Trackers

Play moves fast. People forget whether the larder was empty last week, or whether Heat was already bad before the raid. A tracker is a shared note with a number: this is how things stand, right now.

Use them for story pressure the whole table should agree on before the next scene. Food, Coin, Heat, Unrest, Labor. If it only matters to one person and isn't part of the shared world, that's a personal tracker, or it doesn't need a tracker at all.

When a value moves, the label changes, links can fire, and stress can shift. The point is to make the next beat obvious: you're short on food, the city is hot, the crew is willing. Then play that.

A tracker is a named number with a label. Food at Scarce, Heat at Elevated, Labor at Stable. The number is the current value. The label is what most people see.

Guild trackers are shared. Everyone in the server sees the same Food supply, the same Heat level. Personal trackers belong to one member and stay off the shared board.

Every tracker has a polarity. This drives colors, stress, and how the progress bar fills.

Pick polarity from what the story cares about. "Morale" as an asset goes up when people are willing. "Exhaustion" as a liability goes up when they're worn out.

Some things are not a level. They are a length of time. A passage, a build, a wall coming down. Advancing and Lapsing trackers are that clock. The length is a whole number, and that number is the scale. There is no custom scale profile.

The clock starts the day you save the tracker, in Eastern time. The first tick waits until one full day, week, or month has passed. A length of 28 days starts at 1 and reaches 28 after 27 daily ticks.

Asset and liability trackers can lock or force an Advancing or Lapsing tracker. These clocks do not link out, and they do not use decay, morale, rebound, or the stress score.

A scale sets the max value, the named tiers (thresholds), and how nudges work. Without one, trackers use a default 1-6 range.

Find Scale Profiles in the tracker form or from the main menu once you're in a guild.

Thresholds

Thresholds are the named bands. They must start at 1, end at the scale max, and sit flush against each other (no gaps, no overlaps). Each band gets a color. Dual-polarity scales can have separate labels for assets and liabilities.

Nudge mode

Controls how /nudge and the +/- buttons move the value.

• Step-based (default): move by a fixed amount, usually 1. On a 1-100 scale you might set the step to 5.
• Tier-based: jump to the next or previous band boundary.

Personal vs guild library scales

New scales go to your personal library unless you check "Add to guild library" (requires create permission). Personal scales only show on your own trackers. Guild library scales are available to everyone.

Create permission (or admin) is required. From the Trackers page, click Add Tracker. Names must be unique per guild, max 50 characters.

Drag the grip on tracker rows to reorder. Guild categories are under Manage Categories (admin only). Default limit is 20 trackers; admins can raise it to 100 in Guild Settings.

Adjust permission is enough to change values. You don't need create permission.

On the site

• Click + or - to open a dialog listing every value in that direction.
• Shift-click to skip the dialog and nudge by one step/tier.

In Discord

• /nudge tracker up or down moves one step or tier.
• /adjust tracker value sets an exact number or a threshold label like "Scarce".
• Both accept an optional reason that gets logged.

Values stay between 1 and the scale max. A nudge past either end does nothing.

Rebound

In the tracker form, you can set a rebound mode and where it lands:

• From max: hitting the maximum snaps the tracker.
• From min: hitting 1 snaps the tracker.
• Rebound to: the opposite extreme (empty to 1, or fill to max), or the tracker’s Reset value.

Rebound fires on any value change that lands on that extreme — a player nudge, an adjust, a linked reaction, or a decay/develop tick. So a tracker that develops up to max with “from max” rebound will snap on the tick that hits the ceiling; one that decays to 1 with “from min” rebound will snap back up.

If you set a decay floor above 1, or a develop ceiling below max, the tick never reaches the rebound extreme and won’t trigger it. Links on the tracker still fire for both the original hit and the rebound.

Manual lock

In the tracker form, turn on Manually lock this tracker to block some or all nudges. The tracker stays visible. You have to give a reason; it shows when someone tries a blocked change. Same rules on the site and in Discord.

• Hard lock: no change either way. Badge says Locked.
• Lock up: can still decrease, cannot increase. Badge says Locked up.
• Lock down: can still increase, cannot decrease. Badge says Locked down.

Locks stack. A lock-up and a lock-down at the same time (manual plus a link, or two links) is a full lock. Locks block player nudges, adjusts, and force links. The tracker’s own Decay/Develop still ticks through a lock.

