Role-playing Regency

[ryancaveney]

I think a DM should be able to switch between those levels, or zoom in or out. At the same time actions taken at one level should affect the other levels.

Yes, exactly! The tricky part is choosing the mechanics. The idea itself is IMO the ideal way to play.


Ryan

[kgauck]

One of the things that I like most about 3.5 (as opposed to 3.0) is that so many of these problems have been solved. The move to 3.0 was a neutral situation. Comapred to 2e, some was gained (system far more elegant) and some was lost (I was very partial to varied priesthoods). As more and more 3.5 stuff has come out, I've been able to abandon ad hoc and home rule approaches as good quality fixes come out of official D&D products.

I would love to see WotC bring together all of its stuff on organizations and put out a Complete Organizations book. As it is, I reference the Complete Adventurer, with a very nice chapter on organiizations, including what a designer should flesh out for an organization, along with 12 examples (which like any broad product, only 2 two or 3 are useful for any given DM). The Player's Handsbook II, with a chapter on Affiliations, which are organizations players can join to get advantages. For our purposes, with a ruler who commands a feudal pyramid of organizations, its more useful for detailing organizations at the individual holding level. I also use this for military units. Joining Stjordvik's Frontier Thunderers is different from joining Dhoesone's Scouts of the Baroness. This chapter includes rules on making affiliations dynamic, so that organizations can interact with each other easily (with a simple check or two) so that fights elsewhere can be handled which the DM's attention is focused on the players and the extra book-keeping is minimal. This alone is worth the price of admission. The DMG II also includes stuff on organizations, and it includes more designer ideas and suggestions as well as links to PrC's (the section on organizations follows design notes on PrC's) so not only is there good stuff on designing organizations, if you want to make a PrC for it (the Chancellor's Men, the Frontier Thunderers, Haelyn's Chosen) is even easier to make it seemless. Given the normal low-mid-level preference for a lot of people in BR, I recommend the d20 Modern approach to advanced classes, which means shifting the intended focus from high level play, or mid-level play with an entrance around 3rd level or so. The latest, the Complete Champion is billed as "A Player's Guide to Divine Heroes," but its really its a book of affiliations. There are only 10 pages on PC organizations per se, but the 40 pages on building churches is all affiliation rules designed in a religious context. So not only is a third of the book based on affiliations, but the other stuff, like PrC's refers back to organizations used as examples in the affilaitions stuff, so the whole book reads like an affiliations manual.

So, AFAIC, bridging the game from the domain level of play to the PC level of play is now handled wonderfully by the new 3.5 materials on organizations and affiliations. And it had the virtue of being official, so new players can step right in to the rules of play, because the more widespread the affiliations become in D&D, the more you can expect players to have seen it in one book or another.

These rules support both kind of play which I would expect to see in BR. On the one hand there is the feudal chief, the master of the pyramid of organizations. And like most good chiefs, she wants to know what kind of assets she controls. Now you can say that Count Ambrose (F5) has an organization designed for war full of infantry. They are disciplined and their affiliation grants them abilities like once per day you can ignore the armor penalties on skill checks (for members at the 1st rank of affiliation) or once per day they can ignore the effects of difficult terrain (for members at the 2nd rank of affiliation) or doubling the normal bonus of power attack once per day (for members of the 3rd rank of affiliation). The most likely way regular soldiers will move up the ranks of affiliation is by participating in the destruction of an enemy stronghold. Another vassal, Count Roger, is a ranger, and his organization is also designed for war, but his followers are experts with skills in hide, spot, survival, and look more like the Scout unit than Infantry. A guild holding might represent a logistical center, a horse breeder, a spy network, or a group of armor smiths.

With dynamic affiliations, holdings can do combat with one another either routinely with minor effects (a few injuries, maybe a few dead) or because they have been activated with a Regency Point. Consider the organization of Olfjor Ylvarrik. Its described on the wiki on the page Ylvarrik Castle. Olfjor’s organization is given the ratings of Capital: 11 Violence: +4 Espionage: +2 Negotiation:+2. With these ratings as modifiers to a normal role of a d20, I can determine of Olfjor can repel raiders from the Blood Skull Barony, if they can root out Stjordvik Trader smugglers, or if Olfjor can do any of his own diplomacy. I don’t have to track Olfjor’s own income or RP through his own province (already part of Stjordvik) and two law holdings, or track his actions. Instead I can give him one big organization or four little ones (two province levels, two law holdings) and let his organizations (holdings) interact individually with Stjordvik Traders, the Blood Skull Barony, the White Witch or even King Varri.

Another way I envision BR play is for a PC to work their way up in an organization before becoming master of it himself. This is the more natural application of these rules, since they seem to be intended for such a purpose.