Rulers and Styles of Play

Dungeons & Dragons The Royal Library
1

Whether you rule a guild, a temple, sources, or provinces, there are three ways to play Birthright. Players can adventure exclusively (and adventures can be realm oriented or not, players can focus on the wargame aspect of the game, aquiring GB, RP, and spending time (both IC and OOC) on the realm as the instrument of play, and of course you can combine them into a hybrid style of play.

When considering characters, the D&D game itself is designed for the adventure style of play. The realm part of the game was all new, and characters were not designed to win at this level of play. They are designed to do something else. A good realm character would be good at doing realm things, getting more GB, or RP, or really holding on to the loyalty of his people, planning and implementing realm actions, and commanding units in warfare. Given the way classes are designed in D&D it would make sense that a character would be really good at one of these and decent and another one or two, and weak at another two or three.

I know that people who play the adventure style of play see no use for these kinds of characters. But for those who either play Birthright like the old computer game, or like some PBeM’s in which play is based on the realm, not the adventure, there is the question of the character who is good at non-adventuring things.

Its also the case that many people just don’t like to see characters who are bad at what they are doing just because no one has devised a class for that activity. In most games, any activity outside of adventuring, is poorly or just not represented by class skills or abilities. But, in fact its just as easy to suppose that the commoner class isn’t someone who is bad at everything, he’s someone who is good at non-game things, like being a good parent. But in the BR setting, some of these activities make sense. A financier, whether a guilder, templar, or province ruler, someone who can really get the GB to come in makes sense, especially if play revolves around aquiring and allocating GB rather than the dungeon crawl.

Perhaps rather than looking at guilder and noble (which isn’t a really good governing class, but just a noble fighter), I suggest we look at functions pf the realm experience, and we should get natural classes based on these things. An Int based financier, who brings in the money, and may have secondary benefits in organing realm actions. A Wis based figure who is deeply connected with their realm. Not only do they get better regency collection, but they are more aware of what is going on in their realm. Charisma based beloved ruler, who has bonuses to increase and avoid decreases to their loyalty, and may get some minor benefits to RP collection as well.

2

One possibility I have flirted with is similar to the old Dark-Sun idea of a character tree with each player having a realm-level character and an adventure-level character.

This does however have great-captain type issues, and players who identify with the regent exclusively might find the system unsatisfying. The big problem is probably going to be with source holders where realm-level play tends to be limited, if explosive - the wizard winds up using the same character at both adventure and realm level play and therefore advance more swiftly than other characters.

Alternatively all characters could have classes in both realm-level and adventure-level classes, if the two types of class did not impact on each other (i.e. being a charisma-based ruler had no impact on adventure level play) then the level of one could be ignored when looking at the progression of the other - although this could have issues relating to skills and the like.

To make a ‘two-lane’ class system like this work, realm-level characters would need to have no or minimum hit points and saves, BAB, etc - although they should have no use for them; otherwise the realm levels will impact adventure level play and distort challenge ratings and the like. That does however beg the question of what such characters do have beyond skills, feats and abilities - although what else do they actually need?

The problem area in two-lane characters will probably be skills useful to both adventure and realm level play. Diplomacy based characters (bards, priests, etc) would be the most likely characters to have skills which overlap.

One final problem is how to deal with characters with very high levels in adventure/realm classes and very low levels in the other - are your players going to be happy that their veteran L15 fighter is no better at running a kingdom than a L1 fighter fresh off the farm? I can see arguments both ways.

3

Or play non-class based systems.

4

This is really interesting, Andrew.

Suppose it works this way, every scion character (someone with a bloodline) gets and additional 2 regency skill points per level, and an additonal feat based on character level (just like on table 3-2, pg 22 of the PHB) that is only good for Regency feats.

