Winning And Losing

[Lord Rahvin]

I haven`t had this situation come up yet in a game, but was wondering what
people`s thoughts were on this subject:

"Great losses are caused by the occupation or destruction of
a significant portion of your domain or a military catastrophe.
Great losses are generally the result of only by negligence,
gross incompetence, or significant failure. A great loss of RP
results in a loss of RP equal to 4d4 times the regent`s bloodline
ability score." -BRCS, pg 101.



Okay, first, when a regent is suffering the loss of "a significant portion
of [his] domain", is he really going to have that much regency just lying
around waiting for the land to suck away? What if he doesn`t have enough?
I think I missed that somewhere.

Second, while I realize the thematic appropriateness of it, from a GAME
point of view, do we really want to kick the people who are down and help
out the people who are winning? I mean, provinces are a means of production
and resource generation... the victor has already claimed the means of
production for gold and regency, is it really a good idea to ALSO take away
regency from the player that`s lost the means to produce it?

[Fayed]

regency is dependant on the people you rule over, it measures their love, fear or their belief that you can rule them adequately, and your renown. that is why you gain regency after victories: the news of your success travels through the lands, maybe even being sung by bards if the victory was great enough, and your people admire you more.

At least that is my understanding of it.

if you want to reduce regency gains and losses that transpire this way ignore the x4 in the equation. Thus a minor victory yields d4 regency, and great ones yield 4d4

[irdeggman]

Okay, first, when a regent is suffering the loss of "a significant portion
of [his] domain", is he really going to have that much regency just lying
around waiting for the land to suck away? What if he doesn`t have enough?
I think I missed that somewhere.

Previous section talks about losing bloodline score in order to meet this payment.

Second, while I realize the thematic appropriateness of it, from a GAME
point of view, do we really want to kick the people who are down and help
out the people who are winning? I mean, provinces are a means of production
and resource generation... the victor has already claimed the means of
production for gold and regency, is it really a good idea to ALSO take away
regency from the player that`s lost the means to produce it?

Well as Fayed pointed out it is a reflection of the "love and respect" of the people, it is also a reflection of the same in the land.

Note the gains of regency from domain actions to see the flip side of this coin.

[AndrewTall]

I would note that 4d4 x BLS for a single great failure means that in practice a regent could lose 2-8 points of bloodline strength from a single great failure. By contrast a great success may, once or twice in the PC's lifetime add 1 to BP.

Similarly a major loss - which can happen simply from occupying one of your own provinces loses you 2d4 RP * bloodline score, i.e. 1-4 BP whereas a major gain gets you only 2* bloodline score i.e. 1 BP (if you don't have to spend it).

Even a minor loss - which in war could turn up every round, can lose a regent 1-2 bloodline points.

Overall therefore unless regents routinely succeed at domain events then their bloodline will swiftly dissipate unless they hoard regency to the maximum extent.

That said a regent with a reasonable court (i.e. one with a number of specialists) using a standard domain action will (on a die roll basis for resolution only) either (25%) halve the negative effect or (75%) eliminate it.

I've been toying with an alternative system of dividing random events into boon /minor problem / major problem /great problem and then having problems worsen from minor to major to great if the problems are not successfully dealt with, to give the PC several chances to avoid the crunchy regency cost.

Failing that a time delay on the loss would seem reasonable - i.e. lose regency if you don't recover the province within a domain turn, if martial law persists for more than 2 months, etc.

I'm assuming though that regency losses aren't cumulative, so if in round one an invader captured 2 provinces after two minor fights the regency loss would be 2d4*BLS not 6d4, and if the invader went on in round 2 to capture more provinces the great loss of 4d4*BLS would be reduced by the losses already suffered.

The general theory of regency gains/losses fro domain events is however sound imho, the regent gains power by the faith of 'their people', when their people begin to lose faith, the regent is weakened and vice versa.

[geeman]

At 12:41 AM 12/19/2006, you wrote:

>"Great losses are caused by the occupation or destruction of
>a significant portion of your domain or a military catastrophe.
>Great losses are generally the result of only by negligence,
>gross incompetence, or significant failure. A great loss of RP
>results in a loss of RP equal to 4d4 times the regent`s bloodline
>ability score." -BRCS, pg 101.

The original rules that had a very similar system. I`ll not comment
about game mechanics or theme. I`ll just note that in my experience
in practice it was one of the most often ignored aspects of the
original domain system. In those games where I saw it employed the
domain level rapidly lost any sort of balance or cohesion since that
aspect of the rules made losses personally devastating to the regent,
so s/he was unlikely to recover.

Gary

[Nicholas Harrison]

Well, it's there in the rules . . . . But, personally, I don't think it's really fair to the player. The consequences are a lot harsher and devastating than the rewards.

I like the idea of rewarding a player for doing a good job -- with a bloodline increase or a XP award. But, someone who's doing poorly probably has enough to deal with on their own -- with the prospect of losing their realm and various random events popping up.

It also kinda goes against the grain of AD&D. I've often seen players have to deal with negative effects from poor choices or bad roleplaying in campaigns, but I've never really seen XP taken away at the end of a story for botching an adventure. The fact that the character messed up seems to be punishment enough. There's really no need to add insult to injury.

I don't think I've ever seen a DM impose this rule on a player, but I've rarely been on the receiving end of it. And, usually if it gets to the point that my character might receive a penalty, he's dead anyway.

Perhaps, if a player lost a significant portion of their realm and did absolutely nothing (They just kinda shrugged.), this might be an appropriate penalty to impose . . . .

[ploesch]

I am of the opinion that the loss itself should be enough. Or perhaps a regency loss equal to what they would gain in a seaon from the lost asset(s). The randomness of the losses seems a little out of place in the 3.5E system.

To me, I just don't think punishing someone harshly for what may have been only one or two bad rolls is a good idea.

Of course, some of this might be avoided by a narrowing of the definition of a great loss. I mean if you do well against overwhelming odds, but still lose would the land and people lose faith, or would they work in an underground revolt against the new oppressors?

It seems to me that adjudicating any losses should be tempered with a good ammount of common sense.

[kgauck]

The application of this kind of rule depends on the contract between the players and the DM. There are several ways to describe various contracts, but since I was recently reading a thread on rec.games.frp.advocacy, I will use the terms applied there. The thread can be viewed here.

Imagine three points on a triange, world, story, and challenge. Players who prefer the challenge location on the triange will find penalties in RP and/or bloodline for a serious defeat to be a gratuitous penalty. They seek a balance between risks and rewards.

Players who prefer the world position on the triangle will prefer that the world responds according to the rules of the campaign world. If the game world perports to simulate the kind of collapse of position which this mechanic reflects, abandoning this rule for dramatic or game balance purpose is a betrayal of the contract.

Personally, I like the rule (as it was in 2e, where the loss in bloodline seemed more important than the supply of regency) but I think its really a question of the style of play pursued by the DM and players.