House Actions

[Lord Ben]

Lets say a house is plagued by some lawlessness, bandits on the perimeter, etc. If you take the action of "wage war" to send you army to sweep the woods, etc would that be reasonable to give a bonus to law afterwards even if the official bonus says you lose law?

Or would it be that you gain glory which you then put into law? Not sure how it works specifically for those types of things. Obviously the fortune roll or just the flat +1 could be used for law but it seems more appropriate to take an actual action like wage war to rid some woods of a bandit stronghold and then gain 1d6 law instead of lose it.

[Kival]

The fortune rule is in my view seperated from the House actions. First House Fortune determine some general outcome.... e.g. a law-reduction. Then the house choose to wage war against the bandits and wins... as effect of that I would perhaps neutralize the former law-reduction and give additional glory points. This is mere theory for me though as my group did not come so far to make any House Actions.

[Carriker]

The Law reduction would apply for that month. The next month when you (hopefully) get a positive House Fortunes roll, your going to war with the bandits would be an excellent excuse to add that bonus to Law, yes. Even if you go to war immediately with them on the first day of the month and beat them soundly, you'd likely spend the rest of the month cleaning up pockets of resistance, determining where their stores were and clearing them out, figuring out who was aiding them and punishing them appropriately and things like that.

If you did gain Glory from the battle with the bandits, then turning right around and investing that in the House's Law Resource is certainly a good use of it, yeah. It would reflect that others heard about the might you showed the bandits, and many of them cleared out on their own as a result.

[Kival]

@Carriker

Would you never give resources directly for actions or efforts instead of via Glory-points and house-fortune roles.

[Zorbeltuss]

The "wage war" action would generally not be appropriate to use against bandits I'd think.

Concentrated effort would probably be best described as substituting the house fortune roll with +1 with law.

Action taken by PC's against bandits could result in glory that might be transferred into law, maybe with 1 glory=2 law for that particular glory.

[Carriker]

Would you never give resources directly for actions or efforts instead of via Glory-points and house-fortune roles.

Well, saying "Here is a point of Law" is basically the same as saying "Here is a point of Glory that you can only spend on Law." I prefer to give my players the choice of how to use their Glory, though I do require that they justify it appropriately.

That said, I do have a Random Events system that I use that sometimes results in Resources changes - plagues might reduce Population, bad storms might wreck Wealth, things like that. I also have positive things like visits from other Houses that increase Influence, and the like. If it's a reward to the players, though, I vastly prefer to give them Glory, and let them shape the story by investing it in a Resource they want and justifying that increase.

[Mat]

I do have a Random Events system that I use

Do you mean a table for the House Fortune roll events?Like a list of event for a boon, disaster, growth...ecc...???

If not, What this table refer to?

Can you post it?

^^

Thank you

[Lord Ben]

I guess I just think the house actions should have more options like "patrol the woods where bandits hide" instead of only starting projects or going to war, etc. The list of actions seems rather restrictive.

[Carriker]

Do you mean a table for the House Fortune roll events?Like a list of event for a boon, disaster, growth...ecc...???

No, I run the House Fortunes the normal way. My "random events" system is something that happens over which the characters have no real control (for the most part), but can modify a House Fortunes roll. Each year gets 2d6 Monthly Events, and a single Yearly Event.

Positive events give you a bonus to your House Fortunes roll, but only if you choose to increase the Resource that event focuses on. Negative events give you a penalty to your House Fortunes roll, and they indicate which Resource will decrease if the House Fortunes roll results in a loss to the House.

Earthquake or Fire, Minor (-3; Lands, Population, Wealth): A small local tremor, affecting a 5-mile radius, occurs. Half the buildings in the area are damaged. This reduces Population by 1 and Wealth by 1.

Excellent Harvest (+3; Population, Wealth): Food is plentiful for a while, resulting in additional riches and a populace that has more than enough to eat. This adds 1 to both Population and Wealth, and results in 1d3 months of Minor Events associated with either Population or Wealth (depending on the desires of the home House).

I've got a variety of these sorts of events and whatnot. I may see about sharpening it up, setting another writer or so on it for a little bit and then see about including it in the Chronicle System PDFs if there's some measure of interest. It's very much inspired by the random events from the original Oriental Adventures, a similar system from Harn, and the like.

[Eisen]

I do like your expanded system Carriker but I think it would work better as a replacment for the House fortune tables instead of an addon. I've always felt the results were too vague. Why not replace "Decline" with something like Earthquake or a Bad Harvest? It would add some more description and story backround to an otherwise nebulous chart.

