So I was wandering about DTRPG. I came across "Broken Earth" a PA savage worlds setting. Looks interesting. I like the fact it seems ot be focused around the great lakes. Anyone read it/ran it? Is it worth a purchase?
Sounds interesting. I'm on my phone and I should look into it later. What sort of post-apocalypse is it? Twilight: 2000, or Gamma World, or something in between?
Sounds like something in between. Mutants, but not gonzo like Gamma.
It's not overly gonzo, though you could probably make it more so without too much effort. I got a very strong Fallout vibe from it because of the vault group with advanced technology/knowledge coupled with surfacers who have regressed to a tribal society.
The best parts of it, IMO, were the hex-crawl nature of the setting and the very awesome settlement creation mini-game that I plan on one day expanding and using in my other SW games. It's really easy to plan and grow your own apocalyptic town of survivors, and some of my group is really into that stuff. Card draws from the action deck provide for random events, and the group (the leaders of the town) can organize survivors into groups that do things from building roads to patrolling for raiders to adventuring with the party (for those times when there are just too many angry mutants for the normal 4-6 players to tackle on their own).
Sounds a bit like Hiero's Journey (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/479304.Hiero_s_Journey).
The main feature of Broken Earth, IMO, was the settlement management/development rules, which were pretty decent, but had a few obvious flaws/exploits.[1] The campaign part, while a major portion of the text, is secondary. Replacing the Great Lakes region with some other section of the world wouldn't be particularly difficult - there aren't any mechanics directly tied to the location or anything like that.
[1] The big one, at least in the original release, was that food requirements and several other expenses are based on how many hexes you control, not on your population. And pretty much the only benefit of taking control of more hexes was increased food production, making it mechanically detrimental to expand beyond a single hex. It's been updated since then, so this may have been fixed... but I spent quite a while trying to explain the problem to the author on the PEG forums and he never seemed to get it, so I'm not optimistic about a fix.
Quote from: nDervish;832168[1] The big one, at least in the original release, was that food requirements and several other expenses are based on how many hexes you control, not on your population.
So the domain management in Broken Earth is broken?
Does the game track or use population in some other way? If so, it might be possible to tie the food requirement to the population score without too much tinkering.
Quote from: nDervish;832168[1] The big one, at least in the original release, was that food requirements and several other expenses are based on how many hexes you control, not on your population. And pretty much the only benefit of taking control of more hexes was increased food production, making it mechanically detrimental to expand beyond a single hex. It's been updated since then, so this may have been fixed... but I spent quite a while trying to explain the problem to the author on the PEG forums and he never seemed to get it, so I'm not optimistic about a fix.
Food is one of two resources (along with Build), and basically 1 point of Food will feed 100 people for 1 week. More hexes also can help you gather more Build resources, along with repairing roads and sending out patrols, but the main advantage of expanding is to get more Food. Without expanding to multiple hexes, you won't be able to support a very large population.
Quote from: Brand55;832185Food is one of two resources (along with Build), and basically 1 point of Food will feed 100 people for 1 week. More hexes also can help you gather more Build resources, along with repairing roads and sending out patrols, but the main advantage of expanding is to get more Food. Without expanding to multiple hexes, you won't be able to support a very large population.
Now I'm confused. You and nDervish seem to be saying contrary or contradictory things.
It sounds like you are saying the following.
- You get Food points and Build points by controlling hexes.
- [Presumably the rate of Food or Build acquired varies by terrain and maybe population?]
- You spend Food points to support population (POP) at a rate of 1 FP/100 POP/week.
- You spend Build points...presumably to build stuff. And maybe to support troops or maintain stuff?
Questions
- So where does POP come from?
- Is there a default level of POP that comes along with control of a hex or is POP separate from hex control.
Quote from: Bren;832191Now I'm confused. You and nDervish seem to be saying contrary or contradictory things.
He is right in that you lose food (during the winter) based on hexes, not population. But hexes and population are somewhat linked. You might go turtle in a single hex and be okay for awhile, but you'll be severely limited in what you can build and do. And since a number of things use Food (and Food production is mostly based on hexes), sooner or later you're gonna be in trouble when you have one or two bad rolls. For example, the farmers in his one hex town produce 3d6 Food per year. If he gets a 1, 2, and 2, his town is in deep trouble. More hexes means your town isn't as vulnerable to bad luck.
