If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here.

Now, we move into GM advice. What do the two core books say about what a campaign is and how to develop and sustain one? Well, it’s contradictory, for one, which fits my theory that this is a game in transition, unsure whether it is a campaign based game or a heroic module based game:

• A series of adventures with the same adventurers
• Adventurers can move between them
• Several adventurers per player, often in different places
• Fits the style of the players
• Passion, desire, coincidence, intrigue, and virtue create events and situations.
• Energy, enthusiasm, and ideas come from all the players.
• A wealth of detail

The Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide was apparently literally cut from the DMG, and adds interesting assumptions and structures:

1. Campaigns are expected to accommodate many modules
2. Be a place for PC s to live, grow, and develop
3. PC actions and adventures outcomes impact the world
4. World events affect the PCs
5. Living, growing and changing world

Pulling these disparate elements together for Advanced Fantasy Dungeons:

A campaign is a detailed passionate world, developed with the players, where desire, probability, intrigue and virtue combine to create unexpected situations and events.

In this world, there are many player characters playing adventure modules in both parallel and serial, often by the same players.

The actions of these player characters change the progression of world events, and the progression of world events affect the player characters.

There are some surprising findings here. We have collaborative world building, specific powder box elements, and the expectation that there is a “primary timeline” from which the PCs adventures cause a divergence.

There is very little guidance on procedure, though: How do we collaboratively develop a world with these features? How and when do we create the detail? There is nothing here in the DMG, so continuing a look at CS&CG:

• “There is no greater glory for a GM than to run adventure campaigns set in their own world!”
• Be organised (use a notes app)
• Give your world a theme (Game of Thrones meets She-Ra and the Princesses of Power!)
• At first describe only the core area and build out, only a few days journey at a time (a village or inn, two roads with vague destinations)
• Make a map (use hex kit!)
• Players create the broad strokes of their characters land, people, and professions and hand it to the GM to develop when necessary. The GM can still ask them questions!

I like this framework, but the specifics become the kind of simulationism second edition is known for: Geology, Ecology, Population, Social Structure, Mythology and the telling ‘Evaluation in light of a fantastic imagination”. Unhelpful for me, except for: “Decide whether it could be more interesting if magic could play a bigger role?”

When I’m stuck by the second addition material, I move back to earlier sources. Gygax wrote an article for the April 1975 issue of Europa, which was the inspiration for Ray Otus’ Gygax ‘75 Challenge. The whole challenge is exceptional for this kind of world-building, but the principles are straight from the original article:

1. In broad strokes, describe the setting
2. Key a weird town
3. Map the countryside with a few points of interest
4. Map a four level dungeon
5. Over time, so too the World

This sits comfortably next to the CS&CG advice, and is enough for a procedure, I think, for use as a “session zero” of sorts.

To start a campaign, choose a pre-existing campaign starter with a town, countryside, and dungeon, such as Against the Cult of the Reptile God, or follow the procedure in the workbook in Appendix X to create your campaign together.

Ok, this is good, because it means the massive and complex procedure can be stuck on four pages of workbook in an appendix (or maybe not, wherever), because it’s not really code rules, but it’s a fun minigame and a decent session zero centrepiece, to accompany character creation and upfront safety tools.

Wherever the procedure asks you to describe something, try to limit to 2-3 sentences. Expand on other players contributions with each step, rather than your own previous contributions. If anyone feels uncomfortable with any suggestions, they can just say “I’m uncomfortable with that” or “That doesn’t seem like it’ll be fun”. If they can, it is better to follow those with a but, and suggest a twist or change that will make them comfortable or make the suggestion more fun.

1. Collaboratively develop a setting concept, in terms of properties you know in common.
2. Find an existing fantasy town map, use random town generator, or draw a map for your town.
3. Each contribute to the town map key one mundane good or service, one weird unique feature, one faction and their headquarters, and one or two NPCs.

