TheLadder/content/frontier/events/promotion.js

// Taking the star.
//
// The same shape as Corporate Ladder's Dispatch offer, and for the same
// reason: the engine has no notion of a promotion, only of a stage that
// determines which events are in the pool. The offer is an ordinary event
// whose effects happen to include { path: 'stage', op: 'set', value: 'deputy' }.
//
// Declining is a real option. It comes back after a cooldown, and staying in
// the yard to build trade and a book full of favours is a way to play rather
// than a mistake.

export const promotion = [
  {
    // The first real player asked, thirty turns in, how they would know they
    // were getting close. Nothing said. This does, in the town's own terms: it
    // names what the offer is waiting for without printing a threshold. It
    // comes once, somewhat before the offer can, and only to a hand already
    // heading that way. See DECISIONS #40.
    id: 'ward_takes_notice',
    stage: 'hand',
    weight: 300,
    once: true,
    requires: [
      { path: 'turn', op: '>=', value: 24 },
      { path: 'standing', op: '>=', value: 55 },
    ],
    description:
      'Ward stops at the yard gate on his way past and says, to nobody in ' +
      'particular, that the county will want a second man by winter. The man ' +
      'will need a name the street says for the right reasons, and he will ' +
      'need to be one Ward can take at his word — or one who has already ' +
      'walked into trouble on the Ridge road and walked back out of it.',
    options: [
      {
        id: 'ask_what_it_takes',
        label: 'Ask him how long a man would have to wait.',
        result:
          'He says not before the fortieth day of anybody’s employment, and ' +
          'that he is not talking about anybody in particular, and goes on up ' +
          'the street.',
        effects: [
          { path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 3 },
          { path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Heard from Ward that the county would want a second man.' },
        ],
      },
      {
        id: 'happy_in_the_yard',
        label: 'Say you are happy in the yard.',
        result: 'Vane, in the office doorway, hears you say it.',
        effects: [
          { path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 3 },
        ],
      },
      {
        id: 'remember_it',
        label: 'Say nothing, and remember it.',
        result: 'He did not expect an answer, and seems to like not getting one.',
        effects: [
          { path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 1 },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },

  {
    id: 'deputy_offer',
    stage: 'hand',
    weight: 800,
    cooldown: 12,
    // A long way in, deliberately. The yard is where most of this pack lives,
    // and the star at turn twenty would skip it.
    requires: [
      { path: 'standing', op: '>=', value: 70 },
      { path: 'turn', op: '>=', value: 40 },
      // Two ways to be offered it: the marshal has decided about you, or the
      // town has, on the evidence of what you have walked into.
      {
        any: [
          { path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: '>=', value: 68 },
          { path: 'skills.nerve', op: '>=', value: 40 },
        ],
      },
    ],
    description:
      'Ward has the county paper that makes a deputy and has already written a ' +
      'name on it. He says the pay is thirty-eight a run and the work is mostly ' +
      'walking about, and that the second half of that is a lie he tells ' +
      'everybody once.',
    options: [
      {
        id: 'accept',
        label: 'Take the star.',
        result:
          'Vane says nothing at all, which is worse than anything he could ' +
          'have said. Dutch carries your kit up the street and talks the ' +
          'entire way about the Ridge road.',
        effects: [
          { path: 'stage', op: 'set', value: 'deputy' },
          { path: 'flags.sworn_in', op: 'set', value: true },
          { path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 6 },
          { path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
          { path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -14 },
          { path: 'relationships.dutch.wary_of_you', op: 'add', value: 10 },
          { path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Took the star.' },
        ],
      },
      {
        id: 'accept_and_speak',
        label: 'Take it, and put Dutch up for the good runs.',
        requires: [{ path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: '>=', value: 55 }],
        result:
          'Vane writes the name down in front of you, which is as close as he ' +
          'comes to a farewell. Dutch is insufferable about it for a month and ' +
          'then, quietly, is not.',
        effects: [
          { path: 'stage', op: 'set', value: 'deputy' },
          { path: 'flags.sworn_in', op: 'set', value: true },
          { path: 'flags.spoke_for_dutch', op: 'set', value: true },
          { path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 4 },
          { path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 5 },
          { path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -8 },
          { path: 'relationships.dutch.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 15 },
          { path: 'relationships.dutch.owes_you', op: 'add', value: 20 },
          { path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Took the star, and put Dutch up for the good runs.' },
        ],
      },
      {
        id: 'decline',
        label: 'Not yet.',
        result:
          'He folds the paper back into his coat. He has carried it around ' +
          'unsigned for six years and is in no hurry now.',
        effects: [
          { path: 'skills.nerve', op: 'add', value: 3 },
          { path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -3 },
          { path: 'relationships.ward.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: -6 },
          { path: 'relationships.hollis.trusts_you', op: 'add', value: 8 },
          { path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Turned down the star.' },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
];

export default promotion;