Level of Rules for BirthRight?

[Mirviriam]

Alright - I've mentioned it 4 times now...time to put something worthwhile up here.

I've seen there's a few entrenched opinions about how Birthright should be developed. With many great minds still poking around other places and off doing their own thing.

I'm writing this post to get some congruence going amongst the community.

There's some friction with people & legimately we need to have at least two system of rules if birthright will survive our generation (collectively as gamers).

There is a trend to make the game very complicated and reasonable as it relates to people's understanding of history. This trend makes sense from the position of established fans of birthright. This trend also fails completely in regards to gaining new players & crossover players.

The solution would be something similar to what they use in battletech (forgive me my lack of originality but I just spent over a year writing code to basically do a simplified version of birthright across an entire universe). Basically we acknowledge that Birthright needs to be simple to start, but eventually meet certain logical points for other players. Hopefully, this combined with other movements will prompt a boom in players.

To the outline...a vague system of rules open to change:

Level 1: Defined by being simple compared to birthright as we know it.
- No spells that do not use a set cost per target(province/unit/character/item/entity) or set a generic cost.
- Lay lines will be point A to point B (no varient rules on stringing or whatever)
- No multi constraints...the rule of max province level is used. Balance is almost not a concern as players are just exploring the game
- Contesting will be one time bid with defense of existing holdings getting second chance (new creations do not)

Level 2: Balance, basically tourney usage - for players that want to have fun, but are not satisfied by beginners level play
- I have a list of spells that do not make sense & will have to be adjusted for their duration, cost, # targets relative to other similar domain spells
- Armies varient rule will have to be standardized against the building speed rule & used as default
- repairs during sieges will not be allowed
- use of secret holdings possible
- source holdings will be limited in casts per turns, the same way province level limits musters per turn

Level 3: Enthusiast, ratified variant rules- Anything else that people like, a best of in house
- Population demographs
- Social constraint systems like reputation
- Normalized results to eliminate high/low oddities
- Defensive mindset, like sieges allowing checks to block level loss of fortifications
- Spells will be limited in # of targets by the holding levels, not by characters class levels



I left some of my notes at the ex's house tonight - but wanted to throw this up before I start my next coding session...this would be a reclassification of existing rules and some tweaks. I could see myself finishing it off inside 2 months if it was the only thing I'm doing (not the case, besides it has to be something the community wants). I see this generically independant of edition. We can write it in scope of power scales or colors & then when next edition comes out just say, level 5 sorc spell is same as 2 psychic points or whatever they use as the next method of D&D.

[Vicente]

I do think it's a nice idea having several rules "levels" for different styles of play, but it's quite a lot of work to get an agreement about those.

Also, about getting new players: BR needs visibility for that, I don't think it's related to rules. And also, we have to accept that even with more visibility the setting is not very popular in general (at least among the DnD players, it has been always a minor setting).

[Agelmore]

IMO, the 1st level of rules will help new DM but I'm not sure it will gather more players.

The visibility can be improved thanks to our wiki and our rules in pdf. Perhaps a sanctionned and finalized version of the rules could help.

I'm also wonder about the consequences of supporting multiple (or at least a second one) system of rules (not level of rules) like Warhammer rules or campaign setting.

[irdeggman]

A couple of major concepts I think you missed that need to be started at:

3 types of play:

(a) - Primary Domain level

(b) - Primary character level (basically adventurers)

(c) - mix of the 2 above.


There are a significant amount of people that play either primarily domain or primarily adventure level games.

Because of this it creates an inherent complication in any set of "simplified" rules being developed.

Start from one of the assumption above and then proceed down the path of simplification.

Also it is probably important to to note that there are also a significant amount of people that just take the domain/war level rules and import them to their own home-brewed game and remove any BR-setting specific ties.

[Agelmore]

I want to add another idea to improve visibility: Offer starting adventure packages that sit in a particular realm, contain adventure with each level of play (Comain/character) and a list of playable PC or PC ideas.

[Alexander Cecil]

Am I correct in understanding that the current, unfinalized rules are for 3.0/3.5?

