Results 11 to 20 of 21
-
12-12-2002, 10:16 PM #11
- Join Date
- Apr 2002
- Location
- BR mailing list
- Posts
- 1,538
- Downloads
- 0
- Uploads
- 0
Hello,
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>
> > "land" rulers have much more politicial weight (not dependent of the
> > rp) in a realm (translated in actions, resources,...).
>
> Province rulers have more actions? That sounds interesting. Tell me
more.
I explained myself badly: not more actions (although they usually get
"more actions" through lieutenants): different types of actions (some
actions will be impossible for a ruler without holdings) or importance of
their actions (but I don´t remember exactly what I wanted to mean with
that...).
> Not going to buy it at start, but what about acquiring it during play?
Acquiring it during play should be hard. So I wouldn´t design my realm
thinking in that. And also that normally most people have their rp income
cut by their bloodline, so having another mark is not going to earn you
something (well, the agitate action is a very nice adition for a ruler). And
if you are able to rule very well without earning your full bloodline, then
you surely deserved it ;)
> But province rulers have it easy. If you want guild slots, you can just
> Occupy your own provinces for a month and clean everyone else out --
> unless, of course, the guild you take them from has powerful friends
> elsewhere. If landed rulers got desperate enough for the money generated
> by holdings, every nonlanded guild or temple regent in Cerilia could be
> eliminated practically overnight.
Well, I don´t see the act of occupaying your own province, destroying
the holdings and building new ones just so easy. For me, occupaying a
province and wiping out everyone else is a little hard experience for that
province. Also that guilds manage trade and resources (another house rule),
and a realm without resources and his trade routes cut, is a dead realm
unless is lucky to have enough inner reserves, resources,... to survive
without a guilder (or enough to get a new one more loyal to the authority
;). So you can´t go so happily destroying holdings. In our games we have the
same opinion towards law claims: they are a "violent" action against a
holding. It´s like telling someone that he is not welcome. Welcomed holding
rulers normally pay some taxes to the king, but if the king taxes someone,
problems are going to start. In the end is the same result, but the way it´s
done is different.
> I think the action is badly named. I use it to mean simply "conduct
> military operations for a month," which is precisely how the rulebook uses
> it -- if they hadn`t called it *declare* war, I think there would have
> been much less tinkering with the rules for it. I`ve not completely
> settled on an alternate name for it, but at present I kind of like calling
> it just "Combat". The actual declaration of war in the modern sense is an
> instantaneous political act, best implemented in BR IMO if at all by a pro
> forma Decree action, or possibly Diplomacy if you want to get fancy. I
> really like the idea expressed in the rules that fighting a foreign war
> takes up large portions of the regent`s time, and thereby reduces the
> amount of attention available to be paid to domestic political issues.
You have a good point about the action name. Declare war to another
domain fits more a decree or diplomacy action. But I don´t like wars taking
so much time from a regent. It´s probably less logical and correct, but we
like it more this way (my players don´t like to spend actions in wars, they
don´t like to play combats,... and I´m a fan of strategy and I finish
playing the battles me vs me ;)
> True, but this is one of the reasons I asked about whether you allowed
> people to gain marks during play -- since bloodline can be increased by
> spending RP (yes, it`s expensive, but it is possible), if marks can`t then
> if you`re planning for the long term it makes sense at the start to pick a
> relatively low bloodline and lots of marks to "grow into".
Well, the rp you spend incresasing your blood strenght take a lot of
time to pay of. I haven´t seen many people increase their bloodline during a
game. And you would need quite a lot of time to get the full potential of
the mark rp collection (and I don´t think the other beneficts pay for a low
bloodline).
> Oh yes! If you can get your hands on the "Blood Enemies" book, I think
> you will find a great many things of interest.
I´ll try to get one copy, but here in spain is quite hard to find
birthright books (I have only found heavens. The campaign setting is from
england). I think I´ll start buying esd downloads and search for a nice
place to print them.
> OK, I still don`t quite get how this works. Where is the restriction? If
> I have 2,000 GB in my treasury but my income is only 5 GB per season, how
> many RP do I get? Gaining RP from income, maybe -- but gaining it from
> savings seems like opening the door to disastrous compound interest.
