Strongholds?

[gunderval]

"Story" or "Tactics" or "Simulation"

It's about the creative/play agenda at work in them wanting to do this?

If it's about "story", having a home and family etc., then don't sweat the costing/taxes and book-keeping stuff. Make sure the household staff have names, go all "upstairs/downstairs" on them.

If it's about being "realistic" then the more detailed taxes, costs, book-keeping etc. come into it.

If it's about "having a defensible stronghold for when the bad guys come", well then, as said above 3.5 is a problem. It's difficult for a PC to finance a residence that is secure, or even provides a decent amout of guaranteed warning time, within the expected wealth limits etc. etc. Even moreso to have that end up then looking/feeling like historical structures the player may be imagining or that many modules give you (nice bay windows with a view of river?). Some of the Ravenloft sets have beautiful stock card images and floorplans you can use for example. The solutions are there in rules with permanent spells etc etc. but create costs or assumptions that when reverse-engineered back for the bad guys make the game not work. The game is about being in a dungeon. Stronghold Builders Guidebook is a valiant effort but expensive for PCs.

All depends on this being your thing to run as well.

 

[Drowbane]

In our Planescape Campaign, my PC, Maligant, finally got his Keep (mostly) finished.

I certainly agree that Players hate to pay taxes in game... to avoid the issue of taxes, Maligant (with some minor help from his army of ghouls, shadows, and vampire spawn) simply took control of the royal palace and has declared himself King. The former king's greatest champions are now my undead servitors.

Our party just stepped into the Quicksilver Hourglass (perhaps some of you have heard of this Dungeon Module?), I expect my Reign to be challenged while I am away saving the Multiverse... but you know, thats cool...

God, I love this game. hehe

Edit: at the end of the first session of that module, we lost our first PC. Everybody else had just hoppped through the portal into the Demiplane when our Dragon companion lost his head to one of six Crawling Heads we had neglected to finish off.

edit 2: M's Keep is somewhat complex. The main structure is the Royal Palace he recently stole as his own. The rest of it is spread out throughout the planes via portals. For example: the Throne Room now rests in a pocket Demiplane with some planar traits that are incredibly inhospitable to life. Specifically; Negative energy, frostfel-cold, and no oxygen. Oddly enough, he left the Main Structure to the last as it just needed to be connected via portals after everything else was built (and paid for).

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

In our Planescape Campaign, my PC finally got his Keep (mostly) finished.

I certainly agree that Players hate to pay taxes in game... to avoid the issue of taxes, Maligant and his army of undead took over the nation he raised his keep in. The former king's greatest champions are now my undead servitors.

God, I love this game. hehe

Yeah with regards to taxes and authority that tends to be my experience both as player and DM. Usually the PC's usurp authority in whatever region they make their home by virtue of personal power. Then again it says something that in almost 20 years I've only ever played paladins 5 times and of those the only one that didn't fall was based on a WH40K Ultramarine as inspiration.

 

[Warren Okuma]

In our Planescape Campaign, my PC, Maligant, finally got his Keep (mostly) finished.

I certainly agree that Players hate to pay taxes in game... to avoid the issue of taxes, Maligant (with some minor help from his army of ghouls, shadows, and vampire spawn) simply took control of the royal palace and has declared himself King. The former king's greatest champions are now my undead servitors.

Funny, that's how I end up running kingdoms as well, as a PC tax rebellion. Always hit the treasury first.

 

[Slapzilla]

I've learned that the players should get what they want. If realistic, drafty, crumbly if inherited, still settling if new, expensive and vulnerable strongholds are what they want, then don't burn down every inn they stay at overnight. If it bores you, the make them do the homework on it. Also make sure they include the property tax payments on it. Include the levy for military support. The state church's tithes. The hunting and fishing rights fees need to be there too. If they don't like it, remind them that the Sheriff will take it personally.

