Political Intrigue & Economic Growth

[DMFTodd]

Anyone have rules or guidelines for general policitical intrigue and economic happenings? My current campaign has the following:

* The PCs are Lords of a small town. They have lumber they can sell and have arranged for other economic things to happen. How do you determine income/losses?

* A large city the PCs adventure in is controlled by a council of 5 people. The PCs are helping one of these councilmembers and his "power" is growing: He's acquired wealth, military might, etc. How you do determine how "powerful" this councilmember is to the others? How do you determine when he takes over the council for himself?

* A couple PCs are clerics and are actively trying to promote their church in the town. How do you gauge the "power" of their church to the others? How do you decide to increase/decrease the power of the church.

I suppose one answer to this is "make it up". I'm kind of an anal rules-lawyer/game mechanic nut though so I'm looking for some rules I could use. I'm thinking all 3 of these situations would be handled by the same rules.

 

[The Proconsul]

I wouldn't use mechanics for those intrigues thinggies. But you COULD make some opposed Diplomacy/Intimidate/Gather Inf/Sense Motive checks between your NPCs, and give those the party supports some bonuses...

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

OK, here are some ideas off the top of my head - these are not tested, caveat emptor, etc.

For business dealings, I would use Profession: Merchant skill checks versus a DC as delineated below:

Check result:
<6: losses of 5% per point under 6
6-15: break even
16-20: gains of 1% per point over 15
>20: gains of 2% per point over 20

Circumstance bonuses can modify this. You can easily move the DC thresholds up and down to suit the game, and to tweak trhe results to something you like.

For influence in a city, on a council, I would use Diplomacy checks. Each council member could make a check, and again, circumstance bonuses would apply. In this case, however, I would divy up a finite amount of circumstance bonuses for a given city (say, a total of+20), with various power groups getting +X amount - the powerful local church might be able to give a +6 to a single council member, or maybe +1's to several. The dwarvish craftsmen might be worth +1, while the Human Guilds might be worth +3. That way, each can compete for scarce political backing from various groups. Roll checks perhaps monthly, weekly if the situation is really volatile. The Higher the total check result, the better.

If a council member gets powerful enough, he might be able to directly influence other council member's votes. I'm not sure how I'd model that. That might be too complex to be boiled down to a series of rolls, especially if core beliefs are involved - you're not going to get the elvish councilman to agree to cutting down all the forests regardless of how good a die roll is.

I'd use a similar system for churches power, although religion is more ingrained in a person's character than politics. It should be much tougher to sway people to your side in most situations. Personally, in my campaign, the % of people following a given religion are pretty static, a percentage determined by me. I'd let sufficiently high Diplomacy checks convert a small number of people, but it should get tougher to grow the church as it gets bigger.

 

[Drawmack]

* The PCs are Lords of a small town. They have lumber they can sell and have arranged for other economic things to happen. How do you determine income/losses?

There are raw materials costs covered by the core rules. Do a little extrapolation on these and you'll have the gross income from the lumber.

Getting to net:
Using a two man saw lumber jacks can probably fell and move about 2 trees per jack per day.

Pay their wages as detailed in the dmg

count 10 - 20 % loss of raw material due to termites and other such things.

* A large city the PCs adventure in is controlled by a council of 5 people. The PCs are helping one of these councilmembers and his "power" is growing: He's acquired wealth, military might, etc. How you do determine how "powerful" this councilmember is to the others? How do you determine when he takes over the council for himself?

The easiest way to do this is with a variant of the production possibilities curve. The city should have a static amount of power available. So you have a pie cut into five equal pieces. If he's amassing power he must be doing it by taking the power from others. Calculate the rate of growth in his power and once he controls 51% of the pie he takes over. If he form alliances with others on the council then once their total is 51% they take over.

* A couple PCs are clerics and are actively trying to promote their church in the town. How do you gauge the "power" of their church to the others? How do you decide to increase/decrease the power of the church.

Is this the town they run? Is it the same diety? If it is the town they run and it is the same diety - the people will follow them out of fear in a classic fiefdom - also it could always just be mandated. What I would fall too is the gods domains. What percentage of the population would worship a god with this god's domains? There is your answer.