TheRPGSite

Where I talk about how my mind has changed a bit about #dnd domain mechanics.
#ttrpg #OSR

Yeah, the best domain rules I've seen are really @amacris 's ACKS rules. Keep a running tab of how many families labor under your lordship and how productive the land is ("economic power") and how much you spend on your armies to keep the peace ("military power"). Then the other PCs get "drafted in" as magistrates and factota of the ruler PC, if they don't have their own domains to rule (in which case they can probably set up an alliance bloc to help one another).

The more abstract rules in the Old School Companion seem to be more for the kind of party who's supposed to be dungeon delving even when they're in the top ten highest leveled in the kingdom, which in a Medieval Authentic setting doesn't make a terrible lot of sense: a high level character, even if he was originally a serf, will quickly discover that he was secretly the son of a mighty noble, since of course random serfs can't become great, so if they do then it's proof that they weren't random serfs from the beginning... And in any case they will probably be granted titles of nobility and a fief somewhere where there are monsters and they need to be cleared off and the land colonized.

I'm actually fond of the birthright rules for domain management.

Quote from: Slipshot762 on May 19, 2023, 07:04:48 PM
I'm actually fond of the birthright rules for domain management.

I love it too, but it cannot be used even in Aduria, let alone other campaign settings...

Meatball for Mascot!

The old BECMI domain management rules were pretty good. They can be found in the D&D Companion rules and the D&D Rules Cyclopedia. I used it for my AD&D 1e campaign.

For D&D (and similar RPGs), the best domain management rules are common sense, in my opinion. You don't need a whole hell of a lot to have a good campaign. Like Goldilocks, you want what is "just right." Not too many rules, not too few, but just right.

Obvious. Qualitative. Unhelpful. But there it is. Figure it out, dude.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament on May 20, 2023, 02:12:23 AM
For D&D (and similar RPGs), the best domain management rules are common sense, in my opinion. You don't need a whole hell of a lot to have a good campaign. Like Goldilocks, you want what is "just right." Not too many rules, not too few, but just right.

Obvious. Qualitative. Unhelpful. But there it is. Figure it out, dude.

Agreed. I've never seen a set of codified mechanics do better at domain management for a single-player per PC style rpg* than an even middling GM winging it in response to what the PCs actually do in character.

A related issue is the most domain rules are extremely tied to various setting conceits... ACKS is very focused on conventional armies and medieval manoralism. Birthright is built around literal Divine Right that affects how well you can manage the land you are magically connected to (and has armies in the thousands, with the mass combat system treating 200 men as a single unit on the battle map).

And because those systems are so detail focused for those settings, their rules are not going to be well suited for domain management in, say, a post-apocalyptic world where your small cluster of walled citadels housing just a few tens of thousands and surrounded by monster haunted wilderness are the only point of civilization for a hundred miles and where armies of at most hundreds consist of wyvern cavalry, warcasters, dwarven cyborgs and airships vs. Legionary orcs with glaive-rifles, maledictor priests, living siege engines, and winged goblins.

Pundit is pretty much on point with his comments that there is no "one size fits all" set of domain rules that are going to work for every campaign... even in the same setting... and that without complete table buy-in (everyone has their own aspect of a domain they control... a la Birthright's Law/Fighters, Faith/Cleric, Magic/Wizard, and Commerce/Thieves) you're probably better off with a more abstracted system that can handle things with a few occasional rolls so all the non-nobles aren't left on the sidelines for large swaths of time.

And nothing is more "abstracted" than the GM just using common sense (and maybe some guidelines for how to handle PC combat within a larger mass combat situation). It's also the only thing really flexible enough for all the kinds of gonzo elements fantasy campaigns might have.

* codified domain rules work better for a "each player runs an entire noble house" or similar bigger scope campaigns. The domain rules are your resolution mechanics for your action list in the same way normal mechanics are for attack, move, cast spell, open lock, sneak, etc. for individual PCs.

Yeah, I've played in a campaign where a middling GM tried to wing domain management. It wasn't particularly good, and the GM was the first person to admit it.

You're right, ACKS domain rules have certain premises which may not always hold; the same thing with the Fantasy Companion, which is why Pundit wants to change it for his Polish game. That doesn't mean that we simply must throw up our hands and say "GM Fiat." This is how we get to the idea that RPGs are all about the combat system (since I have never heard someone say "do combat using the GM's common sense") and the dungeon delving procedures got sidelined in AD&D 2E and following in favour of "GM common sense."

Quote from: Wtrmute on May 20, 2023, 09:41:36 AMThat doesn't mean that we simply must throw up our hands and say "GM Fiat." This is how we get to the idea that RPGs are all about the combat system (since I have never heard someone say "do combat using the GM's common sense") and the dungeon delving procedures got sidelined in AD&D 2E and following in favour of "GM common sense."

As an aside, this is part of the reason why I favor/insist on some type of skill system in TTRPGs I play, and also some type of "Feats" or perks/advantages as well. "GM Fiat" doesn't really cut it for me when it comes to determining whether a character actually knows something or how good they are at it, as well as whether they have certain quirks that might grant them some type of in-game benefit (such as being Attractive, Ambidextrous or whatever).

That being said, a lot of this depends on how important that sort of detail is to your campaign. And when it comes to domain management, that's the sort of thing that only matters if you're even gonna deal with it in your campaign. And how detailed or involved domain management is depends a lot on the setting or how important it is to your campaign or your group. So there's way less of a "one size fits all approach" that can be used when dealing with it than with stuff like skills or feats.

In my case I've never really dealt with domain management because it's almost never come up in any game I've played. And the few instances that it has, the GM invariably "GM Fiat" it based on what they were willing to put with to handle it, as well as the specifics of their campaign. But 99% of the game still focused on personal adventures without keeping tract of armies of followers or your kingdom's finances.

In my own campaigns, players don't normally even remember that they have animal companions as it is. They'd be all excited about having a dire wolf mount, or whatever, then completely forget that the animal is supposed to have a bite attack till halfway through combat. Imagine adding armies and farmlands to the stuff they get to forget to keep track of.

Chris24601,
I'm responding to your post but before I do, I caveat by saying I don't expect to change YOUR mind. I'm actually responding for those who might read your comments and (had I left them unanswered) wrongly think that ACKS is somehow tied to "conventional armies" "medieval manorialism" or can't handle gonzo, none of which is true.

I know I won't change your mind because the last time we chatted you said that my game Ascendant wasn't well-designed; it had too many rules for things that you thought the GM should just handle by GM Fiat, and you didn't see any advantage in its attempts at realism or simulation. I'm sure you'd say the same of ACKS if you read it. I conclude that you and I are on the FAR OPPOSITE ends of what we expect from a game design. A game that requires GM fiat for key aspects of gameplay is a game I think is poorly designed which I won't play. I don't think I'd play a game designed by you any more than you'd play one designed by me. But, disagreement over philosophy of game design aside, you are wrong on the facts about ACKS and so I need to correct that.

QuoteA related issue is the most domain rules are extremely tied to various setting conceits... ACKS is very focused on conventional armies and medieval manoralism. Birthright is built around literal Divine Right that affects how well you can manage the land you are magically connected to (and has armies in the thousands, with the mass combat system treating 200 men as a single unit on the battle map).

Your comment on ACKS is more than 10 years out of date. The current ACK system (available in the AUT and AX product line of books and now being consolidated into the three books of ACKS II, kickstarting this summer) can and does handle anything from empires to points-of-light, manors to freeholds, oligarchies to senatorial republics. The army system can scale from platoon (1 unit = 30 men) to brigade (1 unit = 1,920 men). The entire economic engine has had the "hood lifted" and can be customized to taste. It is far more customizable than Birthright, Battlesystem, or anything else that's ever been released.

QuoteAnd because those systems are so detail focused for those settings, their rules are not going to be well suited for domain management in, say, a post-apocalyptic world where your small cluster of walled citadels housing just a few tens of thousands and surrounded by monster haunted wilderness are the only point of civilization for a hundred miles and where armies of at most hundreds consist of wyvern cavalry, warcasters, dwarven cyborgs and airships vs. Legionary orcs with glaive-rifles, maledictor priests, living siege engines, and winged goblins.

ACKS's systems are explicitly not focused on any one setting. Few ACKS judges use the "default" setting and some of the settings they use them for are very gonzo. Read about Dubzaron by the BROSR. The rules support dwarven cyborgs and airships, wyvern cavalry, guns, living siege engines, all of it. ACKS even has three alternative magic systems with rules for customizing the magic, too. ACKS can handle all of the above, and GMs running it are doing so now. I'm not talking "in theory it could," I mean, actual play is doing it. Anyone who wants to talk to ACKS players about it is welcome to come to our Discord and see.

QuotePundit is pretty much on point with his comments that there is no "one size fits all" set of domain rules that are going to work for every campaign... even in the same setting... and that without complete table buy-in (everyone has their own aspect of a domain they control... a la Birthright's Law/Fighters, Faith/Cleric, Magic/Wizard, and Commerce/Thieves) you're probably better off with a more abstracted system that can handle things with a few occasional rolls so all the non-nobles aren't left on the sidelines for large swaths of time

I don't think this is a real objection to domain rules because there is no such thing as "one size fits all" for any RPG system, and you always need player buy-in. Consider the difference in player buy-in for combat between OD&D and D&D 5E. In the former you "buy in" to the idea that your mage will mostly do nothing until he wins one encounter with sleep, or your thief will be busy during exploration but avoiding danger during combat. In the latter you "buy in" to the idea that everyone contributes to every fight, etc. 

QuoteAnd nothing is more "abstracted" than the GM just using common sense (and maybe some guidelines for how to handle PC combat within a larger mass combat situation). It's also the only thing really flexible enough for all the kinds of gonzo elements fantasy campaigns might have.

Again I don't think this is a real objection to domain rules, because this argument could be just as well applied to any game mechanic someone dislikes -- combat, role-play, exploration, whatever.

If domain play isn't important to you, then, no, you don't need domain rules. You also don't need netrunning rules in D&D or magic rules in Battletech, because those aren't important to you when you play those games. If, on the other hand, domains are important to you, then you need domain rules. And if you need domain rules, the ACKS II domain rules are, by far, the most comprehensive and flexible on the market.

QuotePundit is pretty much on point with his comments that there is no "one size fits all" set of domain rules that are going to work for every campaign... even in the same setting... and that without complete table buy-in (everyone has their own aspect of a domain they control... a la Birthright's Law/Fighters, Faith/Cleric, Magic/Wizard, and Commerce/Thieves) you're probably better off with a more abstracted system that can handle things with a few occasional rolls so all the non-nobles aren't left on the sidelines for large swaths of time.

I've lurked for a while but this needed a response. As an ACKS DM, this is true but ACKS also accounts for it. In my present game, there are civilized domains ranging from a manor in the wilderness to a continent spanning empire, barbarian clanholds, chaotic domains of beastmen, elven and dwarven settlements, thieves' guilds, various religious advisors to the above in Imperial/pagan/demonic traditions, sorcerers in their towers drawing strength from sites of magical power, and I'm looking forward to adding nomadic domains soon. Those distinctions are mechanically rigorous, and meaningful because they're not abstracted away. Running a domain of nomadic horsemen should be mechanically distinct from running one of orcs, or one of settled lands under the protection of the Imperial legions. Abstracting that away removes a lot of meaningful distinctions that make the gameworld more complex and interesting; having the DM handwaive it leaves it open to arbitrariness and caprice, and I saw that as the DM, because I'm confident I wouldn't have the time to do the detailed research into historical nomadic societies to build a rigorous economic model for them from the ground up.

Lost me at "abstract."

I'll sort of echo that D&D "domain" play is best done through common sense. With the context of, actually AD&D 1E provides a vast amount of detail for doing this sort of thing. I don't think "winging it" is an accurate characterization of what's being offered there.

Usually when it comes to adding rules, I expect there to be a bit of a tradeoff. Like more rules may mean more work, but also you get something more out of it, like more detail. And naturally opinions and preferences will vary when it comes to striking that balance. But to propose abstract domain management mechanics, that's more rules and less details. That's giving me less bang for more buck. Sorry. Hard pass. Don't even have to think about it. There aren't even pros and cons to weigh out here.


I think when it comes a lot of things in RPGs, gamers ask the wrong questions. They'll ask which games have X (in this case, "domain management") or if a particular game has X when they should be asking HOW the RPG handles X. And for some X's and for some RPGs, sure, the answer might be convoluted or have to just make shit up. In those cases, it may be fruitful to add new rules that do X. But if you're asking how old school D&D handles the various aspects of domain management, there actually are clear answers that can be given that make use of direct application of existing core material. This is not an instance where new rules are needed. Pro tips for using what's already in the game would be more appropriate.


That's my take on this, anyway.

Quote from: VisionStorm on May 20, 2023, 10:34:17 AM
In my case I've never really dealt with domain management because it's almost never come up in any game I've played. And the few instances that it has, the GM invariably "GM Fiat" it based on what they were willing to put with to handle it, as well as the specifics of their campaign. But 99% of the game still focused on personal adventures without keeping tract of armies of followers or your kingdom's finances.

I believe you, but I have played AD&D and oWoD then D&D for twenty years and my group never once tried to do commerce, until we tried a Traveller campaign in 2018. Now, Traveller does have trading rules which the players can interact with, and suddenly the players were interested in commerce (even though only one of them owned a starship). So the interest in trading play came as a consequence of the rules being there, not the other way around. And anecdotal evidence I've collected lends further credence to the hypothesis that "if you build it, they will come" (with apologies to Kevin Costner).

And after all, nothing forces the players to engage with a system. If you have a system for extemporaneous magic and another for rigid, Vancian-adjacent magic, the players can always ignore one, the other, or both by simply not making casters of either or both systems. Or the dungeoneering procedures by limiting themselves to wilderness or urban adventures. That doesn't mean that the system should not be there. It is simply another option.

Quote from: amacris on May 20, 2023, 02:21:59 PMThe entire economic engine has had the "hood lifted" and can be customized to taste.

I'm curious how the system models economics when simulating anything that's not 100% grounded in reality. And wouldn't that still at best be just an estimate and ergo GM-handwaving?
I agree with some of your sentiment, but how do you apply narritivanium conventions to real-world physics/economics?

I get choosing the complexity level you have fun with, and you clearly prefer more, but economic models in real life struggle painfully to simulate things accurately, so Im not sure how they could simulate worlds where the price of grain can drop on harvest festivals when "The Peoples faith for the Goddess Zaluka is pure, but only if she succeeds pushing away the Darkmoore horde in the heavens that quadlunar cycle".

Greetings!

In my own Thandor World, I have been running campaigns for years, decades even, where Domain rules and systems were used constantly. I think having a robust set of flexible domain rules are very important, and very useful. In one of my campaigns, there was one Player Character that became the Queen and Empress of a majestic and powerful empire that has over 200 million inhabitants. The mighty empire features a professional, Imperial Army of 2,000,000 Legionnaires. In addition, there are some 3,000,000 reservists, militia, Urban Cohorts, and retired, elite Evocati warriors that can be swiftly recalled to duty. The Evocati, while retired, are all elite warriors that have completed a 20-year career serving in the Legions.

