Domain Attitude

[Whammydill]

I'm not sure I'm doing agitation properly in my game.

The scenario: el-Hadid isn't happy his marraige proposal to the new regent of Roesone was rebuked (the new PC.) So, he dumps some gold and agitates Caercas against the regent.

The province is indifferent to the ruler and el-Hadid, so the table says initial attitude indifferent to unfriendly I need to roll less than negative one right? So I determine the modifiers;

el-Hadid spends 5GB, and 10 Regency. for a total modifier of -15

The PC, having low stores of regency and gold at the moment can only afford to spend 5 regency to oppose, and she has a law holding of 3, so thats +8

No other regents get involved.

So thats a total -7, I rolled a 4 on the d20 so thats a total of -3. Thus the agitation is succesful and Caercas is now unfriendly to the regent?

Did I do this right?

[AndrewTall]

I agree mostly, but I think that the agitate forces the province ruler to make a domain attitude check - not the agitating regent (often the same thing of course) as if el-Hadid rolls then he is trying to roll low - which is non-U as far as D20 is concerned.

As such the roll would be: 1d20+skill mod-7=outcome. If the outcome was 1 or less (i.e. a roll of 1-8) then the attitude drops as you indicate.

The only real difference in my method is that changing which regent makes the roll relates to the skills that might affect the roll possessed by el-Hadid or the Regent though in terms of the odds.

It's worth remembering the usual modifiers that affect the roll - el-Hadid would have a lot more chance of success if he'd used intrigue to discredit the regent first, much less if the regent had recently performed heroics, controlled all the law, etc.

That's my reading anyhow.


I might consider having the regents make opposed diplomacy rolls, if El-Hadid wins then the realm regent has to make a domain attitude check with a penalty equal to the amount by which they lost the opposed roll to El-Hadid - this doesn't change the odds of changing the attitude but would give both el-Hadid and Roesone a chance to use relevant skills.

I'd also consider expanding the table - I would want to add extra -ve DC's to reflect a catastrophic loss of confidence etc (public revelation of the Prince of Ariya's infidelity by a rival, etc) and adding two more categories: deeply hostile and munificent - same game effects as hostile and helpful but making it easier to at least temporarily entrench attitude.

As an alternative I'd say to change attitude by 1 level is DC 20, 2 levels is 30, 3 levels is 40, etc. -5 DC if you are moving the domain attitude towards indifferent. This does not exactly (or even that closely) match the existing table but has the advantage of simplicity...