D&D Blog - Kings and Castles

[Bluenose]

Nothing wrong with that at all! It's just that I don't think an AD&D-style domain management system will do that. The Golden Bough is full of this romantic, cycle-of-life-and-death, kingship-as-a-metaphor-for-humanity's-vulnerability-to-god/nature vibe. Domain management is full of an "can I get an Excel spreadsheet to do this for me" vibe. It's about as unromantic as gameplay can get.

"My wife got pregnant and had another daughter."

"My mistress got pregnant and had another bastard son."

"My brother got charged with stealing horses."

"My best horse died."

"We had a really good harvest."

"My grandmother died."

Those things happened to my PC during the winter phase in one Pendragon session last year. Not quite dry spreadsheet stuff.

 

[Blackwarder]

Unless I'm misinterpreting you, this is very much counter to what I want.

I don't want leadership to be something that's automatically thrust upon any character, at any level of play.

There are many high-level character concepts (and players who enjoy high-level play), that simply do not want to be leaders of anything.

While one can certainly derive some fun out of taking a character who doesn't want to be a leader and putting them in a leadership position, it's not every player's idea of fun, and it shouldn't be an expectation of the system.

I don't want my only options when I reach high level to be "Leader of Men" or "Villain". Those are both interesting and viable options, but they're far from the only ones.

I want leadership to be something that any character who wants it can pursue, or even start with, at any level, if it works for the campaign.

I think that "Leader of a gang of street urchins" is an entirely viable 1st level character concept, that should have followers.

I think that "Young heir to a noble title inherits earlier than expected, and must seek vengeance" is an entirely viable first level character concept, and it's not unreasonable to allow them to have a keep, retainers, and people who owe her fealty.

Support for leadership, keeps, domains, organizations, and so on and so forth can provide wonderful tools. Tying them unnecessarily to a tier of play, or a specific class, takes the tools and strips them of some of their value.

Tools that don't have these restrictions built in can easily be restricted on a campaign-by-campaign, or character-by-character basis.

Like it or not once a character reach a certain level they are considered to be several steps above most of the rest of the land, I just want a system to reflect that, now I'm not saying that I want a system to be restrictive so it will be thrust upon the DM and players wether they like it or not, I want a system that could be core while being flexible enough to be ignored if the group wish it.

Tools should never be restrictive and taking into mind that D&Dn should be a modular system I don't think that we will have too much restrictive rules, personally I don't like the fact that in 4e a Paragorn tier character seems just like an heroic tier one only with bigger numbers after The plus, I know that some folks like it and far be for me to tell them what to like but personally I would love to have a built in system that will help move the focus from getting bigger numbers to help moving the focus of the game toward higher goals.

Oops gtg again be back later.

Warder

 

[Mark CMG]

Tell me more of the earlier freeform manner!

I was mistaken about the requirement of attaining a certain level. Checking back over the three little booklets, it seems you can begin castle construction whenever you see fit. Of course there would be campaign and setting considerations. I cannot imagine you could just build a castle wherever you like, though I suppose in some campaigns that might work out well enough. Anyway, as I say, as long as the core rules are written to genre with no default setting, rulership considerations would probably best be handled in setting books. If not, there seems little way to avoid them becoming generic. How could rules for rulership that fit multiple settings not be generic? That's been proven on one level through our Golden Bough discussion.

 

[Kynn]

"My wife got pregnant and had another daughter."

"My mistress got pregnant and had another bastard son."

"My brother got charged with stealing horses."

"My best horse died."

"We had a really good harvest."

"My grandmother died."

Those things happened to my PC during the winter phase in one Pendragon session last year. Not quite dry spreadsheet stuff.

How did they happen? I don't know Pendragon, so I'm asking what the mechanic was that made these things come about in the fiction.

 

[Grydan]

"My wife got pregnant and had another daughter."

"My mistress got pregnant and had another bastard son."

"My brother got charged with stealing horses."

"My best horse died."

"We had a really good harvest."

"My grandmother died."

Those things happened to my PC during the winter phase in one Pendragon session last year. Not quite dry spreadsheet stuff.

Winter lasted 9 months?

Like it or not once a character reach a certain level they are considered to be several steps above most of the rest of the land, I just want a system to reflect that, now I'm not saying that I want a system to be restrictive so it will be thrust upon the DM and players wether they like it or not, I want a system that could be core while being flexible enough to be ignored if the group wish it.

Tools should never be restrictive and taking into mind that D&Dn should be a modular system I don't think that we will have too much restrictive rules, personally I don't like the fact that in 4e a Paragorn tier character seems just like an heroic tier one only with bigger numbers after The plus, I know that some folks like it and far be for me to tell them what to like but personally I would love to have a built in system that will help move the focus from getting bigger numbers to help moving the focus of the game toward higher goals.

Oops gtg again be back later.

Warder

Being several steps above most of the rest of the land does not inherently equate to being a leader of men.

It's one of many possible ways to reflect that concept, but it's far from the only way.

Another way is fame/infamy. A character so renowned that he can't go anywhere without people recognizing him and reacting. Character as celebrity.

Yet just like having followers, that's not something that works for every character. Some characters shun the limelight every bit as much as they shun followers.

Having guidelines that suggest to DMs that, at or above such and such level, it's a good idea to make adventures larger in scope, and that followers and keeps are one way of helping escalate things, seems like a good idea.

Hard-coding it into the system, doesn't. Some groups want to keep playing the same character concepts in the same ways, across all levels. They want to adventure around the local village at low levels, around the country at higher levels, and around the world at the end game. Others want the scope to escalate a lot faster than that (world travel at low levels), or a lot further (world travel? Nah, inter-planar travel!).

I prefer flexibility in the system wherever possible. Including things in the core of the system that don't need to be there reduces flexibility.

Though for clarity's sake, what with the ever-shifting definition of core, I should say that I'm fine with these options being in the core books as options, but I don't think they need to be in the core system. I prefer them as "opt-in" rather than "opt-out".

 

[Savage Wombat]

Winter lasted 9 months?

You're assuming he's human. Maybe he's playing a badger or something.

 

[Mark CMG]

You're assuming he's human. Maybe he's playing a badger or something.

A Savage Badger?

 

[Savage Wombat]

A Savage Badger?

Better that than a vag badger.

 

[pemerton]

"My wife got pregnant and had another daughter."

"My mistress got pregnant and had another bastard son."

"My brother got charged with stealing horses."

"My best horse died."

"We had a really good harvest."

"My grandmother died."

Those things happened to my PC during the winter phase in one Pendragon session last year. Not quite dry spreadsheet stuff.

I'm not saying that rulership has to be spreadsheet stuff. But it can be. I think AD&D 1st ed inclines in that direction, and so does Magical Medieval Society. AD&D also gives you a lot of individually-statted soldiers, but no real mechanical support for integrating them into play other than as a large number of low-level henchmen.

HeroWars/Quest, by way of contrast, has a system in which (i) domain/settlement management determines the capcity of the PCs to draw on the support of their homeland for rituals, politics, etc, and (ii) that support is channeled through the ordinary action resolution mechanics. Not too much spreadsheeting required (although there are some numbers), and its point in play is clear.

I don't know Pendragon very well - I've played one-shots but not campaigns. What consequences, for play, flow from these events that occurred to your PC in the winter phase? Obviously they provide some background colour and roleplaying fodder, but I assume that there is more to it than that.

 

[pemerton]

I don't like the fact that in 4e a Paragorn tier character seems just like an heroic tier one only with bigger numbers after The plus

Doesn't this depend on the paragon path chosen?