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

[TheAuldGrump]

How about another entrant into the field by Mongoose? http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/detail.php?qsID=440&qsSeries=Bloodline

On the one hand it says that it can be used in any pre-existing campaign, on the other hand I can't find any reference to it being D20/OGL...

The Auld Grump

 

[Silveras]

Now that you have had some time to digest a little bit any new stuff?

Heh.. yeah, actually.
I have looked at Dynasties and Demagogues. I like some parts of it, but I don't know if it is quite what I would like on a Domain-to-Domain interaction level. It is fine for PCs-who-are-rulers interacting, in some ways.

I also looked at Green Ronin's the Noble's Handbook. The Noble class is interesting, but the book seems to be trying too hard to justify it. More interesting is the system for Noble Houses and their strength. Unfortunately, much of how that system works with the Noble class seems rather broken.

However, that makes me think that a revised version, using a different growth mechanism and allowing for different campaign scales, would work nicely to represent landed and non-landed Domains. I think I would actually tie the Organization's (generic term replacing Noble House) growth to the accumulation of Influence Points (as defined in A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe). A "petty noble" organization would have 1 Strength per 10 Influence Points .. a "minor" would have 1 per 100 (so there would be overlap as the "petty" one grew from 11 to 20, overlapping 1 and 2 on the "minor" scale) .. a "major" would have 1 per 1000 (again, overlapping) ... and "great" would have 1 per 10,000 (maybe per 5,000).

Purchases made by such organizations could use a variant of the Wealth mechanic in D20 Modern ... the "house" has a Wealth modifier that is used in a Purchase check against a purchase DC determined by the price and maybe some modifiers for the type of goods, etc.

I am still ruminating on the idea, and looking for ways to reflect both "noble house" type organizations as well as guilds and other alternative bodies.

 

[Silveras]

I am running a FoB game at the moment and I have two thoughts about this:

1. Whilst the PCs are called "Regents", FoB makes it very clear that they could be whatever you want, including elected representatives, dictators or whatever. So you could have a province controlled by a "guild" and run by the guildmaster. In that case the government upkeep cost is what it takes to run the guild.

2. If you are interested purely in giving the PCs responsibility and a way to affect the realm they live within, then Dynasties & Demagogues is a GREAT way to do that. Their rules for handling political roleplaying are without peer, and really fit nicely into just about any D&D campaign.

An interesting area where these two mesh is having the PCs run for election to achieve control of a city-state (using DaD's election rules) and then getting them to run it using the realm rules from FoB. You could easily come up with elections every 2-3 years and have the PCs go into the election campaign with ads/disads depending upon how they have managed the realm since the last election.

While both of those are true, they are not quite what I and some others are talking about.

Birthright's structure allowed a number of regents of various types to operate domains in the same "location". The map contained about 12-18 countries, each of which was divided into 1 or more provinces. The ruler of the country controlled the land of the provinces in that country. That same ruler might, or might not, control the armed forces; some might be his/her soldiers, but some might also be occupying forces from enemy lands, or even brigand groups. Multiple trade Guilds would own offices in the provinces; sometimes 2-3 Guilds would each control a part of the trade in the same province, and be fighting for bigger shares of control. Likewise, rival religions operated networks of Temples, sometimes 2-3 in a province competing for the devotion of the people there. Additionally, mages operated networks of Ley Lines and power nodes (Sources). Because all of these could potentially exist in the same province (0-1 land ruler + 0-3 Guilds + 0-3 Temples + 0-3 Sources), up to 10 "domains" could exert influence in a single Province. Others could exert indirect influence as well. The wheeling and dealing among them was what gave the setting its appeal. Sometimes they were bitter rivals, sometimes allies, occasionally indifferent to each other.

In contrast, FoB allows only 1 regent per Province. Guilds, Temples, Towers, and Groves all exist because the Regent decides to recruit them as supporters, and they are extensions of his/her power (generally). The regent (whatever title you choose to use) does not need to worry that the Guild will cut a new deal with someone else. S/he does not need to be concerned that a new religion has made inroads into his/her land.

