Operation LAPIS: Virtue Trait System

What better way to kick off summer than by sharing a brand new trait system for the Recentiī player-characters in Operation LAPIS? As a little bit of a background, one common suggestion from students was that the player characters didn't quite feel like they were truly in an RPG. We solved this to a small degree last year with the introduction of the denarii rewards and gear system.

Points, traits, and levels are key components of most RPGs -- whether it be a pen and paper table-top game or a popular video game. However, given our insistence that learning objectives map onto play objectives, grafting on a superficial system of strength or charisma points just wouldn't be acceptable. I also wanted to find a way to bring the core Roman values into play in a meaningful way. 

Virtūtēs

Each character now has six different virtues that will not only shape their character in a more dynamic way, but also scaffold additional elements to the role-playing. These virtues will also help scaffold responses on the part of the Agent of the Demiurge (the instructor) when interacting with their students inside of the immersive world of the TSTT. 

Progress bars and rank increases should make the character feel more playful

There are a couple of neat technical features built into the character sheet. First, the progress bars, cost to next rank, and ability bonus based on the current level are all automatically awarded as the trait increases.

Each virtue, if the operatives choose to specialize, has a capstone ability and subsequently grants an additional agnomen to the character. For example, upon reaching rank 10 in 'auctōritās', the character is automatically granted the agnomen 'Aquilīnus', or 'Eagle-like'. From this point forward, he would be known as Gaius Recentius Bellator Aquilinus.

In addition, there is a dropdown menu selector that further describes what the Romans thought about each of these traits. Our hope is that the way the abilities are described, and the added description box, the students will understand that the Roman virtues were primarily based on how others perceived you (which, I think, is a bit different than traits and stats in most modern RPGs).

Puncta Virtūtis

So how do operatives gain points with which to advance their character's traits? This is where a new self-reporting system of 'Virtue Points' comes into play. In order to make a system where choice has meaning, the point system has to be balanced so that it would be incredibly difficult to max out everything. As a result, puncta virtūtis are tied to the entire team's participation in the discussion for each immersion.

If all members of a team contribute in some meaningful way on an episode, the character receives 3 puncta virtūtis. If the lead-operative fulfills his or her duty and posts the response of the character, the team receives an additional bonus of 2 puncta virtūtis. The intention here is to encourage full participation each immersion since so much of the student's success is driven by their engagement with the material. This incentive system, since it is tied in no way to evaluation or assessment, encourages and rewards engagement in an innocuous way. You'll also notice that the character level (gradus) also increases automatically as the trait levels are increased. Again, this is to make the character system feel a bit more playful without compromising the core values of practomimetic learning. 

Like the denarii system, self-reporting and management on the part of the operatives is also a very important aspect of this system since it encourages the type of responsibility for self that we'd like to see in all of our students.

If you'd like to play around with the sheet for Gaius Recentius Bellator, feel free to access a publicly viewable sheet here and make your own copy. However, there are still a few things to clean up and to add before all eight Recentii characters are updated to the new system and ready for the fall. 

Hope you enjoy the new trait system and it makes the characters feel more playful!

Simple PBL

PBL (problem or project) based-learning doesn't have to be a huge formal assignment. It is more of a state-of-mind than anything else. I just wanted to share a small example of this that spontaneously happened during class last week.

One of the Recentius teams in Operation LAPIS, while working on a particular collaborative task, strayed a bit off topic -- discussing giraffes of all things. They came to the decision that they wanted to buy a giraffe to keep as a pet (ignoring the logistics of such a thing, we'll just let it slide for now) and subsequently asked me how much denarii (a type of Roman currency) they would need in order to buy a giraffe. I haven't ever read an ancient source that listed a specific price for a giraffe (although we know they were sold and displayed around the empire), and so that would pose a problem to arbitrarily assign a price.

