Bringing the RPG in DG3

Status
Not open for further replies.
Let the first despot be an NPC created by the GM. That way there's no pressure while familiarizing play and fitting storytelling to the new rules and nobody needs to feel bad if/when the evil dictator...er...enlightened ruler gets a neckotomy. It will also allow characters to develop a bit as well as form into factions (if desired).

Counting tiles used in the game might be more realistic but would be an absolute nightmare. Imagine the nation at 20 cities and 100 population and having to find out which 100 tiles were being used after every chat. Also, the land owners in the RPG have no control over what tiles are used in the demogame. An earl with a small army could be wiped out because the DP made a mistake in the chat or put a bunch of pop on other tiles.

Opt out definitely needs to go away. That was only put in because we started the conflict ruleset when we were already under way. Anybody who wants to avoid conflict can simply stay away from land grabbing.

I'd like to remove the free perks from demogame positions. Save those for discretionary perks from the GM, perks for people working to support the RPG, etc.
 
NPC? what does it stand for?

Also, maybe we should have a Random Events and Death Manager. So the REM would start and event, and if it is bad, the DM takes the lives of the citizens killed. Also during battle the DM taks the lives with him. Like the Grim Reaper. So when the Random Events Manager makes an event, and people are killed during it, the Death Manager calculates who gets killed. the DM then sends the Grim Reaper to take their souls to the underworld.

Also, since we might not know who is who in a disaster/battle, maybe we can give people a number as they register in the citizen registry for the RPG. I also volunteer for the REM or DM if we decide to use random events, or have a Death Manager.
 
The GM (Game Manager) would be the random events and death dealer...er...manager.

NPC stands for Non Player Character. That's someone the GM creates to add to the story, fill up a needed spot, spark interest and storylines, etc.
 
I doubt that we would use a grim reaper. The starting despot could be an NPC. When a noble doesn't have enough people to run his estates an NPC might be introduced that he could hire. If a storyline needs a foil or a villain an NPC might be created. Things like that.
 
Originally posted by Shaitan
Counting tiles used in the game might be more realistic but would be an absolute nightmare. Imagine the nation at 20 cities and 100 population and having to find out which 100 tiles were being used after every chat. Also, the land owners in the RPG have no control over what tiles are used in the demogame. An earl with a small army could be wiped out because the DP made a mistake in the chat or put a bunch of pop on other tiles.

It may be a nightmare, I don't know. I do know that keeping track of land ownership in the last RPG was worse than a nightmare. I would like to raise a couple points about my idea though. First of all it is just an idea and not a thought out and proven system so it certainly needs to be adjusted to be made workable. Second, the focus of the idea is to form some basis for characters to form armies (well, bands of tribesmen really) for fighting. I see the age of despotism as a violent period where might makes right and players are constantly vying and fighting to grab and maintain power. It's not meant to last throughout the whole game. I envision monarchy to still have power grabs but I also see players fighting for the *rightful* King just because they see him as the rightful King. A republic on the other hand should see less strife though civil wars are possible. Third, in the beginning will there be true *ownership* of land? At what point can we say a player actually hold title to a tile? When we get code of laws? After fuedalism has been established? Then there is the currency issue: we can't really buy or sell land for gold until currency. I kind of by-passed all these questions in my idea by saying the Despot *owns* all the land. But he or she can only administer so much by him or her-self and must enlist others to help. Therein lies the possibilities for the game since (as in life) there will be those who seek more power at their leader's expense. As long as we are in the despotism stage of the game we may not even need to focus on which tiles are being worked. There may be an easier way to allocate the soldier raising ability among the RPG players. The Despot should have an edge but should still have to rely on helpers who would have varying degrees of power. I am certainly all for a system that is easy to track. Once again I am at a loss to go further since I have not seen the game of conflict/houses in action and don't have a good grasp of the mechanics. Finally I would remind everyone that land ownership in the RPG was added mid-game just as the conflict was. I'm suggesting we implement one system now that focuses on conflict, we modify the first system for monarchy (or whatever turning point we choose) and then change again to something more along the lines of our original land ownership when gold/currency is in use.
 
