Variant Rules For The Brcs

[Mark_Aurel]

What types of variant rules should the BRCS include, if any?

Basically - what are the Birthright-specific issues that the current rules set doesn't deal well with at all?

For instance, a variant for Elven spellcasters being more nature-oriented has been debated for a while, with a separate spell list, etc. Another example might be a "social system" - a way to mechanically show the status of characters in social terms, to aid in making courtly intrigues and the like interact a bit more with the rules.

Any ideas or thoughts on this?

[Birthright-L]

> What types of variant rules should the BRCS include, if any?Basically - what are the Birthright-specific issues that the current rules set doesn't deal well with at all?For instance, a variant for Elven spellcasters being more nature-oriented has been debated for a while, with a separate spell list, etc. Another example might be a "social system" - a way to mechanically show the status of characters in social terms, to aid in making courtly intrigues and the like interact a bit more with the rules.Any ideas or thoughts on this?



I`ll toss in a couple more ideas here for you to play with, though I`m not

actually putting them forth as legitimate suggestions for the BRCS:



The (horribly complicated) Aria system has four different social traits:

Influence, Leverage, Renown, and Recognition. These traits were kept at

multiple levels, such as having a different Renown value in a particular

city, for example. While this is horribly unwieldy and unnecessary for most

games, Birthright already has convinient demographics: Realms and Provinces.

It might be kind of cool to have some kind of Renown score that only applies

to particular provinces (perhaps with the purchase of a feat) representing a

particularly heroic or villainous reputation with the locals, perhaps. I

think players might like it.



The Star Wars system had a "system" for keeping track of your standing with

organizations. Basically after an adventure that dealt with an

organization, your value in that organization might go up and this value was

a bonus to interact with that organization or its members. For a very

organization-heavy Birthright game, this might be useful, especially for

non-regents.



Some guidelines on generating a family history for your nobles might be

cool. If I remember right didn`t 1e Oriental Adventures have random charts

for heritage, birth order, and even inheritence? That might be cool, as

well as some convinient method for family trees or a random chart of

"ancestor importance".



I`d like some decent background rules. Both the Wheel of Time`s background

feats and d20Modern`s system of Occupations would make good examples that

could easily almost directly `port right into Birthright.



Some optional rules and guidelines on how to play/DM a fun low-magic

`realistic` BR campaign might be a welcome addition, though I could see why

you wouldn`t want to. (It`s not something that would conviniently fit in a

sidebar.)



I`d like an alternate magic system that focussed on the use of sources and

ley lines, even for non-regents.



-Lord Rahvin

[kgauck]

ge -----

From: <lordrahvin@SOFTHOME.NET>

Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 2:47 AM





> Some guidelines on generating a family history for your nobles might be

> cool. If I remember right didn`t 1e Oriental Adventures have random

charts

> for heritage, birth order, and even inheritence? That might be cool, as

> well as some convinient method for family trees or a random chart of

> "ancestor importance".



The problem with random charts is that they`ll run afoul of your local

setting really quickly. My own premice is that there is a ruler for every

realm, a count (or equivilent) for every province and as many lords as there

are levels in the province. This means there are only 24 landed families in

Stjordvik and 8 in Illien, with half again as many in guilds and temples.

We always know the name of the rulers, and where there is a PS, we know the

counts as well. It gets hard to be random when the numbers are small and

too many of the figures can`t be random. What makes more sense is a set of

principles DM`s can use in assigning families to players.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[Osprey]

What types of variant rules should the BRCS include, if any?

Basically - what are the Birthright-specific issues that the current rules set doesn&#39;t deal well with at all?

Hmmm,
Well, I&#39;ve been doing my best to post specific topics on this board concerning the areas that need improvement/change, and what alternate systems I&#39;ve come up with.
Specifically, here are some:
1) The battlesystem needs to be improved; the War Cards of the old BR were terrible, by far its lamest aspect IMO. I&#39;ve been working on a miniatures-based system that still uses the basic rules laid out in BRCS, with some modifications. It still needs some playtesting to work out kinks and game balance issues, but it&#39;s a continuing work in progress. I would love to see any other alternatives folks have worked out. BRCS relies on players having the old 2e material (the war cards) in order to use it at all, unless you make some yourself. That definitely needs to change in order for new players to be able to explore the BR world with materials they can have easier access to.

2) A bit more power to the ECL&#39;s for scion templates - hit points and some level attributes is a good idea, IMO.

3) Suggested guidelines for XP awards for regent / political actions.

4) Clarifications on the Domain mechanics concerning Sources, Ley Lines, etc., and how courts work for Source Regents. Does such a ruler have an arcane court composed of magicians, apprentices, scholars, and sages? Or are Realm Actions impossible for source regents? I would very much like to see source regents capable of ruling multiple sources as a realm action, simply to keep them in balance with other regents that way. Also, having an arcane court would allow regents to do arcan domain actions without using character actions. I&#39;ve had to extrapolate the BRCS rules on this, but the way things are described makes it essential that source regents use character actions for all source-type actions&#33; It makes it very hard to compete as a source regent when there&#39;s no court to expand your personal power beyond your normal reach.
a: Realm Spells take months to research (which is fine, but it needs to be considered for balance of character actions), and the GB cost for (typically) gold-poor source regents is immense.
b: Virtual guilds were an excellent sysytem to allow powerful source regents some income and intelligence in their stronger areas of power. Good job there&#33; On the other hand, gold requirements for spells, research, and ley lines are quite steep, and the average source regent is dependent on other regents for the gold he needs for his work, or using all of his RP with Alchemy. I think toning down some of the GB requirements would help establish source regents as somewhat more independent (and thus, mysterious if they want to be).
c: I decided to use Knowledge: Arcana (Kn: Nature is equally appropriate) as the synergy skill for creating and ruling sources. As the rules stand, Administrate is the synergystic skill, which makes almost no sense. I would suggest a change along these lines for the 2nd BRCS rules set.

