[Urbis] A rule system for organizations and secret societies

[Tonguez]

Cool

I developed a similar system in my homebrew also based on a Moderns 'Wealth' Score. I renamed it 'Influence' and like your system it pretty much is a measure of how much influence a person can exert on others in their Organisation in order to get favours.

My Homebrew has a non-cash society so influence was important in order to access items.

As an extension the Influence system also merges with Authority (which is a Lvl 1 Class ability of the Aristocrat Class) so that a Characters Authority is Level + Cha + Influence (so a Lvl 3 Aristocrat with Cha 2 and Influence +3 has Authority of 3+2+3 = 8

This score determines a couple of things including
1. Highest Level NPC Ally (this person might be higher level than the PC so is an Ally rather than a cohort which means they will help but not blindly..)

2. Size of ones own Faction A Faction is the number of people who will do stuff for the PC and can be assigned to various jobs

eg Faction can be used as a bonus to a skill check - eg for a Gather Information check this would imply that the faction is helping to look for the information

eg if the PC needs to build a rowboat he can asign his faction to this tasks DC = 10+ Cost/Faction assigned/Time (weeks) : DC 10+ (50/8)= 16 vs Craft:Boatbuilding

(NB the Faction rules are a subset of my own Domain management system which allows PCs to build villages and handle populations (eg your regional/organisation leaders at +30)

eg a Level 10 Leader with Influence +30 and Cha +3 has Authority of 43 and could concievably commision the construnction of a Warship (in one year)

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

OK, I altered them slightly, put up example favors and deeds for a society, and put it up here...

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Sweet!.. and so much better formatted for *yoink*ing

One question tho, in the Secondary's section on increasing OS you have "A donation of 100+ gp is DC 5, a donation of 1,000+ gp is DC 10, and a donation of 10,000+ is DC 15"
Aren't those DC's scaling the wrong way?


{edit}.. cool setting! It looks like a very interesting campaign to mess around in.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Sweet!.. and so much better formatted for *yoink*ing

One question tho, in the Secondary's section on increasing OS you have "A donation of 100+ gp is DC 5, a donation of 1,000+ gp is DC 10, and a donation of 10,000+ is DC 15"
Aren't those DC's scaling the wrong way?

Nope - the more money you give the organization, the higher the DC, and the more likely that you will increase your OS bonus.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

S0, a DC 5 goal... scratch that...

You mean there is no OS check for this action. You simply compare the Goals DC to you current OS and use the chart to determine amount gained.

Meaning a "Rank and File Member" of the Secondaries can upgrade to a "Respected Member" by donating 100gp 5 times...

That makes sense.... sorry. its early morning

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

{edit}.. cool setting! It looks like a very interesting campaign to mess around in.

Thanks. Incidentally, I just uploaded a new PDF Playtest File, which contains all material written for the setting so far - more than 97,000 words - as well as two brand new maps which are actually useful for a change...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I've looked over a friend's copy of the PHBII, and while I can see some similarities, there are also some significant differences:

- Some of the affiliations provide power boosts for the character himself - bonus feats, damage resistance, reduced cost for magic items, and so on. I wanted to avoid that - I wanted to make the advantages of being a member in such an organization to be purely social. If you can justify the advantages you get as "knowing the right people who are willing to do things for you", then you can justify it as favors. But that doesn't increase your combat prowess or supernatural abilities...

- The advantages the PHBII affiliations grant are also binary - either you have them, or you don't. With my concept, you can actually spend accumulated favors, which IMO is more realistic and keeps the PCs motivated to constantly do things for their organization.

- Finally, it is rather easy to get high Affiliation scores with some of these PHBII organizations - often, you get +1 to your score for every X amount of gold pieces you spend. But the wealth of a character is supposed to increase geometrically with level in D&D, so once characters get sufficiently wealthy, they will soon "top out". With my system, it gets the more difficult to rise in rank the higher you are already, and such problems are thus avoided.

 

[paradox42]

I've looked over a friend's copy of the PHBII, and while I can see some similarities, there are also some significant differences:

Yes there are (having read over your OS rules myself now), and that's definitely good.

- Some of the affiliations provide power boosts for the character himself - bonus feats, damage resistance, reduced cost for magic items, and so on. I wanted to avoid that - I wanted to make the advantages of being a member in such an organization to be purely social. If you can justify the advantages you get as "knowing the right people who are willing to do things for you", then you can justify it as favors. But that doesn't increase your combat prowess or supernatural abilities...

In a few organizations, particularly magical colleges and psionic gatherings, it makes sense for members of the organization to get special powers. But perhaps the best mechanic for filling this hole is the prestige class, which is already well established in the game. I agree with your reasoning, I just leave a little room for doubt that some organization, somewhere, can't grant occasional combat/power bonuses too.

- The advantages the PHBII affiliations grant are also binary - either you have them, or you don't. With my concept, you can actually spend accumulated favors, which IMO is more realistic and keeps the PCs motivated to constantly do things for their organization.

Agreed- this is what I really like about your system! It makes it much more flexible and elegant IMO. Very nice work. Of course, it also makes devotion to multiple organizations much more difficult, but that's really as it should be for mortal characters.

- Finally, it is rather easy to get high Affiliation scores with some of these PHBII organizations - often, you get +1 to your score for every X amount of gold pieces you spend. But the wealth of a character is supposed to increase geometrically with level in D&D, so once characters get sufficiently wealthy, they will soon "top out". With my system, it gets the more difficult to rise in rank the higher you are already, and such problems are thus avoided.

This, I think, speaks to how steep you want the level curve to be in your setting- for a game designed to work well at low- to mid-levels, as many people insist D&D is, it makes sense to allow for characters to achieve total leadership by the mid-levels or early high-levels (say, 13th or 14th). You really need to answer the question of how high in level you want your organization leaders to be, on average.

Another item for consideration here is that some of the affiliations in PHB2 are postulated to be tiny things like local street gangs. For such small-time enterprises, requiring donations on the order of tens of thousands of gp makes less sense than the PHB2's faster method, IMO. Small-time organizations should require small expenditures to achieve top standing. But then again, such small organizations should allow comparitively small benefits to their members; they're simply not large enough to make Big Things happen.

Now for Urbis, which seems to be designed from the ground up with powerful stuff in mind, and for organizations which have a role in the entire world (or at least a large portion of it), I agree it makes little or no sense to allow a typical organization to have leaders rise that quickly and that low-level. World-spanning organizations in such a world should be the top tier of the population, and thus slowing down the wealth-to-standing ratio is a smart move.

 

[Nifft]

Actually, I'd avoid using organizations to get magic items or expensive equipment for free - it would be too easy to break the game with something like that.

Free?! No way in Baator!

No, I mean:

- The Alchemical Abjuratist Association makes anti-toxin and cloaks of resistance. You CANNOT get a new cloak without a friend in the Association.

- The Conjurer's Conclave and the Evocer's Enclave each make a lot of wands. They compete, so if you can buy wands cheap from one, you cannot buy wands from another. (And they're smart enough to screw both members of a party who try to mix & match.) The entry requirement for each group is basically "kill a member of the other group". Much ill-will follows.

- The Talons of Transumutation are your one-stop shop for ability enhancers. They charge 5x the "market" price for mental ability boosters (to non-members). Their motto: "Screw you, I can turn into an owlbear."

- The Niffty Necromancer's Niche has cornered the market on certain items -- robes of bones, of course, but also items like amulets of natural armor.


Anyway. Enjoy.

-- N