Birthright Conversion

[David]

Hey guys. I've started the conversion process in earnest for updating the Birthright ruleset for use in my next campaign. You can see the results so far here:

www.dropbox.com/s/47gxwi3ffw0sfze/Birthright-%20The%20Crossings.pdf

I've yet to add the rules for collecting taxes, and for recruiting and fighting with armies (gangs, police force, or private security in our scaled-down-to-city-sized campaign). Nevertheless, this should have enough now to give you a basic idea of the mechanics.

The rules may still need some simplification to run smoothly, particularly regency collection, which was very class dependent (and unbalanced) in the orignal setting. My attempt at an adaptation is in the file, but I'm unsatisfied with its degree of complexity.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[David]

Updated the file. Can someone confirm that you guys can read it?

[kore]

Aug 25, 2013 8:59:55 GMT -8 David said:

Updated the file. Can someone confirm that you guys can read it?

I cannot download it, let alone read it.

Edit: strike that, reverse it. All is well.

[David]

Great. Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions.

[kore]

Observation: section II.B.1, Collecting Taxes is empty. Is this on purpose?

Question: section II.B.2, Collecting Regency. It seems to make sense until you get to the Dubious Frint example where he could end up with fractions not equal to 1/2 or 1 whole of a holding's regency based upon the skills of the regent. That is, the rule of all or half based upon have 2 or only 1 skill for the holding type, respectively, seems to get thrown out the window when numbers like 2/3 and 1/3 pop up or 1/4 pops up where a Trade Route (which actually count for 50% of a regular hold) is involved. Now it's all muddled to me and I'm not clear what the objective is here. The way I see it, collecting regency involves collecting it on sectors one owns (ownership hasn't been defined to this point so I assume it means having a majority of a sector's D/MP) and collecting on one's holdings within that sector based upon the number of associated skills the present regent has given the holding type.

I haven't gone any further and will look at the rules further another night.

[David]

Thanks for taking a look.

Collecting taxes is empty because I couldn't figure out yet what the progression of tax income levels is supposed to be. In the 3.5 conversion rules there is a complicated table of _average_ incomes based on level of province and severity of taxation. (I think there's a similar chart for guild holdings, while Law holdings take a piece of someone else's tax collection.) I haven't figured out what the corresponding randomized version is, as the averages don't seem to follow a simple progression. I tried making one up, but it didn't grow at the correct rate according to that table. I'll try again soon.

You collect regency (and income) from your holdings whether your faction controls (owns) the sector they are in or not. The faction that owns a sector gets to tax it, gets to muster troops there, and gets to collect regency from the sector itself, among other advantages. If you start with a sector, you will have fewer total holdings than other players who do not.

All or half of the regency (based on skills) produced by a holding type is the _maximum_ that a regent can get. The regent is just one person, and is limited in the power he or she can accrue by what they decide to focus on. You can set your own formula for this.

In other words, let

T=fraction of regency produced by your faction's temples that your regent can absorb.
G=fraction of that produced by guilds
L=by law holdings
S=by sources
R=by trade routes.

You can set each of these to any value you want between 0 and .5 if you have one associated skill, or between 0 and 1 if you have two associated skills. Your ruling style is subject to the constraint:

T+L+G+S+(R/2)=1

(Technically less than or equal to 1, because of the skill constraint, but if your regent can't put the skills together to allow this total to reach 1, you should really consider putting someone else in charge.)

If that still seems too complicated, I'm open to suggestions.

[kore]

I finished reading the rules yesterday afternoon and as a whole the concept still seems very abstract, the objective and the means to acheive it aren't clear. Having visuals or fully fleshed-out examples would help.

There are modifications of terms that are mentioned that aren't defined anywhere, like "active regents holdings". I know what a holding is, I know what a regent is, but what does it mean for it to be "active"? Is it a holding held by a regent who is "at home"? If so, is the regent specifically present in the sector, meaning not every sector where one has a holding has the option to utilize a Realm Action that might benefit from having an "active regent holding"?

These questions, themselves, may not make sense because I'm misunderstanding something fundamental. I'm going to reread it, though, and then comment some more. It sounds like fun, but something this seemingly complex needs to clearly define simple terms, mechanics, and constructs and build up from those. Perhaps changing the order of some of the sections would help.

[David]

Sorry for the confusion. Active just means it's your turn.

[kore]

Recommend capitalization of terms with specific game-related purposes.

What kind of recreational and/or business activities might be illicit (e.g. narcotics, prostitution, slavery, etc.)? Not that this needs to be codified in the rules, I just want more information about the campaign setting.

Define ownership of a Sector. How is ownership achieved, is it based upon having majority holdings in the Sector?

Recommend changing "1. Collecting Taxes" to "1. Collecting Income" of which taxes are a subset based upon Holding type. Once written, is this the section that codifies how Gold Bars are generated? The "Trade Routes" section describes that they generate GB and RP, is it correct to assume the same of the other Holding types?

Define Domain and Province as mentioned in "Trade Routes". Perhaps "Faction" and "Sector", respectively, were meant? Also, the use of "major towns" skews my understanding of the scale of the area in which we are playing the Birthright portion of the campaign based upon the map you shared with me; I was imagining about 24mi2 (4x6 mi.; perhaps smaller like 2x3) which seems kind of small to have towns as a subdivision. Perhaps it is meant to be synonymous with Holdings as those are what you later use to describe as requirements "in each terminal ector" of a Trade Route?

