Running a Kingdom

[Ampolitor]

Hey all,
The setting that I was plannig on publishing got put on hold since WOTC delivered that 4E crushing blow. I wo't be able to put it out until Jan 2009 SOO that means a lot of time to polish it up. My playtesters have been talking about including a system for running a kingdom like Birthright had. Would this be something as a player you would be interested in? I loved birthright, and the idea of having the PC's run a realm is a lot of fun if used as a background. It invites lots of story hooks and ideas, but it's also a lot of work! What would you want to see in a system like that? A light system or a complete heavy rules system?
I know BR had domain turns with random events etc..Would you want a system, or just suggestions to the DM without rules?
Were kicking both ideas around, to have a system that would have to be different than BR's (the old copyright thing1) or to not have a system and just a chapter with things that the PC's would need to know.
I guess overall I'm just looking for ideas!

 

[Raven Crowking]

Running a kingdom would be a worthwhile thing to include.

RC

 

[Dan Bell]

I loved the Birthright realm rules. However, I kept on wanting more real detail, not just abstract numbers which is one of the reasons that I picked up HarnWorld.

 

[Ampolitor]

Hmm

I haven't played Harnworld. What do you like about it? Whats so different from Birthright? I mean how in depth does it go?

 

[Ranger REG]

Field of Blood: The Book of War have a realm management system that is on the same style and concept as Birthright system.

 

[tbiaslorin]

It may sound odd, but I had a lot of fun in Neverwinter Nights 2 when you got your own castle. It wasn't very detailed at all, but provided a great interlude between adventures. It included sections determining what you would build (Fortifications, Businesses, Roads, Farms) and what your men would be doing (Recruiting, training, patrolling, special missions). Later in the game what you did at your castle determined how much money your lands produced and how many men aided you during a castle battle.

I've always liked the idea of (and almost made into a PBM at one point) minions, each of whom would be responsible for a particular portion of a player's realm. So instead of weighing down the player's with huge amounts of details, each minion would give a report and request an order. For example, 'Your Seneschal reports that your castle servants have come down with the flu, and you had to turn away a dignitary and that cost you -1 reputation.' His order could then be 'Fire the entire castle staff and hire new servants' or 'Hire a healer for 1000gp, staff morale improves by +2 because their lord cares about them.' Another might be 'Your Daimyo reports that an assassin has offered his services. He estimates a 75% chance of success for assassinating a political rival; if he fails you lose 4 reputation.'

More like offering up options (and you can do as few or many minions each time you are back at your base depending on the player's interest level) instead of burdening an adventuring party with too many duties. Each segment of ruling the kingdom should be isolated, so someone just wanting to work on their military could do so, while those interested in the economy could do that as well.

Anyhoo, just random thoughts!

 

[S'mon]

I love simple realm-ruling rules that support the roleplaying & adventure, rather than form a game in themselves. Mentzer D&D's companion set rulership rules are a good example of what I like, though they would benefit from more guidance on comstructing large scale projects (I guess the Expert set has some of this). Birthright is a bit too abstract with its Turns; Fields of Blood is similar but worse, far too complex. I don't want Realm Magic, Prestige Classes, or complex sub-systems, I do want aids to the GM in running a regular D&D campaign where PCs are rulers.

 

[sinecure]

I'd want something I could take from really, really light to really, really detailed based upon what our campaign needs.

Also, Birthright and Fields of Blood and maybe some others use a seasonal system. Each has 13-week long seasons, which seems perfect for Greyhawk because its' calendar includes solstice holiday weeks after every 12 normal ones.

It doesn't have to be done this way, but I've been able to use these two published systems as part of my own game's management system. It allows for scaling from the week, or 4 week month, or quarter / season, or a whole solar year. It's cool that way and reminds me of what happens in business with quarterly reports. Plus, I can break things down to the day, hour, or even round by round level if necessary.

If we're just playing light management, like when the players don't even realize it, I don't usually enforce anything until they fill up all the orders their organization can complete in a day, week, or quarter. It's like telling a player whether or not their PC can finish a job in before nightfall. It really helps in judging very, very long term actions.

The detail is the hard part I think. It's about being structured enough with "action costs" in resources like time and workers, but also loose enough to allow for any plan the players want to try. That's hard because too much structure and it comes off as a boardgame where no one thinks outside of the predetermined actions and types. But make it too loose and it becomes hard to really understand how these actions effect other things within the system outside the players view.

For example, if we help a single farmer regrow his crops for a week, that's a week's worth of work and it really has almost no effect on the realm's produce output. But put the PCs in charge of collecting taxes from farms and you still want to know as the Dm how their tax collecting effects the realm. Because it definitely will if they are truly in charge of it.

 

[Herobizkit]

One excellent place to start would be a compilation of the Dominion rules from the Rules Cyclopedia, and a conglomerate of anything campaign WORLD-related from the 1ed DMG, Wilderness and Dungeon Survival Guides, and the Oriental Adventures Guide. I found that 3.x is SORELY lacking in campaign development tools and almost exclusively focuses on PC development.

 

[Tonguez]

In My Homebrew system I looked at treating FACTIONS as sperate NPCs with their own ability scores, HP, AC, Skills, Feats and even Class (eg Military, Guild, Rogue, Arcane, Divine, Wild etc) although the Faction Class details were never really developed. Factions even had levels which determined their 'scope'

PCs had a stat called Influence (Level + Cha + mods) along with having a few game effects for individual PCs also determined how many 'people' in a faction they could influence to 'do stuff' (ie Influence points could be assigned to success rolls for Faction actions)

Either the PC or the DM can instigate Faction Actions and play it against the relevant stat or where relevant Skill with the PC rolling for the Faction success. Factions could gain XP which could either be used to level or harvested by the PCs.

Giving a list of faction actions will be the hardest part but only requires a bit of imagination.