According to Dio, Caesar brought a giraffe with him back from Alexandria

Instead of declaring "No, you cannot buy a giraffe.", I explained to them how I set the price for some of the gear (see the post linked above), and then asked them how they could estimate what a giraffe might have cost a Roman in the time period of our adventure.

In a few minutes of discussion and problem solving, they decided that if the average salary of a Roman soldier was 225 denarii, and then they estimated the salary of a current soldier of around $35,000, they could use that ratio of denarii to dollars in order to estimate the cost of a giraffe. After some research, they discovered that (apparently) a giraffe costs around $30,000 on the open market and so if they saved up about 200 denarii, they could have their own virtual giraffe pet. (I suppose I'll have to let them know what the upkeep is after the initial purchase.)

There it is right there -- problem-based learning, not as a huge elaborate thing, but as an approach to how and why you learn new information. While there are obvious problems with the accuracy of the price that they figured out, nevertheless we have the ability to foster this kind of inquisitive knowledge on a daily basis. We should routinely embrace, not squash, these opportunities to model authentic exploration.

On Researching the Economy of Operation LAPIS

As noted in the previous entry on gear, the Recentius-teams in Operation LAPIS earn an in-game currency, dēnāriī, to spend on items for their character. For those unfamiliar with the intricacies of economics in ancient Rome, the dēnārius was one type of silver coin minted throughout most of the Republic and well into the Empire. As we continued to flesh out the gear mechanic and the per-mission rewards of dēnāriī, we wanted to ensure that the relative values of rewards and items would be accurate for the 1st century CE while at the same time creating a compelling game mechanic. Here's how we arrived at the suggested rewards and the cost of items in-game:

From historical records, the average salary for a Roman soldier at the time of Augustus was approximately 225 dēnāriī.

Beginning with mission 4 (when the Recentius-teams begin earning end-of mission rewards), the teams have 66 episodes remaining in the year. Based on how well they role-play their character, the teams earn anywhere from 1-5 dēnāriī per episode. If you reward an 'average' response with 3 dēnāriī, and then take into account the 20 dēnāriī they receive as a start at the end of Episode 3.3, then the Recentius-teams will earn approximately 220 dēnāriī over the year. That's pretty close to the average salary at that time and, just like in the Roman army, there are still plenty of ways by which to earn bonuses.

Now here is the tricky part -- figuring out how to value the items which the Recentius-teams can purchase. We had to compromise on the items from the fabrī (the metal-smiths) and skirt historical accuracy in order to have a viable game mechanic. Ordinarily, items like the gladius (Roman short sword), the lorica (armour), or even the scutum (shield) would be unavailable to purchase in the forum. This standardized equipment was produced exclusively in the military camps, beginning with Marius' military reforms. While the Roman government provided access to the standardized gear, they didn't pay for the gear. Each Roman soldier had to deduct approximately 50-60 dēnāriī from their yearly salary for their equipment. This provided a rough guide for setting the prices of, say, the lorica, at approximate 20 dēnāriī.

Other items, however, provided to be even more difficult to figure out. Using the only reliable guide for prices, the Diocletian Price Edict of 301 CE, the salary for a Roman soldier had risen (on account of severe inflation) to a base of 1800 dēnāriī. If we assume (although problematic for a variety of reasons) that the standard of living for a soldier based on that pay was the same, then we're looking at an approximate inflation rate of 9:1 from the 1st Century CE, the time in which our adventure takes place.

Using 9:1 as the guide, we find a variety of items listed on the edict. For example, the maximum cost for a soldier's winter tunic was 75 dēnāriī, or approximately 8 dēnāriī in 81 CE. Soldier's boots, on the other hand, were 100 dēnāriī and fancier patrician shoes were 150 dēnāriī (or approximately 11 and 17 dēnāriī respectively.) This allowed us to set relative prices for the remaining items in order to create a viable and authentic economy for goods that would continue to map learning objectives on to the play objectives for the students while still maintaining a traditional RPG feel for the gear progression.