Thought this would help get a cross section of how people use the “rules”.
I’m voting “BRCS with house rules”, but I suspect that some would argue we’re actually using a different setting. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.
Based on your previous comments about picking and choosign and dropping things into a home-brewed setting I would say you are correct.
That is it appears to me that you aren’t using the setting but only portions of the rules.
At the very least it is “a lot of house rules”.
For me, it was simple. The world is called Senthoi, there is no Plane of Shadow, and Blood abilities were removed becasue they confused the DM. glares at other players I’m doing what I can to get rid of house rules slowly but surely, however, but it’s taking time. It took me agest to convince the DM and some of the other players that garrison rules were not “optional” and that they were critical, and a lot of their criticisms of the way BR handled armies stemmed directly from the fact that they saw garrisoning as a cheap way out of paying for your army, as opposed to activiating it as the mush more expensive last resort. sigh
Slowly but surely, slowly but surely. At least we got rid of the “kingdom traits” ideas that meant you bought your kingdom’s background with domain points. (rolls eyes) Next job? Making them realise what holdings are, and why It’s not realistic to have a 6 province country where all of your proivinces are lvl 10, with level ten law and guild. :mad:
Well, this is a difficult choice for me.
I primarily use the 3E mechanic, but i’m not entirely using the BRCS. It’s like 2nd Ed, with a quick and dirty port to d20. In addition, i use my own in-house combat system (armor as DR, defense based on class/level, few hit points, etc). And i use a non-table spell system.
I guess i need to put `other’.
-Fizz
I run with the d20 BRCS, but with a few house-rules. The ones that deviate the most from the official rule-set, is the strategic combat rules. I’ve described the system briefly here.
That said, I must stress one thing about my DM’ing. I’m not a rules lawyer-type. If I feel that the rules interfer with the story in any way, I ignore them.
I’ve just started a 3rd edition BR campaign and I’m remaining fairly loyal to the BRCS. We’re using the random bloodline variant and i’m allowing some expanded prestige classes from sources at my discretion, in addition to some custom-made Birthright prestige classes. I’ve also added a few new demigods, made the Rjurik a bit more aggressive (they now cause trouble for some settlements in Northern Anuire and the Western Isles), and I tweaked the deities a bit.
Beyond those changes it’s almost 100% dead on so far. Later in the game I plan to introduce some Masetian nations in northwest Aduria who abandoned their worship of Masela before Deismaar, which I’d imagine is a significant change from the original game history. Also, Deismaar did not break the land bridge between Aduria and Cerilia, there never was one. Deismaar is a holy spot in Diemed now.
So far we’re running BRCS with sanctioned chapters, no house rules, random variant
Whereas from my perspective I’m absolutely using the setting. We just differ on what we mean by “setting”.
At the very least it is “a lot of house rules”.
Which is where I voted, but that’s a somewhat vague statement. The number of house rules we’re using I could count on one hand - it’s just that the scope of these house rules is probably enough to bump it into “lots”.
I always attempt to remain loyal to original rules. I like to try and keep in the spirit of what the authors intend. However, if something doesn’t make sense, or I just don’t like how it works, I have no qualms about house ruling it, and I do quite often.
i play with D20 BRCS with lot of house rules.
Our group play with BRCS, but keep most randomization and bloodline strength from 2E.
Our group play with D20 BRCS, but keep most randomization and bloodline strength from 2E.
This one confuses me.
The sanctioned chap 2 has variants for randomizing blood lines, strengths and abilities.
It also “revised” the blood score to put it back inline with the 2nd ed numbers.
It did, however change the method for determining number of blood abilities. There is no random method for determining if a scion has any blood abilities only which ones he has.
So, which part of 2nd ed did you keep?
On 8/9/06, nagebenfro <brnetboard@birthright.net> wrote:
> Next job? Making them realise what holdings are, and
> why It`s not realistic to have a 6 province country where all of your
proivinces are lvl 10, with level ten law and guild.
A province in Cerilia is typically between 30 and 40 miles square, or
about 1000 (habitable) square miles, give or take. 1000 is a
convenient number for subsequent discussion.
A level 10 province is approximately 100,000 people.
A typical population density in a late medieval/early renaissance
culture with arable countrysite is about 100 people per square mile
(see http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm ). It takes a lot of labor to
farm using medieval technology.
Relatively poor land would have a population densite of about 30
people per square mile, which corresponds to a province 5 or 6.