It wouldn't be hard at all to change that, though. You could easily set a fixed ratio of food usage per people per week. The 100 people using 1 Food each week is already in the book. I'm not sure if that would be balanced or too strict, but that could be a good starting point.
Quote from: Bren;832191You get Food points and Build points by controlling hexes.
Yes and no. You don't get them automatically. But, for example, say your community has cattle, goats, or other herd animals. It would have the Herdsmen Edge and once per year for each hex you control you'd get 1d8 Food, 1d8 Build, or 1d4 Food and Build. Similar things happen with Farmers (Food) and Crafts Folk (Build), for example. Basically, more hexes means more resources.
Quote from: Bren;832191Presumably the rate of Food or Build acquired varies by terrain and maybe population?
Sort of. Terrain is important because you need certain resources for certain things. You can't build a hydroelectric dam when your only source of Build points is a nearby forest. Where population comes in is that for every 50 people you can form a group and give them a task. So you could send one group to go chop down trees, giving you extra Build you can later use to build a wall around the town.
Quote from: Bren;832191You spend Food points to support population (POP) at a rate of 1 FP/100 POP/week.
Food points are spent on a number of things, including tasks and during the winter on a per-hex basis. But that ratio (100 people per week) is given in the book on page 41. I mentioned it because there is a mention in the book as to how many people each point of Food should be able to feed.
Quote from: Bren;832191You spend Build points...presumably to build stuff. And maybe to support troops or maintain stuff?
They are primarily for building, yes, though some tasks like rebuilding roads and expanding your territory to another hex also use Build. And yes, you can also use those points (and Food) to raise a larger army when the bad guys come calling.
Quote from: Bren;832191So where does POP come from?
It can come naturally through roleplaying (the group saves some people, who decide to join). Mostly, though, it comes from a monthly Morale roll. If it goes well, 1d6 people join. If the roll is a one, then the community loses 1d6 people.
Quote from: Bren;832191Is there a default level of POP that comes along with control of a hex or is POP separate from hex control.
They are separate, and it leads into one of the few problems that I do have with the rules as presented. The hexes are 12 miles across, which I think is too big (for what I want, anyway). It's good for representing groups that grow to control larger territories, but for my tastes I'd prefer to keep it to a smaller scale. Luckily, it's not very difficult to just change the scale of the hexes.
As I mentioned earlier the rules aren't perfect but I think they're a great basis to build off of. I hope that helps. If anything was unclear let me know and I'll try to muddy the waters a little less.
Quote from: Brand55;832203As I mentioned earlier the rules aren't perfect but I think they're a great basis to build off of. I hope that helps. If anything was unclear let me know and I'll try to muddy the waters a little less.
Thanks that helped clarify things.
Quote from: Brand55;832185Food is one of two resources (along with Build), and basically 1 point of Food will feed 100 people for 1 week.
In principle, yes... but you don't actually consume the Food resource outside of winter (when it's 1 Food per
hex per week, even if that hex has 10,000 people living in it) or for special projects (in which case it's determined by the project, again independent of population).
Quote from: Brand55;832203He is right in that you lose food (during the winter) based on hexes, not population. But hexes and population are somewhat linked. You might go turtle in a single hex and be okay for awhile, but you'll be severely limited in what you can build and do. And since a number of things use Food (and Food production is mostly based on hexes), sooner or later you're gonna be in trouble when you have one or two bad rolls. For example, the farmers in his one hex town produce 3d6 Food per year. If he gets a 1, 2, and 2, his town is in deep trouble. More hexes means your town isn't as vulnerable to bad luck.
Food is both produced per hex and consumed per hex. 1 hex = produce 3d6 Food/year, consume 12 Food/year (12 weeks of winter). 2 hexes = produce 6d6 Food (twice as much), consume 24 (also twice as much). 10 hexes = 10 times the production, 10 times the consumption. Yes, more territory means more dice rolled, so you're less at the whim of outlier results, but, on average, the situation neither improves nor deteriorates as you add hexes.
If consumption were based on population rather than per hex, then it would decouple production from consumption, allowing you to more easily produce excess Food (if you take many hexes with a small population) or to get into a situation where you have to constantly import large quantities of Food (if you have a large population in a single hex). And, as you said, that's an easy fix to make. But it's not the actual rule in the book.
