D&D 5E Rules for moral?

[nomotog]

I hit a odd block when I was musing some strong hold rules. I couldn't figure out what benefits the flower garden would give. It doesn't really have a practical benefit, In real life people like gardens because they are relaxing and make you feel good, but how would you model something like feeling good in D&D?

(This isn't just about flowers, lots of items and ideas from life are basically just moral boosters with little practical point. Can we model that in D&D, or should we?)

 

[S'mon]

Easiest with 1e's d% morale rules, the flower garden could give a small % increase to castle troops. I use BX type 2d6-roll-over morale, in that a +1 boost might be a bit much.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Just have a section in your keep/castle notes labeled something like "Pleasant Amenities", then have a simple bullet point list that has what it is and what it's general affect is on the keep/castle inhabitants or those who visit. Use this as "roleplaying" info, like how we use the various background "info" stuff (Bond, Ideal, etc). Maybe, if you must have some mechanic thing, allow those who directly interact with the feature an Inspiration roll and recover.

Ex:

---------------

Pleasant Amenities

• Small Flower Garden (Inspiration d4)
• - a small, 6' x 12', garden grows flowers colorful bushes and even a raspberry bush
  - three large wood stumps are nearby that people sit on when they come here sometimes to "get a way from it all" and take a break
  - quite a few colorful songbirds frequent the area to dine on the bugs that are attracted to this garden
  - People: Nasket the blacksmith, Vera and Shanna the scullery maids, and Tenzik Taust the magister are frequent visitors, each helping tend the garden itself

---------------

That's how I would do it. Loose, RP-oriented. Allows for more diverse actions and ideas, if you ask me. If you just have a flat "Garden: +2 Morale", well, that's that. But if you have what I wrote above, you now have lots of NPC roleplay 'inspiration' when the PC's try and bribe Tenzik to give them some minor info ("Hey, Tenzik, how about we pick up a bunch of blackberry seeds for the garden? We know where some are, and we'll get them for you... just tell us where the Captain of the Watch goes when he's not working. We'll talk to him there, away from the castle. What do you say?"

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[nomotog]

Hiya!

Just have a section in your keep/castle notes labeled something like "Pleasant Amenities", then have a simple bullet point list that has what it is and what it's general affect is on the keep/castle inhabitants or those who visit. Use this as "roleplaying" info, like how we use the various background "info" stuff (Bond, Ideal, etc). Maybe, if you must have some mechanic thing, allow those who directly interact with the feature an Inspiration roll and recover.

Ex:

---------------

Pleasant Amenities

• Small Flower Garden (Inspiration d4)
• - a small, 6' x 12', garden grows flowers colorful bushes and even a raspberry bush
  - three large wood stumps are nearby that people sit on when they come here sometimes to "get a way from it all" and take a break
  - quite a few colorful songbirds frequent the area to dine on the bugs that are attracted to this garden
  - People: Nasket the blacksmith, Vera and Shanna the scullery maids, and Tenzik Taust the magister are frequent visitors, each helping tend the garden itself

---------------

That's how I would do it. Loose, RP-oriented. Allows for more diverse actions and ideas, if you ask me. If you just have a flat "Garden: +2 Morale", well, that's that. But if you have what I wrote above, you now have lots of NPC roleplay 'inspiration' when the PC's try and bribe Tenzik to give them some minor info ("Hey, Tenzik, how about we pick up a bunch of blackberry seeds for the garden? We know where some are, and we'll get them for you... just tell us where the Captain of the Watch goes when he's not working. We'll talk to him there, away from the castle. What do you say?"

^_^

Paul L. Ming

That is rather good. I tend to like mechanic bonuses more then narrative bonuses because narrative bonuses are kind of situational and are hard to move from setting to setting. I like systems I can pull out and drop in anywhere. Like if I wanted to use the same system to model the benefits of really nice meal, or a really nice dress. You might have practical befits, but in real life we tend to buy them for their moral boosting befits.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If you provide a mechanical benefit to something like flower gardens, you are opening the door to someone at some point deciding that what they really want is a +3 enchanted mastercrafted (or whatever) flower garden.

Using mechanical models for everything is obviously something some folks enjoy more than others, but I think that history shows that there will be folks who will take it to silly extremes as a way to min-max/optimize.

 

[nomotog]

If you provide a mechanical benefit to something like flower gardens, you are opening the door to someone at some point deciding that what they really want is a +3 enchanted mastercrafted (or whatever) flower garden.