5) The idea of Druid regents was introduced but not very well explained. I really like the idea, but there&#39;s definite need for clarification of mechanics. How do they compete with arcane source regents? Can they cast realm spells without any sort of holding? Why not allow them to build Sacred Groves or Circles whose level is equal to the Source potential rather than the province level (but still fills either the Temple or Source slots)? This would allow for more direct competition between mages and druids. As things stand now, it seems druids have power only where mages don&#39;t come in and just "take over." Essentially, the mages are unopposed on a regency level, and can only be blocked via roleplaying options (which are good, but unstructured as compared to the normal political rules for other regents).

Well, that&#39;s my main set of issues and suggestions for BRCS rules.

-Osprey

[swashbuck]

there was a very nice article in a White Dwarf for the Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing Game. There you had some different social levels, each with sublevels, and you could advance. It also had some financial aspects in it, how to maintain your social level monetarily, and what happens if you fail in this.

I can have a look at it again, i just have to find it in my "archive", hehe






no RISC, no fun

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by Osprey@Aug 11 2003, 03:00 PM

3) Suggested guidelines for XP awards for regent / political actions.

-Osprey

This one is already in Chapt 8, page 150. Many people seem to overlook Chapt 8.

[Mark_Aurel]

Okay, here are some of the things that are on my "to do" list so far; I&#39;m not sure how much of this will be included as variants in the final version or not, but here&#39;s a summary of what I have in mind:

- A system for tracking the prestige, social standing and reputation of individuals.

- An outline of a system of "in-between politics." The BR rules have specific rules for politics on the domain level, and there are always the standard rules for D&D characters, but the intermediate step between these two isn&#39;t really covered by anything - things like court intrigues and local politics in general. Of course, there&#39;s a limit to what must or should be tracked mechanically, but this is still an area that should be examined a bit more closely.

- Variant Elven magic. This has been debated quite a bit already.

- Elven provinces and planar traits. I.e. Elven provinces have erratic time, enhanced charm magic, etc. Should be fairly straightforward.

- Quick battle resolution system.

- Some demographic stuff and rules to determine province layout and habitation.

These are basically the types of rules I had in mind when I put out a call for variants and variant ideas. If anyone has any proposals, either specific or just as an outline or idea, or feedback or thoughts on the summary above, that&#39;d be great.

[Birthright-L]

> Okay, here are some of the things that are on my "to do" list so far; I`m not sure how much of this will be included as variants in the final version or not, but here`s a summary of what I have in mind:

>

> - A system for tracking the prestige, social standing and reputation of individuals.

>

> - An outline of a system of "in-between politics." The BR rules have specific rules for politics on the domain level, and there are always the standard rules for D&D characters, but the intermediate step between these two isn`t really covered by anything - things like court intrigues and local politics in general. Of course, there`s a limit to what must or should be tracked mechanically, but this is still an area that should be examined a bit more closely.

>

> - Variant Elven magic. This has been debated quite a bit already.

>

> - Elven provinces and planar traits. I.e. Elven provinces have erratic time, enhanced charm magic, etc. Should be fairly straightforward.

>

> - Quick battle resolution system.

>

> - Some demographic stuff and rules to determine province layout and habitation.

>

> These are basically the types of rules I had in mind when I put out a call for variants and variant ideas. If anyone has any proposals, either specific or just as an outline or idea, or feedback or thoughts on the summary above, that`d be great.







I`d just like to say that I really appreciate the latest efforts of the BRCS

team to keep the community informed of what issues are getting their

attention. I think the post above represents the exact amount of

information I`d like to hear from the team prior to their release of a draft

of such ideas. It`s a significant improvement. It`s appreciated.



(I`d also like to take this time to apologize to anyone I`ve misquoted in

the last week or two. My email server is doing weird things like cutting

off the last few lines of my messages or messages that I`m quoting. I

haven`t been able to track down the problem yet.)



-Lord Rahvin

[Osprey]

QUOTE (Osprey @ Aug 11 2003, 03:00 PM)

3) Suggested guidelines for XP awards for regent / political actions.

-Osprey

This one is already in Chapt 8, page 150. Many people seem to overlook Chapt 8.

Don&#39;t worry, I didn&#39;t miss it, I just think it wasn&#39;t very extensively developed, and could stand to be a lot more specific regarding different domain actions and some specific examples. A few paragraphs isn&#39;t really enough for something as complex as challenge ratings. Much like the way the 3e DMG is very detailed about awards for killing monsters, but very vague about guidelines for story-based xp awards and how to make it work in a game.
I think we can do better than that.

Osprey

[RaspK_FOG]

Well, all in all, it is not a lot different from RPing XP awards, and ad hoc rules the day in these cases... Except if you are able to assign XP awards for the ammount of success in these same cases&#33; My DM could do that with pretty much the same ease he would have had he looked down a table&#33;

Theoritecally, though, XP awards could be given in regard to how well you handled the situation, and assigning it a "virtual" CR. For example, if fighting with the enemy country and winning against it brilliantly would give you ___ XP, then solving the matter without sheer force but diplomacy should give a portion of the same number, proportionally large according to the success achieved by your players&#33;

:blink: I am bad at explaining things... :P