In another campaign, a Player Character married a particular High Elf Prince, and became a Princess of an ancient and powerful Elven Kingdom. That Elven Kingdom that the Player Character became a Princess of has a population of 20 million elves. That Elven Kingdom has a standing professional Royal Army of 500,000 warriors, with highly-trained reserves comprised of an additional 500,000 Elven troops.

Another Player Character became a prominent Noble and warlord in a Black Arghana Kingdom, and controlled vast lands, millions of people, and a powerful army of some 200,000 warriors, as well as 14,000 Light Cavalry, 4,000 Heavy Cavalry, and 2,000 elite War Elephants. The rich provinces that were part of his domain had several huge cities, extensive trade networks, and which produced vast supplies of elephant ivory, fine gold, and copper, as well as enormous supplies of grain, fruits, and herd animals.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 20, 2023, 07:35:50 PM

Quote from: amacris on May 20, 2023, 02:21:59 PMThe entire economic engine has had the "hood lifted" and can be customized to taste.

I'm curious how the system models economics when simulating anything that's not 100% grounded in reality. And wouldn't that still at best be just an estimate and ergo GM-handwaving?
I agree with some of your sentiment, but how do you apply narritivanium conventions to real-world physics/economics?

I get choosing the complexity level you have fun with, and you clearly prefer more, but economic models in real life struggle painfully to simulate things accurately, so Im not sure how they could simulate worlds where the price of grain can drop on harvest festivals when "The Peoples faith for the Goddess Zaluka is pure, but only if she succeeds pushing away the Darkmoore horde in the heavens that quadlunar cycle".

Well, sadly, almost nobody, even ACKS players, cares about the effect of magic on flora. Take Game of Thrones. The island-continent of Westeros has flora and fauna similar to that found in England and Europe, even though it has seasons that magically can last years; any climatologist would tell you that you'd have totally different biomes but GRRM didn't care, neither did his readers, and neither do people who want to play RPGs in Westeros. He certainly didn't take into account the effect of the magic seasons on the price of wheat. My target audience -- the sort of people who'd want to start off as Jon Snow the 1st level ranger and eventually become King of the North and commander of huge armies, fighting pitched battles vs the Wildlings and Others, tracking his supply lines through the North, etc., -- also don't care about that. This annoys me so much I can't enjoy GOT anymore. But since even my target audience doesn't care, I try not to worry about it too much.

But I still worry about it enough that I did put some effort into it, and ACKS actually can (if I'm understanding the example) simulate the situation you describe. When a realm ruler manages his realm, his clerics can extract divine power from the peasantry thru worship. The amount of divine power available is determined by the morale of the peasants. The morale of the peasants is affected by whether their religion and the realm ruler's religion are in alignment, whether they have enough food, taxes, etc. The clerics can then use divine power to consecrate the fields or perform rituals to make the harvests bountiful. Conversely, evil clerics can use rituals to damage the crops. There are then a number of Vagaries tables for the Judges that can allow events that raise or lower domain morale, offer good or bad omens, and so on. Finally, there's an abstract resolution system for mass combat that would allow you to fight the Heavenly Host vs the Darkmoore Horde if you really wanted to.

So, for instance, you might set up the realm so that the realm ruler anticipates that all of his domains will earn an extra 1gp per month in domain revenue from having consecrated fields. But then a Vagary "bad omens in the heavens" causes domain morale to fall, and the clerics don't have enough to consecrate the fields. That in turn drops revenue for the ruler. The Judge can then adjust the demand modifier for "wheat, grains" on the merchandise table, which will make the price of wheat go up.

Note that there are others levers as well -- for instance, a realm with high  morale and devout clerics that uses magic to enhance its food supply can then lower taxes on the peasants while still keeping the realm ruler with enough money to support his army, castle, etc. The lower taxes will feed into higher morale, which in turn causes higher birth rate, makes it harder to do spying and crime in the realm, and so on.

==
From ACKS II Revised Rulebook:

CONSECRATING FIELDS
A divine caster can use divine power to consecrate a domain's fields. Consecrating fields is an ongoing dedicated activity requiring 1 day per 780 peasants (round up). Upon completing the consecration, the spellcaster must expend 2gp of divine power per family and make a magic research throw. If the throw succeeds, the fields have been consecrated. Consecration increases the Land Value by 1gp per peasant family during the next month's Revenue Collection phase. If the throw is an unmodified 1, the consecration goes awry, and the Land Value is decreased by 1gp per peasant family during the next month's Revenue Collection phase. Fields may be consecrated repeatedly if sufficient divine power is available, and legends tell of garden-like realms blessed by the gods.


HARVEST*
Divine 7         Type: esoteric, ritual   
Range: 12 miles      Duration: 12 months

This spell enables the caster to channel divine energy into the land around him, blessing it with fertile soil and bountiful harvests. Harvest increases the land value of all territory within 12 miles (1 24-mile hex or 500 square miles) by 2gp per peasant family for the next 12 months. See Collecting Revenue in the Domains and Realms section for details on land value. 
Ravage, the reverse of harvest, decreases the land value of all territory within 12 miles by 2gp per peasant family for the next 12 months. Ravage can be undone by a successful remove curse cast by a spellcaster of greater level than the caster lor by a harvest spell.
==

Quote from: SHARK on May 20, 2023, 08:25:39 PM
Greetings!

In my own Thandor World, I have been running campaigns for years, decades even, where Domain rules and systems were used constantly. I think having a robust set of flexible domain rules are very important, and very useful. In one of my campaigns, there was one Player Character that became the Queen and Empress of a majestic and powerful empire that has over 200 million inhabitants. The mighty empire features a professional, Imperial Army of 2,000,000 Legionnaires. In addition, there are some 3,000,000 reservists, militia, Urban Cohorts, and retired, elite Evocati warriors that can be swiftly recalled to duty. The Evocati, while retired, are all elite warriors that have completed a 20-year career serving in the Legions.

In another campaign, a Player Character married a particular High Elf Prince, and became a Princess of an ancient and powerful Elven Kingdom. That Elven Kingdom that the Player Character became a Princess of has a population of 20 million elves. That Elven Kingdom has a standing professional Royal Army of 500,000 warriors, with highly-trained reserves comprised of an additional 500,000 Elven troops.

Another Player Character became a prominent Noble and warlord in a Black Arghana Kingdom, and controlled vast lands, millions of people, and a powerful army of some 200,000 warriors, as well as 14,000 Light Cavalry, 4,000 Heavy Cavalry, and 2,000 elite War Elephants. The rich provinces that were part of his domain had several huge cities, extensive trade networks, and which produced vast supplies of elephant ivory, fine gold, and copper, as well as enormous supplies of grain, fruits, and herd animals.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

That's awesome. So many people are terrified of running games at that level of scope and grandeur. Your campaign sounds epic af.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 20, 2023, 07:35:50 PM

Quote from: amacris on May 20, 2023, 02:21:59 PMThe entire economic engine has had the "hood lifted" and can be customized to taste.

I'm curious how the system models economics when simulating anything that's not 100% grounded in reality. And wouldn't that still at best be just an estimate and ergo GM-handwaving?
I agree with some of your sentiment, but how do you apply narritivanium conventions to real-world physics/economics?

I get choosing the complexity level you have fun with, and you clearly prefer more, but economic models in real life struggle painfully to simulate things accurately, so Im not sure how they could simulate worlds where the price of grain can drop on harvest festivals when "The Peoples faith for the Goddess Zaluka is pure, but only if she succeeds pushing away the Darkmoore horde in the heavens that quadlunar cycle".

As I understand it, price fluctuation is less important than price averages at the macroeconomic scale, because in the ancient world while price fluctuations were common, they were very local. In the modern, heavily globalized economy, fluctuations happen more globally and there aren't opportunities for significant arbitrage at scale, whereas arbitrage was basically what drove long-range trade along e.g. the Silk Road. So while local price fluctuations can be significant, in the bigger picture they average out.

The other key piece to building the foundations of a functioning economic model is to start with basic subsistence. Basic agricultural products have inherent value (because people need food), so that can be pegged to historic economies, and then other sources (e.g. the Domesday Book, the Edict of Diocletian, etc.) can be used to establish relative  baseline prices for other goods. Then the wages of various professionals can be determined based on their cost of living and the value of their production, etc.

Once that model is working soundly, the income of various rulers and authorities can be worked out, synced further with cost of living, and from that their level can be determined (ACKS awards XP for GP earned from domains, less an "XP Threshold" value, structured very cunningly such that a character earning e.g. 3200 gp per month will eventually level up to an 8th level character who can just cover their living expenses with that amount). The macroeconomic structure thus determines the number of levelled rulers in the setting. Similar cycles have been developed to determine the amount of clergy gathering worship from the crowds for their deities, arcanists in their towers doing research, soldiers getting XP from battles, merchants getting XP from arbitrage, thieves' getting XP from hijinks, raiders getting XP from pillaging, etc. etc. to create a complete model. Obviously this is a simplified description, some of the people who've gotten to check out the spreadsheets have crashed their computer just opening them.

From there, Archon has modelled out the productivity of mages in item creation to determine the equilibrium availability of magic items, the demand for various fantastical creatures and thus market for them, the availability of arcane and divine magic in settlements of various sizes, etc. The Axioms e-zine and ACKS Patreon contain a lot of depth for people to dig into on this stuff if desired, which I certainly do, but my players mostly just use the final table and guidelines when it's relevant "how many cows can we sell in this village of 300 people?" or "how long will we have to wait to find a buyer for this Sword +1?" It's also a handy worldbuilding tool, when I can look at a region and determine based on it's size and population what level the ruler is likely to be, along with levels for as many other characters there as I care to detail. And that stuff in turn creates new play opportunities, whether it be "we'll need to voyage across the strait to reach a settlement big enough to liquidate our treasure in a reasonable time frame" or "based on his lands, this guy's probably a 7th level Count, and if I conquer his lands I'll get a nice monthly XP payout so long as I can hold onto them."

Quote from: amacris on May 20, 2023, 10:14:31 PM

Quote from: SHARK on May 20, 2023, 08:25:39 PM
Greetings!

In my own Thandor World, I have been running campaigns for years, decades even, where Domain rules and systems were used constantly. I think having a robust set of flexible domain rules are very important, and very useful. In one of my campaigns, there was one Player Character that became the Queen and Empress of a majestic and powerful empire that has over 200 million inhabitants. The mighty empire features a professional, Imperial Army of 2,000,000 Legionnaires. In addition, there are some 3,000,000 reservists, militia, Urban Cohorts, and retired, elite Evocati warriors that can be swiftly recalled to duty. The Evocati, while retired, are all elite warriors that have completed a 20-year career serving in the Legions.

In another campaign, a Player Character married a particular High Elf Prince, and became a Princess of an ancient and powerful Elven Kingdom. That Elven Kingdom that the Player Character became a Princess of has a population of 20 million elves. That Elven Kingdom has a standing professional Royal Army of 500,000 warriors, with highly-trained reserves comprised of an additional 500,000 Elven troops.

Another Player Character became a prominent Noble and warlord in a Black Arghana Kingdom, and controlled vast lands, millions of people, and a powerful army of some 200,000 warriors, as well as 14,000 Light Cavalry, 4,000 Heavy Cavalry, and 2,000 elite War Elephants. The rich provinces that were part of his domain had several huge cities, extensive trade networks, and which produced vast supplies of elephant ivory, fine gold, and copper, as well as enormous supplies of grain, fruits, and herd animals.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

That's awesome. So many people are terrified of running games at that level of scope and grandeur. Your campaign sounds epic af.

Greetings!

Thank you, Amacris! Yes, I agree. Far too many people are *terrified* of running Epic, Domain-Level games!

I have notations on my regional maps detailing ERS, and MRS for every province and hex. ERS is (Earthly Resource Strength), while MRS is (Magical Resource Strength). Each of these classifications has a further "Quality Modifier" of Excellent, Superior, Standard, Modest, and Poor.

Some province having an Enchanted Grove of Orange Trees can be a reason to go to war. Or, of course, a strong motivator to forge friendships and alliances. What do the Magic Oranges do? Daily consumption provides a given population a +25% Resistance Bonus to Disease; steady supply for 1 year and a day, and more, results in the province's population having extended health and vigor, and also prolongs their racial lifespan by +25%. The province becomes happier and more joyful, and also has a Fertility Bonus of +25%. For Elves, the Magic Oranges affect them differently; Elves gain Advantage on Musicianship and other Performance skills. However, the Magic Oranges have a high Addiction Factor, with cessation causing withdrawal and depression. Elves also experience enhanced happiness and joy, and gain the +25% Fertility Bonus.

Thus, as a Magical Resource, these Magic Oranges are very valuable to everyone, and much sought after. Most especially, though, the Magical Oranges are particularly cherished by the Elves. The Elves of course keep most crops of Magic Oranges for themselves, but occasionally trading crops of Magic Oranges to other peoples brings in vast wealth for the Elves.

I have various minor bonuses and enhancements for Earthly Resources, from Herd Animals, Game Animals, to Timber, Plants, Cereal Crops, Vegetables, Fruits, Nuts, Spices, Fish, Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians, Insect Harvests, Weird Meat, Metals and Ores, and Stone, in addition to Gems, and Exotic Resources.

Then, I have settlements, whether villages, towns, or cities, or Encampments, that are involved with producing items and goods from whatever resources. Fabric, Fur, Linen, Wool, Cotton, Teeth, Claws, Hides, Leather, Rubber, Herbal Medicines, Alchemical Resources, Salt, Pepper, jewelry, and the various armour, weapons, vehicles, tools, clothing, household goods, and more. All of which provides detailed frame works for what provinces and settlements are valuable for, and how. Settlements have a CSR (Crafting/Commercial Strength Rating), again, using the previously mentioned quality scale. The CSR quickly provides an idea of how well a particular community gathers, manages, produces, and sells whatever resources they possess.

All of this, incidentally, also creates a whole sub-genre of mass-scale industrial and resource themed magical items for the campaign.

Beyond such immediate benefits, these elements provide endless detail, scope, and motivations for politics, alliances, cross-border raids, full-scale warfare, as well as more localized adventure scenarios and opportunities.

All of this deeper scope of campaign detail makes a strong, vibrant, and diverse skill system essential. I have always expanded and continue to embrace using a powerful skill system. There is simply far too much specialized knowledge and abilities that the players and I, as the GM, need to keep track of that go far beyond a handful of skills used for crawling into dungeons.

As for the theme and scope, I think it is important to allow some measure of the fantastic into the game. We aren't always starving, helpless peasants covered in mud, after all. Just watch how insane your players get when they command an army of 200,000 troops and are marching into an enemy kingdom, fighting great battles, conducting fantastic sieges, blowing war horns, listening to the screams of dying men. Crushing their enemies under their hooves in victory, and hearing the lamentations of the women...

My players get very excited and can hardly wait to reach high levels as Characters. EPIC ADVENTURES AWAIT!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK     

I generally try to avoid complex player-facing rules, since they are both anti-immersive and typically give the player a lot more information than the PC should have. Pure handwavium does not work well in a coin-counting game like D&D, either, but would likely be the best approach in eg Star Wars. For my Forgotten Realms Damara feudal setting, it's important to know population as this determines the size of the feudal levy (40 days service/year), what resources the ruler owns, and general taxation if any. My game is set mostly in southern Arcata which is sparsely populated but rich in mineral wealth, so the main thing that needs tracking is mine output, and how much of that goes to the PC ruler. My baseline is that a mine worth tracking produces 1d6x200gp of material per month, a domain ruler owner takes 50% of that, while 40% goes on expenses and 10% of output is tithed to the higher ruler. If the mine is owned by someone else, baseline the local noble takes a 10% tithe and the higher ruler another 10%.  Taxes could be increased above a tithe, these are the minimums that keep everyone happy.

