Adventures you'd like to see

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
What if everybody in the party wants to run their own demesne? It feels like the number crunching would get outrageous.
Then the players have bought into the idea and want to do it. In practice I don't know that this would happen very often, but if it does you should have a procedure for doing it.

Cheers to Squeen's idea to run companion software. The risk there though is that people might start to ask why they don't just stay home and play the Civ clone instead...
Yeah, it was trying to construct massive spreadsheets using various manor building systems that made me not want to do that. I definitely don't want the players to be better off playing a video game.

Otherwise, veer hard in the direction of hand-waving: Clearly warn players of risks. Allow them to tell you all the things they would like to do to stack the odds in their favour. Play out the bits that require role playing or adventure. Add it all up and decide if that leads to Advantage or Disadvantage. Have the player make a roll and relate the results.
Getting mired in peasant taxation sounds awful.
What you and squeen are saying is actually what I am advocating, I am suggesting an approach or a procedure rather than a ruleset. The structure of 4e would allow me to create an entire ruleset for various elements, but I am never going to do that. Rather, I am advocating a way of looking at player choices to give them benefits that they actually care about and gives the DM some direction as to how to deal with it when players want to do these things.

So you don't have to write the stats for every thing a player could decide to build or do. You just need to know, and communicate to your players, that if they want to do these things there will be concrete benefits; you need to have some idea about how you are doing to deal with the sorts of decisions that players are likely to make, including delegation to followers and henchmen, and you have to have some ideas about how to create adventures that involve those sorts of activities. Something more interesting than rolling for annual sorghum production.

It can totally be ad hoc. Whatever reward you want to give can start small, and can be increased when PCs are "successful enough", or decreased when they "suffer a setback", in the DM's judgement. You can come up with ad hoc ways of determining what happens when the followers try something, or when the opposing NPCs try to thwart said followers, or make moves against the castle when the PCs are away. But I think most DMs need a little guidance as to how to do this, or they would be doing it already.

I think the common themes, which I am coming to realize as a result of this discussion, are (a) domain play has to be as rewarding to players as dungeon play; (b) there needs to be a neutral way of determining the outcome of actions undertaking by NPCs, in case players do that (for the same reasons morale rules, assassin spying tables and sage knowledge tables exist) - basically, the off-screen stuff; (c) it has to involve little or no bookkeeping; (d) there needs to be an approach to adventure building that engages these sorts of activities by PCs; (e) DMs need at least some guidance because most aren't going to figure this out on their own.

That last one comes from my own history with domain play, and the comments of everyone here who seems inclined to just not do it because it seems like a PTA and not sufficiently rewarding.

My favourite character was one I played as a teen/young adult to about 25th level (shocker, his name was "Beoric"). Beoric was a ranger, so when he reached 10th I immediately rolled up his followers, rolled their stats, determined personalities for all of them, set up chains of commend, etc. I also designed a stronghold (not normally a ranger thing, but not strictly forbidden) with the intention of carving out a territory and overthrowing the evil government by conquest. And ... nothing. We were steering into various standard other adventures, and I never got to do anything with it. I tried similar things with later characters (including running a thieves' guild), but it never panned out.

I talked to my DM a couple of years ago and asked him why domain play never worked out, and he said that he was also interested in it, but could never figure out how to make it work. And I think that happens a lot.

I also have a theory that anyone who wants to run a domain, as opposed to having a home base to put their stuff, has a bit of DM in them. They want to engage in a little world building inside the DM's world, and they want to make their mark on the world itself. I think anyone player who wants to do this is likely to be happy to do a moderate of amount of any bookkeeping for you (like rolling up followers or remembering any benefits you gave the PCs), so I am more concerned with not creating work on the DM side of the screen.

