Bringing the RPG in DG3

[donsig]

I really think this is simpler than the old land availability. I've posted a shot of a size 3 civ city below and used that data to make this land availability chart (I included a second city, size 2):

Tile         Food   Shields   Gold   Controller

Capital       2       1        3    Despot
Capital-7     2       1        2    Despot appointee
Capital-13    2       2        1    Despot
Capital-8     2       2        2    Despot
Next City     2       1        2    Earl - appointed by Despot
Next City-11  2       0        2    Earl appointee
Next City-7   2       1        2    Earl

This is a little different from my original suggestions. I figured the Despot and Earls should have more power so the chart above is based on the Despot controlling the capital and 2 tiles and the Earl controlling one tile. Everyone else would only be able to control one tile at most. (As the country grows the amount of tiles characters control can be increased proportionately.) Using Shatain's idea that gold would have to be converted into food or shields (tile controller's choice), we could have something like this:

1 food = 100 soldiers
1 shield = weapons or armor for 100 soldiers
1 gold = 1 food or 1 shield

An army equipped with both weapons and armor would have an advantage over an equal sized army with neither. (The latter could be visualized as local peasants armed with farm implements.) This is a basic idea and we could come with ways to differentiate between different types of weapons as the techs are available.

Another twist could be to use one of the character stats as a basis to modify the troop levy. I'm assuming there is a max for the strategy stat. A character with the max in that stat could levy 100% of the troops due whereas a character with a strategy stat of only 80% of the max could only levy 80% of the troops due from his tiles.

Does this really sound more complicated than the
conflict levy system in this post?

 

[Octavian X]

Personally, I'm loving this talk of a despot. Also, I think that I can see how this could work...

A. We elect a single game manager. This person would oversee every aspect of the game, create new rules as they necesary, judge if certain actions within a action are legal, etc. He could also appoint others to help run things.
For fairness sake, however, this manager would not be allowed to participate in any aspect of the game, only to run it. I'd suggest a moderator, but I doubt Shaitan or eyrei would be willing.

B. Normally, the lot people have in life is determined by their birth. Since we can assume the randomness of birth, we can decide where people start out in life. Have all people who wish to participate sign up for the game. Then, the game manager uses a random number generator to decide a person's lot in life. This would be a great way to decide who's a despot, who's a peasent, and everyone else in between. If we want to add another dimension, we can set income to certain classes...

 

[Grandmaster]

Would there be a way to elevate one's self in rank? For instance, through fighting in a Noble's army and being victorious, or raising a peasant army, or assassinating a noble and taking his land? It would be a little boring being born as a peasant and knowing that you can never get up any higher....

 

[Shaitan]

Interesting...

There would have to be a way to raise your caste. As GM noted it would be incredibly boring to be a share cropper forever. That would also stifle storytelling and we definitely don't want that.

Two recommendations:

Multiple characters. You've all seen how McNulty expertly handles several personalities in several interweaving storylines. While not everybody can keep a line on it all like he does I'd definitely encourage more people to try.

Death. As disorganizer suggested, there needs to be more death. I believe my own character and Alexander were the only storied characters to die in this entire game. Put a 2 month maximum on character life.

 

[GenMarshall]

Originally posted by Shaitan
Multiple characters. You've all seen how McNulty expertly handles several personalities in several interweaving storylines. While not everybody can keep a line on it all like he does I'd definitely encourage more people to try.

Its quite fun and interesting using a NPC . The last part of the RPG, I have started to get into this Multiple character (Though I call them NPC ) .

 

[Grandmaster]

Originally posted by Shaitan
...there needs to be more death.

Psycho!

But seriously, we should get that worked out. I have been trying to operate multiple characters, but I am yet to get the hang of being a schizo. It is worth trying, though. I agree that people need to die. ( ) 2 months (terms) sounds good. Also, perhaps make it possible for us to kill one another? (I know, I know... "it's a GAME; play nice") You know, if two houses engage in battle, the opposing lords and their various other personalities can be KIA? Likewise, it could be possible for somebody from a low or middle caste (peasants, serfs, fighting sons of lesser nobles who do not become Knights) to assassinate a Prince or Baron. Maybe by doing that they could elevate themselves.... there's a quote from a movie (I think it's "A Knight's Tale") that goes something like: "How do you think the nobles got that way? It's because, many generations ago, there ancestors TOOK that nobility at the tip of a sword!" So a peasant or lesser noble could potentially kill or otherwise dethrone a lord and take his land? Just an idea.

