Living Cerilia?

[Keovar]

Is there anyone else that would be interested in an RPGA "living" campaign based in Cerilia once the 3rd Edition rules for BR are released? I think it would naturally lend itself to a format that is similar to Living Greyhawk.

In LG, various countries of the campaign world are assigned to different real-world areas. For example, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina have a country called the "Gran March" in the world of Greyhawk. While there is a circle of developers that manages the campaign as a whole, the various regions each have a triad that runs their section of the campaign. This means that each region has alot of creative control over their area, while still remaining consistent with the campaign as a whole. Look into Living Greyhawk at " http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=lg/welcome " to get more information on what I'm talking about.

For Birthright, we could assign different domains to real-world regions, starting with the more important ones first. For example, we might assign New York to be Avanil, because we want to be sure that such a powerful country gets a good representation in the campaign. For a somewhat less crtitcal area like Tuornen, we might have to assign multiple states to represent it because of less active RPGA players. Awnshegh-controlled domains would not be assigned to any region, but "core" adventures playable in any region might involve travel into such an area. If an area is extremely xenophobic, like some of the elven nations, it might be wise to not assign it to a region either, but more open ones like Tuarhievel would probably be ok. The main issue to consider there is if belonging to a specific region would severely limit the types of characters you could play, since the domain attached to your region is considered "home" for the characters you make.

To start out, no characters would be regents, but there could be ways for characters to become a regent in the course of the campaign. Until something like that happens, the regional managing triad would make the domain decisions, but with input from the players of their region. As was done for LG, there could be Yahoo groups created for each region that would serve as a forum for such discussion. Characters could, however, be lieutenants of the regent, which provided a simple plot-hook to get characters involved in the stories.

What do you think?

[Keovar]

Apparently not...

[Ulairi]

I am!

How would be go about starting?

[marcum uth mather]

me to! I am a littel confused what would happen with it . how would real world stuff effect the game?

[Chioran]

Sounds like a killer of an idea. I would be willing to participate and help get it set up. If you would like to contact me off line as well you can reach me via email @ lordchiorandvar@hotmail.com

[Keovar]

For anyone that is interested in the idea but is confused about how a "living" campaign works, please read the info about Living Greyhawk (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=lg/welcome). Combine that with the domain rules, and we'd have a very dynamic campaign. I'm sure alot of BR players have dreamed what it would be like to have every domain in Cerilia active at once, and with this campaign it would be possible.

As far as starting it, I want to wait until we have a definitive 3rd edition ruleset. Other than that, we'd need to contact the RPGA and find out how a new living campaign is started.

[Doyle]

Love the idea (I also play LG), but I think that in Australia there might
be too few BR gamers for viability here.
Regards,
Doyle.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Keovar" > Keovar wrote:
> Is there anyone else that would be interested in an RPGA "living"
campaign based in Cerilia once the 3rd Edition rules for BR are released? I
think it would naturally lend itself to a format that is similar to Living
Greyhawk.
>

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[Athos69]

Keovar:

While I agree that running a Living Cerillia would be exciting and *tremendously* dynamic, you need to step back and look at the workload that you would be placing on the administrators of the campaign. Even when a good percentage of the players have become Regents in their own right, you would require the admins to adjucate *every* interaction between them, as well as hold the campaign to a very specific timetable.

I have played Living Greyhawk (before the Y592 debacle and the 'Magic Mart'), and assisted the local Triad quite extensively. I've also played in Living Arcanis (and helped to suggest the Lifestyle costs erratta for high-class characters), as well as dabbled in Living City (Silly).

The biggest problem with running on a timetable for domain interactions is that it makes it *extremely* difficult to maintain a balance between keeping the pace fast enough to satisfy gamers, slow enough to allow module writers to produce material and slow enough that modules aren't 'stale' because the issues behind them have already been resolved by Domain Actions.

I love the concept, but I have serious doubts about its feasability.

-Mike Dowd

[Keovar]

Well to be honest, I wasn't really considering the domain actions in much depth. When I played and ran Birthright, we never used the domain rules and never missed them. Sure, they were interesting as plot hooks and background ideas, but we loved Cerilia for it's sense of history and cultures, not for the power trip of being a "king".

In the idea I was envisoning, this would be the playstyle of the average player. You might belong to an in-game organization or domain, but you wouldn't be running it. "Domain Actions" could be handled in a real-time fashion, so administrators only have to deal with domain turns once per season. Being a ruler and taking domain actions would eat up a massive number of your Time Units every year, so while having a PC regent would let you affect the course of the campaign, it would also severly limit or even halt your adventuring life. Maybe I'm overestimating the abilities of regional triads to handle such a campaign, but my local Greyhawk region (Gran March) has an awesome group, so maybe my expectations are rather high.

