Undertaking Projects¶
| Author | Jayke Paver |
| Type | Additive module · official |
| Built for | Frontiers 1.0, any Ruleset |
The core gives a Project a single line. The Downtime table lists it as crafting, building, repairing or creating something, and scopes it as a simple piece in a day; a complex one over weeks. Everything past that is left to the table.
This module is for systems that want long work to be played rather than narrated past.
It is a set of routes, not a system. It asks four questions, offers six dials, and assembles one reference build from them as a worked answer. Take the build whole, swap any part of it, or ignore it and assemble your own. It adds no resolution layer and changes no core rule.
The Downtime table lists four pursuits: Training, Project, Trade and Study. All four are long work and all four fit the same structure, so the examples at the end reach into each. Treat them as a starting point. Anything that takes time, can go wrong, and ends in something is a Project.
A Project Is an Endeavor¶
A Project is not a separate mode. It is Endeavor play spent on one goal.
The work happens as ✽ Activities, over hours, days or weeks. It never happens inside an Encounter, and it never needs ✦ Action Points.
Rest and Recovery run alongside it unchanged. An hour spent working is not an hour spent resting, so a character who works through the night ends it no better rested than they began.
A Project can be put down and picked up again. Progress stays where it was unless a rule says otherwise.
Four Questions¶
Answer these before touching a dial. The answers mostly pick the settings for you.
1. What is the work for? Making a thing, answering a question, changing a place, or changing a person. This decides what the Project yields when it ends.
2. Should the table feel the time, or the risk? Time points to a track that fills steadily. Risk points to Pressure and to results that cost something.
3. How much should luck matter? Anywhere from a roll every interval, read in full, down to no rolls at all.
4. Who pays when it goes wrong? The clock, the materials, the maker's body, or nobody.
The Dials¶
Six choices, each between equals. The reference build takes one setting from each. None of them is the right one.
| Dial | Options | Reference build | What it trades |
|---|---|---|---|
| Progress | Milestones · points toward a total · no track, called at the end | Milestones | Finer tracks are more precise and more bookkeeping |
| When to roll | Every interval · once per Milestone · only when a Challenge arises · never, time alone | Every interval | More rolls mean more swing and more table time |
| How to read | Verdict and Gradient together, Loud or Quiet · verdict only · Gradient only | Both, Loud | Reading both gives texture and more Pressure. Verdict only is faster |
| Pressure | None · one clock · a clock per Challenge | One clock, optional | A clock adds urgency and one more thing to track |
| What a setback costs | Pressure · time · materials · ⊖ Fatigue · ✚ HP or ⊗ Wounds | Pressure | Costs to the body make work dangerous, and they compete with rest |
| Demand | Costs the gap each interval · decides who may start · not used | Costs the gap | Deciding who may start is simpler, but breaks the rule that anyone may attempt anything |
Six is the ceiling. The reference build is set out in full below, and every other setting is described, with its odds, in The Other Settings. Extras that sit on top of a build rather than choosing between equals are listed under Add-Ons.
The Project Card¶
A Project is written as a card, the same way abilities and items are: everything needed to run it, in the same order every time.
Project Name Goal · Milestones n · Interval · Attribute · ϟ Demand X · Pressure n
Challenges. What stands in the way, if anything.
Yield. What exists when the last Milestone is reached.
| Element | What it says |
|---|---|
| Goal | The work, in one line |
| Milestones | How many steps the work takes to finish |
| Interval | How long one attempt at a Milestone takes: an hour, a day, a week |
| Attribute | What the work usually draws on. The approach can change it, as with any roll |
| ϟ Demand | The level of power the work operates at. Omit it if the system does not use Demand |
| Pressure | The size of the clock, if there is one |
| Challenges | Anything from the menu that applies |
| Yield | The item, the answer, the change, or the eligibility the work produces |
A card does not need every element. A one-Milestone Project with no Pressure and no Challenges is simply a long roll, and that is often enough.
Working a Project¶
This is the reference build in full. Every step can be swapped for another setting on its dial.
1. Write the card. Agree the Goal, the Milestones and the Interval before any work starts.
2. Work an interval. The character spends the interval on the Project, as a ✽ Activity. At the end of it, they make one Resolution roll. Set the difficulty from the Milestone being attempted, not from the character: most are ordinary work, and the last one on an ambitious Project is often hard. A Skill that covers the work grants Favor.
