Advice for new BR DM

[simong@mech.uwa.edu.au]

Hi everybody,

I am a new DM who has just started a campaign set in the Birthright world.
I have two player with quite high level characters (both dual-class humans,
approximately level 10/10) from another campaign. Both characters are
regents, and we are using the Ilien and Medoere campaign worlds and
sourcebooks.

My basic question is how do I, as the DM, handle all of the other regents
and powers each turn? I am having trouble selecting which other
regents/rulers to play each turn, and to what extent to involve those who
are not in play. As I said, the sheer volume of important NPCs is kind of
overwhelming at first. For example, if one of the characters wishes to do
something which will obviously upset an 'out-of-play' regent, how do I
decide how much regency to allot against the player's action? Any advice
from other DM's would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Simon

[Eric Dunn]

At 08:51 AM 12/15/97 +0800, you wrote:
>Hi everybody,
>
>I am a new DM who has just started a campaign set in the Birthright world.
>I have two player with quite high level characters (both dual-class humans,
>approximately level 10/10) from another campaign. Both characters are
>regents, and we are using the Ilien and Medoere campaign worlds and
>sourcebooks.
>
>My basic question is how do I, as the DM, handle all of the other regents
>and powers each turn? I am having trouble selecting which other
>regents/rulers to play each turn, and to what extent to involve those who
>are not in play. As I said, the sheer volume of important NPCs is kind of
>overwhelming at first. For example, if one of the characters wishes to do
>something which will obviously upset an 'out-of-play' regent, how do I
>decide how much regency to allot against the player's action? Any advice
>from other DM's would be very much appreciated.

According to the books, they advise just keeping track of the domains
surrounding those realms. (I.e. in your case, Roesone, Diemed, Aerenwe, and
the Spiderfell.. and all the guild holdings, temple holdings, etc..) Are
they the only two players in the group? or the only two regents? It _might_
work out easier on your first go of it, to 1. either have them run
non-landed domains...(like one be the local guildmaster and the other be the
local high priest) or 2. Have one of them choose to be the ruler of one
domain and the other person be a lieutenant, etc..

In my first campaign, everyone had a land...and to be honest, the dm had a
heckuva time giving reasons why the various regents should help each other
out on adventures. If I, as a ruler of Roesone, have some law guilds I want
to build up, why do I feel like helping the Ruler of Meodere take care of
some marauding griffons who are harrying your people's livestock? Can't that
person take care of their own problems? And by nature, I am a DM, I rarely
get to play a player, and I still felt the reasons were flimsy for
adventuring together. The people rule entire countries... it's their _job_
to delegate authority for other people to handle the problems...they just
lead. (Don't flame me folks..I know, sometimes ya gotta get the old sword
out, and take care of things yourself..but you get my point. I hope.)

We ended up having a premise in our campaign that said we had grown up
training in the several courts when we were just lads, (and ladies) and
decided that when we had problems, we'd help each other out. Kinda flimsy,
but there ya have it. Having one NPC as a king, and the PC's as the support
staff for that king makes a heckuva lot more sense. Even if the support
staff is the king's commander of his armies(law guilds), the local thieves'
guild ruler/head of the merchant guild, court mage, and high priest... or
they can even be the lesser nobility of a given realm where they are
actually able to collect regency or whatever. Buy I degress :)

Eric
(eric@cyberserv.com_)

[Brian Stoner]

In the game I'm DMing there are 6 regents. Two are wizards, 2 are
thieves (one rules Endier as well), and 2 are landed rulers. It has
been difficult to run the game, and I will not allow this many regents
again. I've been forced to take one of the players as a co-DM and we've
split the duties of which domains we control, as well as planning
adventures. We actively run 6 or so domains apiece.

I made a sheet that helps me keep track of the NPC domain actions. It
is in MS Word 6.0 format, and anyone who wants it can email me for it
(don't email the list). This sheet has helped me alot. For each
action, I determine ahead of time how much it will cost and what the
roll will require, but I wait to roll until the game, because players
may effect the action. It is important to keep accurate records of each
NPC domain. I have been able to trim the amount of time needed to run
the NPC domains alot...I now move faster than the players do.

The real difficulty now is getting all the charaters to join in on
adventures without killing each other. My current adventure took two
weeks to get off the ground because the characters tried to kill each
other on the road to the adventure. I fixed the problem temporarily by
forcing the elven members to leave the party... Unfortunately, the
players who had elves have started doing the same kinds of stuff with
their new characters. I may be forced to kick the players out, which is
bad because one is my brother and the other is his girlfriend...
Mostly, the players get along really well.

Well, I've gone off on a tangent, sorry. I think I've made my point.
Good luck with your game.

Brian

Simon Graindorge wrote:

> Hi everybody,
>
> I am a new DM who has just started a campaign set in the Birthright
> world.
> I have two player with quite high level characters (both dual-class
> humans,
> approximately level 10/10) from another campaign. Both characters are
> regents, and we are using the Ilien and Medoere campaign worlds and
> sourcebooks.
>
> My basic question is how do I, as the DM, handle all of the other
> regents
> and powers each turn? I am having trouble selecting which other
> regents/rulers to play each turn, and to what extent to involve those
> who
> are not in play. As I said, the sheer volume of important NPCs is kind
> of
> overwhelming at first. For example, if one of the characters wishes to
> do
> something which will obviously upset an 'out-of-play' regent, how do I
>
> decide how much regency to allot against the player's action? Any
> advice
> from other DM's would be very much appreciated.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Simon

[Mark A Vandermeulen]

On Mon, 15 Dec 1997, Simon Graindorge wrote:

> My basic question is how do I, as the DM, handle all of the other regents
> and powers each turn? I am having trouble selecting which other
> regents/rulers to play each turn, and to what extent to involve those who
> are not in play. As I said, the sheer volume of important NPCs is kind of
> overwhelming at first. For example, if one of the characters wishes to do
> something which will obviously upset an 'out-of-play' regent, how do I
> decide how much regency to allot against the player's action? Any advice
> from other DM's would be very much appreciated.