Again, I'd like to mention that domain actions would be based on real-world years and seasons. If that pacing is too slow for people that simply want to race for the Iron Throne, then it's not the campaign for that. There are plenty of PBEMs that run on a much quicker turn basis. They try to cycle turns too quickly and they end up grinding to a halt. Then again, those have only one person or a few that handle the turns for the whole continent, and they are doing a BR year in anywhere from one week to one month. A Living Cerilia that does one BR year in one Real-World year, and that has an administrative group for each domain, would put alot less work on the administrators, and allow for alot more roleplaying time in each game turn.

[Athos69]

Even so, if you tie one game year to one mundane year, that is still going to be 12 domain actions. Communication had better be *damn* good between the regional administrators, since with guilds, temples and sources, you find that they are the most common domains that stretch across multiple regions.

Each region will need to have a cadre of module writers and editors to keep people happy, as well as some admins with *excellent* to *superior* communications skills.

If you go ahead with this, I would suggest not tying the City of Anuire to any geographical location, but instead make it the province of the Campaign Admin, similar to what LG has done with Greyhawk. That way, the Campaign Admin can work on world-wide political plots involving monarchs, and possibly give some direction to the Fegional Admins.

(After all, isn't the goal of most of the regents to *control* the Imperial City? :)

The way I see any division of the world would be:

Anuirian Lands: USA
Rjurik Lands: Canada
Khinasi Lands: Europe
Brecht Lands: Australia
Vos Lands: ???

[Keovar]

Of course the City of Anuire wouldn't be a home region - as I mentioned in my first post, there would be quite a few areas that were "core" and not "regional". In fact, with few exceptions, if it says "not available for PC play" in the domain description, then it needs to remain as core.

Hell, even if no player ever becomes regent, and domain actions are not "played" but rather used as plot-hooks, I'd still love to see a living Cerilia campaign. For me, it's all about the low-magic but high-story (high in cultural and historical flavor) setting. Just like in the days when I played and ran it in 2e, I'd be just as happy if we ignored the realm rules and just played like a normal campaign. Working up to becoming a regent was how we planned on _retiring_ our characters back then.

[marcum uth mather]

i agree with Keovar. we use the domain rules for when someone reaches a level to build a keep. that also means the person has gotten the permission to build one. i to like BR for its history mor then for it abillity to be a nation's ruler. the diffrent culture realy give it a flavoe the othere worlds cant match. living Br gets two big thumbs up, dont naysay it till it's givin a proper chance

[Athos69]

Who's naysaying it?

I'm just trying to make sure that all of the angles are worked out before it goes to any stage *near* live...

If you want to get this off the ground, you have to plan, plan, plan, plan, and then plan some more...

Part of my self-proclaimed job is to find things that may be broken and then ask the tough questions of people who want to charge ahead... make them stop and think a bit... :)

-Mike Dowd

[Keovar]

You're certainly welcome to have your doubts and pose your questions - I understand that perspective very well, since it's usually me on that side of the discussion. I think it runs in the family, since the motto on my family's coat of arms is "Perge sed Caute"... literally, "Proceed with Caution". :P

[Doyle]

Given the little little hitches the other Living worlds have encountered,
I also agree with the `proceed wit caution` and much planning, but this is
sounding more likely to get underway with each post :-)

I`d suggest a slightly different breakup of Cerilia though.
Anuire is the area that comes with the core rules, hence should probably
go to the area that has the highest number of BR players (which may well be
USA, but from the last time we did a list census, was looking more likely to
be Europe - perhaps if USA and Canada could share Anuire ;-)
While Australia has some dedicated gamers, I don`t know it really has the
numbers to justify an entire area on its own, perhaps expanding to include
the whole Australasia area.

Perhaps those with the database of names from this list could give us some
idea of what the location trend of BR gamers is so that we could better work
out some split-up of lands.

Regards,

Doyle


----- Original Message -----
From: "Athos69"
<snip>
> The way I see any division of the world would be:
>
> Anuirian Lands: USA
> Rjurik Lands: Canada
> Khinasi Lands: Europe
> Brecht Lands: Australia
> Vos Lands: ???
>

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[Ariadne]

Originally posted by Athos69

Anuirian Lands: USA
Rjurik Lands: Canada
Khinasi Lands: Europe
Brecht Lands: Australia
Vos Lands: ???
What's that? A splitting of continents (apart from Canada) isn't very nice, isn't it? What's, if an european prefers to play in Anuire (I don't hope, you compare the places with reality [Then Khinasi isn't Europe])! If someone of our Australiens doesn't like Brechtür, he has got the A..card? Not realy good, I think...

If someone tries to split the parts of Cerilia, try anew...

