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Post by Linde (x-GM) on Aug 9, 2019 22:16:24 GMT
Saw the posts in the chat.
Burning Wheel..... Interesting thought.
Would you use it for domain level of a game as a whole or only adventures and such?
My initial thoughts on domain level:
Porting it to domain level you could use something like new holding level as threshold for rule holding, other actions are more tricky.
You could let domain actions be extended tests with x month(s) per cycle.
Regency points / Artha: Fate: X RP Persona: X*3RP Deed:?
Or you could let holdings generate Artha instead of RP depending on level and be spent on domain actions just as on any other roll: lvl 1-2: 1 Fate per level lvl 3: 1 Persona lvl 4: 1 persona and 1 fate lvl 5: 1 persona and 2 fate lvl 6: 2 persona lvl 7: 2 persona and 1 fate lvl 8: 2 persona and 2 fate lvl 9: 3 persona lvl 10: 1 deed? (This solution would also need actions like investiture to have RP costs converted to Artha costs.)
Extra artha could then also be earned or spent in adventures.
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Post by Linde (x-GM) on Aug 9, 2019 22:37:47 GMT
Instead of take 10: Buying successes: 1 success per 3 dice in the dice pool Instead of take 20: Could be simulated by buying successes for multiple cycles of the extended test.
So people will still have a way of avoiding risk (though at the cost of potential efficiency)
Magic: Tricky. I would lean towards creating special actions for magic/temple domains "spells" if you like. Free form faith and art magic are fine for adventures and battles, but taking it to domain level as bless spells and such seems a bit funky.
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Post by Elyssia Whiterose (SWT) on Aug 12, 2019 7:57:24 GMT
Important caveat with Burning Wheel: Some characters are going to be more powerful than others. People have to accept that, for the most part, their characters are going to be flawed in some ways and that once in a while, they'll run into a character who had everything handed to them on a silver platter. The young lord who grew up in a lavish lifestyle is simply better at ruling than the thug who managed to rise to power and rule over his shadow guild.
I think it's important to ask what we're playing:
Alternative 1: You play a single character who is defined by their birthright: A divine right to rule due to the immense power flowing through their veins.
Alternative 2: You play a realm and a collection of important characters that help define that realm, including a character who is defined as per above.
My impression (and impressions do vary!) is that Birthright works better when you're outside looking in - when you sorta try to tell the realm what to do and the realm sorta kinda listens to you and does its best to follow your commands, but ultimately you're still just one person and there are many people beneath you with ambitions of their own. That also means you can have several players involved with one realm, trying to steer it according to their beliefs and traits.
Besides granting Artha for holdings (or via spending RP), Artha can then also be granted for players who follow the rules set forth in Burning Wheel - so the more you impact the story or are impacted by the story, the more Artha you earn, allowing you to shape the story further.
I've always thought it was weird how a vast empire and a small guild in Birthright have the same number of actions - granted the empire has more resources towards their actions, but you'd think they could hire more diplomats, more administrators, more builders, etc... and get more stuff done than the small guild who, with sufficient resources, can accomplish almost as much. A focus on the single character helps with this, I think.
Character interaction would also increase, as you'd have maybe two or three realms with several players in each, both working together and against each other. It would be more sensible, I think, for each character to then go around trying to rule holdings in the name of their realm (a holding could potentially have a sub-owner that would retain benefits like RP/Artha and some income).
I think they did some work with this through Burning Empires? But I've never read that pdf and I don't think it's available.
I know they've applied some really weird interpretations of their rules, like making a d44 fund (nevermind that ob 10 is supposed to be the max ob, but I've found Luke frequently ignores the rules he writes and complains others ignores... but I digress) specifically so they can play characters who run cities, kingdoms or empires.
Overall, I think I'd be interested in trying to simplify it quite a bit and try to build it from the ground-up with inspiration from the existing RoE ruleset. There's a lot of good stuff in there, but I think there's a lot of overly complicated stuff too. Applying some boardgaming design principles, I think that the rules aspect of it has to be simple and quick for it to be fun, allowing the roleplay to be in-depth and as time-consuming as people want to be.
