Mongoose's Strongholds and Dynasties

[Emiricol]

Does anyone have this? If so, can they give a general idea of how the stronghold and (especiall) kingdom-management mechanics?

In my opinion, as it stands in the book alone the system is unplayable. Every section seems like the editor took half the content, mostly crunch, out of the book.

The back cover reads, "The Book of Strongholds & Dynasties inveils the Open Governmental System, a set of game mechanics that allows players to establish themselves as kings, princes, potentates, dictators, generals, theocrats and governors. After they have made their fortune as an adventurer, they can now try their hand as a monarch or as a politician." Sadly, this is not so - not without a *lot* of work on the DMs part making it function.

The castle building system is interesting, but suffers from references to maps that don't exist, among other problems.

In short, I can not recommend this product. Or rather, I strongly recommend against it until (and unless) an in-depth and lengthy web enhancement comes out to make the thing work. I bought it with high hopes, and now just wish I could trade it for something else. I haven't sold it in the off chance that such a web enhancement does come out someday soon.

Well, it has been a month now, and the challenge I posted has gone unanswered. It has also been posted to the Mongoose Forum's Rules Masters board, about a week ago. The only response there, to date (Jan 23, 2004), has been that it is an interesting challenge.

It can't be done. That is why no one replied, even on the Mongoose boards. I think the author did a lot of good work, but whether it is incomplete or (as I suspect) poorly edited, it just doesn't work.

 

[Silveras]

In my opinion, as it stands in the book alone the system is unplayable. Every section seems like the editor took half the content, mostly crunch, out of the book.

The back cover reads, "The Book of Strongholds & Dynasties inveils the Open Governmental System, a set of game mechanics that allows players to establish themselves as kings, princes, potentates, dictators, generals, theocrats and governors. After they have made their fortune as an adventurer, they can now try their hand as a monarch or as a politician." Sadly, this is not so - not without a *lot* of work on the DMs part making it function.

The castle building system is interesting, but suffers from references to maps that don't exist, among other problems.

In short, I can not recommend this product. Or rather, I strongly recommend against it until (and unless) an in-depth and lengthy web enhancement comes out to make the thing work. I bought it with high hopes, and now just wish I could trade it for something else. I haven't sold it in the off chance that such a web enhancement does come out someday soon.


It can't be done. That is why no one replied, even on the Mongoose boards. I think the author did a lot of good work, but whether it is incomplete or (as I suspect) poorly edited, it just doesn't work.

Yes, I know that. I just hoped to get a response from Mongoose or Mr. Bott.

Even if they fixed the flaws in the respource system, the governmental system is so heavily predicated on the PC realm being the center of all attention that it would remain unusable for NPC realms. The amount of record-keeping required to manage 2-3 rival realms is overwhelming.

Also, for the record, the Sovereign Magic supplement that Mr. Bott suggested might fill the need for "Realm-scale" magic is useless for what I wanted. It proposes a new Base class, the Sovereign Mage, that casts terrain-based spells over large areas. While the spell list is probably useful to mine for ideas, the use of a new base class defeats the specific purpose of enabling REGULAR Wizards, Sorcerers, and Clerics to use such magic.