Then go through the existing skills and BR feats and identify any that are really good for rulers of domains (Knowledge (Law), Administration, &c) and call them Regency skills, which means you can spend regency skill points on them. Any character can also buy them with regualr skill points, but regency skill points can only be spent on regency skills (BTW, here is your guilder with 10 skill points if he’s a rogue). Likewise with regency feats. Any general feat can aquire a regency feat, which makes the Noble suddenly able to purchase Regency feats, if he likes. But the feats aquired by a scion can only be used to aquire feats with the regency descriptor. Then make feat trees that acomplish what I was describing, a finance feat tree, a realm loyalty feat tree, a realm-sensitive feat tree, and so on. So that every scion character would simultaneously get better at ruling a realm, and adventuring. At the same time the NPC classes would get the same regency progression. So the 9th level Expert or Aristocrat would still be as good a ruler as the 9th level PC, but not in adventuring.

This is intriging. We need to keep Andrew around.

5

On the discussion concerning player characters at realm-level, I want to make some comments.

I am sorry to raise the question that where is the fun if we operate Birthright exclusively on realm-level? Imagine at first, maybe it is fun because the players can clearly know their achievement by checking the number of their total holding level. What is next? Blindly working for a bigger number until the re-unification of the old empire? As a DM, I will try to move away from that kind of mentality.

Whether a PC ruler be a good one, it depends on the DM. I think the DM is somehow like a god in developing the history of the player’s realm. The history can be deterministic: The player’s realm will be progressive, static or in decline. And I think after several domain turns, your players will feel the general trend of the history.

For exmaple, in a province (0), 4 or 5 blooded PCs make themselves regents of holding (0). Through the first few adventures, the priest regent spreads his teaching in the province, the fighter regent gains acceptance of his leadership from the local people, the wizard regent accidentally discovers some locations of source holding and the party makes friends with more and more mportant NPCs in the province. The players will feel they are in a progressive trend. In this case, making progression makes good ruler.

On the other hand, a PC ruler may have a realm with 7 provinces with all types of holding. There are several power struggles between different regents at provincial level or regional level. Then, Lieutenants get assassinated, Treasure was robbed, One or two provinces are being invaded and one is under rebellion at the same time. These may even force each PC to work individually on different events at the same time. Then, the PC rulers will know … in this case, slowing down the decline can be regarded as a great achievement.

6

But these stats exists?I see only the classic strenght,dex,const,int,wis and charisma!

7

If you make regency feats based around a military commander-type ruler then these could be fighter feats as well.

I’m not sure how the regency skill points and feats would go down in a scion/unblooded mixed party - you already have the ‘freebies!’ issue on bloodline abilities (allow Irdeggman has fixed this to a degree in the brcs) and this will amplify the ‘favouratism’. Although if the regent skills have little use in adventure play it shouldn’t be a problem.

Possible regent level skills: Administrate (brcs), Gather information (brcs version, in your own domain only), bluff, diplomacy, knowledge (regional and local from brcs only or nature if a wizard), lead (brcs), warcraft(brcs), all seem appropriate, with possibly possibly sense motive from the phb…

A regent could probably take a feat to allow them to spend regency skills on standard skills - but they would almost certainly get a shocking reputation for neglecting their realm… This wouldn’t impact a non-regent though so probably should be banned as munchkinism.

The use of regency skills, etc would allow fighters and the like to be reasonable regents without needing to use all their skill points on the above skills - although bluff and diplomacy could be issues - unless the regency skills ony stacked at realm-level. I.e. he’s mostly an ok diplomat, but he’s great when talking with an army at his back and a treasury full of gold…

Another possibility is moving away from character levels at all for regency skills/feats - if only regents got them they could get regency points/feats based on time spent running a domain, or as a reward for success. That way a scion only gets the ‘extra’ skill points if they actually spend a reasonable amount of time on realm level play, and even unblooded characters could get these skills and feats if they ruled a realm - although they would still be at a severe disadvantage to a scion, an unblooded regent with decades of experience could have a chance in a contest with some of the variant regency collection systems.

mayiuchung, on why play mainly at realm level it depends what type of game you are playing.

