Combining Wilderlands and Birthright w/ possible automation

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Sosthenes

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First of all, let me say that I don't necessarily mean either Wilderlands or Birthright per se. I'm mostly using them to illustrate some of the core concept that I might mash together:

- the sandbox/hexploration nature of the Wilderlands
- The warlike nature and medieval setting of Birthright

Probably not that hard. Just means that the warring factions aren't as contained.

But now for an interesting twist: Let's keep the players on the sandbox exploration style, not leading the wars. But that doesn't mean that the map should be kept static. Borders should move, battles be fought.
Now I'm not a member of a wargame club where I could just "hand it over" to them and then just update a map after their results.

But I was reminded of those old PBM games (with actual, written mail, not email), where you could send in your domain management orders and then got updates. And what made this magically possible: Computers! I mean, for this I'm not expecting some artificial intelligence monster algorithm, just some randomization and simple rules.

And as a reward, when you move into another hex, you wouldn't just have your usual sights, but maybe it just changed owners.

Anyone ever did something similar to this? Do you think the fiefdom changes in play would be worth all that effort?
 
I did like Birthright's domain management system.

I think what you're talking about would be cool if you were running a mercenary unit like the Second Sons or Golden Company from Game of Thrones.
 
Anyone ever did something similar to this? Do you think the fiefdom changes in play would be worth all that effort?

I handled this more or less naturalistically. I learned how domain management worked historically. Looked at various RPG products like those for Harn, Chivalry & Sorcery, ACKS, Pendragon, and Ars Magica, to get their take. Then came up with or adopted a table of income, prices, and production rates. Then I crunched it worked at a low level and then came up with averages for higher levels of authority.


How much income you got .
How much you had to spend.
How this related to specific resources, like creating magic items, maintaining armies, and building stuff.
The two important unit of values in this money in silver pennies, and labor in man-days. Construction time and training time was also something that was listed.

Then to make this interesting for tabletop roleplaying I made or adopted various random event tables to represent the challenges of having to handle all this. Mostly focused on interacting with various NPCs. For example if the player owned a Manor, I would use a decent table from Harnmanor that generated tenant events of the manor have for the year. It decent because the events are a mix of good, bad, and adventurous results. And they act as springboard for the players to be proactive.

For example the following is what I made for a group that gained a sailing ship and wanted to trade.

If the campaign had progressed to where the players owned a trading house with a fleet. I would then crunched the results of the above and come up with a average. Throw in some relevant factors so the players have to decisions to make but nothing like what in the PDF. Finally come up with an event table that would generate good, bad, and adventurous things for a magnate and his staff of a trading house to deal with.

What about Birthright?
I was a fan of Birthright and got many of the products back in the day. But ultimately I did not find it useful. It had two things going against it.

  • The central idea that there was special group of folks who inherited innate powers to control domains. While common in fantasy, that wasn't part of the Majestic Wilderlands. Sure it didn't have to be tied to one's genetics for example some type of divine coronation, but in my setting rulers were not special in that way.
  • Next the system's had an abstract foundation for resources, population, etc. The numbers used were basically random. That made it hard for me to see how to adapt my other fantasy setting to use it. Basically I had to pick something and hoped it worked out in play.
Wrapping it up.
Overall what I try to do is keep the complexity about at the level of Classic Traveller Book 3 economics regardless of the level of authority. Detailed enough that there are some meaningful choices, but not so detailed that it winds up being a niche taste.

What I found in this approach that the main roadblock to players wanting to be coming powers of the world is no so much the rules they have to use. The fact that when they do, they have to deal with other characters bullshit. Most groups rather than becoming barons, guildmasters, or magnates opt to create a extended family consisting of the party, some hirelings/henchmen, and a very nice home/shop/workshop or two.
 
Note that I don't really want to take care about managing existing domains. I don't want to write a HârnManor Excel sheet, that's already been done. I care more about changing borders, expansions and invasions. Just running domains isn't important for wandering parties. I wouldn't want to write Dwarf Fortress for hex maps, where the flow of grain is important, the amount of workers required for castle building etc. is a big part.

More a Conway's Life system of hex occupation ;)
 
Flow of grain and amount of workers required kind of goes with the territory. Pun intended.
 
Flow of grain and amount of workers required kind of goes with the territory. Pun intended.
I would have been inclined to disagree with this not very long ago (not completely, just in that that it's something that's easy enough to handwave).

However, having seen the wealth of information that pours out of an ACKS domain spreadsheet once you go to the effort of settting it up, I'm thoroughly sold on the value-add you get from doing that sort of thing.

On the other hand, if the players aren't going to be making strategic decisions, just exploring a world where conflict is happening, the value rapidly falls away.
 
Anyway, this would all be an implementation detail. For the players, it doesn't matter if the fact that the hex they're entering is now owned by the Potentates of Megalopolis instead of Elven Highlord Fisredol because of complicated matters of logistics, new fae-only dysentery bacteria strains and a marvellous success of the Megalopolian iron ore trade agreements, of whether it's just a result of 12 on the d00. Sufficiently advanced randomness is indistinguishable from economics.

The effects on the campaign are the interesting parts. A changing landscape, achieve by any ways, where the players know that this isn't just fiat or plot-driven can add an interesting layer to even a "murderhobo" sandbox campaign.

Now, one of the more interesting parts is how players could influence this. No matter how complicated the realms simulation is, it probably has to accomodate the actions of the group. If you killed one member of the Archmage Triumvirate in their tower because you really wanted the Staff of Opendungeonme, well, this should have an effect and not cause the simulation to break down totally. Otherwise I'd be aiming at something that could be printed as a BASIC listing in an 80s magazine ;)
 
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