Bloodline Powers Expansion

[Cinder]

This poll is about adding and adjusting bloodline powers. It was spawned off of the topic discussion "More Powers." Please feel free to comment or offer suggestions on this poll or the above mentioned thread. Thanks for your time.

[irdeggman]

'Fine as is' doesn't mean "no tweaking".

You do realize that Chap 2 of the BRCS-playtest is 20 pages as is with over half of that devoted to the blood abilities themselves. With a 200+ page document we could be looking at a pretty vast expansion.

IMO the "core" rules should only have the minimum number of blood abilities presented (i.e, those from the Book of Regency) with guides for how to create (and level) new ones. If this is opened to adding new ones there is a Pandora's box occurence here. The "old" book of blood abilities on the BRnet had such a listing. What if someone out there doesn't want to use the "new" abilities, if they are included in the "core" rules this will cause an issue. It is far easier to have a minimal amount and have DMs increse those as they wish instead of having them have to 'delete' ones they don't like.

[geeman]

3 +0200, irdeggman wrote:



>What if someone out there doesn`t want to use the "new"

>abilities, if they are included in the "core" rules this will

>cause an issue. It is far easier to have a minimal amount and have DMs

>increse those as they wish instead of having them have to `delete` ones

>they don`t like.



With the exception of a random blood ability table, it`s pretty easy to

delete stuff.... Granted, it represents a potentially endless expansion of

the core text, so it might be more appropriate as a web enhancement, but

given that the conversion project itself could be seen as a sort of web

enhancement taken to the Nth degree maybe throwing a few new blood

abilities into the core document with a notation indicating which were

brand new would be appropriate. That way there`d at least be some new

blood abilities to serve as examples for the tweaking-inclined DM.



Gary

[RaspK_FOG]

I believe that new powers should be up to the individual DM... Any new powers, though, could be presented as suggestions (like the Witch variant class in the DMG, which, IMO, was awfully made) in either the core rulebook, or the site instead.

Our efforts should be that all power levels (minor, major, great) are worked out for the various powers. Examples could be a nice idea to start with, but we shall see over time, shan't we?

[Nightmare]

For what it's worth, I think that only those blood abilities fromt the original BR books should be included. Those powers should of course be adjusted to fit the D20 rules. Other than that I think that the conversion should include guidelines for the DM to create his own blood abilities.

[Mark_Aurel]

Basically, I think if any new powers are to be added, they should fulfill a few criteria. They should be appropriate to the bloodline and the setting. They should be different from existing powers. Primarily, I think if new powers are to be added, they should take these things into account, and also cover things that couldn't be represented well with the 2e rules, or possibly even cover problems created by the new ruleset. Also, some powers might do with some additional expansion to cover new mechanics created by the 3e rules.

Apart from that, the addition of new blood abilities should be left to individual DMs, though it would probably be a good idea to include some guidelines for it, depending on what system is used to represent the abilities.

[Birthright-L]

> Apart from that, the addition of new blood abilities should be left to individual DMs, though it would probably be a good idea to include some guidelines for it, depending on what system is used to represent the abilities.



While I don`t disregard the important role the GM has in customizing his

campaign world to fit his players and games, I don`t think there`s any

reason to just assume that individual DMs should do this work, anymore than

saying we should leave it up to individual DMs to write their own conversion

manuals. This kind of mentality goes against the whole creative process.



I can understand why you`d want to keep the conversion manual as close to

the original work as possible, but there`s no reason you couldn`t have

additional blood abilities put into a different section or a different

release altogether, so long as you started planning them now in the design

process. I rather like the suggestion put forth earlier about adding new

blood abilities and simply noting which ones are "added" and which ones are

"core", perhaps by a different color of font in the title or some such.



I can`t really think of any new blood abilities that I use in my campaigns

that should go in the book, though. (I use them mostly for plot devices.)

Are there any blood abilities that anyone specifically wants?



Off hand, all I can think of is that it might be cool to have more

elementally-based blood abilities for Reynir and perhaps some

necromancy-like effects for Azrai.



While I don`t want this to become the Netbook of Blood Abiltiies (but that

would be helpful...), I think if we don`t make some new blood abilities for

use with the core materials, whatever guidelines are written up to add blood

abilities for use with core materials will be meaningless and untested.



-Lord Rahvin

[Birthright-L]

What WOULD you all think about expanding all the efforts of the conversion

process into their own independant projects? For example, coming out with a

sort of Netbook of Blood Abilties, Netbook of Domain Actions, Netbook of

Realm Spells, etc...



It would have to be decided now, since the conversion manual would have to

be written in such a way as to have any one chapter in it replaced by such a

Netbook-type thing. Instead of being a sort of `core rulebook` to consult

then, the conversion manual would sort of launchpad to introduce the ideas

expanded by other projects.



I kind of like the idea of adding, say, 25% more blood abilities to each

derivation along with guidelines on making your own blood abilities and

compiling any additional blood ability proposals into their own Netbook

projects.



-Lord Rahvin

[Mark_Aurel]

While I don`t disregard the important role the GM has in customizing his
campaign world to fit his players and games, I don`t think there`s any
reason to just assume that individual DMs should do this work, anymore than
saying we should leave it up to individual DMs to write their own conversion
manuals. This kind of mentality goes against the whole creative process.

Personally, I'm not opposed to adding blood abilities at all - I just think there should be strong reasons for including them in the core document. One such reason is because some things weren't easy to do or represent mechanically in 2e, though they might have been highly appropriate otherwise.


Off hand, all I can think of is that it might be cool to have more
elementally-based blood abilities for Reynir and perhaps some
necromancy-like effects for Azrai.