DMs who are interested in this, or have players who are interested in this, need to be taught techniques for managing it. And frankly the best way of teaching DMs is through adventure writing. Create an area on the border of a kingdom with several noble estates, and an independent town big enough to justify a thieves' guild or two. A baron whose demesne protected the border of the kingdom from marauding orcs has died mysteriously, and the king grants the estate to a PC fighter type (or cleric in a pinch) and charges him to protect the border. But one of the neighboring lords covets the land, and stirs up the orc hordes in an attempt to make the PC look incompetent. A second wants to gain PC support (or use them as patsies) for his intrigues at court. A third is in league with a group of bandits and the local thieves guild, and stages raids on other lords' villages and robs the caravans taking goods to market. You get the idea. Build in room for the later construction/acquiring of religious strongholds, wizards towers and thieves' guild. And provide the DM with the techniques to manage it all, without having to track the price of sorghum.

That is an adventure I would like to see.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
So I have grown as a DM wholly in response to what my players have been doing in the long-term campaign. From the low-level nothings in the Caves of Chaos, to "masquerading" as the Realm's dead prince in order to marshal its armies against an invader.

I think that if my players decided to build (or are granted) a stronghold, I would automatically shift towards concocting situations that threaten or engage it. It's then (and probably only then) I would start looking for the kind of adventure you are suggesting.

So, I am essentially agreeing --- there is probably an unfilled niche there. But, you should research that and look, before assuming no-one has tried to climb that mountain. Certainly ACKS must have published something to cover the "King" part of their moniker.
 

Two orcs

Officially better than you, according to PoN
Not much, the King level stuff is basically the framework for a fantasy wargame with solid economics and some emergent properties, there are no domain level adventures published.
 

The Heretic

Should be playing D&D instead
Isn't it obvious why this hasn't been done? Domaincentric adventures would be setting specific. Hell, they'd be domain specific, wouldn't they? At best these things could be done as an adventure path, maybe.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Sure. Very difficult to make a drop-in scenario...but not much different from a tournement module with pre-generated PCs.
Agree?
 

The Heretic

Should be playing D&D instead
Are the any tournament modules on Bryce's Best list? I doubt it. Also, domain play doesn't seem like it would translate well to a tournament.

The best way to do this would be to do it in an established, published campaign. We have a precedent with this with the Norwold/Companion set modules back in the day. CM1 Test of the Warlords for BXCMI.

Or perhaps this would be better incorporated in a hex crawl? Get Stater on line one!
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
I have looked at Birthright, ACKS, Harn Manor and A Magical Medieval Society for anything I could use. All of them involve a lot of accounting for revenues, expenses, taxes etc. Of all of them, only Birthright thought about it in terms of gameable content. Birthright has two sigmificant problems however.

First, as The Heritic suggested, it creates its own setting to do it, and the mechanics are very setting specific. It would take a lot of work to translate it into anyone else's campaign.

Secondly, while it at least thinks about how to translate this into gaming (as it says, "The AD&D game is based on adventures, not public administration"), the execution is cumbersome. The running of the domain is supposed to be a backdrop to the adventures, which is determined using a "domain turn". A domain turn consists of the following steps:

1. Roll random events.
2. Determine domain initiative.
3. Collect Regency Points.
4. Taxation, Collection and Trade.
5. Pay maintenance costs.
6. Declare free actions.
7. First round action:
A. Domain actions
B. War moves
C. Fight battles
D. Occupation or retreat
8. Second round action (repeat A-D)
9. Third round action (repeat A-D)
10. Adjust loyalty and regency

I don't know about you but that is not what I am going for. I find Nexopraxis' haven turn/hazard die system to be a much simpler and more gameable mechanic to rob from.

As for an adventure having to be setting specific, I agree this is a potential problem but it could be managed if you stick to established tropes it should be possible to design something that would fit in any quasi-feudal setting that had a corner of a kingdom that was not completely developed.

I mean, each noble estate probably only takes up a 6 mile hex, so you could make a pretty rich gaming area in 9-16 hexes, especially if exploration of the wild areas was done in 1 mile hexes. That is less than a 30 mile hex, and I would think most campaigns would have an undeveloped 30 mile hex straddling civilization and the wilderness in some kingdom somewhere. The precise location of the King/capitol doesn't need to be defined. If each major NPC follows a well know aristocratic trope the adventure should be as portable as anything involving slavering humanoids.
 

