My two cents?

[Michael Goldsworthy]

Wow. First message on this list. :)
Well, I've been going through the e-mails on this list, (OK, I was lurking),
and I saw a couple of messages I thought I could reply to...

1. The game I'm GM-ing right now is Birthright, with a healthy dose of my
own ideas thrown in (I had originally just gotten the original boxed set,
and am only now beginning to collect more of it; heck, it suprised me the
line was discontinued). The game I'm running has 4 players at present, all
regents. Tough game to run; 4 kingdoms, each far away from one another (the
PCs involved don't even know each other!). and I run adventures quite
often, with the PC regent, and the other player playing the regent's
henchmen or hirelings. The game is quite new - we've only just started the
second in-game year (total 5-6 domain turns), yet the players love it, even
when playing the other PC's henchmen (guess I got good players). What has
this gotten us? Every game has made the world more "real"; the role-playing
is great; and I've lost a lot of sleep...:) Having a ball, though.
2. um, shure; if one player/NPC has a holding in a province that another
rules, and he/she/it wants to oppose/support the action (support? Never
thought of that...) the ruler of the province wants to do, he should be able
too, within a limited extent (such as a Rule action to enable more control
of/more powerful holdings. So what if I've got Guild holdings in your
province ansd you want to only raise control Law holdings? Of COURSE I'm
going to oppose it! Think about law holdings - they're capable of 'taxing'
another holding... like my Guild. And that's just one example... What
about this: Your Court Wizard, Bob, wants to increase control over one of
your province's Sourse holdings; you've never used it, and if you trust your
wizard, shure you'd want to help him to increase control of it. The reverse
is also true - yeesh, what you can do with just a Source 3...
4. Does anyone out there have an idea what kind of ratio of Province
devlopment vs. Source (loss) should be? Example: A rule action that raises a
province 3/4 to a 4/4... What happens to the source? Does it go down one?
When should it do so? (since it mentions Elf regents can ignore this
problem, I know it applies to others.) Also, I still am uncertain - is it
possible to raise the level of a Source? if so, how?
5. I know I'll hear from this one: What boxed sets/province player's kits(?)
would you out there suggest? The Good, the Bad, and the just plain Ugly, as
it were... I currently have the main boxed set, the sea rules, the book of
the Anguishen(ugh, excuse spelling, dyletics of the world untie), and the
northlands boxed set. What do people think of those?
5. Last but not least: Is it just me, or does the setup/layout of the
Rulesbook (birthright boxed set) suck rocks? I mean, neat rules, when you
can find them...


See ya!
Mike Goldsworthy
Vancouver British Columbia, CANADA
I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe....

-

[Mark A Vandermeulen]

Hi Michael. Good to hear from you.

On Tue, 3 Aug 1999, Michael Goldsworthy wrote:

> 2. um, shure; if one player/NPC has a holding in a province that another
> rules, and he/she/it wants to oppose/support the action (support? Never
> thought of that...) the ruler of the province wants to do, he should be able
> too, within a limited extent (such as a Rule action to enable more control
> of/more powerful holdings. So what if I've got Guild holdings in your
> province ansd you want to only raise control Law holdings? Of COURSE I'm
> going to oppose it! Think about law holdings - they're capable of 'taxing'
> another holding... like my Guild. And that's just one example... What
> about this: Your Court Wizard, Bob, wants to increase control over one of
> your province's Sourse holdings; you've never used it, and if you trust your
> wizard, shure you'd want to help him to increase control of it. The reverse
> is also true - yeesh, what you can do with just a Source 3...

This is the way I've always assumed it to go, as well. Any regent with
sway over the populace of the region can attempt to bit RP's for or
against any action that he or she knows about and cares enough about.
One thing I've thought about was making the "bidding war" that ensues into
more of a "sealed bids" kind of silent auction. That is, each participant
knows WHO is supporting or opposing an action, but no one knows HOW
STRONGLY (i.e. how many RP's) each participant is spending. Then the DM
gathers all the bids once made, assesses the bonus or penalty to be
applied, and allows the roll. Perhaps I would introduce a new proficiency
(which is generally my response to these things--yessiree, you can't have
too many proficiencies!) called "Politics" or something that would give
you a general idea of the "level of support" of a participant with a
successful check.

And what happened to #3?

> 4. Does anyone out there have an idea what kind of ratio of Province
> devlopment vs. Source (loss) should be? Example: A rule action that raises a
> province 3/4 to a 4/4... What happens to the source? Does it go down one?
> When should it do so? (since it mentions Elf regents can ignore this
> problem, I know it applies to others.) Also, I still am uncertain - is it
> possible to raise the level of a Source? if so, how?

