The Keep Rule

[Gort]

I think the real weirdness is that since everyone hits level 9 pretty much at the same time, the DM has to pull five excuses for everyone acquiring real estate out of his ass at the exact same time.

"Yes, everyone's rich old aunts all died at the same time! Now can we move on?"

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I think the real weirdness is that since everyone hits level 9 pretty much at the same time, the DM has to pull five excuses for everyone acquiring real estate out of his ass at the exact same time.

"Yes, everyone's rich old aunts all died at the same time! Now can we move on?"

witch again, if that is the level of care the DM wants to put in, maybe he should leave it out...

 

[Croesus]

I think the real weirdness is that since everyone hits level 9 pretty much at the same time, the DM has to pull five excuses for everyone acquiring real estate out of his ass at the exact same time.

"Yes, everyone's rich old aunts all died at the same time! Now can we move on?"

First off, in AD&D, characters did not hit name level at the same time - AD&D had different XP advancement for each class.

Also, it wasn't up to the GM to pull something out of his a**, it was up to the players to decide how their characters developed these strongholds. My own experience:

One fighter hired a ton of dwarves to build his keep. The main retainer was the castellan, and the others were primarily guards and a rapid reaction force.
Another fighter chose to forgo a keep, instead quartering in the other fighter's keep. This second fighter was also the main general of their combined forces.
Two clerics each established temples in different areas, each with guards, novitiates, and lay brothers.
A wizard established a wizard's school in a town near the fighter's keep. He started acquiring his library several levels before name level.
The thief took over the thieves guild in the same town, cleaned out the rougher elements, brought in new recruits, and established a continent-wide spy network.

None of it was given to the characters by the GM - each player/character made choices, and the GM determined the consequences of those choices. (For example, during a war, the fighter's keep was burned to the ground by a lich, who was later killed by a wizard PC.)

You get out of the rules what you put into them. We got a lot of good gaming out of the keep rules.

 

[GSHamster]

I think the real weirdness is that since everyone hits level 9 pretty much at the same time, the DM has to pull five excuses for everyone acquiring real estate out of his ass at the exact same time.

"Yes, everyone's rich old aunts all died at the same time! Now can we move on?"

Actually, in 2E not everyone hit 9 at the same time. Different XP tables. Plus, the real estate wasn't automatic, you had to set everything up and build things. The class splatbooks went into a great deal of detail on different things you could do, different materials you could use to build things, how long it would take, etc.

What my group tended to do was build their structures together. The fighter would have the main keep, the wizard would put up a tower in the complex, and the priest would do the same with the church. They would combine resources on defenses, etc.

It was more that having this codified in the rules made it "expected" behaviour. That the default choice, unless you specifically avoided it, was that you would build a structure, spending a lot of your hard-earned gold, at your name level.

 

[KidSnide]

This would obviously be one of those "optional campaign rules" that Mearls mentioned.

DMs have a similar process they can go through, adding optional rules to flesh out their campaigns. Those options can range from creating a unique list of races or classes for a setting, to adding in special rules for things like managing a kingdom or waging a war.

Presumably, whenever it's appropriate to start managing a kingdom, characters can start attracting, training and developing appropriate followers and organizations. Whether a keep comes with that or not is an implementation detail for the kingdom management rules and a choice for the particular campaign.

If the campaign is about managing a kingdom, then the PCs presumably need to conquer, find or build their own keep. If the campaign is about the adventures the PCs go one while they happen to be gaining importance and responsibility in the local kingdom, things like keep acquisition should go on in the background (mostly for free).

The above notwithstanding, I completely agree with the OP's general point: keeps are awesome, and the rules should support ways for PCs to get them.

-KS

 

[thedungeondelver]

It's Name Level in AD&D, and yes, it's awesome. Not sure what the point back in original D&D was when you could strike out on your own and build a keep...

 

[edemaitre]

Name level in D&D5e

I would also like to see this come back. I've been running my homebrew fantasy campaigns since the early-1980s boxed sets, and I've required Player Characters to begin planning for some stronghold or organization by the time they reach "name level" since at least AD&D2 and through D&D4e and Pathfinder.

Each occupational class could pursue it in different ways: Clerics would want to found a small temple, Fighters want a keep, Thieves/Rogues a guild, and Wizards/Mages a tower. Barbarians would try to find or start a horde to lead, Druids or Rangers might gather a collection of animal allies, and Monks would build a monastery or dojo. A Bard might want to become famous or attach himself to some royal court, while a Sorceress might prefer to influence a tribe as its shaman.

Sure, many Assassins, Rangers, and Rogues are solitary, but they'd still need to find a way to connect to the setting, whether through followers, joining an existing guild, or at least having a long-term network of contacts, allies, and enemies.

In my games, this was a role-playing challenge, as important to my storylines as any dungeon crawl, wilderness quest, or urban intrigue. Many realms could use onetime adventurers to solidify their border defenses. Strongholds could require the earning and expenditure of thousands of experience points and gold pieces. P.C.s would need to find patrons, land, and followers, with the number of the latter dictated by Charisma and skills/feats.

The most enterprising gamers claimed monstrous strongholds, lost cities, and new fiefdoms. The more detail-oriented players created maps and blueprints, statted out and equipped followers, and even took them on adventures of their own. Some sought politically advantageous marriages; others struck out into uncivilized territories to make their own mark. I enjoyed this aspect of mid-to-higher-level gaming more than mere resource management or more complicated battles, although both came into play.

I'm not saying that strongholds should be a requirement, but they should be an option in D&D5e and an alternative to higher-level characters becoming demigods, solo combat monsters, plane travelers, or multiclassed jacks of all trades.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

It's Name Level in AD&D, and yes, it's awesome. Not sure what the point back in original D&D was when you could strike out on your own and build a keep...

Which reminds me: levels need names again in 5E, so I can once again be a Waghalter.

 

[Rechan]

What I want is rules for keep management. Sure you can have story reasons for how you got it, but I want to know how to deal with the keep once you get it.

One of my favorite 3e Supplement was "Powers of Faerun". Which dealt with getting positions in the church/court/thieves guild/etc. I love world-building related rewards & stories.

 

[Number48]

This is one of those things where it would be nice if they gave you a ruleset that you could use or not as you choose. Not having rules in place requires asking and answering enough questions that the DM might just say no to it outright.