{"id":5204,"date":"2026-08-17T17:21:50","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T22:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/?p=5204"},"modified":"2026-08-17T17:21:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T22:21:50","slug":"q3e-performance-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/q3e-performance-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Q3E Performance Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

The interplay of social interactions and game rules can be tricky. They often either create a situation where the player\u2019s social skills trump the character or reduce the interaction to a die roll, effectively making the actual interaction happen off-screen. I\u2019ve been working on some rules that aim for a happy medium. You can read the persuasion rules I wrote here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I thought performances would use some variation on the Haggling rules linked above, but realized that it\u2019s way easier to use a simple tracker. The tracker has 10 boxes and starts with 5 boxes checked off. The performance is broken down into five rolls:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Entrance:<\/strong> The player describes how the character enters the arena riding a white tiger, leaps onto the stage, and yells \u201cHELLO CLEVELAND!\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. Act 1:<\/strong> The player describes how they grab the audience\u2019s attention and get the show started. Is the first song their latest hit or a beloved classic?<\/li>\n
  3. Act 2:<\/strong> The player describes the central part of the performance: set pieces, costume changes, crowd work, stunts, whatever.<\/li>\n
  4. Act 3:<\/strong> The player describes how they end the show with a bang. Maybe there\u2019s a big flashy special effect or an unexpected cameo with a famous artist nobody expected to be there.<\/li>\n
  5. Curtain Call:<\/strong> The player describes the encore or bow-taking.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If the player wins the roll, the tracker moves up by 1, and the player gets a +1 to their next roll. If the player loses, the tracker moves down by 1, and the player gets a -1 to their next roll. These modifiers stack as long as the player keeps getting the same result, resetting to zero when the player gets the opposite result. So if the player succeeds at the first 2 rolls, they\u2019ve got a +2 bonus to roll #3. If roll #3 succeeds, they get +3 on roll #4. If roll #3 fails, the modifier resets to zero.<\/p>\n

    The tracker measures the crowd reaction:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • 0:<\/strong> The crowd hates the show and riots, rushes the stage, or otherwise becomes violent.<\/li>\n
    • 1-2:<\/strong> The crowd isn\u2019t enjoying itself one bit. The player gets boos, hecklers, and other clear indications that they\u2019re not a hit.<\/li>\n
    • 3-4:<\/strong> The crowd is sort of politely annoyed. You can tell they\u2019re not happy to be here, but they\u2019re not disruptive.<\/li>\n
    • 5-7:<\/strong> The crowd is enjoying the show, but isn\u2019t super enthusiastic.<\/li>\n
    • 8-9:<\/strong> The crowd loves the show. They\u2019re laughing and dancing and screaming your name.<\/li>\n
    • 10+:<\/strong> The crowd reacts like you\u2019re Elvis or the Beatles. The security staff is working overtime and the stage is littered with drugs and panties.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The interplay of social interactions and game rules can be tricky. They often either create a situation where the player\u2019s social skills trump the character or reduce the interaction to a die roll, effectively making the actual interaction happen off-screen. I\u2019ve been working on some rules that aim for a happy medium. You can read…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3766,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2060,3837],"tags":[3689,3829,3842],"class_list":["post-5204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-games","category-q3e","tag-q3e","tag-rock-roll","tag-perfromance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5204"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5235,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5204\/revisions\/5235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}