I have the privilege of playing in the Rjurik Winds PBEM; the game centers around realm level play almost by necessity - although the GM ran an online adventure yesterday its not easy to do. I assume that other PBEM’s are similar - it takes a long time to play out a combat via email (Charles had us use Y! messenger and invisible castle for rolls…).

In many ways realm-level play is like standard play without the combat - lots of negotiation and planning with some shopping and character creation thrown in. (And still with the odd bout of terror, Hruthvar just got a letter from the Gorgon)

A tabletop game can still have a lot of realm-level play - although to me it is primarily an excuse for adventure in that case. hmmm, want to forge a trade route do you? well its either +10 DC for the known impossibility of the task or you role-play negotiating with the varsk-raiders and seek the lost mountain pass yourself…

Overall I would suggest that play that is exclusively one or the other is less satisfying than one that mixes, or at least acknowledges, the other.

8

If you make regency feats based around a military commander-type ruler then these could be fighter feats as well.

In general, I think there are plenty of military commander PrC’s out there to cover this. That’s not to say BR couldn’t add something to what’s out there, but I would wait to see what the needs are. Recruiting and training would probabaly be an area where BR stuff could fill gaps in D&D stuff already out there.

[…]this will amplify the ‘favouratism’. Although if the regent skills have little use in adventure play it shouldn’t be a problem.

I think we should have a hard line test. If its useful in adventure play, its not a regency skill or feat. Buy Bluff and Sense motive normally.

9

I’m guilty as charged of having moved a PBeM into the realm of Instant-messenging for adventures - and I had a blast DM’ing five or the Rjurik Wind players on Saturday.
I REALLY liked the duality of Birthright’s Realm-based play intermixed with character Adventures and I insisted on group adventures; I’m glad I did.

One problem I was faced with was how to reward players: They are spending a character action; (or lieutenant) for barely any treasure (by realm standards) – and level advancement is really not going to help realm play: you can be Fighter 3rd level, and do as good of a job as a Fighter 12th level; it’s more about domain power/regency/Blood scores even now-weapon abilities and basic stats (say good administration score)…

Some options were:

  1. Rewarding players with increased loyalty: Regent or lieutenant finished a quest; the population is proud and happy
  2. Couple extra GBs - especially for temples or guilds or realms strapped for cash
  3. Couple new Lieutenants: inspired by the quest, they ask to come in the regent’s service bringing much needed skills

Id love to see if any of you had other “benefits” to suggest..

10

In the the world of politics, a key factor is always information. If the players do well in an adventure, slip them little bits of information about the world that may benefit them. While they could possibly have found out similar information through actions, you can put them down as rumours heard on the road, things they have seen or things any new “friends” have told them. The sort of things that the regent wouldn’t necessarily learn unless they did a bit of travel themselves amongst the commoners. This could be as simple as new clerics or soldiers appearing in certain towns, or major price changes of certain products in the markets.

Of course, some of this information might be about other players :^) And it will be up to the player to make use of the new information as best they can at the domain level.

Sorontar

11

Good ideas. You can have Bloodline increases or RP gains, due to reputation and admiration. It would be exactly the reverse of RP losses when the players don’t deal well with random events. You can also have them protected from random events (if you are using them) for a period of time. For example, if the adventure involved dwarves, perhaps an architect comes over and gives a few pointers to protect the realm of earthquake. If they get a Nat disaster event, you can inform them of it and tell them that they can afford to ignore it.

When I was DMing, I found events a good way to keep players occupied, have them work for their alignments etc. Usually they weren’t random, but consequences of actions. Ie if the player had a rebellious province, it would not be difficult for a Great Captain figure to emerge or if the player decided that his benevolent temple would launch a Jihad, perhaps a Heressy would spring up. I used events to reward consistency and sticking to alignment (whatever alignment the player had chosen) and “punish” the opposite.

