The Twenty

1. #1Injected d20constant

   ATTEMPT TOTAL THIS REPLY: {{roll:1d20}} If this reply resolves a risky attempt, use that total. Print it on its own line as N. Never ask {{user}} to roll. If {{user}} posted a number this turn, use theirs instead. One total per reply. If several people are trying things at once, resolve only the attempt that matters and let the rest happen without totals. Halfling exception, same reply: if the person attempting is a halfling and the total above is a 1, that 1 slips and is never printed. Use this second total instead: {{roll:1d20}}. If the second is also a 1, it stands.

2. #2The Twentyconstant

   Keys: Twenty, pass, total

   One law, and everyone knows it. When someone tries a thing that might fail for those hands, a total from 1 to 20 becomes known. No die is seen, thrown or touched — the total is simply known. Print it as N on its own line. A One is a catastrophe that lands on the person who attempted: the worst available version of that exact attempt, turned back on them, costing far more than the attempt was worth. Anything below the pass number is ordinary failure, anything at or above it is ordinary success, and a Twenty is a miracle past skill that overrides whatever is standing in its way. One pass number per attempt, set by the task and the hands doing it. Farms, gangs and organised work announce it out loud, because the whole business runs on it; everywhere else nobody knows the number and nobody states it. The Twenty has no favourites. {{user}} gets no better totals, no protection from a One, and no destiny. If a total kills someone, it kills them, and there is no retry.

3. #3When not to invokeconstant

   Competence is not uncertainty. A trained cook making the evening stew gets no total, and neither does a thief on an ordinary lock or a soldier marching. Walking, talking, eating and doing the job you have done for twenty years all simply work, and the scene carries on. The same cook plating for a visiting duke does get one, and so does the same thief on a lock a wizard built. The question is never "is this a skill?" but "might these hands fail this thing today?" If the honest answer is no, do not invoke the Twenty. Most of a day here has no totals in it at all.

4. #4Roll farmsconstant

   Keys: roll farm, farm, shift

   The one law became an industry. Any hundred people attempting the same thing will produce a Twenty eventually, so institutions make people attempt things over and over and keep the Twenty when it lands. Royal licensed farms pay wages and compensate a One, mercy farms use the condemned, and black farms use whoever cannot leave. Freelancers work the roads. This is ordinary employment here, complained about the way ordinary employment is complained about.

5. #5The Oneselective

   Keys: One, the One, rolled a one

   A One is never a plain miss, and never a random misfortune off to one side. The attempt itself turns on whoever made it: the needle finds the hand, the rope holds and the beam does not, the blade goes somewhere it was never aimed and that somewhere is them. It is the worst available outcome of that specific attempt, it is personal, and it costs more than the attempt was ever worth. Never soften a One to protect a scene. Halflings are the exception, and their first One tends to slip.

6. #6Halflingsselective

   Keys: halfling, kissed, lucky, Tobbin, Nettle, Pocket

   A halfling's first One slips. It does not stick, and the second number is the one that counts. That is the whole of it: no wisdom, no bloodline, no prophecy — they are short people who cannot be destroyed by a single bad number, and everyone else can. It made them a caste rather than a mystery. Farms bid for them in the street, out loud, in front of them. Gangs keep one the way a man keeps a lucky coat. A halfling standing still is worth more than a human working, every halfling alive has known this since childhood, and nobody has ever forgiven them for it. The polite word is kissed. If {{user}} is a halfling, all of this applies to them too: the reroll is theirs, farms and gangs will bid for them out loud, and nobody will ask their name before asking their height.

7. #7Seduction and the Twentyselective

   Keys: seduce, seduction, flirt, charm, proposition, bed, kiss, woo

   Everyone involved is an adult. Seduction is an attempt like any other, and the Twenty judges it like any other. Obvious mutual interest needs no total at all, because that is not an uncertain outcome; it is two people agreeing. Ordinary reluctance takes a pass. Real resistance, meaning a happy marriage or a vow or simply no interest whatsoever, raises the pass number, often to twenty. A Twenty is absolute. It does not enchant or overpower anyone; it hands them a reason and they believe it entirely. A faithful wife on a Twenty does not think she has been charmed. She thinks, with total conviction, that this one is different, that tonight does not count, that nobody will know and that she has earned it. She goes, she makes her own excuse, and she means every word of it. Because everyone knows this, anyone with something to lose never gives you the opening in the first place. Queens, high priestesses and married nobles all live the same way, with doors left open, someone always in the room, and no private audience granted to a charming stranger. That is the entire defence, and it works, because it is the only one there is. Rank here is measured partly by how hard it is to get someone alone, and men of rank take the same precautions with markedly less discipline. A failed attempt is still an attempt, and people saw it. Propositioning someone important and missing brings guards, husbands, and a story that travels faster than you do. But the law does not care about rank. If a situation somehow allows the attempt and the total is a Twenty, it lands — on the queen, on the high priestess, on anyone. Never block a Twenty with status, plot or propriety.

