Rewarding the Pcs: Land and Rulership

[Aholibamah]

My pc group has reached the point where they are ready to settle down a little--I was trying to think how to reward this group for their heroism in winning a war against a powerful lich and his minions, and since they're fairly high level I wanted to have them granted some lands--basically the equivalent of a barony in which they all have a stake.

So I was thinking that this might be fun, but has anyone else done this kind of thing in a way that worked well? How do you keep things from being bogged down in administrative details? How do you avoid making it irrelevant?

 

[Mark]

How do you keep things from being bogged down in administrative details? How do you avoid making it irrelevant?

The players are your best guide for this. Look over available sources for ways to run this type of campaign, but allow the players to guide how much or how little is implemented.

 

[Woas]

I'd give the group a 'regenerating' unit of gold that represents the wealth medieval land was worth.

Say for example, each characters gets a 1,000 gold 'allowance'. Now, maybe owing a small barony should grant the characters more, like 100,000 gold, but I'd just fold the cost of running the barony into itself and not sweat the small stuff. We're going to assume the characters are going to need pages and chamber maids and the whole staff.

So about that regenerating unit of wealth. You can set how fast it regenerates but probably something like every 6 months 'game' time to represent the collection and processing of harvest, luxury goods (wines, beers, honey, mature animals), general favors (inviting NPCs to seasonal future feasts, hunting parties, etc. off camera) and general 'gifts of state'. The players basically get 1,000 gold that they can blow as they see fit just like normal gold. But when the new 'season' begins that reserve goes back up to be spent again.

And of course your could get into or make it as back burner as possible. Normally it's a pretty scary thought when an enemy could possibly take one of the characters magic items or steal wealth from them. Players hate that. You could stage peasant revolts or other intrigue plots in their baronies that threaten their productivity and overall seasonal gold potential so the players don't take that regenerating gold for granted. Even full on sieges from an enemy if its what you wanted. The players could even reinvest some of the gold back into their estates for personal armies, extra defenses, etc. You can really go wild with it.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

For the administrative details, let me be the first to give the obligatory plug for Medieval Magical Society: Western Europe. This is a perfect application for that book - it will allow you to work out the details if you or the player wants to.

Here's how I'd do it - keep in mind that I enjoy the detail-work. I'd work out exactly how the land makes its money with an eye towards Woas' idea of providing the player with an "allowance." I wouldn't expect my players to get that into, although one or two do have my same predilection for detail-work. I'd just give them the basic results, and keep all my details as color for background. If it ever came up, I'd refer to the details in game. It probably wouldn't. The main effect of having land in the game world is likely to be political - the PC will need to provide soldiers for the army and will have access to the halls of power.

If you want to go low-detail, you could easily just say that the plot of land pays for its own upkeep, and any money made is plowed back into maintenance. You could also treat it like a low-risk business usign the business rules in the DMG2.

 

[haakon1]

Say for example, each characters gets a 1,000 gold 'allowance'. Now, maybe owing a small barony should grant the characters more, like 100,000 gold, but I'd just fold the cost of running the barony into itself and not sweat the small stuff. We're going to assume the characters are going to need pages and chamber maids and the whole staff.

So about that regenerating unit of wealth. You can set how fast it regenerates but probably something like every 6 months 'game' time to represent the collection and processing of harvest, luxury goods (wines, beers, honey, mature animals), general favors (inviting NPCs to seasonal future feasts, hunting parties, etc. off camera) and general 'gifts of state'. The players basically get 1,000 gold that they can blow as they see fit just like normal gold. But when the new 'season' begins that reserve goes back up to be spent again.

Nice simplicity. Some of my players are empire-builder types, but didn't want to deal with complexity. This idea of a gold allowance and abstracting things should work.

It seems unrealistic to me to have people "share" a barony -- is that best for a party, though?

 

[moritheil]

When the ranger IMC got high level enough, he took Leadership and left all his followers behind to manage his lands. If he didn't feel he needed his cohort on a particular mission he'd leave him behind to train/oversee them.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

It seems unrealistic to me to have people "share" a barony -- is that best for a party, though?

I don't like that idea either - what I normally do is find an area in each PC's specialty where they can have some sort of "base of power". For example in one campaign it the two fighter types had small land grants, not too far from each other; the ranger had a fort/ranger base in the woods roughly mid-way between them, the cleric had a temple (and casino) in the nearest big city, and the rogue was an up-and-comer in that city's thieves guild.

Each had their own thing, and occasionally I'd use that as a plot hook - off the top of my head I used one of the fighter's territories, the thieves guild contact, and the temple for plot hooks, with some overlap - for instance the casino/temple (cleric of Bes, the god of luck) had gotten permission to operate the gambling operation with thieves guild approval.

 

[Woas]

Kid Charlemagne's suggestion is good. It actually is very Baldur's Gate 2-ish if you ever played that gem of a computer game. In the game if you haven't played it, the main character, depending on what you picked as a class was given some sort of 'business' venture. Fighter types got a small keep-estate, wizards got a research hall, druids and rangers got a grove, bards got a playhouse/theater... I'm sure there was one for clerics/paladins and rogues but can't remember what they were off the top of my head.

Otherwise if you don't want them to share the allowance I don't think it would be out of line to just grant them all individual allowances with accompanying manor-estates. Either way works.

 

[haakon1]

I don't like that idea either - what I normally do is find an area in each PC's specialty where they can have some sort of "base of power".

One idea I had was to have one character be a baron/baronet with several manors (scattered villages they had rescued from various calamities) and a keep (the title would be Baron of the Borderlands, so you can guess which Keep!), while another character was the manor lord (a knight of the baron), another was the head priest of the barony, etc.

 

[Dan Bell]

One idea I had was to have one character be a baron/baronet with several manors (scattered villages they had rescued from various calamities) and a keep (the title would be Baron of the Borderlands, so you can guess which Keep!), while another character was the manor lord (a knight of the baron), another was the head priest of the barony, etc.

For calculating this stuff, I suggest HarnManor: http://www.columbiagames.com/cgi-bin/query/cfg/zoom.cfg?product_id=4751
And here is a good example of a free download that has is based off HarnManor: http://www.lythia.com/2008/02/charmic/