It will be very, very difficult to attract newer players using an older edition rule set. This is not about 3e or 4e being a BETTER rules set, it's about meeting people where they are. I am currently running my Birthright game in 4e because that is the system my players know, and that is the system being supported by WotC.

[Thelandrin]

I don't see why it should be any more or less difficult to attract players to an unfamiliar and complicated setting, regardless of the rules used.

[Agelmore]

Am I correct in understanding that the current, unfinalized rules are for 3.0/3.5?

It will be very, very difficult to attract newer players using an older edition rule set. This is not about 3e or 4e being a BETTER rules set, it's about meeting people where they are. I am currently running my Birthright game in 4e because that is the system my players know, and that is the system being supported by WotC.

This is not the case for all. On 10 players, I know only one that like to play in 4e, whereas all are ok to play in 3.5 , pathfinder or 2e.
IMO, only mine, working on 4e is a waste of time. Actually, once you know well a system you can manage any problem or mistake done in the rule. Pathfinder is a good exemple. Paizo made few rules adjustement and correction and work more on scenario than on rules. Peharps it is the best ways : offer scenario

[Birthright-L]

At 03:26 AM 8/7/2009, Vicente wrote:

>Also, about getting new players: BR needs visibility for that, I
>don`t think it`s related to rules. And also, we have to accept that
>even with more visibility the setting is not very popular in general
>(at least among the DnD players, it has been always a minor setting).

To attract new folks to the setting, we definitely need
visibility. We also need a constant stream of new materials. To a
certain extent, these things feed off one another, but my point is
that the work folks have done is great. On the whole, if there were
efforts to put things into some sort of finished product format (they
don`t actually have to be finished products, but in some form that
looks like one) that`d make a difference too. People want something
that feels completed, even if it is version 9.2....

When I say new materials, though, I don`t just mean extrapolations on
existing stuff, or even conversions to new editions. I mean actual
adventure hooks, new character classes, and things that people
actually go out of their way to purchase out in the gaming
world. Details on existing materials are good, but people want to
see the plot move ahead. Maybe the Gorgon needs to die. Maybe the
continent is invaded by a race from another continent. Maybe there`s
another conflict with Azrai or his successor. Maybe bloodlines
suddenly vanish and players need to figure out what happened. Etc.

Those are the biggies, but there are a lot of little things too. For
instance, we can`t charge for things, but people do seem to value
materials that they have to pay for more. Maybe only downloads for
those who sign up to an account on BR.net? Lately, I`ve been more
and more conscious of when we old-timers don`t play nice with the
newbies, so that always gets my attention. (I`ll readily plead
guilty to have made a few mistakes in that regard myself.)

Gary

[Mirviriam]

Visibility is just a start ... no one will stay around if the enemy can just keep abusing broken rules or priest's buffs in army don't last half as long or give as much power.

Even if we get 16 million players - no one will stay if the rules are broken.

The segmentation is almost just to help us develope rules ... kguard's "how war works" thread would have been completely different if everyone acknowledged that they are level 3 rules and don't have to be simple or make sense from the standpoint of game design ... as they are more geared towards appealing to aesthetic standpoint & we accept that it would be granular making one siege take several months to resolve.

The second purpose is uniform ... which will help birthright make sense in terms of a game that people want to play (a theme if you will of the mechanics).

As to the crowd that takes what they like and uses it - that's exactly what we want...more people playing. Maybe if the rest of the game makes sense after it's balanced out - then they will play the vanilla version?

[Rowan]

The 2e/3.x/4e debate can only be settled conclusively by ditching character stats entirely at the domain level.

Many people here have advocated making rulership skills and character details entirely dependent from normal D&D adventure statistics. That's the only way to make a single version of the BR domain system (which is otherwise entirely independent from D&D adventuring rules, anyway) applicable to all versions. I'm all in favor of this.

I don't think it is really possible to expand Birthright as it is, unfortunately. As long as Wizards holds the copyright and refuses to let us produce and sell product involving the story materials (the original published material or anything new), we will not be able to adequately reach new markets, increase visibility.

I agree that people value more what they purchase, but we can't sell anything. That means that the only avenue we have open for appreciable expansion of the hobby through marketing/visibility is by producing all that material and paying for marketing, or donating marketing space and efforts on the web.

