Challenges to wider audiences for the Birthright setting, more players

[Rowan]

Since this is the primary forum location for the Birthright player community, I thought I'd post this here, as something for the community to address for the sake of the game.

What do you think are some of the major reasons that Birthright doesn't have a wider gaming community?

What do you think is holding Birthright back?

And for those of us who do already love the game and want to play it more, what kinds of things make the game harder to play or enjoy (or conversely, what would make it easier and more enjoyable to play)?

I want to go beyond some of the obvious factors--like no DnD support and advertisement or presence in game shops (though perhaps something could be done in those areas...). Instead, I'd like to come up with a list of ideas of things that you all think are major obstacles. Once we have those, we could start talking about relative importance of them and what we might be able to do about them.

Here are some more specific thoughts I've had and wanted to get feedback on--as well as get other ideas from you all.

1. Is DM burn-out a big issue? What contributes most to burn-out? Complexity? Difficulty managing large numbers of players, or NPCs, or adjudicating turns? Lots of set-up work? Player conflict? Rules problems in particular areas? Keeping up with communications? Lack of assistance or automation?

2. Is player attrition a major problem? What contributes most to attrition? Complexity/time required to play? Speed of turns? Inter-player communications (and conflict)?

3. Does the game take too long to play? (from turn to turn)

4. Is there not a wide enough range of play scope? (do some player styles need to be supported at the sub-domain or beyond realm--faction-level--play scopes?)

5. Is the game too complex to play long-term without automation?

6. Is the game too rigid or too flexible?

7. Are people too fragmented in their desires for how the rules system should work that dissatisfaction drives people away?

8. Is it just too hard to bring in new players because of the amount of setting material and complexity of the rules system?


I think there are a number of things that we as a community could work to address that might improve the play experience of those of us who already love BR, and there may be ways to bring in more players. I'd love to see both happen. I'm not sure how achievable the goals are, but we have seen some things--like Gio Garzelli's automated framework for play-by-post games.

Thoughts?

[AndrewTall]

There are some game-wide issues, like increased competition from other RPG's and computer games, but ignoring that sort of stuff and looking purely at people who play PBeM's and Tabletop's:

1. DM overload, and the general increased skill needed for a multi-tier game (although BR can of course be played single-tier)

2. For PBeM's, player turnover, and meta-game assumptions of d4-1 leading to self-fulfilling prophecies thereof

3. Number-crunching / juggling and turn-rate - all are related issues, although in practice my issue with PBeM's has tended to be when they go too fast.

4. Possible lack of guidance on how to accommodate very different gaming styles (mainly a PBeM issue where players come from a global audience and may lack common understandings), I set up some DM tips and Player tips pages on the wiki but no=one added to them which is a shame, I'd hoped we could share experience and thoughts on that sor tof thing.

[arpig2]

The answer is simple. The game is too complex, too unstructured, and not action oriented enough for most RPG players.
And, in my view, if you fixed any of those things you would ruin the game, because those are precisely the things that make it great.

[Vicente]

The main issue for me is that you pretty much need computer assisted tools to run the domain part of the game. Trying to do that in paper becomes crazy very fast.

Also, how the different layers in the domain system interact (law holders, guilders, temples, sources) is very weird. The game has really no mechanical way of stopping the law holder from saying to everybody else: the land is mine, pay or be razed to the ground.

I like the idea of guilds, temples... but the more I have played Birthright and the more I have tried to tweak it, the more I think the implementation of Domain rules for Birthright is flawed beyond repair.

Take into account that those issues are not so terrible when playing in a group of friends that are friendly to each other and work as a team, but in PbeMs they are a total mess.

Honestly, if I would do redo Birthright for a new edition, I would totally design it towards that style of play (friends ruling together, adversaries are always NPCs), design asymmetric rules for a PC domain and a NPC domain (pretty much like how in 5e Characters and Monsters follow different creation rules) and forget about trying to accommodate the big scale of a forum PbeM with tens of players competing against each other.

Regards!

[Sorontar]

As others have suggested, playing it at the regency level is too complex for many. However, you can also downplay the regency number crunching and just use Birthright as a setting for roleplaying. The fact that there are two levels at which you can play Brithright has always been missing from the marketing. The roleplaying is normally portrayed as an optional part of Birthright, rather than selling it as an "and/or" relationship between the roleplaying and regency levels.

In my opinion, the roleplaying should be the basis for the marketing with the regency and diplomacy as the added level of fun. The blood powers and how they can be improved and utlised is what makes it different from Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms or Eberron. It is a unique enough campaign setting just on that basis. The blooded regents and how a player can be one is a layer on top of that - the extra icing on the cake.

Sorontar

[bedwear]

For RPG, I believe than DMs burn out quickly. Its hard to make things running for several NPC domains, and having an RPG group makes the things harder by far if u want to run some conventional games between BR turns. I always thought, yet, than a good and dedicated DM can make the thing working, its just than with no official backup, is harder.

For PBEM, I believe than the limited playerbase is in itself a very detrimental thing. So well known among each other, than always plays the same. No RP at all, only backstabbing with no respect for alignment, and ways of play than perpetuates only bcos they always play that way. You cant even trusts a LG player to behave like that, and its quite frustrating as some players gets the spotlight and constantly delay the turns bcos they are adventuring and similar.

