Pacing PC`s

[James Knevitt]

Hey, could someone tell me how fast everything is moving in their
campaign(s) ? I'm not sure if my campaign should be barrelling on like
it has. I'm up to 553MR and my original thief PC regent (ruling
Medoere) got sick of Diemed's agressions, invaded and took 4 provinces
! I want to see the PC regent do well, but I don't want him to get a
massive amount of provinces/holdings/what have you in a relatively
short period of time. Help !!!

James Knevitt
Critical Mass Studios
(makers of the Soothsayer mulit-genre RPG)
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[Kenneth Gauck]

Being a historian of early modern administration, I throw administrative
difficulties at such problems. Appointing officials can be a good thing to
insist upon (rather than just assume decent people get appointed) esp if
your good at giving NPC's personalities. Finding good people can be hard to
do. To solve problems, the PC may have to spend actions just to prevent
GB's from being misspent and mis-directed. Looking at the personality
tables; overbearing, haughty, impulsive, absent-minded, kind-hearted,
generous, naive, blustering NPC's are going to lose to cost your player
GB's. Furthermore, NPC's without the right proficencies are also costing
your player GB's.

Also, keep the centripital forces in mind which tend to drive the various
provinces in different directions, making a regent's central goals hard to
achieve. This can be done by devising conflicting local institutions, as
well as rival local officials. Local resistance to the center is the best
way in the long run to slow a regent down. The BR rules tend to gloss over
the under-structure of a realm, assuming a functioning local government, but
getting into the local administration allows you to deal with graft,
indolance, and carelessness of baliffs, sheriffs, and other local officials.

Don't make anything easy. Its no fun if it comes to easily.

Kenneth Gauck
c558382@earthlink.net

- -----Original Message-----
From: James Knevitt
To: birthright@MPGN.COM
Date: Tuesday, October 27, 1998 10:27 PM
Subject: [BIRTHRIGHT] - Pacing PC's


>Hey, could someone tell me how fast everything is moving in their
>campaign(s) ? I'm not sure if my campaign should be barrelling on like
>it has. I'm up to 553MR and my original thief PC regent (ruling
>Medoere) got sick of Diemed's agressions, invaded and took 4 provinces
>! I want to see the PC regent do well, but I don't want him to get a
>massive amount of provinces/holdings/what have you in a relatively
>short period of time. Help !!!

[Pieter Sleijpen]

Also remember that if your player starts to conquer neighboors to fast
other countries are bound to make alliences against him. This is one of
the main reasons why the Magian has not yet started to attack Min
Dhousai or Khourane.

[Craig Greeson]

James Knevitt wrote:
> Hey, could someone tell me how fast everything is moving in their
> campaign(s) ? I'm not sure if my campaign should be barrelling on like
> it has. I'm up to 553MR and my original thief PC regent (ruling
> Medoere) got sick of Diemed's agressions, invaded and took 4 provinces
> ! I want to see the PC regent do well, but I don't want him to get a
> massive amount of provinces/holdings/what have you in a relatively
> short period of time. Help !!!

Greetings all,
I would guess this is a very common occurrence the first few times someone
tries to DM a BR campaign. I know it certainly did with me (actually, it
still does). Your tendency is to want to see the PCs do well, so you try
to let them have a lot of success early on. I try to limit expansionist PC
realms so they do not grow more than 2 provinces every 3 or 4 years, and
they should never get quite as large as the biggest NPC realm in the area.
The key for me is to make sure the "big guys" in the area don't stand for
this kind of rapid expansion. Ideally, I like to have someone acting as an
antagonist from the start of the campaign so the PCs have to spend their
GB/RP/actions fending off rivals.

Once you've let the PCs take too much territory, keep in mind the other
realms around are probably not liking the state of affairs and may step
in. Avanil seems to be the most likely antagonist here, since they don't
want people messing around near the Imperial City. Have Avan let your PC
know that if he/she doesn't back off (say, return 3 of the 4 provinces),
then Avanil will step in on Diem's behalf. If Medoere is already too tough
for Avanil (yikes!), then have him build a coalition with someone else.
There are also all the major temples of Haelyn. They won't like those
Ruornil-worshipping heathens from Medoere controlling the birthplace of
Haelyn's religion. Haelyn's religion is a massive force in Anuire, and a
combination of resources from the OIT, WIT, and IHH could lean very heavily
on any realm in the land. There's also the Spider, Ghoere (this realm is
the reason why the Southern Coast is so great IMO - they're aggressive and
the most powerful kingdom economically in all Anuire), intrigue and
assasination from Endier, a threat from Aduria, etc...

Regards
Craig

[Even =?iso-8859-1?Q?S=F8]

At 20:16 27.10.98 -0800, you wrote:
>Hey, could someone tell me how fast everything is moving in their
>campaign(s) ? I'm not sure if my campaign should be barrelling on like
>it has. I'm up to 553MR and my original thief PC regent (ruling
>Medoere) got sick of Diemed's agressions, invaded and took 4 provinces
>! I want to see the PC regent do well, but I don't want him to get a
>massive amount of provinces/holdings/what have you in a relatively
>short period of time. Help !!!
>
>James Knevitt
>Critical Mass Studios
>(makers of the Soothsayer mulit-genre RPG)
>

A campaign should proceed as fast as YOU want it to. It is of course
possible to listen to the players oppinion, but ultimately it is you who
makes the calls.

In your example I would agree that things might be getting out of hand. That
the little barony of Medoere has manged to beat the quite militaristic
Diemed is quite unlikely in just two years. But if it has happened to cry
about it. Did I hear counter attack? A major part of the Dimean army lands
from sea in the middle of Medoere, just finished from training camp in the
darkest forest of Mieres. Or there might be some spiritual disturbance
making the priests unable or unvilling to perform an investiture ceremony.

As you see the opsibilities are endless, and the choice are yours to make.
Give things a little time before they happens and give a little more
character to the story. Don't let the characters make decisions out of whim
and chance.

And to all those GM's out there:
It's a cruel world!!

Even the Evil GM