DangerousPuhson

Should be playing D&D instead
What I'd throw in as essential elements of good demense gaming:

  • The party requires a proxy - a regeant, a castellan, a steward, a majordomo, a trusted general... someone to act as the go-between that translates their wishes into demense actions. This proxy could be also take the form of group of people (a senate, advisor council, cabinet of minsters, fraternity of world domination, etc)... so long as we understand that the game will be unfolding through specific interactions with people and groups, and not just the party decreeing whatever things from an open-air balcony. Communication with the party and the proxy should be two-way in nature - the proxy informs on the state of the demense, while the party gives directives and approves options. Without a proxy, the party may find it difficult to affect any plausible, realistic changes on their own demense (and will probably find it tougher to leave for long stretches of adventuring). In summary, the overall purpose of the proxy is to establish a system whereby the players are kept apprised of situations, and are given the reins to guide the demense through them.

  • The demense requires purpose, otherwise what's to stop its natural disbanding? What is the overall goal of the demense? Even just basic group survival is a raison-d'etre unto itself, but hopefully the players will develop loftier ambitions of power and influence. Nevertheless, the purpose of the demense is needed to drive its "story" forward, to establish a necessary fail condition for the game, and in generating scenarios for the players. As much as possible, the DM ought to have the players decide their own demense goal(s) rather than dictating one to them, though forced purpose can still have its place (continuing the family business, an unexpected inheritance with caveats, becoming king of a nation already buried in war, etc.). Purpose and goals are as subject to change as everything else - the real crime is their absence. Without purpose, the group is just arbitrarily faffing around in a meeple management sim rather than a roleplaying game.

  • The demense requires metrics, albeit simplified as possible (unless you've got a group of number-crunch fans). There needs to be something measurable for the players to track - a score - otherwise they'll quickly lose interest in making any kind of actions or progress. What I call a "score" could represent any variables or metric (population, wealth, military strength, national presitge, etc.), but I believe it a necessary component for player buy-in. Ideally the score of a demense is tied to its purpose, as the progresses or failings of the demense and its goal(s) ought to be the most interesting to the players. The natural way to communicate this score is through back-and-forth interaction with the proxy, though it could be through other means like news reporting, census collecting, constituent interviews, etc. The score should be juxtaposed against the purpose of the demense to develop of fail condition for the game (a survival goal fails at population 0, conquering a rival nation fails if your demense army strength is far weaker, etc.); it should also be used to develop a success condition (see below).

  • The party requires a success condition (note that I say "party" and not "demense"). Beyond the simple "prolong existence as much as possible", what do the players hope to gain from having/running their own demense, and how will they know when they've finally got it? If the players want to conquer the world, how will they know that it's well and truly conquered? If they want to be rich, then how rich? What happens when they meet that goal - what happens to the demense? If you don't want to find out too quickly, then I suggest implementing success conditions as phases and levels of success rather than a binary victory condition. Each success brings strength to both the party and the demnse. Survival-purpose demnses get big enough to finally keep the wolves at bay, but develop their own new issues in the process. Wealth-purpose demnses can finally afford the big expense that's been looming over their head, but there's always more spending on the horizon. And so on. But at least with each milestone the demense feels closer to its goals, and thus the party feels like they are winning.
 

PrinceofNothing

High Executarch
Staff member
Man I was going to chime in and say how they don't make enough mythological adventures with archetypal elements like wrestling with Giants or climbing very high mountains and that someone needs to master high level DnD but you guys are diving in deep and I cannot follow. I play ACKS but Valgard Berserk and Mortarion the Bald are only 4th level after almost 2 years of play (and one fucking Wight). Red Aegis might tickle the 4x bones of those of you who desire a mighty game of civilizations and I know for a fact it has rulessets for Savage Worlds and Pathfinder. Let this be your guiding light.

Anyone who wants more underwater shit should probably check out the 2e Sahuagin series. It's...decent? I liked the last one a lot because you get captured by Sahuagin and are forced to participate in gladiatorial games though the 9.5 I awarded it at the time I chalk up to my all-consuming Laudanum habit. Still very good, **** material.