If you have 2000 gb in your treasury, you get 20% of that: 400 RP (but I
think your bloodline will limit that big number ;). One of my players get
his rp from that (he started with 120 gb -> 24 RP, not so many). And well,
he is having lots of problems for having such a big quantity of money saved
(thiefs, neighbours asking for loans, neighbours asking for tribute,...).
It´s true that if you go to the extreme, you get very high numbers
(althought bloodline will continue limiting that numbers), but I have to
find someone with 2000 gb saved ;) But the point you give about doing the
math with the income sounds good too.
Great points again. Greetings,
Vicente
************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.NOTE: Messages posted by Birthright-L are automatically inserted posts originating from the mailing list linked to the forum.
-
12-12-2002, 10:37 PM #12
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 1:46 PM
> But province rulers have it easy. If you want guild slots, you can just
> Occupy your own provinces for a month and clean everyone else out[.]
I think that makes for bad gaming as well as curious social theory. Bad
gaming in the sense that its impossible to explain why common 1st turn
actions were not done the day before yesterday. Bad gaming in the sense
that its terribly unbalanced. Its curious social theory in the sense that
it really can`t be explained as a universal rule. Protestant and Catholic
landed rulers tried to do this kind of thing for a little over a hundred
years, and it just didn`t work very well at all. Guilders have proved very
slippery regarding such actions. In terms of their networks of trade, the
networks either shift to smuggling, or are merely temporarily suppresed
(more akin to a contested holding).
It is commonly assumed that if I have 4 levels of temple in a level 4
province that I have something approximating 100% devotion of the population
to my god and my doctrines. Should an attack on that temple be possible
with nothing more than a -1 loyalty grade? One has to imagine that the
bonds between templars and worshipers are so weak that if soliders come by
and hang a "closed" sign on the temple, they`ll grumble about it, buts its
basically a done deal.
I contend that its not so easy to eliminate holdings rulers.
Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com
************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.
-
12-12-2002, 10:56 PM #13
- Join Date
- Dec 2002
- Location
- Malden, MA
- Posts
- 761
- Downloads
- 2
- Uploads
- 0
On Thu, 12 Dec 2002, Zaor wrote:
> I explained myself badly: not more actions (although they usually get
> "more actions" through lieutenants): different types of actions (some
> actions will be impossible for a ruler without holdings)
Oh, OK.
> Acquiring it during play should be hard.
> So I wouldn`t design my realm thinking in that.
Is your campaign mostly about rulership or adventuring? If rulership, I
find it hard to believe that everyone isn`t planning to grow their domains.
Sure, it shouldn`t be easy, or where would the fun and challenge be, but
it ought to be happening at least a little.
> And also that normally most people have their rp income cut by their
> bloodline, so having another mark is not going to earn you something
True.
> Well, I don`t see the act of occupaying your own province, destroying
> the holdings and building new ones just so easy. For me, occupaying a
> province and wiping out everyone else is a little hard experience for
> that province.
Well, yes. Hard on the province, but still rather easy to pull off.
But as you say, difficult to live with the effects of:
> a realm without resources and his trade routes cut, is a dead realm
> unless is lucky to have enough inner reserves, resources,... to
> survive without a guilder (or enough to get a new one more loyal to
> the authority ;). So you can`t go so happily destroying holdings.
But if you can`t get a guilder to play along, sometimes you need to become
one yourself. Ideally you would just take the holdings by Investiture.
If not, then you`d want to Occupy while your enemies were busy elsewhere,
because it will take time and a substantial investment (of actions, RP and
GB) in the Rule action to recover the lost holding levels.
> In our games we have the same opinion towards law claims: they are a
> "violent" action against a holding. It`s like telling someone that he
> is not welcome. Welcomed holding rulers normally pay some taxes
I see things completely differently. IMO, law claims are precisely the
taxes that all other holdings normally pay.
> You have a good point about the action name. Declare war to another
> domain fits more a decree or diplomacy action.
Glad you agree.
> But I don`t like wars taking so much time from a regent. It`s probably
> less logical and correct, but we like it more this way
To each his own, I suppose. I like that it takes time, and that it seems
more logical.