I don't tend to think of Azrai as especially "necromantic" - he is supposed to be a fallen god of knowledge, so ultimately, I tend to think of effects like magic, trickery and deceit, fear and intimidation, and pure evil effects or poisonous and similar ignoble attack forms as his niche in blood abilities. Necromancy just isn't in generally in his "sphere" by my interpretation. Reynir might need some lovin', though.

[Cinder]

I was hoping more people would have voted by now, oh well. I like Birthright-L's suggestion of a seperate netbook of blood abilities as it caters to everyone equally well. The people who don't want to add to the powers can simply use the main set of rules, while those of us who do can download the supplement(s). Pretty slick idea B-L. What do you guys think?

[geeman]

At 11:05 AM 8/18/2003 +0200, Cinder wrote:



>I was hoping more people would have voted by now, oh well.



It usually takes a while for people to cast their votes for some reason. I

didn`t even vote on my own contribution to the bloodline stuff in the BRCS

until someone pointed out that nobody had voted for option C several weeks

after it was presented to the BR community. Not even me, and I flippin`

penned the thing.... Oh well.



>I like Birthright-L`s suggestion of a seperate netbook of blood abilities

>as it caters to everyone equally well. The people who don`t want to add

>to the powers can simply use the main set of rules, while those of us who

>do can download the supplement(s). Pretty slick idea B-L. What do you

>guys think?



I like it. BR already has a nice "Book of..." tradition going for it

too. In fact, the BP stuff might be more apt for a sort of Birthright D20

"Book of Regency" update rather than the "core" setting stuff

itself. Things that might be apt for BR:



Book of Realm Spells

Book of Trade and Commerce (I know there`s a book of guildcraft in the

works, but this might function more on trade and production set of

rules/guidelines rather than guilds alone.)

Book of Warfare

Book of War at Sea

Book of Statecraft (focusing on diplomacy, embassies, treaties,

alliances, etc.)



Gary

[Osprey]

Things that might be apt for BR:

Book of Realm Spells
Book of Trade and Commerce (I know there`s a book of guildcraft in the
works, but this might function more on trade and production set of
rules/guidelines rather than guilds alone.)
Book of Warfare
Book of War at Sea
Book of Statecraft (focusing on diplomacy, embassies, treaties,
alliances, etc.)

Gary

Wow, I think this is a really excellent way to go about adding BR supplements and optional / variant rules to the core ruleset. It seems like a good way to make the most people happy. I also like Lord Rahvin's suggestion of downloadable e-books that could be printed and easily added to the core rules hardcopy (in other words, formatted with a modular compatibility between core and supplemental rules).

And I'd very much like to see some of those titles that Gary mentioned get developed. A book of war ate sea would be fantastic.

And I think a Book of Bloodlines could combine new bloodline powers, variants for Bloodline rules, and a detailed set of rules for making new bloodline powers compatible with the current rules and setting. (and good examples of such). Also, perhaps writing out some examples of a full, well-developed bloodline (with background, lineage, common traits, etc.) might be helpful for players looking for depth-enrichment in their games. This last part could work well in the D20 Atlas, too...

All in all, I'm a fan of having new powers available in whatever form, as long as it is available in a way that I can print it out and add it to tabletop resources.

Osprey

[RaspK_FOG]

e-Books, huh? Yes, I really like the idea... B)

I propose we start thinking on new concepts and stuff... All of this! It sounds great, and the opportunity to discuss the new possibilities... It's too good to be true!

I say we go on with this. Of course, new things will need a lot of consideration, but I believe the community would love new "Books of" being released on the site!

[geeman]

At 10:52 PM 8/18/2003 +0200, Osprey wrote:



>
Things that might be apt for BR:

>

> Book of Realm Spells

> Book of Trade and Commerce (I know there`s a book of guildcraft in the

> works, but this might function more on trade and production set of

> rules/guidelines rather than guilds alone.)

> Book of Warfare

> Book of War at Sea

> Book of Statecraft (focusing on diplomacy, embassies,

> treaties, alliances, etc.)

>

>

> Wow, I think this is a really excellent way to go about adding BR

> supplements and optional / variant rules to the core ruleset. It seems

> like a good way to make the most people happy. I also like Lord Rahvin`s

> suggestion of downloadable e-books that could be printed and easily added

> to the core rules hardcopy (in other words, formatted with a modular

> compatibility between core and supplemental rules).



Yeah, the more I think about it the better I like it.



> And I`d very much like to see some of those titles that Gary mentioned

> get developed. A book of war ate sea would be fantastic.



I`d like to see that too. The guy whose still done the best treatment of

naval combat for D20 that I`ve seen is the Septentrionalis setting. He

captured a lot of very cool stuff about tactical combat under oars and

sail, and did so while keeping a good eye towards the historical period he

was going for. I`ve seen various naval wargames that have done a good job

too, but by and large they don`t mesh well with RPGs in my experience, so

I`ve never run what I would call a satisfactory naval combat in a RPG yet

even though I ran a couple of campaigns dedicated to sailing. Granted,

it`s been a long time since I ran those campaigns, but I still enjoy the

topic a lot, and there`s no reason they won`t get revisited at some point

in the future....



>And I think a Book of Bloodlines could combine new bloodline powers,

>variants for Bloodline rules, and a detailed set of rules for making new

>bloodline powers compatible with the current rules and setting. (and good

>examples of such). Also, perhaps writing out some examples of a full,

>well-developed bloodline (with background, lineage, common traits, etc.)

>might be helpful for players looking for depth-enrichment in their

>games. This last part could work well in the D20 Atlas, too...

>

> All in all, I`m a fan of having new powers available in whatever form,

> as long as it is available in a way that I can print it out and add it to

> tabletop resources.



Since there are presently four variations on bloodlines being

proposed--each of which have their merits--it might be the most intelligent

course to just put them into a completely separate document and put it out

into the world like that. That way it satisfies both the "keep things as

they are" crowd and still provides several options for the tweak-monkeys.



