Taking a crack at homebrew house creation

[Zorbeltuss]

So yeah, I really like the basic ideas behind using stats for a noble house as backdrop. But I think there's some flaws in the system. Specifically:
-Houses scale from 10-70 on resources, with linear increase in strength of holdings, while the curve should rather be exponential.
-Because of this influence and status often does not properly reflect the material holdings that these are based on.

To begin with, I'll nail down some definitions:
-Rank is where the house stands compared to others, where 0 is a peasant family and 70 is that of the mightiest great house. I'm leaving the King out of it, because the Iron Throne generally does not hold direct command over as many resources as say Highgarden or Casterly Rock.
-Resources is used to buy holdings, like current rules, and are derived according to the formula: Resources=Rank*Rank/10.
-Holdings as current, but with modified costs.

Note; I am not going to present a final product, not yet anyway, the separation of rank and resources could result in a fair bit of unbalance. And I'm mostly interested in getting my general ideas out at this point. The system will also most likely lead to that player created houses perhaps becomes slightly stronger. Don't get caught up too much in the specific numbers presented.

Change number one: Status and Influence.
The Influence resource is no longer used to buy status for heirs. It is used for buying house status:
Knightly House: 10, status 2
Petty Noble House: 40, status 2
Minor Noble House: 160, status 3
Major Noble House: 250, status 4
Great Noble House: 360, status 5*

*Requires the Iron Throne to approve. As there can only be one great house per realm. Though arguably, a "vassal house" might reach the status of being "great" if the paramount house also holds the title of warden (House Hightower probably is the closest to qualify as such).

House status works in the way that it determines what kind of status members may purchase. The Lord, his spouse, their children and their spouses can buy up to the listed amount. First cousins have the listed amount -1. Second cousins have the listed amount -2. Children of First cousins have the listed amount -2. And so on. Castellan, steward and master at arms has the listed amount -1, Sworn swords the listed amount -2. It will never go below 2.

With this comes amended benefits:
Landed Knight, requires Knightly House: +1D to all status tests.
Lord of House, requires noble House: +2D to all status tests.
Lady of House, requires noble House: +1D to all status tests.
Heir, requires noble House: +1D to all status tests.
Warden (of the North, south, east or west): +3D to all status tests.
Member of the Small Council: +3D to all status tests
Hand of the King, Regent: +4D to all status tests

You only get the highest bonus, and I'd generally advise that characters being appointed Hand of the King swaps out his lord benefit with hand of the king benefit, or whatever it is he has.

The Influence rank, in my opinion, should be have two components:
1. Base influence rank is the average value of your rank in defense, lands, power and wealth.*
2. The Influence modifier, which is a number between 0 and rank/5 which is either added or subtracted.**

*Without more in depth rules for Law and Population than a modifier on house fortunes, I don't really want to factor them in.
**This is what will be rolled during house creation, which will be influenced by events and realm. Probably, this will mean that you don't make the 7d6 roll for influence at all.

For expansion, I would suggest introducing "House Qualities" benefits which would cost rank*10 resources and drawbacks that would give rank*10 resources. For example:
Proud History:
All members of the House gets +1B on Status reputation.
Upstarts:
All members of the House gets -1D on status reputation. (I imagine the Freys have taken this one).

This could maybe be done for other types of resources also.

While it would be fun, I'm not going to look into law/population, they have no holdings associated with them.

Changes to holdings:

Defense, here, resource inflation needs to have a corresponding increase in holding cost, so without much further ado:
Tower: 10
Hall: 40
Small Castle: 90
Castle: 160
Large Castle: 250
Superior Castle: 360
Extraordinary Castle: 490

You could skip the latter two steps, but IMO, Harrenhaal is so much bigger than Winterfell that I think they should be there for the sake of completeness.

For Land Holdings, I wouldn't change much, the core idea of mine is that a house with 70 of something has a lot more than 7 times than a house with 10 of the same thing. A house of 70 of something has like 50 times as much now.

Except for communities, which I would increase in cost along the lines of what I did with castles above.

Power would be much the same, but with the add-on that the cost of a banner house is equal to it's power rank. A Banner House with 50 power (with banner houses and units worth 250 resources) costs 50 resources.