[Carriker]

I do like your expanded system Carriker but I think it would work better as a replacment for the House fortune tables instead of an addon. I've always felt the results were too vague. Why not replace "Decline" with something like Earthquake or a Bad Harvest? It would add some more description and story backround to an otherwise nebulous chart.

Firstly, because House Actions should be something that the PCs can control. I mean, it's a Status (Stewardship) roll; this is all about how well a lord or steward handles the day-to-day crises, unexpected strikes of fortune (good and bad) and such things that come upon a House. If a character is a crap lord, it shouldn't really result in an earthquake.

And while the chart is nebulous, it should never enter play that way. Encourage the players to narrate exactly why Power has increased, or Influence has decreased. What's going on that causes those changes? Even increases in Resources from Glory should tie into that: if the House just increased Wealth because of glory, I throw in the opportunity to encounter a new merchant to the area who heard about the House's exploits at that last tourney, and he wanted to see what their domain was like. Plus, he heard that they have excellent cheese-crofters in their domain, and he thinks he can get a good price for those. That kind of thing.

[Ancient1]

I really like where you are going with this Carriker, i for one hope to see more of this in future products

[Mat]

Encourage the players to narrate exactly why Power has increased, or Influence has decreased. What's going on that causes those changes?

Again it comes my misunderstanding of the House Fortune rolls...it represents the managing ability of the Lord/Steward...ok...!

Then to intruduce some game elements, that specific result (e.g. Boon) is linked to a concrete event for the players...Should the player define why and how a resource has increased (merely with description) or should the DM create the event and let the player role-playing it with different result due to their actions?
Of course even in the first case that event can create situations given by the master.

Can someone go in depth in the explanation?

Thank you all!!!

[Carriker]

Then to intruduce some game elements, that specific result (e.g. Boon) is linked to a concrete event for the players...Should the player define why and how a resource has increased (merely with description) or should the DM create the event and let the player role-playing it with different result due to their actions?

For the most part, it's not a single event that causes the changes from a House Fortunes roll. It's weeks and sometimes months of projects coming to fruition. So, as part of the House Fortunes roll, just have the player characters describe in what ways the Lord or steward (and likely other members of the House) have been working to increase Law, Power or Wealth.

Where fun stories can be derived from this isn't in the actions that achieve those rewards, but in the changes those Resource increases bring about. If the players describe their Wealth increase as being because they managed to get additional traveling merchants to pass through their domain, play out an encounter with one of these merchants who is new to the domain. If they have an Influence increase, they come to the attention of their liege lord, who perhaps invites them on a hunt. If they increase Power, perhaps that makes their neighboring lord nervous, and he implements patrols and "training maneuvers" on their borders.

[Pytorb]

I've got a variety of these sorts of events and whatnot. I may see about sharpening it up, setting another writer or so on it for a little bit and then see about including it in the Chronicle System PDFs if there's some measure of interest. It's very much inspired by the random events from the original Oriental Adventures, a similar system from Harn, and the like.

These are great, can we please see the expanded list as a Chronicle System PDF!

[Kival]

I see a small problem here. What *is* an increase in power when you do not already invest it? It's similar for all other ressources except perhaps wealth and in vanilla law and population.

[Carriker]

I see a small problem here. What *is* an increase in power when you do not already invest it? It's similar for all other ressources except perhaps wealth and in vanilla law and population.

I'd say it's the steps towards preparing to have troops. That is, the purchase of additional arms, expanding the barracks, starting to recruit among potential new troops, and that kind of thing. When the players in my game described gaining Power, it was exactly that.

Other Resources that require investment into Holdings work the same way. Defense amounts to securing architects to begin designing the fortification, making deals with merchants to get ahold of building materials, starting to make it known among one's smallfolk that their labor will be dedicated to the new tower rather than the lord's lands, etc.

[Kajani]

Perhaps it would be a possibility to make an additional test beside the rolls on your houses fate, to look if events of pure luck/ bad luck happen. This could be several times in an in-game-year (perhaps two to four times), in which the result of the dices decide, if any of such thing happened (I would say the chance should also be that nothing happened) and if, which an in which size.

Such events could be fire/ storm/ earthquake/ bad or good harvest/ other events of luck or doom (a chance in the fishing-grounds for example, events in other domains that influence yours because your goods are perhaps now more or less asked for)/ diseases and so on.

On the other hand, even events that could not be controlled (earthquake and so on) could be in the result influenced by the stewardship and other modifications of house-fortune, because this could decide how the lord and his men deal with the problem (a harbour make it easier to get supply, a sept could help to organize an direct the people with the authority of faith and so on). So you could argue that you could stay with the old system, perhaps adding a little modifier by dice to strengthen the possibilities of chance.