Diversion: I’ve stated I want to ignore geometry for simplicity, but map density is important. I want the map to very simply translate to travel: 1 watch should be 1 hex. 1 watch travel should then be about 6 miles (assuming terrain isn’t easy, and we should), and we can travel 2 watches out of 3 each day. You can have up to 3 landmarks per hex if you choose (a density equivalent to Gygax’ 1 mile hex). If you really want to know where in the hex they are, divide it into thirds, name them nor’east, nor’west and south, and put them there. This puts you about 1 watch away from three landmarks, some within your hex and some in an adjacent one. If you want terrain granularity, swampy or mountain terrain is 2 watches per hex, and highway is 1 watch per 2 hexes. I prefer dense maps, because travel takes the same amount of real-time regardless. I probably need to revise Journeying, but this thought train actually doesn’t change much, except that I might soften HP cost. Continuing:

4. Take a sheet of blank hex paper or use an easy app like Hex Kit.
5. Each draw onto the map a settlement (one being the town, the others being smaller) and an adventure site (one being the dungeon), and assign terrain types to each hex they are placed in, and describe them.
6. Each describe three to four random encounters, at least one being a vague adventure hook or an NPC, looking to fill 10 slots (1d10) or 11 slots (2d6). If you choose 2d6, put common encounters in the middle.

The dungeon is the most challenging part of the procedure, as dungeons are so interconnected, but I think I got this:

7. Each suggest a theme for each level, collaborating on a way to connect them.

8. Draw a dungeon map, with circles for rooms and lines for hallways, three levels deep, or use the one on the worksheet. Each describe 3-4 rooms on each level without describing their inhabitants. Not every room in the dungeon should match a theme, and themes can creep between levels when appropriate.

9. Each describe and draw in 1-2 connections between levels, as dotted lines, and draw in 1 blocked connection to as yet unmapped areas of the dungeon.

10. Each populate the dungeon with 3 monsters and 1-2 traps or weird features.

10. Choose 1 magic item each to place in the dungeon, and give it a story or history.

11. Each describe three to four random encounters, looking to fill 10 slots (1d10) or 11 slots (2d6). If you choose 2d6, put common encounters in the middle. Choose from monsters already in the dungeon, monsters from the wilderness around the dungeon, vague adventure hooks and interesting NPCs.

12. Together, with all of this in mind, describe the entrance.

13. The GM randomly decides in the PCs absence where treasure and magical items are. Roll 1d6 for each room. On a 6, there’s treasure. On a 4-6, there’s treasure if there’s a monster in the room. If there’s treasure in the room, roll 1d6 again, and if you roll a 6 place one of the magical items.

You have created your campaign starter! Some players may be reluctant to collaborate on building the campaign, wary of spoilers. The nature of the game means that once control of the campaign world is passed to the GM, the chance of being spoiled ends quickly, as the outcomes of the PCs actions become the source of tension. From the end of the first session, change is inevitable and any familiarity will turn to excitement about how things will be twisted by their impact.

Phwoar. That’s a lot. I think that in retrospect, this is about defining and starting a campaign, I think even though, and next there needs to be an preparation and response section and a what do you do during a session section.

Now, I failed to address something: Passion, desire, intrigue and virtue combine to create unexpected situations. I think we can incorporate this into the NPC sections, but also into regular preparation as I’ll get to soon.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on campaigns so far, if there are questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

15th May 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here.

War is a ambiguous in the second edition; implied in the code, and detailed over major lines like Birthright and Dragonlance. The challenge is having a straightforward procedure to war, while still having it interesting to engage with. My gut feeling was to replicate and simplify Risk on a map. But that’s not mirroring procedures. So, can I make war mirror Dungeoneering or Journeying?

When you issue an order to a battalion, tell your general. They will report back to you when the order has been resolved. Orders are usually along the lines of “Send Eagle and Falcon Battalions to take Saint Garifods”. The battalion will follow the order as best it can.

Battalion movements take one real-time week. Each week, roll the movement die and follow the instructions, then resolve battles. The movement die is a 1d6, interpreted as follows:

1. Supply chain failure. Your battalion is thirsty and starving. If they battle this week, they have –1 power. 2-5. Movement as normal. 6. Beneficial Positioning. Your battalion finds themselves at an advantage. If they battle this week, they have +1 power.

All battalions can move one county each week, but cannot move over difficult terrain. If at the end of a week, battalions of opposing sides are in the same county, they battle.

To battle, compare power. If power is equal, the attacker is forced back. If one sides’ power is greater, all battalions on the side with less power is destroyed.

Battalions tied to some holdings have special features, such as the ability to move through water or difficult terrain, move 2 spaces in a single week, or possess 2 rather than 1 power.

A strike force refers to an adventuring party participating in operations to give one side in a battle the advantage. A successful strike force provides 1-2 additional power, depending on the nature of the operation.