Creating and supporting an easy-to-learn free, online community game could work. With enough users, ad revenue could even sustain the hosting of it. But I don't think this is possible unless you can automate the game to some degree. All the other successful free gaming communities that I know of have some level of automation. If we could set up living worlds where people would be able to submit turns and have them processed, that could suffice. That would limit roleplaying more than most PBEMs do, but it might attract more interest that could then get more into the roleplaying side.

Alternatively, we'd have to produce our own rulership game, abandoning the BR story (to which WotC controls the rights) to another setting. But that won't work because what many of us love about this is the BR setting.

The last option for expanding the game would involve either buying the rights from WotC (likely prohibitively expensive--would they even entertain the thought if it were less than $10,000?), or trying to enter into some partnership with them whereby they earn royalties off of anything we sell, and we produce and sell things primarily with the goal of making enough money to pay web hosting and minor marketing fees to expand the hobby; no one will ever make any reasonable amount of money off of this, unfortunately.

So while I think it is an admirable cause to try to expand the BR community, I think it would be very difficult to do so, and I'm not sure we have the unity or energy or desire to do what is necessary yet. I don't think rules are a major driver of new participation even if they are wonderful, so I don't think we should approach rules under that illusion.

[Vicente]

When I say new materials, though, I don`t just mean extrapolations on
existing stuff, or even conversions to new editions. I mean actual
adventure hooks, new character classes, and things that people
actually go out of their way to purchase out in the gaming
world. Details on existing materials are good, but people want to
see the plot move ahead. Maybe the Gorgon needs to die. Maybe the
continent is invaded by a race from another continent. Maybe there`s
another conflict with Azrai or his successor. Maybe bloodlines
suddenly vanish and players need to figure out what happened. Etc.


I definitively agree with this, the timeline of the setting needs to advance, that will help a lot making the setting more interesting and more lively. I don't know what would be the best way to make the timeline move forward (and agree between ourselves), but it should be one of the first things to do.

[Rowan]

I definitively agree with this, the timeline of the setting needs to advance, that will help a lot making the setting more interesting and more lively. I don't know what would be the best way to make the timeline move forward (and agree between ourselves), but it should be one of the first things to do.

What's the purpose of advancing the timeline, specifically? That would have an impact on how you would do it.

Advancing the timeline will have no impact on attracting new players. The current timeline and disposition of things would be new to them, anyway, so the only way advancing the timeline might help for new players is if it was being done to effectively change the setting to something that we thought was more attractive to new players.

Advancing the timeline might encourage the current players, or draw old players back in. To do that, though, we would need to discuss and have some agreement about what most people would find exciting. It seems to me that a lot of people are rather happy with the default setting as a starting point anyway. I've seen people advance things a few years to create a fairly specific scenario for a new game they want to try out.

What I am cautioning against is change for the sake of change. Killing the Gorgon or bringing back Azrai or doing some other drastic thing may significantly change the flavor of the game, but for what purpose? We need to keep that purpose in mind, and not alienate existing players by destroying what they so love about the world.

WotC advanced storylines in Forgotten Realms to introduce new concepts and reinvigorate a setting with huge numbers of players, many of whom may have wandered away. But they also alienated a lot of people in doing so. Birthright never had that kind of a following. Birthright had less of a following than Dragonlance, and I think the rapid advancement of that storyline down dubious paths by the original authors of the world destroyed a lot of the charm of that setting. I hated what Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickmen did with their endless wars and cataclysms starting 30 years after the War of the Lance. The setting prior to the Chaos War had lots of beautiful flavor and I dearly loved it. The Chaos War, the Dragon Realms, and Takhisis's prophet Mina and all that put Dragonlance through several major changes in flavor of the setting, as well as just strained credibility with me well past the breaking point.

I would hate to see us butcher Birthright, with a much smaller fan base, in the same way, when much of the reason that it is still played long after its commercial demise is because the flavor of the setting was well-loved.

