D&D 5E Player characters as heirs and eventually rulers

[The M'hael]

Someone Said that they were running a campaign like this one where the Players played as nobles, but the PCs were adventurers hired by the nobles. But I really like [MENTION=1457]Zaruthustran[/MENTION]'s idea. Reminds me sort of like the Heirs of Saint Camber books. It would be so cool to play in that world.

 

[nomotog]

The other I had a long car ride and ended up drawing some basic rules for running a city. The idea was really simple. Each city has 6 stats loosely based on ability scores. (might. subterfuge, welfare, knowledge-base, economy, culture.) Then it's just a simple ability check based on the ability that fits. You would customize your city by adding different building and improvements that increase the base attributes well adding on new abilities. Something like adding a blacksmith increases the economy by +2 and allows the city to a proficiency bonus when the city tries make/buy/gather items that can be made by a blacksmith. For example, if you needed to equip an army with swords. (A city levels proficiency like a player dose. Each building or improvement is basically a level.) Adding in a wizards tower would increase the knowledge base by +2 and allow the city to cast a number of city spells per month.

Kind of a ruff idea so far.

 

[X_Mythic]

The other I had a long car ride and ended up drawing some basic rules for running a city. The idea was really simple. Each city has 6 stats loosely based on ability scores. (might. subterfuge, welfare, knowledge-base, economy, culture.) Then it's just a simple ability check based on the ability that fits. You would customize your city by adding different building and improvements that increase the base attributes well adding on new abilities. Something like adding a blacksmith increases the economy by +2 and allows the city to a proficiency bonus when the city tries make/buy/gather items that can be made by a blacksmith. For example, if you needed to equip an army with swords. (A city levels proficiency like a player dose. Each building or improvement is basically a level.) Adding in a wizards tower would increase the knowledge base by +2 and allow the city to cast a number of city spells per month.

Kind of a ruff idea so far.

I love it!

 

[nomotog]

I love it!

That's a surprise, I didn't expect anyone to like it. I haven't quite thought of how you would calculate the base attributes of a city yet. I was thinking of just having them all start at 10 and then including modifiers based on the population make and maybe environment. (You could do others based off of government style and things like that.)

A population modifier can be based of the race of the majority population. The six city abilities all loosely tie into character abilities so you can do a 1 for 1 thing. A city made up mostly of hill dwarfs would get a +1 economy(wis) +2 welfare (con). Environment would be a bigger deal kind of like a class. It would have another modifier to it maybe +2 to something and -2 to something else. It would have a larger impact past that though because it could determine what you can build and how you can improve your city. You know no docks in the desert. The city culture and ruler could be another place to add some + - too.

 

[weldon]

I love the idea. I'm trying to think of how I would assign the stats…

Strength = Military (# of trained, armed, able-bodied adults?)
Dexterity = Defenses (natural or man made)
Constitution = Growth, Population (less sure on this one)
Intelligence = Economy
Wisdom = Education
Charisma = Diplomacy (relations with neighbors, allies, etc.), Arts?

 

[nomotog]

I love the idea. I'm trying to think of how I would assign the stats…

Strength = Military (# of trained, armed, able-bodied adults?)
Dexterity = Defenses (natural or man made)
Constitution = Growth, Population (less sure on this one)
Intelligence = Economy
Wisdom = Education
Charisma = Diplomacy (relations with neighbors, allies, etc.), Arts?

I was imagineing it going as follows
Str= Might & security (It's your military power/town guard. Basically the city's ability to defend from attack or to openly attack others.)
Dex= Subterfuge (It's your city's ability to do thing secretly without people knowing about it. Covers almost all spy actions.)
Con= Welfare (This is how healthy your city is and how effectively it can weather hardships. It's more of a defence stat for things like famine plague and the such.)
Int = Knowlage base (How much access your city has to advance knowledge. How learned your the people are. Do they read? ect.)
Wis = Economy (Basically your ability to make money and afford things. Wis is often the stat used for profession skills.)
Cha = Culture & influence (How much people like the city and want to live in it. Kind of like a more proactive welfare stat and alternative economy stat.)


I based the stats off of a mix of the sims midevil and civ 5. Then I added subterfuge because I thought 6 should make a nice round number and let me have each city ability match with a player ability. At one point I thought about a groth stat, but I couln't think of any action or event that would call on it to be used.

 

[Kristivas]

I love the idea. I'm trying to think of how I would assign the stats…

Strength = Military (# of trained, armed, able-bodied adults?)
Dexterity = Defenses (natural or man made)
Constitution = Growth, Population (less sure on this one)
Intelligence = Economy
Wisdom = Education
Charisma = Diplomacy (relations with neighbors, allies, etc.), Arts?

I see Str and Dex swapped. When I think of a city's strength, I see an enemy smashing themselves against the walls. When I think of them attacking, I see them quickly putting a force together for a precise strike.

 

[weldon]

I see Str and Dex swapped. When I think of a city's strength, I see an enemy smashing themselves against the walls. When I think of them attacking, I see them quickly putting a force together for a precise strike.

Of course it's fair to disagree or have different visions. I picked Dex as defense because that affects your AC for PCs. I was thinking of building on that and explaining Dex as the natural defenses and then other "armor" like walls add additional bonuses. Then take the "Heavy Wall Mastery" feat to get damage reduction on battering ram attacks

If we stretch the city as PC metaphor even further, some cities would have strength based attack bonuses (large standing army) and some would be dex based, with a small, nimble strike force as you described.

 

[X_Mythic]

I was imagineing it going as follows
Str= Might & security (It's your military power/town guard. Basically the city's ability to defend from attack or to openly attack others.)
Dex= Subterfuge (It's your city's ability to do thing secretly without people knowing about it. Covers almost all spy actions.)
Con= Welfare (This is how healthy your city is and how effectively it can weather hardships. It's more of a defence stat for things like famine plague and the such.)
Int = Knowlage base (How much access your city has to advance knowledge. How learned your the people are. Do they read? ect.)
Wis = Economy (Basically your ability to make money and afford things. Wis is often the stat used for profession skills.)
Cha = Culture & influence (How much people like the city and want to live in it. Kind of like a more proactive welfare stat and alternative economy stat.)


I based the stats off of a mix of the sims midevil and civ 5. Then I added subterfuge because I thought 6 should make a nice round number and let me have each city ability match with a player ability. At one point I thought about a groth stat, but I couln't think of any action or event that would call on it to be used.

I'm taking this for mine! Thank you so much it's awesome! I'll try to remember to get back on and let everyone know how it went and what kind of changes were made to work for my group/game

 

[nomotog]

I don't think defense would really work that well as a ability. I kind of sounds too narrow. It would be important, but what is the player going to do to raise it and what are they going to do with it? Build bigger and bigger walls? In my idea, I just kind of combined defense and military. Most defense improvements would increase your ability to fight and basically all of your military improvements would increase your defense.