Prince of Nothing has so many letters in his name...he kinda scares me (his blog is insane), so it's probably best he doesn't post much either. Like all Dutch, he'd sell you to the Devil in a heartbeat for a few coppers and a pint of beer.
You bet your ass he will. Bryce doesn't want me to post very often. Something about Sanity Loss? Also you owe me a few coppers and a pint of beer son.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
@PrinceofNothing part of my interest in domain play is in creating problems for high level PCs that they can't solve by teleporting somewhere and killing everything.

Have you looked at Ben L's "downtime actions" on his Mazirian's Garden blog?
I prefer Necropraxis’ Hazard Dice and Haven Turns (the latter of which I gather he borrowed from Papers and Pencils) but Ben L’s discussion is more or less how I would apply the results from Necropraxis’ mechanic. I note both the Haven Turn and Downtime Actions also work at lower level and can be used to drive adventures between dungeons, which is a step in the right direction.

I prefer both of these procedures to things like carousing rules because I don’t think any PC action should be resolved without some sort of decision making on the part of the player.

So here is a question for everyone. If you were running a 9+ level fighter in a campaign and you had an opportunity to acquire a castle and lands in the borderlands, along with a title of nobility and a small measure of influence with the sovereign, would you take it and what would you do with it? Assume your DM is able to handle any direction you want to take the campaign in.
 

The Heretic

Should be playing D&D instead
I mean, each noble estate probably only takes up a 6 mile hex, so you could make a pretty rich gaming area in 9-16 hexes, especially if exploration of the wild areas was done in 1 mile hexes. That is less than a 30 mile hex, and I would think most campaigns would have an undeveloped 30 mile hex straddling civilization and the wilderness in some kingdom somewhere. The precise location of the King/capitol doesn't need to be defined. If each major NPC follows a well know aristocratic trope the adventure should be as portable as anything involving slavering humanoids.
I like that idea! (also I think I remember reading somewhere that most demesnes were one square mile or smaller, so you could even plausibly go with 1 one mile hex = demesne) Yes, this smallish area could be generic enough to toss in anywhere.

How would you populate the map? With monsters? Small humanoid tribes the PCs will have to deal with? Rival demesnes? If there are rivals, are they independent or do they likewise swear fealty to the king?

Could the PCs start this in mid-levels instead of high levels? Maybe they got a deed to a ruined castle in the area. Or maybe the King (or a powerful noble) wants them to claim this land for civilization. If the PCs are level 6-8 they have the goal of getting to name level so that they can get their followers, to look forward to.

A big problem I see is that you *will* need some sort of book keeping in place, otherwise how to you judge success or failure (like Dangerous Puhson points out). Too much bookkeeping gets tedious.


So here is a question for everyone. If you were running a 9+ level fighter in a campaign and you had an opportunity to acquire a castle and lands in the borderlands, along with a title of nobility and a small measure of influence with the sovereign, would you take it and what would you do with it? Assume your DM is able to handle any direction you want to take the campaign in.
I'd go for it but then I'm a huge nerd for these sorts of things. When I got my hands on X1 Isle of Dread I was enthralled with the map of the known world that was included.

In fact, in a 4e campaign I was a player in, my dragonborn warlord did the, uh, whatever that was, path thing to become a ruler. Didn't get much play out of it though, however.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
I like that idea! (also I think I remember reading somewhere that most demesnes were one square mile or smaller, so you could even plausibly go with 1 one mile hex = demesne) Yes, this smallish area could be generic enough to toss in anywhere.
From my reading, I think a village is typically 1-2 square miles, including forest and other nonarable bits, so say 2 one mile hexes. I also think about the smallest barony would be maybe 10 villages, so say 20 one mile hexes. A six mile hex contains 36 one mile hexes, so a barony could potentially fit inside a 6 mile hex.

Or consider the 1e rules for the size of a fighter’s holdings, which is 20-50 square miles according to the PHB. A six mile hex is about 31 square miles, so an average D&D fighter’s holding would be just over 1 six mile hex.

How would you populate the map? With monsters? Small humanoid tribes the PCs will have to deal with? Rival demesnes? If there are rivals, are they independent or do they likewise swear fealty to the king?
Spitballing here, but I think I would populate most of the map with rival lords, a town, a military garrison, a “templar” stronghold and church lands, and some royal parcels including a king’s forest to harbour bandits. The lords all owe fealty to the king but have varying degrees of loyalty and engage in varying degrees of intrigue and subterfuge. The church leaders are technically the king’s subjects but have a degree of autonomy and don’t owe military service or taxes.