A starting point could be holdings:
A lvl 0 holding under optimal conditions (friendly province, good weather, no competition) should at most be Ob 1 to establish.
Ruling up to a lvl 1 holding under similar conditions should be Ob 1 as well.
And so on and so forth for Lvl 2-10.
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Post by Mercia(andreas) on Aug 12, 2019 16:29:06 GMT
Perhaps, i would be interested in a Burning Wheel Domain game, i just currently have very little experience with Burning wheel, but if its a good GM or merely one on the same page, any campaign can be great.
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Post by Linde (x-GM) on Aug 13, 2019 21:16:05 GMT
Ok. Basic kingdom building from Burning Wheel as I remember it(don't have the book on me): 1: Build your character with appropriate traits to be a ruler through noble/merchantile/sorcerous/priestly lifepaths. 2: Purchase your city/castle/mansion/farm/HQ (property) with starting resources 3: Purchase relationships with key figures in your domain, most importantly your second in command. 4: Purchase an affiliation with your domain. 5: Purchase a reputation as ruler of your domain. 6: If you couldn't afford the above at character gen, then gain it in game as described below 7: Rejoice, you are now the ruler of your domain.
Gain property: Pass check. Most likely a single resource check for small properties, maybe several checks ending with passing a resource check if trying to purchase larger properties.
Gain influence: Gain reputations or affiliations through trait votes anchored in roleplaying, or by GM granting/increasing them based on the unfolding story.
Loose Property could then be: fail resource maintenance check to an extend where your resources are permanently reduced by being taxed to zero. The lower resources are then explained by having to cede land or loose key influence over a holding.
loosing influence would then be: Loose reputations or affiliations by upgrading them to other traits through trait votes anchored in roleplaying, or by GM reducing them based on the unfolding story.
IMO greatest strength of above system: Versatile
IMO greatest weakness of above system: It may be unclear to players how to strengthen their domain as well as how to hurt their enemies if that is what they want to do.
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Suggestions and advice: Require each player to have a belief about their domain as well as highly recommending a belief about another player character. If allowing born life paths from the wiki, then don't allow foundlings to choose both optional traits on their trait list as half-human-quarter-dwarf-quarter-demon-sorcerers are very broken. You could reserve such monstrous creations for the realm of NPC villains if you like killing player characters. Less is better when it comes to tampering with the burning wheel rules, so I think you're right in simplifying RoE as much as you can before merging it with BW.
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Post by Linde (x-GM) on Aug 13, 2019 21:58:49 GMT
Holdings could be represented with affiliations, and buildings or features of the land could then be reputations/traits that could belong to the holding rather than a character.
An affiliation with the merchants in a city could represent a guilds holdings there.
An affiliation with the city guard as well as affiliation with the nobles in the city could be a landed domains sway over law and manor.
Affiliation with clergy there would then represent temple holdings.
Reputations for the city as being well defended, or being a center of trade, or whatnot, could then represent buildings or features of the land or population.
Thus the Guildmaster of Twag might have a level 2 affiliation with the merchants as well as a level 1 affiliation with the city guard in the city of Twag. The guilder use his connections with the city guard and traders to minimize tax and maximize profits. Investing back into the city (represented by increasing difficulty of resource check for maintaining kingdom) and using influence elsewhere to get rarer and rarer goods through the city (represented by diplomacy to change trade routes and adventuring to get access to rare goods), slowly over time Twag becomes a center of trade for the region gaining a trait that allows anyone who use an affiliation with the merchants there to gain a bonus on a resource roll, the ability to call-on and re-roll failures on said roll.(Failure after using re-roll would/could then reduce affiliation as you're proving a bad investment for the merchants) Anyone who is affiliated with the merchants in the city of Twag is thus eligible for the bonus and rival guilds start vying for influence in the city bringing both potential profits and problems for the Guild of Twag.