Here's what I have on my Campaign Rules page:

Territory Development
When characters clear and rule territory around a stronghold (at least 10 miles radius in wilderness), they may receive a tax income of typically 3d3 or 6 silver pieces per inhabitant per month, including Resource income. High level Fighters, and some other classes, may also have a body of Followers come to serve them. A typical initial domain has 2-8 (2d4) hamlets, each with 101-400 (1d3x100 + 1d100) people. Politically this is, or is equivalent to, a minor Barony.

Typical Followers for PC Level 9+ ("Lord")

Warlord's Followers (roll d4 or choose)
(1). 20 light cavalry (9gp/m), ringmail & shield AC 16, longsword, hand axe, 3 javelins.
      100 heavy infantry (6gp/m), scale AC 15, halberd, club.
(2) 20 heavy infantry (6p/m), splint & shield AC 19, morningstar, hand axe.
      60 pike infantry (6gp/m), padded AC 12, long pike, short sword.
(3) 40 heavy crossbowmen (6gp/m), chain AC 16, heavy crossbow, shortsword
      20 light crossbowmen (6gp/m), chain AC 16, light crossbow, shortsword 
(4) 10 heavy cavalry (15gp/m), splint & shield AC 19, lance longsword & mace
      20 medium cavalry (12gp/m), scale & shield AC 17, lance longsword & mace
      30 light cavalry (9gp/m), studded & shield AC 15, lance & flail
Troops typically are veterans and use Mercenary stats (hp 16, ST+2 DE+1 CO+1), with adjustments for equipment as above.

Troop Commander (d4):
(1) Veteran, plate armour & shield AC 20, +2 longsword or +2 battle-axe
(2) Knight, plate armour & +1 shield AC 21, +1 longsword & +1 lance
(3) Veteran, +1 plate armour & shield AC 21, +1 longbow & +1 longsword
(4) Knight, +1 plate & +1 shield AC 22, +2 longsword or +2 battle-axe, barded heavy warhorse with horseshoes of speed.
Commander Upkeep: 60gp/month

Troop Lieutenant (d4)
(1)-(2) Fighter-2, splint & shield AC 19
(3) Fighter-3, plate & shield AC 20
(4) Fighter-4, plate & shield AC 20, +1 longsword
The Lieutenant can advance to Fighter-4 in play. They may eventually become a Veteran or Knight.
Lieutenant Upkeep: 30gp/month
The Troop Lieutenant may be created by the Player or DM, using Standard Array attributes.

Alternate Followers
Rogue's Guild: 1d3 MM Spy, 2d3 MM Thug, 1d3 Rogue-1 (hp 10 DEX+3)
Wizard's Tower: 1d3 Wizard-1, 2d6 Mercenary (hp 16 ST+2)
Priest's Temple: 1 MM Priest, 2d3 MM Acolyte, 2d6 Mercenary (hp 16 ST+2), 1d3 Cleric-1 (hp 9 WIS+2)
Druid's Grove: 1d2 MM Druid sc4, 1d3 Druid-1 (hp 9 WIS+2)
Bard's Company: 1d2 VGTM Bard sc4, 1d3 MM Spy, 1d3 Bard-1 (hp 9  CHA+2)
Barbarian's Holdfast: 1d3 MM Berserker, 20d6 MM Tribal Warrior, 1d3 Barbarian-1 (hp 14 ST+3)
Other classes typically acquire 1d3 1st level followers of the character's own class, eg a Fighter Lord may acquire 1d3 Fighter-1 (hp 12 ST+3).

Elven Lord's Followers:
20 Elf Scout with longbow, shortsword & studded leather, 10 Elf Guard with splinted armour shield longsword & javelins, one Elf Knight with plate armour shield & magic longsword, one Elf Scout Veteran with mithril half plate, shortsword & magic longbow.

PC-class Followers may be created by the Player or DM, using Standard Array attributes.

Most strongholds will also attract an appropriate number of Commoners to serve the PC. A Wizard's Tower might have only 1d6, where a Warlord's fortress has 10d6 or more.
Losses of non-classed followers may typically be replaced at a rate of 5% of initial total per month, eg a force of 120 can replace 6/month.

Classed Followers
Classed followers may use a generic template as above, or may be created by the player using the standard PC rules (and may be played as a PC in lower level adventures). Classed followers are not replaced if lost, but every month there is a 10% chance to acquire one additional such follower.
Charisma Limit: No character may ever have more classed followers (aka Henchmen) at once than their Charisma bonus +4 ; eg CHA 8 (-1) enables 3 such followers, while CHA 20 (+5) enables 9 such followers.

Realm Improvements

Magic Resources

Religious
Shrine (1 Acolyte sc1): 1,500gp & 5 weeks. Requires: Thorpe pop. 20
Church (1 Priest sc3, 1 Acolyte sc1): 4,500gp & 7 weeks. Requires: Hamlet pop.100
Temple (1 Priest sc5, 2 Priest sc3, 4 Acolyte sc1): 15,000gp & 11 weeks. Requires: Village pop. 500
Abbey (1 Abbott/Abbess sc5, 2 Senior Brother/Sister sc 3, 4 Monk/Nun sc 2, 8 Monk/Nun sc1): 50,000gp & 57 weeks. Requires: -
Cathedral (1 Bishop sc7, 2 Priest sc4, 4 Priest sc2, 8 Acolyte sc1):  42,000gp & 20 weeks. Requires: Small City pop. 6,000

Arcane
Arcane Tower (1 Wizard sc3, 1 Apprentice Wizard sc1): 4,500gp & 8 weeks. Requires: -
Arcane School or Guild Hall (1 Wizard sc5, 2 Wizard sc3, 4 Apprentice Wizard sc1): 15,000gp & 14 weeks. Requires: Small Town pop. 1,500
Arcane Academy (1 Mage sc9, 2 Wizard sc5, 4 Wizard sc3, 8 Apprentice Wizard sc1): 54,000gp & 31 weeks. Requires: Small City pop. 6,000

Mercantile & Administrative
Trading post (improves all Resource income by +10% in a 2 hex/20 mile radius): 5,000gp & 8 weeks. Requires: -
Guildhall (improves 1 Resource income by +20% in a 2 hex/20 mile radius): 5,000gp & 12 weeks. Requires Large Town pop. 3,000.
Noble Estate with Manor, luxurious (improves Tax income by +10% in a 2 hex/20 mile radius): 25,000gp & 21 weeks. Requires: -
Imperial Palace (improves Tax income by +10% across entire dominion): 500,000gp & 3 years. Requires: -

Fortification
Tower/Broch: 10,000gp & 12 weeks. Can hold 30 infantry.
Motte & Bailey: 20,000gp & 18 weeks. Can hold 60 infantry.
Small Castle: 40,000gp & 30 weeks. Can hold 125 infantry.
Large Castle: 80,000gp & 45 weeks. Can hold 250 infantry.
Fortress: 160,000gp & 60 weeks. Can hold 500 infantry.
Citadel: 320,000gp & 90 weeks. Can hold 1,000 infantry.
One light cavalry = 3 infantry. One medium or heavy cavalry = 4 infantry.

Castle Build Elements - Construction Cost
20' stone wall, 10' thick, per 20' section: 1000gp.
30' stone wall, as above: 2000gp
40' stone wall, as above: 4000gp
Round Tower, 5' thick walls, 20' diameter, 30' high: 5000gp
Round Tower, 5' thick walls, 30' diameter, 40' high: 12000gp
Square Keep, 10' thick walls, 60'x60', 40' high: 40,000gp
Moat/Ditch, 20' wide, 10' deep, per 20' section: 80gp
Gatehouse 30'x20', 20' high, with portcullis: 6500gp
Dungeon Corridor, 10'x10', flagstone: 50gp
Stone building (2 story & attic, 30' peak, 120' of outer wall (typically 40'x20'), wooden doors, stairs, floors, roof, 1'-2' walls): 3000gp
Wooden Building (as above): 1000gp
Minimum time to build is 1 day per 500gp cost.

Manor Resource Improvements
At Manor Scale, 1 hex = 2 miles. For Baronial Scale (1 hex = 10 miles) multiply costs & incomes by x10.
25gp/month = 300gp/year. 50gp/month =600gp/year.
Mine (requires valuable minerals): cost 2d4x100gp, income +1d6x100gp/month. Population +2d4
Smelter (requires Mine): cost 1,000gp, income +2d4x10gp/month. Population +2d4
Logging Camp (requires Forest**): cost 1,000gp, income +1d4x10gp/month. Population +4d4
Sawmill (requires Logging Camp): cost 2,000gp, income +2d4x10gp/month. Population +2d4
Improved Farmland (requires Plains***): cost 2,000gp, income +2d4x10gp/m. Population +4d4
Fishing Ship (requires Sea): cost 2,000gp, income +2d4x10gp/m. Population +2d4

*Typically a 1 in 6 chance there is a mining resource per two mile hex. With one surveyor a survey takes 1 month (& a typical 30gp hireling cost) per 2 mile hex, requires a character with Miner's Tools Proficiency or equivalent and a successful proficiency (INT) check at a DC of 5+1d10 (1e: 4 in 6 chance of success).
If a resource is discovered, the GM rolls 1d6, or selects:
1: clay or stone quarry 100gp/m
2: lead or coal mine 200gp/m
3: copper or oil/tar mine 300gp/m
4: silver or tin mine 400gp/m
5: gold mine or marble quarry 500gp/m
6: platinum or gemstone mine 600gp/m

**One two mile hex, approx 3.5 sq m of forest.
***One square mile of arable land.

Baronial Domains

Resources per hex (Baronial Scale, 1 hex = 10 miles across, approx 85 sq m)
1: 1 resource
2-7: 2 resources
8-9: 3 resources
10: 4 resources

Resource Type
1-3 Animal (eg dairy, fish, fowl, furs, bees, horses, ivory, beef, pork)
4-8 Vegetable (eg farm produce, foodstuffs, oil, fodder, wood & timber, paper, wine)
9-10 Mineral (as above)

Baronial Income per 10 mile (85 sq mile) hex, a domain has 1+ hexes.
Animal Resource: 10 sp/person/month, max 1d4x1,000 (2,500) gp/month per hex.
Vegetable Resource: 5 sp/person/month, max 1d6x1,000 (3,500) gp/month per hex.
Mineral Resource: 15 sp/person/month, max 1d8x1,000gp (4,500) gp/month per hex.

The maximum resource income for a 10-mile domain hex thus varies from 1,000gp/month, to 32,000gp/month!

Towns & Cities: These generate 5 sp per person per month in taxes and tolls.
Theocratic Domains generate an additional 2 sp per person per month in tithes.

10-mile Hex Population & Rate of Increase
Population will naturally increase through immigration and birth up to the limit of available resources. Eg an intensively farmed domain with 4 vegetable resources generating up to 140,000gp total could have a population of 28,000.
1-100:     +20/month
101-200: +20/month
201-300: +30/month
301-400: +30/month
401-500: +20/month
501-1000: +20/month
1001-2000: +10/month
2001-4000: +10/month
40001-8000: +10/month
8001-16000: +10/month
16001+: +10/month
An untaxed population increases by an additional +30/month, up to the resource limit of the domain.

Urbanisation
Population centres begin to emerge when a hex population reaches 10,000. At this point 10% of the population may be considered urban, generating an additional 5sp/month per urban inhabitant.

Typical Net Personal Income
After all reasonable expenses including military and infrastructure, as a rule of thumb a typical dominion including sub-dominions generates 0.5 sp per person per month (or 5sp/person/year) as personal wealth to the ruler, which can be spent however he or she desires.
Dominion Status: net Income per month (x10 for per Year)
1. Wretched: 0.1 sp, 1 gp per 100 people
2. Poor: 0.2 sp, 1gp per 50 people
3. Unassuming: 0.3 sp
4. Modest: 0.4 sp
5. Typical: 0.5 sp, 1 gp per 20 people
6. Comfortable: 0.6 sp
7. Wealthy: 0.8 sp
8. Rich: 1 sp, 1 gp per 10 people

Example 1: Damara in 1360 DR is overall a Poor Dominion, with an incorporated population of some 750,000 generating (750,000/50)= net 15,000gp per month for King Dimian I Ree Banacath.
Example 2: Impiltur in 1360 DR is overall a Typical Dominion, with an incorporated population of 1,100,000 generating net 55,000gp per month for the Crown - nominally the Queen Regent, in fact the Lords of Imphras II.

My mass combat rules are at http://simonyrpgs.blogspot.com/2023/05/diaz-freeform-mass-combat-system.html

Quote from: Wtrmute on May 19, 2023, 04:51:41 PM
Yeah, the best domain rules I've seen are really @amacris 's ACKS rules. Keep a running tab of how many families labor under your lordship and how productive the land is ("economic power") and how much you spend on your armies to keep the peace ("military power"). Then the other PCs get "drafted in" as magistrates and factota of the ruler PC, if they don't have their own domains to rule (in which case they can probably set up an alliance bloc to help one another).

The more abstract rules in the Old School Companion seem to be more for the kind of party who's supposed to be dungeon delving even when they're in the top ten highest leveled in the kingdom, which in a Medieval Authentic setting doesn't make a terrible lot of sense: a high level character, even if he was originally a serf, will quickly discover that he was secretly the son of a mighty noble, since of course random serfs can't become great, so if they do then it's proof that they weren't random serfs from the beginning... And in any case they will probably be granted titles of nobility and a fief somewhere where there are monsters and they need to be cleared off and the land colonized.

What's much more sensible in Medieval Authentic play is that social growth is extremely difficult. It doesn't matter if you're level 9 or level 19, you may be extremely famous, as a soldier, or a thief, or whatever, but you still won't just be made into a Lord. Before the Renaissance, that almost never happened. Occasionally someone might be knighted.  Of course, commoners could get offices or special ranks. They could be given salaries, a manor house, or other benefits. But no, your level should have almost NOTHING to do with your ability to move up the social ladder; only your accomplishments could potentially do that, and it's not very likely.

Quote from: Wtrmute on May 20, 2023, 03:43:36 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on May 20, 2023, 10:34:17 AM
In my case I've never really dealt with domain management because it's almost never come up in any game I've played. And the few instances that it has, the GM invariably "GM Fiat" it based on what they were willing to put with to handle it, as well as the specifics of their campaign. But 99% of the game still focused on personal adventures without keeping tract of armies of followers or your kingdom's finances.

I believe you, but I have played AD&D and oWoD then D&D for twenty years and my group never once tried to do commerce, until we tried a Traveller campaign in 2018. Now, Traveller does have trading rules which the players can interact with, and suddenly the players were interested in commerce (even though only one of them owned a starship). So the interest in trading play came as a consequence of the rules being there, not the other way around. And anecdotal evidence I've collected lends further credence to the hypothesis that "if you build it, they will come" (with apologies to Kevin Costner).