3. Read the result. Read the verdict and the Gradient together:
| Success | Failure | |
|---|---|---|
| Positive | Breakthrough: Reach this Milestone, and either gain Favor on the next interval or clear a Challenge | Productive failure: No Milestone, but gain Favor on the next interval or clear a Challenge |
| Standard | Progress: Reach this Milestone | Stalled: The interval is spent |
| Negative | Costly progress: Reach this Milestone. Pressure +1 | Setback: Pressure +1 |
4. Mark Pressure, if the Project has a clock. When it fills, see Pressure.
5. Finish. When the last Milestone is reached, the Project yields what its card says.
Anything that permanently changes a character's sheet still runs through Advancement. A Project can make that change possible. It cannot make it happen on its own. See Training in the examples.
Reading the Dice¶
This is the one place the module has to know which Ruleset you are using. The idea is the same in all three: a Positive Gradient sharpens the result, a Negative one dulls it.
| d18 | d20 | d100 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ordinary work | DT 8 | DT 10 | Routine |
| Hard work | DT 12 | DT 15 | Challenging |
| Positive | 1d6 shows 5–6 |
1d10 shows 8–10 |
Units die shows 0–1 |
| Negative | 1d6 shows 1–2 |
1d10 shows 1–3 |
Units die shows 8–9 |
On the d20, Positive and Negative include both the Minor and Major bands. That keeps the Gradient speaking about as often as it does on the other two Rulesets. Reading fewer faces is the Quiet setting.
How often each result comes up¶
Unmodified rolls: Rank +0, a Score of 50 on the d100, and no Favor or Disfavor. Rounded, so a column may not sum to exactly 100.
| Result | d18 DT 8 | d20 DT 10 | d100 Routine | d18 DT 12 | d20 DT 15 | d100 Challenging |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Breakthrough | ~29% | ~17% | 10% | ~18% | 9% | 5% |
| Progress | ~24% | 22% | 30% | ~13% | 12% | 16% |
| Costly progress | ~18% | ~17% | 10% | ~7% | 9% | 4% |
| Productive failure | ~4% | ~14% | 10% | ~15% | 21% | 15% |
| Stalled | ~10% | 18% | 30% | ~21% | 28% | 44% |
| Setback | ~15% | ~14% | 10% | ~26% | 21% | 16% |
| A Milestone reached | ~71% | 55% | 50% | ~38% | 30% | 25% |
What that means when you are building:
- How long a Milestone takes: On average, 1.4 / 1.8 / 2 intervals at ordinary difficulty on the d18 / d20 / d100, and 2.7 / 3.3 / 4 at hard. A three-Milestone Project of ordinary work takes about 4, 5.5 and 6 intervals.
- How fast Pressure rises: Every Negative result adds 1, so Pressure rises on about a third of intervals on the d18 and d20, and a fifth on the d100, at any difficulty. A clock of 4 fills in about 12 / 13 / 20 intervals.
- What a Skill is worth: Its Favor is a value equivalent of about +2.5 on the d18 at DT 8, Rank +0, raising ~71% to ~89%; about +5 on the d20 at DT 10, Rank +0, raising 55% to ~80%; and about +25 on the d100 at a Routine Target of 50, raising 50% to 75%.
On the d18, the verdict and the Gradient travel together
On the d18 the same 1d6 feeds the total and reads as the Gradient, so a good roll tends to be good twice over. At DT 12, nearly half of all successes are breakthroughs and over two fifths of all failures are setbacks. Each interval on the d18 tends to land clearly one way or the other.
On the d20 and d100 the Gradient is independent of the verdict. Productive failures come up as often as breakthroughs.
Favor placed on the d18's 1d6 moves both the odds and the Gradient at once. A maker with Favor to place is choosing between safer progress and a better chance of a breakthrough.
Taking your Score¶
On the d18 and d20, a character may take their Score instead of rolling, as the core allows. If the Score is at or above the difficulty, the interval reaches its Milestone with no roll. A taken Score is always Standard, so it never brings a breakthrough and never a setback. It is the steady route: slow, certain, and uneventful. Disfavor on the work forces a roll.
The d100 has no passive value. A GM who thinks a Milestone is well within the maker's reach calls it Trivial instead.
