D&D Blog - Kings and Castles

[Sunseeker]

What if holdings (and maybe followers) were a 4th pillar added to the triumvirate of Social/Interaction/Roleplay, Combat, and Exploration.

All character classes are built, Epic Level Handbook style, with a specific way in which that class participates in the Fourth Pillar (let's call it Dominion). Wizards build towers. Clerics build temples. Fighters build castles. Rangers build outposts.

The Dominion pillar is an optional, modular pillar. You can choose to have it in your game or not have it. If you have it, each class gets their dominion options or can customize their dominion aspect with feats, gold, or time?
http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-ho.../318607-what-rules-supported-exploration.html

The main thing I don't like about it is having class-based Dominion systems. Dominions should be based on what their player's want to rule, not what their class says they can rule. There can be Mage-Lords in great castles and Paladin-Knights over a temple of mages. And then how do we handle multi-classing? Players should get to design their dominion, and whil the ELH could give suggestions on certain styles of kingdoms, of temples and towers, no player would be restricted to only those things.

Likewise, I agree that building a Dominion seems to be more a capstone to the current 3 pillars than a pillar of it's own. As building a Dominion would require great skill in all of those areas, clearing local forests, recruiting construction contractors, taking care of your people, ect....

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Eh... not necessarily. The more I think on this, I think he might be on to something here. Think back to the old versions. In those days there were still the core pillars, but the whole "stronghold/followers" thing was still a part of class leveling. If this was done correctly, the 4th "Pillar" COULD be built in such a way as not to be a true focal pillar, but an augmentation pillar, much the way the core 3 already are augmentations, not individuals.

I believe the design team is using "pillar" mainly in the sense of "foundational". If I read you correctly, you are taking a more "decorative" approach--or at least supplemental. Domains may or may be decorative (depending upon how you approach them), but they are not foundational unless the game is built primarily to run them. And even then, that would be what the game was about, not necessarily how it went about it.

Domains are an alterative to straight adventuring, in the same way that dungeon crawls, wilderness exploration, and running across city roof after thieves or dealing with nobles by day, are alternative adventures. It merely happens that domains require a few more different capabilities than those other things (again, depending upon how you set up the game). Supporting play in domains would inform the scope of the pillars themselves, not replace/extend them.

 

[Bluenose]

I like to have PCs aspire to be rulers and have keeps and such, but I am not a fan of the bookkeeping required to actively manage a domain. I would rather keep it at the RP/story level than have mechanics for it.

Surely that would depend on the amount of bookkeeping involved. There's a perfectly useable system in Pendragon to resolve a player's territory, which doesn't take more than ten minutes to cover what happened that year unless it gets unusually complicated. I see no reason to assume a system for D&D would have to be more complicated.

 

[JonWake]

I think what we have here is another example of the divide between the older conception of classes as 'archetypical' and the newer conception as 'skill package'.

People who like archetypical explanations of classes like having the game fiction intrinsically tied into their character progression. A mage builds towers, a fighter builds strongholds, a thief runs a guild. To them, the class isn't just role to play, its a role in the game world. The upside of this is that the rules and the fiction of the setting become deeply tied together. The downside is that its a limiting way to play a game, and very quickly leads to class bloat.

On the other hand, the 3e-4e view of classes is more of 'skill packages', a loose conglomeration abilities that can be mixed and reskinned to create highly individualized builds. It's no fluke that character optimization became all the rage in the past 10 years, because 3e onwards is built to make it a feature.

I really don't think you'll ever get these two viewpoints on the same page. I personally have gone from simply accepting classes as 'how it's done' (back in 2e) to actively refusing to play a class based game (ah, the 90's) to trying to square the circle (my 3.0 enthusiasm) to realizing that if you water down classes to nothing, you lose a lot of what makes them work in game.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I think what we have here is another example of the divide between the older conception of classes as 'archetypical' and the newer conception as 'skill package'.

I wouldn't necessarily agree with this... The big difference, I think, is that many people consider the archetypes of older classes to be overly restrictive or to make too many assumptions. Class will always be both archetype and skill set, but there is a difference between the "fighter" archetype and the assumption that all fighters eventually become kings. There is a difference between the "wizard" archetype and the assumption that all wizards eventually lock themselves in towers and remove themselves from the world. For many fighters and wizards in fantasy, and certainly for many fighters and wizards in D&D campaigns, those are not natural progressions.

Perhaps the real change is that people's perception of fantasy archetypes have dramatically changed over the decades since the BECMI rules were first published.