[Doyle]

From: "Ariadne" <>
Originally posted by Athos69
>
> Anuirian Lands: USA
> Rjurik Lands: Canada
> Khinasi Lands: Europe
> Brecht Lands: Australia
> Vos Lands: ???
> What`s that? A splitting of continents (apart from Canada) isn`t very
nice, isn`t it? What`s, if an european prefers to play in Anuire (I don`t
hope, you compare the places with reality [Then Khinasi isn`t Europe])! If
someone of our Australiens doesn`t like Brechtür, he has got the A..card?
Not realy good, I think...
>
> If someone tries to split the parts of Cerilia, try anew...
>
Hmm.. I`d not ever thought of this as a problem - in Living Greyhawk,
Australia gets `Perrenland`, a quasi-Switzerland country - but I`ve not
known of any local players to complain of the allocation of Perrenland to Oz
(aside from perhaps the arguement on what accent we should adopt when
playing ;-).
I don`t mind what Australia winds up with, there is always the opportunity
to play out of area modules in LG, If people really want a lot of variety in
where their characters play, have more crossover modules.

Doyle.

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[Keovar]

In Living Greyhawk, you can play out-of-area scenarios, but they cost you double Time Units (to account for travel time and expenses). You can still play a person of an ancestry that doesn't match your location, so having an Anuirean nation as your home region doesn't mean you can't play a Brecht. "Core" scenarios are always set in some neutral area that doesn't belong to any local region, like the City of Anuire or The Spiderfell. Regional scenarios may only be run in the real-world areas assigned to that region.

We need a master list of all the land domains, with notes on any that are considered unavailable for PC use. We also need to find out what the distribution of RPGA members we have in different regions of the world. Anyone with their BR boxed sets handy can contribute to the first, but I don't know how we would get the latter.

I do kind of like the idea of matching certain regions with their real-world counterparts a bit better than was done in Living Greyhawk. The only problem that I see would be that there are not likely to be many RPGA players in the real-world areas that are most like the Khinasi and Vosgaard regions.

[Birthright-L]

Not that I`m taking part in Living Cerilia, but I may still make a
suggestion. There is really no need to divide the world into the established
regions. Instead, tou could use regions that lie across several cultural
arreas of Cerilia.

Such areas could be around the Gorgons Crosn (Brecht, Rjurik and Anuire),
Central Cerilia (Anuire, Brecht and Khinansi), the East (Vos, Brecht and
Khinansi) and the West (Rjurik, Anuire and Aduria).

Or you cold make areas more local - like giving New York State the land of
Tuornen and France Ariya (or whatever). Isn`t this how they have done things
in Living Greyhawk?

/Carl

----- Original Message -----
From: "Keovar" <brnetboard@TUARHIEVEL.ORG>
To: <BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM>
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 10:02 AM
Subject: Re: Living Cerilia? [2#1100]


> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
http://www.birthright.net/read.php?TID=1100
>
> Keovar wrote:
> In Living Greyhawk, you can play out-of-area scenarios, but they cost you
double Time Units (to account for travel time and expenses). You can still
play a person of an ancestry that doesn`t match your location, so having an
Anuirean nation as your home region doesn`t mean you can`t play a Brecht.
"Core" scenarios are always set in some neutral area that doesn`t belong
to any local region, like the City of Anuire or The Spiderfell. Regional
scenarios may only be run in the real-world areas assigned to that region.
>
> We need a master list of all the land domains, with notes on any that are
considered unavailable for PC use. We also need to find out what the
distribution of RPGA members we have in different regions of the world.
Anyone with their BR boxed sets handy can contribute to the first, but I
don`t know how we would get the latter.
>
> I do kind of like the idea of matching certain regions with their
real-world counterparts a bit better than was done in Living Greyhawk. The
only problem that I see would be that there are not likely to be many RPGA
players in the real-world areas that are most like the Khinasi and Vosgaard
regions.
>
>
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[Sir Justine]

I find this idea very good! When I saw Living Grayhawk (one year ago, I think?) I immediately thought about a Living Cerilia.
However, I live in Brazil, and I presume there are very few Birthright groups here. Anyway, I would really like to be a regional administrator, even if all that Brazil gets is the halfling Burrows! :P

[Keovar]

Carl - Yes, I did intend that specific BR domains would be assigned to specific real-world regions. For example, New York is likely to have a very high player population, so we might assign it to Avanil or some other domain that has a similarly high population and influence. I didn't mean that entire cultural regions such as Anuire and Brechtur would be considered as one "regional area".

***

Sir Justine - Living GREYhawk (spelled in the Brit fashion, not "gray") is now starting it's third year of play - 2003 real-world time matches up to 593 CY in LG.

I think that Brazil might get combined in with other South American countries as one region, since I suspect that RPGA members and D&D players in general might be quite a bit rarer there than in places like the US and UK. To really be sure, we'd need a demographic breakdown of RPGA memberships to see how many people we have to work with. I think it might be hard to get such information, but maybe we could pattern our groupings after those used in Living Greyhawk?

What sort of BR domain would you like to see for your area? There really isn't much of a parallel cultural group in BR, but maybe a Khinasi land that has a bit of jungle would be a good match geologically. Of course, there doesn't necessarily need to be a match like that - LG ignored such things as mentioned before in the case of Perrenland being assigned to Austrailia (Perrenland is much more similar to Switzerland). Still, I think that it would be interesting to set the regions up in such a way that they have something in common with the domain they are assigned to.