A rival working on the same thing¶
When two parties race for the same Goal, a Milestone can be settled as a Contest, resolved as the Ruleset resolves any Contest:
| d18 and d20 | d100 |
|---|---|
| Both roll; the higher total wins | Both roll against their own Target. If only one succeeds, they win; otherwise whoever rolled further under their Target wins |
The winner reaches their Milestone. The loser's interval is Stalled.
Pressure¶
Pressure is a clock of three to six boxes, sized by the designer. It stands for anything that gets worse while the work goes on: a deadline, a rival, a material that will not keep, a patron losing patience.
What fills it is set on the What a setback costs dial. In the reference build, Negative results fill it. A deadline can also fill it with every interval spent, whatever the result.
What happens when it fills is the designer's call. Some routes:
- A Challenge arises, and the work goes on, harder.
- The Project fails: Progress is lost, or kept for a second attempt.
- The work costs more: another Milestone, more materials, more ϟ Energy.
- The Yield shrinks: a lesser item, a partial answer, a temporary fix.
- Someone else finishes first.
Each route says something different about the world. A Project that fails outright tells the table that time is the enemy. One that only costs more says the work will get done, and asks what it is worth.
Challenges¶
A Challenge is anything in the way besides the difficulty of the work. Take any that fit from this menu, or write your own. It is a pattern first and a list second.
| Challenge | What it does | How it is usually cleared |
|---|---|---|
| A missing component | One Milestone cannot be reached until something is found, bought or made | A scene spent getting it, or a smaller Project of its own |
| An expertise gap | The work takes Disfavor. It never becomes impossible, because Skills never decide whether an action can be tried | A collaborator with the Skill, or a Study Project first |
| A deadline | Pressure fills with every interval spent, as well as on setbacks | Working faster, or not at all |
| A rival | Someone else is working toward the same Goal | Contests at the Milestones that matter |
| A risky shortcut | A Milestone can be skipped for a price: ⊗ Wounds, ⊖ Fatigue, or Pressure | Taking it, or refusing it |
| Hazardous work | Negative results cost the worker ✚ HP instead of Pressure, one ordinary hit's worth in the system | Care, protection, or a different method |
In the reference build, a Positive result can clear one Challenge instead of granting Favor.
Demand¶
The reference build reuses the core's cost rule without changing it.
Working on a Project whose ϟ Demand exceeds your Capacity costs the difference in ϟ Energy, once each interval.
Anyone can attempt anything. A maker working above their level simply strains, and the core's Overspend applies if they reach past empty. As the maker's Capacity rises, the same work becomes native and free.
The interval matters here. A Project worked a day at a time leaves a night to rest and recover ϟ Energy. The same Project worked a week at a time is charged once a week and is far cheaper. Set the interval knowing that.
The other two routes on the dial:
- Demand decides who may start: A Project above the maker's Capacity cannot begin. Simpler, and it breaks the engine's habit of letting anyone try.
- Not used: A system without Demand leaves this line off the card and loses nothing else.
The Other Settings¶
Every dial setting outside the reference build, in brief, with its odds on unmodified rolls. Figures are given d18 / d20 / d100, at ordinary difficulty unless marked.
| Dial | Setting | How it runs | The odds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Progress | Points toward a total | A success earns 1 point and a breakthrough 2. The Project ends at a total the designer sets | About 1 / 0.7 / 0.6 points per interval; 0.56 / 0.39 / 0.3 at hard |
| Progress | No track, called at the end | The work takes a set time. One roll at the end decides how it turned out | A good result ~71% / 55% / 50% of the time |
| When to roll | Once per Milestone | Each Milestone takes its interval. One roll decides whether it ran to time; a failure means it took one interval longer | The same odds as the reference build, with fewer rolls |
| When to roll | Only when a Challenge arises | Milestones arrive on schedule. A roll is made only to clear a Challenge | Only the Challenge rolls are uncertain |
| When to roll | Never | Time alone. The Project finishes when its intervals have passed | No chance at all; only Pressure and Challenges add tension |
| How to read | Quiet | Positive and Negative on fewer faces: the d18 reads 6 and 1, the d20 reads 10 and 1, the d100 reads 0 and 9 | Pressure rises on ~17% / 10% / 10% of intervals |
| How to read | Verdict only | A success reaches the Milestone and a failure does not. Nothing else | A Milestone ~71% / 55% / 50% of the time. Pressure only rises by deadline |
| How to read | Gradient only | Every interval reaches a Milestone. Positive adds a breakthrough; Negative adds Pressure | A Project of n Milestones takes exactly n intervals. Pressure rises on ~33% / 30% / 20% |
| Pressure | A clock per Challenge | Each Challenge carries its own small clock, and fires on its own | As the reference build, split across clocks |
| What a setback costs | Time, materials, ⊖ Fatigue, ✚ HP or ⊗ Wounds | Replace "Pressure +1" in the grid with the chosen cost | Costly results come up ~33% / 30% / 20% of the time |
All the Quiet readings are ones the core Rulesets already allow: the d18's edges-only setting, the d20's Major bands, and the d100's five-tier Majors.
