> BR was designed based on historical circumstance. As Rich Baker said
> to me
> in a post, "As a historian, you'll probably note that I borrowed a
> lot of
> the inspiration for Birthright from historical sources." Historically
> the
> effects of regency were assumed to exist. Their thinking was more
> abastract, but we are playing a game, and points are required to
> measure one
> character's potential, versus another. Nevertheless, whatever we call
>
> regency in terms of its character, it existed in the middle ages, and
> so
> cannot be so divourced from reality that fantastic explanations are
> required. Divine right, divine spark, the order established by God,
> the
> order established by the events of Deismir, all fantasy trappings for
> a
> historical situation.

Far be it from me to disagree with the game designers.... ;)

I don't think Mr. Baker's statement about using historical sources as
inspiration quite implies that "whatever we call regency in terms of its
character, it existed in the middle ages, and so cannot be so divorced
from reality that fantastic explanations are required." The BR setting
is a fantastic invention. Magic exists. Dragons exist. Elves,
dwarves, halflings, awnsheghlien, griffons, etc. all exist. They never
existed on earth. If BR were a historical game it would be called The
Middle Ages and none of these things would be in the setting. In the
real world kings and emporers supposedly ruled by divine right. In BR
they really do.

In a game in which the description of hit points is as vague and
unrealistic as it is, is my description of RPs really that
unacceptable? Many PCs can take more damage than an elephant and that's
fine, but if I define RPs as magical energy then I'm just OUT THERE....

Rather than restate my entire argument again, I will ask the following
questions. If RPs have no actual energy, but are only the BR
representation of political favors owed to a ruler then:

Why is a bloodline required in order to collect, store, spend and
transfer RPs? Shouldn't it be possible for any character to collect
them if they are just a representation of political favors? In fact,
shouldn't RPs be granted along with experience points even for
non-rulers who might have rescued the princess, foiled the evil wizard,
stopped the flood or healed the king? Certainly those are political
favors that would be worthy of granting RPs?

Why is bloodline strength the maximum amount of RPs collected in a
domain turn? If RPs are political favors and not magical energy then
why should the amount collected be restrained by the amount of godly
power that a regent has?

How do wizards collect RPs from sources whose strength is based upon the
lack of population? What political favors are they collecting from
their sources?

Why can a wizard (Rogr Aglondier, for instance) use the RPs gained from
his sources to influence his ability to create a guild holding, increase
a province level or combat the activities of another regent attempting
to do something similar in his domain?

How are RPs used to increase a source holding level? How could favors
being called due increase mystical power?

Why are RPs tied to character class? Wouldn't a fighter running a guild
collect just as many favors as a thief or guilder?

How could political favors be turned into the magical energies required
to cast a realm spell?

How can a ruler use non-magical RPs to increase his magical bloodline
strength, potentially gaining new magical blood abilities?

How could RPs be transferred to a regent completely on the other side of
Cerilia? A Khinasi guilder in Suiriene could for some reason transfer
RPs to the White Witch who might use them to cast a realm spell. If RPs
are favors owed a ruler, how is this possible?

Why would RPs be transferred to a regent's heir if he died normally, but
not if he were killed by bloodtheft? Why would RPs be transferred to a
regent's killer if he was the last of his line and killed by
bloodtheft? Would political favors actually be owed to a regent's
murderer?

Why can the political favors that RPs represent be transferred to any
commoner off the street if that person is designated as an heir and not
be dissipated in any way by the transfer process? Why are favors owed a
regent transferable to someone completely unrelated to the original
regent even if the new regent has no way of knowing what the past regent
did in order to earn those favors or who owes them?

I'd suggest that the easy answer to these questions is because RPs are a
magical form of energy, collected and stored by the divine essence of a
blooded character, consciously directed by him towards accomplishing
certain tasks, and transferred unchanged from their mystical form to
heirs or other regents.

But the 64,000 gp question is: Why does this matter?!?

Relevance! Relevance! My kingdom for some relevance!

Well, in the present gaming situation, it doesn't matter much at all.
I'm wondering, however, if RPs might be used in a way to increase
ability scores, experience level, spellcasting ability, saving throws,
etc. What if a regent wanted to back up the power of a Fireball with a
few RPs? What if he wanted to infuse a fighting unit with divine energy
and increase their effectiveness? I'm edging towards doing some of
these things in my own non-BR campaign that borrows heavily from the
Birthright regency concept when it comes to domains, rulers, etc. so I
think these things might be useful.

There are some potential gaming effects that RPs could be put to that
might change the face of the game a bit and add a whole new (BR
inspired) dimension to a 3rd edition AD&D release.... I've said several
times that this is the kind of thing I would like to see in a possible
3rd edition; a rewrite of the BR domain rules to make them part of the
AD&D core rules. I think this would help revitalize the setting and get
us some more information on my favorite published campaign world, and
that's where I'd like to see this go....

Gary