I think you're on the right track with how much land a single character can manage with increases to that number depending on ranking. Say each character can handle a minimum of one tile. A baron would double that to 2 tiles. Earls could handle 3. Dukes could handle 4. Archdukes 5 and the Emperor 9. Those numbers would be modified by the character's appropriate ability score. Maybe +/- 1 or 2 tiles. Those numbers are multiplied by the number of defined provinces. Cities are worth 1 tile per 2 population. At first the despot can run everything all by himself. Very soon he has to start appointing nobles to manage land for him. Trusted nobles would be given more land and would need to appoint their own helpers when the amount of land exceeded their control limit. That's basically just a repeat of part of what donsig said a couple posts back with a bit of procedure thrown in.
 
The Land Manager would keep track of the established territories and who controlled what. And the critical info of how much each territory produced (to determine what units could be supported).
 
I follow your ideas but need a couple answers to more fully grasp your plan Shaitan. Would all tiles within the country's cultural borders then be used? Would the type of tile still be taken into account (i.e., would an irrigated grassland tile still be capable of raising more soldiers than an unimproved hill tile?) Would characters have to follow some sort of fixed upgrade path or would it be possible to jump from Baron to Emperor in one fell swoop? What distinguishes a Baron from a Duke or an Earl (other than the number of tiles he can control?) I guess a better way of asking the last question is: from what pool of tiles do the lower nobles appoint helpers to? Finally, if the first Despot is an NPC will his appointments be made randomly?

It seems to me that when the capital is founded the Despot will control all the tiles since there will only be 9. Once the borders expand there will be 12 more tiles available. Would the Despot have the option of appointing any combination? Could he appoint 2 Archdukes and a Baron or 6 Barons or any other combo that added to 12 tiles? Would the Despot decide which tiles each appointee would control? I assume we want tile control to remain static except for the results of the conflicts.

Do you envision it this way Shaitan:

The Despot controls the capital and the 8 tiles surrounding it. Once borders expand the Despot points to a character and says you will control tiles A, B and C. Since you're being given control of 3 tiles you are an Earl. He points to another character and says you will administer tiles D and E. By the way, you're a Baron. Then he's left with one tile which he gives to another character who doesn't get a title. The Earl sees an opeing and attacks the un-titled character out of spite while the Despot and Baron look on (with evil grins no doubt). The Earl wins the battle, takes the tile and says, "Hey. I'm a Duke now!" The game continues with the Despot handing out any newly available tiles. If he hands an Archduke any tiles the Archduke would in turn have to appoint lesser characters to take the load? What if a Duke (with 4 tiles) conquers all the land an Earl has (3 tiles)? would the Duke become an Archduke (with 5 tiles) and have to appoint a character or characters to control the extra 2 tiles?
 
All tiles in the borders would be used. Titles could be handed out any which way by the despot but there would generally be a progression from the lower ranks to the higher ones. The NPC despot would appoint the first few lords randomly. After that, the despot increases their titles as land grows and those imperial nobles request titles when they need lower nobles to manage territory. The despot may or may not, depending on whether he thinks it would be a healthy move for him to do so.

The division of nobles could be a load of petty titles, a couple of archdukes or whatever mix seems to be working.

That's pretty much what I envision. One clarifyer though - in a despotism titles are controlled/verified by the despot. If the despot removes a title the noble would need to decide whether they are rebelling. They keep the effects of the title until the rebellion is settled one way or another.
 
So the BIG questions are how do we topple a Despot and how is the next despot determined? I assume an NPC Despot could still die randomly even if no one rebels or attempt assassination.
 
A despot, or any other character, could die in many ways:
There's the possibilites of random death by disease, as controllable by the Game Manager.
People could die is combat, or, better yet, captured and held as a PoW, giving the option of execution to the capturing leader (conflict manager's domain)
I also envision assasination. A player could make the attempt. The game manager could then factor in body guards, and skill levels, to decide if the attempt is succesful.
Don't forget the Acts of God the Game Manager needs to throw in.