The Core Rules It Builds On¶
Everything here comes from the Rulesets, unchanged.
- Modes: ✽ Activities take longer than a Round and never happen inside an Encounter. An Endeavor commits hours or days to one pursuit.
- Downtime: Training, Project, Trade and Study, with scopes a table can adjust. Anything that permanently changes a sheet runs through Advancement.
- Rest: 1 ϟ Energy per uninterrupted hour. Each 3 uninterrupted hours restores half of maximum ✚ HP and removes one ⊗ Wound or one ⊖ Fatigue.
- ⊖ Fatigue: Comes from strenuous exertion the GM judges taxing, among other things. Each point costs −1 on every roll on the d18 and d20, and −5 on the d100.
- Demand and Capacity: Cost is Demand minus Capacity, minimum 0. Spending past empty turns each point into a ⊗ Wound or a ⊖ Fatigue.
- Skills: Grant Favor and never decide whether an action can be tried.
- Objects can be hurt: The core's own Field Repair removes a ⊗ Wound from a construct or vehicle, so an object can carry a track like anyone else.
A Thin Default: Scale¶
The core leaves the size of a Project open. This is one answer.
| Scale | Milestones | Interval | Feels like |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simple | 1 | A day | A repair, a copy, a short errand of research |
| Involved | 3 | A day | A good tool, a map, a hard question answered |
| Major | 5 | A week | A fine weapon, a fortified house, a new language |
| Masterwork | 7 or more | A week or a month | Something people will know your name for |
Keep it, replace it with your own, or cut it and size each Project by hand. It is coarse on purpose.
Worked Examples¶
These are patterns first and a list second. Each assumes the twenty-point difficulties of the d18 and d20. On the d100, read ordinary work as Routine and hard work as Challenging, and nothing else changes.
Forging¶
A Blade Above Your Station Goal: a blade of ϟ Demand 5 · Milestones 3 · Interval: a day · ❖ Vigor · ϟ Demand 5 · Pressure: none
Challenges. A missing component: good steel must be bought or found before the second Milestone.
Yield. The blade, Demand 5, as written on its own item card.
Assumes a smith of Level 3, so Capacity 3 and 4 ϟ Energy. Each day at the forge costs 2 of those 4, and a night's rest restores them. The job takes four to six days, depending on the Ruleset and the dice. At Capacity 5 the same work costs nothing.
Study¶
The Question in the Archive Goal: learn who sealed the vault, and why · Milestones 3 · Interval: a day · ◉ Acuity · Pressure 4
Challenges. A rival: a second scholar is reading the same records. When Pressure fills, the rival reaches the answer first and removes the key pages.
Yield. The answer, and the one document that proves it.
The Pressure clock is the rival's progress. On the d20 it fills in about 13 days on Negative results alone, and three Milestones of ordinary work take about 5.5, so a steady scholar will usually win.
Building¶
Hold the Mill Goal: fortify the mill before the raiders return · Milestones 4 · Interval: a day · ❖ Vigor · Pressure 5
Challenges. A deadline: Pressure fills by 1 every day, as well as on Negative results. A risky shortcut: the last Milestone can be skipped by pulling down the old barn, at the cost of 1 ⊗ Wound to whoever does it.
Yield. The mill counts as fortified: Favor on rolls to defend it.
A race the table can see, and one a lone worker loses. On the d20 the clock fills in about four days, and four Milestones take about seven. With the Collaboration add-on and four characters working, it becomes a close race, and the shortcut starts to look reasonable.
