Lieutenants

[Memnoch]

- -----Original Message-----
From: James Ruhland
To: birthright@MPGN.COM
Date: Wednesday, March 18, 1998 3:34 PM
Subject: Re: [BIRTHRIGHT] - Lieutenants

>Ok, agreed with what follows, as stated. But the Q. pertained to how many
>*Character* actions these blighters (LTs and unblooded/Scions) get per turn
>(total).
>>


Ok, let's clarify a few things:

Definitions:
Commoner: Unblooded character, not in the employ of a regent.
Scion: A Blooded character, not in the employ of a regent.
Lieutenant, Blooded: A scion in the employ of an already established Regent
Lieutenant, Unblooded: A commoner in the employ of an already established
Regent.
Regent: A scion with a domain or realm under his/her control

Commoners and Scions:
Can perform 3 character actions each per domain turn. Commoners cannot
perform domain actions at all, while scions are able to establish themselves
as regents through the Create Holding domain action. This is the only
domain action that a scion may use in a domain turn. Free Actions are
considered to be character actions for these individuals.

Lieutenant, Blooded and Lieutenant, Unblooded:
Can perform Up to 3 character actions; 2 character actions and 1
domain action *for his/her Regent* (called The Lieutenant Action) that
affects his/her regent's domain, or 3 character actions if the regent fails
to assign a Lt a domain action to perform or neglects to use his/her
Lieutenant Action. Free Actions are considered to be character actions for
these individuals. Note that this is a way to get around what I have
described under Regents (below)

Regents:
Can perform Domain/Realm actions, Character Actions, and Free Actions:
He/she gets 3 domain/realm actions to perform. He can replace the
domain/realm actions with a character action if he/she wishes. As far as
Free Actions goes, there is a contradiction between the rulebook and the
cardsheets describing free actions, so in order to integrate the two, I use
this method IMC: A regent (and only a regent, not LT's, Scions, or
Commoners) can perform as many free actions previous to the starting of the
domain turn as he/she wishes. After the domain turn starts (i.e. during
action rounds 1, 2, or 3) he can perform a number of free actions equal to
his or her character level.

Note that Free actions when performed by Lt's (either blooded or unblooded)
or Scions and commoners are considered to be character actions.

Hope this clarifies things,

Memoch


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[DavTyr]

Your LTs. do alot more than loaf around. How do you think you make trade
agreements with other countries, Your running a kingdom you can't go
galavanting around the world all the time. Also, when you make a declaration
who do you think hires the pages to run around your whole realm yelling at the
top of their voices and posting these declarations. When you recruit new
troops do you think you go around trying to get people to join, I've never
seen the president at a recruitment office. Also, who's training these
soldiers, or at least overseeing the training. Who hires the staff for your
castle? Who buys the horses for your stables? Well i think I made my point,
Your LTs. are a very important part of your realm, and I'm sure your regent
does plenty to keep them busy. Lieutenant actions are "special" favors you
ask of them, as you lean over to your right hand man, while sitting on your
throne and ask him to make SURE that it gets done. Also remember that an
unblooded LT. is very limited as to what he/she can do, and a blooded LT.
probably has ambitions, property and Holdings of their own to take care of.

[James Ruhland]

>
> Your LTs. do alot more than loaf around. How do you think you make
trade
> agreements with other countries, Your running a kingdom you can't go
> galavanting around the world all the time. Also, when you make a
declaration
> who do you think hires the pages to run around your whole realm yelling
at the
> top of their voices and posting these declarations.
>
I have nameless flunkies and bureocratic drones for that kind of work (as
exemplified by the fact that you don't need a single Lt. to conduct the
activities you mentioned).
Each realm has all the minions you need to take care of these
administrative duities. Lt.s are special. At least I thought they were.

[Bryan Ruther]

Yeah, the rules do say 1 lieutenant action period, but I have allowed the extra
lieutenants to take one free acion that would be appropriate to their class. This
gives an advantage to having priest and rouge lieutenants....

Bryan

- --
Mankind being originally equals in the order of creation,
the equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent
circumstance...
Thomas Paine, Common Sense

[DavTyr]

Player characters are special too, but you still have to wash yourself,
buy food and do other basic things. your LTs. are the ones you send to do the
jobs that are beneath you, they take care of hiring the nameless flunkies to
do the other actions. Some of your LTs. may enjoy doing some of the work
themselves or may have Holdings that they need to take care of.

[bloebick@juno.com (Benja]

On Wed, 18 Mar 1998 12:11:22 -0600 "James Ruhland"
writes:
>
>
> Ok, so this is gonna seem like a "duh" question, prolly (which
>is why I've
>waited to ask it). Regarding Lt actions I've always been under the
>belief
>that you get one Lt action, period (I.E. no matter how many Lt.s you
>have).

You can have 1.5 billion LTs, but you only get 1 LT action per Domain
Turn. You can send them off to do non-actions, such as deliver routine
messages between regents, perform free actions, etc., but only 1 LT can
do 1 domain/realm action per Domain Turn.