And after all, nothing forces the players to engage with a system. If you have a system for extemporaneous magic and another for rigid, Vancian-adjacent magic, the players can always ignore one, the other, or both by simply not making casters of either or both systems. Or the dungeoneering procedures by limiting themselves to wilderness or urban adventures. That doesn't mean that the system should not be there. It is simply another option.

I don't doubt that there might be people who enjoy that, and I've often considered it as well. But this still requires player buy-in, and most people I've played with don't even read the rules that concern their own character abilities, so they're probably not even gonna know that domain management rules exist if they're included in the manual. And even if they do, this is still something that ultimately entails extra bookkeeping for me specifically. Since the players are not gonna keep track of this stuff, and even if they do (most won't) I still need to get involved in order to be able to incorporate this stuff into play, so a considerable amount of the bookkeeping will always fall onto me, times whatever number of PCs have a domain.

So unless those rules are very elegant and succinct, and easily customizable for my purposes and specific circumstances in my game, I'm probably gonna ignore them and just winging it--IF/when it even comes up (which probably won't be very often). Combat and skill related tasks, however? Those always come up during play, which is why it always makes sense to include rules for those in a TTRPG. They might not all come up in every session (some skills might come up, but not others), but there will almost invariably be some type of task resolution in every session. But stuff like domain management is kinda optional and supplementary, and rarely come up unless it's a specialized game that specifically revolves around it.

Like, if you were doing a Dune RPG (I ain't touching anything 2d20, so I don't know the current one), you would definitely need some domain management stuff if you want it to be anything like the novels and cover the sort of stuff that's important in that setting. But for a game like D&D and most "action adventure" games, I tend to see this as more like supplementary material that should probably be covered in detail in a splat book or something rather than take up space in the core manual. Though, I suppose covering it in the DMG wouldn't hurt, but I'm not entirely a fan of separate GM manuals for RPGs and probably wouldn't make one if I was publishing my own game. I'd probably just do splat books or some RPGPundit Presents style pamphlets people are more likely to snag from some rando publisher than a DMG style book.

Quote from: amacris on May 20, 2023, 09:56:25 PMWell, sadly, almost nobody, even ACKS players, cares about the effect of magic on flora.

I am aware your system has magic things in it as options. I was asking more:
How are your arbitrary picks for how magic would affect economics/sociology any different from just GM fiat or benchmarking?
Doesn't that seem to be a lot of effort for a simulation that just reaches a black box of non-existentium that just shrugs and says "Figure it out?".

QuoteTake Game of Thrones.

Well, it's more interested in its themes and ideas (I find its themes and ideas crap, but that's a separate story). While I love holding its nonsensical worldbuilding against GRR and his own wanky "Whats his tax policy" claptrap, I find worldbuilding to at best be something that has to suit a setting's themes. It's better when it aligns, but it will never be even 50% realistic.

A Deathstar will probably never be economically or militarily viable. There is probably absolutely no way for the DSII to explode and not heavily damage Endor. But I'd much rather experience a setting to simulate a mood or thematic premises than deal with an alternate reality theoretical physics engine to ensure every molecule can be accounted for.

Now to be clear, even if I don't get the appeal, doesn't mean I don't appreciate different things existing for different people.

Quote from: SHARK on May 20, 2023, 11:17:51 PMThank you, Amacris! Yes, I agree. Far too many people are *terrified* of running Epic, Domain-Level games!

I would argue by far more people just absolutely positively do not care about it. I love domain management, and base building, especially if magic or sci-fi tech is involved. But my players never do.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 21, 2023, 10:22:16 AM
I am aware your system has magic things in it as options. I was asking more:
How are your arbitrary picks for how magic would affect economics/sociology any different from just GM fiat or benchmarking?
Doesn't that seem to be a lot of effort for a simulation that just reaches a black box of non-existentium that just shrugs and says "Figure it out?".

They're not arbitrary. They are finely tuned and carefully integrated. The idea that choices can be "arbitrary" is exactly why most domain systems fail. An economy is an interlocking system with emergent properties. GM Fiat cannot address emergent properties and benchmarking leads to absurd results if you don't cross-check the benchmarks against each other, which you can only do if you have a system built to check them with.

It took me 30 seconds to say "1 peasant family yields 12gp per month" and then it took me 10 years to figure out everything that implies about the world. People often do the former and think they've created domain rules, but they almost never do the latter. Then they wonder why their campaign world makes no sense ("I can't afford to field an army based on my population!") and handwave it. They wrongly conclude that handwaving is better because they didn't actually do the hard part of the game design.

I've done the hard work so others don't have to. The ACKS economy has a:

- Demographics of heroism that calculates exactly how many characters of each level there are, based on the availability of activities that let them gain XP, along with their average age, class, etc.

- Bottom-up model. Mixed farming, goat herding, sheep herding, cattle herding, pig farming, olive growing, and wine making are all modeled at the scale of the family, as are lumberjacking, mining, and stone quarrying. I know how much they eat, how much of each good they produce, how much of each good they consume, what their surplus is, etc. All of these are modeled on historical data.

- Top-down model. There's a complete circular flow for the entire continent which calculates the GDP overall, as well as the production quantity of every type of good in the game, and determines how many families are required to satisfy the caloric requirements for different foods, the workforce required for the mines and lumber needed, etc., with every gp entirely accounted for in the circular flow, and with all the input values derived from the bottom-up model.

- Circular Magic model. There's an "economy" of arcane power and divine power based on worship, sacrifice, and reagents. The number of spellcasters of each level is calculated, along with the average amount of research they can do per month, which in turn tells us the inputs required of arcane and divine power and the output of magic items or ritual magic. There's then a depreciation model for loss of magic items of different types each year to anti-magic, destruction, being lost, etc. From this the number of magic items in the world can be calculated based on population growth, and matched to the known wealth of NPCs to determine how many magic items a typical emperor has, etc.

And much more. It just goes on and on. It's over 10 years of work put into it. The ACKS economic system is so good that I was able to use it to predict where Diocletian's prices in his Edict of Prices were *necessarily* wrong. I then researched those specific prices and, voila, I found that other scholars working from historical sales contracts, archeology, etc., had also concluded that those prices were wrong. My model spit out right answers without that data because the model is right. The ACKS model is, without exaggeration, better than anything being used in academia to model ancient economics, to the point that PhDs who have dug into it have suggested I should be publishing academic papers based on it.

So, yah, it's a lot of work. And maybe a lot of people don't care. But it's not arbitrary and it's not something you can emulate with GM fiat or benchmarking.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 21, 2023, 10:22:16 AM
A Deathstar will probably never be economically or militarily viable. There is probably absolutely no way for the DSII to explode and not heavily damage Endor. But I'd much rather experience a setting to simulate a mood or thematic premises than deal with an alternate reality theoretical physics engine to ensure every molecule can be accounted for.
Now to be clear, even if I don't get the appeal, doesn't mean I don't appreciate different things existing for different people.

Of course. I'm not by any means suggesting that ACKS is for everyone. It's all different strokes for different folks. I don't do or want mood emulation. I'm earnestly a simulationist where the rules of the game are the physics of the game world. So I'd never create a game that was centered around Death Stars that weren't economically or physically viable. (And this is why I haven't created a mecha game, even though I love the genre in anime and manga.)

Where I take umbrage is just at the suggestion (not from you) that there's nothing behind the curtain of domain rules, since I've spent 10 years behind the curtain, or that if there is something behind the curtain that no one wants it, since those folks pay my mortgage! It makes me feel like how parapsychologists feel after conducting 10,000 experiments to demonstrate that conscious attention can have a small effect on random number generators, sufficiently robust enough to have the president of the American Statistics Association confirm it, only to be told by a Redditor skeptic that there is "no evidence of parapyschology".  :-\

Quote from: amacris on May 21, 2023, 04:28:32 PM
...
It took me 30 seconds to say "1 peasant family yields 12gp per month" and then it took me 10 years to figure out everything that implies about the world. People often do the former and think they've created domain rules, but they almost never do the latter. Then they wonder why their campaign world makes no sense ("I can't afford to field an army based on my population!") and handwave it. They wrongly conclude that handwaving is better because they didn't actually do the hard part of the game design.
...

(https://media.tenor.com/L3gvF6keUAUAAAAC/its-just-facts-facts.gif)

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 21, 2023, 05:14:53 AM
What's much more sensible in Medieval Authentic play is that social growth is extremely difficult. It doesn't matter if you're level 9 or level 19, you may be extremely famous, as a soldier, or a thief, or whatever, but you still won't just be made into a Lord. Before the Renaissance, that almost never happened. Occasionally someone might be knighted.  Of course, commoners could get offices or special ranks. They could be given salaries, a manor house, or other benefits. But no, your level should have almost NOTHING to do with your ability to move up the social ladder; only your accomplishments could potentially do that, and it's not very likely.

I admire your commitment to historical authenticity and I think that you're right about the medieval world in reality. But, to the extent that medieval authenticity precludes "personal power = political power," I've found that any sort of level-based play with the power curve typically seen in D&D-type games is incompatible with the sort of medieval authenticity you want.

Feudalism arose under very specific conditions of agricultural production, equestrian availability, social structures, and so on, and among those conditions was the limits of human power of the real world. When historical conditions changed, feudalism changed. And if the limits of human power changed, I think feudalism would change. In a world where a wizard can kill a king with a word and then vanish, he WILL have political power, and the governance systems will reflect that. In a world where a warrior can single-handedly cleave through a thousand men, he WILL have political power, etc. It might resemble the medieval world but it won't be authentically the medieval world.

You can overcome this by tweaking the rules to avoid having people become powerful enough to be "weapons of medieval destruction", which I think is a good approach. I assume that's what you've done in L&D or your other books.

The approach I take is to assume personal power DOES equal political power and build from there. The world that ACKS outputs is NOT what historians tell us the ancient and medieval world was like, but it is somewhat like what the ancient and medieval writers tell us that the ancient and medieval world was like. The ancient writers say that Ramses was a god-like warrior on an invincible chariot who single-handedly changed the course of the battle of Kadesh. The ancient writers say that when Aurelian fought Zenobia, Sol Invictus personally descended onto the battlefield and changed the course of the fight. And Julius Caesar had 70hp; that's why it took so many senators to assassinate him.

I've written about this extensively elsewhere:
https://forum.autarch.co/t/political-power-is-personal-power-or-why-julius-caesar-had-70-hit-points/1945

I'm not trying to simulate history, but rather simulate an alternate history where some key variables are different. Just like how some writers write novels like "What would the Middle Ages have been like if machineguns had been available?" or "what if aliens invaded Rome", mine is "what would the ancient and medieval worlds be like if D&D heroes were real". I then use dialectic adjustment with "what would D&D heroes have to be like if the world still resembled the ancient and medieval world" to reach the desired outcome I wanted for ACKS.

Quote from: amacris on May 21, 2023, 04:28:32 PM
It took me 30 seconds to say "1 peasant family yields 12gp per month" and then it took me 10 years to figure out everything that implies about the world. People often do the former and think they've created domain rules, but they almost never do the latter. Then they wonder why their campaign world makes no sense ("I can't afford to field an army based on my population!") and handwave it.

Not being able to afford to field an army seems extremely Medieval, practically Harn-esque.  ;D

Quote from: amacris on May 21, 2023, 04:28:32 PM
The ACKS model is, without exaggeration, better than anything being used in academia to model ancient economics, to the point that PhDs who have dug into it have suggested I should be publishing academic papers based on it.

Was it Greg Clark who said that modern economic models are great for understanding ancient economies, it's modern/industrial economies we have no idea about?  ;D

Pre-industrial economies are based on human and animal labour, plus land/crops, and IME are amazingly consistent and predictable, as you have of course discerned.  Your 12 gp/month output per peasant family is higher than the 5gp/month I use as rule of thumb (it seemed to fit with the numbers I could find for ancient Rome & Greece, Middle Ages feudal Europe of course was not a cash based economy) but I suspect we're either valuing a GP differently, or modelling something slightly different.

Actually...

From what I can recall, the number I had for ancient Rome was around £20/day per adult in modern UK money, 2 SP at 1 SP = £10, which for a family of 2 productive adults is 4 SP/day, which is 120 SP/month, which is...

12 GP/month.  Damn you Macris. You win. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

(I think the 5 GP/month figure I had was going off old BECMI D&D numbers from the 1980s, where daily income was 1 SP = $10. Modern 5e uses 2 SP daily income, $20 or £20) 

Quote from: amacris on May 21, 2023, 04:28:32 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 21, 2023, 10:22:16 AM
I am aware your system has magic things in it as options. I was asking more:
How are your arbitrary picks for how magic would affect economics/sociology any different from just GM fiat or benchmarking?
Doesn't that seem to be a lot of effort for a simulation that just reaches a black box of non-existentium that just shrugs and says "Figure it out?".

They're not arbitrary. They are finely tuned and carefully integrated. The idea that choices can be "arbitrary" is exactly why most domain systems fail. An economy is an interlocking system with emergent properties. GM Fiat cannot address emergent properties and benchmarking leads to absurd results if you don't cross-check the benchmarks against each other, which you can only do if you have a system built to check them with.

It took me 30 seconds to say "1 peasant family yields 12gp per month" and then it took me 10 years to figure out everything that implies about the world. People often do the former and think they've created domain rules, but they almost never do the latter. Then they wonder why their campaign world makes no sense ("I can't afford to field an army based on my population!") and handwave it. They wrongly conclude that handwaving is better because they didn't actually do the hard part of the game design.

I've done the hard work so others don't have to. The ACKS economy has a:

- Demographics of heroism that calculates exactly how many characters of each level there are, based on the availability of activities that let them gain XP, along with their average age, class, etc.

- Bottom-up model. Mixed farming, goat herding, sheep herding, cattle herding, pig farming, olive growing, and wine making are all modeled at the scale of the family, as are lumberjacking, mining, and stone quarrying. I know how much they eat, how much of each good they produce, how much of each good they consume, what their surplus is, etc. All of these are modeled on historical data.

- Top-down model. There's a complete circular flow for the entire continent which calculates the GDP overall, as well as the production quantity of every type of good in the game, and determines how many families are required to satisfy the caloric requirements for different foods, the workforce required for the mines and lumber needed, etc., with every gp entirely accounted for in the circular flow, and with all the input values derived from the bottom-up model.

- Circular Magic model. There's an "economy" of arcane power and divine power based on worship, sacrifice, and reagents. The number of spellcasters of each level is calculated, along with the average amount of research they can do per month, which in turn tells us the inputs required of arcane and divine power and the output of magic items or ritual magic. There's then a depreciation model for loss of magic items of different types each year to anti-magic, destruction, being lost, etc. From this the number of magic items in the world can be calculated based on population growth, and matched to the known wealth of NPCs to determine how many magic items a typical emperor has, etc.

And much more. It just goes on and on. It's over 10 years of work put into it. The ACKS economic system is so good that I was able to use it to predict where Diocletian's prices in his Edict of Prices were *necessarily* wrong. I then researched those specific prices and, voila, I found that other scholars working from historical sales contracts, archeology, etc., had also concluded that those prices were wrong. My model spit out right answers without that data because the model is right. The ACKS model is, without exaggeration, better than anything being used in academia to model ancient economics, to the point that PhDs who have dug into it have suggested I should be publishing academic papers based on it.

