What IS Rule?

[Olesens]

I will be running a Dauren based RL game with my players and I was hoping to
incorperate more role-playing into domain actions. I plan for them to pick one of
the Dauren provinces with no law the create a law holding there. The sole regent
PC will become ruler of that province. Then through politics or settling of the
other unlawful provinces, the PC can slowly expand his domain. But the first vital
action in this campaign will be to Create and Rule a holding. I don't intend to
roll it like a regular action, I want to players to go about doing it personally.
So therefore I ask, what actually happens in a create holding action? In ruleing a
holding? In Ruleing a Province? It is obvious that 2,000 gp of materials are
needed for the create and first rule action of that holding. I'm assuming that we
use the 1 standard gold piece = 1 birthright silver piece in order to make up for
the relatively cheap building of fortifications. After all, acording to BR it only
costs160,000 gp to fortify a city that is the largest possible in early renissance
technology.

- -Andrew

[Daniel McSorley]

From: Olesens

>So therefore I ask, what actually happens in a create holding action? In
ruleing a
>holding? In Ruleing a Province? It is obvious that 2,000 gp of materials
are
>needed for the create and first rule action of that holding.
Law, guilds, and temples are the easiest to explain. The investment
represents the hiring of men, purchasing of lands or buildings for them to
operate out of, and equiping them. Later expenditures represent more of the
same. This also pays for, for instance, posting notices and such that you
exist, so that your authority begins to be recognized by the people. The RP
expenditure shows your influence being exerted, to make these holdings
"official".
Ruling a source is wierder, it represents more exploration and discovery
of the secrets of the land, than of actually buying stuff.
When you rule a province, you, um, well, sow some dragons teeth into the
ground and some new people spring up from that. Cause there's no other way
people could appear that fast. I have explained it away to my players as a
combination of:
- -an influx of people, you make your lands somehow more attractive to
settlers (the GB expenditure could represent tax breaks to new folk);
- -better accounting and mapping of the domain, you "discover" people who
already lived there, but were mostly ignored;
- -increased fertility of the land, resulting in increased productivity of
farms and businesses, which in turn lets people afford more children (I'm
not fond of this one, it's too wishy-washy-mystical, but my players bought
it).

Daniel McSorley- mcsorley.1@osu.edu

[Olesens]

> Law, guilds, and temples are the easiest to explain. The investment
> represents the hiring of men, purchasing of lands or buildings for them to
> operate out of, and equiping them. Later expenditures represent more of the
> same. This also pays for, for instance, posting notices and such that you
> exist, so that your authority begins to be recognized by the people. The RP
> expenditure shows your influence being exerted, to make these holdings
> "official".

So for temples you'd build a bigger shrine and hire more priests, thus allowing
you to servince more of the local community, OK. For guilds you'd build bigger
wharehouses and more stores and hire people to staff them. This would allow you
to trade more goods, got it. Now for law, which kinda confuses me. Correct me
if I'm wrong but loyal law holdings would be basically like hiring police and
tax collectors and building places for them to work out of. Neutral law
holdings are just buildings full of people loyal to a regent other than the one
that ownes the province. They can switch to being police and tax collectors or
to thieves and gurilla soldiers at a "moment's" notice. Law holdings that are
opposed to the province-owning regent are thieves and assasin's guilds and are
homes to "criminals" that are sanctioned by the enemy law-owning regent. That
make sense? Then a Law (0) could also be called an embassy, emlinating the need
to have seperate embassies.



> When you rule a province, you, um, well, sow some dragons teeth into the
> ground and some new people spring up from that. Cause there's no other way
> people could appear that fast. I have explained it away to my players as a
> combination of:
> -an influx of people, you make your lands somehow more attractive to
> settlers (the GB expenditure could represent tax breaks to new folk);
> -better accounting and mapping of the domain, you "discover" people who
> already lived there, but were mostly ignored;
> -increased fertility of the land, resulting in increased productivity of
> farms and businesses, which in turn lets people afford more children (I'm
> not fond of this one, it's too wishy-washy-mystical, but my players bought
> it).

