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

Preparation gets the barest of nods in second edition, compared to campaign building. It’s hinted at here and there, particularly in regards to talking with other players Bout their characters and what they want, but there’s no mention of strict time keeping or records or restocking or rumours or factions.

So, the section in preparation that I think is essential discussion is the first section that’ll be mainly just what I think and what I do, drawing from a lot of the legacy principles that second edition builds upon and doesn’t support. It’s another section that screams “have a worksheet” to be honest.

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There are four types of preparation you can perform as GM for play, and you shouldn’t do all of it at once or all the time.

• Campaign prep the campaign is infinitely expanding. Do this as little or as much as you wish.
• Living world prep should take between ten and twenty minutes. Do this every week or between sessions, whatever is longest.
• Improv prep should take about ten minutes. Do it between sessions.
• Response prep should take about ten minutes. Do it immediately after a session.

For all of these, it is useful to keep is a campaign history: A record of what the PCs do in session and how the world responds, in addition to things happening in the background. Whenever a piece of prep becomes part of the world because a PC or NPC acted on it or reacted to it, add it to your campaign history. Whenever a piece of prep changes a map or map key, do the same.

Living World Prep

Living world prep consists all the moving parts of the world that the PCs do not interact with but which make the world feel alive. This happens in real time, so do it between sessions or once per week, whichever is longer. Progress things randomly or as it interests you, especially as the campaign becomes more complex:

• Response Prep check: Implement response prep if you haven’t already.
• Dungeons: Progress the dungeon using the dungeon transformation procedure.
• NPCs and Factions: Progress projects randomly or as per your interest.
• PCs: What are the next stages in their projects?
• Rumours: Delete investigated rumours and progress uninvestigated rumours using the rumour transformation procedure.

Improv prep

Improv prep is quantum prep, in the sense that it doesn’t exist until a PC or NPC acts on it or reactsee to it. Keep your prompts topped up, but delete things you haven’t used in a while as that usually indicates they aren’t inspiring you. These prompts need to be generic so you can work them in easily, but also specific and interesting to serve as hooks in a pinch.

• Top up your improv prompts to six each of:
  • Secrets
  • Strange or fantastic locations
  • Named and sketched NPCs
  • Unique treasures
  • Monster transformations
• Events: Check your campaign calendar for events you can incorporate this session
• Modules or locations: Review any module or location you’re using
• PCs: Review any PC goals or backgrounds that might be relevant to the upcoming session

Response Prep

When responding to a session that just happened, you simply have to let the world change in the PCs wake. Each PC changed the world in at least one of these ways:

• The PC emptied something, cleared out someplace or took something away. How did it change the world permanently and obviously?
• The PC interacted with an NPC who did not die. How did they change that NPC irrevocably?
• The PC gave something away, told someone about something or left something behind, How did it change the world permanently and obviously?
• The PC chose inaction when action would have helped someone. How did it change an NPC irrevocably?

Implement these changes immediately if you can, and record them in the campaign history. Change any maps or map keys.

Campaign prep

Continue to expand your campaign world in discrete chunks between sessions at a leisurely pace. Pick any of the following, whatever seems most interesting to you at the time:

• Map out a similarly sized area adjacent to an already mapped area
• Map out a similarly sized area related to a PC after asking them for details
• Create a villain, important NPC or god
• Create a faction that interacts with an existing faction but in another area
• Create a faction that is related to a PC after asking them for detai
• Add an arcane conjunction, celestial event or festival to the real-time calendar
• Add two or three rumours and two or three events to an area you have developed to draw PCs or NPCs there from afar
• Create a unique magical item and its ancient and recent history
• Make a special random encounter table for a terrain that already exists on your maps
• Expand an existing dungeon by one to three floors by opening up blocked passageways
• Add a dungeon to an existing map that doesn’t have one

For any of these, simply follow the procedures in the worksheet or in the chapter on NPCs.

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So this is the first time I’ve wrote an actual chapter text here, and I’m not sure I’m happy with the loose leash I’ve given myself here.

Things here are drawn from many places over many years, and as I don’t keep a file on which blogs I’ve read for the last ten years, I can’t be more specific with inspirations, except that improv prep in particular takes inspiration from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. I need to write a dungeon restocking procedure, a rumour restocking procedure, about campaign calendars, and some examples and definitions around improv prep to fill this out. Prep is a lot!

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

Idle Cartulary

18th May 2022

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

Firstly, obviously Hazard is a better name for environmental challenges. Let’s change that. I realise that I’ve forgotten an important hazard: Traps. Now, there are a number of approaches I could take:

• Find and remove traps roll
• Trap clock as per other environmental challenges
• Descriptive traps

My inclination is to say that there could be an overlap between clocks and descriptive traps, but I feel like there’s a benefit to completely de-mechanising traps, at least from the PC end. At the GM end, there isn’t a procedure, there need to be trap principles:

• Easily identified or easily anticipated.
  • A pit covered in leaves. The safe of a master poisoner has a needle.
• Foreshadowed or gives the PCs a chance to react.
  • A collapsed pit with two skeletons in it.
  • “The poisoner is paranoid as known to trap her most treasured belongings”
  • You hear a click and the flagstone moves under you. What do you do?
• Goes either for a kill or a capture.
  • A pit trap either imprisons or has a spiked floor
  • A poison needle instantly kills or puts to sleep
• Balances the trapper’s protection and convenience
  • Never in the main access hallways unless there’s secret access; always in the chest in the high priest’s quarters.
• Simple actions can avoid or disarm them
  • “I stand on a box and pinch the wire so I can set the door slightly ajar. Glorax, you’re slim enough to to slide through the slightly open door. Once you’re on the other side, you can cut the wire, allowing us to enter without the bucket of acid tipping on us.”

It’s always better to have no rules than rules, in my opinion. A trap is simply a description of it, and either kills or imprisons if it’s not caught.

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

Idle Cartulary

17th May 2022

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

As I stated in my first attempt, the initial draft of these rules was messy in practice and strong in spirit, in the pursuit of driving priestly spell magic with relationship and fickleness instead of encumbrance and memory. Maybe, if gods are simply NPCs there’s ready a rule here we can lean on? The first section should remain the same:

Priests need not memorise a spell to cast it, but they must spend a watch dedicated to their priestly devotions. During priestly devotions, as you pray to your god, recite your deeds of the day. If your deeds impress your god, gain 1 piety. If they are contrary to their ways, lose 1 piety. If you do nothing to move your god, your piety remains the same.

You may always expend one piety if you have it to cast the spell you want.

But it changes from there:

If you do not want to spend piety, state the spells name, and make a reaction check, modified by your piety:

1-2. Unreceptive. You gain access to an inconvenient spell at a random level.

3-6. Suspicious. You gain access to a random or inconvenient spell at a similar level.

7-15. Uncertain. You gain access bro a similar spell at a similar level.

15-18. Deliberating. You gain access to the spell you want.

19-20. Receptive. You gain access to a similar spell, at a higher level than you can usually cast.

This spell must be the next spell you cast, until your next priestly devotions, unless you expand piety to get the spell you want. There is no limit on the amount of spells you can cast in a day.

The priest still gets a choice, but at the cost of their relationship with their god. Gods are ineffable, and sometimes provide powerful spells and bizarre guidance. But simpler abs use an existing rule. I reckon this is better.

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

Idle Cartulary

16th May 2022

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