So, yah, it's a lot of work. And maybe a lot of people don't care. But it's not arbitrary and it's not something you can emulate with GM fiat or benchmarking.

I don't know about actual economy, GDP growth or production of goods, but suff like levels and XP are game constructs with no a direct real life parallel. And character progression can vary widely by campaign, based on the type of system used by the game or the GM. How XP awards themselves work are already a subject of debate and have a lot of built-in assumptions that are next to impossible to take as objective outside of "it works that way in my game". Stuff like XP for gold, for example, is something that could take up its own thread for me to explain why I hate it passionately and consider it a ridiculous game convention. It has no objective basis on reality outside of "it worked that way in old D&D and the OSR are obsessed with it".

So I'd definitely say that any system that purports to give "accurate" population numbers by character level would, by necessity be arbitrary. There's no way something based entirely around one person's interpretation of how XP awards and level progression should work (both of which are purely abstract game conventions that vary by game even within D&D/d20 System itself) could be anything but arbitrary, or work anywhere outside the context of a specific game built around a specific set of conceits that could not apply universally.

If you accept those conceits as something you want in your game it might give you figures, but whether those figures accurately reflect reality is up for grabs. Similar would apply to magic, since all of this stuff works based on conceits and rules for item creation and magic use that don't universally apply outside a specific game, and we have no way to verify in real life.

And this is not even getting into whether I truly need accurate population data and production figures to run an irregular elf game every few weeks where characters are just gonna crawl down a hole somewhere or invade an enemy encampment to kill some "bad guys" and take their gold. And the group might end up creating new characters before their current ones ever get to domain management stuff. That sort of stuff only works on a specific type of campaign with a specific type of player.

Quote from: amacris on May 21, 2023, 04:28:32 PMIt took me 30 seconds to say "1 peasant family yields 12gp per month" and then it took me 10 years to figure out everything that implies about the world.

Err, that's GM (Or creator) fiat. And also a GM/creator benchmark you set. Now Im sure you're better at maths than me, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't in any way closely calculate a....World peasant average for...GP output? And especially not in 30 seconds. Id hazard a guess that model would do a lot of picking and choosing of what would be more important/fun to actually use in practice even if less accurate/unrealistic. The game development wouldn't be arbitrary, but from the standpoint of modeling reality, it would absolutely be.

Now to be clear I believe that underneath all TTRPG rules ever is basically GM handwaving, which is what separates them from boardgames which have 100% ironclad rules. And rules are generally guideposts. I find the amount of guideposts and the kind to be very important, but the core engine of that is the collective group deciding what is important to model or keep in mind or not.

I can absolutely believe you can have a stronger preference for more guideposts, but its still arbitrary for an emulation of feel to your game. Im not saying the choices you made for your game are just bad. Im saying that they ultimately conform to "Be fun" rather then "Be 1000% realistic". Otherwise every session would be 5 hours of economic simulation per day before any characters do any actions.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 21, 2023, 06:08:57 PM
I'm pretty sure I couldn't in any way closely calculate a....World peasant average for...GP output?

You couldn't nowadays, at least it wouldn't mean much, but the pre-industrial numbers are amazingly consistent over time, just a very very slow uptick in productivity (due to a few innovations such as mouldboard ploughs, horseshoes, harness that doesn't choke the horse, better metallurgy et all).

One thing that's very clear from pre-industrial numbers is that no one lived in "dollar a day" poverty - though they may have died in dollar a day poverty. People were producing in the region of $20-$25 dollars a day consistently across thousands of years.

Quote from: S'mon on May 21, 2023, 06:18:20 PMpre-industrial numbers are amazingly consistent over time

But even as you stated productivity/measure of output is relative. And that's productivity for what peasant? In what place? Void-vania?

And all of this is for 100% real theoretical peasants. Now we introduce different locations, geographies, histories, and places and now estimating peasants of "Not the Real world-istan" becomes increasingly strenous.

And then we introduce magic. At which point, unless making arbitrary decisions like "This magic makes you 10% more productive", you can utterly throw away your economics textbooks.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 21, 2023, 06:23:24 PM
But even as you stated productivity/measure of output is relative. And that's productivity for what peasant? In what place? Void-vania?

Well I've seen numbers from ancient Greece & Rome, and estimates for various times in the Middle Ages - I think the latter was in A Farewell To Alms. They're basically the same, with a few slight upticks over time.

Manpower is extremely consistent, so productivity was extremely consistent. That changed utterly with industrialisation. Suddenly a US textile loom worker is (per Clark) 20 times more productive than an Indian textile loom worker - and that's with basically the same technology.

Quote from: S'mon on May 21, 2023, 06:29:36 PMWell I've seen numbers from ancient Greece & Rome, and estimates for various times in the Middle Ages - I think the latter was in A Farewell To Alms. They're basically the same, with a few slight upticks over time.

I meant like no place undergoing economic troubles, maybe excesses in one place, worse land in another, inefficient management in one specific 10 square miles?
I do recon that the average peasant did have the same "Productivity Output" generators throughout all of the time assuming they were agrarian and where modeling a specific set of time and place, and general geography.

Quote from: VisionStorm on May 21, 2023, 05:33:38 PM
I don't know about actual economy, GDP growth or production of goods, but suff like levels and XP are game constructs with no a direct real life parallel. And character progression can vary widely by campaign, based on the type of system used by the game or the GM. How XP awards themselves work are already a subject of debate and have a lot of built-in assumptions that are next to impossible to take as objective outside of "it works that way in my game". Stuff like XP for gold, for example, is something that could take up its own thread for me to explain why I hate it passionately and consider it a ridiculous game convention. It has no objective basis on reality outside of "it worked that way in old D&D and the OSR are obsessed with it".

So I'd definitely say that any system that purports to give "accurate" population numbers by character level would, by necessity be arbitrary. There's no way something based entirely around one person's interpretation of how XP awards and level progression should work (both of which are purely abstract game conventions that vary by game even within D&D/d20 System itself) could be anything but arbitrary, or work anywhere outside the context of a specific game built around a specific set of conceits that could not apply universally.

If you accept those conceits as something you want in your game it might give you figures, but whether those figures accurately reflect reality is up for grabs. Similar would apply to magic, since all of this stuff works based on conceits and rules for item creation and magic use that don't universally apply outside a specific game, and we have no way to verify in real life.

And this is not even getting into whether I truly need accurate population data and production figures to run an irregular elf game every few weeks where characters are just gonna crawl down a hole somewhere or invade an enemy encampment to kill some "bad guys" and take their gold. And the group might end up creating new characters before their current ones ever get to domain management stuff. That sort of stuff only works on a specific type of campaign with a specific type of player.

It doesn't have to model our history or our reality. It's derived in many ways from our history because it in many ways resembles our history, but it's not our history. What it does have to do is model a coherent, internally consistent world, and DM fiat does not do that. These tools let me quickly and easily develop a stunningly accurate and consistent new reality; if I had been left to do that on my own, it would be hours of research to determine things like "how many barons might one find in the service of a count?", "how much land does each of them rule?", "what's a plausible historic population density for agriculture vs mining vs pastoralism?". It's a monumental challenge because you can't just rip off history, but must instead understand how that would be different in a society with potential for extreme personal power, monsters in the wilds, and powerfully active magic. Handwaving away such concerns cheapens the depth of the game and makes it arbitrary. Having a rigorous and coherent framework actively makes the game less arbitrary.

The fact that certain fundamental inputs are chosen by the creator or DM doesn't make it arbitrary, any more than giving dragons a valuable treasure type is arbitrary. Dragons have a valuable treasure type because they guard great hordes and anything else wouldn't be an accurate model of the world they exist within. Exactly how large those hordes should be ought be determined by a confluence of the in-world economy and metagame incentive structure. Recognize that the opposite of arbitrary is reasoned, and the choice to give a dragon more treasure than a bear, even when they're the same HD, is a very intentional and reasoned choice. ACKS certainly establishes some ground rules for how XP works, but it also offers a rigorous defense of that at both practical and theoretical levels, and moreover it structures the game such that a DM following those basic guidelines tends to create certain outcomes.

You appear to want to critique ACKS rules for not applying universally . . . but that's literally true of all game rules. ACKS rules apply to ACKS, and they work exceptionally well there. If you're playing FATE or 5e, yeah, that's a different game. They're also IMO strictly worse games, because they don't have the framework to ensure that the world is coherent and that everything fits together in the background at whatever level of resolution you care to zoom in to. If your elfgame doesn't need accurate population demographics, good for you I guess, but mine does and is richer for it. That's necessary for players to conquer and rule domains, to make investments and engage in arbitrage trading, to take out loans (and how many adventures might that spark!), to hire henchmen, to engage in politics and magic research and burglary. And frankly, a game that doesn't have those things, or handwaves the important questions that they rely on, seems like a poorer game indeed.

Greetings!

I love having dynamics, mechanical rules, tables and systems in place that are grounded in reality, in actual, Historical facts and dynamics. It is precisely from such a foundational basis that I, as the GM, can then consciously exceed such dynamics, due to magic, or the gods, whatever--and understand what I am doing, and why--and also by doing so, be equipped with the strong data that tells me what the cascade effects are for a particular community, or a province, or an entire Kingdom.

The think that kind of research, thoughtfulness, and game design is extremely valuable, and worthwhile.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 21, 2023, 06:23:24 PM

Quote from: S'mon on May 21, 2023, 06:18:20 PMpre-industrial numbers are amazingly consistent over time

But even as you stated productivity/measure of output is relative. And that's productivity for what peasant? In what place? Void-vania?

And all of this is for 100% real theoretical peasants. Now we introduce different locations, geographies, histories, and places and now estimating peasants of "Not the Real world-istan" becomes increasingly strenous.

And then we introduce magic. At which point, unless making arbitrary decisions like "This magic makes you 10% more productive", you can utterly throw away your economics textbooks.

Measure of output for historical agriculture isn't relative at all, it's grounded directly in volume of goods, and therefore how many people it can feed. Likewise, one peasant family producing 12 gp of goods per month isn't arbitrary at all, it's based on one denarius = one day's wage = one silver piece and makes it convenient to look up and convert historical prices over directly (before Amacris finished doing that for us, anyway ;D). There were certainly times in history where one denarius was more or less than a day's wage, but in terms of needing some baseline to calibrate things to, this is a pretty good and useful one to pick.

Introducing magic isn't just decided to make you 10% more productive. The spells that exist in B/X, or have been added later from a reconstructed framework to create similar spells, have been carefully accounted for in the continent-spanning economic model to determine their impact at scale and the implications of that on productivity, and there are thus concrete rules on how the availability of certain spells impacts construction speeds, etc. Likewise, the game has a (obviously fictional, but grounded in historic practices) complete metaphysical framework such that clerics who collect worship on behalf of their deities can also use that to bless and consecrate the land, and the extent to which that's feasible is grounded in those metaphysics. When the effects of magic are well understood, there's no reason at all they can't be integrated into economic models - it's just potentially a lot of work, but that's why I use ACKS instead of doing it myself.

Quote from: Arbrethil on May 21, 2023, 07:12:26 PM
Introducing magic isn't just decided to make you 10% more productive. The spells that exist in B/X, or have been added later from a reconstructed framework to create similar spells, have been carefully accounted for in the continent-spanning economic model to determine their impact at scale and the implications of that on productivity, and there are thus concrete rules on how the availability of certain spells impacts construction speeds, etc. Likewise, the game has a (obviously fictional, but grounded in historic practices) complete metaphysical framework such that clerics who collect worship on behalf of their deities can also use that to bless and consecrate the land, and the extent to which that's feasible is grounded in those metaphysics. When the effects of magic are well understood, there's no reason at all they can't be integrated into economic models - it's just potentially a lot of work, but that's why I use ACKS instead of doing it myself.

And here's what I think Shrieking Banshee means... B/X magic assumptions only work for a game based on B/X magic and those assumptions are "arbitrary" to the setting.

That means they're worthless for modeling a world with a different magic system where magic is skill-based at-will casting. I doubt it maps well to a world where steam power exists (ie. a Steampunk setting).

Let's throw in precursor Stargate-like teleporter circles, airships, genetically engineered dinosaurs and rampaging mecha-kaiju on top of that. For good measure let's throw in an apocalypse two centuries back that wiped out 99.9% of a previous global population of 10 billion (so down to 10 million within a year, then rose to a current 30-40 million globally).

A model based on B/X magic and technology assumptions is going to spew out nonsense on the other side of the calculations because it's not an accurate model for anything but B/X assumptions... which were the arbitrary decisions of its creators.

Coolness, I like that kind of analysis. 

In some of the settings that I have home brewed over the years, I imagined a steampunk-ish D&D world where Elemental Engines (literally based on summoned Elementals) transformed transportation and industry.  Of course, that was causing all kinds of economic and social ripples through the land.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 21, 2023, 08:22:23 PM

Quote from: Arbrethil on May 21, 2023, 07:12:26 PM
Introducing magic isn't just decided to make you 10% more productive. The spells that exist in B/X, or have been added later from a reconstructed framework to create similar spells, have been carefully accounted for in the continent-spanning economic model to determine their impact at scale and the implications of that on productivity, and there are thus concrete rules on how the availability of certain spells impacts construction speeds, etc. Likewise, the game has a (obviously fictional, but grounded in historic practices) complete metaphysical framework such that clerics who collect worship on behalf of their deities can also use that to bless and consecrate the land, and the extent to which that's feasible is grounded in those metaphysics. When the effects of magic are well understood, there's no reason at all they can't be integrated into economic models - it's just potentially a lot of work, but that's why I use ACKS instead of doing it myself.

And here's what I think Shrieking Banshee means... B/X magic assumptions only work for a game based on B/X magic and those assumptions are "arbitrary" to the setting.

That means they're worthless for modeling a world with a different magic system where magic is skill-based at-will casting. I doubt it maps well to a world where steam power exists (ie. a Steampunk setting).

Let's throw in precursor Stargate-like teleporter circles, airships, genetically engineered dinosaurs and rampaging mecha-kaiju on top of that. For good measure let's throw in an apocalypse two centuries back that wiped out 99.9% of a previous global population of 10 billion (so down to 10 million within a year, then rose to a current 30-40 million globally).

A model based on B/X magic and technology assumptions is going to spew out nonsense on the other side of the calculations because it's not an accurate model for anything but B/X assumptions... which were the arbitrary decisions of its creators.

That is correct, but that's not what ACKS is. ACKS has rules for:
- At-will skill-based casting (ceremonial magic, found in Heroic Fantasy Handbook)
- Spontaneous casting expending spell points and designing magic effects on the fly (spellsinging, found in Heroic Fantasy Handbook)
- High-tech as magic (terran engineering, found in Almanac of Unusual Magic)
- Steampunk technology (automatons, found in By This Axe)
- Early Modern technology (firearms, cannons, found in Guns of War)
For each game mechanic I have published explanations of how it works, how it was built, and how to customize it if your setting differs. So if the accusation is "it assumes the world works like BX," that's not correct at all. It doesn't make those assumptions. ACKS can be used to run Lord of the Rings, Conan, Earthsea, Game of Thrones, all of which have very different assumptions about magic.

