PBEM Building

[X-Tornilen/SM (Alexander)]

I have to agree, the Agendas are one of the best innovations in this game. They allow for other rewards than "just" becoming bigger and stronger and they give you things to work for right of the bat.

So yeah, I'll spend some time on them Possibly work with the players I get to make sure they want to pursue theirs.

[X-ETN/Maire Cwyllmie (Libor)]

My favorite concept in this game is the Agendas.  A better way to turn the players from cooperative bunny-lovers into vicious, cold-hearted politcal bastards, I have never seen.  They also do a lot to set up the concept of each regent.  Spend some real time working out each regent's agendas, and you'll see a real reward from it later on.

Cooperative bunny-lovers in Birthright? Where did you see such a creature?

[DM B]

I have to agree, the Agendas are one of the best innovations in this game. They allow for other rewards than "just" becoming bigger and stronger and they give you things to work for right of the bat.

So yeah, I'll spend some time on them Possibly work with the players I get to make sure they want to pursue theirs.

If not Agendas you really need something to give direction to players IF the games is to be anything other than a conquer-them-all slugfest.

[X-Tornilen/SM (Alexander)]

Pondering agendas a bit:
1) Agenda's should give a player something to do right from the start. It's a big game and there are many areas to expand into - this is especially important for players who do not know the rules or the setting intimately. It gives them something to focus on.
2) There should be a reward for accomplishing agendas. The Victory Point award honestly doesn't work for me. It's a recognition of the fact that any BR game is part strategy game, so I'm going to keep it... I think. I want there to be something more concrete and immediate to gain in the game - the current "carrot"* is the possibility of Stability increase. That definitely works, I might add in something like an automatic positive event and an increased chance for positive event afterwards... Or something like that. Need to think on this one - perhaps define a different reward for each agenda.
3) Agenda's should help characterize the Regent, Realm or Domain. A Regent with agendas that are all conquest-themed will seem expansionistic and perhaps even megalomanic. A Regent with purely altruistic Agendas will come across as a saint. No one should be in either extreme, but they help players get a grasp of their regents.
4) I'm thinking there should be a possible effect from pursuing your agendas, not "just" accomplishing them. There already is for the major agendas, but I'm thinking something similar might be appropriate for minor agendas as well.
5) Agenda's help me, as a DM, give the game direction. If I want there to lots of backstabbing, I should put in a few agendas that require players to betray their allies. If I want the players to be heroic, there should be heroic agendas. What the game ends up actually being about is going to be a mix of the players' interests and tastes, the agendas, the events I throw at them, how the NPCs are portrayed and so on. Agendas are a factor that can be used to shape the game, working purely through a carrot approach. No need for a stick.*

*Ok, I'm overusing this metaphor. In case someone doesn't know, I'm referring to the "Carrot and Stick". How do you make a donkey move? You hang a carrot in front of it and hit it with a stick.

[DM B]

1. Major Agenda = Long term, diffiuclt. Minor agenda = short temr, easier. That's the idea anyway.

2. In RoE II there ARE awards. RP/GB/stability/prosperity/AAs/items/BS points etc. I just don't state what the reward is. Will be revealed in due time.

3. Yes, Agendas help define a domain.

4. Stick; because NOT prusuing them might well leadin to ufortunate things.

5. Indeed, but don't underestimate player ability to come up with lots of entertaining (if sometime goofy) stuff all by themselves.

[X-Tornilen/SM (Alexander)]

Adventures
Adventures have turned out to be a bit of a can of worms for me. I'll try to put a few of my thoughts for this game down.

THere are two kinds of adventures - Those that support domain actions and those that accomplish an independent goal. Using an adventure action to support diplomacy is the first kind - automatic success or a simple level vs. DDC check. Easy.

The second kind are the ones we are running in the forum, which are awesome. From my point of view, I want Regents to go on adventures - it's a game about Hero-Kings, not purely diplomacy.
So we have two basic levels of play - the Domain and diplomacy level (dispatches, diplomacy, your DO, etc) and the adventure level. Both are important. Adventures are for the stuff that cannot or should not be resolved on the domain level, though the levels of play often interact.
An adventure can be required to resolve a domain level event, domain actions can be necessary to attempt an adventure (before you can slay the lich, you must defeat his army in the field). This is good, I want the two levels to interact - It's in the conflict between these two levels of play that the theme of Birthright comes to the fore.