Well in several city running games (like SimCity and Caesar) there are always
people that want to come to your city. You, as regent/mayor, need to provide
services that make an area desierable and "zone" places for farming and
building. The gold goes mostly to the desierable part. As a city/province
grows it will need more and more advanced services (like Entertainment,
recreation, and access to "manufactured" goods like quality furniture or
silverware). If the city or province in question is in rebellion or has a poor
loyalty (and thus a bad mood tword the king), people will not want to move in.
So maybe a Poor loyalty puts a -5 on Rule actions and rebellions make them
impossible in rebellious provinces. A high loyalty would give the rule action a
+2 or +3. This would give more reason for wanting your provinces to have a high
loyalty.

On a side note to support the popular "add the target province level to the
normal 10+ for rule province success" rule, one thing all those desireribility
improvements do is attract more nobles who are required to have a high-level
province. Nobles contribute vastly to the employment openings and they pay a
lot more tax. But finding nobles is hard, thus reflecting the increasing
difficulty of ruleing a province. Think 20+ is to high in ruleing a province
from (9) to (10)? In the only exsisting case (the Imperial City) it took an
emperor plus tons of nobles to fill up the upper ranks (the employing ranks) of
the imperial city. Do you think it is easy to convince an Emperor to live in
your city/province?

Sorry if it seems like I asked a question and already had all the answers. I
did not. Daniel McSorley sparked my creative thinking on this one. Oh, anyone
from the Shadows DM team, I think we should use some of the rule changes above.

- -Andrew

[Gary V. Foss]

Olesens wrote:

> I will be running a Dauren based RL game with my players and I was hoping to
> incorperate more role-playing into domain actions. I plan for them to pick one of
> the Dauren provinces with no law the create a law holding there. The sole regent
> PC will become ruler of that province. Then through politics or settling of the
> other unlawful provinces, the PC can slowly expand his domain. But the first vital
> action in this campaign will be to Create and Rule a holding. I don't intend to
> roll it like a regular action, I want to players to go about doing it personally.
> So therefore I ask, what actually happens in a create holding action? In ruleing a
> holding? In Ruleing a Province? It is obvious that 2,000 gp of materials are
> needed for the create and first rule action of that holding. I'm assuming that we
> use the 1 standard gold piece = 1 birthright silver piece in order to make up for
> the relatively cheap building of fortifications. After all, acording to BR it only
> costs160,000 gp to fortify a city that is the largest possible in early renissance
> technology.

IMC, I recently (well, a couple months ago) changed the value of the GB from 2,000gp to
10,000gp. This more accurately reflects the standard AD&D costs of castles, military
units, etc. and actually has relatively little effect on domain actions, and only
effects role-playing when the adventurers try to translate the gold they get in an
adventure into GB, making the adventure action less attractive as a means of generating
income. Since I have my players perform some sort of role-playing "adventure type"
action for every different domain action, however, this makes relatively little
difference for my players. Changing the value of the GB gives regents more "buying
power" in terms of mundane items and services, but in general this is not a problem as
the difference between spending 2,000gp on personal equipment and 10,000gp is actually
kind of slim in the game. Just how many long swords can an individual regent carry?
How many warhorses can he ride?

I also think it more accurately reflects the costs of buildings and taxes generated by
a realm. The DMG says on p151 "Considering a reasonable tax to be one gold piece for
each person and one or two silver for each head of livestock..." but it is a little
unclear if they mean 1gp/month or 1gp/year. I think it has to be per month because the
chart on the previous page shows average monthly wages. The lowest paid person, a
laborer or groom, earns 1gp/month, but the next up the list, a Stonemason, earns
4gp/month. Others on that chart earn 5-10gp/month. So the minimum a person earns is
12gp/year if he works steadily. Taxes have to be higher than 1/12th of one's income,
so I think they mean 1gp/month.... A province like Ilien (7/0) is going to earn an
average of about 6.5GB/domain turn if taxed moderately. (d10+1GB). If a GB is worth
2,000gp that is all of 13,000gp for three months of taxes from a province with 100,000
people in it. At the rate explained in the DMG that same province would earn 300,000gp
in "regular" AD&D terms. Quite a discrepancy. Making a GB worth 10,000gp still leaves
a gap since the 6.5GB earned now is worth 65,000gp, but it is still a bit closer. A
castle(7) would cost 140,000gp to build if a GB is worth 2,000gp. 700,000gp is much
closer, don't you think?

