaborator is on a library blacklist).
  • Modifiers:
    • +2-7 to the difficulty: request is unusual
    • +5 or more to the difficulty: the bureaucracy is poorly-funded or has low morale
    • +10 or more to the difficulty: the bureaucracy is corrupt, incompetent, or completely demoralized from funding cuts and doesn’t care about providing services
    • +5 to the character’s roll: the bureaucracy is well-funded, has good morale, or is truly dedicated to meeting the needs of those who use it.
    • +5 or more to the character’s roll: the character is well-known and well-liked, and the bureaucrats have good reason to help the character (e.g. a charismatic undergrad whose mother sits on the University Board).
    • No modifier: the character isn’t well-known and the bureaucrat has no reason to want to help the character, but no reason to hinder them either
    • +5-10 or more to the difficulty: the character is a known troublemaker or nuisance. The modifier applies if the character is affiliated with an organization that has that reputation (e.g. a faculty member publicly advocating against university administrative decisions)

Scheduling

Finding a time that all necessary characters are free for a meeting.

  • Modifiers: +2 to the difficulty: for each character you need to schedule who has more power than you; +1 to the difficulty: for each additional time zone; +3-7 to the difficulty: meeting must be held at a busy time (e.g. finals, during conferences, etc.)

Event planning

Making the logistical arrangements (and doing the necessary communication) around events. The difficulty depends on the task:

  • Very easy: holding an entry in a regular series of events (e.g. lunch series)
  • Easy: holding an event with a local speaker
  • Moderate: holding a one-off event with a non-local speaker
  • Difficult: holding a multi-day event with multiple speakers
  • Very difficult: large-scale, multi-day event intended to be high-profile
  • Modifiers:
    • +2 per non-local participant where the institution is covering travel, lodging, or other logistics
    • +3 for each high-maintenance participant

Financial management

Planning and implementing budgets, and managing money.

Rote tasks

Tasks such as data entry or scanning that require persistence, attention to detail, and a moderate amount of focus.

  • Modifiers:
    • Your first Rote tasks roll for a turn applies to up to 7 activity points. If you want to spend more than 7 activity points on rote tasks in a turn, you'll need to roll again for each additional point you want to spend. Each time, an additional number on the randomness die counts as unlucky (e.g. when rolling for your 8th activity point on rote tasks, both 1 and 2 on your randomness die will trigger a D20 roll.)

Maintenance

Doing upkeep work on systems and infrastructure, both technical and human.

  • Modifiers:
    • If your character is responsible for maintenance of one or more systems, skipping a scheduled maintenance activity adds +1 (compounding 2x+1) for each skipped maintenance when the character does perform the maintenance. (e.g. skipping one turn is +1, two turns is +3, three turns is +7, etc.)

Personal

Personal activities are the rest of your character’s life. Doing Personal activities can undo negative effects (e.g. sleeping removes penalties from sleep deprivation; hobbies or exercise can reduce negative Goodwill towards other characters; relationships can reduce -- or increase -- negative Goodwill towards other characters.)

Generally you don't need to roll for Personal activities, you can just spend activity points on them. But if you're trying to do them for some specific purpose (e.g. "Household" to clean up your apartment before having guests over, "Hobbies" to reduce negative Goodwill), you need to roll to see if they accomplish your goal.

Sleep

Sleeping in, napping, and catching up on sleep following an act of sleep deprivation.

Relationships

With partners, friends, and other significant people.

Household

Maintaining your living space.

Relaxing

Watching shows or movies, reading for pleasure, etc.

Other jobs

Other paid work your character does to make ends meet.

Parenting

Caring for your character’s own children, or children who are significant in your character’s life (e.g. niblings, close friends’ children, etc.) If your character is a parent, you may have to roll for Parenting to resolve situations caused by a randomness die D20 roll.

Power & Goodwill

Some character types have Power that they can choose to exert to receive a bonus when interacting with other characters using Management or Interpersonal skills (except Listening and Empathy). Using the Power bonus is optional and impacts Goodwill: by using a Power bonus when rolling opposed to another character (or to accomplish a high-difficulty task), you generate negative Goodwill with that character.

If a player uses a Power bonus on behalf of a character type with less power (e.g. faculty calling in favors with a colleague to help a student get into an over-enrolled class), the player will receive positive Goodwill with the less-powerful character. Negative Goodwill adds to the difficulty of your roll when you have future dealings with that character; positive Goodwill makes your roll easier. The DM determines how much Goodwill is gained or lost for using Power (usually 1-3, but may be 10+ in extreme cases, such as successfully opposing a Provost in public). Losing a roll despite using a Power bonus generates more negative Goodwill than winning a roll with the Power bonus.

Find the row with your character type and look across the columns to see your character’s optional power bonuses. Note: if an undergrad character decides to try for a power bonus, the undergrad character’s player rolls a 20-sided die, and if they get a number in the specified range, they get that power bonus (e.g. modeling real-world dynamics of student newspapers, going viral, etc.).

AdminFacultyLibrarianGradStaffUndergrad
Admin--+3+5+7+10+5
Faculty+2--+3+3 / +9 (advisor)+8+5 / +7 (advisor)
Librarian00--+1+3+3
Grad000--+2+3
Staff*0000--0
UndergradWild 1-400Wild 1-2Wild 1-2--