Quote from: LordVreeg;567610http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956323/Steel%20Isle%20online

go there, and look down until you get to the section, "Donkeys".  you can see that many have been lost.

Four in one trip. Impressive.

Now is where I list the ideas that might look weird. The gp system isn't the only way to get wealth and its benefits in-game. I'm using a quest-based system for accomplishing many goals, and a level-based timeline for determining many campaign events. Compare this with ACKS, where concrete time is used both as a resource and (if you had a timeline) for the timeline. The effect is similar, except that in mine time is abstracted somewhat. This may feel gamey to some, so I'm curious to hear feedback.

The Quest Economy
There will also be the quest system. Quests have a formula for determining appropriate rewards*. These rewards (when they have monetary value) will often be the kind of thing you can't buy until you are much higher level. So if you have the resources to spend on a war, you can acquire territory that way well before you can afford to flat-out buy the world (just as an example). The gold itself isn't typically quest-based, but when the gold is the object of the quest (say, a bounty) the value is slightly reduced because it's liquid and because if you sell the object of a quest you're only getting half gold.

Quests are probably going to be the most efficient way to acquire new territory, new armies, etc. under the domain management rules. If you spend your quests seeking these things, more of your gold will go towards upkeep. If you spend your quests doing other things, your gold will maintain a smaller domain.

Magic users also have a system here. I mentioned binding outsiders into gems here and there. Basically, it will cost a quest to get the "boss" outsiders and the "level-appropriate" gems and their effects. Meanwhile, you'll be able to afford to buy the gems of lower tiers. So if I'm a 7th level sorcerer, I might quest to enlist the aid of a similarly powerful djinn. But I'm also rich enough to buy a 3rd level djinn's gem and powerful enough to bind it into service without owing it much. A similar system applies to ritual/potion components. The "level appropriate" stuff is on the monsters and in the places that are still challenging, while the low level stuff gets swept into the affordable range of gp at that level.

Quests can also give rewards money can't buy at all. I haven't fully hammered out the system for these things, but quests can bring fame, political power within organizations, and other more social assets. They can also give characters unique magical perks beyond the ones given by their class. These can be temporary, like boons, or permanent. Being favored by divinity can have its benefits.

*You can do things less challenging than a quest for lesser rewards. These things just won't net you any xp. There are always things too big for you to handle and things that are easy (even if their rewards are a drop in the bucket at this point). What this does *not* mean is that finding a kid's parents in a crowded bazaar will make you wealthy because of your high level.

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The Level-Based Timeline

This part's harder to explain. So I'll start with an example. In the sample dungeon I'm working on (outlined in another thread) a dwarf mage is trying to bind a sleeping abomination he found. If the party does nothing, he will wake the abomination. In fact, even if they partially clear the dungeon the abomination may wake. The dungeon is mostly levels 1-5. Let's say the monster is level 15. Bigger and badder than any monster on any random encounter table. If the dwarf mage is alive at level 7, the monster wakes up. Huge damn deal and the party will probably have to relocate for a long time before they can handle it (if they even choose to do so). If his human or goblin ally (or the leader of the goblins in prison) are left alive and he is dead, the monster wakes at level 10. Even if they're all dead, if the party didn't directly address some other things, it may wake at 13 (still rough, but not as bad) after a cave-in.

At any given level, some number of quests is available. Some of them just opened up. Some may be randomly generated (especially disasters that affect domains). Some may be escalation (the example above shows how unaddressed problems escalate) and some may be retaliation (the opposite of escalation: the players do something and cause new problems).

Escalation and retaliation are two ways of taking old quests off the board. Otherwise, old quests become no longer xp-worthy and new quests become survivable or available. There are always bigger and smaller things happening than the PCs can handle, as mentioned before.

Some quests/events, plus escalation and retaliation should be planned in advance in an if/then sort of way (as shown in the first paragraph). Many should start well before the PCs can personally address them. Wars and plagues happen well before the party can do anything about it, and may last until they can. This is similar to the logic of high level monsters: always there, but in fixed(ish) locations for when PCs feel ready to handle them. Random disasters may be rolled on a non-level-basis, and everything shouldn't happen at once when the APL goes up for pacing reasons. Maybe roll a +x weeks for each thing?

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This timeline combined with the quest-based-rewards system means that there's a concrete challenge to mustering the forces to face a challenge before it happens, while the in-and-out-of-game timeline is sort of flexible. If I do this right it may reduce bookkeeping while keeping some of the cool bits out of the time-tracking in domain management.

Thoughts? Questions? I'm sure I haven't worded this as clearly as I can yet.

A lot has changed, and at some point I'll need to come back and revise this. Right now I'm on a topic I simply need to brainstorm: Domain management.