Morale is an optional tag on a tracker (High, Medium, Low). The typical use is Labor or similar "people" trackers where the count can be fine while the mood isn't.

Medium is the default and doesn't affect stress. Low adds a bit of stress. High reduces it slightly.

In Discord, use /morale tracker high or low or none to set the morale for a tracker. Links can also step morale up or down when another tracker crosses a value — see morale links.

Any tracker can tick on a schedule — asset or liability. Leave amount and interval blank and nothing happens automatically. Fill both in and pick a direction:

• Decay: the value drops each interval, down to the floor (default 1). Food spoils, coin gets spent.
• Develop: the value rises each interval, up to the ceiling (default: max). Heat builds, a clock advances, a countdown fills.

Amount is 1-10. Interval is 1-720 hours (24 = daily, 168 = weekly). Every guild shares one clock: midnight Eastern Time. A 24h interval ticks at 00:00 ET; a 6h interval ticks at 00:00, 06:00, 12:00, and 18:00 ET. Turning decay on does not start a private timer — the tracker waits for the next aligned tick. Missed ticks get applied in a batch when the server catches up. Direction is independent of polarity — a liability can decay, an asset can develop.

Another tracker can also push this one on a timer without turning Decay/Develop on here — see force links.

If the tracker also has rebound, a tick that lands on the rebound extreme (floor 1 or the scale max) will snap to the rebound destination the same way a nudge would.

Save a tracker first, then edit it to add links. There are four kinds: reactions (change another tracker’s value once on a crossing), disable locks (freeze another tracker while a condition holds), force links (force another tracker up or down on a timer while a condition holds), and morale links (step another tracker’s morale up or down).

Prefer to poke at it? The examples page has a fake settlement you can nudge. Nothing is saved.

Reaction links

When the source tracker crosses a trigger value (from either direction), the target tracker changes by a set amount. "Food crosses 1" could raise Unrest by 2.

"Crosses" means the value lands on the trigger or jumps past it. Sitting at the trigger and nudging again doesn't re-fire. Food at 1, decaying again, won't trigger until it leaves and comes back.

Chains are allowed (A trips B, B trips C). Loops are not. The form blocks links that would create a cycle.

Disable locks

While the source tracker is at or beyond a threshold, the target tracker is locked. Level-triggered: they stay on as long as the condition holds, and they use the same three modes as a manual lock.

• Hard lock: no nudges either way.
• Lock up: can still go down, but not up.
• Lock down: can still go up, but not down.

Set the comparison to "at or below" or "at or above" and pick the threshold. Example: while Food is at or below 2, hard-lock Labor. Once Food recovers past 2, Labor unlocks. Lock up would still let Labor drop. Lock down would still let it rise.

Optional lock message. The default depends on the mode, for example "Labor is locked by Food until it improves" or "Labor can't go up while locked by Food."

More than one disable lock can sit on the same tracker. If one locks up and another locks down, the target is fully locked. The examples page hard-locks Labor from low Food and from high Unrest.

Force links

While the source tracker meets a comparison (“at or above” or “at or below” a threshold), the target tracker moves by a signed amount on a timer you set (hours). Positive amounts raise the target; negative amounts lower it. The target does not need its own Decay/Develop — the link owns the rate. If the target also has Decay/Develop, both apply on the same schedule.

Add more than one force threshold to the same target for bands. They do not stack. Among matching at or above bands, the highest threshold wins. Among matching at or below bands, the lowest threshold wins (so a 1–2 band can beat a broader 1–4 band). If both kinds match at once, the closest threshold to the current value wins.

High-end example on a 1–6 source: add two Force links to the same target — at or above 3 → +1 / 24h, and at or above 5 → +2 / 24h (different Values; the higher matching band replaces the lower one, they do not stack). Low-end example: at or below 2 → +2 / 24h and at or below 4 → +1 / 24h.

Crossing into a force band does not change the target right away. Force uses the same Eastern clock as decay/develop, so the first push is the next aligned tick while the condition still holds — that might be soon after you enter the band, or almost a full interval later. Leaving the band pauses the clock so idle time doesn’t build a backlog; re-enter and you wait for the next aligned tick again.

Locks still win. If the target is hard-locked or locked against that direction, the force tick is skipped. Clocks keep moving so unlocking later doesn’t dump a backlog.

Use the same interval on each band when you want one steady rate and only the amount to change. Different intervals per band are allowed if you need them.