Wealth is the tricky part, you'll run out of options fairly quick, to mitigate this, you could increase prices, introduce more diverse holdings. Or maybe make it so that every holding you buy increases the cost of any further holdings. Say, the price of a new holding is increased by 1 for each wealth holding you already have.

[Kival]

Only a minor nitpick for now: Great houses should be rather Status 6 instead of Status 5.

[coldwind]

Interesting ideas.

Nitpick (?) - Did you intentionally want the Status of nobility to not go below 2, or was that supposed to be a 3 as it is now?

[Zorbeltuss]

Well, what I did was to try and fit things with this table:

0: Slave
1: Common smallfolk, Initiate of the Faith, standard Man of the Night’s Watch, most squires, low-born foreigner
2: House retainer, lesser merchant, acolyte maester, hedge knight, foreign merchant prince, established Man of the Night’s Watch
3: Landed knight, Merchant, sworn sword, veteran member of the Night’s Watch, member of a minor house
4: Lord of a Minor House, maester of a minor house, junior member of the Faith, member of a noble house, heir to a minor house, important foreign dignitary, officers of the Night's Watch
5: Lord of a powerful Minor House (often one with bannermen), Merchant Prince, maester in a great house, Castle Commanders and Firsts of the Night’s Watch, member of a great house, heir to a house, foreign noble
6: Lord of a Major House, officer of the Faith, archmaester, Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, heir to a great house
7: Lord of a Great House, member of the Small Council, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Grand Maester, High Septon
8 Member of the royal family, Warden of the East, North, South, or West
9 Queen, Crown Prince, King’s Hand
10 King of the Seven Kingdoms

Interesting bits:
7: Lord of Great House
6: Lord of Major House
5: Lord of a powerful minor house
4: Lord of a minor house
3: Landed Knight

With the system of "base status" for a house, and a benefit that gives +2D for Lords, +1D for Landed Knights, heirs and ladies. 2 needs to be the starting point for what I opted to call "petty houses" and 5 needs to be the starting point for great houses, as their lords then effectively gets status 4 and 7 respectively. It does mean that the daughters and second sons of petty houses gets status 2. If one wants the minimum to be 3, then just bump the entire scale upwards. With the King on Status 11 and so on.

[Zorbeltuss]

Also, to my defense on having petty houses on base status 2 is that if you have influence 21-29, which translates into 44-84 with this system. Lord will have status 4, heir will have status 3, and you can't afford a position of status for any other family members.

Although I would add that the Narrator should consider to give PC's and Primary NPC's the option to always buy up to status 3 if they are nobles, on the account of them being rather exceptional individuals.

The House Creation Roll could be looked at from two angles:
1. You roll 7D6 to establish rank.
2. You roll 7D6 to establish resources.

The first will generally create more powerful houses. Rank of 20 translates into twice as much land, military units and wealth holdings as it does currently. Rank of 30 translates into three times as much, 40 into four times.....it's a quadratic increase.

The Second will create houses with as much land, military units and wealth holdings as currently, but the PC houses will be at the bottom of the food chain, and are not likely to be more than Knightly Houses with a Tower.

[Kival]

Ah, I did not realize, you gave a bonus for beeing a lord... So how many status does a lord have to buy? The base amount of the house or house+2?

[Zorbeltuss]

Base amount for house.

[Kival]

Very interesting. I'm inclined to take over your system. I thoroughly dislike the linear system and yours still seem to be simple enough for the purpose of the game. Rethinking it I'm wondering why exactly did you decide to divide by 10?

[Zorbeltuss]

Because dividing on 10 yields nice round numbers. And it keeps resources on a manageable level.

Small table:

Rank-Rank*Rank-Rank*Rank/10
10-100-10
20-400-40
30-900-90
40-1600-160
50-2500-250
60-3600-360
70-4900-490

Without the divide on 10, a great house is 500 times stronger than a knightly house, with the divide on 10, it's 50 times stronger. I think the latter is more suitable.

[Zorbeltuss]

So thinking further out. Law and Population. To be completely honest, I'm inclined to simply remove law from house resources. Yes, it does serve as an element that can come into play, and yes, it obviously should influence fortunes, but I cannot see a way to tie it into the other resources in a meaningful way.