12

Ah yes, of course; totally forgot that one! Absolutely, I guess that characters are also allowed a bloodline increase once in their life – so I would have to limit that to repeated adventures, or the favors of the kinred god (or blood type of the old god)

Yup, that’s a good one too; or solve a current random event that is lingering…

Good.. let me go back to my Characters whom I’ve not rewarded yet…

13

I think the bloodline increase of one per lifetime relates to the strength of the bloodline: minor/major/great/true rather than bloodline points / regency - regency in particular makes a great adventuring reward as for non-landed regents it can be in shorter supply than gold.

Another old favourite of mine was ‘free’ lieutenants or rare hirelings, the chance to obtain an alliance with a reclusive race, obtain a favour from a powerful person, the chance to obtain a rare item such as dwarven platemail, a mighty warhorse, etc.

These types of reward don’t have to be from the DM, Hruthvar owes Storm a favour for his support and Ragnar in particular would give short shrift to anyone who claimed the aaolfer was a coward or lacking in Rjurik ways due to Storm’s support. For that matter a certain ‘Thaelesian’ might be able to wrangle a favour despite her possible true loyalties…

Dargal admittedly failed to win Ragnars favour, something about the goblin king playing the flute while he was cleaving the minions of evil in twain and failing to stand on a tile when requested despite there being no reason whatsoever not to, aside from a slight smell of ozone and burnt Sviniker…

Btw, the only bad thing about the adventure was not remembering to copy it and paste it into a word doc at the end…

Spent two hours afterwards instant messaging other players (had 3 separate conversations going at once and nearly told the white witch about the invasion plans.. oops…) sure sign of a good evening is when you talk about the game so much afterwards. :slight_smile:

14

I’m still kicking myself for not having copied that whole coversation string; I’d forgotten about Dargal playing the Flute!.. that’s right!.. And he didn’t want to go first into the corridor (he’s the smallest, so we can shoot over his head!)

15

For those of you considering this idea, I can reccommend it. I’ve used it, occationally in BR, but have real good experience with the Magus/Compannion/Grog-model from Ars Magica.

This frees the high-power (Ruler) character to do high-power stuff, while it allows the GM and players to explore other aspects of the scenario. Say, after a tense game of thrones, the Ruler (Magus) descides to send an envoy or a spy (Compannion) to another court. The success, or failiure, can influence the outcome of the next Realm Action. This can be expanded by running an encounter involving men-at-arms (Grog) on pallace guard duty, or even on the field of battle. I’ve found that this can open up new dimentions to the story.

Also, should the need arise to have one of the main characters do something on their own, in stead of running this as a one-on-one session, the other players can sit in with Compannions or Grogs. This can be helpful for spinning plots around single charactersm or give less dominating players a spot in the limelight.

16

I’ve also found that with multiple domain rulers (or even only jarls, vassals, or officers of a full domain) the players often feel they need to split up and deal with a variety of time schedules. In addition to the Magus/Companion/Grog-model, or as an alternative, I’ve also had players develop heir PC’s or just new PC’s so that when their ruler PC is busy, they have a lower level PC to play with. It also allows a campaign to continue beyond the original PC’s.

17

kgauck>
A friend of mine ran a game a while back using this Dynasty-model, to great success. IMO, this allows for a more laid back approach where you can run through years of relatively peaceful times (lots of realm actions, and little Real Time-consuming adventuring), thus building the strenght of the Realm.

I can also see the advantages of building the plot over a few generations. Characters will have more insight in the workings of the Realm, and he can also invoke the name of his great grandfather, the Hero of the Realm who slew the Giant King of the North.

To coin a phrase, the Ars Magica-model could be called the Hierarchical model to avoid copyright infringment and confution.

18

throws off the leafmold and cobwebs!

Did someone say Ars Magica?

[/Ben Gunn]

19

I think the key to developing character archetypes for realm-based play is in pinning down, in general terms, what makes a good leader. As part of my thinking about BR -type games using non-D&D systems I have been trying to do this.