After we have a despot gone through death or capture, or exile for that matter (giving him the option to gain strength and return :)), a new despot would be the toppler in cases of forced change, a close advisor or noble the despot choses before death, a son who is a player selected at random, or the beginnings of a new type of government if the rebellion is a peasent one. The possibilies are endless. :D

We'd just have to play these things by ear, letting the Game Manager use his judgement to make the most logical choice.
 
i didnt read all of it, but many of those ideas are just ... fantastic :)

some additions:
1) characters
each player is allowed to introduce as many npc's as he likes (maybe we should limit this to 3 simultanious characters?) but
* has to keep track of them in the rpg-registry
now this leads to the problem how those characters earn money:
* each player has to post HOW he distributes his income
so each PLAYER gets income, and he has to distribute it to his PC's. the list for the distribution is posted in the rpg-registry
example:
if the PLAYER disorganizer has a regular official income (from his positions, not from land or other ownings) of 150 gold and he has 2 characters (disorganizer and dis-the-bun), he can post in the rpg-registry that his character disorganizer gets 100 and dis-the-bun gets 50 gold each TC.
if now dis-the-bun owns land which produced 100 gold income, the player disorganizer can not use this money for the character disorganizer until dis-the-bun gives the money to disorganizer in a official transaction (i hope you get the grip on how it works).

the other possibility to give those character their own "live" would be to force players to only 1 simultanious character with which they play....

2) character stats
stats for new characters should be random. with one exception:
if a new character is a descendant of a existing character, the stats of the "father+mother" should somehow (shaitan, any idea for a formula?) influence the randomizer.
a good warrior would propably produce someone not kompletely away from being a warrior...

3) death
* if a player's character dies and he has not "produced" a descendant or posted how he wants to have his possessions inherited, all items are given to the void. the player is then suspended from the game immediately until he creates a new character and that new character has to start from "plain".
* if a player has already produced a descendant, he can either post how to distribute his possessions or the descendant automatically gets all the died character owns.
* death should hit characters by random. maybe influenced by how old they are and whether they are in fighting. there should also be an influence by social status in the early ages, for example the despot should have a much lesser propability to die than a farm worker ;-)
* at any time someone can try to kill someone else. he maybe must take the consequences though. even 2 characters of the same player can try to kill each other.
one of the consequences may be that the killer is dying in the attempt... or he goes to jail or is killed by the nation.
we should define stats for that or work on a formula defining when someone is dying... and when someone is dead.
this would also define how we get rid of despots, for example ;-)
or how we could work on rebellions and how we could punish people...
 
i posted a list of other things in the citizen forum, so here is a compilation of that:

1) tech enforcement
only known techs... and one rpg-manager to approove all items which are introduced into the rpg BEFOREHAND for tech-conformance (the item manager?). this also includes storylines.
only exceptions: bank and land-sales. but these are necessary for organizing our nation.
example: no share should be given out before economics, but true business partnership can be used instead (giving parts of real ownership to others with all rights)

2) character features
if a character, wether npc or real player, wants to use a feature which is not covered by anything existing in the rpg (for example wants to become a vampire or something) also a manager has to approove this (if for example somebody wants to become a vampire and somehow manages to get this approoved, he may add the feature of "flying" to his character)

3) no opting out of the conflict rules
if somebody wants land, he has to take the consequence of having to build an army to defend it. so sneaking away from this should not be possible

4) land-block advantages
the earning-per-tile for land ownings should be drastically reduced. instead, we should use earning-multipliers for "land-blocks".
example: for each 4x4 block, the earnings are doubled, for each 6x6 block the earnings are trippled, for each 10x10 block the earnings are multiplied by 4.

5) character death
it should be possible to have children and to die... but this may need tuning and work during the game itself as it is a pretty new concept

6) banning of dg2 names and referrences
all references and names of dg2 should be banned in dg3




and i still think we should throw the opting out of the conflict rules away immediately... its like cheating...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom