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  1. #91
    I have actually chosen to try out a few new design elements in my rules, mainly focussed on the blood abilities side and the domain rulership side.

    One idea that I am currently using is replacing the blood score with a die type, kinda like a new trait. The character's blood strength would then be tied to this die type.

    So tainted would have a blood score of a d4 or d6, minor a d8, major a d10, great a d12, and true a d12+1 or higher.

    You'd roll this die for your blood abilities as well, along with your wild card die with a failure generally resulting in no new ability, or maybe a minor one if your score was high enough. A success would get you a minor or major ability, again depending on your score, and raises would get you progressively better powers, or upgrade existing powers, much like the AD&D rules.

    All your blood abilities that required opposed rolls or checks to resist would then be tied to your blood score die as well. This die could also be used to calculate range and duration, much like how spells are calculated.

    The ideas I had for domain rulership were similar, whereby holding levels would become a dice type as well. Say a level 1 holding is a d4 and go up from there. This die would determine your regency and gold bar production most likely, and also be used when attempting actions with the holding. Source holdings would use their die type to cast realm spells, guild holdings would use their die type to attempt intrigues, etc.

    Once I get the first draft done I'll post some of them here for feedback.

    I'm also doing the same thing with armies and warfare, tying a unit's melee, defense, hits, morale, etc. into Savage Worlds stats like Fighting, Parry, Toughness, and Guts rolls.

  2. #92
    I'm intrigued by the idea of using die types for bloodline scores/abilities. In fact I was thinking along those lines just the other day myself. I'd really like to see your draft of this material when it's ready!

    Extending the die-type 'stats' to holding levels and armies seems very 'Savage Worlds', but I'm not sure what kind of flow on effects this would have into 'game balance'. Still, I'd love to see what you come up with here, too.

  3. #93
    Kinda switched gears a bit, but here are some of my new changes to the domain action round rules.

    Domain initiative now works like regular initiative, and all regents draw cards for it. A joker gives a regent a +2 on all domain action checks for the domain turn and any trait checks that relate to their domain actions.

    Regency is collected as per the AD&D rules, but instead of class being used to determine how much RP you collect, I used edges and skills as follows. The professions mentioned are from the Fantasy Character Generator Toolkit PDF and you still need the Blooded edge to collect anything as normal.

    Guild : Woodsman Edge or Ranger Profession, Thief Edge or Profession, or Bard Profession*
    Law : Arcane Background (Miracles)*, Thief Edge or Profession*, or d8 Fighting
    Source : Arcane Background (Magic) Edge
    Temple : Arcane Background (Miracles) Edge
    Province : Any
    Trade Route : Thief Edge (1 RP per GB produced)
    * Characters meeting this requirements collect regency equal to half the holding's level, rounded up.

    For taxation, collection and trade, I got rid of the dice rolls and used the average GB production for each holding, rounded up. I found this to be way faster than rolling for every domain and holding, and produced almost identical results in the long run.
    Last edited by hirumatogeru; 05-14-2008 at 04:21 PM.

  4. #94
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    I see where you're coming from hirumatogeru. When I first set out to do the conversion, I had hoped to translate everything into SW die types and use SW mechanics. The major issue I had was inter-domain actions. Die types work fine for describing a domain, but how do you tie them to Regency Points, gaining & losing bloodlines, and opposed domain checks (i.e. RP bidding, opposed holdings, etc)?

    I wrestled with it for a couple weeks before coming to two conclusions:

    1- The domain rules as written in the BRCS may be D20 based, but they are actually pretty straightforward and functional. A little nip here and tuck there to streamline things (e.g. remove fractions, simplify RP collection) and they work pretty good.

    Sure, the rules don't fit the SW style, but they work fine and don't interfere in any way.

    2- SW is all about FFF and minimizing book keeping. It aims to simplify mechanics and make them far less granular. It's more about cinematic storytelling than detailed wargames. That's the issue right there . . . the essence of the Birthright Domain Rules is strategic war gaming! If you simplify or abstract it too much, then you're losing much of this essence.

    For example, you could drop the War Cards system and simply use the SW Mass Battles Rules, but somehow that just doesn't seem "Birthright" to me. Players should be able to muster different unit types and use them to fight tactical battles. You lose something important when you abstract that to tokens and simple modifiers, and a Knowledge (Battles) roll.

    I think the same ideas apply to the Domain Rules.


    Given these thoughts, I found it much easier and more "Birthrighty" to streamline the BRCS rules and tweak those portions of the rules that act as the "interface" between Character rules (pure SW) and Domain rules (modified D20) - namely Bloodlines, RP collection, etc.

    That said, I'd love to see any ideas you or others have about doing a full SW BR "overhaul conversion." Just because I didn't see a way to do it, doesn't mean you won't come up with a kick ass conversion.