Gary

[Mark_Aurel]

What WOULD you all think about expanding all the efforts of the conversion
process into their own independant projects? For example, coming out with a
sort of Netbook of Blood Abilties, Netbook of Domain Actions, Netbook of
Realm Spells, etc...

I kind of like the gist of this - though I would suggest a somewhat different format or forum - it wasn't long ago that a Birthright E-Zine was being planned; I'm not sure what happened to that, but I think that perhaps a regular release of additional tidbit materials in a magazine-like format would be a better and more varied read, and one which it would be easier to maintain a uniform level of quality for, than taking 2623623 new blood abilities of varied quality, and a similar number of domain actions, etc. When I think of the word "netbook," I don't get good vibes - reading most of them, for me, gives me a similar feeling to what I imagine trying to find gems in a pile of dung would. Of course, they could've improved since last I looked.

[Birthright-L]

> I kind of like the gist of this - though I would suggest a somewhat different format or forum - it wasn`t long ago that a Birthright E-Zine was being planned; I`m not sure what happened to that, but I think that perhaps a regular release of additional tidbit materials in a magazine-like format would be a better and more varied read, and one which it would be easier to maintain a uniform level of quality for, than taking 2623623 new blood abilities of varied quality, and a similar number of domain actions, etc. When I think of the word "netbook," I don`t get good vibes - reading most of them, for me, gives me a similar feeling to what I imagine trying to find gems in a pile of dung would. Of course, they could`ve improved since last I looked.





Hmmm... interesting.

I personally have the opposite view.



It`s what you describe as the "magazine-like format" that would best be

avoided, I think. And to be honest, the terms you used "trying to find gems

in a pile of dung" would best describe how I have come to think of such

things. That is after all the point of the magazine-format isn`t it? To

put as much different material together as possible so that *everyone* can

get at least one thing out of it and so everyone must have each copy of each

magazine to get optimal use out of the supplemental material within.

Pushing raw data out to people should not be the goal of such a project nor

should forcing them to read/download/print material they don`t want.



I *hate* the whole process of trying to get your campaign organized by

assembling a collection of piecemeal rules that may or may not have been

written with an eye toward compatability with oneanother. The

"magazine-style" was a good analogy. If you want a particular blood

ability, you`d have to go through archives searching for which issue had the

particular blood ability for use in your campaign.



The point of the proposed `netbooks` is three fold: 1) they organize all

such relavent information together, 2) they limit the amount of information

added to your games to only those subjects which you wish to add, and 3) as

a collective whole that`s planned for early it`s made to be perfectly

compatable and consistent with itself and other such limited books.



I used netbooks as an anology, I`d rather use `expansion` but even this

isn`t quite right, becuase ideally I`d like these works to REPLACE the

original chapters in the BRCS rather that supplement them. No mess, no

cross-referencing here and there; hence #1, above.



#2 is equally important. If you want new blood abilities, you shouldn`t

have to filter through domain actions, alternate timelines, NPC

descriptions, etc. If you want to expand on Blood Abilities, you simply

pick up the Blood Abilities Expansion and this book overrides all

`less-complete` rules so there are no inconsitencies and cross-referencing.



#3 is actually kind of the definition of the idea I`m proposing. Your

"magazine-style" isn`t all that different than what we have now (which I

guess shouldn`t be surprising). Every so often people post new ideas,

rules, campaign ideas, and questions and someone wanting to add this

material to their campaign need only look through the archives to find what

they want -- they just have to filter through all the stuff they don`t. An

`Expansion` or `netbook` would have only the type of information they want.



The disadvantage you refer to, as far as having a Book of Blood Abilities

just completely deluded with so many Blood Abilities that would be hard to

find the good ones that would best be applicable to your campaigns can be

negated or reduced by intelligent design and foresight. Let`s use the

example of a Book of Bloodlines that contains 2,623,623 blood abilities, as

per your example.



That`s hard to filter through, yes. Initially, the first time. After that

you have only to jot down the numbers or names of the ones you wish to use.

That`s still considerably easier than reading through 2,623,623 blood

abilities along with an equal number of domain actions, etc to filter

through in a magazine-style format.



If the Blood Abilities were arranged in a logical layout with sections

referring to particular campaign styles, themes, or other suggestions, this

could limit how many blood abilities you have to look through. Most

importantly though might be people`s suggestions online. When someone wants

to start a campaign, it`s a rather simple to refer to your campaign format

as using Blood Abilities 4, 7, 20, and 42 rather than having to type out the

blood abilities or even refer to them as "Issue #15, page 8; Issue #15,

page 8; Issue #32, page 16; and Issue #51, page 4". I would definitely not

go through archives looking for these, but it`d be a simple matter to look

up #4,#7,#20,and #42 in a PDF, printed or otherwise, especially if the table

of contents included the range of blood ability number entries per page.



The `Expansion` method has over the `magazine-style` immense potential

advantages. Of course, in all fairness, I`m kind of comparing a

well-designed Expansion to a slip-shod e-zine, but I think this is actually

a fairly accurate assessment if not a fair one.



The `Expansion` provides for increased likihood of internal consistency,

consistency with other sources including and especially the BRCS (it`s meant

to be used in place of one of its chapters in many cases), the up-to-date

official rules all in one place (and how they mesh with unofficial ones),

allows the BR net community additional options in their games, and provides

for a common groundwork for discussing and understanding such options

(without having to acquire additional material or search through archives).

It provides additional game material only to those gamers wanting that

additional type of material for their games, and doesn`t provide material

for which they don`t.