Benjamin

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[James Ruhland]

All the below is true (though it's come as a shock to some of my characters
that they must concern themselves with the basic nesessities of life: they
thought that's what the servants were for).
Time for a little digression on the difference beteween Lieutenants and
your average retainers. The Ruler of every realm (including possibly
Wizardly Source Realms) are assumed to have all kinds of butt-boys and
minders. You got your Senechal, your Ministers of the Treasury, a few
Generals (these blighters might even be capable of leading the army if the
Regent finds himself too busy; but IMO you're inviting disaster of you do
that. . .). Priest-Regents have all kind of parish priests, Guilders have
their ship captains (for trading vessels), local Guild Factors, etc. These
guys do the actual scut work. When the Regent issues an order (I.E. Lets
Create a Guild here and then Rule it up, boys.), these are the flunkies
that go out and actually perform the job (the Regent "supervises", that's
why it takes a Month/Action to do these things: the Regent keeps
interfiering with skilled professionals who otherwise would get the job
done in a week). But their response to any crisis is "ohmygod! We'd better
tell the boss!", and they're not very flexable (I.E. don't send your
Treasurer to train your soldiers.)
Lieutenants, on the other hand, are Very Special Flunkies. They may have
specialties in a particular area (I.E. be a good leader of men, or a
spellcaster), but they can respond flexably to a crisis (just 1) perhaps
not as well as the Regent and 2) perhaps not as effectively outside their
specific area of expertise). When the local butt-boys, sycophants, and
minions yell to the regent for help, these are the Agents that he can send
to respond effectively to the crisis (I.E. they ran out of red tape and
don't know to look in the storage shed for more, or something). These are
your ambitious, competent folk. If they had had a Bloodline (or, if they do
have one, if they had been in line to inherit), they'd have made good
Regents themselves (these are your second sons & Daughters of other
Regents, who grew up learning all this stuff but didn't get the tap when
the Old Dude kicked the bucket, or dudes who are just competent for some
reason or another).
They may be ambitious, as well. One must watch them constantly. . .
>
> Player characters are special too, but you still have to wash
yourself,
> buy food and do other basic things. your LTs. are the ones you send to
do the
> jobs that are beneath you, they take care of hiring the nameless flunkies
to
> do the other actions. Some of your LTs. may enjoy doing some of the work
> themselves or may have Holdings that they need to take care of.

[James Ruhland]

I think you missed the meat of the Q: I agree they can only do one
Domain/Realm action per turn, irregardless of how many you have. But as you
implied, what about other activities? (I.E. Character actions?)
>
> You can have 1.5 billion LTs, but you only get 1 LT action per Domain
> Turn. You can send them off to do non-actions, such as deliver routine
> messages between regents, perform free actions, etc., but only 1 LT can
> do 1 domain/realm action per Domain Turn.
>

[Gary V. Foss]

DavTyr wrote:

> Player characters are special too, but you still have to wash yourself,
> buy food and do other basic things. your LTs. are the ones you send to do the
> jobs that are beneath you, they take care of hiring the nameless flunkies to
> do the other actions. Some of your LTs. may enjoy doing some of the work
> themselves or may have Holdings that they need to take care of.

I kind of like to compare Lts to the Vice President and the cabinet members in the
United States. You know, they still hang around, do a couple of things here and
there, but basically support the actions of the President while sublimating their
own agendas and getting only a small percentage of the credit that is largely
undeserved in the first place.

Just because there is a whole bunch of them doesn't mean they get more stuff
done. In fact, not getting stuff done could be seen as a virtue in
politics/government. Very active governments have a tendancy to get into wars and
cause massive economic upheaval, the mangy buggers.

So I don't give a regent more than a single Lt action because:
A. It whacks game balance.
B. It smacks of RL bureucratic hoopla.
C. It lacks adventure appeal if players run NPCs all the time or delegate
every Random Event to them.

- -G.

[rad smith]

> Your LTs. do alot more than loaf around. How do you think you make trade
> agreements with other countries, Your running a kingdom you can't go
> galavanting around the world all the time.

> Your LTs. are a very important part of your realm, and I'm sure your regent
> does plenty to keep them busy. Lieutenant actions are "special" favors you
> ask of them, as you lean over to your right hand man, while sitting on your
> throne and ask him to make SURE that it gets done.

i agree completely with this. for example, i have 3 lieutenants, and
haven't taken a single action with any of them.

i have a thief, who's constantly busy running my spy network. i have a
general who trains the army. i have an architect who is currently building
a palace (oh, and those enourmous catapults on top of the castle walls)

all these people are busy; but none of them are doing an domain "actions"
per se. (so while the general is mustering troops, that's a free action
not a lieutenant action.)

- --
rad

i've got my hand in your head
i've got my hand in your head
and i'm pulling out all of your mind