> and I`m a fan of strategy and I finish playing the battles me vs me ;)
*grin* Me too. I`m more a wargamer than a roleplayer, which is precisely
what drew me to Birthright -- finally, a moderately workable system for
running your own fantasy country! The domain rulership chapter of the old
D&D Companion Set had some good ideas, but was so low-level (needing to
know the number of families engaged in each industry, for example) that it
was practically impossible to use to run anything bigger than a single
province (3).
> Well, the rp you spend incresasing your blood strenght take a lot of
> time to pay of. I haven`t seen many people increase their bloodline
> during a game.
I quite agree. Hence my recent posts about liking systems to provide
additional incentives for spending on bloodline growth, or allow
bloodlines to grow a little on their own without spending.
> And you would need quite a lot of time to get the full potential of
> the mark rp collection (and I don`t think the other beneficts pay for
> a low bloodline).
Perhaps.
> I think I`ll start buying esd downloads and search for a nice place to
> print them.
Good plan!
> If you have 2000 gb in your treasury, you get 20% of that: 400 RP
So then why does having income or expenses matter?
> (but I think your bloodline will limit that big number ;).
Well, quite. But plugging really big numbers into formulas helps me spot
potential problems.
> but I have to find someone with 2000 gb saved ;)
I was thinking of a dragon or lich or other secretive, ancient, powerful
being (for whom a 4 million gp value hoard is actually not that
unreasonable based on the treasure tables); if you allow RP to accumulate
indefinitely, they could hide in a hole with their pile of cash, spending
RP to increase their bloodline as desired, and then emerge after a few
centuries with immensely huge numbers of RP saved up, ready to conquer the
world without trying too hard. If you`re a "regent" of nothing but a pile
of gold, there shouldn`t be many demands on your time.
Ryan Caveney
************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.
-
12-16-2002, 10:26 AM #14
- Join Date
- Dec 2002
- Location
- Malden, MA
- Posts
- 761
- Downloads
- 2
- Uploads
- 0
On Thu, 12 Dec 2002, Kenneth Gauck wrote:
> From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>
> > But province rulers have it easy. If you want guild slots, you can just
> > Occupy your own provinces for a month and clean everyone else out[.]
>
> I think that makes for bad gaming as well as curious social theory.
>
> Bad gaming in the sense that its impossible to explain why common 1st
> turn actions were not done the day before yesterday. Bad gaming in the
> sense that its terribly unbalanced.
Very true.
> Its curious social theory in the sense that it really can`t be
> explained as a universal rule. Protestant and Catholic landed rulers
> tried to do this kind of thing for a little over a hundred years, and
> it just didn`t work very well at all.
Very true.
> I contend that its not so easy to eliminate holdings rulers.
I agree this is a rule that ought to be changed, but in the message you
quote I was discussing a different set of house rules. =)
How would you go about modifying this rule? Preventing it, and keeping it
just to the contest action? Allowing occupation, but only letting the
troops doing it act as additional law holdings to improve the target
number of the contest action? Would you also change the contest action,
so that a holding did not simply disappear after a second successful
contest, but instead only dropped one level?
Ryan Caveney
************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.
-
12-16-2002, 10:26 AM #15
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>
Sent: Friday, December 13, 2002 10:34 AM
> How would you go about modifying [the Occupation] rule?
> Preventing it, and keeping it just to the contest action?
> Allowing occupation, but only letting the troops doing it act
> as additional law holdings to improve the target number of
> the contest action?
An Occupation that automatically causes a negative loyalty shift and just
added the troops as a contest bonus modifier seems about right.
> Would you also change the contest action, so that a
> holding did not simply disappear after a second successful
> contest, but instead only dropped one level?
I certainly do prefer this method. I view each level of holding as being a
key NPC and his entourage, or court. El-Hadid has 3 guild holdings in
Ciliene. I see this as three key figures who can control trade in Ciliene.
One may be a large sheep merchant, with wool, herds, and meat interests.