Anyone who really doesn`t want to read through 2,623,623 blood abilities but

is just sure he wants more blood abilities in his game need only ask the BR

community which of the material they are using, and get a response like "7,

23, 80, 412, 913, 2005, and 4288012 might be useful to you" which is still a

whole lot easier than sending 8 blood ability descriptions to them or having

that person just take the next 8 blood abilities that happen to come out in

that month`s e-zine.



I perfectly understand your "finding gems in a pile of dung" analogy because

I`ve gone through similiar things when going through such things as the

netbook of feats. But I only had to do it once, and my games are a whole

lot better for it. And when I want to add more, I can always go back to the

netbook of feats for ideas. Having to flip through every Dragon magazine I

have though, is far more annoying.



-Lord Rahvin

[Mark_Aurel]

>I perfectly understand your "finding gems in a pile of dung" analogy because
I`ve gone through similiar things when going through such things as the
netbook of feats. But I only had to do it once, and my games are a whole
lot better for it. And when I want to add more, I can always go back to the
netbook of feats for ideas. Having to flip through every Dragon magazine I
have though, is far more annoying.

I understand your point here, but I think I should clarify what I meant a bit: I think it would be easier to maintain quality control if less amounts of material were released at any given point in time. The materials could be gathered up at a later time in a form of compendium once sufficient materials had been accumulated, but my point is that the most expedient form of release that'd also assure quality control would be picemeal, rather than either gathering up lots of sub-par material for a big initial release, or waiting for a long time to release something good.

Releasing it in a magazine format would just mean that you'd get more overall value out of it at once - i.e. making it more "worth" the download time for everyone. The format has at least as many advantages as the disadvantages you describe. While you may initially be looking for new feats, some of the ideas described in a new spell section or prestige class might be interesting.

[geeman]

At 06:04 AM 8/19/2003 +0200, Mark_Aurel wrote:



>
>I perfectly understand your "finding gems in a pile of

> dung" analogy because

> I`ve gone through similiar things when going through such things as the

> netbook of feats. But I only had to do it once, and my games are a whole

> lot better for it. And when I want to add more, I can always go back to the

> netbook of feats for ideas. Having to flip through every Dragon magazine I

> have though, is far more annoying.

>

> I understand your point here, but I think I should clarify what I meant

> a bit: I think it would be easier to maintain quality control if less

> amounts of material were released at any given point in time. The

> materials could be gathered up at a later time in a form of compendium

> once sufficient materials had been accumulated, but my point is that the

> most expedient form of release that`d also assure quality control would

> be picemeal, rather than either gathering up lots of sub-par material for

> a big initial release, or waiting for a long time to release something good.

>

> Releasing it in a magazine format would just mean that you`d get more

> overall value out of it at once - i.e. making it more "worth"

> the download time for everyone. The format has at least as many

> advantages as the disadvantages you describe. While you may initially be

> looking for new feats, some of the ideas described in a new spell section

> or prestige class might be interesting.



I think it may be possible to do a little bit of both. That is, issue some

sort of magazine formatted e-text (quarterly?) and then once there`s enough

material on a particular subject put them all into a particular "Book

of..." ebook. Since contributions are voluntary and we`re not running into

the same issues with copyright I think it should be doable to combine the

two processes in a way that isn`t available to most (paper) publishing.



Personally, I wouldn`t mind contributing the occasional piece to an e-zine

or whatever. I can`t really lock myself into anything at present, but many

of the posts and email sent to the lists/boards contain the germ of

articles that could be used in a publication, and those could be made the

basis for various expansion books.



Gary

[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----

From: <lordrahvin@SOFTHOME.NET>

Sent: Monday, August 18, 2003 10:15 PM





> It`s what you describe as the "magazine-like format" that would

> best be avoided, I think.



This is a silly limit on how information is distributed. As I recall, Ian

Hoskins

planned a website where people could offer submissions of ideas, adventures,

characters, and other goodies. Then an announcement could be sent here once

a month to tell us what had been posted to the site since the last

announcement.



Read what you want, ignore the rest, don`t even go to the site if you don`t

want to. One of the reasons I produced the Taelshore site I have was to put

out my campaign materials for people who were interested without posting all

of it to the site. Its just as easy for people who are interested to click

a link, while less of a burden on readers who have no interest.



Other list members have great websites. If someone made a commitment to

putting submissions up and posting a "what`s new" list, I say good for

everyone.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[geeman]

At 06:04 AM 8/19/2003 +0200, Mark_Aurel wrote:



>I understand your point here, but I think I should clarify what I meant a

>bit: I think it would be easier to maintain quality control if less

>amounts of material were released at any given point in time. The

>materials could be gathered up at a later time in a form of compendium

>once sufficient materials had been accumulated, but my point is that the

>most expedient form of release that`d also assure quality control would be

>picemeal, rather than either gathering up lots of sub-par material for a

>big initial release, or waiting for a long time to release something good.

>

>Releasing it in a magazine format would just mean that you`d get more

>overall value out of it at once - i.e. making it more "worth"

>the download time for everyone. The format has at least as many advantages

>as the disadvantages you describe. While you may initially be looking for

>new feats, some of the ideas described in a new spell section or prestige

>class might be interesting.



Maybe the most effective way of accomplishing both the goals of material

and expedience is to have an page on BR. net that was a sort of

e-zine/downloads page. On this page (which we could refer to by whatever

e-zine-like title we like) would be articles submitted to Arjan (or whoever

is to format and post them) and the page could have them with a little

annotation describing what it is the article covers. The "e-zine" for BR

could then be a sort of organic thing with updates going on at the

convenience of the contributors without the pressure of

deadlines. Articles could then be extrapolated into ebooks when sufficient

material is compiled and someone has the time and inclination to put them

together, and posted on a more "traditional" downloads page.



Probably the most likely version of such a thing would be people who submit

awnsheghlien or ersheghlien write ups, or variant creatures for BR. Each

of those could be an "article" on the "Birthright Magazine" page and when

enough of them are presented someone could compile them into a Blood

Enemies 2 (3, 4) text. That is, after all, how the Fiend Folio eventually

got written. In a similar manner, different bloodline proposals could get

submitted and eventually congealed into a "Book of Bloodlines" type

text. There might be enough bloodline proposals already to create such an

ebook. I know the BP stuff is in the neighborhood of 15k words.



Of course, I have very little web design experience--and would probably not

be able to contribute anything other than the occasional article--so this

may be impractical in some way I`m not really seeing since I would have to

do very little of the work involved with putting up such a page....



Gary

[Osprey]

I have to say that sorting through magazines and websites for piecemeal information is very tedious and mind-numbing, and represents my least favorite way to digest information. I&#39;m still a big fan of edited, formatted supplements that I can print out. If it is easiest to do through piecemeal contribution, that&#39;s fine.

But it leaves the big question: what, ultimately, is considered "sufficient" in quality, compatibility, etc. to be posted. Who decides such a thing? A team of editors/designers? A poll on each addition (democratic, but [/I]slow[I]...)?

Not having been here when the BRCS was put together, it was never clear to me how such things (such as the design team) were determined, so perhaps there is already established some protocol I am unaware of. But the question remains...

[Mark_Aurel]

I&#39;m not a big believer in quality control by democracy - it tends to lead to compromises wherein everyone gets their stuff mixed into the soup, there is no clear vision, and you wind up having to wade through the whole product to find those parts which suits you, or are written by the authors you trust. For assigning quality control for a type of Birthright official submissions site, I&#39;d want to pick people that are intimately familiar with D&D and d20 rules and understand game theory in general, so they know when an attempt at a new rule is a bad or a good one - and are also familiar with the Birthright setting, and know to weed out inappropriate materials and proposals. The standard should be professional, or as close to professional as possible - depending on how you define professional, this is either an easy or a hard task. I would much rather have quality than quantity, however. Quantity is everywhere else on the internet anyway. If you want a boatload of new feats, try out the Netbook of Feats - I&#39;m not sure whether they still decorate it with footmarks or not. If you want feats and other materials that fit Birthright, you should come here to Birthright.net instead - and I want people to know that when they download something from here, they are getting quality materials, not a soup of components randomly thrown in.

In fact, an interesting submission angle might be to not just make the game mechanics, but also a short article explaining how those game mechanics fit into Birthright, and how the author thinks to take best advantage of them, or how they are supposed to work better than existing mechanics.

For the Birthright team, the people on the team were chosen from among the people that had actually put together a 3e conversion manual of their own at some point and posted it - and thus had some proven track record of putting materials together, rather than just talking a good book.

[Birthright-L]

> But it leaves the big question: what, ultimately, is considered "sufficient" in quality, compatibility, etc. to be posted. Who decides such a thing? A team of editors/designers? A poll on each addition (democratic, but [/I]slow[I]...)?

>

> Not having been here when the BRCS was put together, it was never clear to me how such things (such as the design team) were determined, so perhaps there is already established some protocol I am unaware of. But the question remains...



Very few of us are aware of the answers to that one, and those that are tend

to regard it as a very touchy subject.



But in my original post, I was kind of assuming the BRCS team would be

handling all that. If they don`t want to, that`s another story altogether.

But in general, as the BRCS team keeps reminding us, they are only human and

they don`t seem to want to develop on ideas other than their own. It`s very

difficult to develop a system from soemone else`s ideas, and they`re

attitude toward blood abilities has been "if you have a complete detailed

system ready then we`ll consider it" rather than considering developing a

system off anyone else`s ideas about how such a system should be built. In

fact, most such suggestions, seem to be frowned on. Again, this is

understandable. It`s hard enough to write your own system, let alone

someone else`s.



Ideally, I think the BRCS team (or a different BRCS team or sub-team) should

be willing to develop systems based on suggestions from the list, but this

team has a track history of not doing that so another team may be needed for

independantly created systems such as these. Likely, a few people would be

chosen for each `netbook`, perhaps from volunteers/nominees off the

list/board with all of their work approved/vetoed by the BRCS team.



-Lord Rahvin

[Birthright-L]

> I`m not a big believer in quality control by democracy - it tends to lead to compromises wherein everyone gets their stuff mixed into the soup, there is no clear vision, and you wind up having to wade through the whole product to find those parts which suits you, or are written by the authors you trust. For assigning quality control for a type of Birthright official submissions site, I`d want to pick people that are intimately familiar with D&D and d20 rules and understand game theory in general, so they know when an attempt at a new rule is a bad or a good one - and are also familiar with the Birthright setting, and know to weed out inappropriate materials and proposals. The standard should be professional, or as close to professional as possible - depending on how you define professional, this is either an easy or a hard task. I would much rather have quality than quantity, however. Quantity is everywhere else on the internet anyway. If you want a boatload of new feat

> s, try out the Netbook of Feats - I`m not sure whether they still decorate it with footmarks or not. If you want feats and other materials that fit Birthright, you should come here to Birthright.net instead - and I want people to know that when they download something from here, they are getting quality materials, not a soup of components randomly thrown in.





Well, that`s all great in theory and you`re cleverly phrasing your opinions

in ways that make anyone who disagrees with you sound bad, no where in there

did you answer the original question about who would be writing such

expansions.





> In fact, an interesting submission angle might be to not just make the game mechanics, but also a short article explaining how those game mechanics fit into Birthright, and how the author thinks to take best advantage of them, or how they are supposed to work better than existing mechanics.



With all due respect, it`s only been very recently (like the last few days)

that the BRCS team has even shown any consideration for how other people fit

new mechanics to fit their Birthright games. The BRCS team has made it

clear how high they regard existing mechanics and their disdain for adding

any more mechanics, official or otherwise. The statement above seems less

like "quality control" (as you coined it) and more like an appeasement to

satisfy the group while shutting down an idea you don`t like.





> For the Birthright team, the people on the team were chosen from among the people that had actually put together a 3e conversion manual of their own at some point and posted it - and thus had some proven track record of putting materials together, rather than just talking a good book.



I`m just really curious at this point.

By "3e conversion manual of their own", you mean specifically a "Birthright"

book, right? Surely, someone who`s compiled and posted previous

Birthright-related materials was what was being looked for, or should be

looked for at this point, rather than someone who posted 3e materials in

general or for other campaign systems. Right?



-Lord Rahvin

[Mark_Aurel]

Well, that`s all great in theory and you`re cleverly phrasing your opinions
in ways that make anyone who disagrees with you sound bad, no where in there
did you answer the original question about who would be writing such
expansions.

Well, the answer could be as simple as: I don&#39;t know. The Birthright E-Zine was Ian Hoskins&#39; project, and I&#39;m not sure about the current status of that. In general, I think I&#39;m going to try and organize something along the lines outlined previously - a regular compilation of new Birthright mechanics. Anyone would be welcome to contribute, of course - though if I&#39;m organizing it, I&#39;d also do my best to make sure that quality is the far more important consideration over raw quantity. I don&#39;t want to come here and say "yeah, this month, we have another 43 half-ass prestige classes. Yay." I&#39;d much rather go "and this month, we have two new excellent prestige classes." Let&#39;s just say we&#39;re still in the realm of ideas here, thus exchanging thoughts on how to best structure a project like this is more constructive at this point than trying to inquire about specific details.

To illustrate better what I meant earlier about releasing the material:

1. The "magazine." A compilation of all new material for a given month or whatever time period is appropriate. Much easier to manage for most people, I think - it also has that synergy thing going. This is where you see what&#39;s new.

2. The "archives." All past articles sorted by category. Feats in one neat folder, prestige classes elsewhere, spells in one place, variant rules systems in one place, etc. This is where you find everything in a specific topic easily.


With all due respect, it`s only been very recently (like the last few days)
that the BRCS team has even shown any consideration for how other people fit
new mechanics to fit their Birthright games. The BRCS team has made it
clear how high they regard existing mechanics and their disdain for adding
any more mechanics, official or otherwise. The statement above seems less
like "quality control" (as you coined it) and more like an appeasement to
satisfy the group while shutting down an idea you don`t like.

Actually, I&#39;m pretty sure most members of the BRCS team are very interested in different mechanics and ideas. The point of the BRCS isn&#39;t to include three new hit point systems, or five different domain systems, or a classless fantasy variant, or seven different flavors of elf or dwarf, however. No one holds alternate mechanics or ideas in "disdain" - nor do I believe any of us adopt uppity attitudes about the rules as they are; if it ever seems so, that is probably a poor presentation on our part, or misinterpretation on the reader&#39;s part. The BRCS, by virtue of being supposed to set the "official" baseline for 3e Birthright, can&#39;t stray too far from the default D&D rules. Even though I personally might like to tinker with the system for epic spells and turn that into a more generic spell system for lower-level characters or whatever, that&#39;s a personal house rule, not a rule for the BRCS. It is, however, things like that that might go into the variant section, if it has specific Birthright merit, or the BR magazine thing, if that ever happens.


I`m just really curious at this point.
By "3e conversion manual of their own", you mean specifically a "Birthright"
book, right? Surely, someone who`s compiled and posted previous
Birthright-related materials was what was being looked for, or should be
looked for at this point, rather than someone who posted 3e materials in
general or for other campaign systems. Right?

Yep. By "conversion manual," I referred specifically to those that had put together something to convert Birthright to 3e rules. I&#39;m not sure whether we caught everyone that did that, and if we didn&#39;t, I&#39;m sorry.

[Mark_Aurel]

Ideally, I think the BRCS team (or a different BRCS team or sub-team) should
be willing to develop systems based on suggestions from the list, but this
team has a track history of not doing that so another team may be needed for
independantly created systems such as these. Likely, a few people would be
chosen for each `netbook`, perhaps from volunteers/ nominees off the
list/board with all of their work approved/vetoed by the BRCS team.

Do I sense the presence of someone who would volunteer precious hours of their life to such a thing, or who would at least submit something of their own make?

If so, I want an alternate Encumbrance system on my desk tomorrow morning at 9&#33;

[Birthright-L]

> If so, I want an alternate Encumbrance system on my desk tomorrow morning at 9&#33;





Okay... :)

Should it be written for Birthright or D&D?

I need to know how many Bags of Holding will be in a party.



-Lord Rahvin

[Raesene Andu]

It is important to remember that the BRCS was never meant to the final word on BR rules. It does not, and will not, include every blood ability, realm spell, house rule, etc that you might like to see. Instead it is meant to provide a set of core rules that can be used as a base from which new material can be created.

So there is no reason at all why new material can not be published on the web, in some form of e-zine (or whatever) if people want to write and release their own BR material. In fact, I would encourage this. There has been far too little new material created for BR over the past few years and I for one would like to see more. Even entirely new books (such as the examples earlier in this thread)

I would personally prefer to see an archive type setup, rather than a e-zine or netbook. It is easier to access the articles and sort through them to find what you are looking for. If you like I can set something up. I&#39;ve a couple of old webpages I used to run that I can fix up, but the question is, is anyone going to submit anything?

As Mark_Aurel has mentioned I was going to run a birthright e-zine (published once a month) starting at the end of last year, but no one ever submitted anything to be included. It was planned to do exactly what you are dicussing now, release a e-zine with new material and have an archive of all old material that you could look through. Now I did toss up the idea of releasing the first issue with entirely my own material in the hope of encouraging others to submit something, but I wasn&#39;t sure how that would be received, so it never happened.

However, I&#39;m still open to restarting the e-zine if that is what you would like to see. It doesn&#39;t take too much of my time to format some submitted articles into a short e-zine and publish it once a month (or 2 months). However, I would need to have something to include first.

Another option open to use, is a series of competitions to create something (say a BR prestige class). Someone can collect submissions, publish them and then let the member of birthright.net and the list vote on which one they like. No prizes for the winner of course, except the knowledge that people really liked your work.

[Mark_Aurel]

As Mark_Aurel has mentioned I was going to run a birthright e-zine (published once a month) starting at the end of last year, but no one ever submitted anything to be included. It was planned to do exactly what you are dicussing now, release a e-zine with new material and have an archive of all old material that you could look through. Now I did toss up the idea of releasing the first issue with entirely my own material in the hope of encouraging others to submit something, but I wasn&#39;t sure how that would be received, so it never happened.

Ah, so that was the problem - if so, I have a bunch of stuff lying around that I could touch up on and submit. Of course, it won&#39;t be appropriate for everyone, but what ever is? ;)

[geeman]

At 02:25 PM 8/20/2003 +0200, Raesene Andu wrote:



>I would personally prefer to see an archive type setup, rather than a

>e-zine or netbook. It is easier to access the articles and sort through

>them to find what you are looking for. If you like I can set something up.



I`d like to see an "archive web page in e-zine style" if you will. At

least, that`s what I was trying to suggest earlier. If a web page looked

like the Table of Contents for a e-zine then it would satisfy both the urge

to have a constantly updated resource for materials and the desire to keep

those resources in a single place for those who don`t want to leaf through

gobs of magazines/files to find a particular bit of information. Such a

page could be broken up into various sections, and when those sections grew

large enough to merit conversion into a separate ebook they could be

compiled into such a document which would be put up on the "regular

download" page along with the BRCS and whatever other supplements get

written up.



Just to illustrate the point, the page could look like this (with due

formatting, of course):



THE BEASTS OF BIRTHRIGHT



The Blobman by Joe Contributor

"This amorphous awnsheghlien will slither into your campaign."



Nightmaid by E.M. Forster

"Evil femme fatale of the night or misunderstood protector of the innocent?"



The Furies by Able Cline

"This trio of awnsheghlien make prophecies of doom and despair. Can your

players face the challenge?"



SCIONS AND BLOODLINES



Bloodlines Using Points by Gary Foss

"This system of reflecting bloodline allows customization of blood abilities."



Bloodline as Character Class by Ernst Hemingway

"Level up your character in the blood of the gods!"



PEOPLE AND PRINCES



Prince Avan by Bill Falkland

"A 3e interpretation of this prominent Birthright character."



The Swan Mage by Silvia Plath

"A 3e interpretation of this Khinasi mistress of magic."



Things like that. The titles would be links to documents, the authors

names links to email address or their BR.net addy (should the author so

specify.)



Either of the above sections could then be placed into a "Book of..."

document when enough of them were contributed. I don`t know exactly what

was "enough" for such a document, but let`s just say that if there were 64

pages of material it would be suitable for conversion into a supplement

rather than individual articles on the "e-zine" page.



Aside from the way such a system could be used to develop ebooks in the

long run, another merit of handling it this way is IMO that if there`s a

lull in the amount of contributions to the page that doesn`t mean the

e-zine project itself will fall apart. The person who volunteers to edit

such a monthly (or bi-monthly or quarterly) document doesn`t then have to

appeal constantly for new material, nor do the contributors feel like they

have to meet deadlines--which is not something that volunteers feel

particularly pleased about having to do.



>I`ve a couple of old webpages I used to run that I can fix up, but the

>question is, is anyone going to submit anything?



I can think of several things I`ve seen in posts that would only take a

little editing to turn into an article suitable for such an e-zine

page. Off the top of my head there`s at least a dozen such posts that

would work. In fact, several would seem to require only formatting into

whatever standards the "e-zine page" adopted in order to be posted as

articles. I can`t speak for anyone else, but I have at least three things

in the works right now that would be appropriate for such page. All four

of the bloodline proposals would be apropos as articles for such a page.



Gary

[Osprey]

I`d like to see an "archive web page in e-zine style" if you will. At
least, that`s what I was trying to suggest earlier. If a web page looked
like the Table of Contents for a e-zine then it would satisfy both the urge
to have a constantly updated resource for materials and the desire to keep
those resources in a single place for those who don`t want to leaf through
gobs of magazines/files to find a particular bit of information. Such a
page could be broken up into various sections, and when those sections grew
large enough to merit conversion into a separate ebook they could be
compiled into such a document which would be put up on the "regular
download" page along with the BRCS and whatever other supplements get
written up.


I think Gary&#39;s idea is a good solution that satisfies all interested parties. Good thinking, mate.

I do think quality control is an important (and controversial) issue. I&#39;ve seen far too many "official" D20 supplements that are unbalanced and smack of favoritism (some Forgotten Realms prestige classes, for example). I would prefer that any published material be carefully reviewed for such factors, especially things like Blood Abilities, feats, and prestige classes, without underpowering them, either.

Osprey

[Birthright-L]

> I can think of several things I`ve seen in posts that would only take a

> little editing to turn into an article suitable for such an e-zine

> page. Off the top of my head there`s at least a dozen such posts that

> would work. In fact, several would seem to require only formatting into

> whatever standards the "e-zine page" adopted in order to be posted as

> articles. I can`t speak for anyone else, but I have at least three things

> in the works right now that would be appropriate for such page. All four

> of the bloodline proposals would be apropos as articles for such a page.