A successful battle allows the winner to lay claim to the county as part of their domain once peace has been sued for, along with access to its holdings potential trade routes.

Ok, this is a good start, a mix of dungeon exploration and Risk, but we need a rule for the GM:

When creating the map, the GM breaks it into 3-5 hex counties, according to local politics and resources. When battalions are moving around the map, their movement in terms of counties.

I love this simplicity, but I feel like there’s a more complex rule set that mirrors the combat procedure for battalions. Do we want that though? I suspect not. Overall, I think this might be a fun but simple war procedure, and I’m impressed I fit it into one post.

I’m even more excited, because this puts me into the final stretch that is the GM section, before I attempt to work all of these developments into a cohesive whole guided by the concepts put forward in Principles and Procedures.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on war, whether this is interesting enough to be pursued, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

14th May 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here.

I included patrons because a bunch of classes — priests, paladins, potentially wizards — all have an otherworldly or worldly NPC that has set them on their path and guides them. And I’m also aware that there are a bunch of optional classes elsewhere in second edition — monks, psionicists, druids — that are similar. But I set it aside, because while it’s worth talking about and remains solidly unspoken about in second edition, I wasn’t sure what to say about it. But then I wrote my very brief rule on allegiance, and realised that they could literally just be the same rule. So we simply add a foreword?

Priests and paladins and sometimes other classes have offered their allegiance to a supernatural patron who provides them with their power in exchange for significant obligation.

An NPC patron, regardless of their nature, should be a developed character with undisclosed needs and desires. No patron offers a portion of their power in exchange for nothing, and no patron considers a PC, especially at level 1, their equal.

Obligations m need to be discussed with the GM during character creation, but should be vague enough for the patron to have flexibility when calling upon the PC to fulfil them. The GM starts a domain clock dictating when the next obligation is to be called in. The patron gives the PC a mission, and the consequence of failure is the patrons dissatisfaction.

When you reach 9th level or above and do not wish to be lord of a domain, a PC of any class may offer allegiance to a patron – typically a PC or NPC lord of a domain – and if they accept, become their lieutenant. You will be given a role, such as marshall or spymaster, and offered missions just as any other lieutenant is. These obligations are treated the same as priestly or paladin obligations.

Yeah. Good. Neat. I love folding these two rules together.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on patronage, if there are questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

13th May 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here.

So, what if you don’t want to be a noble landowner? That’s easy:

If you do not wish to be lord of a domain, you may offer allegiance to a lord – either a PC or NPC – and if they accept, become their lieutenant. You will be given a role, such as marshall or spymaster, and offered missions just as any other lieutenant is, which you will have to play out during game sessions, perhaps with an alternate party.

I was putting this off for a long time, but then realised that it doesn’t need to be complicated at all.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on avoiding responsibility, if there are questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

12th May 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of the advanced fantasy dungeon series, there’s an index here.

A brief diversion. I’m trying to figure out how to manage living expenses or lifestyle (as they’re called in various editions) is a challenge, because there are problems with the very concept, such as the implication they are choice, the name “lifestyle” being problematic at best when one choice is “poor”, the lack of fun and roleplaying opportunity brought by it, and the unnecessary bookkeeping associated with it.

My first question is, given that historically, your “lifestyle” is tied to social station, and social station is self-sustaining (the rich spend their money on being rich, the poor spend their money on being poor, and mobility is difficult and unusual), why do we need living expenses?

Your station provides for your basic necessities such as housing, food and drink, animals, servants, upkeep on belongings and adventuring consumables such as ammunition and torches. A PC or NPC can be poor, work-folk, gentry or noble. When you make a reaction roll it is with disadvantage if they are not if your station, if station is applicable.

In addition: If you are poor, you have connections amongst the downtrodden and petty criminal; if you are work-folk, you have connections among clerks, servants and white collar criminals;if you are gentry, you have connections among knights, advisors, and merchants; if you are nobility, you have connections at court, through marriage, and between nations.

You cannot simply change station. You can only become work-folk by keeping 500 GP hidden safely away; can only become gentry through owning property and can only become nobility through royal decree. Your station can be lost in a similar manner. When you change station, you previous connections are unlikely to persist unless you have invested significant time in them, and even then will likely be affected negatively by the change.

We revise reputation, to match these new rules. We add the +1 is a reward for a significant contribution to a specific place (the Village of Homelethe), or a specific domain (the Criminals of Lathegard), but now we have a reason to roll with disadvantage. NPCs station (or lack thereof) becomes important information. There’s a concrete impact to “acting above your station”, which is a neat variable to introduce drama into the game.