Anyway, since I make the players role-play all their domain actions, I would make them
put down a small rebellion, solve a murder, route a group of bandits, break up a
thieves guild, or something along those lines in order to create or rule up a law
holding.

As for what is physically represented by a Law(0)... probably not much. If the BoP is
a guideline, a Temple(4) is physically represented by a single large, two medium sized,
and four small temples/shrines/monastaries, etc. A Temple(0) might just be a group of
transient priests who spread the word and perform various ceremonies while traveling
from town to town.

Similarly, a Law(4) might be physically represented by one large, two medium and four
small barracks/jails/sheriff's offices/prisons/courts of law, etc. A Law(0) holding,
however, might only represent a patrol of 20 or so "constables" led by a single
"sheriff" and the 1GB spent on creating that holding represents the money spent
outfitting them with horses and equipment. Optionally, a Law(0) might just be a judge
or two who wanders from town to town in a province dispensing legal rulings on a
regular basis (kind of the way the Counts and Cardinals went on their annual trek
across Charlemagne's Empire.)

I hope this helps!

Gary

[Pieter Sleijpen]

Gary V. Foss wrote:
>
> Olesens wrote:
>
> > I will be running a Dauren based RL game with my players and I was hoping to
> > incorperate more role-playing into domain actions. I plan for them to pick one of
> > the Dauren provinces with no law the create a law holding there. The sole regent
> > PC will become ruler of that province. Then through politics or settling of the
> > other unlawful provinces, the PC can slowly expand his domain. But the first vital
> > action in this campaign will be to Create and Rule a holding. I don't intend to
> > roll it like a regular action, I want to players to go about doing it personally.
> > So therefore I ask, what actually happens in a create holding action? In ruleing a
> > holding? In Ruleing a Province? It is obvious that 2,000 gp of materials are
> > needed for the create and first rule action of that holding. I'm assuming that we
> > use the 1 standard gold piece = 1 birthright silver piece in order to make up for
> > the relatively cheap building of fortifications. After all, acording to BR it only
> > costs160,000 gp to fortify a city that is the largest possible in early renissance
> > technology.
>
> IMC, I recently (well, a couple months ago) changed the value of the GB from 2,000gp to
> 10,000gp. This more accurately reflects the standard AD&D costs of castles, military
> units, etc. and actually has relatively little effect on domain actions, and only
> effects role-playing when the adventurers try to translate the gold they get in an
> adventure into GB, making the adventure action less attractive as a means of generating
> income. Since I have my players perform some sort of role-playing "adventure type"
> action for every different domain action, however, this makes relatively little
> difference for my players. Changing the value of the GB gives regents more "buying
> power" in terms of mundane items and services, but in general this is not a problem as
> the difference between spending 2,000gp on personal equipment and 10,000gp is actually
> kind of slim in the game. Just how many long swords can an individual regent carry?
> How many warhorses can he ride?

It does make a huge difference in magic. Magical research become a lot
easier as is the creation of magical items.

[Gary V. Foss]

Pieter Sleijpen wrote:

> > IMC, I recently (well, a couple months ago) changed the value of the GB from 2,000gp to
> > 10,000gp. This more accurately reflects the standard AD&D costs of castles, military
> > units, etc. and actually has relatively little effect on domain actions, and only
> > effects role-playing when the adventurers try to translate the gold they get in an
> > adventure into GB, making the adventure action less attractive as a means of generating
> > income. Since I have my players perform some sort of role-playing "adventure type"
> > action for every different domain action, however, this makes relatively little
> > difference for my players. Changing the value of the GB gives regents more "buying
> > power" in terms of mundane items and services, but in general this is not a problem as
> > the difference between spending 2,000gp on personal equipment and 10,000gp is actually
> > kind of slim in the game. Just how many long swords can an individual regent carry?
> > How many warhorses can he ride?
>
> It does make a huge difference in magic. Magical research become a lot
> easier as is the creation of magical items.

