Sell me on "Magical Medieval Society" WE

[Crothian]

My question is, how does it compares to GG's World Builder?

Two different books. World Builder has little details about everything, but not that specific to a certain area. It covers weather, rocks, merchant items, etc. MMS covers a creating a medival world.

 

[d4]

How does this compare to, say, Harn, in terms of setting material?

i don't know that much about Harn. does Harn presents rules and systems for creating your own setting, or does it just provide a ready-made setting?

 

[La Bete]

One of the things I particularly like about mms:we is how the systems they introduced for running estates start off very small scale and fairly detailed, but can be zoomed out and abstracted at the larger scale.

Plus, it has useful bits like:

a system for how much magical goodies a lord might receive in taxes.
a building system, that covers everything from churches to castles to roads, etc.

Thoroughly enjoyed it, and am slowly getting use out of it.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

From the discussion, it sounds very interesting. I'm checking out the free RPGNow samples now. If I like it, it may well displace D&D 3.5 on my buy list.

 

[Darth Shoju]

That's page 142. Not it's on page 142 as much as it is page 142.

Excellent

*does Mr. Burns finger-thing*

 

[S'mon]

One of the things we thought about when makeing MMS:WE is the, in our opinion, somewhat wanky demographics where you simply can't have a 9th-12th level wizard in a metropolis.

The DMG 'top down' demographics gives ridiculous results if used for anything other than finding the highest level NPCs in an area - and even then they're poor.

I haven't read MMS:WE but I've put a lot of thought into this area myself. I use a bottom-up approach: 1% of population are PC-class (per EGG in 1e DMG). I take it that 50% are 1st level, with half as many 2nd, 1/4 3rd, 1/8 4th, and so on. This makes high level characters stand out. I can arbitrarily insert (eg) 20th level NPCs if I want.
To work out the likely highest-level NPC (who could be any class) in an area: population
100 - 1st
200 - 2nd
400 - 3rd
800 - 4th
1600 - 5th
etc
Towns & cities normally have a rural hinterland about 4 times the population of the town, which needs to be taken into account - eg a city of 20,000 is the nexus of an area of around 100,000.
There will typically be twice as many characters 1 level lower, 4 times 2 levels lower, and so on. IMC most NPCs are Fighter-types, with spellcasters rare.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The DMG 'top down' demographics gives ridiculous results if used for anything other than finding the highest level NPCs in an area - and even then they're poor.

I haven't read MMS:WE but I've put a lot of thought into this area myself. I use a bottom-up approach: 1% of population are PC-class (per EGG in 1e DMG). I take it that 50% are 1st level, with half as many 2nd, 1/4 3rd, 1/8 4th, and so on. This makes high level characters stand out. I can arbitrarily insert (eg) 20th level NPCs if I want.
To work out the likely highest-level NPC (who could be any class) in an area: population
100 - 1st
200 - 2nd
400 - 3rd
800 - 4th
1600 - 5th
etc
Towns & cities normally have a rural hinterland about 4 times the population of the town, which needs to be taken into account - eg a city of 20,000 is the nexus of an area of around 100,000.
There will typically be twice as many characters 1 level lower, 4 times 2 levels lower, and so on. IMC most NPCs are Fighter-types, with spellcasters rare.

Heh! I use the same system, though with a higher percentage of PC class folks. (10%, with 10% of those being of spell casting classes, mostly clerics.) I also tend to have my wizards cluster in university cites, forming colleges rather than spreading them evenly through the populace at large. The remaining wizards tend to go to sparsely populated regions, with a very small number of commercial spellcasters in the non scholastic cities and towns.

I have found Mongooses Publishing's Hedge Wizard class very, very useful in fleshing out those rural mages, and have pretty much removed the Adept NPC class.

The Auld Grump

 

[S'mon]

Heh! I use the same system, though with a higher percentage of PC class folks. (10%, with 10% of those being of spell casting classes, mostly clerics.)

The Auld Grump

_10% of the *entire* population?_

Using the 1e DMG demographics - 10% of the population are in 'prime condition' - eg aristocrats, warriors, commoners trainable as warriors, while 20% total of the population are potentially combatant, ie capable of wielding a weapon (in nomad or barbarian societies that 20% may be all Warriors). 80% of the population are children, elderly, physically impaired et al, noncombatants. If 10% of the entire population were PC-class there wouldn't be much room for 'combatant NPC-class' types, on these figures. Even 1% is more than the 3e DMG figures imply, although my system gives less extremely high-levellers.

BTW I just gave in and ordered MMS:WE from my FLGS - it just sounds too good, and perfect for world-building IMC.

 

[S'mon]

I also tend to have my wizards cluster in university cites, forming colleges rather than spreading them evenly through the populace at large. The remaining wizards tend to go to sparsely populated regions, with a very small number of commercial spellcasters in the non scholastic cities and towns.

Me too - almost all my Wizards are in urban Colleges/Secret Societies, their numbers are tiny compared to the general population (hundreds out of many millions) but their ability to concentrate several dozen wizards at one location makes them potentially very powerful. I tend to use the Sorcerer class for (rare) hedge-wizard types, or the Witch class. Adepts haven't come up much, I'd use the class for non-martial spellcasting priests. The majority of priests IMC are experts or commoners, not Clerics, you don't get a spiritual weapon-wielding war-priest (ie Cleric) in every hamlet IMC.

 

[Celtavian]

re

I'm not saying that GURPS books are inaccurate, merely that they're History Lite in most respects. I've occasionally asked about some historical topic around here and been pointed in the direction of GURPS books and find that they're not really incredible sources. I don't buy many of them though, so remembering specific books that disappointed me is tough. I remember reading GURPS Steampunk (or significant portions of it anyway) recently and being quite disappointed that it was really just Victoriana Lite, with very little info on what steampunk would be like, and a lot of generic info that I could pick up very, very easily in another format on Victorian life.

My personal feeling, on the main topic at hand, is that fantasy is fantasy, not medieval life. I rarely try to convey a medieval feel in my campaigns in the first place. I also wonder how difficult that would be to pull off without really entrenching medieval attitudes and viewpoints into the players as well so they can run their characters appropriately for the setting.

Even if I wanted to do that, I think it'd be too much effort for what you get back in return.

GURP's books give you basic information, but elsewhere in the book, usually near the back, you will find a bibliography listing books that provide more information dealing with the subject matter of the book. I found the historical information in GURP's books to be helpful in presenting an atmosphere for using the material. I don't use GURP's books as a history lesson, but the bibliography is helpful for providing a starting point for further study.