Arbitrary: This seems a definitional debate. I found three definitions of arbitrary.
1. "Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle."
2. "Relating to a decision made by a court or legislature that lacks a grounding in law or fact."
3. "Based on or subject to individual judgment or preference."

By definition 1 and 2, none of the decisions I made in ACKS are arbitrary. They are all grounded in necessity, reason, or principle.

By definition 3, all of the decisions I made in ACKS are arbitrary because I designed it using my individual judgment. But by that definition all game design is always arbitrary, so that seems like a pointless thing to say. "Alex's design is based on design by Alex" is a tautology.

So to be clear I am stating that ACKS is not arbitrary under meaning 1 or 2.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 21, 2023, 06:38:48 PM
I meant like no place undergoing economic troubles, maybe excesses in one place, worse land in another, inefficient management in one specific 10 square miles?

The numbers are averages of course. But Malthusian economics is pretty amazingly simple really. Nowadays land quality will affect individual productivity, sure. With a pre-industrial population, the worse land has a lower population density while actual productivity per worker remains unchanged. The population of any inhabited area rapidly increases to its Malthusian limit, at which point people are producing that $20-$25/day I mentioned. The only way you'd get somewhat higher productivity per capita is if new farmable land was in the process of being colonised.

Greetings!

I have long held to my own "Three Pillars of RPG's."

My Three Pillars of RPG Campaigns are the following:

FIGHTING: Heroic combat. Lots of fighting, death, blood, and war. People and creatures need to be dying. Pile the bodies up! Unleash the vengeance! Men and women alike, most everyone loves violence. Violence is deeply satisfying to the beast lurking under the façade of civilization and polite society.

BOOTY: Lots of SEX. Men and women alike, everyone likes sex. The more, the better. Drown them in all the fine booty they can grab, with both hands. Later on, spouses, families, and kids become important. Otherwise filed under "Romance".

GOLD: Gold, baby. Piles of silver and gold, fine jewels. Crazy detailed toys. Epic, glorious magic items. Give it all out with a lavish hand, like candy.

In all the years I have been playing, these three pillars have kept players engaged, again and again. When a GM is stuck, or uncertain, unload the train of FBG--FIGHTING, BOOTY, and GOLD. It has never failed. It is these three primary elements that make a campaign interesting, dramatic, exciting, and fun. It is important to remember that all three of the pillars are like legs on a table; they are each more or less equally important. These are the three pillars I think that every GM should embrace. Your game and your campaign will always be better off with MORE FBG!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on May 22, 2023, 02:56:19 AM
Greetings!

I have long held to my own "Three Pillars of RPG's."

My Three Pillars of RPG Campaigns are the following:

FIGHTING: Heroic combat. Lots of fighting, death, blood, and war. People and creatures need to be dying. Pile the bodies up! Unleash the vengeance! Men and women alike, most everyone loves violence. Violence is deeply satisfying to the beast lurking under the façade of civilization and polite society.

BOOTY: Lots of SEX. Men and women alike, everyone likes sex. The more, the better. Drown them in all the fine booty they can grab, with both hands. Later on, spouses, families, and kids become important. Otherwise filed under "Romance".

GOLD: Gold, baby. Piles of silver and gold, fine jewels. Crazy detailed toys. Epic, glorious magic items. Give it all out with a lavish hand, like candy.

In all the years I have been playing, these three pillars have kept players engaged, again and again. When a GM is stuck, or uncertain, unload the train of FBG--FIGHTING, BOOTY, and GOLD. It has never failed. It is these three primary elements that make a campaign interesting, dramatic, exciting, and fun. It is important to remember that all three of the pillars are like legs on a table; they are each more or less equally important. These are the three pillars I think that every GM should embrace. Your game and your campaign will always be better off with MORE FBG!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Hi SHARK! I know we discussed posting this (with which I highly concur)  8), but I think this should be posted under Alternatives To GNS https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/alternative-to-gns-theory/  ;D

Quote from: S'mon on May 22, 2023, 03:20:57 AM

Quote from: SHARK on May 22, 2023, 02:56:19 AM
Greetings!

I have long held to my own "Three Pillars of RPG's."

My Three Pillars of RPG Campaigns are the following:

FIGHTING: Heroic combat. Lots of fighting, death, blood, and war. People and creatures need to be dying. Pile the bodies up! Unleash the vengeance! Men and women alike, most everyone loves violence. Violence is deeply satisfying to the beast lurking under the façade of civilization and polite society.

BOOTY: Lots of SEX. Men and women alike, everyone likes sex. The more, the better. Drown them in all the fine booty they can grab, with both hands. Later on, spouses, families, and kids become important. Otherwise filed under "Romance".

GOLD: Gold, baby. Piles of silver and gold, fine jewels. Crazy detailed toys. Epic, glorious magic items. Give it all out with a lavish hand, like candy.

In all the years I have been playing, these three pillars have kept players engaged, again and again. When a GM is stuck, or uncertain, unload the train of FBG--FIGHTING, BOOTY, and GOLD. It has never failed. It is these three primary elements that make a campaign interesting, dramatic, exciting, and fun. It is important to remember that all three of the pillars are like legs on a table; they are each more or less equally important. These are the three pillars I think that every GM should embrace. Your game and your campaign will always be better off with MORE FBG!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Hi SHARK! I know we discussed posting this (with which I highly concur)  8), but I think this should be posted under Alternatives To GNS https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/alternative-to-gns-theory/  ;D

Greetings!

Good point, my friend! DONE. ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Whether or not any "Domain Rules" work is secondary to the fact that "Domain Play" is a completely different game than "We as a Team all Go Adventure, Kill Monsters & Get Kewl Stuff" which is the core of 99% of RPG play.

Few players want that transition, especially once they see how different Domain Play is from what they signed up for.

If you have those few players, kickass for you! BUT the rest of us need to discuss Domain Play in detail before considering that as part of a campaign.

Kind of a funny thing, I find that this was a common retirement state for many PCs back in my AD&D days.  New blood would take over the adventuring and questing while the semi-retired high level characters were doing the domain play thing.  They all created fortresses, acquired lands, built towers, temples, and guilds.  One of them even made their own dungeon and stocked it with beasties.  (Kind of like a live fire exercise except you could be eaten.)

I have not seen that with later iterations of D&D players.

Quote from: Spinachcat on May 22, 2023, 05:36:14 PM
Whether or not any "Domain Rules" work is secondary to the fact that "Domain Play" is a completely different game than "We as a Team all Go Adventure, Kill Monsters & Get Kewl Stuff" which is the core of 99% of RPG play.

Few players want that transition, especially once they see how different Domain Play is from what they signed up for.

If you have those few players, kickass for you! BUT the rest of us need to discuss Domain Play in detail before considering that as part of a campaign.

Yeah. ACKS was originally intended to be played either like SPORE and MOUNT & BLADE II: BANNERLORD, where the nature of the game changes as you advance through it; or like X-COM: UFO DEFENSE, where you have a strategic level and a tactical level at the same time. Those are personally my favorite types of games. I love the feeling where a choice I made at the tactical level has huge strategic implications or vice versa. But if your players don't want that experience, I can see why domain play is dead on arrival.

That said, I that problem is better genericized to being a problem whenever one game has multiple modes of play, like CAR WARS, MEKTON, ARS MAGICA, etc. For instance, I recently ran a MEKTON campaign and we had to discuss beforehand that there would be a "mecha wargame on a hex map" component and a "melodramatic anime roleplay" component. One player decided not to participate because even though she liked anime roleplay she didn't want to push mecha around a hex map. If the whole group had hated mecha wargaming, I'm not sure I'd use MEKTON, even though it is really good for melodramatic anime roleplay outside the mechs.

Mecha RPGs is a perfect example. I love them, but you must have players who want to play a Wargame/RPG hybrid. Unfortunately, since our 1990s crew, I've never found a crew who really wanted that hybrid play.

Our crew were mega-fans of Hero Games' Robot Warriors back in the day
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/61459/Robot-Warriors-3rd-Edition (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/61459/Robot-Warriors-3rd-Edition)

Does Pendragon have domain play? I mean it is generational in nature so it seems it should but I've never heard anyone mention it, ever.

Quote from: Ruprecht on May 22, 2023, 07:27:37 PM
Does Pendragon have domain play? I mean it is generational in nature so it seems it should but I've never heard anyone mention it, ever.

   It has domain management, but it's mostly a solo or 1-on-1 operation as I understand it. Between the rules design and the assumption that all PCs are on the same side, I don't think you get the wargaming that Gygaxo-Arnesonian-BrOSR-Imperial D&D intends. :)

Quote from: Ruprecht on May 22, 2023, 07:27:37 PM
Does Pendragon have domain play? I mean it is generational in nature so it seems it should but I've never heard anyone mention it, ever.

There is an annual "Winter Phase" for downtime (because you do one adventure per year, stereotypically), but it's not at all like an ACKS domain management. From 4th Edition:

• Do any relevant solo adventuring after the group is done
• Check for skill gain
• Check for characteristic loss from aging
• Check income from your lands, update status & modifiers
• Check to see if each of your horses survives
• Deal with marriage (and dowry), children (birth & survival), events in the broader family
• Do any training or practice or voluntary character sheet changes
• Figure out glory from the last year & if the character advances from that.

So the domain plays a role - income, marriage, possibly solo adventures or family events - but isn't simulated in any detail. (IIRC some editions had the wife's skills bear on how well the manor is managed?) You're not conquering new lands, you're getting them from your liege for service. Any deeper thematic interaction is put together by the GM.

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 21, 2023, 05:14:53 AM
What's much more sensible in Medieval Authentic play is that social growth is extremely difficult. It doesn't matter if you're level 9 or level 19, you may be extremely famous, as a soldier, or a thief, or whatever, but you still won't just be made into a Lord. Before the Renaissance, that almost never happened. Occasionally someone might be knighted.  Of course, commoners could get offices or special ranks. They could be given salaries, a manor house, or other benefits. But no, your level should have almost NOTHING to do with your ability to move up the social ladder; only your accomplishments could potentially do that, and it's not very likely.

To expand on this the problem is that the commoner is an outsider. The utter lack of social connection to anybody in power compared to somebody who was born noble and raised noble is staggering. More so the commoner's mannerisms and assumptions will be very different than those who are raised noble. 

Sure there are positions and titles but unless the commoner is very fortunate, those of noble birth will always have the inside track to obtaining those before any outsider.

The surest way of gaining position and power as a commoner is through royal favor. The great magnates and the king were at odds in various European realms with the ultimate balance tilting in various ways. But in general the king (or sovereign) generally wants an independent source of power over his magnates. The few wealthy and skilled commoners are a pool of people that the king can tap for men that will beholden to him and not put their own house and lands first. However this impacted the gentry (lesser nobility) first more than it did those of common birth. Which makes even this path a hard one for a true commoner to follow.



A close modern analogy is an Irishman trying to make it to high ranks in the Italian-run mob. As a complete outsider to the social system of the mob, the Irishman has a tough hill to climb because of the utter lack of meaningful social connection to anybody in power. His mannerism and assumptions will continually be issues compared to somebody born within the mob. Sure racism is part of the issue in this situation but the lot of other factors here that work against the Irishman even if he was extremely skilled at what he does.

Quote from: amacris on May 21, 2023, 04:37:46 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 21, 2023, 10:22:16 AM
A Deathstar will probably never be economically or militarily viable. There is probably absolutely no way for the DSII to explode and not heavily damage Endor. But I'd much rather experience a setting to simulate a mood or thematic premises than deal with an alternate reality theoretical physics engine to ensure every molecule can be accounted for.
Now to be clear, even if I don't get the appeal, doesn't mean I don't appreciate different things existing for different people.

Of course. I'm not by any means suggesting that ACKS is for everyone. It's all different strokes for different folks. I don't do or want mood emulation. I'm earnestly a simulationist where the rules of the game are the physics of the game world. So I'd never create a game that was centered around Death Stars that weren't economically or physically viable. (And this is why I haven't created a mecha game, even though I love the genre in anime and manga.)

Where I take umbrage is just at the suggestion (not from you) that there's nothing behind the curtain of domain rules, since I've spent 10 years behind the curtain, or that if there is something behind the curtain that no one wants it, since those folks pay my mortgage!

Your rules are clearly something you have thought through very carefully. And you clearly have a lot of fans for it.

Quote from: amacris on May 21, 2023, 04:57:25 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 21, 2023, 05:14:53 AM
What's much more sensible in Medieval Authentic play is that social growth is extremely difficult. It doesn't matter if you're level 9 or level 19, you may be extremely famous, as a soldier, or a thief, or whatever, but you still won't just be made into a Lord. Before the Renaissance, that almost never happened. Occasionally someone might be knighted.  Of course, commoners could get offices or special ranks. They could be given salaries, a manor house, or other benefits. But no, your level should have almost NOTHING to do with your ability to move up the social ladder; only your accomplishments could potentially do that, and it's not very likely.

I admire your commitment to historical authenticity and I think that you're right about the medieval world in reality. But, to the extent that medieval authenticity precludes "personal power = political power," I've found that any sort of level-based play with the power curve typically seen in D&D-type games is incompatible with the sort of medieval authenticity you want.

Feudalism arose under very specific conditions of agricultural production, equestrian availability, social structures, and so on, and among those conditions was the limits of human power of the real world. When historical conditions changed, feudalism changed. And if the limits of human power changed, I think feudalism would change. In a world where a wizard can kill a king with a word and then vanish, he WILL have political power, and the governance systems will reflect that. In a world where a warrior can single-handedly cleave through a thousand men, he WILL have political power, etc. It might resemble the medieval world but it won't be authentically the medieval world.'

We live in a world where a terrorist can kill a thousand men with the push of a button; but that doesn't mean he becomes President of the USA. And of course, the president of the USA has his own terrorists who work for him.

Medieval people were ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that there WERE wizards who could kill a man with just a word, and holy men who could perform miraculous works of wonder. Some of those people translated that into elements of political or social influence. There were numerous court magicians who made bank off their occult knowledge. There were living saints that established powerful institutions or were given armies to lead. But those were rare, and they still weren't made dukes or popes.

QuoteYou can overcome this by tweaking the rules to avoid having people become powerful enough to be "weapons of medieval destruction", which I think is a good approach. I assume that's what you've done in L&D or your other books.

Well yes, to a degree. Medieval Authentic magic doesn't involve just throwing around fireballs. You can do some incredibly powerful stuff in L&D with magic, but most of it isn't as showy unless you get to really high-level stuff.

There are time periods where personal power or knowledge can be enough to massively alter your social standing, typically in tribal societies, very primitive civilization, and in the modern industrial and post-modern world. These are worlds with highly fluid social mobility.

Most societies in between have very static social mobility. In terms of Europe in the middle ages, the early middle ages still had slightly more fluidity, then everything gets extremely stratified until the late High Middle Ages when you see just a slight start of a widening window in the course of the Renaissance.

Now, you can do two things about it: the first is to just say "fuck it, I don't care, in my world which is totally like medieval europe as soon as you hit 9th level you're a Lord even if you were born in a mud hut".
The second is to start out with that presumption, that personal power level equals social standing, and create a coherent society based on that principle. But I have to say, it will not look very much at all like most of Medieval Europe.