 

[ruleslawyer]

I've run two campaigns (the two longest I've DMed) that featured strongholds. One was a BECMI game in which all four characters participated in realm-building; it so happened that one player (the fighter) was a slight latecomer to the campaign and a casual player, so the others set up his PC as castellan and assumed that he was at home minding the domain if the player didn't show up. I built the campaign around enlarging the dominion and safeguarding it, and used the C/M series of adventures, which do a nice job of building story hooks into running a domain. In our final story arc, the domain's anointed ruler (the cleric PC) was forced to travel forward into the future several generations along with his friends to save the domain of his great-great-granddaughter. Good stuff.

The second campaign was a 1e/2e/3e FR campaign that lasted a long time and in which the PCs ended up rescuing from evil three separate domains scattered across the Realms. They connected the three domains by means of gates (permanent teleport spells), but really only focused on expanding the third one, which was a small realm centered around the town of Glister north of the Moonsea. In time, that realm became a strong power, but one constantly under threat by giants, ogres, orcs, drow elves, and the cruel city-states of the Moonsea (Zhentil Keep, Mulmaster et al), which kept the PCs on their toes and led to several grueling adventures as well as a few massed battles and a great deal of power-mongering and diplomacy. The game worked in part because I set up rules to keep much of the "boring" stuff offstage, and also because by the time the domain was substantial enough to be a problem to manage, the PCs were personally powerful enough, and had enough cohorts and other loyalists, to deal with the majority of issues without each and every one necessitating a full-blown adventure.

 

[Drowbane]

I've learned that the players should get what they want. If realistic, drafty, crumbly if inherited, still settling if new, expensive and vulnerable strongholds are what they want, then don't burn down every inn they stay at overnight. If it bores you, the make them do the homework on it. Also make sure they include the property tax payments on it. Include the levy for military support. The state church's tithes. The hunting and fishing rights fees need to be there too. If they don't like it, remind them that the Sheriff will take it personally.

And be prepared for your PCs to take over the Kingdom as response.

 

[exile]

It seems to me that the concept of building a stronghold has become one of increasingly less importance throughout the editions of the game. That said, it can be fun, and, well, uh...I think chicks dig it. Last night our group of adventurers won a house (not a stronghold mind you, just a house), and it was just the happiest I've ever seen two women at a gaming table. They immediately started talking about sinking money onto the thing and what kinds of businesses they could run out of it. Pure joy, and all of this came on the heels of an intense exploration of a flooded dungeon overrun by sahaugin (sp?) and monstrous pet sharks.

Chad

 

[Kheti sa-Menik]

I'd say it all depends on the flavor of the campaign, region you're in, etc.

In one campaign I played in, where the DM set the game on a large landmass in the northwest corner of Greyhawk (so he could use the Greyhawk world motif and some elements but have the PCs start in a place without much historical baggage), it was mostly untamed wilderness with a smallish portion of the landmass inhabited by third or fourth generation settlers so there was plenty of land to grab and settle in. The PCs were all from the same general area.

Also, the PCs saw no reason to go to the main continent. So we adventured in the Northlands (as the isle was called), eventually earning title and carving out holdings. And there was so much to do right there...two separate goblin wars, giant incursion, drow problems, political infighting amongst the various lords, a valley of kobolds watched over by a dragon, etc. At the end of the day, the PCs just made the short trip to their lands and stronghold. The only time we ever ventured to the main continent is when we launched an incursion into Rauxes, but a threat to our stronghold in the Northlands drew us back.

So in that case, between plot hooks, what the players were interested in pursuing, and the tone of the campaign, stronghold building, politicking, taxation, nationbuilding, etc was important.


The campaign that I am running these days has players with PCs that have varying racial and cultural differences, come from opposite ends of the campaign world, and no ones' character is really the stronghold building type. Plus they have been bobbing around the continent for their careers and haven't put roots down anywhere.
I don't worry about taxation or the like and won't until the PCs decide they want to start building a stronghold.

Flavor and PCs are the varying factors when deciding whether to do strongholds.

 

[Raistlin717]

But do you believe that a high-level character should build a stronghold even at epic levels??
Because most PC's worry that their strongholds will come under siege and its true they require alot of protection of opposing forces and can easily be destroyed with the right abilities/spells.