Define/clarify the unique function, if any, of Trade Routes and possibly move to the beginning of part B of section II. They generate Regency and Gold but are not defined as one of the Holding archetypes. Why do Trade Routes "count for half"?

The function of Ruling Style, what determines the ratios, and its relation to associated skills needs clarification. Additionally, specify if Regency collected from Holdings is done by Sector or if it is the accumulation, by type, of all Holdings of a Faction ("in a Domain"). Based upon your previous post and rereading the rules, my understanding is that Ruling Style is an arbitrary set of ratios that must add up to 1; that is, the ratios are defined solely upon the preference of the Faction's player and not to be confused with the ratio applied by having or not having one or more associated skills. If my understanding is correct, the clarification should include mentioning that the "fraction of regency from Holdings [that] may be absorbed [depends]" on two separate ratios, Ruling Style and associated skills.

Example:
A bard Regent is trained in Bluff, Diplomacy, and Streetwise absorbs 100% of Guild Holdings, 50% of Law Holdings, and 50% of Trade Route Holdings based upon the table. Now, independent of the prior absorption rate, the bard has a Ruling Style of 1/2Guild, 1/4Law, 1/2Trade Routes (.5G + .25L + .5TR/2 = 1). Assuming Regency collection uses the accumulation-by-type method, let's say the bard has a total of 26 Guild Holdings, 18 Law Holdings, and 22 Trade Route Holdings. By applying the skill absorption ratio, the bard is left with 26G, 9L, and 11TR. Then the bard's Ruling Style is applied (.5*26G + .25*9L + .25*11TR --> 13 + 2.25 + 2.75) yielding 18 (no rounding necessary, but assuming rounding is only done at the end) Regency Points.

[David]

Thanks. I'll take a pass at it and try to fix some of these.

Any reference to towns or provinces is probably a holdover from a copypaste. I am scaling the original Birthright rules down from a country to a city.

Ownership of a sector has nothing to do with having holdings in it. Sectors may simply be 'owned' just like holdings. A faction owns a sector through inheritance, conquest, or other means of attaining political power. The faction that owns a sector is considered to have 'an interest' in the goings on there, meaning that under certain conditions they can spend regency to oppose the actions of others.

Trade Routes must start and end at a guild. They are not themselves a holding in a sector, but something that crosses sectors and can be supressed (made to give no regency or gold) by parties at either end or in between who disapprove. They have a high risk/reward. They count for half only in the sense of _costing_ half in the ruling style, where getting regency from them is _easier_ to make up for the fact that they are so easily canceled out.

The absorption of Regency is even simpler than you are describing. The skills just set a maximum level for each holding type in the Ruling Style. Your Bard could have set his Ruling Style at 1/2 Guild, 1/2 Law, or at 3/4 Guild, 1/4 Law, but not at 1/4 Guild 3/4 Law because he is not trained in enough applicable skills to absorb that much Law Regency. Likewise he is not trained in enough Trade Route associated skills to set his Trade Route absorption above 1/2.

Once the Ruling Style is set, there is no further need to refer to the skill table. Your bard with a ruling style of .5G+.25L+.5TR and 26 Guild, 18 Law, and 22 Trade route holdings will get
.5*26+.25*18+.5*22=28.5 rounded down to 28 Regency Points. If this number is higher than his faction's total Clout score, then he will absorb only RP equal to the lower amount.

(Say he has Clout 8, his Lieutenent and masked lord together have 7 Clout. He will get 15 RP added to his total. If on the other hand he had Clout 16 and his cronies have combined clout 14, he will absorb the full 28 RP from his holdings.)

[David]

I've deleted all reference to domains and provinces in favor of Factions and Sectors, which are more descriptive in this case. I've also removed the ambiguous term "realm" in most cases (except for Realm Spells) and replaced it with something more descriptive. Realm actions are now just Actions. It was confusing since there was also a subtype of Action called a Realm action, which I've changed to be a Citywide Action.

I've changed the Trade Route section to reflect the current setting. Hopefully it makes more sense now. I've also added clarification about Sectors and Holdings to the beginning of II B.

All of the illicit activities you mentioned are, in fact, frowned upon by the good people of the City, but Good people aren't in charge of every Sector. How `illegal' the activities are depends on which sector you are in. That said, you aren't going to find a lot of prostitution in Sagittarius Falls (the upscale part of town) or slavers anywhere _near_ Steel Hollow (The Warforged aren't keen on slavery.)

[kore]

Awesome, I've downloaded the newest version and will look it over a bit tonight/this morning.

[David]

New version has map.

[David]

Update: I have added the income collection section to the file.

Also, I've decided on a starting Faction power level. Each of you will have 15 points worth of holdings and sectors. Holdings cost one point per level, including level 0. We will have a draft in which you can either place up to 3 points of Holdings each turn or claim a Sector. Sectors will cost their Development Level+2 to start, but claiming a Sector will open bidding on that Sector. If someone else is willing to pay more, they may claim it.

[kore]

A-HA! The lightbulb just went on!

Trade Routes count for half with regard to their limit of the Ruling Style. An extreme (and unlikely) example would be that if my Ruling Style was all Trade Routes, I could effectively get 2 times their value in RP and GB, assuming no suppression and ownership of both terminals in the case of GBs.