He`s el-Hadid`s man, and his organization is a part of el-Hadid`s Port of
Call Exchange. Another is the guildmaster of the Blacksmith`s guild in
Ciliene. He and the blacksmiths have allied with el-Hadid. The third is a
member of Diemed`s government, the Lord Mayor of Markets in Ciliene who uses
the rules of the marketplace to favor the merchants given the nod by Port of
Call. An initial contest action attacks the Port of Call Exchange as an
organization. Guilder Kalien argues that they cheat their customers. Or,
maybe the OIT attacks their dishonest and dishonorable practices. Perhaps
Heirl Diem declares the Port of Call betrays the people of Diemed to foriegn
interests. Individual merchants conceal their association with the PoCE,
and so no regency is collected. Even so, customers stay away (including
wealthy members of the rival holdings) and no profits leave the province.
But this doesn`t do any long term damage to the holdings of e-Hadid in
Ciliene. To do that, one or more of these three figures need to be
arrested, killed, driven out of the province, or discredited before his
merchantile network. My feeling generally boils down to the idea that it
takes a single action to remove (by whatever means) each of these key
figures individually.
Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com
************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.
-
12-16-2002, 10:26 AM #16
- Join Date
- Nov 2001
- Location
- Sydney, Australia
- Posts
- 474
- Downloads
- 0
- Uploads
- 0
On Sat, 2002-12-14 at 12:01, Kenneth Gauck wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>
> Sent: Friday, December 13, 2002 10:34 AM
>
>
> > How would you go about modifying [the Occupation] rule?
> > Preventing it, and keeping it just to the contest action?
> > Allowing occupation, but only letting the troops doing it act
> > as additional law holdings to improve the target number of
> > the contest action?
>
> An Occupation that automatically causes a negative loyalty shift and just
> added the troops as a contest bonus modifier seems about right.
I agree.
Loyalty (first because it`s easier)
case (i) Province regent "occupies" province by declaration of martial
law - province regent may have law holding -- case (i)a or not case
(i)b. The negative shift should occur - but should not be able to be
ignored by the presence of a large law presence -- after all that`s what
caused the shift, bringing in more law.
case (ii) another regent occupies province with troops - creating a
neutralized or contested province. No RP to anyone - but GB to
controlling regent (occupier). Province loyalty is automatically
rebellious toward occupier - remains unchanged toward regent.
Suppression/Neutralization of Holdings by Armed Troops (the real point)
Letting each unit of troops act as a point of law holding (whether
acting together with local law holdings or independently where no law
holding exists) seems consistent with other actions.
Automatically allowing the contest of all holdings in the province
succeed does seem rather harsh (original rule), regardless of who is
doing the suppression (i) or (ii). Thus I favor dropping the rule too.
Obviously a regent with a strong law presence and troops will have a
decided advantage in a contest action against a single holding.
Perhaps though, allowing each unit of troops to act independently so
that the controlling regent can perform "Contest Holding(s)" as a realm
action -- against several holdings in the same province, one per unit,
plus one for any law holding he may have. Of course the strength of the
individual Contests where a single law unit is involved is only 1 -- but
consider that the holdings cannot attack the military unit directly.
>
> > Would you also change the contest action, so that a
> > holding did not simply disappear after a second successful
> > contest, but instead only dropped one level?
>
> I certainly do prefer this method.
<<SNIP>>
> My feeling generally boils down to the idea that it
> takes a single action to remove (by whatever means) each of these key
> figures individually.
>
I don`t think that such a change is dependent on the other changes
suggested above. However, the pro`s and con`s of changing Contest to
just drop a single point is a good topic by itself.
Contest Holding just covers too much ground. It has three functions:
(a) contest to destroy a neutralized or 0-level holding; destruction
(B) contest to neutralize an opponent (of dissimilar opponent); to
reduce their influence; as preparation for destruction -- (a)
© contest as preparation to rule (of like holding)
(B) Can of course be used against similar targets too (intention), but
nonetheless opens the opportunity as © does.
An assumption is that all domain actions should be roughly similar in
the degree to which they change the situation.