Specifically, what factors should I cover here? I'm reading (quick skims only so far, unfortunately, so I may have some details wrong) AER and ACKS on and off at the moment and I'm trying to decide how specific I should get.

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I like that AER has somewhat abstracted assets (in the wealth/social/military sense) but some things seem unnecessary or might not fit with my approach to the setting (traits and the like that simply give bonuses or penalties, atrocity as its own thing instead of allowing social to go into the negatives, etc.). Additionally I may treat such assets more like currency for easy conversion to gold etc. (not 100% sure on this though). AER also has traits or something that allow converting points from one stat to another, albeit with some loss. I may allow something similar, but I would not require a trait or whatever.

I also like the handling of things like natural resources and obstacles. Obstacles especially seem like they would fit well in the "quest economy" system I've got going at the core of my game.

ACKS is nice in its concreteness. I like the treatment of certain things simply as gear that can be bought on currency and time. Especially the services and strongholds and such. In my case, full combat stats for a number of units (both individuals and groups) would be helpful, as well as the costs to hire or maintain such units and the time taken to train them. I may also allow guidelines for scoring these kinds of items and services through quests at various levels.

Since I may be blending approaches here, different units and assets may cost different currencies. Soldiers would cost your military upkeep, but because social and wealth might be converted (albeit inefficiently) communities with those stats may use them to purchase mercenaries or call a militia into service. Just spitballing here.

Other things I may want to cover might be the difference between an entity's relationship with parent entities (is your chapterhouse favored by your guild? are you running a persecuted cult?) vs the loyalty of its members and constituents (is your second in command plotting a coup? is there revolt in the streets?). I may even provide guidance for an entity's relationship with its neighbors. This could potentially be covered under the social stat.

I also liked where I was going with the hexes/levels and constructed random encounter tables. I may append levels to things like communities and (chapter houses/forts/etc) to determine both how influential they are on a large scale and what values and services they can contribute at a smaller scale. And I do want the constructed random encounter tables thing happening as well.

I want periodic random events for bringing on the kaiju that set back your domain management, or whatever the equivalent is for guild-based play. I want it to be possible to play out the PCs' response to this sort of thing, and I want the results to depend on how the PCs' handle it. Dragons can show up, and if you don't ride out to face them, you may be short a castle later.

And finally, I need the mass combat rules up and running, along with (maybe) special rules for how the PCs interact with their underlings.

What's AER?

More rules for domain management/events are probably handy if that's a major thing at higher levels. Some questions to ask yourself:
*what sort of time scale is this going on at? - whole low-level campaigns might be able to occur between random event rolls on the domains table.
Are adventures slowing down to once a season, when an event occurs? Or do the PCs still spend a lot of time doing domain-related adventures (diplomatic expedition to the neighbouring kingdom where they end up solving a murder mysery and fighting the agents of the Lich King) with actual random domain events occurring only every several sessions.

*are characters assumed to rule a domain as a team, or do each have their own domain? If the second, one PCs events might affect neighbouring kingdoms?

Also, random events are good, but that's probably just the simplest way to generate events, and the least accurate?  Depending on what is being lumped in here. A few things are basically entirely random but many more will be influenced by the geography of the kingdom, political setup, neighbouring countries, available resources.

I imagine a country could have a grid of available events, with some being fully random and others being recurring events (a long-term enemy of the kingdom returns; a particular disaster that suits its geography occurs which could be drought, earthquake, cold winters or whatever). There could be adventures that modify future grid events permanently (kill the evil king scheming against you for good; establish sun temples to aid against future vampire attacks)
Rather than random events you could also have more complex subsystems that determine things- a popularity index that determines the likelihood a rebellion will occur this season, population vs. primary production scores determining how likely famine is ?

Sorry not familiar with ACKS either so I don't know if any of this sort of thing is covered therein. Apart from that most RPGs don't seem to cover this topic overly well, although there are quite a few board games that do it and could have lootable ideas.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;622751What's AER?

An Echo Resounding. Supplement for Labyrinth Lord IIRC.

QuoteMore rules for domain management/events are probably handy if that's a major thing at higher levels. Some questions to ask yourself:
*what sort of time scale is this going on at? - whole low-level campaigns might be able to occur between random event rolls on the domains table.
Are adventures slowing down to once a season, when an event occurs? Or do the PCs still spend a lot of time doing domain-related adventures (diplomatic expedition to the neighbouring kingdom where they end up solving a murder mysery and fighting the agents of the Lich King) with actual random domain events occurring only every several sessions.

I'm thinking adventurers will keep adventuring at the same old breakneck pace, while their domains give them more to do by way of maintenance, advancement, and new toys and assets.

Grew up "new school" if that's a thing so using turns out of combat feels weird to me. I'm not saying I won't use them if they work best, but I'm interested in exploring the options here.