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Post by Linde (x-GM) on Aug 13, 2019 22:39:28 GMT
The guildmaster of Twag decide to extend his operations to the neighboring cities of Dwag and Bwag. GM decide that due to distance, the guildmasters affiliations in Twag can be used at -1 efficiency in those neighboring cities, so he now have to choose between trying to upgrade his main affiliations within the city of Twag to allow them to grant him greater influence on his actions in both neighboring cities or create new affiliations and reputations in each of the neighboring cities to build up his influence there as well as extending his sphere of influence even further.
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Post by Elyssia Whiterose (SWT) on Aug 14, 2019 5:40:37 GMT
That's a really nice concept to build from.
Focusing on holdings for the moment, and applying a mix of BW and RoE, I get the following:
Contesting and ruling holdings: Can either be tests of a skill vs set obstacle, versus, or bloody versus
Test v. obstacle: You're building up new trade outposts where no one has been before or where you aren't directly competing with anyone (all others are, at worst, neutral towards you). Obstacle is modified by the size holding you're trying to establish, as well as local and global modifiers. So trying to build up a trade outpost during a blizzard? Crazy idea.
Versus test: You're trying to establish some logging operations on frontier lands, but a competitor of yours is trying to do the same with their mining operations. Only one can prevail.
Bloody versus test: You, the local magistrate, and your competitor, the brigand knight, are each trying to enact your interpretation of the law upon the land. You both hold some sway already. You must both defend your existing holdings, while fighting to increase your own and devalue your opponents.
Create Holding: You are assumed to have a lvl 0 holding wherever you reasonably have presence, but must otherwise first establish presence.
Skill: chosen per character per holding, e.g. a rogue needs subterfuge to improve guild & trade, a merchant needs bartering to do the same
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Post by Linde (x-GM) on Aug 14, 2019 7:42:30 GMT
That looks great!.
looking at how a holding should work in granting income and bonuses to actions:
Provinces and holdings have a level from 0 to 10
The level of a province represent the maximum a single regular holding type within may have. Types of regular holdings: Law, Guild, Temple (Manor and/or trade could be added to add complexity)
Special holdings: Source. These holdings are capped by civilization and their maximum level are thus 10 minus province level.
Regular Holdings grant combined affiliations, reputations and structures equal to the level of the holding. (So a level 5 law holding in the city of Twag could be represented by a level 2 affiliation with the tax collectors of Twag, a level 1 affiliation with the city guard of Twag as well as a lvl 2 fortification in the province)
(incorporating artha income a lvl 1-2 affiliation/reputation/structures granted by holdings could produce a fate each, while a lvl 3 would produce a persona? or this feature could be abandoned)
Source holdings grant magic power in some way (depending on chosen system of magic) Temple holdings aid faith in some way as well (depending on how powerful faith should be)
Holdings are ruled & created with relevant skills as approved by GM at an obstacle reflecting new holding level, minimum 1.
Provinces are ruled with relevant skills as well, but should favor skills on nobles skill list and should be higher base obstacle than holdings. Perhaps applying obstacle penalties for ruling a province with available holding levels? This would ensure that some time passes before the province is ruled again, or simply require a set amount of time to pass between the ruling of a province..
As money is represented by the resource stat the easiest way to represent income would be to let relevant affiliations granted by holdings to aid on resource checks
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Post by Elyssia Whiterose (SWT) on Aug 14, 2019 14:57:06 GMT
Given that each roll may use 1-2? Fate, 3 persona and 1-2 deeds, I would probably handle artha as follows:
Role-playing your bits can grant bonus artha at GM discretion (this encourages roleplay). Deed points might able be available via Adventures or similarly spectacular roleplay.
Holdings grant you two persona and one fate for every three holdings (either per province or total, whichever is easier), as Persona-Fate-Persona, ad infinitum.
Affiliation represents holdings directly aligned with your interests. Should there be a cap on this?
Reputation: is it different enough from affiliation? I'm not sure it is. I recommend that it doesn't represent holdings, but instead may either help (or hinder) your other actions to a limit of D3. Unlike affiliation, using reputation wouldn't risk your holdings, and both positive and negative reputation are helpful under different conditions.
