Secret Holdings - A Simple Alte

[Kenneth Gauck]

My assumption has always been that all holdings are more or less covert.
And that further, the tie between a regent and his holdings is not easily
disrupted by outside regents. As far as I am concerned, the BR realm rules
absolutely cannot stand apart from a dense RPG context. They are far too
skeletal. The direction som DM's have been going, where players RP a build
or contest action, seems the far better direction.

Holdings wars and military wars need heavy role play, or the BR system
breaks down, mostly by moving to desisivly too quickly.

Kenneth Gauck
c558382@earthlink.net

- -----Original Message-----
From: Olesens
Date: Tuesday, April 13, 1999 4:11 PM

>There have been many methods created for managing secret or covert
>holdings, like the good-aligned temples in Thurazor/Five Peaks and Brad
>Mournsinger's holdings in Kiergard. The main problem with all these
>methods is that they require more work. Here is my simple alternative
>rule:
> [snip]
>
>Comments?

[WILLELA@aol.co]

The suggested covert holding rules look reasonable, but..
A covert holding should risk its covert status when it attacks, not lose
it. The degree of risk might vary with the form of attack. Formenting a
rebellion might make it all but automatic, whereas a bit of quiet spying,
especially successful, might be almost no risk. Also the attacker might have
the option of less effective attack for less risk of exposure.
Our fiction base gives up plenty of cases of dark evil forces that
attack and then fade out of sight only to attack again. So we want our
covert foes and friends to have the same ability, sometimes.
We are adding more rules here of course, which does threaten the idea of
a "simple alternative", but any set of rules just get more complex with time,
and we should strive for better rules whether or not they are simple.
Somewhat related, I would want the penalty to discover a covert holding
to be somewhat larger than (-2 + (hold level))x2, or a max of -4. Espionage
has a base success of 20 and so even with the penalty, success is very
likely. Yet the existing covert holdings apparently have avoided discovery
for some time. Possibly they are just not considered important enought to
chase down that hard, but it would seem more reasonable that success should
be much less likely, possibly reducing the base to 15 for (2), 10 for (1) & 5
for (0).
Keep working.
David Argall, Willela@aol

[Pieter A de Jong]

WILLELA@aol.com wrote:

> Somewhat related, I would want the penalty to discover a covert holding
> to be somewhat larger than (-2 + (hold level))x2, or a max of -4. Espionage
> has a base success of 20 and so even with the penalty, success is very
> likely. Yet the existing covert holdings apparently have avoided discovery
> for some time. Possibly they are just not considered important enought to
> chase down that hard, but it would seem more reasonable that success should
> be much less likely, possibly reducing the base to 15 for (2), 10 for (1) & 5
> for (0).
I think you have a little bit of a misunderstanding here. You have to
roll over the base success number on a D20, not under it. Espionage
actions are about as hard as they come.




- --

Pieter A de Jong
Graduate Mechanical Engineering Student
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada