Game Mechanics - The Necessity of Regency Points?

[ShirraWhitefur]

Greetings folks.

I've been sitting back and slowly working on drafting out some personal rules with a friend for Realm "stuff" for another gaming system I like, which doesn't use the Birthright setting.. but is based quite heavily on Birthright's setup, with a touch of Field of Blood's ideas.

Among many other questions that have come up, is Regency Points. Considering that in what we'll be dealing with, there are no deity powered bloodlines, and no mystical connection to the land, I look at the RP mechanic and make a soft 'hmm' noise. We're in debate on whether or not to include it's basic part of the Chance of Action bonus-minus to success bit.

On the one hand, it's definitely slowing down gameplay, and makes the amount of correspondence necessary for a PBeM game quite a bit higher, especially with a lot of players.
On the other hand, it adds a lot more depth to the planning you have to do, as well as a lot more uncertainty to the success of actions. Will the merchant lords of your realm let you put in another law holding, or will they try to fight you tooth and nail about it, but through means of their influence in the area? (I tend to see that bonus/minus thing as a representation of subtle manipulation and diplomacy, as "Influence" points.) Or will they make a small attempt of a blocking, and then hit your next action with quite a bit more? Will you have enough to points left over to push through your agitation actions against the kingdom that's making threatening overtures at you?

In the rules I'm working on, if we -do- keep that aspect, we'd be without bloodline scores, so it'd -only- be for increasing and decreasing rolls. There'd be no reason to spend it to raise an arbitrary bloodline number, which reduces the number of things it's necessary for right there.. and that again makes me more leery of keeping it.

Any chance folks could put some input in on whether or not Birthright could be fun without that dice-roll influencing mechanic, and how it may have affected their game-play? Please note, I realize that without the RP system, your bloodline cannot be strengthened, but that's not the issue I'm trying to get input on. :)

There's other ideas and tweaks I'm kicking around ideas on, but this is the big one to start with.

- Shirra

[AndrewTall]

Regency makes for much greater interaction between realms - either requests for support or in interventions to oppose. It also expands the influence from a fairly modest amount to a possibly very significant influencing factor and allows for 'pet projects' and suchlike to get much greater support than would normally be the case.

It also encourages realms to be broken down and vassals and sub-vassals created to optimise RP collection, although if you aren't limiting RP collection by blood/another factor that factor won't apply.

It can also impact the viability of council-run realms depending on what ruleset you apply.

I've considered a regency cap based on leadership, or level + cha, or class factored (like saves with nobles and experts say having 'good' cap advancement, priests and theives having moderate advancement and wizardly types having poor advancement' - there are several possible methods.

Overall I'd say it adds more book-keeping, but RP is probably easier to track than GB (which often goes to decimals) so the additional difficulty shouldn't be too bad if the RP wars are kept to a set number of bids, or to an initial 'this is low/high/etc priority - spend from a pool of x RP' style bid method.

[arpig]

RP are not required, but if you do not use them, then your action die mods are only GB based, so wealth becomes the determining factor of power, not historically inaccurate, but also not to conducive to heroic role-playing. Even without bloodlines, RP can be used to represent "political power/influence". I think that divorcing RP from bloodlines creates less problems than trying to adapt the BR system to a non-RP system.

Just my opinion, but I have been using BR since it came out without paying too much attention to bloodlines and all the Deismar baggage in the canon.

[Birthright-L]

At 07:19 PM 2/12/2011, arpig wrote:

>RP are not required, but if you do not use them, then your action
>die mods are only GB based, so wealth becomes the determining factor
>of power, not historically inaccurate, but also not to conducive to
>heroic role-playing. Even without bloodlines, RP can be used to
>represent "political power/influence". I think that divorcing RP
>from bloodlines creates less problems than trying to adapt the BR
>system to a non-RP system.
>
>Just my opinion, but I have been using BR since it came out without
>paying too much attention to bloodlines and all the Deismar baggage
>in the canon.

I`ve twice used a system of domain rules for a campaign setting that
was unrelated to BR many years ago, shortly after BR first came
out. However, in the first case it didn`t make a lot of sense since
the regents didn`t have a justification for their added
abilities. Later, in another campaign, I used a replacement for
Deismaar to justify the existence of those with a divine ability to
rule, though they didn`t get blood abilities, just regency
collection. Even later I came up with a system of domain rules sans
bloodline, but it mostly got used for background and explaining how
the PCs efforts influenced the campaign world overall.

I`m curious: How do you use bloodlines without Deismaar? That is,
after all, where bloodlines came from.... If you don`t use RP, do
you need bloodlines?

Gary

[DanMcSorley]

I agree that two units of realm currency are a little redundant. I go the other way, though, and remove GB.

Loyalty, not cash, is the currency of the realm. Rulers generate RPs from their realm, and use them to pay for domain actions, and to reduce the DC of those actions. RPs represent political capital, favors owed, taxes due, all that stuff.

Then, if the ruler wants cash, he does a Finanaces action to turn some of that political capital into actual capital. This is lossy- I eyeball it at about 1 RP -> 1000gp, but going the other way, 2000gp -> 1 RP.

(In a blooded ruler game, I add an additional wrinkle, that only blooded rulers can keep all the RPs they accumulate. Unblooded rulers work in the system, but their RPs do not carry over from season to season.)

To answer the original question, though, yes, you can totally run without RPs and just use GBs. One of the changes I found most elegant in the 3e rules written for birthright.net was that for most actions, RPs are optional, and only used to modify the difficulty of actions, so the whole system works without them.

[AndrewTall]

I've actually been toying with going the other way and creating a third currency for mages following some old comments from irdeggman - a mebhaighl equivalent of gold bars, to represent rare components etc. That way the mage could have a court of spirits, sprites, etc, etc who are paid in weird and wonderful stuff that is found/grows/etc where the mabhaighl flows more freely, could use the income for actions and spells, and thus make them less dependent on other regents - they need some dependence to bring them into the game but at the moment it can be crippling.

The rough idea is that GB could substitute for mebhaighl coins, i.e. the regent pays other people to collect/process/etc the stuff, but that the converse would not occur, or would have side effects (wah! my gold melted when the wind changed direction!)

That way you could have one set of rules for all the actions, without crippling mage regents or alternatively making them insanely rich in otherwise poor areas. On the downside you have another currency to track. Having played a few mages where I sometimes struggled to afford one action a season and seen the alchemy effect of effectively making RP act as both RP and GB thus making the spell itself almost pointless as it was ubiquitous for all the mage regents, the idea seems to have some merit.

BTW Dan, service above and beyond for the righteous slaying of many spam emails - a spambot clearly went bonkers on this poor thread!

[arpig]

I`m curious: How do you use bloodlines without Deismaar? That is,
after all, where bloodlines came from.... Easy, bloodlines exist in some people with no need for an explanation as to how they came about - they have always been there, they exist worldwide and always have. There is no need for a battle of the gods to explain bloodlines, in fact there is no need for any explaining at all.

[AndrewTall]

There is no need for a battle of the gods to explain bloodlines, in fact there is no need for any explaining at all.

That's one style of game-play, personally it isn't for me - I find too much 'it just is' explanation for magic makes play bog down in 'why doesn't X do Y and so on stuff' - not everyone finds questions like 'why don't zombies rot' interesting or wonder how zombie's can not rot yet tend agricultural fields productively but I find that sourcing and extrapolating the various magical effects adds to the game and spurs adventure ideas. Different strokes I guess.

[Retillin]

I don't think there needs to be a NEED for bloodlines. I understand in game terms why some people would want it. But look back historically for humans. There were those with great bloodlines who were "destined to rule" because of their blood. It always seemed that if someone's ancestor founded a kingdom or overthrew a lord they then gained the RIGHT to rule.

For example, instead of having bloodlines being there from a god or what not have it be the lands answer to someone trying to rule. If you overthrow a leader and can hold onto power the land starts to imbue you with small amounts of power each year. This can be a blessing from the gods, or a magical connection of your own to the land, or be faith energy from those you rule.

[Birthright-L]

At 10:43 PM 2/14/2011, arpig wrote:

>>I`m curious: How do you use bloodlines without Deismaar? That is,
>>after all, where bloodlines came from....
>
>Easy, bloodlines exist in some people with no need for an
>explanation as to how they came about - they have always been
>there, they exist worldwide and always have. There is no need for a
>battle of the gods to explain bloodlines, in fact there is no need
>for any explaining at all.

So they have derivations and blood abilities that are thematically
related to them, or is it the bloodline strength/ability to collect RP alone?

Gary

[Sore]

I personally prefer GB since it does go into decimals and for a low magic setting makes more sense to me.

[arpig]

So they have derivations and blood abilities that are thematically
related to them, or is it the bloodline strength/ability to collect RP alone?