As other's might have noticed, I have a thing for transparant simple rules - as a gm they make my life easier and they ease communication. So I need a ruleset for adventures that satisfies the following:
1) Adventures should be dangerous enough that you don't want to go on them all the time or at least without good preperations, but at the same time players should be confident enough in the Regents to send them on the occasional adventure. I'm thinking that players participating in adventures 1-2 a year is the sweet spot.
2) There should be consequences to adventures, both good and bad. There is always a goal for an adventure - the success or failure in achieving that goal is the primary consequence. However, the other consequences are damn important as well. It's good drama when a regent is injured, looses a friend or dies while achieving something heroic. It sucks when a regent dies accidently while hunting a random goblin. It's cool when Bilbo picks up the one ring on the way to kill Smaug, it sucks when adventures are done solely to acquire treasure or magic stuff. (for the purpose of these rules anyway, I enjoy dungeon crawls as much as the next guy
3) Adventures accomplish goals that either cannot be achieved on the domain level or are very preferably to do on the adventure level.
4) Rules should be fast and simple.
5) Rules should allow an adventure both to be run without player input (as just an action in your DO or for when you are too busy IRL to do a full mail or forum adventure), but should focus on creating a cool frame for forum and mail adventures.
6) Optimally, the rules should allow an individual to shine as well as allow the group as a whole to overcome the adventure.
7) Adventures are for Lieutenants and Regents, with Henchmen playing a minor role. Everyone else are pretty much just background fluff or part of the consequences... Except for NPCs - getting a major NPC to go on an adventure with you should be a worthwhile goal.

Whew. With that in mind I think I have an initial outline for the rules, I'll just need to clean them up a little and find somewhere to host them.

[X-IHH/Wallac Isilviere (Kasper)]

1. Major Agenda = Long term, diffiuclt. Minor agenda = short temr, easier. That's the idea anyway.

Heh at least one of my Minor Agendas for IHH is rather longterm; 5+ years and expenses in the area of 110+ GB plus I dont know how many orders 

I think focus on my Major agenda instead and not complete the "Minor" one 

[X-Bellam & BC/TB (Bobby)]

Major Agendas usually seem to require a degree of sacrifice and often involve pissing another player off.  Minor Agendas seem to be move focused on building things up, focusing your attention, or fighting an NPC.  But those are generalizations.

[X-Haelyn's Aegis/RK (Andy)]

My tuppence on adventures:

We tried instant messenger and an online tabletop for adventures in RW - it worked surprisingly well, although the online tabletop map slowed things down in the end as it kept refreshing - the online dice rolling was fun though - the cheers when one PC rolled that desperately needed critical hit - on their backstab (under 2e rules), the agonised moans when someone rolled a fumble...

Another idea is to write a solo 'story' and see how well it goes to plan - quick, easy, hopefully fun for the DM to read, but resolved by fiat / single roll.

Email chains - fine for solo's, but the damn things split and tangle with multiple posters leading to continuity errors.

Multiplayer forum - fun for all, but some people are away, or can only post briefly, others 'hang' waiting for the results of a roll/fight, etc.

And what do adventures do from a game viewpoint?  Well, I consider going on an adventure as a  player for the following reasons (in addition to fun of course):

1. Small realm 'filler' actions - maybe gain some gold/gb/agitate bonus - a scion does not tend tables or shoe a horse to make ends meet!
2. Looey trainers - aim is to train up an aide, the equivalent of boot camp for those who need to go from follower to hero.
3. Action boosts - aim is to boost the odds of an action succeeding, or do something that an action couldn't ordinarily do.  Anything from learning a key secret to be exploited, to a simple bump to the dice.
4. Status declarations - aide another regent to win friendship, provide 'soft aid in lieu of troops/money.  Making friends on the cheap is a good way for a small or weak domain to punch well above its weight at domain level.
5. Random event cleansers - wipe out that rampaging owlbear without risking troops, capture that griffin's eggs, convince those ogres that salaried employ pays better than raids and is safer to boot, etc.  The people love a hero, and make hero's of those who defend them.
6. Romp & Stomps - nail a nemesis, make some other major shift to the domain that simply needs something done that makes everyone else say 'Haelyn's mercy' - high risk brings high reward, and fortune favours the bold.

I'd use a mix of these, depending on your time constraints.  I'd come up with a simple list of 'rewards' and 'penalties', say:

Reward:
GB / RP (heavy on the second, particularly for capped games)
Contact / favour
Good hireling
Troop upgrade
Key concession
Reputation / position / rank

Penalty (negative of above, or:)
Lost action
Minor / Major / terrible injury (lasts 1 season, 1 year, game unless cured)
Awakened evil
Diplomatic fan-strike

Downers: Adventures probably take up more DM time than any other action, players can feel extremely railroaded if the adventure is a lead into a campaign arc - even more so than in standard DnD games as NPcs have such a heavy influence, also don't forget that the loss of a regent is crippling - not too mention far to easy when adventuring in other realms run by wargamers who see PCs as bloodline fodder and wonder about setting up scion farms to optimise income...