We could classify or rename the Contest Holding action into three
differently determined actions. Therefore:
(a) Destroy Holding - holdings should be difficult to destroy, and the
larger they are the more difficult this should be. Only 0-level holdings
and neutralized holdings can be destroyed. A target holding adds its
level to the success number. Base success is 20 - province level. Cost
is 1 GB per target level.
e.g. Province(7), guild(2), (B) temple(4)
-- success (Destroy Temple) = 20-7 + 4 = 17
-- success (Destroy Guild) = 20-7 + 2 = 15
(B) Neutralize Holding -- temporarily stymie a holding from taking most
actions or allowing it to participate fully in province activities. It
should be more difficult to neutralize a larger holding. Base success is
10, add target level to success number.
e.g. Province(7), (a) law(6), (B) guild(2)
-- success (Neutralize Law) = 10 + 6 = 16
-- success (Neutralize Guild) = 10 + 2 = 12
© Contest Holding -- a struggle for control of a point of holding
level, if successful one point of holding changes hands. There is no
requirement for a rule holding action. Should be more difficult than
rule holding (d). No province modifiers apply - this is a struggle
between two regents for control. Base chance is 20 minus the province
level. It`s harder to contest control in a smaller province where a
small holding can be a monopoly. Add the larger of the two holding
levels plus 1.
e.g. Province(7), guild(2), guild(4)
-- success (Contest Guild) = 20-7 + 4 + 1 = 18
Rule Holding has two functions:
(d) Increase Holding -- build holding up by one point. All holdings of
similar type (including the value of your present holding) resist the
increase. If the province regent opposes the action and his law presence
(or half the province level rounded down) is greater than the current
resistance, use that value instead - otherwise add 1 to the resistance.
Base success is 10.
e.g. province(7), temple(2), temple(4), law(x)
-- success (Increase Temple) = 10 + (2+4) = 16; or;
-- success (Increase Temple) but realm opposed; = 17
(e) Restore Holding -- restore a neutralized holding to full operating
capacity. This should generally be quite easy regardless of the size of
the holding. It is opposed by the other holdings of the same type in the
province; or by the province regent`s law holding if he opposes -
whichever is the greater value. Base success is 10.
************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.
-
12-16-2002, 10:26 AM #17
- Join Date
- Apr 2002
- Location
- BR mailing list
- Posts
- 1,538
- Downloads
- 0
- Uploads
- 0
Hello,
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>
> Is your campaign mostly about rulership or adventuring? If rulership, I
> find it hard to believe that everyone isn`t planning to grow their
domains.
> Sure, it shouldn`t be easy, or where would the fun and challenge be, but
> it ought to be happening at least a little.
My campaign is only about rulership (no adventuring at all). About
growing their domains... well, half of my players only ;) One is playing
with a noble house only interested in killing undeads (he is planning
attacks on the vampire etc etc) and another is an architect (a mark I didn´t
put as it was based in house rules: Builder Mark - you get rp for building
things (farms, castles, workshops,...)). The other two are a little more
aggresive (the captain of müden navy and a wizard).
> But if you can`t get a guilder to play along, sometimes you need to become
> one yourself. Ideally you would just take the holdings by Investiture.
> If not, then you`d want to Occupy while your enemies were busy elsewhere,
> because it will take time and a substantial investment (of actions, RP and
> GB) in the Rule action to recover the lost holding levels.
Well, you are going to divert lot of time and resources making yourself
a guilder. And you need a strong economy to survive without one. But I agree
sometimes it could be necesary, but you´ll need to think carefully about
that move.
> *grin* Me too. I`m more a wargamer than a roleplayer, which is precisely
> what drew me to Birthright -- finally, a moderately workable system for
> running your own fantasy country! The domain rulership chapter of the old
> D&D Companion Set had some good ideas, but was so low-level (needing to
> know the number of families engaged in each industry, for example) that it
> was practically impossible to use to run anything bigger than a single
> province (3).
Hehehe, same happens to me: when I first played birthright with an old
friend I just loved the game. I´ve been nearly continuosly playing and
tweeking it since then (like most people here I think ;)
> I quite agree. Hence my recent posts about liking systems to provide
> additional incentives for spending on bloodline growth, or allow
> bloodlines to grow a little on their own without spending.
I make them grow with good rulership (like they can go down with bad
rulership). But it´s true they should be changing a little more easily.
> > If you have 2000 gb in your treasury, you get 20% of that: 400 RP
>
> So then why does having income or expenses matter?
So you can´t just sit down with your pile of money and see your regency
grow. You could say you need to have a "sustancial" income related to that
quantity of money (5%, 10%,...?), so if you have 2000 gb you need an income
of 200gb... But I´m starting to like more and more your idea of tying the rp
collection from the economy mark to your turn income rather than to your
treasury.
> I was thinking of a dragon or lich or other secretive, ancient, powerful
> being (for whom a 4 million gp value hoard is actually not that
> unreasonable based on the treasure tables); if you allow RP to accumulate
> indefinitely, they could hide in a hole with their pile of cash, spending
> RP to increase their bloodline as desired, and then emerge after a few
> centuries with immensely huge numbers of RP saved up, ready to conquer the
> world without trying too hard. If you`re a "regent" of nothing but a pile
> of gold, there shouldn`t be many demands on your time.
Very true. I´m going with your income idea ;) But if I don´t remember
badly, it was first regency income and later gb income. I can´t think of any
problem for doing this just the other way: first gb and then rp so you can
calculate your rp income from economy. Any idea about how many rp should be
gained from economy then?
Greetings,
Vicente
************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.NOTE: Messages posted by Birthright-L are automatically inserted posts originating from the mailing list linked to the forum.
-
12-16-2002, 10:26 AM #18
From time to time I see statements to the effect that "You need a strong
economy to survive without a guilder." I think that confuses a guy who
reaps benefits from organizing the marketplace to suit his own interests
with the marketplace itself. The market will always exist, and from the
point of view of consumers and small producers, probabaly works better with
no guilder in charge. Such a person, is after all, diverting part of the
surplus away from the economy and towards himself and his management of the
economy (and managed economys are in themselves less effecient). With no
guilder, realms should do just fine, economically.
The reason there are guilders are twofold. One, no one stops the robber
barons. And two, the guilders have a divine patron who wishes wealth to
stand toe to toe with force, faith, and phantasm as a social entity.
Coordinated human activity requires leaders (markets function best when they
are not coordiated) and if the monied classes are to protect their interests
(in part by squelching competition and ease of access to the market) they
need leaders. Guilders are classical oligarchs.
The interest of the organizers of human activity always want to extract more
surplus (hence social science sometimes refers to them as kleptocrats) so
having a guilder who represents another source of GB`s and RP`s can make a
realm strong (if he`s friendly with the other rulers. Of course he can be
trouble if he`s hostile. But a neutral guilder who doesn`t use RP or GB to
help or harm the realm is no different from having no guilder at all, except
that the people have one less court to fund, don`t have to fund his attacks
and defences of a realm, and don`t have their market twisted to benefit a
ruler rather than the natural increase in wealth.
None of which is to say that an ideology of Smithian capitalism exists in
Cerilia, or that the workers of the world should unit, because they have
nothing to lose but their chains. I`m just saying that the advantages of
having a guilder aren`t that he makes people more prosperous (he does the
opposite) but that he is a locus of power that can be used to make things
happen.
Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com
************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.
-
12-17-2002, 11:09 AM #19
- Join Date
- Nov 2001
- Location
- Virginia Beach, Virginia
- Posts
- 3,945
- Downloads
- 0
- Uploads
- 0
IMO think in terms of the "family" for the role of guilders. While not basically (or at least not always) criminal or oppressive, the simile, I think applies. Guild regents generate income in GB while merchants generate income in gp - use the profession rules from the PHB (3rd ed that is). IMO this points out the difference in fairly understandable terms.
The guilders can either support the powers that be, oppose them or selectively choose between which they do. Sort of like a company making donations to a political party, or making donations to "both" olitical parties in hopes of currying some "future" favors. "Money make the world go around, the world go around, the world go around.":)Duane Eggert
-
12-19-2002, 02:37 PM #20
- Join Date
- Nov 2001
- Location
- Spain
- Posts
- 532
- Downloads
- 11
- Uploads
- 0
Hello,
Originally posted by kgauck
From time to time I see statements to the effect that "You need a strong
economy to survive without a guilder." I think that confuses a guy who
reaps benefits from organizing the marketplace to suit his own interests
Of course in normal birthright you don´t have any problem for not having a guilder (well, you miss some gb from law claims), but nothing more.
Greetings,
Vicente
Thread Information
Users Browsing this Thread
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Bookmarks