[Duck Call Lass]

So, I'm new here, and although I got some of the Birthright materials years ago, I never really ran a successful campaign in it.

The main barrier for me is integrating between character-level play and domain-level play. It feels like there's this pretty cool setting and I want to run games in it, but then everyone has to learn this pretty complex subsystem -- or those who don't are left out of part of the game.

That may or may not be a true statement, but it's definitely the impression I get, and I don't think I'm alone in that feeling of reluctance.

[AndrewTall]

So, I'm new here, and although I got some of the Birthright materials years ago, I never really ran a successful campaign in it.

The main barrier for me is integrating between character-level play and domain-level play. It feels like there's this pretty cool setting and I want to run games in it, but then everyone has to learn this pretty complex subsystem -- or those who don't are left out of part of the game.

That may or may not be a true statement, but it's definitely the impression I get, and I don't think I'm alone in that feeling of reluctance.

Hello and welcome :D

I'd suggest starting off at tabletop level with the domain stuff in the background - King of the Giantdowns is the ideal.

I tried to build some domain-play inspired adventure hooks in PS Dhoesone and PS Danigau (both are on the wiki) and also off the random events table (also on the wiki) - if the players are "trouble shooters" for one or more regents they could get tied up in those, with them being told as much or as little of the domain-stuff going on behind the scenes as you like.

To me if playing tabletop then the domain-level play should be there purely to add background, inspiration, etc to the adventure-level play, something to tie adventures together and show concrete progression towards goals.

If playing PBeM then domain-level play is the mainstay, with adventures fairly minor to avoid gumming up game-play, arpig did a handy ready-reckoner for adventures that were done with a single die-roll, other things I've seen work are internet chat systems and email chains although the latter are quite limited.

[ebatalis]

1. Is DM burn-out a big issue? What contributes most to burn-out? Complexity? Difficulty managing large numbers of players, or NPCs, or adjudicating turns? Lots of set-up work? Player conflict? Rules problems in particular areas? Keeping up with communications? Lack of assistance or automation?

"Strategic approach to BR is very quick to burn out a GM, why is that? Lets see.
Tremendous of homework, if you want a serious GM doing the job, he needs tons of free time, which as we grow older he dont have, and even if we do, trust me there are some more things to do out there. Communication is a huge issue. I know that the internet is doing a good job to keep us close, but NOTHING will ever substitute the round table and dice along side with beer. Although the strategic part of BR is meant and I figure is tons better to be played with a dozen or so players it is not meant to last if not assisted by a gazilion of automations. If we give automated things to the game, I would be the first to contribute to an online strategy game of BR that takes everything into account.

2. Is player attrition a major problem? What contributes most to attrition? Complexity/time required to play? Speed of turns? Inter-player communications (and conflict)?

Dedication and time as I have mentioned above is the key. Not speed. If you see around there are so many automated things all around you that make our lives easier. It tires sometimes even the dedicated to play out something that complex, and even if some start out at the first light of stalling, they are out first hand.

3. Does the game take too long to play? (from turn to turn)

It is irrelevant on one hand, but it is very important on the other, although as I mentioned above, only automated sequences can solve this.

4. Is there not a wide enough range of play scope? (do some player styles need to be supported at the sub-domain or beyond realm--faction-level--play scopes?)

If you start out a game in one area of Cerilia its very hard to swap to a different location. If you have ever played Hattrick you could see that the play score is narrowed, but it is not it that makes the difference. It is the largeness of it that makes it.

5. Is the game too complex to play long-term without automation?

It is impossible to play the game too long without automation, and by that I don't mean
excel sheets or so, I mean online and real time data.

6. Is the game too rigid or too flexible?

Neither

7. Are people too fragmented in their desires for how the rules system should work that dissatisfaction drives people away?

The people are going to play Birthright (those who love it) no matter what the rules are if it is properly presented.

8. Is it just too hard to bring in new players because of the amount of setting material and complexity of the rules system?

No, this does not play any significant role



Any sort of stategy played game needs a tremendous work on the backstory of it. If this work is not done automatically it means that someone must do this on his own accord. This of course even in the example of playing a game over Anuire, you could end up with hundreds of factions to decide at every domain turn, which is not an easy matter of a GM or a team of GMs. Strategy in order to be succesfull needs either full human participation, or automated procedures that would come up to fill the gaps, if no such are presented at some time, people will always end up playing Civ IV or V, you choose.

[Arawn76]

What do you think are some of the major reasons that Birthright doesn't have a wider gaming community?
What do you think is holding Birthright back?
*
1.******* Is DM burn-out a big issue?* What contributes most to burn-out?* Complexity?* Difficulty managing large numbers of players, or NPCs, or adjudicating turns?* Lots of set-up work?* Player conflict?* Rules problems in particular areas?* Keeping up with communications?* Lack of assistance or automation?
*
I know that burn out was a problem for me but at the time I was pretty much the only DM for the group over a long period of play. I can’t say the system is overly complex but the separate sub systems do make it inelegant which can be off putting to modern players. Set up was longer than usual as we had a whole additional layer of game.
*


2.******* Is player attrition a major problem?* What contributes most to attrition?* Complexity/time required to play?* Speed of turns?* Inter-player communications (and conflict)?
*
Nah I’ve had the same players for years. They pretty much will only play D&D so system familiarity means complexity has never been an issue.
*


