One-shot - exploring a room for experimenting with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics

[SpamCreateWater]

I'm making a one-shot to give our DM a few weeks rest. I usually settle on an idea or theme and build the one-shot around it with references to other things one or more of the players has interest in. This time the thing is the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.

Basics are that the players will enter a vast facility of a long dead genius on the hunt for something, or they rock up there by accident. This genius was the inventor of clockwork wizardry (aka random robots everywhere), and one of the floors of this subterranean lair is laid out purely for experimenting on the 2nd Law - this is the floor the PCs will find themselves on.

What I'm after are ideas on encounters or mechanics I can include that are related to the law in some way. Or are great and terrible puns. ;)

One such mechanic, which will undoubtedly need refining as it currently is a pain to implement, is the PCs entering an "isolated system" in which the time can be reversed.
At this stage the battlefield will partially rewind every few rounds. Things like HP, spell slots, limited use abilities, and movement will be "rolled back" a turn. This fight will require a lot of bookkeeping, but I imagine there will be ways to make PCs immune to the effect (an item that projects a personal Gellar Field?) or bubbles of continuity.

Other references/terrible puns/stuff I throw in to amuse myself include:
An NPC, Benjamin "Franklin" Gates (described specifically as a Nicholas Cage look-alike), facing off against a machine. I will refer to this in my notes (that will eventually be given to the DM as it is taking place in his world) as "Cage against the Machine".
A second rewind mechanic idea is where a clock rewinds 2/3 of the turns from the last round. At the beginning of a round in which time is to be rewound, the clock will proclaim, "I hunger," and go back for four seconds.
The title of the one shot is BreakIn 2 Electric Cockatoo - as this will be the second time people have broken in to this place. I will therefore need an electric/clockwork cockatoo somewhere.

[BeefGood]

Maxwell’s Demon. But how to implement? He’s guarding a door and he lets through only the characters who <something>. But in the process he gradually increases in <something>, takes <something> from the characters. Maybe as the characters approach the door a hit point is siphoned from them to the demon.

[Delta]

Maxwell’s Demon. But how to implement? He’s guarding a door and he lets through only the characters who <something>. But in the process he gradually increases in <something>, takes <something> from the characters. Maybe as the characters approach the door a hit point is siphoned from them to the demon.

That's a great idea, I'd tie it to alignment somehow, only those who do something lawful may pass and chaotics must stay on the other side or something like that. Have the demon discuss that he's there to test a wacky theory of "law" and "chaos" being philosophical manifestations of thermodynamics.

[BeefGood]

That's a great idea, I'd tie it to alignment somehow, only those who do something lawful may pass and chaotics must stay on the other side or something like that. Have the demon discuss that he's there to test a wacky theory of "law" and "chaos" being philosophical manifestations of thermodynamics.

Chaos, good. That could be interpreted as pertaining to reversibility. For example, going back to the rewind example, events could, or could not, repeat exactly.
Or could, or could not, run in exact reverse.

[MrStabby]

Maxwell’s Demon. But how to implement? He’s guarding a door and he lets through only the characters who <something>. But in the process he gradually increases in <something>, takes <something> from the characters. Maybe as the characters approach the door a hit point is siphoned from them to the demon.

The Video Game: Neverwinter Nights 2, did the Maxwell demon thing in the Mask of the Betrayer expansion. It was a bit annoying and not a particularly rewarding puzzle to my memory.

[BeefGood]

Another idea: at the beginning of every round, every creature in a room is teleported to a randomly chosen new location in the room. The related concept is the ergodic hypothesis.

[Arcangel4774]

You could mess with the 2nd law's rules around equilibrium and dispersion by having stats or hp of the party split equally amongst them. You could also do that with damage.

[KorvinStarmast]

The second law of thermodynamics states that for a thermodynamically defined process to actually occur, the sum of the entropies of the participating bodies must increase. In an idealized limiting case, that of a reversible process, this sum remains unchanged.

Entropy must increase.
Cumulative chance over time of all rolls subtracting one.
Then, over an interval, subtract two.
And so on as time increases ...

If the players dilly dally, the subtraction gets to the point that the whole system gets a whole bunch of entropy, and thus almost nothing happens.
Not sure if that's what you are after, since it sounds like a lot of suck if they don't catch on.

Idea 2: a cumulative chance that they have to reroll any die that they roll. Disorder increases. Chance or required reroll increases as time increases.

Idea 3: a cumulative chance that someone else's die roll is the one applied to you, and yours applied to another creature. Increase chance as time increases.

Disorder increases in all cases, albeit it might not be fun to play.

[MrStabby]

The second law of thermodynamics states that for a thermodynamically defined process to actually occur, the sum of the entropies of the participating bodies must increase. In an idealized limiting case, that of a reversible process, this sum remains unchanged.

Entropy must increase.
Cumulative chance over time of all rolls subtracting one.
Then, over an interval, subtract two.
And so on as time increases ...

If the players dilly dally, the subtraction gets to the point that the whole system gets a whole bunch of entropy, and thus almost nothing happens.
Not sure if that's what you are after, since it sounds like a lot of suck if they don't catch on.

