Holdings & Lands

[Azai]

I am just really confused by all this. If anyone could explain how it works, that would be amazing.

Essentially what I am confused about is how resources are spent and kept. That is my biggest problem. I don't understand how to generate "wealth" or money from lands for my players, nor do I understand how once they try and "purchase" things where those resources go or how to get them back.

[coldwind]

Generally speaking, resources are invested, and only spent/lost in unusual situations. The other big gotcha is that the system is abstracted out - there are no maintenance costs, and you don't need to track income and payments, except at the highest abstract level.

When a house is created, you get the dice rolls, plus various modifiers for realm and house historical events, to yield the starting resources for the house.

From then on, there are four things that can change them - 1. House Fortunes, 2. House Actions, 3. Narrator events, 4. Player Actions

1. House Fortunes
These represent the general luck/progress/happenings for the house in a given month. At the start, the Head of House (or his acting Steward) rolls a Status-Stewardship (plus modifiers for various House Holdings) and compares the result to the House Fortunes chart. Using the chart as a guide, the Narrator picks one or two resources to be improved or reduced by the indicated amount. To my knowledge, there's really no real guide on which resources should be modified - it's strictly Narrator fiat, but most people seem to agree that some sort of story element should be involved, even if only peripherally.
- Ex: Players roll and get Blessing, indicating either one +1d3 or two +1s. The Narrator decides that the House's mines have been particularly fruitful this month, and the House earns +1d3 to its Wealth.
- Ex: The next month, the players roll and get Disaster, with its one -1d6 or two -1d3s. Deciding to foreshadow an Ironborn invasion, and decides a slew of powerful storms batter the House's coastal domains, destroying infrastructure and causing the people to flee, applying the -1d6 to Population.

2. House Actions
These represent the specific intentions of the players in the roles as leaders of the House. Some of these actions have direct (or indirect) effects on the house resources - such as the manage resources action, which lets the players directly reassign resources of one type to another. Assigning a story element to these actions is typically the duty of both players and Narrator.
- Ex: The players, wanting to help repopulate the flooded areas, send in some of their army to clean things up, using the Manage Resources action and spending some of their uninvested Power to increase their Population.
- Ex: The next month, one of the PCs, having found religion, has convinced the rest that they should build a sept in their small hall, and the house takes the Begin Project action. They invest 15 of their unspent Wealth and then in 12+2d6 months, will finally begin reaping the benefits of a sept. They don't need to spend anything else to accomplish this - consider the 15 Wealth as having being put aside in a "Project fund", and all day-to-day costs associated with building the sept come from this, including stuff like salaries for the project manager, foreman, masons, carpenters, laborers, materials, etc - and they also don't need to take any more actions towards seeing it completed. They start it one month, and then never need think of it again until the 12+2d6 months is up, and then they have a Sept.

3. Narrator Events
Although somewhat similar to the House Fortunes, these are essentially the results of direct NPC actions towards the house, either beneficial or malicious. These are the result of rival houses attacking to seize land, or the dowry and prestige that comes with a daughter of a major house marrying the players' houses heir. Except for the conquest stuff, there are no hard-and-fast rules for how these might modify resources (the Warfare chapter indicates how resources are increased and decreased due to the gain or loss of domains). A lot of these can be rolled into the House Fortunes (ie, if they rolled a Blessing already, then the Narrator can just say that the +1 Influence is from the prestige and the +1 Wealth is the dowry), but some times you might want them separate, so... there you are.
- Ex: The foreshadowed Ironborn raids come, and the longships strike quickly, stealing a coastal domain. If they stay, the players' house loses the land domain - and the invested Lands resource - and some other resources are modified as well. At the same time, the Ironborn house's resources are modified as well, usually with increases. Note that retaliation will require the players' house to use the Wage Wars house action in a later month.

4. Player Actions
These represent those specific actions individual characters take to improve their house's lot in Westeros. Typically, this is through the investment of their rewards back into the house (IE: coin or glory).
- Ex: The players have looted an Ironborn longship returning from reaving elsewhere, and have found its hull filled with casks of Arbor gold and Dornish reds. The Narrator has decided that the wines are altogether worth 200 gold dragons, and for their daring, has awarded each player 1 point of Glory. The players, figuring their characters aren't complete drunks, decide to "store" the wines at their keep - investing the 200gd in their house for +1 Wealth, and some of them decide to invest their Glory in the house as well - in this case, into Influence and Power to represent the men-at-arms who flock to their banner to serve under such brave and skilled warriors.

Help any?

[Azai]

Yea, this is... Amazing. Thank you a lot coldwind.Your examples were what really helped me get my head around it.

For what I've done is, (I have two players, and then just myself) is I let them save a Stark.(We play for mostly just fun and to try and "change" the fate of the books). They were just simple sellswords, but I had them givin land in the north. Mountainous lands with a broken down keep. So they picked their surnames and are now 'nobles' but I made it so they could only take the minimum of what the North offers. (No rolls, just the modifiers of if you have a household in those lands.)

And then over time I was going to have them adventure to "recruit" people to their lands. If they were kind they would gain smallfolk too. I'd have events, and adventures, and invests and all that. I just didn't really know how to go about that till now being that between them they really only have forty silver stags.

So essentially, when dealing with wealth, you don't "get" income every now and then? It is just a level of wealth. It is considered that if you have this wealth you are able to pay those that serve you. And if you don't have this wealth, then you can't. Also, as you said, if you have about 200 gold dragons you could convert that into +1 wealth. I see that I could do the opposite and give the players the choice to use one of their wealth to convert into 200 Gold dragons.

[Lord Ben]

Yeah, don't think of wealth as a pile of money sitting in a vault. Wealth is investment into mines, fields, even the wealth of the peasants themselves. If you have 20pts of wealth and convert them all into Power it might represent running around taking 2/3rds of all your people's farm animals via taxes and selling them at market to buy pikes. Taking away their plows and beating them into swords, etc. It could just also be using some tax income and I'm sure the house has some degree of cash sitting around. I personally think it's important to wrap the changes around some type of story but not to get too tied up in the story where you feel like it should be extra bad or extra good based off the descriptions.

Month 1 - Convert 20 pts of wealth into power.
Month 2 A) Roll bad on house fortunes, your people are upset you raised taxes and turned their milk cows into jerky for soldier rations. Your authority is diminished as people openly complain of high taxes in every farm and tavern on your lands. -1d3 law.
B) If you roll good, you people are wary of strangers due to news and rumors of upcoming war. Every strange face is looked at twice by the guards and pickpockets and cutthroats look for easier pickings. +1d3 law.

The basic scenario is the same only the roll and outcome are different. And just because you wrapped a story around it doesn't mean the player can go out with a soothing and inspiring speech to negate the -1d3 law from the first example.

[Azai]

Oh, yeah almost everything we do is story first. Beyond combat and intrigue rules, lots of the other stuff is juts 'fluff'. I like having the systems if I need them(And understanding them too) but if it is a conflict between story and systems story always wins with my group.

Hence there will be times when "treasure is found" or other such things to increase wealth.

Another question I have is.... When you are trying to spend resources can you spend any resource towards anything?
Ex. I have +5 Defense, can I use that +5 defense to buy stuff under wealth or influence? Or do I have to covert that stuff into wealth first and then whatever my wealth rating is at that point use that to purchase stuff under wealth?

[coldwind]

Not directly, no.

Defense gets spent for Defense Holdings, Influence for Influence Holdings, etc.

However, the Manage Resources house action can convert some of one resource into an amount of another resource, which you could then use to pay for a holding in the next Begin Project house action.

[Azai]

Alright got ya. Okay, so I think the last thing I am a little fuzzy about is Rank, and spending of points.

