On Sat, 7 Feb 1998 c558382@showme.missouri.edu wrote:

> A lot of this sounds like punishing a regent who wants to rule up a
> province rather than the natural obstacles inherent in such a venture.

Its certainly not intended to be such. Its intended to be a realistic
accounting of the problems of increasing the population by a whole lot in
a very short amount of time.

> What wise regent brings in his own Great Captains? While even Henry II
> can have a Becket, usually these opportunities are given to the most loyal
> and dedicated lords. When the Overthane ruled up a province (he has only
> asked once) in my campaign, he had the High Priest and the Master of the
> Royal Guild of B-A all ready to go. If someone from inside or outside
> tried to be tricky, he would have faced the combined front of the whole
> realm. Even if a PC doesn't get along smashingly, most other regents will
> appreciate the opportunity, and fear a similar situation enough to join
> against such a ploy. Now, if you don't send clues (I use NPC advisors for
> this) about how you might screw a player, I guess all they can do is
> resent the heavy-handedness of such a ploy.

This is certainly the best way to go about it: even if two regents don't
like eachother, they can usually trust eachother enough to watch
eachother's backs. But remember what the original poster was proposing:
raising 6 or seven provinces from level 0 to level 7 in only 5 years! No
amount of planning will be able to successfully deal with all the
variables involved in such an occurance, and I would feel that the DM is
perfectly justified in role-playing some misfortunes and unpredictable
outcomes of such a venture. It's not intended to be a means of "screwing
the player," but a natural consequence of the influx of a large number of
people with very shaky loyalties: and at such a rate that the
civilization's superstructure is almost certainly unable to support: not
only will many be upset by the lack of housing, basic farming/crafting
equipment, clothing, etc., but also the lack of adequate policing and
protection from monsters and brigands. How can such an occurance NOT spell
BIG CRISIS if not DISASTER.

> Good regents should spend more time initiating action then they should
> having their schemes thwarted by a DM who has it out for them. Plan your
> difficulties before your players tell you what your going to do. Mine are
> planed many realm turns ahead, and hints are sent forth, so canny players
> have some incling where danger lies. I do roll for random events so
> things can happen, and I have no problem with punishing a bad move with
> its natural consequences.

I agree with you completely: never in my experience has a Regent ruled
more than 1 province per YEAR, much less every season, but the question
was how to deal with some PC who was Ruling A LOT. I would assume that the
DM would lay hints in the PC's path as to what chaos he was bringing to
the realm: any half-witted advisor could tell such a regent that, but
we've all had experience with that player who was sure he knew the One
Path to True Power and would let nothing stand in his way: including good
advise. And rather than saying to this player: "Nope, I'm sorry, you've
run out of people, no more Ruling for you today." I would let him dig his
way deeper and deeper into the hole: when he finally realized it, THEN
comes the good opportunities for role-playing: averting the disaster that
you yourself unwittingly brought up.

> I wonder, Mark, how do you drain away GB and RP, my players tend to
> accumulate them until they undertake a project.

I have NEVER had a problem with my players stockpiling RP and GB. The Land
Rulers typically have 100-120 RP but are usually quite poor, and while the
Guilders generally have treasuries of 40-50 GB, they seldom have more RP
than that either. The Wizards usually keep the guilders from convincing
the Rulers to raise Provinces very often.
It is not unusual for my players to get into RP bidding wars where
they spend 50-70 RP trying to outdo or thwart one of their hereditary
enemies. And wars eat up GB VERY quickly (particularly if guilders get
some or all of their Trade Routes cut off).

Mark VanderMeulen
vander+@pitt.edu