Along one edge I would have a swath of hills which is the edge of the wilderness. It would be wide enough to do some hexcrawling (reducing hex size if necessary), but not too wide, because depending on where you drop it in your campaign it could be foothills to mountains just outside the large (20-30 mile) hex, or the edge of more hills, or the edge or some other wilderness, or just an isolated patch of hills where monster activity had never been eliminated.

I would probably try to squeeze everything important inside a 20 mile hex, for those who use that scale, but expand into a 30 mile hex with less detail for those who prefer that scale, or something in between.

The PC’s lands border the hills, and are smallish but with the admonition that whatever part of the wilderness he is able to claim and mine, quarry, forest or farm is his, within reason. They will include a lost mine, which the PCs don’t know about (but one of their neighbors does and covets it), at least one large demihuman camp/village, and at least one actual dungeon.

I might put the town less than a mile from the town in case you were inclined to let the party thief build a thieves’ guild there (more fool you!).

Could the PCs start this in mid-levels instead of high levels? Maybe they got a deed to a ruined castle in the area. Or maybe the King (or a powerful noble) wants them to claim this land for civilization. If the PCs are level 6-8 they have the goal of getting to name level so that they can get their followers, to look forward to.
Why not? For that matter you could start in a village or the town at first level, become a knight with a manor house and an estate of 1-2 villages at level 5-8, and be adopted as the heir of your dying and childless liege lord and gain a castle and 10 villages at level 9+. Local boy makes good. You could adventure at the Keep on the Borderlands at 1st level and be running it at 9th!

The local church would no doubt encourage the PC to grant lands to a party cleric of the same deity. Of course if said cleric ever fell from favour the church would reassign it to someone else as the land is now technically “church lands”.

A big problem I see is that you *will* need some sort of book keeping in place, otherwise how to you judge success or failure (like Dangerous Puhson points out). Too much bookkeeping gets tedious.
Maybe. But you could count villages instead of peasants, and/or you could decide that a barony was rich, good, fair or impoverished. You could say that a barony of a given quality could support a X number of troops per village, and otherwise just describe the effect on social standing. So say you have good lands, but flooding in the spring temporarily lowers the productivity to fair. Some judgment calls would be in order; a DM could decide that being impoverished lowers your standing, but having done good and loyal service to the king balances that out.

At most you might have a chart with demesne quality on one axis and number of villages on the other, and cross-reference troops produced and castle size for each; if you can no longer support your troops and castle size, troops go unpaid and desert, your castle falls into disrepair and you can no longer afford all of your household staff. But that detail wouldn’t be necessary for a single adventure area, and I doubt I would try to create such a thing unless the adventure which I will never publish was wildly successful.
 

Two orcs

Officially better than you, according to PoN
I would love to see a wilderness adventure that requires a trek, where the players can meaningfully plan and fail. Today wilderness adventure usually means fighting monsters or doing skill checks - but that's not what adventure is about! It's about planning, taking measured risks and thinking on your feet when you plans fails and the risks proved unwise.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
In the home campaign, the players traveled up a river to its source into a deep mountain gorge. They hoped to finding clues to where the mega-dungeon entrance lay. It took over a year of weekly play --- including a cross-country summer trip (playing in the car). They were some of the best games we had. The Earth Temple is one of the places they visited along the way (but could have completely by-passed). Watchtowers, enchanted coves, small towns, the capital city, secret mountain passes, deep tunnels, harpy caves, a haunted moat-house...tons of fun stuff, all just in passing.

Some features were little explored, or by-passed completely. I was writing feverishly just to stay a few play sessions ahead of them. Also, very little "leveling up" occurred during that whole stretch because not much treasure lays "out in the open" and combat was only sporadic, but I don't think they regret any of it. All the while they slowly absorbed info about the world by meeting local NPCs.

They are on the return leg now. There and Back Again in many ways.
 
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