Comparison: Strongholds & Dynasties - Empire - Magical Medieval Society - Birthright

[Sulimo]

Congrats Silveras. What an excellent job you've done.

Ever since Birthright I've wanted a set of rules for small scale domain management, and finally there's a bunch of books on the subject. Too bad I can't afford them all to stitch together for my own use

One thing I am wondering. The spreadsheets you used to create the examples. Have you put them online anywhere?

 

[Silveras]

Congrats Silveras. What an excellent job you've done.

Ever since Birthright I've wanted a set of rules for small scale domain management, and finally there's a bunch of books on the subject. Too bad I can't afford them all to stitch together for my own use

One thing I am wondering. The spreadsheets you used to create the examples. Have you put them online anywhere?

The spreadsheets I used for the MMS:WE example are posted on the Expeditious Retreat web site, on the Community Support page. There are several other very good pieces there by others, as well.

The page from Empire was taken from a template I put together, but is not posted anywhere. The ones I used for the Strongholds & Dynasties examples were "scratch sheets" that I kept making big changes to. Since the resource management system appears to "break" (actually, "crash into flaming ruins" is closer to the truth) with good-sized cities, I never finished. Mongoose put PDF versions of the sheets in the book on their site for download, though.

As for not being able to afford them ... the best investment for raidable resources has to be the Dragon magazine archive, if you can still find it in stores. The search feature is adequate, but you are better off opening the PDF in Acrobat Reader after you find the issue you want.

For example, in Dragon #94, there is the article "An army travels on its stomach: Large-scale logistics in a fantasy world" by Katherine Kerr. This article talks about how much food is available in a 30 mile hex, and how fast an army can move. Very useful information for domain management, and it answers a question asked in a different thread (How much grain can you grow in X area ?).

In Dragon #89, there is the article "Survival is a group effort: The effects of population growth and regrowth" by Stephen Inniss. This one talks about how to determine the natural population birth rate for fantasy races (a question asked on THIS thread).

While I did not do the lookup, Len Lakofka (creator and player of Leomund) wrote a very good article on playing "apprentice level" characters. It was for 1st Edition AD&D, but the ideas there are not too hard to adapt to 3rd edition. I seem to recall seeing a thread on that topic, recently. Also, he presented the Cloistered Cleric, an NPC class for a more-spells-less-fighting medieval monk-type cleric.

Yes, I am THAT old. I remember reading these when they were new.

 

[Argus Decimus Mokira]

I have downloaded the Birthright.net PDF but have not read it through. It did not have any real impact on what I was doing because I was developing my version at the same time, really.

...

I ran out of steam on the project partway through the warfare rules.

Any chance you can post some of this (most excellent sounding) conversion work over on the House Rules forum? I'd really like to take a look at it!

Thanks
Matt

 

[Silveras]

Any chance you can post some of this (most excellent sounding) conversion work over on the House Rules forum? I'd really like to take a look at it!

Thanks
Matt

Highly unlikely, as much of the core is lifted straight from Birthright. Why mess with the parts that worked (for me) ?

 

[Silveras]

Kharith - Fields of Blood

Here, for comparison, is the Province of Farmdale statted out in terms of Fields of Blood. It is one of three Provinces that make up the Barony of Kharith. Province, in this sense, is much larger than in Fields of Blood. Each 'Hex' in this description of Farmdale is considered a Province under Fields of Blood.

Included in this version are some military units, as well.

I tried to attach a Zip file of a map, but it is too big. I will see what I can do about adding a map at some point.

[Edit: Deleted the PDF, as it came out corrupted. A replacement is posted here ]

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Congrats Silveras. What an excellent job you've done.

Ever since Birthright I've wanted a set of rules for small scale domain management, and finally there's a bunch of books on the subject. Too bad I can't afford them all to stitch together for my own use

I think Fields of Blood could work quite nicely with Birthright, using about 9-16 FoB provinces per Birthright province (which is normally 30-50 miles on a side); when I noticed the disparaty, I giggled at the extra granularity. Of course, that means that you'll have massive, massive amounts of math to do to run a realm like, say, Roesone or Halskapa...but think of all the extra nobles and such the PCs will have to keep happy and/or cowed (at a baron/FoB province, a count/Birthright province, etc.).

Brad

 

[Silveras]

I think Fields of Blood could work quite nicely with Birthright, using about 9-16 FoB provinces per Birthright province (which is normally 30-50 miles on a side); when I noticed the disparaty, I giggled at the extra granularity. Of course, that means that you'll have massive, massive amounts of math to do to run a realm like, say, Roesone or Halskapa...but think of all the extra nobles and such the PCs will have to keep happy and/or cowed (at a baron/FoB province, a count/Birthright province, etc.).

Brad

That's pretty much where I am at right now. The Barony of Kharith in my world is currently composed of 3 Birthright-scale provinces, one of which maps to about 11 hexes in Fields of Blood. That province, Farmdale, is described in the PDF I posted just a short time ago.

The extra granularity is not so bad in one sense, as it allows me to better depict the mix of terrains inside the "Plains" province. Also, not every hex will be occupied, and not every hex will have a big city in it. One reason I am nit-picky about 30 mile hexes vs. 12-mile hexes is because the realist in me wants the area to be able to support its cities/towns; 30 mile hexes keep the urban centers far enough apart for this to work; 12 mile hexes are more likely to see this be a problem.

Of course, not everyone worries about these things, and it is not absolutely necessary in the long run.

My present plan is to consider two of the three "Regions" to be vassals to the other, and detail them (and set their maintenance) under the FoB rules that way. The nice thing about a Feudal system is that it is not hard to slip in another "layer" of obligation.

 

[Eosin the Red]

I have an even bigger area to work through but figured that each of them could be done in a Duchy/Barony fashion and then added all up with additional taxes going to the King.

I am still only about 1/2 way through FoB.

 

[Silveras]

I have an even bigger area to work through but figured that each of them could be done in a Duchy/Barony fashion and then added all up with additional taxes going to the King.

I am still only about 1/2 way through FoB.

Oh, Kharith is the smallest of the subject realms that make up the Kingdom of Aruthkar. I just use it here to test the systems.

Most average about 6-7 BR-size provinces to Kharith's 3, and there are 24 of them. Then there are the Orc-infested mountains to the east (a good 10 BR provinces worth), the forested hills to the north where the Goblins live (15-20 more BR provinces), the Barbarian humans further west (200+ more BR-size provinces), the Dark Ages region on the other side of the Goblins to the north (150 or so provinces), the Byzantine-like state north of that (250 more), the Spain-like Empire east of the Orcs (500+ more), the Hobgoblin empire (Meso-American in flavor) beyond that (500+ more), the Arabian-style region (300+).

:: sigh :: I had hoped to get around to detailing the India-based, Asia-based, and Africa-based continents of my world in my lifetime.

In reality, I will probably not bother detailing any of them until I know I am going to need them.

 

[mattcolville]

I really feel as though the scale of the Book of War should be concurrent with Birthright provinces. I surveyed something like 15 different campaign maps and most of them were either 1 inch/hex = 20, 24, or 30 miles. Plus 24 works with D&D overland movement numbers.

This is something I'd like to run the numbers on.