Idea 2: a cumulative chance that they have to reroll any die that they roll. Disorder increases. Chance or required reroll increases as time increases.

Idea 3: a cumulative chance that someone else's die roll is the one applied to you, and yours applied to another creature. Increase chance as time increases.

Disorder increases in all cases, albeit it might not be fun to play.

A little strong on the word "must": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluctuation_theorem

[SpamCreateWater]

Thanks for all your replies :smallbiggrin:


Maxwell’s Demon. But how to implement? He’s guarding a door and he lets through only the characters who <something>. But in the process he gradually increases in <something>, takes <something> from the characters. Maybe as the characters approach the door a hit point is siphoned from them to the demon.
I did think about this, but nothing sprang to mind as an encounter. Hmm. The hit point idea could work. I could reference the 3.5 Positive Energy Plane phenomenon where you explode when you gain too many temporary HP. Unfortunately there's the issue of making that a knowable way to pass the encounter.

The daemon in the system, named after Maxwell's Demon, was another idea I had (as they're in the lair of the creator of robotics/AI), but nothing came from it.


Another idea: at the beginning of every round, every creature in a room is teleported to a randomly chosen new location in the room. The related concept is the ergodic hypothesis.
I'm not sure I could model the Ergodic hypothesis well enough to make it a feature of the fight, as opposed to just annoying.
Unless the players are forcibly moved and are unable to stand on the same square from round to round? :smallconfused:
The issue is balancing the fight so it's simple enough, but also references the concepts well enough to be recognised.


That's a great idea, I'd tie it to alignment somehow, only those who do something lawful may pass and chaotics must stay on the other side or something like that. Have the demon discuss that he's there to test a wacky theory of "law" and "chaos" being philosophical manifestations of thermodynamics.
I might think on this more. There's one person in the group that considers themselves of the philosophical bent. But I'd have to check with the usual DM on their interpretations of the alignments.


You could mess with the 2nd law's rules around equilibrium and dispersion by having stats or hp of the party split equally amongst them. You could also do that with damage.
I like this. I'd probably have it as people being able to siphon off their own hit points to another person by touching them, or having their hit points forcibly taken from them.



The second law of thermodynamics states that for a thermodynamically defined process to actually occur, the sum of the entropies of the participating bodies must increase. In an idealized limiting case, that of a reversible process, this sum remains unchanged.

Entropy must increase.
Cumulative chance over time of all rolls subtracting one.
Then, over an interval, subtract two.
And so on as time increases ...

If the players dilly dally, the subtraction gets to the point that the whole system gets a whole bunch of entropy, and thus almost nothing happens.
Not sure if that's what you are after, since it sounds like a lot of suck if they don't catch on.

Idea 2: a cumulative chance that they have to reroll any die that they roll. Disorder increases. Chance or required reroll increases as time increases.

Idea 3: a cumulative chance that someone else's die roll is the one applied to you, and yours applied to another creature. Increase chance as time increases.

Disorder increases in all cases, albeit it might not be fun to play.
With a cumulative subtraction the total amount of increasing entropy would slow down... yeah, I don't want them to get to an equilibrium so that nothing happens :smalltongue:

Random advantage/disadvantage to rolls could work. That is likely to cause a lot of chaos at the table, especially if I don't outright tell the players what is happening, but describe it through the character's lens. Ugh, I'd have to be careful with that. It could go terrible real quick.

I may ponder more on the Portent-like ability (Idea 3). Similar to 2, but with the ability to choose - which I think is a great addition.

Edit:

A little strong on the word "must": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluctuation_theorem
That was exactly the theorem I was looking at when I thought of the encounter from my first post. The arrow of time being reversed, entropy decreasing and all that. But, it's imperfect as only bits and pieces will reverse. I was also thinking of implementing a backlash mechanic of sorts - so that the reversal effects are, instead, doubled. Like the universe is getting annoyed at this display of rule-breaking.

[Nifft]

One such mechanic, which will undoubtedly need refining as it currently is a pain to implement, is the PCs entering an "isolated system" in which the time can be reversed.

Wizard: "This is an isolated system! Nothing can get in or out!"

Rogue: "How'd we get in, then?"

[MrStabby]

If you are happy for a session to use a computer rather than dice to generate probabilistic outputs then you can have increasing temperature of probability distributions.

For a proportional increase in T raise the probability of each outcome (usually success of fail, but for attack rolls you have miss, hit, critical) to the power of 1/T then re-scale to make the sum of probabilities equal 1. As time goes by and temperature/entropy increases success and failure become more and more equal in their probabilities. More and more outrageous things can happen with greater and greater likelihood. In the limit getting a critical hit with disadvantage is close to the same probability as missing or landing a normal hit. Bell curves of damage from multiple dice smear out to become more uniform distributions with more extreme damage rolls relatively more likely.

You will need a spreadsheet to run this (and quite a bit of prep to set it up) but the changing nature of probabilities pushing people to rely/fear the outrageous more and more often could be fun.