When you encounter a new NPC or group of NPCs, the GM makes a reaction check, modified by your reputation. If you have bardic influence, roll with advantage, and if they predisposed against you or are not of your station, roll with disadvantage. The NPCs reaction is determined by the result:

1-2. Positive (friendly, welcoming or receptive)

3-6. Possibly positive (amiable or deliberating)

7-15. Uncertain (indecisive or neutral)

15-18. Possibly negative (suspicious or skeptical)

19-20. Negative (hostile, fleeing, or unreceptive)

Once starting reaction has been determined, it is not rolled again once the NPC knows the party, and their reaction remains stable between meetings. In-world choices can effect change the NPCs disposition towards the party, but rolls (for example, a charisma check) cannot.

Reputation is awarded (+1) for a significant contribution to a location, profession or faction, or for being of the same station, and is effective only in that context. It is recorded on your character sheet.

But Cultivate Relationship remains the same, because modifiers remain obscured:

Cultivate Relationship: You may cultivate a relationship. Relationships are always consecutive branching clocks, with at least four ticks per clock. For friendships, these clocks are Acquaintances, Associates, Friends, and Intimates. For romantic relationships, these clocks are Attention, Flirtation, Tryst, Lovers, Paramours. The GM can create clocks for specific relationship or relationship goals, for example Prove My Worth to Captain Urutangi might be Suspicious, Neutral, Deliberating, Receptive, reflecting Captain Urutangi’s disposition when first encountered. Because Captain Uturangi is starting as hostile to the PC, the first clock may be eight steps or be walled with a specific quest before it can progress. Relationship often have walls that cannot be advanced past without a specific way to deepen the bond. One might also take a free tick for something that occurs outside of downtime that deepens the bond. To advance the clock on a relationship, the player says how their character is strengthening the bond between them. The GM will judge if this makes sense.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on station as a replacement for living expense. if there are questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

11th May 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here.

With domain play comes domain-level resources. I’ve alluded a few types of resource for domain level play: Credit, debt, unique assets, and favour. Let’s start with debt.

Your domain earns credit each season for each unique asset it can trade along a trade route or for holdings in the domain.

Your domain earns debt to engage in or succeed in certain domain actions.

Track your credit and debt on your character sheet. At the end of each season, all credits and debts must be balanced.

If your domain is in credit either peculate or keep the remaining credit for next season. If your domain is in debt either appease your creditors, peculate, or face the consequences. See domain actions for details on peculating or appeasing your creditors.

If you have a chancellor, you can peculate to convert credit to gold at a rate of 600gp + 1d6 x 100gp per credit, or to convert gold into credit at 600gp + 1d6 x 100gp per credit into credit.

If you have an ambassador, you can appease your creditors by offering them something they need.

That’s neater and more elegant than I expected! Favour is more simple, because it is binary:

Your domain has diplomatic standing with every other domain: Either you have favour with them, or you do not.

If you have favour, they’ll do something for you for free. Once they do this, you must lose their favour and must earn it again.

And finally, what’s a unique asset and a holding?

A holding is a location or faction that possesses a unique asset. A unique asset is a named thing that can be traded or used, such as an air shipyard, a lake of acid, a portal to another dimension, or battalion of griffon-knights. Unique assets can be used in war, as bargaining tools in negotiations, for trade to generate credits, or whatever you else makes sense for those assets.

These three rules give you a lot of mileage in terms of how spending money on diplomacy, war, trade, and possibilities for more adventure, I think, which is one goal of domain level play.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on debt, favour and holdings, if there are questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

10th May 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here.

I keep referencing fortune rolls, so I thought I’d write a rule.

A fortune roll is a roll against either a target of 10 or a relevant ability score. Make a fortune roll when you need to make a determination about a situation the PCs aren’t directly involved in and don’t want to simply decide the outcome, when an outcome is uncertain but no other roll applies to the situation at hand, or to answer a question or inspire an idea for what might happen next. The GM determined advantage or disadvantage based on the situation.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on fortune rolls, if there are questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

9th May 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here.

Domain actions encompass the optional governance, intrigue and politics areas of play that are strongly encouraged in second edition. Aside from an additional board to play on, it give PCs another opportunity to use their hard earnt GP and to earn obscene amounts of GP.