 

[Grandmaster]

In fact, we could even have people choose caste-based careers... therefore there could be professional assassins (if we get Babylon, they would be hashishans ) who would rub out nobles for you, there could be career warriors (likely from lesser noble families as they aren't "knights" per say) who would go out and fight the greater nobles for there land, and career Knights who would.... well.... fight each other for the sake of fighting. Perhaps whoever wins gets the other's land, armor, weapons, etc.?

 

[Civanator]

Maybe we can have multiple characters die, but our MAIN character can live the whole demogame. So it would just be like losing your friends, but you live. Donsig, your ideas are making sense to me.

Also, having random events every like week. Say I start a thread, which is a story, and then people can catch on, adding to the story, (but nothing radical, like flying over columns of soldiers, riding to the other side of the world in a minute, etc.) and keeping it real. Like when Sir John just plopped in with the volcano.

 

[Civanator]

Another thing: if we control multiple characters, maybe they can start with the regular starting things too? but we would not be able to share gold.

 

[donsig]

I think character deaths are needed very much. just as no one wants to remain a peasant all game long we do not want a good RPG player ending up with an immortal and all powerful character. I'd say we make one game turn equal one year in a characters age. We can use the life expectancy in the demographics screen as a basis for how long characters can live. Some will die naturally before that mark and some will naturally live beyond it. I'd say every round there is some random number thingy that decides if any characters just die. Something along the lines of the chance of dying increases as one ages. Others will die in battle. There would have to be some random number check every time a battle is made to see if anyone bites the big one. Of course anyone captured in battle could be executed! Then others can be murdered. How many Roman Emperors died at the hands of assassins? Despots will be killed and then there would be a mad scramble for power. When a character dies the player gets a new set of stats to start anew.
We certainly need a DM and Shaitan springs to mind but I really think we can set it up so the DM can play.
I agree that characters have to be able to advance their status. I'm not sure randomly assigning careers is good. Random stats would be good so the players can role play different types of characters. I think *picking* the first Despot would be a fun game in itself. Instead of drawing lots we could hold a tournament or have a last man standing melee or some kind of king of the hill game. There should be an element of chance involved (and perhaps a chance for characters to die right away) but the character stats and role play should enter into it as well...

Let He who finds the Sacred Symbol and returns it to the Mount be our Leader! Ok, some Lucky Stiff actually finds the Sacred Symbol but to be Despot he has to get to the Mount with it. Anyone wanting to be Despot can try to take the Sacred Symbol away. Will the Lucky Stiff be able to fight off all comers? Will he buy bodyguards with promises of future patronage? Will his hired thugs betray him in the end? If he becomes first Despot will he make too many enemies getting there?

I'm sure there are many out there who could come up with a much better story line to get us started...

 

[Shaitan]

So long as random events are well designed I would be comfortable with playing as well as being a pseudo game master. I've run NPC's for many years so it's pretty much second nature for me to play a character with part of the brain and scheme and manipulate with another.

 

[Stuck_as_a_Mac]

Shai: I had chacters constantly dyinging. I went dynastic. And as for multiple characters, remember, Im the only person to stage a civil war against themself.

 

[donsig]

Originally posted by Shaitan
So long as random events are well designed I would be comfortable with playing as well as being a pseudo game master. I've run NPC's for many years so it's pretty much second nature for me to play a character with part of the brain and scheme and manipulate with another.