Quote from: Brand55;832203As I mentioned earlier the rules aren't perfect but I think they're a great basis to build off of.
Agreed. Even with the Food management issue I raised, I wouldn't call the rules broken in any serious way. While they have some issues, I can't think of any that aren't easily fixed.
Quote from: nDervish;832282Food is both produced per hex and consumed per hex. 1 hex = produce 3d6 Food/year, consume 12 Food/year (12 weeks of winter).
That doesn't sound correct.
3d6 Food/year = 10.5 Food/year
12 Food/year consumption leaves a deficit of -1.5 Food per year.
Is this a game to find out how long until everyone starves?
Quote from: nDervish;832282Yes, more territory means more dice rolled, so you're less at the whim of outlier results, but, on average, the situation neither improves nor deteriorates as you add hexes.
Adding more hexes also often means you can add more ways of gathering food. Expanding to the north might add good grazing land so you have herds of cattle in addition to farming. Going east might let you reach that lake, and suddenly fishing becomes viable. And since each of those adds more dice of production, your Food production increases drastically compared to what you'd have if you stayed in one hex.
Of course, it's entirely possible that your GM is overly generous and lets you have access to all that stuff in a single hex anyway, but then he could also let you start a game of D&D with a +5 vorpal longsword at 1st level.
But I do agree with you overall. Basing Food usage on population rather than hexes does make more sense.
Quote from: Bren;832293That doesn't sound correct.
3d6 Food/year = 10.5 Food/year
12 Food/year consumption leaves a deficit of -1.5 Food per year.
Is this a game to find out how long until everyone starves?
The 3d6 Food is for basic farmers in a single hex. As I mentioned above, there are other sources of getting Food and it's one of the important reasons why expanding is so useful. Just recovering any knowledge of advanced farming techniques (or equipment) upgrades you to 3d8 per hex instead. Then there's Herdsmen, Fisher Folk, Foragers, and random events that can help you out (though random events can hurt you as well, of course).
Quote from: Brand55;832309Of course, it's entirely possible that your GM is overly generous and lets you have access to all that stuff in a single hex anyway, but then he could also let you start a game of D&D with a +5 vorpal longsword at 1st level.
Fishing is actually the only food source which is tied to location/hex contents. Herders produce Food and/or Build "for every hex the community controls" and farmers/improved farmers are also "for every hex". Fisher folk produce Food "for every hex the community controls that contains a lake". Both the Food Shortage and Food Surplus events are "1d6 Food per hex the community controls".
Foragers don't produce Food as such, but instead they allow an Economy test each week in the winter and, for every success or raise scored, one hex doesn't require Food - which means they can completely eliminate the requirement to spend Food for a one-hex settlement with a single success, but, even with multiple raises, they have little impact on the Food requirements of a community controlling, say, 10 hexes.
Also, from the random event possibilities, Good Weather adds a flat amount of Food (1 Food per applicable Citizen Edge) regardless of community size.
Given that only fishing is constrained by location and the way that Foragers and Good Weather work, the optimum situation (at least with respect to Food) is a single-hex coastal/lakeshore settlement, as it can get all possible Food production methods and maximum benefit from Foragers and Good Weather events. Any expansion from that single coastal hex results in a worse Food situation on average. (Foragers can't feed the whole community; Good Weather effects are diluted; and some of the new hexes may not allow for fishing as a production source, but still have the same per-hex consumption.)
Quote from: Brand55;832309But I do agree with you overall. Basing Food usage on population rather than hexes does make more sense.
And I agree with you overall. It's a good situation in general and, although I see a significant problem with the Food rules, fixing them is trivial. I think I mostly just feel residual frustration over having been unable to convince the author that a problem exists at all back when Broken Earth first came out.
Quote from: Bren;831932Sounds a bit like Hiero's Journey (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/479304.Hiero_s_Journey).
I loved those books. They were super fantastic!
Quote from: nDervish;832451Fishing is actually the only food source which is tied to location/hex contents. Herders produce Food and/or Build "for every hex the community controls" and farmers/improved farmers are also "for every hex". Fisher folk produce Food "for every hex the community controls that contains a lake". Both the Food Shortage and Food Surplus events are "1d6 Food per hex the community controls".
Foragers don't produce Food as such, but instead they allow an Economy test each week in the winter and, for every success or raise scored, one hex doesn't require Food - which means they can completely eliminate the requirement to spend Food for a one-hex settlement with a single success, but, even with multiple raises, they have little impact on the Food requirements of a community controlling, say, 10 hexes.
Also, from the random event possibilities, Good Weather adds a flat amount of Food (1 Food per applicable Citizen Edge) regardless of community size.
Given that only fishing is constrained by location and the way that Foragers and Good Weather work, the optimum situation (at least with respect to Food) is a single-hex coastal/lakeshore settlement, as it can get all possible Food production methods and maximum benefit from Foragers and Good Weather events. Any expansion from that single coastal hex results in a worse Food situation on average. (Foragers can't feed the whole community; Good Weather effects are diluted; and some of the new hexes may not allow for fishing as a production source, but still have the same per-hex consumption.)
That's the point I was trying to make with the vorpal sword comment. What resources/Edges/survivor knowledge are available to the party is entirely in the hands of the GM. If said GM creates a potential community site on a lake and lets them have everything in a single hex without laying out any incentive for the town to expand, then absolutely it would be insane for the group to step out of that hex.
Take the lake, for example. Just being on a lake doesn't get you any food. You need survivors who know how to fish. You need something to fish with. You might have to deal with rivals (or mutant animals) that have caused the local fish population to drastically decline. And it's only when needs like those have been met that the GM actually gives the community the Edge that lets them produce the food.
Quote from: Brand55;832494What resources/Edges/survivor knowledge are available to the party is entirely in the hands of the GM.
Does it include tables to randomly generate extra resources or do such things show up solely by fiat?
Quote from: Bren;832581Does it include tables to randomly generate extra resources or do such things show up solely by fiat?
Not really, unless you count the random events tables. Even then it's up to the GM exactly what is found when "Extra Resources" comes up. Ultimately they're all Build points, but you can't realistically build a micro nuclear reactor if all you're finding is wood. It's one of the areas I'd like to see expanded.
Quote from: Brand55;832494That's the point I was trying to make with the vorpal sword comment. What resources/Edges/survivor knowledge are available to the party is entirely in the hands of the GM. If said GM creates a potential community site on a lake and lets them have everything in a single hex without laying out any incentive for the town to expand, then absolutely it would be insane for the group to step out of that hex.
Take the lake, for example. Just being on a lake doesn't get you any food. You need survivors who know how to fish. You need something to fish with. You might have to deal with rivals (or mutant animals) that have caused the local fish population to drastically decline. And it's only when needs like those have been met that the GM actually gives the community the Edge that lets them produce the food.
Yep, agreed. But you can explore and locate the specialists without also expanding to control the hexes those specialists are in. You can have your one-hex community on the lakeshore in hex 1342, then go out and recruit the fishermen hiding in hex 1542, the herders on the plains of hex 1138, etc. all without expanding the community beyond the single hex. These things are not location-dependent (the specialists can walk back to hex 1342 with you), thus they do not provide a reason to expand your territorial control.
Expanding your community to additional hexes produces minor drawbacks, but provides no benefits in the general case. There are a small number of exceptions where you need a hex containing a specific feature in order to make use of a community edge[1], but the mechanics incentivize remaining as small as possible while meeting those requirements.
The various Building Edges can provide a small incentive to expand if you find usable (or easily restorable) buildings to annex, since that would usually be quicker and easier than building new ones, but it's not a hard reason to expand, since you can instead build them in your single-hex community if time and Build permit. And it still remains a losing proposition to expand into hexes which don't contain any needed buildings.
[1] Aside from the already-mentioned fisher folk needing a lake, you need a hex with a river to build a hydroelectric plant, and... I guess that's it. I was sure that the Micro Nuclear Reactor required control of a site with a ruined reactor to restore, but I was wrong. As long as you possess nuclear fuel, you can build one anywhere.
That's why I think that, with the RAW, resources are so important. There are lots of things the party can do to help the community prosper, but the town may still need to expand to take over new ruins/forests/etc. so that its organized groups can scavenge and gather necessary Build points for certain projects. That, along with more dice for Food production reducing the odds of a really bad roll, does give some incentive for expansion. I know that's not very well spelled out in the rules, but it's how I see them working and one of the ways I'll expand the rules if I ever use them.
If you ever try out the Food-usage-per-population ratio, let me know how it works.