I hope that makes the differences clearer.

 

[Falkayn]

Birthright's structure allowed a number of regents of various types to operate domains in the same "location".

Thanks, I already understood what Birthright was like, I just figured that some of that functionality is given by Dynasties & Demagogues.

I think a better way of looking at it is to say that Dynasties & Demagogues (DaD) gives you the ability to roleplay political situations, whilst Fields of Blood/Birthright let you wargame/metagame similiar sorts of situations.

DaD will allow you to roleplay the leader of a nation, but it doesn't help you or the GM know how much tax will be raised this year, or whether crops were good or bad, or what the military maneuvering of your neighbours really means to your realm. The GM can wing a lot of that stuff, but FoB and Birthright give you the ability to put numbers on it. Birthright goes farther than FoB, because it allows a group of PCs to each be their own center of power within the same realm - DaD allows that as well, just on a roleplaying level.

By mixing FoB and DaD you could (but would you?) have players roleplay out the interaction between different power groups, and then resolve the regent/realm actions appropriately.

 

[Eosin the Red]

Silveras -

If you don't mind shooting me an email I would like to chat with you a bit.

eosin_the_red@cox.net

Thanks

 

[Silveras]

Thanks, I already understood what Birthright was like, I just figured that some of that functionality is given by Dynasties & Demagogues.

I think a better way of looking at it is to say that Dynasties & Demagogues (DaD) gives you the ability to roleplay political situations, whilst Fields of Blood/Birthright let you wargame/metagame similiar sorts of situations.

DaD will allow you to roleplay the leader of a nation, but it doesn't help you or the GM know how much tax will be raised this year, or whether crops were good or bad, or what the military maneuvering of your neighbours really means to your realm. The GM can wing a lot of that stuff, but FoB and Birthright give you the ability to put numbers on it. Birthright goes farther than FoB, because it allows a group of PCs to each be their own center of power within the same realm - DaD allows that as well, just on a roleplaying level.

By mixing FoB and DaD you could (but would you?) have players roleplay out the interaction between different power groups, and then resolve the regent/realm actions appropriately.

Let me put it this way: My ideal campaign would involve two parallel tracks. On one level, the table-top RPG players would be exploring the dungeons, facing the evil cultists, and occasionally be getting caught up in the machinations of the political entities. On the other level, a group of other people would be playing a Play-by-E-Mail game running the Domains of my world -- seeking to contest each other's influence, establishing new hidden cults, and occasionally drawing some hapless adventurers into their plots.

I want the wargaming elements.

 

[devilish]

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.

I tried looking at this file in Acrobat 7.0 and 5.0 (in case the upgrade did something funny)
and it just has big black boxes everywhere covering the text.

Could you resubmit please?

Thanks,
-D

 

[Silveras]

I tried looking at this file in Acrobat 7.0 and 5.0 (in case the upgrade did something funny)
and it just has big black boxes everywhere covering the text.

Could you resubmit please?

Thanks,
-D

I just re-checked my originals. They appear bad , so I will have to try to re-create them.

 

[Silveras]

New PDF

I made a new PDF of Kharith in FoB terms. I am attaching it here, and will remove the older PDFs from the older post ... once I find it.

Nice to see an old thread come back, and I hope people still find the information useful.

 

[ytreza2]

and now ?

Please Silveras, after some monthes of playtests, could you tell us which rules you are using now ?

I have tested all these rules exept S&D (but i have ordered it).
- MMS is the one i prefer. Unfortunately, it doesn't purchase some rules about trade for instance. What i want to say is that MMS is excellent, but it's too "conceptual" and not enough detailed for my campaig...
- Empire is too incomplete (ressources management, etc...) and some bugs are not fixed
- FOB is good but contains no detailed ressources management, so you don't know if the province is rich because of its trade capabilities or mines or agriculture...
- Birthright is too complex. It's a game, not a set of rules for a RPG campaign, and i don't have time to play at my favorite game AND birthright

And on S&D, how have you scaled the internal consumption ?

Thank you very much