'Works of Art' Rules for the Vortex System

[Escher]

Does this look robust?

---

Works of Art

Creating a professional work of art, whether a painting, written work, live performance, photograph and so on, is Tricky (15).

The base time varies for each type of work, but a week should suffice based on the size of work.
For novels, assume a year. For a painting equivalent to the Mona Lisa, assume one month.
Larger works have accordingly greater base times. Taking longer to do the task will yield no benefits as such, but trying to create it faster will accrue the usual penalties.


For works of Fine Art, use the following to determine the base time*:

Roll 1d6. That gives you:
1 - minutes
2 - hours
3 - days
4 - weeks
5 - months
6 - years

Then 1d6 of these units per point in an appropriate skill.



Examples:

Type                 Roll
Acting              Ingenuity + Craft (Acting) vs Tricky (15)
Cuisine            Awareness + Craft (Cooking) + Keen Senses (Smell/Taste) vs Tricky (15)
Dance              Coordination + Craft (Dance) vs Tricky (15)
Painting           Awareness + Craft (Painting) + Keen Senses (Sight) vs Tricky (15)
Photography    Awareness + Craft (Photography) + Keen Senses (Sight) vs Tricky (15)
Song Writing    Ingenuity + Craft (Songwriting) vs Tricky (15)
Writing             Ingenuity + Craft (Writing) vs Tricky (15)

---

Levels of Success


-9 Disastrous!
No, and it's utterly dreadful. If it were made public, it could ruin a reputation or career. Critics would have a field day. Any sane artist would not only reject this work, but consign it to oblivion immediately. In a live performance, you are booed off stage, or worse. Audience members leave part way through the performance. In front of a hostile audience you might have to use Extended Conflict rules to escape the venue or dodge flying missiles.

-4-8 Bad
No, it's poor. It has no intrinsic artistic value. A live performance in front of a neutral audience receives a poor response. One person slow-claps, others leave, someone boos, another throws a tomato. That sort of thing. Audience members might leave part way through the performance.

-1-3 Failure
No, it's not great quality but it is marginally acceptable. This would be an acceptable amateur work or a mediocre professional piece. A live performance in front of a neutral audience might receive some polite applause. Audience members generally stay throughout the performance.

0-3   Success         
Yes, the work is acceptable and it's good but it won't win acclaim or awards. A live performance in front of a neutral audience receives genuine appreciation and applause and no one leaves until the performance has ended.

4-8 Good
Yes. Critically acclaimed work. The work encapsulates the subject matter with flair and mastery and is a delight to experience. A live performance receives genuine rousing applause, cheers, delighted approval and perhaps a standing ovation or two if the audience is neutral or friendly.

9+ Fantastic!
Yes, and you created a Masterpiece! The work is so different, so perfectly encompassing the subject matter or premise that it breaks new ground and establishes you as one of the greatest practitioners of the art. With several of these accomplishments under your belt, you will be regarded throughout history as a 'Master'. A live performance receives ecstatic standing ovations and brings the house down with screams and cheers of joy. A life-changing performance the audience and critics will never forget.

---

Vincent Van Gogh, with his Awareness of 5, Keen Sense (Sight) with it's bonus of +2 and his Craft 4 (Painting 6) skill has a base total of 13.

For an artist with Vincent's level of skill and ability, using the rules above, after rolling 2D6 it works out statistically like this:

A Failure is impossible for him, so he would never paint a mediocre work.

With minimum effort, he would always achieve a Success and paint with 100% certainty an acceptable piece.

He could achieve a Good result regularly (with 72.22%) and create an acclaimed work; and on occasion, (8.33% of the time) he could achieve a Fantastic success and paint a masterpiece. Obviously, it pays to be prolific.

---

In summary:

From the statistics using the game system and 2D6, it appears that Tricky (15) is the optimum difficulty for setting the bar for making a professional work of art at, taking to account the possibility of creating a Masterpiece.


Any thoughts? does this look water-tight?

---

* Credit: Many thanks to Cubicle 7's Creative Director & Art Director Jon Hodgson for providing the Fine Arts base time guide.

[Marnal]

Looks great to me!

[olegrand]

In my TEMPORAL TOYBOX variant rules, I advocated creating a distinct Artist skill, to separate Crafts from Arts.