I'm sure that some expanded rules for this can be constructed. And I think, at least if other narrators might use this system, a modular approach is best. In essence, you have the basics (rank*rank/10=resources which you buy holdings for) and then you have expanded rules which can be used as you like.

Population will be a resource (and influence will be partially determined by it, influence rank being equal to the average of defense, land, population, power and wealth, with a modifier, either a multiplier or an added number, I'd prefer the former, but the latter is easier.)

Communities would be a population holding. Going on the scale of fortifications, so something like:
10-Hamlet
40-Village
90-Small Town
160-Large Town
250-Small City (White Harbour, Gulltown)
360-Large City (Lannisport)
490-Huge City (King's Landing, Oldtown)

Now for expanded rules, because population and land would certainly go hand in hand.
Let's start with populating your land, say introduce population limits.
At it's most basic, mountains and wetlands can support 2 pop, hills can have 5, and plains can have 10. Rivers or lakes adds 2, coast or island adds 4, grassland adds 2. Road adds 2. This determines the size of the population holding you can add to that domain. Commentary: These numbers may not make sense, I just tossed them out there to have something to base it on.

Population holdings could be such things as farmland, logging operations or whatever. Land holdings determines how many population holdings you may have. Obviously, you can't have farming operations in mountains, fisheries without access to a body of water and so on.

Settlements would probably be "super holdings" as far as benefits goes. But with stiff requirements, such as having roads in all domains it occupies (King's Landing would occupy at least 385 resources of land by my calculations).

A logical conclusion to how this "holding inflation" is going to work out, I think, is to rework everything that modifies the house fortune roll, and instead have it modify the effects of house fortunes.

[nakraal]

My idea of handling things is also to assign population to domains, but also the Law resource, making each domain to
be defined by 3 major resource scores population, land & law.

I don't think that law should be kept out of the equation. Population & land would go hand in hand but you can add the provincial law score.

As you said the House Fortunes rules should be reworked. What about each separate domain affecting the HF rolls instead of the total resource score of Law & population?

Great concentrations of population could add a respectable bonus in house fortunes but if they are not "garrisoned" with enough Law points this could back fire. And on the other hand uninhabited domains w/ big land scores (a domain with mountains for example) which are not "patrolled" with Law points could provoke banditry of some short.
Keep it up! Its getting very interesting..

[Zorbeltuss]

Law (and lack of it) definitely should play a part. It's just that I can't make it a resource on the same level as the other ones.

So I'd have it be part of expanded rules to modify house fortunes.

[Kival]

There were some ideas for law holdings which were interesting. I can't find it at the moment but the basic idea was something like: if you lack a guard in the city, you get a malus on fortune rolls... if you lack some kind of law holding for a domain, you get a malus on fortune rolls... etc. pp.

[Zorbeltuss]

Well, there's two approaches. The first is to treat law as it's own rank and resource (with holdings), with the law rank factored in when determining influence rank.

The other is to treat it as a separate value, which would be my preference, I'd call it law rating. There's numerous ways to go on about it, my attempt.

Step one: Determine the total value of population holdings your domains can support.
Step two: Divide your population resource on this number.
Step three: Consult table to find your base law rating.

0-0.2: 10
0.2-0.5: 5
0.5-0.8: 3
0.8-0.9: 2
0.9-1.1: 1
1.1-1.2: 2
1.2-1.5: 5
1.5-2.0: 10
+0.5: +5

Small Towns gives +2, Large Towns +4, Small cities +12, Large cities +24, Huge Cities +40.

Law rating negatively affects house fortunes. And Possibly modifies your influence rank.

To reduce law, there are primarily two holdings I have in mind:
Sheriffs, which would cost 1 power per domain and give a flat reduction of -1.
Town militia/city guard at 5 power apiece that reduces penalty from communities by -1 each, to a maximum of 1/4 (round down) the base penalty for a community of that size. Functions as a green garrison in battle.

[Zorbeltuss]

Still a bit of mish mash with the above, but pushing forward.

House Fortunes
What I'm thinking here is to do two things:
1. Higher house influence rank, bigger difficulty of the fortune roll.
2. Higher house influence rank, bigger magnitude on the effects of the roll.