3.******* Does the game take too long to play? (from turn to turn)
*
Not that I’ve observed but if you’re a traditional D&D player it can be a bit jarring to spend time at the macro level. Streamlining the system would be a goal if reinventing the system for a new generation.
*


4.******* Is there not a wide enough range of play scope? (do some player styles need to be supported at the sub-domain or beyond realm--faction-level--play scopes?)
*
Not sure what you really mean here. ** We have adventurer level up to kingdom, what else is there?
*


5.******* Is the game too complex to play long-term without automation?
*
If you mean electronic aids no. People are too lazy these days. I used to have to carry a couple of bags of books and prep to my games.* That said electronic assistance can open the game up to the more time challenged gamer.
*


6.******* Is the game too rigid or too flexible?
*
No more than I’d expect from D&D… Sorry I must be coming across argumentative but none of these are issues unless you’re expecting a play experience very different from the one D&D has always offered. Perhaps I’m not understanding you.
*


7.******* Are people too fragmented in their desires for how the rules system should work that dissatisfaction drives people away?
*
Yes. Some people can’t let go of the old way of running the game enough to make the necessary adjustments to streamline and bring it in line with the new edition. The desire to basically import the 2e system can be very strong.
*


8.******* Is it just too hard to bring in new players because of the amount of setting material and complexity of the rules system?
*
The problem isn’t complexity or amount of setting material of which BR has far less than most. The problem remains exposure. You should, hopefully, know what you’re getting with a D&D game.
*


I think there are a number of things that we as a community could work to address that might improve the play experience of those of us who already love BR, and there may be ways to bring in more players.* I'd love to see both happen.* I'm not sure how achievable the goals are, but we have seen some things--like Gio Garzelli's automated framework for play-by-post games.
*
Thoughts?
*
·******** If as a community we want to bring attention to the setting we need to be better advocates. If you’re running a game get an AP posted and keep it updated. If it’s good then people are going to want a bit of that action and if you’re lucky enough to be a half way decent writer even better.
*
·******** Look for appropriate opportunities to insert BR into threads where it offers a viable example or solution. Start conversations about different aspects of the game that are interesting and portable to other settings or games.
*
·******** Conversions for your favourite system, let’s be honest every gamer fancies himself a master game designer and love nothing more than to nose and criticise another’s work. And it lets you get the setting out to different gaming communities as well as being a fun exercise.
*
·******** But you need to get out there to other boards and communities. New players (and more importantly DM’s) aren’t looking for you so if you stay huddled up in a corner then you’re just going to see the BR community shrink.
*
I know you said no this, but it bears saying. Lack of support for current rulesets is the biggest thing holding it back. Despite 2e being a still excellent and very serviceable system people will always look to obtain the newest and brightest toy. And anything associated with an older system will be relegated to niche.
Additionally lack of promotion, the only way to draw new players is to get them excited, not enough advertisement on forums, live games etc.

[arpig2]

What contributes most to burn-out?
Running the NPC realms.
The rest is a piece of cake in comparison, just number crunching and accounting

Unlike in a usual campaign, where only a few NPCs last longer than any given adventure, in Birthright you have a ton of them, and devising motivations and aims and actions for umpteen realms, guilds, temples, etc. so they are all unique, interesting, and believable quickly exhausts one's creativity.

Even in a very limited geographical area you will have a lot of them to plot and plan for.

[Rowan]

I'm going to try to sum up what I think I'm hearing, before moving on to discussing any point in more detail.

To improve the game for its players:
1. Make the game easier to play -- streamline rules (improve, rewrite, or just have a less complex option)

2. Automate extensively -- both the DM side (turn resolution, generating and running NPCs) and the player side (easier turns), which may substantially reduce DM burn-out, player turnover, time (and detail) barriers to entry, and disputes; and possibly increase game longevity and the flexibility to do longer or shorter turns.

3. Find more ways (or just more advice or more game offerings) to support a wider variety of play styles (more action-oriented, strategic vs tactical vs adventuring, etc.)

4. Make it easier to expand (and contract?) the regional play scope, so that more of the map could be introduced later in the game.

To recruit more players:
1. Advertise, cross-promote, invite people in, etc.

2. Support the latest editions of D&D, or possibly other popular RPG systems (5e, Pathfinder, etc) -- this may be more perception based (which is valid), because it's been a while since I've played a PBEM that really cared about standard D&D character creation; the Domain Rules can exist as a wholly separate layer.

3. Stress the roleplaying aspects of the setting.

4. Make the Domain Rules more portable to other settings, so that people can import it into their own games or official, supported settings (like GreyHawk, FR, etc).

5. Somehow bring the game more up-to-date with other, competitive offerings, to take advantage of relevant new trends while avoiding letting the game just die of old age (or the appearance of such).

Does this capture it fairly well? Or are there significant things missing?

[arpig2]

1. Make the game easier to play -- streamline rules (improve, rewrite, or just have a less complex option)
No. If you do that you will ruin the game, it is the complexity of it that is it's beauty, that's what makes it worth playing. Otherwise it is just another mildly interesting setting with a few surface oddities to provide some flavour.


2. Automate extensively -- both the DM side (turn resolution, generating and running NPCs) and the player side (easier turns), which may substantially reduce DM burn-out, player turnover, time (and detail) barriers to entry, and disputes; and possibly increase game longevity and the flexibility to do longer or shorter turns.

