Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="MNblockhead" data-source="post: 8913079" data-attributes="member: 6796661">In my current campaign, that has been running a little over 4 years, this is a big part of it. First, the Adventure/Campaign setting has a ruined castle in the area which includes some tips for costs for fixing it up to use as a home base and I just went with that. Then I integrated MCDM's Strongholds & Followers, basically RAW. While I don't like the warefare-lite rules in that book, I really do like the rules for building, upgrading, and maintaining strongholds and attracting and supporting followers. Part of what makes it fun is that the PCs get some special powers. Some apply only when the PCs are in their demesnes. But these can be useful in research, gathering intel, and other things that support (preparing for) adventuring.   Other are "extended rest abilities" that give cool abilities that require spending a week's downtime in your demesne to recharge. The setting is the mega dungeon Rappan Athuk. As they continue to work against the Cult of Orcus and other dangers in the massive complex of natural tunnels, caverns, dungeons, and subterranean lairs and settlements, they secure cleared and allied areas with troops purchased and maintained per the Strongholds & Followers rules.  Over time, which each PC building different class-related "strongholds" (castle, wizards tower, arena, temple, monastery, etc., they have attracted followers, trade, farmers, etc. and a town has grown and continues to grow.  That creates new opportunities for political intrigue and diplomacy. I also use a mix of rules from the DMG, Xanathar's and an ENWorld article for a reputation system where they can gain fame and infamy points and risks of complications. The amount of fame they have determines the size of a reputation die a player can roll with a character levels up (from d4 to d30) to attempt to get better benefits from the various organizations/factions/patrons they've earned a good reputation with. They can also spend fame points to call in a favor. Depending on the nature of the favor, I set a DC and for each point spent they get a +1 on the roll. I helps give more purpose to their efforts in the megadungeon, something they have invested in and care about to protect, and a use for gold. I also use GP for XP in this campaign and training and leveling up rules that involve cost and tie which tie in with the reputation system. All players also have backup PCs in the town that are part of the same band of heros. Some players will swap characters depending on what they want to accomplish in a session or just for variety. Unplayers backup PCs level up at two-levels lower than the lowest level active PC. If a PC dies they always have another character ready to go that already has an organically developed backstory and reason for joining the party. This also allows occasional players who cannot attend every session to join in when they can.We made tweaks here and there and somethings that we tracked carefully at lower levels we handwaive now that the active PC's average 17th level. Most teaks are to avoid too much bookkeeping. At this stage, in tier 4 play, the party has accumulated so much wealth from plunder, various businesses, and trade that we don't track expenses anymore and focus heavily on reputation and complications. At lower levels (really until they hit level 16 and over 3.5 years of play), however, the party had to strategize how they would spend their wealth and gaining more gold was a constant necessity.</blockquote>

Verification