So I have Defense 30, and I want to spend some of it. So say I spend 20 and I go down to Defense +10. According to the tables I suddenly don't have great defense, despite the fact that I "bought" defense units or holdings.

My question is, should you keep a (Total) ranking and a (Current) ranking for your resources? For example.

My house Total Defense rating is 30. Though my current resources for defense spending is +10.

[Nirnaeth]

Yes, it's total rank, with some invested and some available.

In extra books (e.g. Chronicle Starter) they present Houses in such a way : House Random of Wherever Defense 30: Invested 20 (Wherever's Keep), Available 10.

And so on for the rest.

You obviously don't become "poorer" when you invest in holdings and stuff, it's just that this wealth has been invested rather than being hard currency immediately available.

[nakraal]

As I get it in that case your houses defense rating would either be the total (30) or the used (20) and not the reserve (10).

[Zorbeltuss]

It includes the ability to construct new fortifications or improve existing (if allowed by narrator), so the full score should be used. As in ranking=invested+unspent.

But the comparison tables are mostly bogus anyway.

[Azai]

Just wanted to say thank you to all those that helped me out. You were an incredible resource to myself, and my group. So thanks the lot of you! It was awesome.

While I did open up the thread about Holdings and Land, I figured this would also be the best place to post this.

I am thinking of trying to come up with a lot more Holdings and Lands that you can purchase with your points. And I was wondering if anyone has ever tried to take a swing at this before?

[coldwind]

Plenty of people have; several on this board even. I've not used any of them myself, so I don't have any linls, but s search should find them.

[Kival]

Law Holdings for Houses - another House Rule!
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=7592

Especially pytorbs posting:

viewtopic.php?p=94464#p94464

New Wealth Holdings
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=7812


I've thought about including a lot of them AND also gave them to the house but our game started with the King's Landing adventure and so actually house stats have not been used so far.

[Nirnaeth]

I have a question regarding House creation and PC creation. Do you guys usually create the House before you start thinking about the characters? Ifind it kind of hard to map out House history withour having an idea of the main characters populating it first.

[Roadspike]

Given that the House has (usually) existed much longer than the character, I find it useful to create the house before the character. A character's family and their position in the world can have a major effect on who the character is (and even what his or her abilities are). Of course, I usually have -some- idea of the character that I want to play, so that informs my decisions about the house as well (want to play a godly character, pick up a Sept for the House or strive to be able to afford one).

[Zorbeltuss]

well, yes.

At least rolling the dices. House and character histories might often be written at the same time though.

[coldwind]

Either way can work, but if you're using a House, then it should be mostly nailed down before characters are done - since the House's resources and holdings determine stuff like maximum Status characters can have, maesters and septons, possible cost changes for some equipment, etc.

[Pytorb]

Either way can work, but if you're using a House, then it should be mostly nailed down before characters are done - since the House's resources and holdings determine stuff like maximum Status characters can have, maesters and septons, possible cost changes for some equipment, etc.

Definitely do the House first. Not only, as coldwind says does it determine maximum status and whether potential characters such as a Septon/Septa/Maester are available, but the other factors of the House can have a big impact. For our campaign knowing what the House's domains were, what their wealth holdings were, what the House's history was and even the House's motto all had an influence on character generation and the start of play.

[Pytorb]

Law Holdings for Houses - another House Rule!
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=7592

Especially pytorbs posting:

viewtopic.php?p=94464#p94464

New Wealth Holdings
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=7812


I've thought about including a lot of them AND also gave them to the house but our game started with the King's Landing adventure and so actually house stats have not been used so far.

Here's some fun ideas on defence holdings,

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=10245&hilit=Defence+holding

And on influence holdings...

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=10409

I should point out all my house holdings ideas at least are pretty much un-playtested. This is because my campaign has been more about the player's galavanting around Westeros than about actually utilising and managing the House resources.