Quote from: S'mon on May 21, 2023, 05:10:11 PM

Quote from: amacris on May 21, 2023, 04:28:32 PM
The ACKS model is, without exaggeration, better than anything being used in academia to model ancient economics, to the point that PhDs who have dug into it have suggested I should be publishing academic papers based on it.

Was it Greg Clark who said that modern economic models are great for understanding ancient economies, it's modern/industrial economies we have no idea about?  ;D

Pre-industrial economies are based on human and animal labour, plus land/crops, and IME are amazingly consistent and predictable, as you have of course discerned.  Your 12 gp/month output per peasant family is higher than the 5gp/month I use as rule of thumb (it seemed to fit with the numbers I could find for ancient Rome & Greece, Middle Ages feudal Europe of course was not a cash based economy) but I suspect we're either valuing a GP differently, or modelling something slightly different.

As a rule, D&D based games are ridiculously over-inflated. If you assume the cp is a penny, and the gp a pound, you would probably want to assume that a typically Medieval peasant family might make 1-2gp per YEAR.  If you wanted to say there was a platinum piece worth 5gp and that was the pound (because a pound was not 100 pennies, it was typically 240 pennies), I guess you would say 1pp per year.

But of course that screws up all the D&D price lists. Curiously, in both directions, as there's certain items that the typical D&D price list has as massively overpriced (mainly all common items, foodstuffs etc), while others that the D&D list has massively underpriced (anything special, including high-end armor).

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 25, 2023, 12:48:08 AM
As a rule, D&D based games are ridiculously over-inflated.

Compared to the actual value of silver & gold in medieval Europe, yes.

ACKS economics seems based around the Classical world, where the numbers for silver and gold aren't massively off. Classical Athens had tons of silver. From what I recall, rowers did get paid 1 silver/day or even 2 silver/day. When Athens warred with Sparta in the Peloponnesian War, and the Persians sent lots of gold to Sparta in suppport, the value of gold to silver in Greece fell from 20:1 to 10:1.

If I'm getting my Roman LSD currency right (it's early), a Denarius was a silver coin, at one point 20 to the gold Solidus and 240 to the literal pound (Libra). And people did get paid 1 Denarius/day. Ofc the Roman silver coins were massively debased over time. The gold Solidus stayed pure, AIR because it was used differently - there were modern style shenanigans where the mint issued debased Denarii you had to accept at face value, but taxes had to be paid in Solidii.

Quote from: S'mon on May 25, 2023, 01:53:18 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 25, 2023, 12:48:08 AM
As a rule, D&D based games are ridiculously over-inflated.

Compared to the actual value of silver & gold in medieval Europe, yes.

ACKS economics seems based around the Classical world, where the numbers for silver and gold aren't massively off. Classical Athens had tons of silver. From what I recall, rowers did get paid 1 silver/day or even 2 silver/day. When Athens warred with Sparta in the Peloponnesian War, and the Persians sent lots of gold to Sparta in suppport, the value of gold to silver in Greece fell from 20:1 to 10:1.

If I'm getting my Roman LSD currency right (it's early), a Denarius was a silver coin, at one point 20 to the gold Solidus and 240 to the literal pound (Libra). And people did get paid 1 Denarius/day. Ofc the Roman silver coins were massively debased over time. The gold Solidus stayed pure, AIR because it was used differently - there were modern style shenanigans where the mint issued debased Denarii you had to accept at face value, but taxes had to be paid in Solidii.

To expound that, as I'm sure many of you know:

That's why if you want to monkey with exchange rates, it's the purity and size of the coins you want to change.  If I understand the research correctly, very rarely in the ancient and medieval periods of Europe did the silver:gold ratio vary outside 10:1 to 16:1--and it was usually closer to the former than the latter.  That's 1 pound of acceptably pure silver compared to 1 pound of acceptably pure gold.

From a D&D perspective, it's copper (and platinum) that are out of sync, assuming coins of about the same size and purity.  Not only have those inflated rates driven copper out of most meaning, but also it's a rare place that used both copper and silver currency at the same time.  For one thing, copper would seldom be so poor a value as 1:10 with silver, if for no other reason because of all the practical uses the copper has other than currency. 

I really like the suggestion from Delta's D&D blog to arrange copper at 5:1 with silver.  It's still not accurate, but it's edging up to accurate.  Doubling the value of copper means, among other things, that you can now start paying wages in some places in copper and have it sound plausible.  If there's a lot of people making 3 cp or 4 cp a day--or 6 or 7, it gives easy room to adjust around that 1 sp day.  It also implies enough lower-end trade that is in currency instead of barter (or room and board or whatever) to take your domain rules away from accuracy too, but that's not necessarily a bug.

The trick is to convert everything to a 1 dram (256 to a pound) silver coin. You can make it more playable by stating it is 250 silver coins to a pound.

Then you need to set the ratio of copper to silver and gold to silver for the same weight. Personally, I use 4 copper to 1 silver and 20 silver to 1 gold.

Then you can make other coins by playing around with coin weight. For example, I have a gold crown which is a 1 oz gold coins worth 320 silver pennies. A gold penny when used is worth 20 silver pennies. I also have a nearly 1 lb silver mark used by the viking based cultures of my setting worth 240d.  It is a small rectangular bar with a mint mark on it.

For pricing, I generally stick with the early medieval period as represented by Harn. ACKS aligns pretty well with Harn so I use some of my economic pricing from their product ranges as well.

As supply of precious metals and economic factors changed over the centuries I view it as a fool's errand to try to come up with something "accurate". Instead, I would go with something consistent based on the relationship of agriculture, industry, and trading in the classical and medieval eras. Something that ACKS excels at exposing. Then plug in your own values based on those relationships and that is your price and wage list.

Equipment and Hireling List
https://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/MW%20Equipment%20Rev%202.pdf

Full Price List
https://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/MajesticWilderlandsPrice%20List.pdf

Herbs and Potions
https://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/MW%20Herbs%20and%20Potions%20Rev_02.pdf

Merchant Adventures
https://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/MW%20Merchant%20Adventures%20Rev%2004.pdf

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on May 25, 2023, 07:36:03 AM
From a D&D perspective, it's copper (and platinum) that are out of sync, assuming coins of about the same size and purity.  Not only have those inflated rates driven copper out of most meaning, but also it's a rare place that used both copper and silver currency at the same time.  For one thing, copper would seldom be so poor a value as 1:10 with silver, if for no other reason because of all the practical uses the copper has other than currency. 

I think you may have got confused re copper because for some reason they typically compare the copper price per pound with the silver price per troy ounce - https://seekingalpha.com/article/4181917-copper-silver-ratio-range-for-thousands-of-years

Copper is much more common and much less valuable than silver.

At these metal weights and values, we can calculate that 1 gram of gold was valued as equivalent to about 11 grams of silver. And 1 gram of silver was valued as equivalent to about 112 grams of copper.

When we convert these values into pounds of copper and troy ounces of silver (1 pound = 14.5833 troy ounces), we find that in the 14th century Byzantine Empire, the ratio of 1 pound of copper to 1 troy ounce of silver was about 0.13.

A reasonable historical approach would be 100 copper to the silver, 10 silver to the gold, and no platinum currency. Copper currency though was fairly uncommon. If you've ever seen the size of a real Victorian penny (at 12 copper pennies per silver shilling, 20 shillings per gold sovereign), you can see why.

Breakdown of English coinage during the late Middle Ages.  Weights are in grams and I have the ratio of silver to gold in there.

Coins were very, very thin (under 1mm).

Year     Name                 Weight     Pure Silver     Pure gold     Pence     Ratio     Coins/LB     Diam(mm)   Thick(mm)
1158     Penny                1.458         1.349                                            311.11      15.00       0.73
1344     Penny                1.312         1.214                                            345.73         
1344     Gold Double Leopard  6.998                        6.962         72      12.55       64.82         
1344     Gold Noble                                                      80                              34.00     
         Gold Half Noble                                                 40                              25.50     
         Gold Quarter Noble                                              20                              20.00     
1346     Gold Noble                                                      80                              34.00     
         Gold Half Noble                                                 40                              25.50     
         Gold Quarter Noble                                              20                              20.00     
1351     Penny                1.200         1.110                                            377.99         
1351     Gold Noble           7.776                        7.736         80      11.48       58.33       34.00       0.81
         Gold Half Noble                                                 40                              25.50     
         Gold Quarter Noble                                              20                              20.00     
1412     Penny                0.972         0.899                                            466.67         
1412     Gold Half Noble      3.499                        3.481         40      10.33       129.63         
         Gold Quarter Noble                                              20                   
1464     Penny                0.777         0.719                                            583.55         
1464     Gold Half Angel      2.591                        2.578         40      11.16       175.03         

Quote from: S'mon on May 21, 2023, 06:18:20 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 21, 2023, 06:08:57 PM
I'm pretty sure I couldn't in any way closely calculate a....World peasant average for...GP output?

You couldn't nowadays, at least it wouldn't mean much, but the pre-industrial numbers are amazingly consistent over time, just a very very slow uptick in productivity (due to a few innovations such as mouldboard ploughs, horseshoes, harness that doesn't choke the horse, better metallurgy et all).

One thing that's very clear from pre-industrial numbers is that no one lived in "dollar a day" poverty - though they may have died in dollar a day poverty. People were producing in the region of $20-$25 dollars a day consistently across thousands of years.

For the most part you're right. Though most peasants in most of the Medieval period would almost never have had any kind of coin money at all, everything was in barter. Also, there were definitely people who lived at the level of subsistence poverty: the underclass in the cities.

A few options for domain management:
-Godbound: mostly abstract, speaking in terms of what features and problems a faction has and how that affects die rolls for projects.
-Worlds Without Number: more detailed, with specific assets like a smuggling group or a logistics mage group.
-Crowns & Castles: described as "play D&D as a 4x empire strategy game".
-A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe: detailed models of medieval manors (noting that "medieval" is a broad term) and talking about how magic would affect things like taxes and construction.

Re: gold/silver, I'd read in a good book on Roman economics that they generally went with a 10 silver : 1 gold ratio, but this shifted toward 12:1 due to heavy export of both (esp. gold) to Arabia and India. Also they debased their coinage over time. (They were trading extensively and directly with India c. 100 AD, and Africa. Neither of which bothered exploring much for the next thousand-plus years.) Standard RPG coinage is silly with GP inflation but would make a little more sense if you just call all the "gold pieces" silver.

Quote from: KrisSnow on May 27, 2023, 11:19:52 AM
Standard RPG coinage is silly with GP inflation but would make a little more sense if you just call all the "gold pieces" silver.

More like, the prices of PC oriented goods & services, and skilled wages derived therefrom, are silly, while basic NPC wages are ok. Eg charging 5 copper for a small beer when a worker's wage is 1 sp.

Quote from: S'mon on May 27, 2023, 05:13:40 PM

Quote from: KrisSnow on May 27, 2023, 11:19:52 AM
Standard RPG coinage is silly with GP inflation but would make a little more sense if you just call all the "gold pieces" silver.

More like, the prices of PC oriented goods & services, and skilled wages derived therefrom, are silly, while basic NPC wages are ok. Eg charging 5 copper for a small beer when a worker's wage is 1 sp.

It's only silly if you presume the NPC bartender is charging the locals he's known all his life the same rate as the guys walking in with more value on their persons than the bartender could earn in his lifetime (even starting gold for most PCs is about 3-4 years worth of wages for a commoner).

The price lists have always presumed "boom town" conditions, where the locals jack up the prices to get a share of all that wealth the PCs pulled out of a hole in the ground.

During the 49 Gold Rush, a meal for two might cost $1200 in today's money and a dozen eggs would cost over $150 in today's money. A pair of boots could go for $3000 adjusted for inflation.

Basically, figure NPC's are marking up the non-specialty goods by 10-20 times and it works starts looking sane (i.e. farmer Joe who comes in every night pays just half a copper for his pint of beer and chuckles as his buddy the barkeep charges the "weirdos" ten times as much).

This, in other words: https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0122.html

Quote from: KrisSnow on May 27, 2023, 07:01:13 PM
This, in other words: https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0122.html

Exactly that.

Once you accept that the prices are PC-facing elements rather than the actual prices of the day-to-day economy you can make the system work far more smoothly for Domain-scale economics.

My ballpark is that unless its a military weapon, armor or magic/magic adjacent, the price of any given good is reduced by a factor of 10 (or one coin type in D&D's multiples of 10 system of coinage) when it is part of normal day-to-day commerce between locals and normal travelling merchants. So that hemp rope the PCs are paying a gold per 50' for is only a silver per 50' under normal trading conditions.

And with that simple change a laborer earning 1sp per day goes from starving to death in short order to actually making enough to sustain a family on and still have some that could be taxed without ruining him.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 27, 2023, 11:22:55 PM
My ballpark is that unless its a military weapon, armor or magic/magic adjacent

I find that's the main issue - mundane armour & weapon prices are often around x10 where they should be, though this varies a lot by edition. In BX and 4e D&D, plate is around 60gp, which seems fairly reasonable for ca 1400 AD, though BX leather is an excessive 20gp (not that leather was used much for armour in medieval Europe anyway, but in the AC table it's where a heavy Gambeson should be). In 5e plate is an incredible 1500gp. With weapons a longsword is typically 15gp. A sword could cost that or more ofc, but a typical arming sword ca 1400 AD might be ca 15 silver coins (at 240 silver to the lb) not 15 gold coins. Some other things are worse, eg shields are commonly pegged at 10gp, which is around $1000/£1000 in modern money. OK for selling to PC at inflated price, not so ok for working out the economics of equipping an army.

IME the problems come when you're looking at typical manufacturing rates, and what an armour smith should be earning. 5e D&D suggests a production rate of 5gp/day for all mundane manufacturing work, where unskilled workers earn 2 sp/day. 5 gp/day seems ok for a master armourer until you realise it takes them 1500/5 = 300 days to make a suit of plate armour! If production rate is increased then income goes through the roof. And 5e says that materials & modest subsistence take half the net cost so you can't go below 750gp for the suit of plate.

I just say that the pricier weaponry comes with the social licensing to carry that without being considered a menace to society on sight. Everyone can get a club or handful of darts. But to wield military-grade materiel in public without being Most Wanted means you paid your dues *somewhere* and thus you *belong* to *someone or some institution*.  8) It also means 'good/legal' behavior is encouraged with such a privilege.  ;) Don't abuse it to lose it!

(And yes, magic is similarly licensed. So common philters of Cantrips... sellable to the public if you got the funds and cheaper than you'd think. Slinger of bigger spells & stuff, well, you must have permission from *somewhere*, right? Right? ;) )

The 5E price might be able to reflect something most people don't include with the functionality, without otherwise having to justify the price with enchantments or other magic boons: You're not really buying standard issue plate mail used by an army or watch, so you basically pay for the privalege of owning something that isn't accessible to unenlisted locals who aren't obliged into regular martial training.

Since it's a special order product, a blacksmith has the opportunity to go all out and craft something with style, adding his personal touch with engravings or sculpture that winds up doubling as a billboard of his talents to other adventurers, or in the towns that your own character passes through. Might be point of personal pride for a famous adventurer to be wearing his armor, something he can brag about to other blacksmiths in his guild.