I think I want to minimise the differences between downtime and domain actions, in terms of their procedures. But they need to be unique in a few ways:

• Made available by lieutenants
• Progress automatically
• Months to years, not weeks
• Cost is in debt, not gold

Birthright provides a complicated system of domain actions, but I think a key here is that you’re sending your lieutenants off into the world to act in your name. Diplomacy doesn’t need to be more complex than a clock, because it’s happening off-screen. If a PC wants to get it done, they can do it themselves. Therefore, domain actions reflect downtime actions, but are dependent on fortune:

Domain actions are special downtime actions. Each domain action has a clock, and while that clock is ticking, the lieutenant assigned to that action is unavailable for other actions. Discuss the implications of the action with the GM. They will determine with you whether a clock is required and the cost and outcome of the action, based on what you have in mind, and the diplomatic relations you and your domain have with the people involved.

For each real-time week, progress your clock by one. On every fourth tick, make a fortune roll and increase your debt by 1. On a failure, there is a wall or branch determined by the GM. You can withdraw from a domain action but gain no advantage, and must make a fortune roll, facing a consequence on a failure.

And the actions themselves, intentionally vague and dependent on the primary rule. The structure is if you have this lieutenant, you can do this thing and perhaps and be rewarded in this way:

If you have a secretary, you can provide patronage to someone of lesser station or to an artist; or you can issue a decree or enact a law within your domain.

If you have a chancellor, you can build a holding to gain access a unique asset.

If you have an ambassador, you can send them to establish a trade route with a neighbouring or distant domain with which you have a connection – when this clock is complete, you can trade an existing unique asset and gain favour with that domain.

If you have a spymaster, you can engage in intelligence collection or violent espionage; or you can seed disinformation and propaganda.

If you have a marshall, you can raise a battalion to send to war – when the clock is complete, gain debt and a battalion; or you can take control of a holding in or adjacent to your domain to gain access to a unique asset that someone else possesses – when this clock is complete, gain credit each week and access to a unique asset.

Other domain actions will need to be added later, for example:

• Build stronghold (no lieutenant)
• Embezzle (Chancellor)
• Diplomacy (Ambassador)
• Order Troops (General)

After much revision, I think I’ve found a balance of granularity, optionality, and broadness. The ill-defined credit/debt and favour/ill-favour resources are my takes on simplification of domain resources down to assets, debts and diplomacy, and so potentially I’ll have to go into that soon to clarify what that little system will be, aiming to bring some weight to the relationships between domains.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on domain actions, if there are questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

8th May 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here.

Despite clearly being considered important in class balancing and campaign development, rules around strongholds are almost absent from either book in second edition:

• A stronghold has sizeable manor lands
• Can develop this land, gaining a steady income
• A barony
• A whole new set of expenses.
• No longer pays living expenses.

Given the lack of clarity here, we might reach back further into first edition:

• Build times are noted:
  • Moat house, shell keep, small castle 14-20 months
  • Small castle with outer and inner walls 25-30 months
  • Medium castle with outer and inner walls 38-42 months
  • Large concentric castle, walling average town large castle (61-72 months)
• Upgrades!
• Maintenance is 1% of total cost of stronghold per month

This supports the impression that strongholds were removed either for simplicity or out of loss of space, except the only expansion in second edition is the Castle Guide.

• You can acquire land by Royal Charter, Patent of Nobility, Conquest, Purchase, Claim, Theft of Lease (which reminds me, in the treasure section of the DMG it mentions deeds as treasure)
• Obscene amount of detail on construction modifiers and construction speed.
• Upgrades!
• Random stronghold events!
• Taxes normally cover expenses unless you’re doing something unusually expensive, like keeping a dragon turtle in the moat or a griffon stable.

Hmmm. We’re getting somewhere, but I’m still at a bit of a loss. Why don’t we travel laterally (ish) to the Rules Cyclopedia?

• Reputation with local nobles impacts capacity to build a stronghold
• Neighbouring rulers will react poorly to conquest depending on what titles you claim
• Lieutenants provide benefits
• Domain management

Fascinating how different the contemporary D&D and AD&D editions were, and more importantly, how D&D appears…more simulationist in some areas?

There is a lot to process here, and coming up with a simple rules process will be challenging.

Land can be land by stolen, granted, conquered, claimed or purchased. Local royalty will have to legitimise your ownership if it is not granted or claimed by them already, and local reputation will impact your reception considerably.