This goes for any D&D game, period, but especially so for Birthright. For my short-lived Zaidan campaign I created an automated action calculator to determine the total cost and success number of every possible action and incorporated it into the turn order form so the players could have all the calculations done for them as they were planning. It was a major undertaking, but I now have the basic template for any future campaigns I try.


3. Find more ways (or just more advice or more game offerings) to support a wider variety of play styles (more action-oriented, strategic vs tactical vs adventuring, etc.)
Birthright is, pretty much by definition primarily a strategic level game with some allowance for some tactical level play (sort of like the Total War video game series), and while it is really easy to incorporate adventures into a table top game, it is very difficult to do so in a PBEM without bogging things down or some serious willingness to dedicate specific blocks of time to the adventure on the part of the players, which can still be problematic given the global nature of the player base.

Actually, I think I will make a thread on this specific topic so as to not derail this one altogether.


4. Make it easier to expand (and contract?) the regional play scope, so that more of the map could be introduced later in the game.
I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean, the only issue involved with expanding the play area is the DM updating his databases, and having the needed energy/creativity to effectively utilise the additional NPCs.


To recruit more players:
1. Advertise, cross-promote, invite people in, etc.
I think that having some sort of ongoing updating of the events in a campaign here on Birthright.net would really help, because that way casual surfers would possibly get sucked into the story and then be inclined to participate in writing the story.


2. Support the latest editions of D&D, or possibly other popular RPG systems (5e, Pathfinder, etc) -- this may be more perception based (which is valid), because it's been a while since I've played a PBEM that really cared about standard D&D character creation; the Domain Rules can exist as a wholly separate layer.
In all honesty, I think that this is likely the most important one, but rather than trying to come up with an entire new version of Birthright for each new edition, we should attempt to try to make the Domain level play rules as independent of the underlying character rules being used as possible, so that one only needs a small conversion document to apply it to any given rule set.


3. Stress the roleplaying aspects of the setting.
THIS!!! I am a very strong advocate of this. Far too often the emphasis is on playing the domain and treating the regent as just another asset of the domain. I feel this is entirely the wrong approach, I feel that the emphasis should be on playing the regent, and treating the domain as both an asset and a liability for that regent.

Unfortunately, given the ever increasing influence of online role-playing games, actual role playing is pretty much a thing of the past. What passes for role playing there is really rule playing a stereotype with different stats and flashy add-ons, rather than playing the role of the person represented by the stats. All too often actually role playing well is seen as an annoyance rather than the point of the game, which it was originally meant to be. Mind you, this is not really a new phenomenon, we have always had players who are more "My 8th level Paladin attacks the orgres using his +3 sword" than they are "I draw Sangriel and lunge at the ogre on my right", the problem now is that those who do it right (by which as in the second example above) are often seen as needlessly slowing down the action with unimportant "fluff" details.
It is those so-called "fluff" details that are the heart and soul of good role playing, but by emphasizing that aspect of the game, I am afraid we will actually be driving away far more players than we will attract.

Of course those players that we do attract will be the sort that we really want to attract.


4. Make the Domain Rules more portable to other settings, so that people can import it into their own games or official, supported settings (like GreyHawk, FR, etc).
Here there really doesn't need to be much done at all, I have been porting the rules to home made worlds ever since they came out (I've never run a Birthright campaign in Cerilia), and it is ridiculously easy to do. Really, the only thing you need to do is to make up a new explanation for Bloodlines to replace the whole Deismar/Death-of-the-Gods explanation used in the published setting. After that it all just snaps into place pretty easily with only the occasional minor tweaking needed here and there.


5. Somehow bring the game more up-to-date with other, competitive offerings, to take advantage of relevant new trends while avoiding letting the game just die of old age (or the appearance of such).
Sorry, I have no idea what you mean by this.

[arpig2]

Ameliorate the gender imbalance brought up by Duck Call Lass in her Gender Parity thread to make the game more attractive to female players.

[Rowan]

Arpig, I agree with most of what you're saying, and like many of the ideas. A few things:

No. If you do that you will ruin the game, it is the complexity of it that is it's beauty, that's what makes it worth playing. Otherwise it is just another mildly interesting setting with a few surface oddities to provide some flavour.
I was summarizing the comments of several others. There is a difference between the play scenarios the rules are trying to cover--running a realm--and the complexity of the system itself (which can be and often is quite cumbersome, clunky, inelegant, inefficient, and insufficient to cover either the scope of what players may want to do or a simulation of running a realm--all rules systems suffer in various degrees from similar problems).

It seems to me that the target scenario--strategy-type domain management, running whole organizations and realms--is the primary goal of Birthright. The rules system used to achieve that goal should not be an end in and of itself. In fact, several have stated that the rules themselves don't matter so much. Indeed, there are already many variants of the BR system.

The goal in streamlining the rules would not be to sacrifice anything about domain level play, but rather to make the rules that enable that work better, faster, more easily, and be more easily learned.


Sorry, I have no idea what you mean by this.
I was responding to a comment made earlier that Birthright competes with so many other games out there for peoples' attention. Perhaps we need to take a look at how games have changed with an eye towards anything that could be a good thing for Birthright. After all, the Gorgon's Alliance game (which brought in many players) was doing just that, porting BR as much as was possible at the time to computer games.