 

[Khaalis]

One thing I prefer to see when dealing with Domains and followers.

Domains and followers should be treated as rewards like gold and magic items, not as class features like spellcasting and weapon proficiencies.

This way it can be moved into any pillar of adventuring and fit into any campaign style.

This is how its done in Fantasy Craft.... using the Renown and Reputation system. It covers all kinds of rewards that can't be values exclusively through coin, including Holdings & Hirelings, (always reliable) Contacts, and Magic Items. It is a very restricted resource as your Renown dictates how many prized you can keep.

Unfortunately I don't ever see D&D going this route. Things like Holdings and Magic Items have always been purely an extension of the monetary rewards of D&D.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I wouldn't necessarily agree with this... The big difference, I think, is that many people consider the archetypes of older classes to be overly restrictive or to make too many assumptions. Class will always be both archetype and skill set, but there is a difference between the "fighter" archetype and the assumption that all fighters eventually become kings. There is a difference between the "wizard" archetype and the assumption that all wizards eventually lock themselves in towers and remove themselves from the world. For many fighters and wizards in fantasy, and certainly for many fighters and wizards in D&D campaigns, those are not natural progressions.

Perhaps the real change is that people's perception of fantasy archetypes have dramatically changed over the decades since the BECMI rules were first published.

The scale is not from "classes as this kind of archetype" thingy to "no, it's nothing but mechanics". Rather, the full scale is "class equals archetype" to "class is nothing but mechanics".

If it must be one or the other, I prefer the latter as at least more flexible. But I'd rather that somewhere in the middle be allowable without the constant attempt to pull into "class equals archetype". Of course, the opposite pull is more often expressed in trying to neuter classes altogether (i.e. defacto move into some kind of point system/part system). At its worst, you get this weird mix where class is archetype, with all the restrictions that implies, and then all kinds of complicated ways to get around that to make it selectively flexible.

Edit: If it isn't obvious, this supports Twin Bahamuts' points, rather than attempting to counter them.

 

[Khaalis]

I also agree with TwinBahamut... perceptions have changed drastically over the years.

Also, what I meant by referring to the older class' "class ability" structuring, is that the mechanical aspect of doing Holdings & Hirelings could be linked to class level like it used to be as an example. It doesn't have to class-specific in any way. All classes would use the same system. Nothing would say a fighter has to build a castle and become a warlord and nothing says a wizard has to build a tower and become a researcher. The fighter can start a guild and the wizard become a warlord... but the base system to build that structure would be the same regardless of class.

Just as a very simple example, if you wanted to add the module on to the core system (DM and Player decision for the game at hand), it could be as simple as saying that starting at level 10 (assuming its an "high level modular addition) you may begin the process of attaining Holdings & Hirelings. So at level 10 you can spend up to X amount on a Holding and X amount on Hirelings using "Table A: Holdings Cost" and "Table B: Hireling Costs". At level 11 you can spend Y, at level 12 you can spend Z, etc. It could start as small as a permanent 1 room apartment safe-house and go as much as running a nation.

The system would obviously be a lot more robust but I think that gets my point across (if not I'll try after I've had some sleep). It could even be split into 2 Modular add-ons; "Holdings & Hirelings" that covers personal Holdings from a 'room at an inn' up to a 'private palace', and a second module that was purely a Birthright/Kingmaker AP kind of module just for running large organizations. (The 2 module approach would probably be my preference.)

 

[Minigiant]

This is how its done in Fantasy Craft.... using the Renown and Reputation system. It covers all kinds of rewards that can't be values exclusively through coin, including Holdings & Hirelings, (always reliable) Contacts, and Magic Items. It is a very restricted resource as your Renown dictates how many prized you can keep.

Unfortunately I don't ever see D&D going this route. Things like Holdings and Magic Items have always been purely an extension of the monetary rewards of D&D.

No, I prefer it as purely monetary. When the party does a kingdom saving quest for a ruler at level 13; the DM could give them 1000,00 gold pieces, the royal collection of magic wands, or ownership of the kingdom's port city (the BBEG was the previous owner).

It wouldn't be: You are level 12, some king gives you a plot of land for a castle.

 

[Dausuul]

It wouldn't be: You are level 12, some king gives you a plot of land for a castle.

I don't think it ever was. I'll have to check, but I'm pretty sure this has not been how it's worked in any D&D edition. The standard has been, "You are level 12. If you somehow obtain a castle and set up shop, you'll start attracting followers." A castle doesn't just plop down out of the sky.

Name level is the point where "If you build it, they will come." You do still have to build (or buy, or capture) it.