My best advice to you is to choose a "main opponent" for your characters,
and make him/her really strong, so that your characters are forced to work
together if they hope to survive. Since you are playing Ilien and Medoere,
a logical choice would be Diemed. The personality of Herl Diem is outlined
in the Ruins of Empire book, and makes a logical choice for a militaristic
opponent. Further, he may be secretly be manipulated from behind the
scenes by a third party, say a guilder like Orthien Tane, or the high
priest of the Orthodox Temple of Haelyn, that that NPC is the characters
true enemy, perhaps with connections to the dark priesthoods of Eloele or
the Vos gods in Mieres (Orthien Tane works well in this role).
This way you can constantly play and keep track of the cheif opponents,
and only pick up other incidental players (The Spider, Roesone, Mieres)
when they become important to the story, or your characters choose to
target them, for one reason or another. You should have a detailed plan as
far as what the "cheif antagonist" is going to do each game session, and
the longer range the plans, the better. As far as the other NPC, just go
with what "feels right." Sounds corny and unhelpful, but its often the
best way to go. If you feel like strongly resisting the attempt to expand
the church of Ruornil into Roesone, go with it. It may end up giving you
ideas for new plots and adventures as the characters try to figure out why
there is such unexpected resistance.

Mark VanderMeulen
vander+@pitt.edu

[Glenn Robb]

Simon Graindorge wrote:

> Hi everybody,
>
> I am a new DM who has just started a campaign set in the Birthright wor=
ld.
> I have two player with quite high level characters (both dual-class hum=
ans,
> approximately level 10/10) from another campaign. Both characters are
> regents, and we are using the Ilien and Medoere campaign worlds and
> sourcebooks.
>
> My basic question is how do I, as the DM, handle all of the other regen=
ts
> and powers each turn? I am having trouble selecting which other
> regents/rulers to play each turn, and to what extent to involve those w=
ho
> are not in play. As I said, the sheer volume of important NPCs is kind =
of
> overwhelming at first. For example, if one of the characters wishes to =
do
> something which will obviously upset an 'out-of-play' regent, how do I
> decide how much regency to allot against the player's action? Any advic=
e
> from other DM's would be very much appreciated.
>
> Thanks in advance,

The best advice I can give you is to fake it when you are playing the oth=
er
regents. As for allotting regency, I have no clue, quite yet. Oh, and g=
et
Gamemaster Law if you need some basic advice.

=97 Elton Robb

[Ed Stark]

At 08:51 AM 12/15/97 +0800, you wrote:
>Hi everybody,
>
>I am a new DM who has just started a campaign set in the Birthright world.
>I have two player with quite high level characters (both dual-class humans,
>approximately level 10/10) from another campaign. Both characters are
>regents, and we are using the Ilien and Medoere campaign worlds and
>sourcebooks.
>
>My basic question is how do I, as the DM, handle all of the other regents
>and powers each turn? I am having trouble selecting which other
>regents/rulers to play each turn, and to what extent to involve those who
>are not in play. As I said, the sheer volume of important NPCs is kind of
>overwhelming at first. For example, if one of the characters wishes to do
>something which will obviously upset an 'out-of-play' regent, how do I
>decide how much regency to allot against the player's action? Any advice
>from other DM's would be very much appreciated.
>
>Thanks in advance,
>
> Simon
>
I'm sure the experienced BR DMs out there will give you helpful advice. My
best recommendation for handling NPC domain actions, however, is DON'T.
Pick one or two NPCs you really want to handle that way, but just have the
others "do things" when you need them to do them. Don't worry about
tracking every NPC domain or you'll go insane. This isn't a wargame or
tactical civilization game (unless you want to play it that way)--it's a
roleplaying game. Make the PCs adventure if they want to achieve anything
really significant. The domain turns are just there to provide shortcuts
for actions that you don't want to blow out into full-fledged adventures.


-- ->-- ->-- ->--@
Ed Stark
Game Designer, Wizards of the Coast/TSR Division
Asst. Brand Manager, BIRTHRIGHT/GREYHAWK/MARVEL Group
TSR Website: http://www.tsrinc.com
(soon to be http://www.tsr.com)

[Sythryc]

allocate enough points to make it a 50/50 chance, don't forget those regents
have incomes too, as well as interest, spies et al

[Dragon3125]

This is my third day on the list and I will be starting (or playing in) a new
campaign on Saturday, depending when my boxed set arrives and I just wanted to
thank Bsanter for her excellent advice.

=)

[Robert Hammond]

At 05:15 PM 12/15/97 EST, Sythryc wrote:
>allocate enough points to make it a 50/50 chance, don't forget those regents
>have incomes too, as well as interest, spies et al
>

No offence Sthryc, but I think this is the _worst_ thing you could do.
Once the characters catch on to it, they will quickly determine that it is
not worth it to invest extra RP or GB into any actions, as the DM will
effectively 'fix' the odds. While those NPC regeants have incomes etc.,
they also have many actions to perform for routine matters. One should
allow the PC's a chance to surprise their neighbours once in a while (and
vice versa).

Robert Hammond
rhammond@axess.net

[Sythryc]

too true robert, i hadn't thought of that. i am usually the player, not the
DM. what if several rulers nearby learned of the PC regent's plans and also
vied for position. All in all the DM is the one to try to lead the story,
perhaps by throwing a few minor events which require attention or damage may
ensue