Anuire is mostly rich, temperate land, previously forested, farmed and
settled continuously for at least the last 5 centuries, if not the
last 15. It should have population densities on the order of 100 or
120 people per square mile.
I would say the unrealistic countries are all the little duchies with
lots of provinces 3 and 4 and 5 in rich, temperate, arable plains. 25
people per square mile (a province 5) is a quarter of what the
population should be, and a province 3 is 9000 people, less than 1/10
the expected population for that region. This would indicate a plague
that would make the black death look almost merciful by comparison
(estimates put casualties in the bubonic plague of Europe between 1/2
and 2/3), or wars more devestating than most any in human memory- the
30 years war, for instance, a deadly, long-running war by any account,
is variously estimated to have killed between 15 and 30% of Germany`s
population.
Anuire is not noted in any source material as having recently suffered
wars of that scale or significant plague.
A better explanation for the artificially low population of provinces
in BR source material is that the population is there, simply poorly
administered in most cases. A province noted as a 7 (49k people) is
really a 10 with about 50% effective control of the province by the
sovereign. The rest is divided among local barons, counts, knights,
sheriffs, and other vassals of the monarch, or effective ungoverned.
Or perhaps everyone acknowledges the distant, ineffective rule of the
monarch, so you can only collect about half the taxes you might
otherwise.
This helps explain the ease of Ruling provinces in the original rules-
youre not spontaneously attracting thousands of people to the province (or worse, springing them forth fully formed from the overworked wombs of your loyal subjects), youre simply investing in
legal and administrative infrastructure to extend your authority over
all these people.
So I would say a realm of several provinces (10) is not unrealistic at
all, but simply well-administered and prosperous, especially by
Anuirean standards, a center of trade and industry for the region, and
the seat of an influential, effective monarch.
Daniel McSorley
I think my beef with the 10/10/0/0/10 provinces stems from the way I understood that table about province population, and also the blank map that came in the BR box set.
In that box set, there is that blank hex map, where you have all the hexes and the map is designed to draw a 4 province kingdom on. It was my understanding that each /hex/ had that 40 mile diameter.
In addition, I read the table about province population slightly differently, I suppose. I pay more attention to the largest settlement size than the citizen number, and usually take the number of citizens to be the number living in that largest settlement, with that settlement having areas around it (remember, bugger province sizes) equal to settlements listed on levels below the “size” of the province. So for me, a level ten province has at least one metropolis in it with 100,000 people in it. But it might also have a large city of 60,000 somewhere on the other side of the province, and a couple of small towns of 4,000-7,000 people in them in between the cities.
Now, both of those might be wrong, but that’s how I see them. In my understanding, (although I don’t own any of the 2nd ed stuff yet, i’m looking for it at GenCon at the moment) there is only one level ten province on Cerelia? ot me that indicates rarity, or a need for them to be rare large trading metropoli that are recognised as regional hubs of great importance. That is why I feel making an entire nation of them is unrealistic.
Plus, the other reason it gets my goat is that they picked it becasue it meant they were “maxed out” and could get plenty of money from it in taxes, not becasue it reflected how they wanted to represent their kingdoms. I have to get them to realise that the numbers mean something beyond being just numbers.
And this makes a lot of sense.
The base game mechanic tied into province level is province income.
So if they people are actually there but not well-administered then they are not contributing to the realm’s prosperity.
Tolkienesque too. Like Gondor at the time of Lord of the Rings. As the power of Gondor dwindled so did the loyalty of the populations and so the effective base of taxes and enlistment. It took the Return of the King (books not movies) to rally the people back to allegiance to the Throne. I may be misreading it somewhat as I believe it was actually entire areas that broke away, but still what it reminds me of.
I personally like the explanation a lot, and think it should be added into the revised BRCS. Along with raising the difficulty of Rule Province, but that is another topic.
I agree with your explanation regarding population density and rulership, but there is just one thing that doesn’t add up: sources. If all of these people are there from the beginning, either as loners, rogues, bandits, independent localr or whatever, then why aren’t they affecting the source potential of the province until they swear allegiance to the regent?
The affect on sources would come from the infrastructure development. Roads, or paths connecting villages, etc.
The people are spread out so thinnly that the have minimal effect on the environment. It is when groups develop larger centers that major effects on the environment occur. Instead of small personal farms they are creating larger farms so that they can pay tithes and trade with others.