What Birthright Means to Me

[Sinister]

Here are my thoughts:

Wargaming is never given it's props in this day and age. Most of the gamer crowd looks down upon it but it really did give us some great ideas.

Combat is not the only conflict that can be put into RPGs. Birthright broke ground on that idea with political conflict. Later L5R would introduce politics as a source of conflict. Then later in some rpgs romance was introduced, something that couldn't be done in the male dominated gamer culture of the 70s and 80s.

Birthright is about your skill as a storyteller not about the magic and power at your disposal. As such it's been my one of my favorite RPGs of all time. Players respect the material and would go to great lengths to nerf their own character then stomp all over the story. I can't say that for many RPGs, and certainly not for other DnD settings.

It's great for metaplot, some hate it, I love metaplot. I love a world moving and developing as you are. It's a great, rich, setting filled with more NPCs than you can imagine. The detail of this setting is just awesome.

[geeman]

Here`s "What Birthright Means to Me, part 4: Every Little Bit Matters."

1. It`s Bigger Than It Looks. It`s over a dozen years since
Birthright was first published, and I`m still finding nuances and
dynamics in the setting. Now, sure, to a certain extent this is a
kind of hyper reading of the text that all fanon is subject to, but
BR lends itself to that kind of thing more than any other gaming
materials except, maybe, for some based on already existing
literature, films, etc. In most cases, I find the BR materials more
apt to extrapolation and elaboration than genres that have been
around for much longer. Several of the concepts in BR are what I
like to think of as omni-ideas. That is, they are big enough that
there is no end to them. For example, I`ve written up a few dozen
awn- and ehrsheghlien descriptions over the years, but I have notes
and ideas for well over a hundred more, and even were all those to be
written up I`d still consider the idea only partially complete. The
exposition of regents is, of course, even more aptly described as
unlimited. The recent discussions on the nuances of undead regents
and how the SW world interacts with such things is another example of
how the setting`s concepts can be detailed. If that`s not enough
there is the SW itself--a whole other world that can be explored in
as much detail as Cerilia.... Those things don`t exist in other
settings. They are in addition to the kinds of things that other
settings do to keep fresh like have the characters go off to another continent.

2. Domains are in the Details. One source of occasional frustration
for BR aficionados is that Cerilia is rather tiny compared to other
worlds. It may be small, but its size illustrates a gaming dynamic
that is IMO much better than that of other campaign worlds. That is,
despite the size of the continent upon which the setting revolves,
there is a unlimited amount of play that can happen. Little Cerilia
is chock full of detail. In many campaign settings it is assumed
that the adventurers are on a sort of gonzo walkabout, travelling
from one end of the continent (or even the planet) to the
other. There`s nothing particularly bad about such a campaign
concept, but it does make for a certain level of "epic blur." By
that I mean the adventure opportunities and plot potential become
obscured by the assumption that conflicts must be few and far
between. BR takes the opposite approach, and in a gaming environment
that approach is IMO much more valid. Where many campaigns emulate
the more standard "big picture" idea, BR is like James Joyce`s novel
Ulyseus, which takes place in a single day.

Gary

[Pauper]

In addition to the many good points already written here:

Birthright means to me, that one of the realms&concepts I enjoyed in my youth is still fun today. It meant atmosphere which the mass-production of hack&slash online games is incapable of and it meant growing beyond just another adventurer.

Without BR many of us would have never considered guiding a holding, leading units or governing a realm or province.

Birthright means, that a dream I enjoyed is still struggled for, to be kept alive, to rise again...

[Mirviriam]

A toast then - to what life as an Anuire truly is...

It is the cry of the hawk over head as the spray splashes up next to my tower.
It is the wail of the wolf when huge silver & blue moon fully crests the mouth of the valley.
It is the quiet lazy river crossings and the gait of a fine horse on the open plain.
It is the grand city nation, the frontier alliance, & rumble of thunder unseen through the mountains.

The motion of the banner as my friends & home guard gather at the base of the hill.
It is to be as large as the storm clouds broiling over the battle.
It is to bear the lance bedecked in holly & strike true where the heart once beat.

It is the poor players, the bit parts & the sly jester who capers the night away.
It is two horns of stout and crock of good highlander whiskey.
It is the choreographed ball with page holding the dance card,
as while he watches the rowdy jig over the balcony.

It is the special place in our hearts & the rogues who swept in to steal them...

