On Sun, 11 Apr 2004, Osprey wrote:

> In my brief but fun start of an Oriental Adventures Birthright, I made
> several new holding types to account for monks and other unique aspects

I fail to see why any change to the standard holding types is necessary.
It seems to me that those are just standard guilds and temples with some
variant window dressing. I understand the desire to change the flavor of
the campaign, but why change the mechanics?


Ryan Caveney
Necessary? Who said it was necessary? Fun and interesting as an experiment? Definitely! I just didn't get to run the campaign long enough to get a good sense of how well those changes worked.

I do think that adding one new holding type (schools), and a variant for temples (the monastery), added a whole new set of possibilities and complexity. That in itself should be reflective of an OA setting...a world with many players in the political game, coming from many different angles.

Schools could be viewed as something of a blend of guild and law holdings I suppose...for the campaign I actually sat down and wrote out a list of general types of schools, but figured that most of them would work in a fairly similar fashion.

The reason I added schools was because I felt there was a large gap in the power structure that didn't leave room for a very influential and prestigious group of feudal society: the dojos. Blooded adventurers with some experience under their belt would make excellent candidates for sensei, and go on to found their own schools.

The way I see it, although landed rulers might consider them occasionally troublesome and dangerous, they provide a needed niche for an otherwise potent but dispossed group of scions. Better to give them a school than to have them start looking for land of their own!

Besides ex-adventuring types, monks being so prevalent (they can freely multiclass in OA) almost demanded they be addressed as potential regents. And the two places I could place monks were militant yamabushi monasteries and martial arts dojos...and that's where it all kinda started.

I don't know if you've checked out the OA book, but one of the things that really gets emphasized are many more fighting feats, including many monk/martial arts types, and a number of excellent prestige classes. From a BR perspective, I saw rich potential for scions focusing on skill and fighting mastery...and if they would become regents, why not in opening their own school? As the school's reputation and fame spread, so does its political influence as well income, facilities, etc. (i.e., the holding goes up in level). Very successful schools would then expand into other areas...often bringing them into conflict with existing schools.

The schools are seperate in part because they were such a distinct element of society, and some of the inter-school conflict was intense...by making schools a distinct type of holding, they recieve much greater attention and focus within the setting.

Mechanics and flavor are never inseperable. Mechanics will influence how every player views the setting material. Changing mechanics is one way to influence player perceptions...and besides, it's fun to tinker...that's how games get better.

Osprey