[X-Haelyn's Aegis/RK (Andy)]

Agenda's.
1. Provide a short term internal 'easy win'
2. Provide some short term external wins - that clash more or less with friends and foes
3. Provide some long term 'this is what the domain is about' sort of roles
4. Provide some 'not a prayer' aims for the fanatics to rant about the regent ignoring (restore the imperial line, destroy the elf, etc)

Basically they should encourage the play you want - co-operative and combative both.  I'd have independence as a common theme - huge alliances become a pain far too easily.

Rewards:
1. Stability / morale - the obvious one
2. Extra success - you wanted '12 non mercenary units' - when you make it, one gets bumped a notch somehow.
3. RP or even bloodline - particularly if you knock them down for failures
4. Diplomatic bonuses from npc's - marriage/fostering offers, alliances, sundering of hostile alliances, etc.
5. Gain a special looey / bump a looey.
6. Gain an artifact (likely a mcguffin of course).
7. Get to make a major internal change without complaint due to 'clear success and wisdom'.
8. Win over some independents due to strength / wisdom / success / etc - possibly very surprising ones that might be more trouble than they are worth.

I'd also add 'domain red lines'.  These are negatives that must be avoided rather than positive goals to achieve - so no vassalage, or always have 'x' units, or always hold sacred artifact 'y', ancestral holding 'z', never occupy own provinces, etc.  These are easier to tailor to avoid scenario's you don't want.

Failure:
Great captain - possibly a former looey
Domain fragmentation - can the regent turn things around and win them back - double or nothing is always fun...
PR disaster - blood in the water, everyone loves kicking a loser and picking up some 'freebies'
Lose key alliance, looey, artifact, etc

[X-Tornilen/SM (Alexander)]

The way I see it, Agendas define the things you get extra rewards for accomplishing and you realm's agenda defines the things that you realm punishes you for - If you get revealed as being behind an assassination attempt and you run a LG realm, you're going to take some kind of hit... likely on the prosperity/stability area, possibly also on you regency.

However, the idea that the realm/regent holds certain things important and you get some do's and dont's from that... that's a sound idea. Those implied by your realm's alignment are there already, though I might want to clear that up a little.

On adventures:
I agree with 1-6 as purposes for adventures. However - 2,5, and 6 are what I'm wanting a ruleset for. 3 is handled by a single die roll. 4 is often an indirect effect from going on adventures with others - part of my motivation for sending the SM on adventures with IHH and co. is to prove her value as the "evil vs. the evil" and gain allies that way. No mechanics needed for that - the npcs (the dm) and players decide how much or how little they're impressed.

I like the forum adventures. I'm not planning to make time for IM/chat adventure - logistics are hell on those. As a dm I am not into huge overarching plot lines where the players get little choice on whether to participate or not... No doubt the npcs and villains are going to have evil plans and schemes that will do harm if they are left alone, but I plan for the game be driven by player-player interests with the occasional wrench or plot thrown in.

Any set of rules, or just any way to to run adventures for a PbEM should be flexible. Sometimes RL constraints will mean that you can't run an adventure over the forum or sometimes you just need the turn to end. We should allow for both - sometimes an adventure will just be an action in your DO with a short (or longer) or description, sometimes there'll be a story to tell and choices to make. For the rewards/penalties the biggest reward should be whatever you set out to do - incidential gains or rewards should never overshadow that.
In addition, risk should always be comparable to reward - the idea that any adventure can lead to your death because even the lowliest kobold can get lucky and stick a spear in you throat works good in theory, but in practice that sort of thing is almost never fun and has no value dramatically or story-wise. I'm not going to bother with it - every adventure should have the risk of losses or penalties, but only when the stakes are high should death be on the board.

[X-Haelyn's Aegis/RK (Andy)]

One of the key differences in BR is time - the 'wear them down' approach to adventuring works very well when what is 1 action to the domain is 20-30 raids on a single enemy stronghold.  Attack, weaken, withdraw when you run low on hp/ammo, heal up - and call in a hundred xbowmen if faced with hordes - BR adventures should be short and sweet, with diplomacy, intrigue, etc actions by the court to 'cut to the chase' and leave the adventure to just the stuff that the sheriffs can't handle.

[X-Tornilen/SM (Alexander)]

Oh yeah, the actual adventure action is often the culmination to a bunch of other actions - espionage, research or advisor actions to get the information for the adventure, war actions to clear the way, etc.