For instance, if we ever had the talent and time available among the fan community, I could see artwork and apps built to make inter-player communications easier on social networks, as well as news updates and turn submissions. "Live games" or campaigns have already been proposed. There are also podcast and Twitch games, as well as TeamViewer-type conferencing; MUD and MMO worlds; match-up systems; randomized setups; and other game innovations. Maybe there's something that could help out BR.


Ameliorate the gender imbalance brought up by Duck Call Lass in her Gender Parity thread to make the game more attractive to female players.
How do you address gender disparity? While it would be nice, gaming in general has always attracted more men than women. Seems to me that you first chase low-hanging fruit before focusing your efforts at others. If there are easy ways to move in that direction, great. Not sure what they would be.


As for roleplaying, it seems to me that mostly what the fan community loves about BR boils down to two things:

1. Domain-level roleplaying
2. The story of the Birthright setting

1. Is a matter of rules and tools
2. Is a matter of evangelization/marketing and story-telling

[rugor]

As some noted in here, it is the perception by many to see the game as a "Strategic Game" in the sense that the video game portrayed it.

For some its about taking provinces, and winning the war, and they don't see much more than that tactical aspect of it.

Others are on the opposite end, they are in it for the diplomacy and spying and manipulations that are allowable in this setting that are not really built into any other system. They like to weave a story and debate the nuances of Imperial law.

Some have memorized every nuance and typo, and have a set series of "moves" they use for any given realm. Others are newcomers who don't understand the game mechanics at all.

A DM has much less difficulty running the game if everyone is on the same page, expectations wise. It is much more difficult when the experience of players varies greatly and the expectations vary significantly.

Birthright requires an experienced DM(s) (any successful campaign I have been part of has had DM responsibilities divvied up between two or more people) to truly shine, because for many players the Birthright setting and mechanics is so well known.

[arpig2]

Rowan.
OK,I see what you mean by reducing the complexity, and yes that would not be a bad thing, however, over my many years of gaming, I have found that streamlining rules almost always involves the removal of options or degrees of detail in the play of whatever game is being tinkered with, so that is something that we would need to be careful about.

One possibility would to break the rules into basic and advanced rules along the lines of the way the old Battlesystem rules were presented.

And I now understand your technology point and agree. Personally I think there is enormous potential for the conferencing/teamviewer type software, especially since it is free, so potential gamers wouldn't be required to fork out any cash to play.

And finally, the gender issue I was referencing was in the setting itself, not specifically the players, but the point would be to try attract more women to the game. In short, if we made sure to give women players a wider variety of interesting female characters/regents/institutions to play, then more of them would be inclined to play.

[arpig2]

In reference to providing interesting female positions to play, I think it is important that we try to provide positions women actually find interesting, rather than what we as middle-aged (or older) men think they should find interesting.

[Sheigh]

In reference to providing interesting female positions to play, I think it is important that we try to provide positions women actually find interesting, rather than what we as middle-aged (or older) men think they should find interesting.

Not all of us are middle-aged or older men, but I do feel you have a point - maybe some exploration into what about BRCS appeals to women, or what about D&D appeals to women, could help guide more into BRCS.

[arpig2]

Not all of us are middle-aged or older men
In which case the input of those people (the not middle-aged or older men) would be doubly welcome.

[Magian]

The two biggest problems for Birthright are no automation and the necessity for Roleplay.

There are a few small automation projects that have been done by a few people that are scattered across the internet. Nothing as of yet has been done that is comprehensive enough to satisfy the entire player base that frequents this website let alone the potential player base of Birthright or the quasi-BR players interested in domain rules for other settings. You satisfy this need, then you solve the biggest problem for this game ever.

Huh what roleplay as a problem for Birthright? Yes. Why? Politics. To engage in politics requires background story knowledge or knowledge of history. For BR players that is the bread and butter of the game, we love and enjoy it, but that is preaching to the choir. Most people that play in RPGs don't RP. In the adventure game they don't need to RP to get by. In Birthright you need to RP in order to get involved. A player can simply play the numbers in BR and power game themselves through it, however the number crunching technique lasts 1d4-1 turns before the consequences of their lack of political knowledge are about to catch up with them. By then, DMs may be burnt out from the spam wars right off the get go. Aside from this RP is a turn off in the greater player base of RPG players and delving into lore or fluff reading to figure out how to play your character effectively is a playstyle that doesn't suit everyone. The question is then what can we do about it? I don't think there is anything, because players who don't like to read or are adverse to being informed have this deeply rooted in their lifestyle choices that the scope of our game can't address.

So what can we do? We can attempt to automate. Over the years many man hours have been put into various projects to do just that. Some of these projects are ongoing and others have been set aside. The problems with automation is that each player has their own vision for what they want. Many of these visions have to be curtailed because of lack of man hours devoted to their project. The question is can a single project address all these visions in order to unify these man hours put into this single goal of automation? More particular questions are how many coders are there out there that are even available and willing for such a project and what format would they use? Also, would it be viable to simply pick up an already established project and update it or modify it to reach the scope of everyone's vision for their games rather than starting from scratch?

Personally I have gotten little response to this problem on this forum. I think this is due largely to the lack of people with the skills to provide such a project and it would be a huge undertaking for any one person or even 3 persons to do. Therefore it is not even considered realistic in its scope for the large part I'd think by those whom I've asked. I have remained consistent with this point over the decades because since the day of the games release when I opened the boxed set I knew it needed some automation program.

I think until this is addressed no amount of effort of rules changes will make a difference as evidenced by the 3E rules published here the population has simply dwindled. That publication didn't make a difference. All it really seemed to do is provide some interest for others who wanted domain systems to check it out and see if they could use it when 3E was going strong and perhaps a trickle of people since. None of whom have been won over to Birthright or its domain system.

There is no other problem for Birthright that is so crucial as no automation. If you want Birthright to appeal to other player bases, then you need to make something that they can easily use to play. Rules changes will simply turn it into a different game.

[Vicente]

I agree 200% with the automation issue for Birthright, it is critical to play. The main problem is that there is not a single Birthright ruleset the player base plays. Every PbeM is full of small new rules, additions, tweaks... Doing a program that is able to handle that is EXTREMELY hard.

In my opinion the main issues for a full automation project are:

- You can go for a simple desktop program to support only the GM. This is the easiest thing. You need somehow to provide an output for the players.

- You can go for a solution that supports the GM and the Players (mostly oriented for PbeM games). This is much harder to do for several reasons:

1) You need a central server, and that costs money.
2) You need two very different interfaces, one for players, one for the GMs.
3) Then you can complicate it more if you go for a desktop app, or a web front end, or both.
4) You can even go more crazy and support mobile clients.

Also, personally doing a good map interface to support interacting with the data in an intuitive way is not a trivial problem to solve.

I've done this in the past (BR Campaign Manager: https://brmanager.codeplex.com/) and I abandoned the project because Microsoft moved the technology I was using from desktop to web (and I now nothing about web development). I am more than happy to try this again, as it is a super interesting project, but the rules fragmentation of the community is pretty much a killer for this :(

My 2 cents!
Vicente

[arpig2]

I think what we really need to accept is that the game has a limited appeal period.

I have seen a growing trend to take the RP out of the game in a number of PBEMs, and it just makes me want to slap the ones doing it. It's like saying "Hey let's take this game and improve it by removing the best part of it." The simple fact of the matter is that the game requires a greater investment of grey matter than the majority of people will ever be interested in committing to a game, so we should resign ourselves to the fact that it will always be what it has always been: a small niche in the overall RPG world (which itself shrinking in the face of the online "RPG" games.

The best thing we can do for the game is to stay true to it, to just play it the way it ought to be played, and to introduce new people to it that way. Most people will not be interested, but that has always been the case anyway.

And as far as automation goes, I have one word for you: Excel.

Yup, good old fashioned spreadsheets, massively convoluted ones, but spreadsheets none the less.

[Vicente]

I think what we really need to accept is that the game has a limited appeal period.

I have seen a growing trend to take the RP out of the game in a number of PBEMs, and it just makes me want to slap the ones doing it. It's like saying "Hey let's take this game and improve it by removing the best part of it." The simple fact of the matter is that the game requires a greater investment of grey matter than the majority of people will ever be interested in committing to a game, so we should resign ourselves to the fact that it will always be what it has always been: a small niche in the overall RPG world (which itself shrinking in the face of the online "RPG" games.

The best thing we can do for the game is to stay true to it, to just play it the way it ought to be played, and to introduce new people to it that way. Most people will not be interested, but that has always been the case anyway.

And as far as automation goes, I have one word for you: Excel.

Yup, good old fashioned spreadsheets, massively convoluted ones, but spreadsheets none the less.

I'm not sure I agree the game has limited appeal. Kingmaker is consistently one of the most loved Pathfinder APs, domain level play has always being an important part of the end of DnD, several retroclones support it very explicitily (ACKS has a huge chapter on this, Labyrinth Lord has a great supplement in An Echo, Resounding). So I think the appeal is there.

But maybe there are other issues:

- The rules are not very good. I think BR is a good idea, but the rules can't handle the work needed to run several kingdoms at the same time and their interactions.
- The setting is not very attractive. BR is very different from other settings, and I like it, but I think it's not the cup of tea for most DnD players, or a good fit for DnD in general. If you want a pseudo-realistic low magic fantasy world, probably you prefer something different like Pendragon, Harnmaster, ToR.
- It came out in a wrong time for TSR/roleplaying. No clue if this affected it or not, BR had quite a healthy line of supplements so I don't think this had a huge effect.

And I don't think BR requires much brain matter than other PbeMs, but the PbeMs are organized to require more brain matter. It's not that I have to create my own character, I have to create his family, a senator (which is simply a patch for PbeMs), most important retainers, a backstory for him and his family... And then track all of that (without having good tools to track all that information). Birthright itself doesn't require any of that, but PbeMs ask for it and it adds a lot of extra work for everyone.

Regards!
Vicente

[Magian]

Automation would solve the problems of complexity of running the game and player's part of inputs like character creation, at least how I envision it. Again it is currently out of the realm of being realistic and I understand that.

RP is not a trend in gaming. It is a stigma, at least in my experience. Ironically RPGs are trending, but for the most part it is a numbers game for most. BR largely has balancing support from RP in character alignment, domain alignment, diplomacy, politics, and character reactions. Without having a Diplomacycraft supplement perhaps that is the main problem for its lack of success? That is to say a rules set that tightens up what can be done regarding domain level interactions with other regents rather than rely on the player's ability to engage in the setting and create a set of character responses on their own. Is there a need for clear rules for responses that could equate causus belli? That and other aspect for politics may just be what is needed, but in a sense that can be used in general terms outside of the Cerilia setting.