Basically, what I am thinking is that:
Difficulty=influence rank/2 (round up)
Which would lead to difficulties of:
Landed Knight: 5-10
Petty Noble: 10-20
Minor Noble: 20-25
Major Noble: 25-30
Great Noble: 30+

Compare to average result for the leader of such a house, with two bonus dices:
Landed Knight: 13
Petty Noble: 17
Minor Noble: 21
Major Noble: 24
Great Noble: 28

Seems maybe a bit unbalanced towards the lower end of the scale, so maybe adding a flat +5 to difficulty might be a wise idea? Minor+ would have things like Maesters and so on to boost their rolls to compensate.

For reference, this is the standard effects (average values):
Boon: +1d6 or +1d3 and +1d3
Blessing: +1d3 or +1 and +1
Growth: +1
Decline: -1
Curse: -1d3 or -1 and -1
Disaster: -1d6 or -1d3 and -1d3

Also, you can forego the roll for +1 to resource of your choice, but not three times in a row.

Which is fine for the system as is, but when keyed to my expanded resource value, it becomes rather insignificant for bigger houses.

So I propose a change:
Boon: +Xd6 or +Xd3 and +Xd3
Blessing: +Xd3 or +X and +X
Growth: +X
Decline: -X
Curse: -Xd3 or -X and -X
Disaster: -Xd6 or -Xd3 and -Xd3

Also, you can forego the roll for +X to resource of your choice, but not three times in a row.

Where X depends on the size of your house:
Landed Knight: 1
Petty Noble: 2
Minor Noble: 4
Major Noble: 5
Great Noble: 6

Which corresponds with how rank translates into resources. So it's essentially how the book does it adapted to my scale.

Observe that no holding will give a modifier, however, I would allow a Maester, and only a Maester, to take the assist action on the check. (Mines, septs and so on would have to give some other benefit).

As for effects, determine the difference between the check result and the difficulty, and consult table:

-9 or lower: Disaster
-8: Curse
-7: Growth
-6: Decline
-5: Curse
-4: Blessing
-3: Decline
-2 Growth
-1: Decline
0: Growth
1: Decline
2: Growth
3: Curse
4: Blessing
5: Growth
6: Decline
7: Blessing
8 or higher: Boon

Optional:
Additionally, a result where all test dices shows 1 is always a disaster, and a result where all test dices shows 6 is always a boon. Also, each test dice that shows a 6 adds +1 to all d6's rolled to modify resources, and +1/2 (round the result down) to all 1d3's rolled to increase resources, and each test dice that shows a 1 adds -1 to all d6's rolled to modify resources. and -1/2 (round the result down).

[Zorbeltuss]

Also, I've been expanding on the idea of house traits/holdings keyed to influence, essentially, it functions more like benefits/drawbacks which applies to House Members, descriptive name is fairly generic, in many cases it's a prejudice (positive or negative) that has been built over the history of the house. Fearsome for example, means that the house has a history that makes others take any threats from them rather with more concern than they otherwise would, considering the size and power of it. (House Bolton would be a good example there, a naked men has few secrets, a flayed man none...)

House Qualities: benefits which costs rank*10 resources and drawbacks that gives rank*10 resources, the narrator may choose not to include this option or to otherwise restrict it.

Benefits:
Ancestry: All characters born into the House may purchase Blood of <chosen one at house creation> quality for 40XP*
Fearsome: All members of the House gets +1B on Intimidate tests.
Heirloom <quadruple cost>: The family has an extraordinary item (most likely a sword of Valyrian Steel).
Military Traditions <double cost>: All male (and in Dorne, Female too) members may purchase ranks and specialities in Fighting, Warfare and Marksmanship at 90% of standard cost.
Proud History: All members of the House gets +1B on Status reputation.
Reliable: All members of the House gets +1B when Bargaining.
Reputable: All Members of the House gets +1B on charm tests.

*If purchased during character creation, this results in 10XP that may immediately be spent on abilities or specialties. Goes without saying that no member born into a house with this benefit may have any other "blood of X" quality without good reason.

Drawbacks:
Craving: -1D on charm checks
Reviled: Other characters have a default disposition one point worse than normal when dealing with characters of this house.
Soft Hearted: -1D on intimidation tests.
Treacherous: -1D when using Deception in Intrigue.
Unreliable: All members of the House gets -1D on Bargaining tests.
Upstarts: All members of the House gets -1D on Status Reputation tests.