I admire the approach of starting from first principles and working through all of the implications to ensure everything is internally consistent. I wish more simulations took this approach. That said, I'm not sure I see how something like the price of olives or the production of wheat or the number of families to support a certain number of cobblers and so on is actually useful in play. It seems to me like this is kind of world building trivia? There is no position I can imagine a player inhabiting in the world that would actually grant them knowledge of most of these details, so I'm not sure what value there is in having the answers readily available. If somebody asks me how many families are in the region and produce olives from their estate, and how much land their estates take up, I'm going to cut to the chase and ask them why they're asking that (and how would they know?). Even if you're king of the world, I don't see how a pre-industrial society has proper insight into the hard numbers underlying their economy. Even in the modern world with all our surveillance and bureaucracy we more or less rely on estimates when trying to eyeball the potential industrial capacity of various sectors of the economy.

The more we lean on things like magic, the less certain I am that any model with hold up. Models can be fine for mapping to something like the ancient world, which actually existed, and where we have records we can use to populate the model. In that case, the model just needs to represent the real-world data. All the complex systems simulation was already done for us by reality. The idea that you can somehow understand the impact of magic on a dynamic system like an economy IMO strikes me as the kind of hubris that begets a command economy. The soviet system failed for a reason - it's not obvious how much anything should cost. Prices are neither arbitrary nor objective, and you need a complex market process to actually see the impact something like magic provides. The same argument could be made for things like computational systems or steam power or teleportation magic or matter replicators or whatever. There's no easy way to see how a ripple in one sector of the economy would affect anything else without actually having the complexity played out in reality. If it's not obvious, I'm skeptical of the predictive power of models which are based on historical data to try to predict the effect of hypothetical future events. Academics and others overstate their ability to understand and predict complex reality via a statistical or abstract model.

My personal approach to the economy is to just set tiers of economic/social class. the players belong to a class/caste. They still gain money, but that money is spent on things relevant to the game. Players can spend money in large amounts to climb the social ladder (a bit anachronistic, but I'm not trying to model the feudal world 1:1, and I think a little social mobility is more fun for the game). Everything else falls away, because it's not particularly interesting or relevant moment to moment. I'm not going to pause the game and crack open a book when somebody asks me about the price of ceramic pottery just to provide an answer, I'm going to just give a number that's ballpark acceptable (especially since the players are probably dealing with a local economy facing its own conditions, not a national/global economy). More likely, the player is asking about the price of ceramics because they have some other scheme in mind and we can just skip the price element and cut to the chase. Maybe they want to buy ceramic pots in large numbers to aid a smuggling operation they're running. Fine, easier for me to set a price on the smuggling operation and its potential impact on that activity than try to model the economics of everything that goes into the production of such pottery.

As for domain play, most of the useful numbers I'd think you'd get would be things like how many barons report to the duke and so on, and how many men they can field, as estimated by the land or population available to them. That sort of thing seems useful when answering common questions like "how big is the army I can field?". That's very play-oriented. I'm glad to hear ACKS has these numbers. I'd still probably need to build out a system to let me play out a conflict in a way that makes sense for the level of insight the players actually have though. I'd only be presenting estimates to the players anyway, and if we play it out in-game then exposing granular information at the game-level (imagining they're generals) somewhat breaks the immersion. If they're actively involved in the fight, there's no way they can keep useful tactical/situational awareness to have detailed control over the battlefield. If they're sitting, like generals or lords, overlooking the field and issuing orders via flags/horn/drum/whatever then they're only going to see the battle progress in general terms and can react as necessary. If they're sending orders to their generals in the field, they're only going to know the outcome when the generals send a report back. In virtually all such cases, I probably only need to know very general information about the battle to roll and determine the outcome. I can't imagine I'd actually count individual casualties in a battle or try overly hard to model the economic impact of some peasants not coming home.

Quote from: Old Aegidius on May 29, 2023, 06:43:55 PM
As for domain play, most of the useful numbers I'd think you'd get would be things like how many barons report to the duke and so on, and how many men they can field, as estimated by the land or population available to them. That sort of thing seems useful when answering common questions like "how big is the army I can field?". That's very play-oriented. I'm glad to hear ACKS has these numbers. I'd still probably need to build out a system to let me play out a conflict in a way that makes sense for the level of insight the players actually have though. I'd only be presenting estimates to the players anyway, and if we play it out in-game then exposing granular information at the game-level (imagining they're generals) somewhat breaks the immersion. If they're actively involved in the fight, there's no way they can keep useful tactical/situational awareness to have detailed control over the battlefield. If they're sitting, like generals or lords, overlooking the field and issuing orders via flags/horn/drum/whatever then they're only going to see the battle progress in general terms and can react as necessary. If they're sending orders to their generals in the field, they're only going to know the outcome when the generals send a report back. In virtually all such cases, I probably only need to know very general information about the battle to roll and determine the outcome. I can't imagine I'd actually count individual casualties in a battle or try overly hard to model the economic impact of some peasants not coming home.

And this is why I generally default to "common sense" in lieu of detailed rules. You're not really trying to simulate a kingdom, you're trying to simulate the sort of experiences a ruler would have because the PCs are the rulers, not the domain.

You're correct. The PC can either be in the middle of the battle, in which case the only relevant information is what's going on in their immediate area (what opponents and allies are in a 30' radius of them and what sort of shape each are in) -or- are at some level of "above the fray" in which case, yes, it's more about issuing orders and waiting for results (while the enemy commanders do the same) so all you really need to decide as GM are a few potential inflection points where the PCs orders may make a difference to the outcome.

Similarly, the size of the treasury down to the last copper might be of academic interest, but all a ruler generally cares about is "can I afford X?" (where X is something measured in 'peasant years'; a term one group I was in had for extremely flagrant purchases... ex. an everburning torch is 100gp or about three times the annual income of a peasant; i.e. 3 peasant years... past level 1 PC's barely think about any purchase that small; but it's beyond the means of probably 99% of the population and ideas like lighting all the city streets with them (including ongoing replacement costs for theft and vandalism) would break the bank of any domain not being supplemented by PC provided dragon hordes).

Okay, that got rambly.

The point is at the domain level, tracking individual arrow consumption isn't a concern for a PC ruler; setting the overall military budget and perhaps a training doctrine or hiring/training of exotic forces (ex. wyvern cavalry) is what matters in emulating the decisions a domain ruler has to make.

Alternately, you can just keep the domains small enough that the 30' radius of battle includes the PC's entire force (i.e. under a hundred men; probably only a few score) and they know (in the Dunbar's number sense) every adult (or at least head of household) on their manor such that they are involved in the specifics of its operation.

QuoteGreetings!

I have long held to my own "Three Pillars of RPG's."

My Three Pillars of RPG Campaigns are the following:

FIGHTING: Heroic combat. Lots of fighting, death, blood, and war. People and creatures need to be dying. Pile the bodies up! Unleash the vengeance! Men and women alike, most everyone loves violence. Violence is deeply satisfying to the beast lurking under the façade of civilization and polite society.

BOOTY: Lots of SEX. Men and women alike, everyone likes sex. The more, the better. Drown them in all the fine booty they can grab, with both hands. Later on, spouses, families, and kids become important. Otherwise filed under "Romance".

GOLD: Gold, baby. Piles of silver and gold, fine jewels. Crazy detailed toys. Epic, glorious magic items. Give it all out with a lavish hand, like candy.

In all the years I have been playing, these three pillars have kept players engaged, again and again. When a GM is stuck, or uncertain, unload the train of FBG--FIGHTING, BOOTY, and GOLD. It has never failed. It is these three primary elements that make a campaign interesting, dramatic, exciting, and fun. It is important to remember that all three of the pillars are like legs on a table; they are each more or less equally important. These are the three pillars I think that every GM should embrace. Your game and your campaign will always be better off with MORE FBG!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

So basically Seven Deadly Sins RPG, huh? Damn, maybe Jack Chick was right bout RPGs being Satanic. ;)

Quote from: Wrath of God on June 14, 2023, 12:52:25 PM
So basically Seven Deadly Sins RPG, huh? Damn, maybe Jack Chick was right bout RPGs being Satanic. ;)

  With things like the D&D Tarot Deck, Funko Pops of Asmodeus, and the Ouija board in the back of the 5E Ravenloft book, the concerns do seem more legltimate now than they did 40 years ago.

Funko Pops are definitely work of Satan, no doubt about it.
Although I always considered Tarot (and similar decks like Pathfinder Harrowing) to be nice random table of narrative and symbolic elements for campaign.

Quote from: Wrath of God on June 15, 2023, 05:06:27 PM
Funko Pops are definitely work of Satan, no doubt about it.
Although I always considered Tarot (and similar decks like Pathfinder Harrowing) to be nice random table of narrative and symbolic elements for campaign.

Ditto!  Tarot decks are one of my favorite themed randomizers for RPGs.  What makes them even more fun in the Domain game context is when you assign named NPCs to certain cards or suits to a specific kingdom.  This is a great way to introduce royal influence, NPCs, and unexpected encounters.

The Tarot is also something stolen from its prior context and given occult meaning...

Here's a blog post about it...
https://www.scifiwright.com/2023/05/the-christian-key-to-the-tarot/

So, if you're simply using it for a card game or as a randomizing tool in an rpg, there is nothing sinister or to fear about the Tarot. Its the use in divination (which could as easily be done by assigning meanings to the numbers and suits of an ordinary deck) that is illicit and sinful.

Still, knowing this fact and trying to explain this fact to every new fundamentalist looking for a fight are two different things... and a percentile-based table can provide even more elements than a tarot deck to build from as a randomizing tool with far fewer people trying to call you an occultist.

Math nerd time, a typical tarot deck has 156 permutations since right side or upside down has significance.  When shuffling, cut and rotate half the deck a few times to randomize position and orientation.  :D

I mean if I'd use it - then in prep time just so events were not based on my bias. It seems for me more suitable to influence grand schemes.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 15, 2023, 07:14:23 PM
The Tarot is also something stolen from its prior context and given occult meaning...

Here's a blog post about it...
https://www.scifiwright.com/2023/05/the-christian-key-to-the-tarot/

So, if you're simply using it for a card game or as a randomizing tool in an rpg, there is nothing sinister or to fear about the Tarot. Its the use in divination (which could as easily be done by assigning meanings to the numbers and suits of an ordinary deck) that is illicit and sinful.

Still, knowing this fact and trying to explain this fact to every new fundamentalist looking for a fight are two different things... and a percentile-based table can provide even more elements than a tarot deck to build from as a randomizing tool with far fewer people trying to call you an occultist.

You (and the dude you're quoting) are making one critical mistake: you're assuming that "Christian" and "occult" are opposites. In the medieval world, almost all "high magic" was Christian.

Quote from: zircher on June 15, 2023, 08:23:01 PM
Math nerd time, a typical tarot deck has 156 permutations since right side or upside down has significance.  When shuffling, cut and rotate half the deck a few times to randomize position and orientation.  :D

Sorry to disappoint you, but "reversed readings" are a late 19th century invention. It's not traditional.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 15, 2023, 07:14:23 PM
[...]
So, if you're simply using it for a card game or as a randomizing tool in an rpg, there is nothing sinister or to fear about the Tarot. Its the use in divination (which could as easily be done by assigning meanings to the numbers and suits of an ordinary deck) that is illicit and sinful.

Still, knowing this fact and trying to explain this fact to every new fundamentalist looking for a fight are two different things... and a percentile-based table can provide even more elements than a tarot deck to build from as a randomizing tool with far fewer people trying to call you an occultist.

Technically drawing lots was Biblically Allowed divination. But then we get into the joys of theological discussion, citing scripture, and defining what is a "lot" and the biblical way to "draw" it.  ;) We agree on the point that using Excel and percentile-based  Random Tables will probably induce less consternation at a table. But it is sad that such tools cause such reactions.

PS: I vote Birthright for domain rules.  8)

Quote from: zircher on May 22, 2023, 06:47:40 PM
Kind of a funny thing, I find that this was a common retirement state for many PCs back in my AD&D days.  New blood would take over the adventuring and questing while the semi-retired high level characters were doing the domain play thing.  They all created fortresses, acquired lands, built towers, temples, and guilds.  One of them even made their own dungeon and stocked it with beasties.  (Kind of like a live fire exercise except you could be eaten.)

I have not seen that with later iterations of D&D players.

Ah, I miss that style of play. The retired adventurers would do stuff mostly in the background, between sessions, usually via informal chats with the DM. A player's own retired characters became a resource that their current adventuring PCs could tap.

Quote from: Wrath of God on June 15, 2023, 05:06:27 PM
Although I always considered Tarot (and similar decks like Pathfinder Harrowing) to be nice random table of narrative and symbolic elements for campaign.

   I love the Tarokka deck as a randomizer, myself, but marketing something as a Tarot deck in the present market is not marketing it as a resolution tool or campaign idea generator. :)

Quote from: Wrath of God on June 14, 2023, 12:52:25 PM

QuoteGreetings!

I have long held to my own "Three Pillars of RPG's."

My Three Pillars of RPG Campaigns are the following:

FIGHTING: Heroic combat. Lots of fighting, death, blood, and war. People and creatures need to be dying. Pile the bodies up! Unleash the vengeance! Men and women alike, most everyone loves violence. Violence is deeply satisfying to the beast lurking under the façade of civilization and polite society.

BOOTY: Lots of SEX. Men and women alike, everyone likes sex. The more, the better. Drown them in all the fine booty they can grab, with both hands. Later on, spouses, families, and kids become important. Otherwise filed under "Romance".

GOLD: Gold, baby. Piles of silver and gold, fine jewels. Crazy detailed toys. Epic, glorious magic items. Give it all out with a lavish hand, like candy.

In all the years I have been playing, these three pillars have kept players engaged, again and again. When a GM is stuck, or uncertain, unload the train of FBG--FIGHTING, BOOTY, and GOLD. It has never failed. It is these three primary elements that make a campaign interesting, dramatic, exciting, and fun. It is important to remember that all three of the pillars are like legs on a table; they are each more or less equally important. These are the three pillars I think that every GM should embrace. Your game and your campaign will always be better off with MORE FBG!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

So basically Seven Deadly Sins RPG, huh? Damn, maybe Jack Chick was right bout RPGs being Satanic. ;)

Greetings!

*Laughing* Yep, Wrath of God, players are always attracted by the Seven Deadly Sins! ;D

Players often like playing--how does it go now?--The EDGELORDS!? ;D

I actually enjoy a lot of "High Fantasy" and noble virtues, righteous characters and epic heroism--but players always enjoy rolling in the mud!

So, I always have a strong foundation of FBG on tap--Nobility, virtue, and righteousness is always available, of course--but I have found having a foundation of FBG is a strong and sure-fire way to keep a campaign fun, dynamic, and interesting, that most everyone is enthusiastic about. Typically, only a few players enjoy getting hardcore righteous. The others, even many women, see that as being "Boring and too Goody Goody!" ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 16, 2023, 03:57:49 AM
you, but "reversed readings" are a late 19th century invention. It's not traditional.

Fair enough, I know they were not traditional in the playing card sense back in their origin.  But in the decades since I got into them, it has been a fairly consistent thing.  Any modern day user would at least consider that if they were creating a solo oracle or other gaming tool.  Well, unless they're using a 'French' deck with pips as compared to something in the Rider-Waite style.