I probably won't link the random event table(s) to the leveling scheme, but I'll probably link the advancement of your power closely with the quest rewards formula. So x assets are an appropriate goal for a tier y quest. You want something bigger, you may risk death. You want something smaller, you can probably afford to buy it (and it isn't worth xp in any case).

The event table may be monthly? Weekly? It depends largely on what goes on the table. If at all possible I may tie it in with the income you get, so you do it all at once.

Quote*are characters assumed to rule a domain as a team, or do each have their own domain? If the second, one PCs events might affect neighbouring kingdoms?

The tiers have changed to 3 levels each. 2nd tier is likely where the adventurers join organizations. 3rd tier is likely where they'll have the chance to establish chapter houses or strongholds on behalf of those organizations. I'm not sure about the transition into the larger scale of guild leadership or domains, but some amount of asset sharing will likely be possible regardless of how borders are drawn.

QuoteAlso, random events are good, but that's probably just the simplest way to generate events, and the least accurate?  Depending on what is being lumped in here. A few things are basically entirely random but many more will be influenced by the geography of the kingdom, political setup, neighbouring countries, available resources.

I'd likely use random events mostly for monsters, weather, truly random things.

Things like (say) war will likely be handled either free form (like running NPCs) or with optional relationship-type mechanics?

QuoteI imagine a country could have a grid of available events, with some being fully random and others being recurring events (a long-term enemy of the kingdom returns; a particular disaster that suits its geography occurs which could be drought, earthquake, cold winters or whatever). There could be adventures that modify future grid events permanently (kill the evil king scheming against you for good; establish sun temples to aid against future vampire attacks)
Rather than random events you could also have more complex subsystems that determine things- a popularity index that determines the likelihood a rebellion will occur this season, population vs. primary production scores determining how likely famine is ?

I'm likely to fold as much of the contingent stuff into domain stats. Not sure yet how.

QuoteSorry not familiar with ACKS either so I don't know if any of this sort of thing is covered therein. Apart from that most RPGs don't seem to cover this topic overly well, although there are quite a few board games that do it and could have lootable ideas.

What board games would you recommend looking into?

On boardgames there's a Civilization boardgame that's good...if a bit slow. Settlers of Cattan even is domain management of a sort?  Lords of Waterdeep maybe for 'guild level' management although its competitive, and much of the game aims at earning points via assigning minion cubes (different colours represent fighters, clerics, mages or thieves) to quests and is point driven rather than operating in real terms exactly. Not really my specialty, sorry, but I'm sure there's quite a few games that have a domain motif.

Thanks for the recommendations.

I'm considering using seasons for the domain management turns (when you get income and such). It feels a little better than going month to month in terms of weather and things, and I sort of like the idea that your income depends on when you are in relation to the harvest as well.

My only worry is time tracking. How long a "season" is doesn't correlate with some gameplay very well. That is to say that players could do a lot or a little in this time, could level a lot or a little in this time, so this could be the main source of a party's treasure or just a little bonus.

Forcing the party to travel some at this level could be important in terms of stretching quests out over weeks, months, and seasons (fixing the rate of advancement alongside domain income) so long-range teleportation is likely to need some limiters to make this work.

Construction times and such could also be important in fixing the rate at which domains can grow (barring questing).

More of a note to self than anything concrete yet.

Again, just jotting down thoughts here as I have them. I'll be more active on this project when summer rolls around again. Maybe I'll get a draft of the rules done all in one place. Maybe I'll even get to test the material I haven't already used in 3.x games. Exciting times.

Anyway, Next info got me thinking about exploration rules again. I need to decide on hex size, turn length, speed, and when to make what checks, mostly. So in no particular order:

I'd like a turn to be about 4 hours.
I think two hexes might be a good baseline speed, while 1-4 or even 1-5 may be an acceptable range.
I think 2mph would be a reasonable walking speed. Switchbacks on trails may alter this, but that would be the speed penalty in mountainous terrain at work.
I haven't decided whether to roll random encounters once per hex (with very low odds), once per turn (with higher odds), or what.
I do not know how fast horses should go.
I don't know if I want tradeoffs for higher or lower speeds, or what those might be.
I'd like spotting distance rules based on each party's perception and stealth, as well as the terrain/weather (you meet closer together in forest, fog, rain) and light sources (a torch will make you visible further away than it helps you see, in the darkness).
It might be cool to have enemies roll everything against static PC defenses, so the GM can roll perception and stealth checks as part of the random encounter roll (and PCs don't know if he rolled "nothing" or they're just not seeing it).
I'd like it to be possible to become lost under circumstances where that might reasonably happen, but I don't know when people should check for that or how hard it should be yet.
I'd like tall things to be visible from far away, and for high elevation to increase the range at which you can see landmarks, etc.
I need an easy way to track hunger/thirst/fatigue and the effects of these things.