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Post by Elyssia Whiterose (SWT) on Aug 14, 2019 15:22:22 GMT
Source holdings are necessary for gifted characters to use magic. Since characters are inherently unbalanced, it's fine if magic is unbalanced. Sorcerer-kings probably shouldn't be a thing.
Elves, dwarves and orcs can't use magic, but have their grief/songs, greed and hatred to cover source holdings.
Prosperity: Should this remain? Temples and law are both crucial towards prosperity, but maybe prosperity overcomplicates things? Alternative - prosperity is a penalty/bonus to all actions & all characters: No exceptions, including increasing prosperity (balanced because you also have a bonus to decrease prosperity).
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Post by Linde (x-GM) on Aug 14, 2019 20:35:50 GMT
Magic restrictions seem fair. I think Affiliations should be capped at 3, and good point about reputations not being part of holdings, I mainly saw it as a holding having a reputation rather than the holding granting a reputation to the ruler.... but such duality in the use of the concept of reputations is bound to create confusion and should be avoided. As far as I remember you can only spend a single fate on each roll as you can either open end a roll, or re-roll a single dice that failed in an open ended test. Fate is spent after the initial roll, so you know how great your chance of success will be if you invest it. Persona is more powerful as it allows you to add up to 3 dice to the roll, but it has to be spent before rolling the dice. Persona is generally more scarce so you often avoid spending them unless you're really invested in the outcome of the test, but I don't think it will be game breaking to award 2 personas for each fate for holdings. Especially since it will be equal for all. It would be fine to add prosperity if you need more actions for people to focus on. Loyalty, that in birthright is comprised of prosperity and stability could perhaps be expressed as a modification on tests just as you said If that is the case each domain could have a stability score and each province could have a prosperity score that ranges from -3 to +3 that is increased or reduced as easily/hard as holding level (just to keep stuff simple). That being said, I don't know if the game would need that level of complexity. But I could see high level rule holdings being hard without ability to stack some bonuses or a deed or call on trait in the pocket, so perhaps stability & prosperity would have merit in that regard, but then again artha awards from holdings should be able to give the players enough of an edge that ruling holdings is not a completely impossible task....
Tough choice..
Personally I think I would add both stability and prosperity, if nothing else it will give a non violent outlet for players to affect other domains and I would hate that players felt pushed into armed conflict by lack of other options for conflict.
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Post by Elyssia Whiterose (SWT) on Aug 14, 2019 21:03:12 GMT
Burning Wheel allows:
Help, ForK, Die Traits, On-Call Traits, Advantage, Fate, Persona, Deeds, Affiliation, Reputation, and Linked tests to stack.
Help should require other player characters (or important NPCs - so not your usual administrators).
ForKs are tricky - they're built into Burning Wheel, but they require a lot of finagling. Maybe best to leave that to adventures?
Die Traits are clear.
On-Call Traits are clear (do not add dice)
Advantage are GM-fiat
Fate is clear (do not add dice)
Persona is clear (up to 3 dice)
Deeds (double base dice)
Affiliation (up to 3 dice)
Reputation (up to 3 dice)
Linked Test (up to X dice, GM-fiat)
Stability and prosperity could be reflected via reputation?
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Post by Linde (x-GM) on Aug 15, 2019 8:33:55 GMT
Affiliations and reputations gennerally only work on circles, but I would lean towards allowing them in tests where they are relevant to actions on domain level.
ForKs could be added relatively easy to domain level: If you have a skill that thematically would aid the task, you can ForK it into the primary test. Failure consequence added: +1 ob to your next kingdom maintainence resource test.
Yes, stability & prosperity would then work as reputations that also affect domain level actions.
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Post by Elyssia Whiterose (SWT) on Aug 15, 2019 18:11:19 GMT
Circles would be a direct equivalent to hire help and directly related actions.
To simplify, if affiliation = holding level, then holding level provides a bonus to directly related actions. Conceptually, that would mean Guild Affiliation (1) provides a +1D to Espionage rolls in that region.
The problem with reputation = stability is that stability is global, where reputation is more local. The problem with prosperity = reputation is that prosperity affects everyone equally (or should).
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