Yeah they have bloodlines & abilities, and use their bloodlines in RP collection, as per normal. The only difference is rather than naming the derivations after the dead gods I just letter them A - G.

[Birthright-L]

At 12:48 PM 2/17/2011, arpig wrote:

>Yeah they have bloodlines & abilities, and use their bloodlines in
>RP collection, as per normal. The only difference is rather than
>naming the derivations after the dead gods I just letter them A - G.

Ah, OK. (I`m just trying to get a sense of what it is you`re doing
with the system, so that helps a bit.)

When it comes to using RP, as a couple of folks have mentioned,
there`s no real requirement. One could use other things: GB being
the most obvious, but you could also do things like have hero points,
adventure points based on their actions, the results of skill checks,
magic items, etc.

However, since you`re already using most of the features of
bloodline, why not use RP too? The thing is, using RP allows a ruler
to create/increase the size of a realm much more quickly than most
folks would find realistic. Really, that issue has more to do with
the pace and scope of the domain rules rather than
bloodlines/regency, but using RP allows a regent to assure the
success actions in a system that is already fast. That is, using the
regular BR rules it is possible to go from a population level of 0 to
10 in under three years, which is hard to justify for most
things. Using RP one could make that rise certain (barring, of
course, competition from other regents and such things controlled by the DM.)

But if you`re using blood abilities, then the characters who have
them are already exhibiting powers beyond the norm, so using RP fits
in a little more easily. A comparable magical energy is aiding the
unnaturally rapid expansion of the domains. Not having bloodline
derivations does make the origin/rationale for those bloodlines a
little odd, but if the players don`t have a problem with it, then you
needn`t either. It does seem like coming up with an explanation for
bloodlines might serve as an interesting campaign theme or long-term
goal, though.... Especially if a player or two starts to role-play
such questions. If they were to discover that in the background of
the campaign world there were some Cerilians who somehow planeshifted
into your world (Ravenloft did it...) then that could form the basis
of the bloodlines in your world, and provide some interesting adventure hooks.

Gary

[arpig]

However, since you`re already using most of the features of
bloodline, why not use RP too? There seems to some misunderstanding, I do use RP. I use the whole system, just without the Deismarr story to explain the origin of bloodlines. IMC bloodlines are simply [part of reality, some members of pretty much every race has bloodlines and thus can rule realms.
Bloodlines thus have no "origin", they started when the first creatures were created. They are simply the expression of the innate magical nature of the world sort of a "Land's choice" writ large. This solves the problem of how rulers beyond Cerilia (or IMC beyond the core campaign area) rule their lands...they do it in exactly the same way as everybody else.

[Sorontar]

Bloodlines thus have no "origin", they started when the first creatures were created. They are simply the expression of the innate magical nature of the world sort of a "Land's choice" writ large. This solves the problem of how rulers beyond Cerilia (or IMC beyond the core campaign area) rule their lands...they do it in exactly the same way as everybody else.
So it is like "the blood is strong in this one, Obi Wan Kenobi"? You either have the mutant blood ability or you don't. Not all are born equal.

[DanMcSorley]

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 12:05 AM, Sorontar <brnetboard@gmail.com> wrote:
> So it is like "the blood is strong in this one, Obi Wan Kenobi"? You either have the mutant blood ability or you don`t.
> Not all are born equal.

That`s how it is in bog-standard Birthright, too. I`m not a big fan of
"born special" in most fiction, but it makes an interesting premise
once in a while.

The current campaign that I`m running takes this to its natural
conclusion, I think. The gods are dead, the story that Haelyn et al
succeeded them may be just a myth, so every person (and especially PC)
is his own moral compass. It`s interesting territory to explore.

--
Daniel McSorley

[Lord Rahvin]

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 6:01 AM, Daniel McSorley <mcsorley.1

> The current campaign that I`m running takes this to its natural
> conclusion, I think. The gods are dead, the story that Haelyn et al
> succeeded them may be just a myth, so every person (and especially PC)
> is his own moral compass. It`s interesting territory to explore.
>


Is it, really? :) I mean, it sounds a lot like the world just outside my
cubicle...

[arpig]

So it is like "the blood is strong in this one, Obi Wan Kenobi"? You either have the mutant blood ability or you don't. Not all are born equal. Well yeah, hadn't thought of it that way, but...yeah, that's pretty much it. In fact that opens up a few possibilities I hadn't considered, such as perhaps some sort of "Blood training" to access the full potential of one's bloodline, or in order to access new abilities when one's Bloodline strength increases.

Hmmmmm:)