I'm sure there's better names and other suggestions, mostly I'm trying to aim for benefits to give members something worth 10XP (like a bonus dice), while drawbacks have the same effect, only negative and slightly stronger.

[Zorbeltuss]

Starting to maybe come together, suggested wealth holdings.

At the end, there's various household members that can be purchased, I'm thinking along the lines that they'd be populated by secondary or tertiary characters normally, you can always appoint someone to be Steward, Castellan and the like, but if you want someone very good at the job, and want to provide him with everything he needs to do a very good job, it'll cost you.

Artisan.
Requirement: Hall or Small Town (or larger version of either).
Investment: 10+5X, where X is the number of Artisan investments made.
Time: 2D6 Months.
When investing in this holding, you choose one of the following benefits:
-All Weapons forged at this location counts as superior.
-All Armors forged at this location counts as superior.
-The Cover bonus the defenders of this location receive are increased by +1.
-When Rolling House Fortunes you get +1B.

Godswood.
Requirement: Realm (The North) or Ancestry (First Men).
Investment: 5
Time: 24+2D6
Characters with the Pious(Old Gods) quality that spends an hour in contemplation in front of the heart three gains an additional +1B when they use their daily Pious ability for the next seven days.

Weirwood Heart Three.
Requirement: Godswood.
Investment: 20 in the North, 90 outside the North.
Time: Only available during House Creation.
Characters with the Pious(Old Gods) quality that spends an hour in contemplation in front of the heart three can use their Pious Ability once per day per two specialties invested in dedication (round up).

Guilds
Requirement: Small Town or Larger
Investment: 20
Time: 2d6 months
All members of the household gain a 10% discount on any goods purchased in their own lands.

Maester.
Requirement: Right to pit and gallows.
Investment: 20
Time: 1D6
Gain the Service of a Maester, a primary NPC, a Maester, and only a Maester may assist the Lord or Steward with the House Fortune check.

Grain Exchange*
Requirement: Village or larger settlement.
Investment: 10
Time: 1D6
When the result of the House Fortune roll indicates an increase of Wealth, add +1.

Marketplace*
Requirement: Town or City
Investment: 40
Time: 2D6
When the result of the House Fortune roll indicates an increase of Wealth, add +2.

Fairground*
Requirement: City
Investment: 90
Time: 4D6
When the result of the House Fortune roll indicates an increase of Wealth, add +3.

*You may only have one of these in a given settlement, you may upgrade by investing the difference in cost.

Port
Requirement: Town or City
Investment: 40
Time: 3D6
The effects of Marketplace and Fairground are now +1D6 and +3D6 respectively.

Merchant Fleet
Requirement: City, port.
Investment: 250
Time 6D6
The effects of Marketplace and Fairground are now +3D6 and +6D6 respectively.

Mine
Requirement: Hills or Mountains
Investment: 20+20X Wealth where X is the amount of Mines one already have. 2 Population.
Time: 24+2D6
Each month, roll 1D6, on a result of 6, the house gains +1 Wealth.

Sept
Requirement: Village or larger settlement. Alternatively a castle or larger defensive structure.
Investment: 20
time: 12+2D6
Gain the Service of a septon, a primary NPC.
Special: Without a sept, hosting a noble marriage on your lands costs 1 point of wealth (in addition to whatever the expenses of the feast include).

Library.
Requirement: Levels 1-3: Tower, levels 4-5: Hall, levels 6-8: Castle, Maester.
Investment: 10*X*X, see text.
Time: Xd6, see text.
A library holding gives you access to a collection of books, where X indicates the size of the collection (p 62. table under research). Upgrading to one level from another costs the difference between the investments. Additional benefits (listed bonus on research tests are not cumulative):
Level 2: +1B on research tests made with access to the library.
Level 4: Benefit, see below.
Level 5: +1D on research tests made with access to the library.
Level 6: Benefit, see below.
Level 8: +1D and +1B on research tests made with access to the library.

Benefits that may be chosen:
-Members of the House gains a free specialty in education, provided that they have had access to the library when they grew up.
-The Lord or his steward gains +1B on the House Fortune rolls.
-Mines will now increase the wealth of the house on a roll of 5 or 6.
-The Law rating of the house improves by 1 (cannot go above 0).