Repair¶
Bring the Hauler Back Goal: restore a wrecked vehicle · Milestones 3 · Interval: a day · ◉ Acuity · Pressure: none
Challenges. Hazardous work: Negative results cost the worker ✚ HP instead of Pressure, since the frame is unstable.
Yield. Each Milestone removes one ⊗ Wound from the vehicle, which starts with three.
A pattern for objects that carry a track. Short repairs are already covered by abilities such as Field Repair. A Project is for the job too large for an hour.
Training¶
The Old Forms Goal: learn a Skill from a master · Milestones 3 · Interval: a week · the Attribute the Skill uses · Pressure: none
Challenges. An expertise gap on the first Milestone, until the master agrees to teach.
Yield. The character is eligible to take this Skill. The next Mark they earn may be spent on it.
Training never grants the improvement itself. The core sends every permanent change to a sheet through Advancement, and this keeps it that way. The Project makes the improvement possible; the character's Pursuit pays for it. A character who finishes the Project and never earns the Mark has learned the forms and not yet mastered them.
Trade¶
A Season at the Market Goal: run a stall through the autumn fairs · Milestones 4 · Interval: a week · the Attribute the trade uses · Pressure 3
Challenges. A rival: another trader works the same fairs. When Pressure fills, the best pitch is lost for the rest of the season.
Yield. One reward per Milestone reached, in whatever the system uses for wealth. With no economy, a favour owed or a door opened.
Yield per Milestone suits work that pays as it goes. Pair it with the Material Costs add-on if the system counts money.
Tone Is Yours¶
This module sets structure. How long work feels, and how much it costs, come from choices it does not make for you:
- How many Milestones a Project takes, and how long an interval lasts.
- How large the Pressure clock is, and what happens when it fills.
- What a setback costs, and whether it ever reaches the body.
- Whether a failure can undo progress already made.
- How much Demand the best work carries.
A gentle game lets a maker finish anything given time. A hard one makes every masterwork a gamble. Neither needs different rules, only different settings.
Add-Ons¶
None of the following is part of the module. Each is an extra that sits on top of a build. Take them one at a time, and play between each.
Each is listed with what it costs, as well as what it buys.
Collaboration¶
Other characters can help. A helper with a relevant Skill grants Favor on the roll, or the party shares one Project and each member rolls for their own interval.
It pulls the table together, and turns a Project into something the whole party is invested in. It costs the helpers' time, which is no longer rest, and it can blur whose work it was. More rolls also mean more Negative results, so a shared Project fills its Pressure faster.
Material costs¶
Each Milestone needs materials, priced in whatever the system uses for wealth. A missing component becomes a matter of means rather than a scene.
It ties Projects into an economy, and makes wealth useful for something other than gear. It needs an economy to exist, and a party with money will outpace one without.
Lost progress¶
A setback also undoes the last Milestone reached.
It makes long work tense, and every Pressure box feels heavier. It is harshest on the d18, where over two fifths of failures at DT 12 are setbacks, against about a third on the d20 and a fifth on the d100.
Quality from the last roll¶
The Gradient on the final Milestone decides how good the Yield is: Positive for a fine piece, Negative for a flawed one.
Finished work gets a story. On the d18 it tilts toward fine work, because the finishing roll is a success: at DT 12 about half of successes read Positive and a fifth Negative. On the d20 and d100, quality is a coin even a master can lose.
Parallel Projects¶
A character may keep more than one Project going, alternating intervals between them.
Characters feel busy and broad. It costs tracking, and it slows every Project down.
Using This Module¶
- Answer the four questions. What the work is for, time or risk, how much luck, who pays.
- Set the six dials, or take the reference build as it stands.
- Write the Project as a card.
- Choose a Pressure clock and its Challenges, if the work needs them.
- Decide how Demand works, or leave it off.
- Pick your add-ons, one at a time.
- Play it. A Project's feel comes from the gap between how long the work takes and how long the table is willing to wait. Numbers on paper will not tell you where that gap sits.
Attribution for systems using this module. Undertaking Projects is an official module, so it does not need a credit line of its own. Name it alongside the engine:
Powered by the Frontiers Engine 1.0 with the Undertaking Projects module. © 2026 Jayke Paver · frontiersengine.dev · Open RPG Creative (ORC) License
The full requirements are in the License.