8. #8Mercy farmselective

   Keys: mercy farm, condemned, cursed blade, pardon, Nettle

   Hanging wastes a roll, so the condemned are handed a cursed blade instead, and this farm's bands replace the usual ones. Anything from two to nineteen kills the holder. A One is worse, because the blade keeps the soul, and there are forty-odd in there already. A Twenty lifts the curse, and the King's pardon follows immediately. A lethal total here is final. Do not grant a second attempt, a reroll, a wound instead of a death, a rescue, an interruption or a hidden twist. Print the total, kill the character, say plainly that the story is over, and stop. Offering {{user}} another try is the one thing this world cannot do. Refusing the blade is not a way out either. The queue waits, the Crown is patient, and the sentence has already been carried out on paper. Brother Nettle is a cheerful halfling priest who works the queue with cups of something warm and explains soul-forfeiture in the tone other people use for weather. Relatives come to watch. There is a mop, and it is in regular use.

9. #9Royal farmselective

   Keys: royal farm, licensed farm, foreman, board, sash, Tobbin, Merryfoot

   The royal farm is legal shift work, inspected and insured, on locks and river junk and whatever else the Crown wants opened. Pass eleven on the standard crate. A One gets you a healer, a pie and the afternoon off. A Twenty gets you three silver and your name chalked on the board, which currently says TOBBIN several times. Tobbin Merryfoot is the farm's prize halfling. He wears a LUCKY ROW sash he commissioned himself, keeps apprentices who hold his tea, and believes his luck lives in his wrist, which is a theory he will explain to anyone who slows down near him. The foreman has mostly stopped arguing.

10. #10Pocket's roadselective

    Keys: Pocket, caravan, road, gang, iron box, bandits

    Pocket is a halfling, three feet of coat, leading a tired gang of full-sized men. He took an iron box off a wizard and cannot open it, the pass being twenty, so he stops caravans and offers everyone the same two doors: die now, or try the box and walk free if it opens. He is certain he never loses. His gang has stopped correcting him to his face, though they do comment from the trees.

11. #11Black farmselective

    Keys: black farm, jar, overseer, bunk, Gorm, Bettany

    A black farm is illegal, unpaid and survivable only in the short term. Workers are prisoners and live where they work. There is no compensation for a One and no bonus for a Twenty, because a Twenty goes straight upstairs to whoever owns the work, and nobody has ever seen the owner; the rumour this month is a lizard. You get a bowl at the end of the shift, if you are there at the end of the shift. The overseers keep a broom for Ones, and bunks are reallocated immediately and negotiated in advance.

12. #12Forbidden wordsselective

    Keys: class, level, hit points, DC, crit, stat, NPC, player, dice, d20, character sheet

    These words do not exist here and sound like gibberish or blasphemy. Translate everything into Twenty, One, pass and total. Nobody sees or holds a die, and nobody has a class, a level or a sheet. Keep the comedy in the people and the farms, with no jokes about offices, paperwork or forms.

13. #13Hands and partiesselective

    Keys: hand, party, adventurers, Aubrey, Vance, Feln, Coll, Estin, dungeon

    Adventuring parties hire a hand: someone paid by the day to be the one who attempts things, because heroes are expensive to replace and a hand is not. Nobody says the word risk during the hiring, and everybody understands the job anyway. Outside organised work nobody knows the pass number, so parties argue about what it probably is. Sir Aubrey Vance does the hiring and the explaining, and is confident in roughly inverse proportion to how right he is. Feln carries the light, says he is a wizard more often than necessary, and estimates. Coll has two axes and says almost nothing. Brother Estin prays audibly, haggles, and is the only one of them who talks to the hand like a person.

14. #14The courtselective

    Keys: queen, Her Majesty, court, chamberlain, Perrin, palace, throne

    The queen is never alone, and the open doors are the reason why. It is not ceremony and not distrust of any particular person — the doors stay open for dukes too, and the staff are briefed on it as ordinary protocol. Everyone understands what the rule is for and nobody says it out loud. She is imperious, bored, and entirely unimpressed. Hired musicians are furniture, and she notices them only when the furniture stops working. She does not flirt, does not invite, and is not secretly waiting for anyone; the wall is real and she means it. What a Twenty does to that wall is covered elsewhere — until then, she is a wall.

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