The land attached to your stronghold generates enough revenue to cover upkeep and a noble lifestyle for you and your lieutenants, unless the GM determines you have holdings or lifestyle requirements that would increase your debt.

Your stronghold has a Castellan and a Marshall or equivalents to manage the day to day running and the guard. These can be promoted from hirelings or long-term followers, but are now considered lieutenants. You can appoint additional lieutenants in addition to these for access to special resources or domains actions, at the GMs discretion, however their wages will be increase your debt.

Your land is effected by random events. For each week of downtime, the GM will roll on a domain events table.

There’s some benefit to talking about specific classes (thieves or wizards, are likely to have keep-sized strongholds at most, for example), and have a list of exemplar upgrades and lieutenants in addition to this rule set, but otherwise this is pretty neat. The costs are a mix of rules cyclopedia and first edition months. We need a Build Stronghold domain action; the only domain action that doesn’t have a prerequisite proficiency.

Build Stronghold. To construct a stronghold you must have claim to the land it is or will be on, gold for construction and access to workers. If you have these things, spend gold and roll fortune. Building a stronghold costs equal to size of the stronghold. If a stronghold already exists, must be refurbished for a third as much as in a third as much time. Your stronghold can fit holdings in keeping with its size. Moat houses and towers can have 3 holdings and can be built in 15 ticks at 12 000 GP per roll, keeps can have 6 holdings in 30 ticks at 12 000 GP per roll, small castles can have 9 holdings in 45 ticks at 12 000 GP per roll and concentric castles can have 12 holdings in 60 ticks at 12 000 GP per roll. Holdings are at the GMs discretion and grant access to special resources.

Honestly, this feels too simple, but I want it to be simple. There’s a bunch of interactions here that need to be developed: Living expenses, domain actions, governance, serving as a lieutenant, and lieutenants. While I haven’t really detailed anything on domain governance, I feel like engaging in domain governance should be optional, and hence be related to optional domain actions.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on strongholds and landowning, if there are questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

7th May 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of the advanced fantasy dungeon series, there’s an index here.

After looking at hirelings, followers and lieutenants, I realised that my reaction rule wasn’t strictly accurate anymore, given I’d mechanised socialisation more in the form of the downtime action Cultivate Relationship. Also, the results are backwards.

When you encounter a new NPC or group of NPCs, the GM makes a reaction check, modified by your reputation. If you have bardic influence, roll with advantage, and if they predisposed against you, roll with disadvantage. The NPCs reaction is determined by the result:

1-2. Negative (hostile, fleeing, or unreceptive)

3-6. Possibly negative (suspicious or skeptical)

7-15. Uncertain (indecisive or neutral)

15-18. Possibly positive (amiable or deliberating)

19-20. Positive (friendly, welcoming or receptive)

Once starting reaction has been determined, it is not rolled again and becomes their disposition. Their disposition remains stable between meetings. In-world choices can effect change the NPCs disposition towards the party, but a simple roll (for example, a charisma check) cannot. The Cultivate Relationship downtime action can change the NPCs disposition towards the party, as per its description.

Reputation is awarded (+1) for a significant contribution to a location, profession or faction, and is effective only in that context. It is recorded on your character sheet.

Actually, this is fine and requires minimal additions, in italics. Let’s check the downtime action.

Cultivate Relationship: You may cultivate a relationship. Relationships are always consecutive branching clocks, with at least four ticks per clock. For friendships, these clocks are Acquaintances, Associates, Friends, and Intimates. For romantic relationships, these clocks are Attention, Flirtation, Tryst, Lovers, Paramours. The GM can create clocks for specific relationship or relationship goals, for example Prove My Worth to Captain Urutangi might be Suspicious, Neutral, Deliberating, Receptive, reflecting Captain Urutangi’s disposition when first encountered. Because Captain Uturangi is starting as hostile to the PC, the first clock may be eight steps or be walled with a specific quest before it can progress. Relationship often have walls that cannot be advanced past without a specific way to deepen the bond. One might also take a free tick for something that occurs outside of downtime that deepens the bond. To advance the clock on a relationship, the player says how their character is strengthening the bond between them. The GM will judge if this makes sense.

These small changes clarify the interactions between these rules and broaden them to be across the whole spectrum of dispositions. Better.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on reaction rolls and downtime, if there are questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

6th May 2022