[Birthright-L]

At 03:34 PM 8/7/2009, Rowan wrote:

>WotC advanced storylines in Forgotten Realms to introduce new
>concepts and reinvigorate a setting with huge numbers of players,
>many of whom may have wandered away. But they also alienated a lot
>of people in doing so.

I don`t know that FR is the best example of how to go about advancing
a timeline.... From what I can tell, people were wandering away from
FR before they advanced it.

>Birthright never had that kind of a following. Birthright had less
>of a following than Dragonlance, and I think the rapid advancement
>of that storyline down dubious paths by the original authors of the
>world destroyed a lot of the charm of that setting. I hated what
>Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickmen did with their endless wars and
>cataclysms starting 30 years after the War of the Lance [snip]

Personally, I dropped DL after the original Raistlin-godhood story
arc, because I rather felt I was done with the setting at that point,
so I don`t have any opinion on the later materials. However, if BR
has all the "problems" of the Dragonlance setting then we can mourn
all the way into gaming immortality.... The problem is that BR never
really even had that story arc. The story arc is setting background
material. It`s like a chessboard without any moves on it. Arguably,
the way one game plays out might "ruin" the setting for someone, but
that`s the way franchises develop. Sooner or later, Captain Kirk
must die, Vader`s mask comes off or the castaways get off the
island. Unless the point is that there is no denouement (the coyote
never catches the roadrunner) then a setting in which nothing changes
is simply static. A good setting will continue on past such events
if its strong enough. Personally, I think BR has more than enough
material in it to survive the death of the Gorgon or an invasion by a
barbarian horde from across the sea.

Gary

[Birthright-L]

At 02:26 PM 8/7/2009, Vicente wrote:

>I heartfully agree with this, the timeline of the setting needs to advance, that will help a lot making the setting more interesting and more lively. I don`t know what would be the best way to make the timeline move forward (and agree between ourselves), but it should be one of the first things to do.

I appear to have some sort of Star Trek thing going on at the moment, so I`ll make the following, rather awkward, comparison:

Apparently some Trek fans are upset about the events of the latest film. I`m not a rabid ST fan, but I`ve seen all the original episodes, all the NG, Enterprise and most of the episodes from the other spinoffs--but that`s mostly out of a sense of general geekdom rather than a particular fascination with the series. The fans who are upset, though, are bothered by the events of the movie because the diverge from the OS so much, and what was hyped as a "reboot" turns out to be something that has the potential to be season 8 of Dallas. At the start of season 9 one of the characters wakes up to find the whole last year was nothing but a bad dream. The next ST movie could easily cancel all the events of this one. For that matter, they might wipe out any number of things.

The thing is, alternate timelines are a core concept of the Star Trek universe. They appear in every series. They happen in the movies. They are major aspect of the setting`s action and events. Personally, I can`t say I want to see another 10 ST movies based on an alternate timeline, but if there`s anything to get annoyed about in the movie, the fact that it`s an alternative timeline just doesn`t seem to make a lot of sense to me.

How`s this relate to BR? Well, one of the things people don`t really fully embrace about the setting is that it is absolutely RIFE with alternate materials. All the Player`s Secrets of X texts start out with alternate regents. The texts were intentionally written with a smattering of vagaries and optional events. The history is intentionally open to debate. Perspective is fit right into the setting material. Is the Cold Rider the servant of Azrai, the son of Azrai, a remnant of Azrai, or an Azrai-wannabee? The setting material doesn`t tell us outright. Occasionally, one of these mysteries is solved. We found out in a supplement that the Magian is a member of The Lost. But even when such a mystery is solved, it`s not really a huge advance in our understanding of things. We know almost nothing about the Lost! The fact that he`s a member of Azrai`s old posse is an interesting bit of character development, and might spark a few adventure hooks, but it doesn`t really alter the conception of the setting.

So, I`d suggest that new materials be handled in a similar way. There is a concept in the old sci-fi RPG Traveller. We used to say "In my Traveller universe..." and then fill in the blank with some particular homebrew version of things. Later incarnations of Traveller has several timelines available that range from the demise of the vast interstellar empire to one where no such thing happened.

Nothing is hard and fast in BR. The materials contain suggestions about how to incorporate things, but they don`t require DMs to do so. That`s always the case, of course, but BR didn`t just assume it, it embraced it. That should be the assumption when people come up with new materials for the setting.

Gary

[Rowan]

I wasn't suggesting FR was a model--unless it's a model of what NOT to do :) I was pointing out that that approach wouldn't work for BR, and the reasons for it don't seem to apply to BR. Neither was Dragonlance a good model.


o, I`d suggest that new materials be handled in a similar
way. There is a concept in the old sci-fi RPG Traveller. We used to
say "In my Traveller universe..." and then fill in the blank with
some particular homebrew version of things. Later incarnations of
Traveller has several timelines available that range from the demise
of the vast interstellar empire to one where no such thing happened.

That seems like a good approach for BR. I think it's already being done ("in MY Birthright game..."). Perhaps we ought to institutionalize that approach more somehow. I'm not sure how Traveller does it.

Are you suggesting we provide a few alternate timelines or scenarios/storylines? That would be easier than agreeing on one, for sure.

[Thelandrin]

I like the idea of multiple timelines. It allows people to conjecture about the various futures and gain substance by "wiki-magic", without alienating people who would dislike a single future.

[Birthright-L]

At 10:11 PM 8/7/2009, Rowan wrote:

>Are you suggesting we provide a few alternate timelines or
>scenarios/storylines? That would be easier than agreeing on one, for sure.

I think we should use the Player`s Secrets of... texts as a model for
new material, and maybe extend the concept a bit. That is,
everything should be presented with a timeline option as a way of
showing the DM/players a way of incorporating that material into
their campaign, but it should be understood that it is just one of
several ways of doing things. Other possibilities should be given
their own little descriptions.

BR does this kind of thing a lot. In addition to the PSo texts,
consider the "Playing a Birhtright Campaign" in the original
Rulebook, the recommendations for player and NPC realms in all the
Expansions, the lists of adventure hooks and hints. The texts
consistently present material as a set of possibilities or from a
particular perspective, meaning the DM can take that view and run
with it, or give it to the players as misleading.

Gary

[Mirviriam]

In my research the other day I opened the latest version of the birMail program...their map must contain materials I've never seen as they have a continent basically 3-5 times bigger than just the boxed set's map.

Granted all I have on hand is boxed set, blood enemies, sea/naval, herokings, maybe two others ... but we don't seem to be at a loss for grounds and the need of fleshing out from that perspective.

What you said about the time & energy thing hangs over me too...as we all gradually lose steam. My focus has to be on balancing out birthright.

Are we allowed to offer previous versions of editions as a historical type thing? With them axing all online stores (WoTC), I'd hate to have to get a name scrabbler ran (one of the final reasons I went with sql db project).

[Mirviriam]

OT: I wouldn't go completely away from class/D&D system, but I suggest ... players choose one of their character classes/skillfocus whatever & that is their acting domain stat for collections etc. That way I can shoehorn the players in to my game without getting complicated. If I have too, all domain characters start out at level 1 & I'll have exp system for domain actions to allow them to level a seperate entity from their normal character.

From there we deal in raw related bonus - loosely done & totally in the domain of DM Fiat. Pick any skills or whatever 7th Edition will call it & then that's their bonus to completely domain actions if we need a syngergy/spell level etc.

I have no opposition to a new system independant of D&D adventuring stats based on 2nd/3rd/4th - just I have no time for it either.

[Mirviriam]

A couple of major concepts I think you missed that need to be started at:

3 types of play:

(a) - Primary Domain level



All I am focusing on is domain play - not that 3rd Edition was badly done...just I can't make a computer game with the rules & spells like they are right now. People would get sick of the rules being abused inside of a month & months to years of work would be wasted, if they even tried to take the dive in to the rules of our world.

The idea of different levels of play worked fantastically for BattleTech!

I remember there's some story about a group that came to the conventions where birthright was being advertised & played live demo's ... they got big props and such.

In battletech conventions it's not a big deal because it's common to have handful of games going at even the small midwestern conventions. They were able to finish these games because of the levels of play. I'm sure the developers didn't say, lets make Battltech with training wheels ... they got feed back from people who had never played saying, I like the idea - but would not pursue on my own as a DM unless it was a bit simpler.

Advertisements, pushing the player levels is putting the carriage before the horse. Our product offering is good, but needs to be targettted now torwards specific groups.

[Mirviriam]

I don't see why it should be any more or less difficult to attract players to an unfamiliar and complicated setting, regardless of the rules used.

One of the differences in successful versus flashy marketing scheme's is how they tune their product & target different groups instead of having the funniest or coolest commercials. Combining the two together is the best result.

The 3 levels of play lets us hit all the needed categories ...
- Beginners who just want to try the ideas out
- Balanced play for use when the groups are too competitive (who's lost a group because of mechanics allowing someone abuse rules?)
- In depth, historically accurate long term unchanging world ... sometimes called realistic

If it was just about markinget people would pay thousands of dollars for a piece of paper & a pencil - because the ad was so great & promised, "a world of fantasy that will provide years of excitement and be exactly what you want" as their plug line.

Lets finish tuning the product, then worry about recruiting. I've gotten feedback from 12 players in the past 3 weeks & they still think it needs work.

[Mirviriam]

The last option for expanding the game would involve either buying the rights from WotC (likely prohibitively expensive--would they even entertain the thought if it were less than $10,000?), or trying to enter into some partnership with them whereby they earn royalties off of anything we sell, and we produce and sell things primarily with the goal of making enough money to pay web hosting and minor marketing fees to expand the hobby; no one will ever make any reasonable amount of money off of this, unfortunately.

So while I think it is an admirable cause to try to expand the BR community, I think it would be very difficult to do so, and I'm not sure we have the unity or energy or desire to do what is necessary yet. I don't think rules are a major driver of new participation even if they are wonderful, so I don't think we should approach rules under that illusion.

If we could locate or get an idea of what they paid to buy BattleTech (infinitely more profitable with 50+ novels, 3 mechanic systems, 12+ supplements of equipment, three campaign settings)...well then we might be on a pitch to find a way. The real question is how many years of making cash off the google advertisements or maybe facebook apps do we need to get 10,000 or whatever it is they might ask for?

Another consideration is maybe WoTC didn't buy D&D for the money it would be making (though they would certainly try)...but rather because they wanted to own the competition. We might be faced with the very real possibility that those fringe world games might be owned in order to keep them dead & prevent saturation ... it's a lot cheaper to develope one world & have everyone play it.

OT: The end goal of every birthright campaign isto match wits and forces with the gorgon ... you can't put a guy like him in to the campaign setting without him being the last challenge. (I have a story arc where the gorgon harvests the last few bloodlines he needs & ascends - leaving a mess of squabling realms that will never unite armies again with the gorgon gone & the lieutenants of his vying for power).

[Nicholas Harrison]

The last option for expanding the game would involve either buying the rights from WotC (likely prohibitively expensive--would they even entertain the thought if it were less than $10,000?), or trying to enter into some partnership with them whereby they earn royalties off of anything we sell, and we produce and sell things primarily with the goal of making enough money to pay web hosting and minor marketing fees to expand the hobby; no one will ever make any reasonable amount of money off of this, unfortunately.

Hmmmmmm . . . . Is $10,000 really that much to raise? I'm working on a JD/MBA and I could probably write up an actual business plan. But, I could conceivably see some dedicated fans and developers who might be willing to invest that sum for the "rights" to the Birthright Campaign Setting. Has there ever been a serious discussion with the company about that?

[Nicholas Harrison]

One more musing from reading this thread . . . .

When I first got involved in AD&D, I read something somewhere about how TSR didn't really want to alter settings dramatically -- killing off characters or pursuing dramatically world-changing storylines because that's what the PCs were there for.

The setting was envisioned as a backdrop -- the perfectly developed setting with just enough definition and just enough ambiguities to allow a DM to insert a story that the PCs could run with.

They didn't want to kill off major characters or dramatically redraw maps or such. There were adventures out there with the potential to do that, but it all happened in the "party's campaign world" rather than in the "universal game world".

They got away from that in Forgotten Realms later and created a whole bunch of goofy variations -- like killing off Bane and destroying Zhentil Keep and making Manshoon's clones go crazy. And, I think what they lost some of the best aspects of their settings by doing that.

I'd encourage you guys NOT to do that with Birthright. Create adventures. Flesh out potential storylines. But, don't try to change the whole "universal game world". Let players do that in their own tabletop games.

[Sorontar]

Killing off major NPCs etc is actually against the original agreement with WOTC.


Retain the iconic heroes, locations, magical items, and artifacts. Official sites are not allowed to kill off major PCs, destroy well-known artifacts, and similar activities.

Sorontar

[Birthright-L]

At 05:01 PM 8/10/2009, Sorontar wrote:

>Killing off major NPCs etc is actually against the original
>agreement with WOTC.

It was? That`s interesting.

Of course, I don`t know if anyone creating fan material should really
be worried about it, unless they wanted to be "official."

Gary

[Sorontar]

I suspect that that part was to stop fan-groups doing exactly what we are talking about, inventing "Birthright: The Next Generation" with a changed world and different characters. They were happy for fans to work with the reality that WOTC had invented but didn't want too much of a change. They were happy about the D20 BRCS because it didn't change Birthright. It just cleaned up the existing rules for a new generation of players and a new version of the D&D system.

So if we are to try and maintain following those rules, the "levels of rules" are fine provided they don't change the underlying essences of what is Birthright. Things like bloodlines and blood abilities, regencies, awnsheghs, domains and holdings, courts and domain actions, Shadow World and Seeming. Any set of rules would have to deal with all of them, regardless of how complex.

Sorontar

[Thelandrin]

Well of course. The first you change in a future BR world is the ascension of the Gorgon and removal of the Chamberlain. Both represent unrealistic level of stasis in the campaign, one by being infeasibly powerful and not wanting to be a god (which really makes no sense at all) and the other by massively failing in his duty for five centuries and serving in a completely redundant role through sheer arrogance.

[Rowan]

One more musing from reading this thread . . . .

When I first got involved in AD&D, I read something somewhere about how TSR didn't really want to alter settings dramatically -- killing off characters or pursuing dramatically world-changing storylines because that's what the PCs were there for.

The setting was envisioned as a backdrop -- the perfectly developed setting with just enough definition and just enough ambiguities to allow a DM to insert a story that the PCs could run with.

They didn't want to kill off major characters or dramatically redraw maps or such. There were adventures out there with the potential to do that, but it all happened in the "party's campaign world" rather than in the "universal game world".


They got away from that in Forgotten Realms later and created a whole bunch of goofy variations -- like killing off Bane and destroying Zhentil Keep and making Manshoon's clones go crazy. And, I think what they lost some of the best aspects of their settings by doing that.

I'd encourage you guys NOT to do that with Birthright. Create adventures. Flesh out potential storylines. But, don't try to change the whole "universal game world". Let players do that in their own tabletop games.

I agree. One of the reasons I hated what was done with Forgotten Realms is that the main storyline was so wildly different from what I was doing with the game. My game had started before the Time of Troubles, and was indeed going to remake the Realms quite a bit, but in ways totally different than WotC did.

Here, with BR, we have that same sort of happy individualization.

However, one of the reasons people buy material is to save time inventing everything themselves and to enjoy someone else's ideas that they happen to like. This is where multiple timelines could work, and why we need good rules sets.

As for buying the rights, I don't think it's ever been discussed. I question whether this community has enough unity to agree to a purpose and direction for a BR Co., however.

[Mirviriam]

OT:

Not sure there's enough of us left with that determination to purchase or use the setting. It would essentially come down to one guy owning the rights like with the domain name anyways though ... as a custodian of our will.

It would be worse than trying to negotiate the bill of rights ... then it would change drasticly if we ever did gain popularity as the the new comers would want to streamline to their tastes and would outnumber the current group.

[Birthright-L]

For the setting to attract new people, I think it has to move on. That is, I think we need to do the occasional drastic change or plot event.