Obviously you don’t want to have one archetype being good at everything, since this would make choices about character very dull and totally inconsequential. At the same time you don’t want to have too many choices as this needlessly (in my opinion…) complicates things. Another advantage of having several archetypes is that if you go for a cooperative realm-based game you can then have different PCs doing different, but still useful, things.

The real issue is then what are these basic archetypes? How many problem solving techniques are there in real-based play?

20

Nice to see you, Trithemius.

One of the subjects generating a lot of ink from way back is that a party of adventurers should have a warrior, expert, divine spellcaster, and arcanist. When looking at society, where are the places to find spheres of action for realm based play?
[ul]
[li]Societies are actually federations of organizations
[/li][li]The earliest and most basic locus of power is physical force. The state originated in warfare.
[/li][li]Early socity saw the simultaneous development of hierarchy and exchange mechanisms. As the chiefdoms gave way to more formalized social forms, the barracks and the market split, and two power centers emerge.
[/li][li]Maintenence of these inequalities would be much easier with an ideological support, especially one with divine sanction. Enter the temples.
[/li][li]Temples and their ideologies provide for legal regulation, and the rise of the law court.
[/li][li]Temples also provide a learned class, and the rise of knowledge as power.
[/li][li]Whatever we call the knowledge locus, university, academy, college, whatever, the power of knowledge is greatly magnified when knowledge begins to include the arcane, and in Cerilia, that locus is the source.
[/li][/ul]

This explanation, whatever its utility for analysis in the real world, provides an excellent context for realms. Each of these loci of power; barracks, market, temple, court, and source, is actually a BR domain; province, guild, temple, law, and source.

The barracks is a natural for the fighter, and the number of PrC’s for military command complete the picture. The fighter is an individual combatant, and whether a campaign tends toward heroic combat or medieval combat, some fighter certainly makes sense for the captain, but leadership, morale, and teamwork abilities are also a part of the mix.

The market is an extensive, diffused organization, almost the opposite of an army, where discipline and proximity are essential. Markets operate by negotiation, across the distances of trade routes, without direct supervision because every part of the organization has a similar motivation - profit from cooperation.

The temple is powerful because it provides three things, meaning, norms, and ritials. If my temple tells me that knowledge is power and that reason and discipline are the highest pursuits, I think you can tell what patron I have selected. Meaning is generally a role play aspect, but it provides a common context for human action. If I share values with others, I can more easily cooperate than I can if my partner values only physical strength and a test of dominance. If my comrade and I share either set of values, we can organize a hierarchy, provide a context for action, and shift from values to action. If I want knowledge and order, and the other guy wants me to submit to his physical strength, we haven’t even agreed on the basis of our interaction, let alone cooperation. Whatever rituals do for people in the real world, in D&D ritual includes concrete game effects, most often through spells and supernatural powers. If a temple can monopolize meaning, norms, and rituals, it has consiserable control which is both intensive, like an army command, and extensive, based on common goals and desires. The weakness of temple power is the danger that someone down the road may offer a better set of meanings, norms, and rituals. After all that person talking about luck and prosperity, and their happy descriptions of material comfort are backed up by the spells and powers just as potent as the priests of knowledge and discipline. All that remains is what I want - knowledge or wealth.

The law court is another kind of ideological power. Its based on shared values, but its applied mostly to those who would deviate from norms and the group meaning. As such it has to be backed up by punishment. This could be in the form of physical force, rituals, or confiscations of wealth. Law can support the province, the temple, or the market by asserting their values and norms as regulations subject to enforcement. Where the temple is mostly persuasive, the court is mostly about punishment and enforcement.

Sources certainly have their mystical aspects, as do the connections of all domains to their rulers, but what I am interested here is the utility of knowledge. Knowing how to manipulate arcane energies is a very personal source of power, since it only extends to where the wizard is or can be expected to be. Knowledge by itself is the weakest form of power, but it can be a potent force multiplier when connected to any other locus of power.