That's true too! Maybe it's one of the other reasons I like it.... It makes the gold
stretch further for mages, who have no real source of income. Making GB worth more helps out
wizards who I think are at a disadvantage in terms of the domain rules.

IMC, I have yet to convince either of the two PC wizards to become source regents. Maybe
this is a fault of my DMing style or something, but they just don't see the advantages of
holding sources. I've thrown a lot of little incentives in there too, but they still don't
really see them as being worthwile, so it hasn't worked. Oh well.

Gary

[Pieter Sleijpen]

Gary V. Foss wrote:

> That's true too! Maybe it's one of the other reasons I like it.... It makes the gold
> stretch further for mages, who have no real source of income. Making GB worth more helps out
> wizards who I think are at a disadvantage in terms of the domain rules.
>
> IMC, I have yet to convince either of the two PC wizards to become source regents. Maybe
> this is a fault of my DMing style or something, but they just don't see the advantages of
> holding sources. I've thrown a lot of little incentives in there too, but they still don't
> really see them as being worthwile, so it hasn't worked. Oh well.
>
> Gary

I just reread several realm spells, trying to make a selection for a
PBEM NPC (soon PC). Why would someone not be a regent mage is beyond me?
Several of the spells are very powerful and very usefull to the landed
regent. You would be able to ask much for them...
(just think of 'mass destruction', 'transport troops', 'ward' and so on)

[Gary V. Foss]

Pieter Sleijpen wrote:

> Gary V. Foss wrote:
>
> > That's true too! Maybe it's one of the other reasons I like it.... It makes the gold
> > stretch further for mages, who have no real source of income. Making GB worth more helps out
> > wizards who I think are at a disadvantage in terms of the domain rules.
> >
> > IMC, I have yet to convince either of the two PC wizards to become source regents. Maybe
> > this is a fault of my DMing style or something, but they just don't see the advantages of
> > holding sources. I've thrown a lot of little incentives in there too, but they still don't
> > really see them as being worthwile, so it hasn't worked. Oh well.
> >
> > Gary
>
> I just reread several realm spells, trying to make a selection for a
> PBEM NPC (soon PC). Why would someone not be a regent mage is beyond me?
> Several of the spells are very powerful and very usefull to the landed
> regent. You would be able to ask much for them...
> (just think of 'mass destruction', 'transport troops', 'ward' and so on)

Well, from my player's perspective the consensus seems to be that the benefits of being a regent
controlling sources don't really give you much more influence and earn your PC a lot of headaches
for relatively minor benefits. Unless he has some other revenue, a wizard has to rely on other
regents, and constantly asking for money (or demanding it in payment) just doesn't seem like a
wizardly thing to do. By controlling sources a wizard also suddenly gets thrown into the realm of
politics, and unless a PC is inclined towards that sort of thing, it's just a pain in the butt.
Lastly, the wizard realm spells are powerful, but they have very little personal effect on the
wizard or his ability to function in an adventure. Sure, he can ward provinces, transport troops,
blow them to smithereens, whatever, but generally speaking why does he want to? If they are not
going to become regents themselves, they are still stuck with problems #1 and #2. They still have
to ask for (or demand) money for their services, and they got sucked into some political situation.

Now, I grant you that this has a lot to do with the way I run my campaign. All the PCs started out
as 1st level characters, some have bloodlines and some don't. (The elven fighter/mage, for
instance, is unblooded so even if he wanted to control sources he couldn't, unless he somehow gets
a bloodline somewhere in the future....) I like to send the PCs all over Cerilia on various
missions and adventures. One month they have to deliver a message to the White Witch, the next
month they are exploring the Harrowmarsh. In the course of a series of adventures they may have to
infiltrate Innishiere or locate the Winter Emerald hidden somewhere in the Klessberg. The cast of
characters in BR is one of the most interesting I've found in an AD&D setting, so I've designed my
campaign to expose the players to as many of them as possible. Unfortunately, controlling sources
and casting realm spells just aren't that helpful in adventures like that. What good is a Source
(4) when you are hundreds of miles away from it trying to negotiate the return of your ship from
the Rjurik guards who have confiscated it?

