Espionage

[Felix]

There's something that has always confused me. Why in the world must a
regent have a holding in another regent's domain in order to do espionage
against him/her? Why this restriction when a PC spy could do the job by
simply infiltrating in a regent's holding? In any other campaign, it would
seem reasonable to pay a NPC spy (or even a PC one) 500 - 1000 gp to
infiltrate in a king's court and find out (after gaining his trust) secrets
of the state or whatever. But in BR, in order for a spy to work properly,
the spy's patron needs to own a holding in the province where the spy is to
work. Why? Wheres the logic in that? I can understand that if the target
espionage holding is relatively distant from the regent's domain (like
Avanil is to Aerenwe). But why using this rule when the target holding is
just a few miles away?

Thanks

Felix
jonasfel@mail.telepac.pt

[Morten Helles]

> There's something that has always confused me. Why in the world must a
> regent have a holding in another regent's domain in order to do
> espionage against him/her? Why this restriction when a PC spy could do
> the job by simply infiltrating in a regent's holding? In any other
> campaign, it would seem reasonable to pay a NPC spy (or even a PC one)
> 500 - 1000 gp to infiltrate in a king's court and find out (after
> gaining his trust) secrets of the state or whatever. But in BR, in order
> for a spy to work properly, the spy's patron needs to own a holding in
> the province where the spy is to work. Why? Wheres the logic in that? I
> can understand that if the target espionage holding is relatively distant
> from the regent's domain (like Avanil is to Aerenwe). But why using this
> rule when the target holding is just a few miles away?

I have to agree with you on the oddity of this rule. I do believe,
however, that the designer thought about the complexity of doing
espionage in another regents domain. Although some some actions are
"easy", like revealing the nature of diplomatic agreements between any
two domains, other actions are much harder, like creating corruption or
heresy in another domain. This latter action may require more than
simply a single spy.

In my opinion you raise a more fundamental question: Why do regents have
to spend all those resources on the simplest of tasks? Why, for
instance, does it take a regent a month's work to aqquire a lieutenant,
if he already knows who he wants? It should not take too long to
determine if the person in question is willing to become a lieutenant,
and definitely not a month of a regent's very precious time! And why
can't a non-thief regent with guild holdings not do the espionage action
for free like the thief? After all, he might have the same strong
connections to the underworld.

I believe that the reasons for these oddities are that they are special
cases, or technical game solutions, and they need special handling by
the DM: If he deems them too easy to take a hole month, then he may
override the rules as it is his right to do.

Morten.

+

[Nutbutter3@aol.co]

In a message dated 97-07-05 01:55:32 EDT, you write:

>

I think that it goes like this, if a regent has a holding in a province that
they are doing Espionage on it is like they have several if not more "agents"
working on the job. its not just one person but many people on the payroll to
do what ever it is the regent wants done bcause it takes more than a few
people to do serious spying and info getting over extended periods of time.
Where as a regent could always hire a single spy to do something like an
assasination or if the regent just wanted documonts or info they could do
the same thing but the quality of the information would be worse then going
through a large network of spies.

The almighty Professor Nutbutter
Nutbutter8@juno.com

[Brenda L Santer]

>> There's something that has always confused me. Why in the world must a
>> regent have a holding in another regent's domain in order to do
>> espionage against him/her? Why this restriction when a PC spy could do
>> the job by simply infiltrating in a regent's holding? In any other
>> campaign, it would seem reasonable to pay a NPC spy (or even a PC one)
>> 500 - 1000 gp to infiltrate in a king's court and find out (after
>> gaining his trust) secrets of the state or whatever. But in BR, in order
>> for a spy to work properly, the spy's patron needs to own a holding in
>> the province where the spy is to work. Why? Wheres the logic in that? I
>> can understand that if the target espionage holding is relatively distant
>> from the regent's domain (like Avanil is to Aerenwe). But why using this
>> rule when the target holding is just a few miles away?
>
>I have to agree with you on the oddity of this rule. I do believe,
>however, that the designer thought about the complexity of doing
>espionage in another regents domain. Although some some actions are
>"easy", like revealing the nature of diplomatic agreements between any
>two domains, other actions are much harder, like creating corruption or
>heresy in another domain. This latter action may require more than
>simply a single spy.
>
>In my opinion you raise a more fundamental question: Why do regents have
>to spend all those resources on the simplest of tasks? Why, for
>instance, does it take a regent a month's work to aqquire a lieutenant,
>if he already knows who he wants? It should not take too long to
>determine if the person in question is willing to become a lieutenant,
>and definitely not a month of a regent's very precious time! And why
>can't a non-thief regent with guild holdings not do the espionage action
>for free like the thief? After all, he might have the same strong
>connections to the underworld.
>
>I believe that the reasons for these oddities are that they are special
>cases, or technical game solutions, and they need special handling by
>the DM: If he deems them too easy to take a hole month, then he may
>override the rules as it is his right to do.
>
>Morten.
>

In the campaigns that I run I have always thought of the create lieutenant
action as follows. Yes, the ruler knows who he wishes to make a
lieutenant. Asking the person is a simple matter. Getting a reply from the
person is not likley to be that difficult either. However, simply asking a
person to do the job and having that person agree does not complete the
job. For the rest of the month, the ruler and his new lieutenant are
working together to get the lieutenant trained into his new role. The
lieutenant gets a more indepth job description, a better understanding of
his/her ruler's expectations, what is part of the job, what had better be
left alone, the resources that are at the disposal of the lieutenant. It
is the equivalent of the new counter person at your favourite fast food
place wearing a TRAINEE badge for a while. No one can be expected to do
that job well immediately. It makes sense to me that a job as important as
being lieutenant to a country's ruler would require at least as much
training. Who better to train that person than the ruler? As anyone who
has ever trained a new employee knows, answering all of those questions
takes TIME. So to me it makes sense that a ruler needs a month of time to
Create a Lieutenant, while the Grant action,which gives someone a new Title
is a free action, since giving someone a title is only a formality using
little of the ruler's time or energy.

Brenda Santer

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Brenda Santer:


mailto:bls127@mail.usask.ca
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[Seb Berendse]

Felix wrote:
> There's something that has always confused me. Why in the world must a
> regent have a holding in another regent's domain in order to do espionage
> against him/her? But why using this rule when the target holding is
> just a few miles away?

I totally agree with you, and I might add that I already had some
problems with it during play. I use Esp. frequently (I'm a guilder)
but a lot of the times they fail or nearly pass for I just can't
spend all my money on a mission to bring the difficulty down
far away where I don't have holdings.
Shitty as it looks.
Base
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