There is appeal for a domain level game for a fantasy setting. The popularity of Game of Thrones may be used as evidence to support this. However, bloodlines are unique to Cerilia in how they work. So, what mechanism could replace them for unblooded domain settings? The Targaryen bloodline could be passing on the dragon affinity or w/e it is they have. No spoilers please for people watching the TV show. In that sense it would explain their interbreeding. Therefore we should focus on a domain mechanic if anything. The appeal for players to come visit BR rules is to check out a domain level system that they can use. It only seems to follow that a universal system should be able to work in all D&D settings and adapted to others if desired. This is a conversation that has happened many times, but directly pertains to the appeal in my opinion.

The biggest problem I've seen with a universal domain system is the bloodlines rules being exclusive to Cerilia only. It is a cool mechanic and justifies the whole legacy thing we hear in history and myth. If we'd open it up to other worlds, then we create a bloodline system for other derivations, another conversation that has been had. I would envision a sort of guidelines for making new derivations and blood abilities. The bloodline is derived from myth that signifies the right to rule and it should be varied as per the setting and culture in which it is used.

When all is said and done a domain rule system that is easily plugged into other games is what everyone is looking for anyway. Of course this problem has been talked about already too with no resolution that could be agreed upon for a project by the community. Ultimately it too would need automation for admin. and player inputs for a larger appeal.

[arpig2]

Birthright itself doesn't require any of that
It does when I run it. :)

[arpig2]

That is to say a rules set that tightens up what can be done regarding domain level interactions with other regents rather than rely on the player's ability to engage in the setting and create a set of character responses on their own.
This is a good example of what I meant by improving the game by removing the best part of it. It is precisely the lack of any limit other than your own imagination and creativity that makes the game good.

Is there a need for clear rules for responses that could equate causus belli?
No, why would there be?

It only seems to follow that a universal system should be able to work in all D&D settings and adapted to others if desired.Which is something that Birthright does very well. I have been running BR campaigns since the rules first came out, and have yet to run one in Cerilia. I always make up my own world.

And the Bloodline thing is really easy to adapt to another setting. Here is an example of what I mean. This is the explanation I made up to apply bloodlines to my Zaidan setting
http://bobsworlds.x10.mx/Zaidan/index.htm
See, all it takes is a different back story and a change of names, and voila... Bloodlines tailored to the new setting.

I think a lot of the problem is that far too many people seem to want things to be done for them, which, to my mind at least, defeats the whole purpose of running a game in the first place.

[Magian]

This is a good example of what I meant by improving the game by removing the best part of it. It is precisely the lack of any limit other than your own imagination and creativity that makes the game good.

I agree with this.

What I was imagining when I was typing my post was a system that starts out in a tabula rasa setting where players make things up themselves. We could apply the same here as well again leaving it up to the player creativity for culture and reactions to power gamer / expansionists that may "break the game." But is there something missing that could be added?

I don't know as I've mainly played in Cerilia with an established setting. Again, that does not necessitate any changes in my mind, that is why I am asking.

Thank you for sharing your work for a good example of what could be done. It almost satisfies the gap of starting a new setting or blank slate. The success of a sandbox approach to a setting allowing characters to run their cultures does depend on their creativity and investment into the game. Hopefully that wouldn't be a problem.

The reason I am approaching it from a tabula rasa setting is to illustrate what a lack of political intricacy could do as in showing any rules gap. That is to say gaming the rules without political climate already established as a response to what an expansionist is doing. In a way it is a question that doesn't trust players to be able to deal such a Ghoere-like player. Anyway I don't know if this is even an issue with appeal.

Just going through this conversation and working out my ideas and especially seeing your work I am more convinced that appeal just won't happen no matter what without turning in into something that isn't Birthright.

[Vicente]

I wonder if also the main issue is that BR was designed for a small group of 4-6 players, and not a huge PbeM with 40-50 people at the same time. Re-reading a lot of domain systems I have around at home most of them assume a rise to power from normal heroes, and also that usually heroes found their kingdoms in a wild frontier or dangerous land and pretty much work to civilize it.

BR clearly doesn't fit this idea, and even less on a PbeM. I like the idea of a Tabula Rasa in politics, Cerilia comes with a ton of assumptions.

Regards!
Vicente

[Lord_Johnny]

So, my wife and I have just started up our own Birthright game. Here are some of the things we are really pushing for our game.

1. While she is the DM, I am doing a lot of the minor DM stuff that let's her do the bigger things. Like looking up and making lists of Characters and where they are, etc. This means that when it comes time for her to flesh out those NPC's so they can interact with the PC's she has something to work with rather than start from scratch.

2. Countries that are not integral for the immediate future ( say not 6 or so Domain Turns) we give them a generalized idea of what they are doing vs mapping out each Domain Action for Each Domain turn.

3. We ARE automating some things. For instance, we will be doing up a dice roller on a spreadsheet so that it's easier to document what is happening and what has happened.

4. We limited our party severely. We have 5 players, including my wife and I. This limits how many people we have to keep track of and schedule around, but also limits party issues like loot or internal conflict.

As for why there are so few that play it, I think this is a very good question, with a lot of different contributing factors.