    I look forward to seeing more of your ideas!

    Joe

  5. #95
    Actually I do agree with you on that point. Why try to fix what ain't broke after all right?

    I still think removing the rolls for GB collection is a good change, but mainly from a GM standpoint, there's no problem letting a player roll if he really wants to, as it only really happens every 3 months anyways.

    For mass battles, I'm doing a kind of mix between the war cards and tokens rules, and plugging in a battle chart. As I see it, there is 3 kinds of battles: Siege warfare, regular army vs army, and character + army vs enemy army. The battle chart and tokens only really gets used if the PC takes part in the fighting. Otherwise if they just wanna control an army, the war cards work fine. Siege battles are the same, if the player wants to take part, use the tokens and battle charts, otherwise use the cards.

    A simple conversion of the cards would be that each point in a unit's melee rating is a die type in Fighting, each point in a unit's ranged rating is a die type in Shooting or Throwing, Defense would be Parry, Hits would be Toughness, Charge ratings are kinda moot as they are handled already with the gear and SW rules already. Then you could use the regular and elite soldier templates in the SW rules to fill in the rest of the unit's details.

    The battle charts are pulled from Legend of the Five Rings 3rd edition, and basically let the character choose his engagement level (disengaged, engaged, heavily engaged) and roll a Knowledge (Battle) check. The result of the check presents the character with a battle opportunity such as taking a shot at the enemy general, capturing the enemy standard, aiding a wounded ally, or attacking the enemy's archers. They also have tables for naval warfare, and fights against undead or monsters. Very good flavor in these tables and they present some interesting challenges to characters. I'm in the process of writing them up SW style, and will post them when done.

  6. #96
    Joe, I was flipping through you savaged birthright player's guide recently and notices that most of the blood abilities approximate existing Savage Worlds Edges or Powers.

    Rather than tacking another sub-system on to the savage worlds rules (boodline powers), why not just rework the blood abilities to be either edges or powers that are only available to blooded characters.

    I also suggest that instead of "Blooded" being an edge, why not assume all PC wildcards are blooded. PCs can take an "Unblooded" (Major) Hindrance to gain a bonus edge if they don't want to play a blooded character.

  7. #97
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tannen View Post
    Rather than tacking another sub-system on to the savage worlds rules (bloodline powers), why not just rework the blood abilities to be either edges or powers that are only available to blooded characters.
    Seems reasonable to me. I did it the way I did because it blends better with the BRCS and 2ed work, therefore making conversion easier (less work for me), and allowing a GM to just pick up a 2ed supplement or adventure and use it. E.G.- If the 2ed adventure says a NPC has a Anduiras 34 bloodline and Major Regeneration, then you can easily find the one-to-one conversion in my guide. Converting everything to Edges or powers limited to certain characters or "arcane background: blooded," for example, would have taken more time and effort since it would have meant an extra "translation" step.


    Quote Originally Posted by Tannen View Post
    I also suggest that instead of "Blooded" being an edge, why not assume all PC wildcards are blooded. PCs can take an "Unblooded" (Major) Hindrance to gain a bonus edge if they don't want to play a blooded character.
    I like this idea too. "6 or 1/2 dozen" - as they say. My only concern is that the "Blooded" edge is a prereq. for all non-lesser arcane powers. I'm sure it wouldn't take too much effort to come up with a quick fix for this.


    On a side note, I'm made some minor adjustments/clean ups to the guides in the past few weeks. Nothing major at all (although the spell list was significantly condensed). If anyone is interested, I can resend them to you.

  8. #98
    Hi all, sorry it has taken so long for me to post.

    I have been setting up a SWBR campaign and thought I'd let you know how I'm getting on, and ask a few questions and request some advice on a few matters.

    My plan is to set up a two-tier campaign.

    Some people (old friends mainly, who live nowhere near me) are running domains in a purely political game, GM'ed by yours truly. I have tried to ensure most of the players are unaware which domains are PC run, and which are NPC'd.

    Other people (principally my regular gaming group) are running a band of mercenary adventurers who perform tasks for regents; the idea being that the remote regents issue decrees asking for problems to be solved, the adventurers then do so. This group currently consists of a mix of blooded and unblooded PCs. As some of these players also run a domain, we have a 'conflict of interest' rule- the PCs are not allowed to act on behalf of a PC regent controlled by one in the same group. I make any judgement calls necessary for this. The reasoning is to avoid deliberate sabotage of a 'competitor', mainly. This tells you quite a lot about how my players play!

    I must say that I am very, very impressed by the work done on SWBR by Joe (and Tannen) and I hope that any comments and questions can be viewed in the light of this admiration.