I don't have much experience designing random events but to take the dying characters as an example I envision some formula that uses as input a character's age and the national life expectancy and generates as output a percentage chance that the character dies. Then a random number check is made to see if the character dies that round. The trick would be making the formula so that most characters died around the age of the life expectancy. When characters are first created they should be given a random age. In D&D terms it would be similar to saving throws: each character would have a saving throw versus death that would change as the character ages and the national life expectancy varies. Every round (basically every turn chat) the saving throws for the characters are calculated and the saving rolls made to see if anyone dies. I was thinking this could all be done on a spreadsheet to keep the work easy.

Battle deaths would be similar. In every battle there would be a certain chance that the participants die in battle. There could also be a certain chance that some are captured. Captured charactered to be ransomed back to friends or executed or imprisoned or... whatever but that's up to the capturing player not chance. I'm assuming here that there is a random element even in battles. I didn't play the conflict game so I really don't know if any of my suggestions fit in with that concept...

 

[Cyc]

Can I make a suggestion? I know, I chose to opt out of the games also, but I've been reading your thread and others and there seems to be a lean towards having the Demogame influence the RPG, but not vice-versa.

With that in mind, do you think it would be a good idea for elected officials in the DG to have a "personal guard" of say 25 armed men to be figured into the battles? Maybe as the Leaders have the personal guard, they also receive a +1 (plus one) advantage on any roll of the die concerning their life. The Leaders in the DG wouldn't necessarily have to have any official role in the RPG (despot, king, prince, whatever), but would have the extra "personal guard" at their disposal during RPG battles.

Not only could this be seen as an enticement for participation in the DG, but also as help for a struggling serf or knight who feels out-numbered in the RPG.

Just a thought.

 

[Octavian X]

Well, many people did participate a bit more of DG elected position bonuses. However, if people run ONLY for those RPG leaders, we just end up with lame duck leaders.

Death would be good (that sounds bad out of context). Rotate some despots to peasentry, let those who were once mere farmers become earls through death. Murder would also be a great way to die (gasp!), though we'ed need to figure out how to work that.

A caste system wouldn't be boring as a peasent, either. Theoretically, peasents could organize a revolt.

 

[GenMarshall]

Though I like the Idea of "Bumping" off other RPG player. But that would lead to a whole bunch of "You cant kill me" and other whinings.

 

[Shaitan]

@CivGeneral - That's what the DM would be for. Master of death and randomized occurences.

@donsig - I'm fine with writing the randomizer for old age death, combat death, accidental death, etc. Actually, accidental death would just be part of the big random happenings table.

What we need are those random happenings! Anything from "All the milk in town X curdles" to "Volcano erupts". Everybody who would like to contribute (and I ask that everybody contribute) please make a list and PM them to me. We don't want to post all of the ideas so they'll be surprises when they happen. Remember we need good stuf, bad stuff, neutral stuff.

 

[Eklektikos]

Originally posted by Shaitan
@CivGeneral - That's what the DM would be for. Master of death and randomized occurences.

Ladies and gentlemen, I fear we have a D&D afficionado in our midst

 

[Shaitan]

Originally posted by Eklektikos
Ladies and gentlemen, I fear we have a D&D afficionado in our midst

Ah yes, the tales I could tell...

 

[Shaitan]

Managers would be allowed to enlist help, of course. These would be positions like the Herald, Professor of the Academy (stats), Exchequer (banker), etc. In order for any position to gain a wealth benefit or perk in the RPG, the position must be tied to an in game character.

Game Manager (DM)
Begins with: Start game
Ends with: End game
Duties: Pseudo DM. Make NPC's, support and direct storylines, inflict random events upon unsuspecting players.

Item Manager
Begins with: Start game
Ends with: End game
Duties: Track item lists, posessions, housing, etc for all players. Monitors that invalid items are not in use.

Conflict Manager
Begins with: Start game
Ends with: Nationalism / End game
Duties: Track troop positions, raisings, dispersements and conflicts for all players. This position continues after nationalism but at that point it would be tracking official armed forces as detailed by storylines and/or the Game Manager instead of independent player armies.

Economic Manager
Begins with: Currency
Ends with: End game
Duties: What the Price Manager and Bank Manager used to do. Assist/approve business setups and business running. Monitor that invalid items are not bought/sold. Track the amount of money that each player has.