Yeah, I`m working on organizing some of the information in the Wotc list

archives right now for re-hashing. Generally speaking, most of it should be

sent to the list/boards for brainstorming and suggestions (which was the

original spirit in which those original messages were sent), but a few might

make good articles. I`m checking on it now. I`m already making progress

with a few of the old threads.



But yeah, old messages might be useful as e-zine articles, at least to start

out. I`ll post a couple of examples later in the week (or early next week)

so we have a better idea of what we`re talking about. Some of the ideas are

very old and might be seen differently in light of 3e, recent changes in

gaming trends, and the fact that many of the old users are gone and the

amount of people reading these messages would be at least twice as many as

before.



Gary, Ryan, and Kenneth probably won`t get much out of those articles, since

they were as active on the list then as they are now, and many of the

articles will have already be written or critiqued by them. Everyone else

should find it interesting though.



Let`s see... we should probably skip over the "effect/affect" debate,

huh...?



-Lord Rahvin

[geeman]

At 06:14 PM 8/20/2003 +0200, Osprey wrote:



>I do think quality control is an important (and controversial)

>issue. I`ve seen far too many "official" D20 supplements that

>are unbalanced and smack of favoritism (some Forgotten Realms prestige

>classes, for example). I would prefer that any published material be

>carefully reviewed for such factors, especially things like Blood

>Abilities, feats, and prestige classes, without underpowering them, either.



I suppose from a rather cynical standpoint a "e-zine page" might operate as

a sort of additional stopgap between the publishing of some not-so-good fan

produced material and such material getting into a supplemental

ebook. That is, someone might submit a badly written, ill-conceived

awnsheghlien like... oh, let`s see... the Horrible Radioactive Purple

Hipposaurus Man! Beware his mutative maw and crushing wild charge! If

such a thing were submitted to the "e-zine page" then its fairly disposable

where if it appeared in a later ebook it would be more permanent. It might

not make a later compilation of an ebook "because of a lack of space" or

something.... That could prevent occurrences of things as pointless as the

flumph from appearing in later supplements, or every little thing that

flits in and out of the netforce`s transom....



Gary

[ryancaveney]

> Gary, Ryan, and Kenneth probably won`t get much out of those articles,

> since they were as active on the list then as they are now, and many

> of the articles will have already be written or critiqued by them.

> Everyone else should find it interesting though.



Actually, though over the years I`ve saved thousands of messages I`ve

particularly liked, always meaning to organize them in some fashion, I

have never actually done so. If you managed to produce a decent index to

the archives, even I would find it useful. =) I`m also quite honored to

be pointed out as an old fogey. Oh, and I`d be amused if you happened to

compile statistics on numbers of posts back to the dawn of time -- it`d be

amusing to see whether Gary`s 768 would expand to 7,682 or 76,824. ;)



> Let`s see... we should probably skip over the "effect/affect" debate,

> huh...?



*grin* I see I will live on in infamy, at least.



OTOH, the particular game rule issue which led us into that, namely

exactly which regents could spend RP or apply holding levels to alter the

success chance of a domain action, is not a bad topic for discussion.



The BRCS draft`s version (page 103) says only holding levels of that type

may be applied as a modifier, but any regent with holdings may spend RP.

This seems like a compromise, and I suppose it`s not a bad plan to limit

freebies but leave spending untrammeled, but still I find this method

rather restrictive, and would prefer to open things up. In particular,

I can definitely see using law holding levels directly to modify

guild-holding-related rolls.



Oh, and while I`m on that page, I`d like to say that the rules for the

"virtual guild holding" level equivalent of a source holding are really

very well done. It rather neatly fixes the wizard`s eternal money problem.



Ryan Caveney

[Mark_Aurel]

In particular,
I can definitely see using law holding levels directly to modify
guild-holding-related rolls.

Odd. I just took a look; it&#39;s supposed to read something to the effect that law holdings can always oppose/support guilds and temples anyway.

[Cinder]

This thread started with "are there enough blood powers" and has ended up with Birthright E-zine&#33; I like it. Nice to see a thread develop into something worthwhile&#33;

I really like the idea of a BR E-zine but I really DON&#39;T like the idea of that being the means of distributing new/additional powers/rules/whatever. I absolutely HATE the idea of having to dig through multiple supplements to find what I&#39;m looking for. Even having an "Index" is still a pain as it would still require file hopping. I would like something I can print with all the relevant material compiled together. What I would suggest is compiling the information in seperate releases. For example (these numbers are arbitrary mind you), say there is a complilation for every 6 E-zines. These complilations would have each respective element (powers, rules, npcs, etc) in its own section, making reference VERY easy. All the new stuff together in one file. Effectively these complilations would be "supplements" that have all the "crunchy" bits and none of the articles (the rule stuff tends to be more useful in a game than an opinionated article, or atleast I think they would). I would think that these supplements would be easy to make since most of it would be "cut and paste." Thoughts?

As far as adding ANYTHING new, official or supplemental, I agree with the "quality" mindset. There should be a group or team that carefully reviews each proposal to ensure that the addition has good play integrity. I would think that the "editors" of the E-zine would see to most of this, but if not them then someone else. I would hope that whoever does it would check in with the BRCS team to make sure that everything matches. I know that my suggestion might be too idealistic, but hey, here it is. Any thoughts on this as well?

[Eosin the Red]

> I would personally prefer to see an archive type setup, rather than a

e-zine or netbook. It is easier to access the articles and sort through

them to find what you are looking for. If you like I can set something up.

I`ve a couple of old webpages I used to run that I can fix up, but the

question is, is anyone going to submit anything?



I could probably put some stuff together. I run a d20, not D&D, BR game so

there are variants in effect that will not apply except in the small

minority of cases.



I also use some non-standard setups. FREX: I run the Bardic College of the

White Hall as a PBeM "Newspaper" and spy organization. This might be

interesting to finish writing up?





Randy~Eosin the Red