Castellan
Requirement: Hall or greater defensive structure
Investment: 20
Time 1d6
Gain the service of a Primary NPC, additionally, units defending this structure under his supervision gain Discipline (-3).

Steward
Requirement: Hall or greater defensive structure
Investment: 20
Time 1d6
Gain the service of a Primary NPC with access to a special benefit: Steward, requirement: serve a Lord as his steward, you may purchase status up to that of the lord you serve, additionally, you receive +2D on all Stewardship tests, this bonus does not stack with any fate quality that provides extra test dice to status.

Master at Arms
Requirement: Hall or greater defensive structure
Investment: 20
Time 1d6
Gain the service of a Primary NPC, additionally, the power cost of the garrison unit type raised at this location is reduced by 1.

Master of Horse
Requirement: Hall or greater defensive structure
Investment: 20
Time 1d6
Gain the service of a Primary NPC, additionally, all horses that has been breed at this location gains one additional rank in Athletics, Agility or Endurance, or three specialties.

Master of the Hunt
Requirement: Hall or greater defensive structure
Investment: 20
Time 1d6
Gain the service of a Primary NPC, additionally, the house gains extra prestige when hosting hunts.

Kennelmaster
Requirement: Hall or greater defensive structure
Investment: 20
Time 1d6
Gain the service of a Primary NPC, additionally, hounds that has been breed at this location gains two additional ranks and three additional specialties.

Sworn Sword.
Requirement: Defensive Structure
Investment: 10
Time 1d6
Gain the service of a Primary NPC

Retainer.
Requirement: Defensive Structure
Investment: 5
Time 1d6
Gain the service of a Secondary NPC

[Zorbeltuss]

Also, idea I have to tie in modification to influence rank beyond that determined by the other resources.

Prestige replaces glory. (You could call it glory, but I think Prestige is a better word, glory gained is converted into prestige if you like to keep that term.).

Prestige can be a negative or positive number that is added to the average of the other resources to determine your influence rank according to this formula:
Influence rank=Prestige+(Defense+Land+Population+Power+Wealth)/5

Prestige is granted to a house as a reward from the narrator, the narrator may also decide to reduce the prestige of the house should the events of the story or the results of the actions it's members take suggest such an outcome.

The house, or it's members may spend available prestige in any of the following ways:
-One point of prestige may be converted into +1D6 resources of Defense, Land, Population, Power or Wealth.
-One point of prestige may be spent to give a benefit to a member of the house engaged in intrigue that spending a destiny point would provide.
-One point of prestige may be spent to improve the results of house fortunes by one step (From decline to growth for example.)
-X point of prestige, where X is the status of the opponent, may be spent to give a benefit to a member of the house engaged in intrigue that burning a destiny point would provide.

Effects of Prestige (optional):
High Prestige gives bonuses to the members of the house, while negative prestige gives penalties, the effects are cumulative.
If Prestige is positive:
0-4: (as normal)
5-9: +1B on Status(Reputation) checks.
10-14: +1B on all checks to influence an opponent during intrigues.
15-19: +1D on Status(Reputation) checks.
20+: +1B on all checks to influence an opponent during intrigues

If Prestige is negative:
1-3: -1D on Status(Reputation) checks.
4-6: Opponent's disposition is always one step worse than normal.
7-9: -1D on all checks to influence an opponent during intrigues.
10-12: -1D on all Status checks.
13-15: Opponent's intrigue defense is 2 higher.
16-18: Opponent's DR during intrigues is 2 higher.
19+: -1D on all checks to influence an opponent during intrigues.

[Zorbeltuss]

So, I think I can round this thing off now with a suggestion for house creation.

Determine Realm, substitute Influence with Prestige and add 1/5 of the indicated Law as a permanent modifier to your law rating.

Roll 7d6 to determine the starting ranks of defense, land, population, power and land.

Each player may add 1d6 to any of these (no more than 2D6 to a single resource).

Roll for historical events, substitute Influence with Prestige and add 1/5 of the indicated Law as a permanent modifier to your law rating.

I'm sure there's loads of details that can be expanded on or made better, but as it stands, this system is now functional, though it may not be balanced, and there's some loose ends still.