1. Availability. I have only seen a handful of books, all of which were on ebay, most of which were $50 -75 for a players secrets to fill in the blank country. That's a bit much, and individually useless without the corest and such.
2. Knowledge. There isn't enough advertising to really know the game exists. I think it's a great game and have been spreading it by word of mouth, but that only gets so much done as far as awareness.
3. People are loath to try things that are this big in scale if they never have before. In a previous game, about half the party didn't WANT to be regents. I know, you know, we all know, that in Birthright you don't have to be a regent. That doesn't mean THEY know it.
4. The complexity. I love games with a lot of things to do and details that can mean success because I paid attention to details. Some only like smashy smashy, and for the most part that isn't Birthright.

Anyway, hope this helps.

[Rowan]

Lord Johnny, are you two doing stock BR? What edition? Which region? What part of the timeline?

I've seen a lot of branching out over the past few years, to new settings, frontier lands, or different timeline periods. In other words, a change-up of the standard storylines, something that several here have noted is a barrier to entry.

I like variations on the main storyline (different time periods and some differences in region), but I do love the setting itself and find it difficult to get enthusiastic about learning the lore of an entirely new setting -- much the same problem several commenters have noted with regards to getting new BR players.

It seems, too, like PBEMs have been dwindling over the past few years. I haven't been involved in one for maybe 2 years now due to Real Life demands. Occasionally feel the strong itch to do it again, though.

If the barriers to entry and sustaining domain level play are theoretically surmountable by rules improvements + easy-to-configure-and-use automation, the other barriers to entry regarding story/setting and advertising would need to be addressed, as well. Perhaps something that creatively combines a bit of "tabula rasa" or "rise to rule" gameplay options, where people wouldn't need to know anything about the setting at first and learn as they go, could help there.

Competing for attention is perhaps the hardest part of all, requiring either luck, truly outstanding gaming the goes viral, or a coordinated effort that may have to involve some money or at least artwork and dedicated volunteer effort.

[Lord_Johnny]

We're basically doing this just absolutely standard, with what we find in the core and player secrets books we have as PDF's. This is our first foray into the world (aside from one disasterous attempt with a mutual friend who turned out a bit too friendly, and that game lasted all of 3 sessions) so we're trying not to change too much about it. Mostly just little tweaks to how some rules are applied, or how characters get made at the start, etc. Nothing huge.

We're starting in Anuirea, with 3 out of 5 in the Southern Coast (Ilien, Roesone, and Aerenwe) but we have one player who just ascended (think domain turn right before game start) to the throne of Elenie, and the last player is going to be gaining the throne of Taeghas, which will be a fun campaign all it's own no doubt.

That being said, it's just going to be starting from what gets outlined in the books, and going from there. If that makes it a "standard" game, then yeah that's what we're playing, but being so new to the community, I can't honestly tell you whether or not this is a standard game of Birthright or not.

[Lord_Johnny]

If the barriers to entry and sustaining domain level play are theoretically surmountable by rules improvements + easy-to-configure-and-use automation, the other barriers to entry regarding story/setting and advertising would need to be addressed, as well. Perhaps something that creatively combines a bit of "tabula rasa" or "rise to rule" gameplay options, where people wouldn't need to know anything about the setting at first and learn as they go, could help there.

Competing for attention is perhaps the hardest part of all, requiring either luck, truly outstanding gaming the goes viral, or a coordinated effort that may have to involve some money or at least artwork and dedicated volunteer effort.

This is a good point that I failed to mention in the first reply to your post. My wife and I were involved in the aforementioned first game. We didn't get very far into it, but we did set up the first domain turn, even if we didn't actually get to play it. So, since 2 of the players in our group are being introduced to this entirely brand new (the 5th party member having about as much experience as we do) our first "adventure" is going to be putting me on my throne (Roesone). We tweaked the family to where I am the youngest child, and the youngest male child. (In order, male born, male born, female born, my character (male) born).

My middle brother having assassinated my father and my older brother, and attempting to claim the throne, with me coming in to stop it from happening etc. We will have a little bit of the politicing, a little bit of the fighting, and 1 actual battle (probably about 4 - 6 units for each side) to get everyone used to the system etc.

It helps that of everyone, I am the "newest" to gaming with only about 2 years in table top gaming, so some of the concepts of the game aren't new so much as just slight adaptations.

[AKjeldsen]

One important thing that holds Birthright back in my opinion is a lack of good adventures for it. The few official ones that were published back in the day were mostly crap, and no one seems to have made new ones since then.

It was said several times upthread that "people don't roleplay anymore", and apparently that's the reason why they don't play BR. I think both parts of that are very wrong, and I also think it's an extremely arrogant thing to say. But obviously you need to give people a reason to play in your obscure setting from the late 90s, instead of a well-supported one like Forgotten Realms or Golarion.

In fact, that's a big part of why Pathfinder has been so successful; they have their Adventure Paths to introduce the setting, show the selling points, present different play styles, just basically give people something to do in it. There is no reason why you couldn't do the same for Birthright. It's a fantastic setting, it just needs good, well-written adventures to advertise itself.

On a related note, another thing that probably has held Birthright back has been an excessive focus on the domain-level play. Not that there's anything wrong with the domain level in itself, but it's not a good selling point for new players, at least not as a primary one. Show them all the other cool things you can do as normal adventurers in the setting first, and then maybe some of them will start looking into the domain level as they get to know it better.

So that's my TL;DR: Advertise the setting through good, well-written adventures on the level of individual adventurers.