This is an important concept: the two numbers, province level and source
level add up to a number that REMAINS ETERNALLY CONSTANT. Thus, is the
province rating goes up, the source rating MUST DROP. Thus one of the poor
wizards looses a level of source holding, assuming he had it built up to
the max. The Eternal Constant is determined by the terrain type of the
province (mentioned somewhere near the back of the Rulebook). And yes--it
IS possible to rule up sources, but it is generally necessary to
depopulate the land first. One of the benefits of war to a wizard is it's
decimating effect on the population--although it usually takes some years
(perhaps a decade or more) for the depopulated lands to grow "Wild" enough
to rise back up on the Source side of the scale. So in that sense, the
Eternal Constant (and this is only my name for it--you won't find it in
the book) can be changed, can only be changed in reduction. It serves as
the maximum, sort of like max hit points. No matter how much healing you
get, you can't get better than max. Elves get around this by being able to
live in tune with the land, but they have their own drawbacks, cheif of
which is inability to create the gold-gathering guilds of the humans, as
well as a tendency to grow much more slowly, which some DM's set rules to.

> 5. I know I'll hear from this one: What boxed sets/province player's kits(?)
> would you out there suggest? The Good, the Bad, and the just plain Ugly, as
> it were... I currently have the main boxed set, the sea rules, the book of
> the Anguishen(ugh, excuse spelling, dyletics of the world untie), and the
> northlands boxed set. What do people think of those?

Get all of the territory gets--they're the best of the lot. Beyond that
the King of the Giantdowns and the Legends of the Hero-Kings are the best
of the adventure books. Avoid all of the other adventures (well, some like
Sword and Crown) as they require much too much adaptation to be useful in
all but the most high-level adventures, and BR is really at it's strength
at lower levels. Beyond that, the Players Secrets books are WAY optional
(and probably not too useful unless it happens to be the realm you're
playing in), but the PS book of Tuarhievel and Baruk-Azik have some pretty
good background and flavors to the cultures of the elves and dwarves,
respectively, of Cerilia. Most important, however, are the Books of
Magecraft and Priestcraft. Beyond the region boxes (or booklet in the case
of the Heartless Wastes), the Craftbooks should be highest on your list.

> 5. Last but not least: Is it just me, or does the setup/layout of the
> Rulesbook (birthright boxed set) suck rocks? I mean, neat rules, when you
> can find them...

Yeah, an old lament on this list. We were all hoping that the wrinkles
and rules-confusion in the RB would be ironed out in the much anticipated
but regretfully cancelled Birthright Rerelease.

Mark VanderMeulen
vander+@pitt.edu
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[geeman]

Michael Goldsworthy wrote:

> Wow. First message on this list. :)
> Well, I've been going through the e-mails on this list, (OK, I was lurking),
> and I saw a couple of messages I thought I could reply to...

Welcome, MG. Glad you are chiming in.

> 1. The game I'm GM-ing right now is Birthright, with a healthy dose of my
> own ideas thrown in (I had originally just gotten the original boxed set,
> and am only now beginning to collect more of it; heck, it suprised me the
> line was discontinued). The game I'm running has 4 players at present, all
> regents. Tough game to run; 4 kingdoms, each far away from one another (the
> PCs involved don't even know each other!). and I run adventures quite
> often, with the PC regent, and the other player playing the regent's
> henchmen or hirelings. The game is quite new - we've only just started the
> second in-game year (total 5-6 domain turns), yet the players love it, even
> when playing the other PC's henchmen (guess I got good players). What has
> this gotten us? Every game has made the world more "real"; the role-playing
> is great; and I've lost a lot of sleep...:) Having a ball, though.

Sounds great. Personally, I prefer a high adventure ratio in my games vs domain
rules. I love the domain rules because they provide some guidelines for aspects
of the game that have long been overlooked, but I usually use them as a sort of
backdrop to the actual adventuring and as a way to determine the results of
those adventures.

> 4. Does anyone out there have an idea what kind of ratio of Province
> devlopment vs. Source (loss) should be? Example: A rule action that raises a
> province 3/4 to a 4/4... What happens to the source? Does it go down one?
> When should it do so? (since it mentions Elf regents can ignore this
> problem, I know it applies to others.) Also, I still am uncertain - is it
> possible to raise the level of a Source? if so, how?

Yup, the source goes down right then and there... except if the ruler (or I
would suggest, more appropriately, the population of the province) is elvish.

Do you have a copy of the Book of Magecraft? In it there is a description of
how long it takes for sources to return after the population goes due to
whatever reason. Anybody have that info handy? I'm not near my books.

> 5. I know I'll hear from this one: What boxed sets/province player's kits(?)
> would you out there suggest? The Good, the Bad, and the just plain Ugly, as
> it were... I currently have the main boxed set, the sea rules, the book of
> the Anguishen(ugh, excuse spelling, dyletics of the world untie), and the
> northlands boxed set. What do people think of those?

