Running a Kingdom

[Jürgen Hubert]

A good source of inspiration is also the Reign RPG by Greg Stolze. It has a fairly abstract system for running organizations (not just nations) - and in this system, PC actions are hugely influental for the results of any activities of such organizations, giving large bonuses or penalties depending on how well they acted.

Thus, the system becomes an adventure generator: "OK, we want our coastal city-state to do something about those pirates. So, what do we do to get rid of them?" The overall statistics of the two power groups give the framework, but what the PCs are doing on their own will improve (or lower) the odds.

 

[Dan Bell]

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

HarnWorld is very detailed. The setting is almost rules system free (arcane magic and divine magic is handled a bit differently and those supplements include optional rules with the setting material).

Lets take the kingdom of Kaldor for example.
There are index type blurbs about it in the HarnWorld setting source book: http://www.columbiagames.com/cgi-bin/query/cfg/zoom.cfg?product_id=5001
If you want more detail, there is the kingdom of Kaldor book:
http://www.columbiagames.com/cgi-bin/query/cfg/zoom.cfg?product_id=5610 a free preview of which is here: http://www.columbiagames.com/resources/5610/5610-kaldor-sample.pdf
Then all the 6 major town & castles have articles, for example:
http://www.columbiagames.com/cgi-bin/query/cfg/zoom.cfg?product_id=5611
http://www.columbiagames.com/cgi-bin/query/cfg/zoom.cfg?product_id=5618
http://www.columbiagames.com/cgi-bin/query/cfg/zoom.cfg?product_id=5623
http://www.columbiagames.com/cgi-bin/query/cfg/zoom.cfg?product_id=5634
(note most of these have free samples)
Then a bunch of the lesser keeps and villages have free articles on www.lythia.com and other sites.
http://www.lythia.com/index.php?s=kaldor
http://www.harnmaster.us/knights/
Many of them written by the same folks who write the ‘official’ stuff.

Anyway that’s enough links for now. Feel free to try some free www.lythia.com downloads and drop by the harnforum if you have any questions.

Kind regards
Dan

 

[Tonguez]

Lets take the kingdom of Kaldor for example.
there is the kingdom of Kaldor preview of which is here: http://www.columbiagames.com/resources/5610/5610-kaldor-sample.pdf
.
Kind regards
Dan

I looked at the Kaldor Sample and whilst the info is nice does the system have any rules on how PCs interact with Fiefs and Manors? Building new ones, changing conditions and running interations?

 

[MarauderX]

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

FIELD OF BLOOD is the only answer I will accept.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

I looked at the Kaldor Sample and whilst the info is nice does the system have any rules on how PCs interact with Fiefs and Manors? Building new ones, changing conditions and running interations?

The HârnManor rules allow for a player (or referee) to run a manor. The rules are fairly simple and straightforward and allow a Manor Lord to; neglect, or improve, his fief; alter the crops planted and anomals grazed; calculate how much profit (or loss) he makes over a year and interact with (and pass judgement over) his peasants. The system is moderately complicated, but there are several good spreadsheets available. I use the one available here:
http://www.quicenter.com/harn/default_en.asp

Forget the household sheet unless you want to add even more complexity to a characters life.

The system is not good at modelling kingdoms, though a guy called Roy Denton has done a lot of work in trying to come up with an economic model for Hârn. His stuff is here:
http://home.comcast.net/~alienage1/alienage.htm

 

[Whisper72]

Well, on a much, much smalle scale, I would rather be interested in rules concerning henchmen, followers and apprentices then whole world modelling stuff.

To be honest, I think that although this board my contain relatively many people interested in running kingdoms, the general population of players is prolly not that interested in this aspect.

Fleshing out smaller gaming groups with henchmen would be a real 'good thing' for the game in general, as it allows the game to progress even if few players are available.

Just my own 2 cp.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

HârnManor assumes a fairly stable, fairly feudal, economic model. It models manorial village fairly well (IMO). It assumes that there will be from about a dozen to forty-plus ‘households’ in the village, plus the manor itself and tries to give some idea of the staff the manor can support. It is good at determining the likely number of servants, staff and men-at-arms the lord can employ. The average manor will support a knight, a squire, and at least one man-at-arms. There will be yeomen in the village, but they won’t be available full time (they give their lord one or two months service in lieu of rent).

 

[Ampolitor]

Thanks

I'll have to check all of these out, I'm mainly going to try to include basic and brief rules for a ruler to run a kingdom, I also have some magical items that tie them to the land, I'll let you know about that once I hammer out all of the rules for them. Theres a few problems were having with game balance and to keep PC's to go on a king hunt to become ultra powerful.
I'm also getting ready to run a birthright campaign this weekend, listening to crown and the ring by manowar, helps me write the scenario!

 

[Dan Bell]

Thanks for the posts, GrumpyOldMan, I just got back on the net and saw that you summed it up nicely. Roy Denton does good work. Also I should mention that a few of the castle articles have detailed economic info.

One thing I should have better conveyed is that I like the abstract domain rules in Birthright - but I kept wanting more. For example what exactly is the "law 3" owned by Avan in the Imperial City? Unless there was a player's secrets on it I was stuck. How could I GM my regent PCs when I didn't have the detail to game with them. Same with the guild and temples. (The source’s level was easy for me to improvise a make up.) The thing I liked about the HarnWorld setting was that I had all this detail and could look at the BR domian rules if I was stuck on ideas for resolving the political/social/econ actions of the powerful nobles/mages/guilds/churches.