At 08:32 AM 1/15/2012, Kaz wrote:
>I recently came across the Birthright Campaign Setting Rulebook, DM
>Screen, Atlas of Cerilia and Ruins of Empire used for around 15
>bucks. I gobbled them up. The Warcards were not available.
Welcome to the BR community. Madness is optional.
>I plan to run a Birthright campaign using the Rules Cyclopedia. My
>original plan was to use the mass combat rules in the RC, but I
>posted over at therpgsite.com and a couple guys recommended I not do
>that. I decided I would use the rules as written for the time being.
>But, as mentioned before, I don`t have the Warcards or access to any.
I dont think youre missing much by not having access to
warcards. I never liked them. Hence:
Can the War and Conquest PDF I downloaded from here completely
replace that system? How good is it?
Well, I wrote it, so due to that bias I can`t particularly comment
about how "good: the system is. I do think it works better than
warcards by a longshot, but there are many systems for resolving
large scale combat that you could use. However, the W&C system is
meant to mesh with the existing BR domain rules. Folks might argue
about how well it actually does that… but other systems might
require more than a little massaging to make them work at the scale
of the BR domain. For instance, a “unit” in some games might be
freakishly large in BR terms, or might really just be just a bit
larger than what most people would find comfortable for adventure
level combat (squads or a few dozen individuals) which is a bit too
small to be the right fit to replace warcards or just fit with the
20-30 mile distances of provinces. Where other systems (including
warcards) articulate the numbers of creatures in their respective
units, the W&C system abstracts large scale combat in a way
comparable to how the domain rules abstract provinces and holdings.
>Also, any other advice you can give me in regards to running a
>Birthright campaign and running it with an alternate edition of D&D,
>would be greatly appreciated. My plan for now is to have the
>characters start blooded but not as regents and make them claim
>their crown. Something akin to what I`ve read of the adventure King
of the Giantdowns. In fact, if I can get my hands on that module, I
may just run it.
My biggest piece of advice is this: err on the side of the campaign
setting. That is, dont let the rules of a system that you are using cancel out the basic premises of the campaign. When theres a
contradiction between the rules and the campaign, the campaign should
when if at all practicable. Other folks might come up with a
different set of themes, but I`d suggest the main BR themes are:
- Bloodline.
- The Shadow World.
- The threat of awnsheghlien.
- Races are racist.
- Magic is relatively rare compared to standard D&D settings but
still everywhere, just not in the form of magic items. - Politics, politics, politics.
Hope that helps,
Gary