    Also I should add that I played as a PC in 2nd edition BR ages ago, ran a game which never really developed due to family commitments, and have always been a bit 'fast and loose' with the rules. I have skim-read the 3rd ed stuff but cannot claim familiarity with it. Some of the answers to my questions may be contained within these documents; if so, please forgive me. This is the first time I have properly GM'd a game of Birthright.

    Firstly, character creation was a breeze. I know the SW rules inside out, and the changes made by Joe make perfect sense. After a little consideration I allowed characters to take up to 8 points of hindrances; chiefly because one of the players wanted to play a halfling Guilder in charge of Endier, and therefore needed the blooded and guilder edges, which would have meant he couldn't take any other edges, and I wanted each of the regents to have a bit of flavour about them.

    Also, I wonder what happened to the domain action which allowed a regent to gain a hit point? Since many of my group will never role-play with their characters (I still got them to create a regent using the character creation rules in case I needed stats for duels etc) so I proposed (and wondered what your opinions were) on a new domain action:

    Train: [standard; 1GB, ??RP] Can only be used once per domain turn (ie once per 3 months). The character gains 5xp and levels up.

    I'm not sure if RP should be used (my inkling is that they should, possibly 10 per action? not sure at all:confused I also was worried that it may be too powerful but it means advancing a maximum of one rank per year, and that would mean forfeiting one (standard) action per round. I know thi may be irrelevant to the rest of you, but with so many remote players, I wanted some way of their characters improving, if they thought it important enough to focus on.

    One question which I should know the answer to but can't find a reference anywhere is how does a nation extend it's borders? Specifically, the player mentioned above who runs Endier, starts with all the law holdings in Caerwil in Medoere. The player asked me 'so do I own that then?' to which I replied evasively that it was part of Medoere still but he had almost total influence there. In al previous BR games I have been involved in, expansion took place through battles. Is it possible for the Endier player to take possession of this province without force? I pointed out that his two provinces would be unconnected, and he has long term plans to remove the Spider or negotiate building a road through the Spiderfell

    I plan on preparing a sheet with summaries of the possible domain actions on to send to my remote players, but will gladly share with anyone who is interested- I'll post here when I have finished it.

    On other notes, I found it a little jarring that DC is mentioned- since this is a SW conversion, should we get rid of all D20 terminology to avoid confusion? I suggest using simply TN for consistency with the SW rules?

    On a similar note, I agree with Tannen about linking the blood abilities to 'standard' SW powers/edges. I will volunteer to do this if anyone else hasn't yet.

    My players and I really liked how much better the bloodlines have been handled- under the old system there were too many glaring inconsistencies- the one which really rankled was someone with a great bloodline could have fewer powers than someone with a major bloodline. The individual deity tables are a massive step forward also.

    Conversely, I think that blooded should be kept as an edge- it indicates that that person is special- remember that a very small percentage of Cerilieans are blooded, I don't think we should assume that all players should start off blooded.

    We really liked the demihuman conversions- I have so far created two elves, one dwarf and one halfling, and we really like the way the 'Cerilean-ness' of the races has been handled in the conversions. Congratulations to all concerned here.

    (aside- how do you determine what Court level each Realm starts with? I can find some references in the players secrets books, but very few in the Ruins of Empire etc books?)

    We love how much simpler the domain actions are, especially the upkeep bits. One question the veterans have was that IIRC you could not 'store' more RP than your bloodline strength. Is this no longer the case? Also, there appears to be no 'Domain Maintenance Costs' (page 45 of the original BR rulebook)- are taxes generally lower as a result. Taxes are much simpler- not having to roll loads of dice is one of the most appreciable differences. Plus, it makes it easy to set up a spreadsheet to keep track of things!

    I've gone on for far too long now- I have much more I want to ask/query/ enthuse about but I'll post more soon. Any thoughts/comments/answers to the above are invited and welcomed!

    Tomba

  9. #99
    I don't really have any advice re: the domain rules stuff - that's outside my area of experience with the Birthright setting.

    I have looked at linking the blood abilities with different edges / powers, but I think there are enough that are distinctly different that it won't really work as smoothly as I first thought. I think that Joe's conversions in the Player's manual work pretty well 'as-is'.

    I'm glad you're enjoying the combination of SW and Birthright. Let us know how things progress!!

    JOE: I noticed that the sample spell trappings and list of sins, etc are not in the copy of the Player's guide that I have at present. I assume you stuck with your idea of ditching them in favor of shorter descriptions?
    Last edited by Tannen; 06-24-2008 at 12:29 PM.

  10. #100

    SW Birthright

    Hi,

    I've just joined the crew. Could you send me the conversion documents you are working on?

    Thank you,
    Samiel

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