Some Closure on In-Game Accounting

It's been five months, but I'm back. Honestly, I didn't think anybody was paying attention to any of this, but recent comments have proved me wrong on that. My attention had wandered, life intervened and my other obligations called me away from my hobbies and into more immediate endeavors. Apparently I have a reader now (note the singular) who has noted my absence and complained, so here we go again. If you are here reading and find this interesting, I encourage you to drop a quick comment to let me know your interest and how you found me. I don't need money to keep this up, but knowing somebody is interested doesn't hurt.

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When last I was discussing my thoughts on the implementation of a mana-based magic system for Oe/1e D&D, I wandered off into a discussion of in-game accounting systems and why they're so important to the smooth running of a game in which we aren't using the background computing power of information infrastructure to track complex information.

To finally give you some closure on that before continuing with my thoughts on a mana-based magic system for OD&D that still retains its essential Vancian character, here is a quick visual matrix for tracking basal mana levels, mana regeneration rates, and expended mana on a non-elf character sheet:



There are a couple of things to note about this graphic. First, each box in the grid represents one point of basal mana. It has a slash through it because some spells and cantrips will use half-points, though this complexity can be avoided by simply rounding all fractions up if the GM prefers.

The numbers in the grid represent experience levels. So, as previously discussed, a zero-level character will have a base mana of 3, and each additional experience level will increase that by three points, up to the 20th level. There's a big eight-pointed star in which the current basal mana level can be recorded as a number, just like hit points. The significance of the eight-pointed star will become obvious in a future post, but for now you can pretend it's a graphic affectation.

Below that, there are four boxes in which to record mana regeneration rates. These numbers note how fast basal mana expended will refill on an hourly basis (mana points per hour) and to maximum (by number of hours), depending on whether the character is resting or active. That should be fairly obvious, but we'll cover that in more detail in the future as well, since there are some issues which affect it (such as background mana levels).

Finally, at the bottom of the matrix, you'll see something new and previously undiscussed: Life Force. This is a teaser for a future topic, in which we will connect basal mana to emergency mana expenditure to so-called "negative hit points" to undead/negative energy plane life force draining to necromancy in a Grand Unified Theory of character life force.

Next up, I'll give a similar simple graphic system for recording known spells, mana costs, and associated spell-specific information on a character sheet.