Morale links

When the source tracker crosses a trigger value, the target tracker’s morale improves or decreases by one step: Low ↔ Medium ↔ High. The target must have morale tracking turned on.

Example: when Food crosses 1, Labor morale decreases. When Coin crosses 5, Labor morale improves. Already at High and improve does nothing; already at Low and decrease does nothing.

Like reactions, morale links are edge-triggered. Sitting on the trigger and nudging again doesn’t re-fire until the value leaves and comes back.

General notes on links

• Links are guild-tracker to guild-tracker only.
• You can turn a link off without deleting it.
• Reaction, morale, and force links log a history entry on the target when they change it.
• Disable locks show their message when someone tries a blocked nudge on the locked tracker.
• Force links tick on the same schedule as decay/develop; they do not require Decay/Develop on the target.
• Locks block force ticks in the locked direction; the tracker’s own Decay/Develop still runs.
• Rebound still fires edge-triggered links for both the hit and the snap to the rebound destination.

Stress is a single number showing how bad the shared ledger looks. It appears on the dashboard and in unfiltered Discord panels.

Each tracker contributes based on:

• How far off it is (assets low, liabilities high).
• Which tier it's in, if the scale has tiers.
• Its morale tag, if enabled.
• Its stress weight.

The displayed number is rounded. Below it, intensity shows the total as a fraction of what this set of trackers could produce.

Personal trackers don't contribute to guild stress.

Personal trackers belong to one member, on this Discord server. They do not follow you to another guild. Same person, two servers, two separate sheets.

Discord replies are ephemeral, so only you see the result. The shared ledger never shows them.

Off by default. Admins enable them in Guild Settings and set a per-user cap (default 10, max 50).

• /inventory lists yours.
• /my_tracker name shows one.
• /my_nudge tracker up/down changes one.

Create your own from My Trackers. Personal categories belong to you, separate from guild categories and from other members. Manage them from My Trackers: rename, reorder, or delete. Deleting a category leaves its trackers uncategorized.

Who can see personal trackers is a guild setting. Hidden keeps each sheet private. Admins (view only), admins (full access), or everyone in the guild can open Member Trackers and pick a member. View only and Everyone cannot change values. Full access can.

Admin only. A distributed tracker is a template that gets copied to qualifying members as personal trackers.

"Qualifying" means either all members or members with specific Discord roles. Click Provision to create copies. Members who already have one are skipped.

Pool mode controls how copies relate to a guild tracker:

• None: independent copies. No connection to the guild ledger.
• Decrement: zero-sum. When a member raises their copy, the linked guild tracker drops by the same amount. If the guild tracker can't absorb the change, the personal change is refused. Good for a shared supply that individuals draw from.
• Independent: view-only. Members see the tracker but can't change it.

Map Discord roles to permission levels under Role Permissions. Server owners and Discord administrators are always LedgerBot admins.

Same data as the web app. Different interface.

• /ledger shows a snapshot of all trackers. Active locks and force links appear as markers on each line.
• /panel pins a live board that auto-updates (same markers as /ledger ). Admin only. One per channel.
• /tracker name shows one tracker, including lock reason, active force, and its outgoing links.
• /history name shows recent value changes and the reasons people typed. See History.

Autocomplete works on most arguments. Start typing.

Full command list has everything, including commands not related to trackers.

The ledger is the current picture. History is how you got there.

Every nudge, adjust, morale change, decay/develop tick, force tick, and linked reaction writes a row: old value, new value, who did it, when, and the reason they typed. Edits to the tracker itself (name, polarity, category) land here too. If Food went from Stable to Scarce, this is where you find out it was the feast, not a silent decay tick.

Open the clock on a tracker row for that tracker's log, or View All on the dashboard for the whole guild. In Discord, /history shows recent value changes with reasons.

Admins always see it. Everyone else does not, unless you turn on Make change history public in Guild Settings. Turn it on if the table should be able to read why Food dropped. Leave it off if the audit trail is GM-only.

Templates (Fantasy Barony, Merchant Guild, and so on) fill in categories, scales, and trackers so you are not starting from a blank guild. Names that already exist are skipped, so applying a preset will not overwrite or duplicate what you already built.

Reset All Trackers puts every current value back to that tracker's reset value. It does not delete trackers, links, or history. Use it for a new chapter. If you meant to undo one nudge, read history and nudge it back.