Law, temple or guild holdings, however, are more helpful. They give the PCs a place to come "home"
to and heal up after an adventure, they provide revenue, followers, buildings, etc. Sources just
don't do that.

Add to all that the fact that my players call Aerenwe home, so if they wanted to start sources up
they would have to compete with Aelies or the Swamp Mage and they really aren't that anxious to
take either of them on....

Gary

[Kenneth Gauck]

On Tuesday, December 22, Gary V. Foss wrote:
>
>A province like Ilien (7/0) is going to earn an average of about
6.5GB/domain
>turn if taxed moderately. (d10+1GB). If a GB is worth 2,000gp that is all
of
>13,000gp for three months of taxes from a province with 100,000
>people in it. At the rate explained in the DMG that same province would
earn >300,000gp in "regular" AD&D terms.

Unless you assume (per my previous post) that your estmation of taxes is 12x
too high.
Then a province like Ilien (assuming 100,000 people) makes 25,000 gp in
"regular"/DMG terms [or 12 GB's] per season, and 13,000 gp. This is quite
reasonable, since the maintenance costs would not come close to representing
the 1) costs of tax collection (including graft) 2) the fact that local
taxes never reach the regent but are consumed locally, and 3) the
administrative costs besides the collection of taxes.


But I would also suggest breaking with the numbers provided in the rules
except as a default. Advanced economies should be treated as higher than
their population would show, and backward economies should read as lower.

I'll provide two examples, one from Rjurik and one from Khinasi:
Provinces in the north of Rjurik (such as in Hogunmark) probably represent
low population territories for the most part, so the many province level 1's
and 0's represent few people. Provinces likeDjaalfund and Gundviir (both of
which are rated "4") are probably still lower level populations (below 5000
persons) but reside in lands that are fertile, or possess mines, or some
such income generating activity that could support more guild activity, and
temple activity.

Likewise a province like Azedas in Ariya (rated a "1") is between high
population areas and resides on the coast, so its likely its population is
much higher than a level 1 would suggest, but can only support one level of
taxation, law, guild, and temple because of its povery. Perhaps the land is
quite poor, no fishing is possible at that part of the coast, and so the
7-8000 inhabitants produce little surplus wealth which can be removed from
the locals.

Kenneth Gauck
c558382@earthlink.net

[Gary V. Foss]

Kenneth Gauck wrote:

> On Tuesday, December 22, Gary V. Foss wrote:
> >
> >A province like Ilien (7/0) is going to earn an average of about
> 6.5GB/domain
> >turn if taxed moderately. (d10+1GB). If a GB is worth 2,000gp that is all
> of
> >13,000gp for three months of taxes from a province with 100,000
> >people in it. At the rate explained in the DMG that same province would
> earn >300,000gp in "regular" AD&D terms.
>
> Unless you assume (per my previous post) that your estmation of taxes is 12x
> too high.
> Then a province like Ilien (assuming 100,000 people) makes 25,000 gp in
> "regular"/DMG terms [or 12 GB's] per season, and 13,000 gp. This is quite
> reasonable, since the maintenance costs would not come close to representing
> the 1) costs of tax collection (including graft) 2) the fact that local
> taxes never reach the regent but are consumed locally, and 3) the
> administrative costs besides the collection of taxes.

A 1/12th tax rate still seems pretty low to me for AD&D economics even if it is
historically accurate. The specific problem I was trying to address in that
example, however, was whether the "reasonable tax" described on p151 of the DMG
of 1gp per person was 1gp/month, 1gp/season or 1gp/year. Personally, I'm
inclined to take the middle road and make it 1gp/season as that seems most in
line with BR methods, even though I'm pretty sure the guys who put the DMG
together didn't have BR in mind when they penned that section.