Regardless of how you choose to measure artistic skill, perhaps true artistic geniuses like the aforementioned Van Gogh should also be given a special Artistic Genius good trait (minor, major, both?) to separate skill proper from creative genius, which is something really unique and distinctive, eg something which seems to fall quite perfectly into the flexible realm of traits. An expert draughtsman could have a Craft or Artist skill of 5 or even 6... but being Van Gogh or Leonardo or Beethoven is not only a question of skill - it is a question of genius, a rather elusive and mysterious quality which should really set great artists apart from the rest of us mere mortals (at least as far as DWAITAS is concerned).

[Escher]

Jan 14, 2016 17:06:26 GMT olegrand said:

In my TEMPORAL TOYBOX variant rules, I advocated creating a distinct Artist skill, to separate Crafts from Arts.

Regardless of how you choose to measure artistic skill, perhaps true artistic geniuses like the aforementioned Van Gogh should also be given a special Artistic Genius good trait (minor, major, both?) to separate skill proper from creative genius, which is something really unique and distinctive, eg something which seems to fall quite perfectly into the flexible realm of traits. An expert draughtsman could have a Craft or Artist skill of 5 or even 6... but being Van Gogh or Leonardo or Beethoven is not only a question of skill - it is a question of genius, a rather elusive and mysterious quality which should really set great artists apart from the rest of us mere mortals (at least as far as DWAITAS is concerned).

I agree that there is no way of modelling true artistic genius in the game and a new Trait would be ideal as there is currently no '+2 Trait' for Craft.

As you say, the easiest way of quantifying Genius into game terms is indeed a Trait-based solution, but until something official appears, I'm having to rely on home brew rules.

Artistic genius is tricky, because it also has to do with that artist's psyche, their experience/s, their unique persona and so on, as you say, and it is mysterious and elusive.
The passion and intensity of their work could be helped or hindered by insanity, depression, a devotion to God, their love life (or lack of) and many other things. I would suggest that a GM take this into consideration and apply situational bonuses or penalties for flavour.

These rules are only meant to give the GM something to use if a live performance or work of art is required during play. What they don't cover, more importantly, is the process of inspiration which is crucial to creating any new work of art. Rules for this might not be used in a game of Doctor Who as such, and are more in the realms of simulation than dramatic fun. However, if you are using the Vortex system to play a game where art is an important theme (e.g. Bohemian Artists in 19th Century Paris), then it must be a consideration.

As for the rules above, we have the official stats of Vincent (11th Doctor Sourcebook) and it was a perfect opportunity to apply them to the model I used for gauging the default difficulty level of creating a masterpiece. I think it works mechanically, in game terms.


EDIT: I'm missing something obvious here. Story Points. These dictate a difference between the mediocre pedestrian artist and the special one. Of course, Story Points can be spent on rolls and I was overlooking this because I was using pure dice rolls only to work out the results.

[olegrand]

Jan 14, 2016 17:28:48 GMT Escher said:

I agree that there is no way of modelling true artistic genius in the game and a new Trait would be ideal as there is currently no '+2 Trait' for Craft.

As you say, the easiest way of quantifying Genius into game terms is indeed a Trait-based solution, but until something official appears, I'm having to rely on home brew rules.

Indeed - and since the official stats for Shakespeare and Van Gogh do not include any new specifically artistic trait, let's make our own house rules about this!

How about the following:

GIFTED (minor or major good trait): Minor version is "Talented", +2 on all Craft/Art rolls related to a single art form.; major version is "Truly Gifted", with a bonus of +4.

Jan 14, 2016 17:28:48 GMT Escher said:

EDIT: I'm missing something obvious here. Story Points. These dictate a difference between the mediocre pedestrian artist and the special one. Of course, Story Points can be spent on rolls and I was overlooking this because I was using pure dice rolls only to work out the results.

Damn, you're right - it has been staring us in the face all along like a damn Silent! Especially since Story points can be invested in Gadgets created by Jiggery-Pockery...

[Escher]

Jan 15, 2016 15:21:35 GMT olegrand said:

How about the following:

GIFTED (minor or major good trait): Minor version is "Talented", +2 on all Craft/Art rolls related to a single art form.; major version is "Truly Gifted", with a bonus of +4.

I'd go for that.