[X-Tornilen/SM (Alexander)]

Adventure System
Here the system is. I'm pretty happy with the final result, I think it's going to work well for the type of adventures that are run in BR and I've also kept the form of forum or email adventures firmly in mind.

On the math:
If a level 5 party goes on a 5th level adventure and they have done everything they can do achieve success
- advisor, diplomacy, espionage, and research actions to make sure they have the right classes and adventures to win
- everyone consistently contributes to the descriptions and roles play
- they choose reasonable and good tactics for every challenge
then they should achieve a Triumph. The get their goal and some minor benifit besides, they take no losses.
A Horrific Defeat is only possiple when the party is attempting an adventure 9 levels above theirs. That is when one or more party members die in the attempt. Otherwise the losses will be less severe.
What might be slightly counterintuitive is that the more challenges an adventure has, the easier it is to succeed. Look at it this way: The more challenges, the more distributed the enemy's forces are. If you can kill the minions one manageble chunk at a time, then the final battle will be easier. Adding or removing a challenge makes the adventure a lot easier or harder. If you want the party to have a chance to actually do well in an adventure 3-5 levels higher than their own, you add a challenge. If you want to make an adventure that's easy (3 levels or more below the party level), then you remove a challenge.


Behind Losses and Gains
Losses should always be in proportion to the adventure goal and adventure level. Gains must never be greater than the goal.
Even a Great Loss should not mean regent loss or lieutenant deaths unless the level and goal are big enough. On the other hand, even a Great Gain does not mean bloodline increase unless you are on a dangerous enough adventure.

The Important Choice
The biggest and most important choice a party has after the adventure has begun is during resolution. The opportunity to shift will usually take the form of a choice the part has to make - you have driven the villain to defeat, do you pursue and perhaps kill him or do you satisfy yourself with driving him away? That could be the difference between a Partial Success and a Success.
You can turn a Partial Success into a Success by taking Major instead of Minor losses - do you let him run or take a risk and pursue?
You can turn a Failure into a Victory by taking Great losses instead of Minor Losses - you are loosing, someone will have to sacrifice him- or herself for victory... whom will step forth?
... and so on.

Playtesting
This is the second to last step and something I need before I'll start using it. I'll be looking for two groups (4-5 players) to run an adventure each over mail or possibly another forum. Starting to recruit soon.

[X-Tornilen/SM (Alexander)]

Going to let the adventure rules simmer for a few days. Anyone feel like checking them out, they're attatched to the post above. Will return to them to make them more readable and... neat.

Anyway, Domain Alignment
I've been thinking a bit about alignment and what purpose it serves in the game.
Personal alignment has a roleplaying and a personal purpose (for the player - a loose guideline to play the character). I like when people go against their alignment, as long as they show that they're doing it. Good people forced to do evil things (or vice versa) is great stuff, for stories and for play. Having the alignment also keeps this from turning into a complete strategy game. However, I don't think it should have any mechanical effect - it might affect how some roleplay-awards are handed out, but that's it. Domain Alignment, however, has a different purpose.

Domain alignment adds consequences to your actions. It's how the different elements of your domain reacts to your actions. It also has a mystical element - since your regency power is created by your subjects and the land itself. How you domain feels about your actions is important.

Violating your domain's alignment can lead to regency loss.
Violating your domain's alignment and getting caught can lead to regency and stability loss.

Each alignment has a bunch of don'ts - rated from trivial (no regency loss, unless you do it a lot) to great (large regency loss).
Chaotic
Don't make other's decisions for them (trivial)
Don't let others tell you what to do in your domain (minor)
Don't let others decide the laws of your domain (major)
Don't become a vassel to lawful lieges (great)

Lawful
Don't break minor laws for you own benifit (trivial)
Don't ignore the letter of the law (minor)
Don't ignore the spirit of the law (major)
Don't break your word (great)

Good
Don't be selfish (trivial)
Don't ignore the plight of others (minor)
Don't commit murder (major)
Don't ignore the plight of your people (great)

Evil
Don't help others and get nothing in return (trivial)
Don't show weakness (minor)
Don't lack ambition (major)
Don't miss an opportunity to grap great power (great)

A trivial don't has no effect. Several trivial don'ts can lead to 10% regency loss and -0.1 stability.
A minor don't can lead to 10% regency loss and -0.1 stability.
A major don't can lead to 25% regency loss and -0.5 stability.
A great don't can lead to 50% regency loss and -1.0 stability.

Regency loss means loosing a percentage one's domain power in regency points. This is by no means a finalized list, there's going to be added more Don'ts to serve as examples. Stability loss only applies if the misstep is made public - eg. if the regent of a good domain is caught commissioning an assassination.