I`m not talking about a complete change of direction, though. There should always be awnshegh in the setting, but any individual awnshegh might die or be significantly changed as the result of a set of adventures (a campaign) that someone out in the BR community might write and post for everyone`s use. After all, if our big problem is that someone writes a 60-70 page (or more) document like "Sword and Crown" or "King of the Giantdowns" and the culmination of that text is that the players face off with the Gorgon, the Magian, or Rhuobhe Manslayer, possibly resulting in the demise of that NPC, then I think that`s the kind of "problem" we _want_ to have, isn`t it? After all, one is free to ignore it in one`s own campaign, so the most harm it could do is that individual DMs might not like it. I suspect everyone in the BR community has, at some point, seriously considered running a campaign in which the players take on the Gorgon and maybe even win. After all, the setting`s background pretty much sets up that as a goal.

There is a point at which changing things would be too much, or might be too radical. Personally, I`ve always objected to the inclusion of weird new races in the documents that people have prepared about Aduria, for example. I think a whole new race appearing for no good reason on the continent that was once attached to Cerilia makes very little sense, especially since at least of of the five human races (all immigrants to the continent) travelled right up that continent to get to Cerilia....I don`t think anyone should introduce concepts or game mechanics that diverge wildly from the original materials either. In the past, I`ve argued consistently against things like ninjas, psionics and even gnomes (which are mentioned in the original materials) in the setting.

That said, the setting does need to move on in significant, "epic" ways. For example, I`ve had in the back of my mind a campaign called "Invasion!" which would feature an assault on Cerilia by a massive army from some unspecified continent of Aebrynis--it doesn`t really matter much where they came from. The invading hordes are led by an awnshegh called Khan Trannus, whose totemic form is that of a Tyrannosaurs Rex. He leads an army equal to about half the armies of all Cerilia combined. He has access to magic items comparable to relics. Maybe he even has access to gunpowder. In such a campaign, nearly every domain and regent of Cerilia would become involved in the conflict in one way or another.

That would certainly be a big influence on any given campaign, and anything might happen. Players might wind up cooperating with the Gorgon. Certainly any of the human regents might be killed. The gods might even get involved in such huge events.

But there`s no reason why people should feel like they`d have to artake in such a thing. It`d be a cool thing to have available, though.

Gary

[Mirviriam]

Oh blackpowder & guns...

I could definitely see brecht musketeers....but for some reason I envision them wearing micky mouse ears :)

Check in on the birMail tool - i think someone already fleshed out the rest of the continent...its like 3 cerilias's or so in size.

[Rowan]

For those of you who want to, go ahead and try advancing the storyline. Either submit proposals for people to comment on, or draft your adventures/materials.

If they are well-liked enough, we can consider what to do with them: keep them as secondary support materials (take-it-or-leave-it adventures), make them an alternate timeline, adopt them as semi-official possibilities, or try to make them official.

However, I suspect there's enough individuality that we would have difficulty agreeing to make them semi-official, and I'm not even sure we're allowed to make anything "official" without giving WotC a legal bullet against our operation as a fansite.

As for that individuality, I for instance like the Gorgon and think he should stay, possibly being eliminated after centuries of devoted effort, but certainly not before dealing with some of the many other problems of Cerilia (lesser awnsheghlien, Empire, goblins/orogs, etc). I have plenty of other ideas I'd like to try out, but not even all of them are compatible with each other.

There are all sorts of fun ideas out there and I think we'd be limiting the community by endorsing some over others:

The standards: Reforging the Empire, reforging of Imperial Temple, dealing with existing threats
Imperial politics, with retired Emperor Heirophants with Long Life roaming around, resurgence of bloodline strength
Colonization of other continents
Return of the Elves
Thinning of the barrier with the Shadow World
Cold Rider as Azrai's spirit trying to reform, gaining strength
Dwarf/Orog wars, recolonization of dwarves in mountains
Giant wars
Rampaging dragon(s)
Return to Aduria
Invasion from Aduria/other continents (my version of this, which most people probably wouldn't find nearly as interesting as I do, is to play what it would be like if a monotheistic people invaded and all magic failed against them--sort of an Israelites-invade-Canaan thing)
Gunpowder, cannon, steam tech/trains, muskets, mercantilism

And many more, particularly having to do with smaller scale, realm-to-realm possibilities