Using mechanical models for everything is obviously something some folks enjoy more than others, but I think that history shows that there will be folks who will take it to silly extremes as a way to min-max/optimize.

I would be OK with a +3 flower garden of bird summoning. Actually that would be kind of easier because it's magic you can assign a lot more buffs and have them make sense.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

That is rather good. I tend to like mechanic bonuses more then narrative bonuses because narrative bonuses are kind of situational and are hard to move from setting to setting. I like systems I can pull out and drop in anywhere. Like if I wanted to use the same system to model the benefits of really nice meal, or a really nice dress. You might have practical befits, but in real life we tend to buy them for their moral boosting befits.

Understandable. However, with more "hard-coded" bonuses, you are opening yourself to a possibly never ending series of blatant abuses from your players. Or, almost as bad, the dreaded "ok...just why wouldn't they have gardens, japanese water gardens, aquariums, and a room dedicated entirely to kittens? After all, they'd get a bonus of...+14!" If you're cool with that, go for it! But for me, I'd much rather have less "hard-coded" bonuses that are more subjective to the situation.

If you go with a "can't have more than a +5 bonus to Morale", then, basically, you're just giving *everyone* a +5 bonus to Morale...because, well, why only have one garden when you can have the garden, aquarium and a kitten room?

So, now you have to add in "bad Morale" to the mix. Ok, now if you have "bad airflow, muddy courtyard, little sunlight, rat infestation, etc" in order to give penalties to Morale. Now everyone feels they need to have the garden, aquarium and kitten room just to break even.

End result? A LOT more book keeping, for absolutely no reason. Well, IMHO, of course. Some people really like adding up and subtracting all the niggling little numbers and whatnot. Maybe you are one of them, I don't know.

For me, I'm much happier with the way 5e's "core philosophy" is designed: Free-flowing, much less number crunching, a lot more DM adjudication on-the-fly.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[nomotog]

Hiya!



Understandable. However, with more "hard-coded" bonuses, you are opening yourself to a possibly never ending series of blatant abuses from your players. Or, almost as bad, the dreaded "ok...just why wouldn't they have gardens, japanese water gardens, aquariums, and a room dedicated entirely to kittens? After all, they'd get a bonus of...+14!" If you're cool with that, go for it! But for me, I'd much rather have less "hard-coded" bonuses that are more subjective to the situation.

If you go with a "can't have more than a +5 bonus to Morale", then, basically, you're just giving *everyone* a +5 bonus to Morale...because, well, why only have one garden when you can have the garden, aquarium and a kitten room?

So, now you have to add in "bad Morale" to the mix. Ok, now if you have "bad airflow, muddy courtyard, little sunlight, rat infestation, etc" in order to give penalties to Morale. Now everyone feels they need to have the garden, aquarium and kitten room just to break even.

End result? A LOT more book keeping, for absolutely no reason. Well, IMHO, of course. Some people really like adding up and subtracting all the niggling little numbers and whatnot. Maybe you are one of them, I don't know.

For me, I'm much happier with the way 5e's "core philosophy" is designed: Free-flowing, much less number crunching, a lot more DM adjudication on-the-fly.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

It would really depend on how you design the system. No stacking would be a no brainier of course. I kind of like the idea of it giving out a inspiration point. It fits snugly into a preset system and they two are already related. An idea I had was for it to have it as a form of healing. kind of like a re-skinned healing portion. I would shy away from hard +- numbering or even advantages because that could get bloated.

The cost benefit aspect would need to be thought of too. Ya you can get a befit from your kitten room, but your also going to have to pay some kind of milk tax too.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Easiest with 1e's d% morale rules, the flower garden could give a small % increase to castle troops. I use BX type 2d6-roll-over morale, in that a +1 boost might be a bit much.

yeah I just use the BX system myself. Quick and easy.

 

[ExploderWizard]

[MENTION=45197]pming[/MENTION] did a great job of illustrating why reducing everything to hard coded mechanical bonuses/penalties is about as productive as chasing your own tail.

Morale, as general thing is good to include in any role playing system. In doing so you are making certain decisions about the game world which it usually benefits from, at least in my opinion.

The basic premise that any living creature, be it an animal, or an intelligent humanoid, values survival is something that is too often overlooked when everything in the game world besides the PCs is seen only in terms of the challenge it provides. I really think the XP system, being heavily combat encounter based by default helps fuel the PC bloodlust.