Most of the adventures are OK, though they tend to be "high magic" or "Monty
Haul" in comparison to the flavor of the setting, and your take on the
prevalence of magic in the campaign. I'm told Giantdowns is the worst
transgressor in this regard. Sword of Roele is pretty bad too, though I'm
pretty sure these are both OK adventures with a little reworking, mostly by
cutting out the excessive magic.

I would suggest getting your hands on all five of the campaign setting
expansions. They are all worthwile and a good read.

DO NOT buy the naval combat rules boxed set. Everything in it is already in the
Khinasi, Cities of the Sun, boxed info, so unless you want to spend $12 for an
extra set of naval warcards it is a waste of money.

Baruk-Azhik is a really good description of an elven realm, but it has this
freaky thing about Grimm Graybeard changing into this weird spirit of the stone
kind of creature who haunts the Orog caverns and can appear spectrally to the
new regent like some sort of geological specter. If you can get past the
goofiness of that idea and read the sourcebook for its content regarding dwarves
it is a good buy.

Ilien: It's kind of cool. I have a soft spot for little ole' Rogr, though, so I
suppose I might be biased here. I like this one because A) it emphasizes magic
and B) it's a single province and I like focussing a whole sourebook on a 30x30
mile plot of land.

Endier: I liked this one for the same reason minus magic, but plus some info on
the Spider one of the more neglected awnsheghlien out there.

Roesone: It's OK. Buy other ones first unless you are going to run something in
this realm.

Tuornen: ditto.

Tuarhieval: Kinda liked this one and it's mix of human and elven cultures. It
gives you a good compare/contrast on that level. Again, weird plot stuff where
the Prince went off to parley with the Gorgon and is being held captive in some
birdcage after he turned over the realm and his bloodline to his pregant human
girlfriend. She's not a mage, which basically renders the realms powerful
sources useless, and she's not an elf, which makes her running one of the oldest
elven nations a bit tweaky. Again, if you can get past this stuff, the book
itself has good info in it. (Hosestly, I got kind of a kick out of this plot
stuff. Much more entertaining the Baruk-Azhik stuff because it has racism, sex,
love, passion, intrigue, good, evil, etc. in it. Making Grimm Graybeard a rock
spirit is just weird....)

Do get the Book of Priestcraft and the Book of Magecraft if you can get your
hands on them. Also pick up the Blood Enemies book, if for no other reason than
examples of how to make up awnsheghlien.

I really liked Legends of the Hero-Kings because it gives a good example of how
adventures can be used for Random Events (and extrapolating that into domain
actions is pretty easy) so get that one if you can too.

> 5. Last but not least: Is it just me, or does the setup/layout of the
> Rulesbook (birthright boxed set) suck rocks? I mean, neat rules, when you
> can find them...

Huh. I hadn't really thought of it.... I guess that's because I never felt
there was ENOUGH information, so I didn't worry about how it was preseneted, you
know? I was just pretty jazzed to get the data.... I'll have to look through
it with an eye towards that.

Gary
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[Kenneth Gauck]

- -----Original Message-----
From: Mark A Vandermeulen
Date: Tuesday, August 03, 1999 6:30 PM

>Perhaps I would introduce a new proficiency (which is generally my
>response to these things--yessiree, you can't have
>too many proficiencies!) called "Politics" or something that would give
>you a general idea of the "level of support" of a participant with a
>successful check.
>

There is a Politics proficency described in the "The Glory of Rome"
historical campaign sourcebook. It is very appropriot to what you have
described.

Kenneth Gauck
c558382@earthlink.net


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[Kenneth Gauck]

- -----Original Message-----
From: GeeMan
Date: Tuesday, August 03, 1999 8:21 PM
>
>Baruk-Azhik is a really good description of an [dwarven] realm, but it has
this
>freaky thing about Grimm Graybeard changing into this weird spirit of the
stone
>kind of creature who haunts the Orog caverns and can appear spectrally to
the
>new regent like some sort of geological specter. If you can get past the
>goofiness of that idea and read the sourcebook for its content regarding
dwarves
>it is a good buy.

IMC, Grimm died in the Orog wars, like his brother. The first adventure for
then new Regent of Baruk-Azhik was to recover his father's battle axe +3,
Orogbane. I droped the goofy spirit life of Grimm. I also changed most
names to more dwarven sounding names, traced the geneology of all the clan
leaders, thanes, and blooded dwarves in Baruk-Azhik back four generations.
Devised the full clan structure of the realms, and their political
positions. I also dropped the over-socialized nature of dwarven society
described in the supliment. There may not be a lot of individuals causing
trouble in my Baruk-Azhik, but there is alot of inter-group conflict.

Kenneth Gauck
c558382@earthlink.net


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