-nameless hero

(had to toss something in there, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep until I did)

[Mirviriam]

In addition to the many good points already written here:
... Birthright means, that a dream I enjoyed is still struggled for, to be kept alive, to rise again...

Amen to that brother - can I get an "oh yea"?

[Mirviriam]

Thanks for the comments, folks. Interesting stuff.

...
"character is better expressed by contradiction than
consistency." ...

Foils of characters are especially effective, as the traits that contradict do not have to be in the same person.

[The Swordgaunt]

Geeman, thank you for a good read.

Roleplaying, in general, is to me an art-form. A friend of mine recently pointed out that if you do something every week for 15-20 years, you will become good at it. As a gamemaster, I constantly strive to build a good and consistent story, and to incorporate the characters of my players in the both the setting and the plot. I must confess I am a little like an addict, hungering for that magic moment when everything flows from the story, and nothing is founded in rules or meta-gaming. When you taste the wine, or smell the goblin war-party as they walk into an ambush.

Birthright also offers an abundance of dialog and interaction with NPCs in a non-violent manner. The Deadwood-analogy was brilliant, as it describes the cut-throat diplomacy I love about Birthright perfectly. I love it when the mere mentioning of a NPC's name makes the players look over their shoulders, or makes them smile. I also like the way violence fits into the story in a BR-game. It is seldom an easy solution, and it always merits contemplation and planning (goblin raiders on the border is never a 'random encounter').

As for the setting, I am repeatedly awestruck when I look at the map. Regardless of where the game is located, there is both potential allies and enemies near by. There is a more powerful realm, and a suitable target for expansion. And, there is an abundance of good plot-hooks just waiting to be picked up.

[Vicente]

I must admit that while I love Birthright as a setting (and I love reading everything related to it), at least in my game group we find Birthright much better suited for a wargame with RPG touches than a full RPG with domain rules (and that's how we play it, but the domain rules are much more complex).

Most of the things spoken in this thread about non-combat interactions, diplomacy,... can be achieved regardless of the setting. It more depends on what your players like rather than what the setting "forces" you to do.

I think it also depends on what your players like to do and perform. My current FR campaign has run players from level 1 to level 13, and while on level 1 fighting a group of orcs had an epic feeling, now at level 13 anything I'll throw at them (in combat) would seem quite out of place in Birthright.

My players enjoy a lot diplomacy and politics (they have founded a small town and a spy network disguised as a food-trading guild in their adventures), but they also enjoy a good combat from time to time. And we find very hard to have those encounters in Birthright without breaking the setting "idea". It's true I could just put a level 13 encounter in Birthright and forget about it, but it looks much worse than doing politics in FR (imho)

My 2 cents.

[Magian]

It strikes me as bizarre in retrospect that nobody game up with
domain rules as soon as they came up with castle rules, but they
didn`t. Or, to be fair, the rules that they did come up with were so
haphazard and upside down as to make the process unwieldy or even
pointless. Wizards collected 5 silver pieces per month from peasants
after constructing a tower, while fighters collected
7.... Pathetic. Later editions even did away with that paltry bit
of information. It wasn`t until Birthright came into being that
role-playing took on what should have been there in the beginning.

Gary

::Attention::
::Level 6 Alert, Top Secret Clearance required::

No names or persons, organizations, or institutions are included so as to protect the readers of this thread and allow them plausible deniability based on foolish conspiracy theories passed on by nuts.

There has been a conspiracy in the gaming world that is rooted in much more sinister circles. It is what has prevented the widespread use of domain level of play. The oligarchy that has influence over much of the world today has a fear that if such a game would become popular it would be a way for the "commoners" to learn to make their own empires in the real world. That fear is enough for them to steer the markets away from such interests. They cannot afford anyone else "rising up" and taking from them or endangering their domains.

The current use of Birthright is also a system of control similar to the matrix and allowing the few to gather and muster in tiny circles that can easily be dealt with on the fringes and underground. This is all under the guise, attitude, and intention of gaming so that even those involved don't take it seriously enough to use it for the potential tool that it could be. So beware of any success of domain levels of play in any gaming experience that reflects a much rewarding and limitless or even world like experience. THEY ARE WATCHING!

....so are the Magian, muhahahahaha.

[ThatSeanGuy]

You cut that out!

Dag, yo, I mean, that's an invasion of my personal space or somethin', Mistah M.