That 1/12th tax rate, however, is still based upon the lowest possible salary of
a citizen, which I really don't think is a good determinate of income or of tax
rate. I used it to illustrate the lowest possible given the information in the
DMG. Many people will make much more than that. Other kinds of jobs pay
significantly more than that as noted on Table 65 of the DMG p150. A carpenter,
for instance, makes 5gp/month, so taxing him 1gp/year comes out to a 1/60th tax
rate, which seems WAY out of line with either AD&D or historical accuracy.
Taxing him per season still comes out to 1/15th of his income and per month
1/5th. 1/5th of income sounds reasonable to me in AD&D, so one could easily
make the argument that taxes are levied monthly.

Which leads me back to the general problem I was trying to address: the value of
the GB. If a GB is worth 2,000gp it means a province like Ilien will generate
the aforementioned 13,000gp/season or 52,000gp/year. That works if taxes in
standard AD&D terms are annual since Ilien will generate 100,000gp in the same
period, and the difference can be attributed to the graft and maintenance costs
your describe, but I still think a province like Ilien is going to generate more
like 4 or 12 times that much in taxes, which would place the numbers more in the
area of 400,000gp or 1,200,000gp in a year. As I said before I'm inclined to go
with the quarterly taxes, so for these purposes let's say 400,000gp.

If a GB is worth 10,000gp rather than 2,000gp Ilien will generate 260,000gp for
it's province ruler which is much closer to the 400,000gp figure. The 140,000gp
difference could be attributed to graft and maintenance costs.

Changing the value of the GB also better reflects the standard AD&D costs of
constructing castles and mustering troops. A castle of the largest possible
size in BR terms, a castle (10), costs 100GB or all of 200,000gp to construct if
a GB is worth 2,000gp. If you've ever used The Castle Guide to construct a
standard AD&D castle you know you can spend that 200,000gp in a snap
constructing just a rather small castle. 1,000,000gp more closely represents
the cost of constructing the castle described in the Ilien Sourcebook (or any of
the other castles in any other sourcebook, for that matter).

For quite a few different troop types, muster costs are ridiculously cheap if
GBs are worth 2,000gp. A unit of elite infantry (200 heavy infantry with banded
mail, long sword, medium shield) would cost 44,400gp to outfit, but at 2,000gp
per GB it only runs a regent 8,000gp to raise them. If a GB is worth 10,000gp
it is much more accurate. For standard infantry, irregulars and pikes 2,000gp
is fairly accurate, but for cavalry and knights are even more heavily skewed. A
hundred heavy warhorses for a unit of knights would alone cost 40,000gp. Add to
that a hundred suits of plate mail, a long sword and a lance and you end up with
an additional 63,000gp, which makes the muster cost of a unit of knights using
the normal value of a GB 12,000gp seem amazingly cheap.

I know that many people have argued that soldiers in real medieval history were
often expected to supply their own armor and weapons, but in standard AD&D
terms, a player is supposed to pay for the outfitting of such hirelings. There
are other reasons why I think a PC ruler should be responsible for the cost of
raising these troops aside from game mechanics.

First of all, I don't think it's actually true that troops were 100% responsible
for their own equipment, as the example seems to be based upon the large armies
raised only seasonally and disbanded almost immediately after the relatively
brief "fighting season" was over so they could get back home for summer
harvest. Troops in BR and AD&D are not those kinds of soldiers, they are a
standing military force, so I don't think using them as an example is very apt.

Second, the money for outfitting troops is either directly or indirectly paid by
the government. In the feudal system knights were responsible for their own
outfitting and often for raising their own troops, but they got the revenue to
do so from taxing their peasants. If they were going to pay scutage to avoid
military service that money just went to their lord. One way or another, the
money is getting spent on outfitting soldiers. I would just prefer seeing how
that money is spent as a player and DM, so I would rather skip the middle
section and do it myself.

So what's my point in all of this? Well, I want to smooth over the gaps between
the standard AD&D rules and the BR domain action rules. Changing the value of
the GB is just one method of better reflecting the AD&D core rules in the BR
domain rules. That way I can translate the BR system into a non-BR setting or
the AD&D core rules into the way I run my BR campaign which is a sort of blend
of a typical "domain rules dominated" BR campaign and a traditional adventure
oriented campaign.

Gary